Scott Brown

BlueGreen Alliance Forgets their Aristophanes

by Marlo Lewis on August 16, 2010

in Global Warming

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) mothballed cap-and-trade legislation when it became apparent that he could not muster the three-fifths super-majority required to end a Republican filibuster. Because coal-state Democrats don’t like cap-and-trade either, assembling the requisite 60 votes to stop a filibuster was never easy. It became more difficult after Democrats lost their 60-seat majority with the election of Republican Senator Scott Brown of Massachusetts.

Unsurprisingly, sore losers are now calling for a change in Senate rules to abolish the filibuster or lower the number of votes required for cloture.

Congressional Quarterly Online reports that the BlueGreen Alliance, a coalition of labor unions and environmental organizations hawking cap-and-trade as a font of ”green jobs,” and a group of freshmen Democratic Senators led by Tom Udall of New Mexico, are calling for a change in Senate rules.

There’s just one small problem. It takes a two-thirds (67-vote) supermajority to change Senate rules. To belabor the obvious, two-thirds is more than three-fifths. If cap-and-traders were strong enough to change the rules, they wouldn’t need to change them — they could already easily overcome GOP filibusters.

If BlueGreenies can’t see what a pickle they’re in, they should try reading Aristophanes, the master of Greek comic poetry. 

Aristophanes’ play Ecclesiazusae, “Assemblywomen” or “Congresswomen,” is a ribald satire on egalitarian excess. Although written millennia ago, it is spot-on relevant in the Age of Reid, Pelosi, and Obama. 

As the play opens, a cabal of women led by Praxagora don fake beards, sneak into the Athenian Assembly, and agitate for a law to establish the rule of women. They gain the support of enough men to pull it off, because Athenians crave change and the rule of women is the only thing they have not yet tried.

Praxagora and her cohorts claim their agenda is to end all injustice, i.e., inequality. They set up cradle-to-grave welfare and institute a regime of free love in which every man may sleep with every woman.

To ensure that not even the natural assets of youth will be allowed to create inequality, Praxagora decrees that before a young man may sleep with a beautiful young woman, he must first sleep with an ugly old hag. Conversely, before a young woman may sleep with a stud, she must gratify a geezer. 

But, as Orwell was to observe centuries later, under socialism, some are more equal than others. Praxagora, you see, is married to a flatulent dotard named Blepyrus, so she has already done her duty to the elderly. She is now free to consort with as many young bucks as she pleases. It’s kinda like cap-and-trade, in which energy-rationing profiteers reap windfalls (regulatory rents) at public expense in the name of saving the planet.

To pass the Kerry-Lieberman bill, BlueGreenies would have to sneak into the Senate, don Republican disguises, and give Tom Udall and his pals a 67 vote super-majority.

Obviously, that’s not gonna happen, not this Congress or next, because fake beards only work in comedy.

Elena Kagan Confirmed, 63-37, for Supreme Court; Divided Senate Approves Nomination in Partisan Vote

by Hans Bader on August 5, 2010

in Legal, Nanny State, Personal Liberty, Politics as Usual, Zeitgeist

The Senate has voted 63-to-37 to confirm Elena Kagan as the next Supreme Court justice. Click here for details. The vote was largely along party lines, with one Democrat (Ben Nelson of Nebraska) voting against her, and five Republicans voting for her.  (Swing votes like Scott Brown and George Voinovich voted against Kagan.) I give my personal perspective on the vote here.  Kagan’s confirmation margin was the third-smallest margin in the last 50 years.  In other news, a trial judge in California struck down the state’s ban on gay marriage, in a ruling that may reach the Supreme Court in the next few years.

LibertyWeek 78: Obama’s 23% Approval Rating

by Richard Morrison on January 25, 2010

in CEI Projects, Podcast

Richard Morrison, Jeremy Lott and the American Spectator’s Jim Antle collaborate on Episode 78 of the LibertyWeek podcast. We cover the reverberations from Scott Brown’s Senate election, Obama’s 77% disapproval rating among investors, the 1st Amendment verdict in the Citizens United case, the shame of UN climate science and a new hope for Haiti.

“Big, bad banks” — a “faux-populist” response

by Fran Smith on January 21, 2010

in Bailout Watch, Deregulate to Stimulate, Economy, Politics as Usual, Regulation

Uh-oh.  It was speculation yesterday, but reality today - President Obama and the Democrats have the banking industry in their sights with their trigger fingers itching.  It’s their populist response to the “Massachusetts Miracle” election of Republican Scott Brown.  After reviewing the election results and polling numbers, they probably finally realized that “We the People” don’t want a cobbled-together, trillion-dollar health care plan rushed through Congress.  Nor do they want a cap-and-trade bill that will restrict energy use and jack up their energy costs.  Neither do they want more spend-and-tax schemes that leave them holding the bag.

Picture White House advisors plotting:  ”So what else makes People mad that we can use to get popular with the People again?” “Big, Bad Banks! Big, Bad Banks!” is the answer and is likely to be the Democrats’ populist slogan in this mid-term election year.

So President Obama today said that he will be cracking down on big banks and restricting their activities.  And , if they don’t turn over and play dead, he warned:

“If these folks want a fight, it’s a fight I’m ready to have.”

Congressman Scott Garrett (R-NJ) was right on target with his response to President Obama’s announcement.   Garrett attacked what he called Obama’s “faux populism” in jumping quickly – in the wake of the Massachusetts election — to paint the banks as the sole villains in the financial debacle, while ignoring Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac:

Garrett said in his press release:

“What is indisputable is that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were central to the mortgage market meltdown, which ignited the economic crisis that has left millions of Americans unemployed and has yet to be resolved. It is laughable that Chairman Frank and the Obama Administration have ignored their parasitic effect on our economy, yet proclaim the desire for reform. Passing strong GSE reform legislation should be at the top of the agenda of the House Financial Services Committee this year, in order to stabilize the mortgage market and alleviate risk to the taxpayer.  Any financial regulatory reform that does not reform Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac is not true reform.”

That’s a point that CEI’s John Berlau has long made.  In a statement today on President Obama’s announcement, Berlau pointed to the likely consequences of the President’s ill-conceived plans, which he termed “Glass-Steagall 2.0″:

What it would do is hurt economic recovery, reduce types of financing available to businesses big and small and give European and Asian financial services firms a huge competitive advantage over their U.S. counterparts.

“In short,” Berlau concluded, “The biggest systemic risk is that of hazardous government subsidies to and regulation on the financial sector.”

Populism, jobs and the economy — where do we go from here?

by Fran Smith on January 20, 2010

in Deregulate to Stimulate, Economy, Employment, Energy, Environment, Global Warming, Health and Illness, Stimulus to Nowhere

Scott Brown’s decisive victory in the Massachusetts Senate race has upturned the Democrats’ Progressive agenda.  Brown, “the people’s seat” senator, had a resonant message that tapped into the electorate’s disenchantment with ever-increasing government (with the health care proposals figuring strongly), huge deficit spending, and increased taxes to pay for the trillions of dollars in new government programs. Jobs and the economy were an overarching issue.

It was a populist victory that carried many of the themes of the “Tea Party” movement, which, so far, haven’t been promoted by either party.  If the Republicans don’t latch onto those themes with an agenda of their own, they really are the “dumb Party.”

What’s a cause for concern, however, is how the Democrats are likely to embrace people’s fear and anger by taking up their own populist cudgel to even more vigorously attack capitalism, consumer choice, and any and all Big Business entities.

There indeed is fierce popular anger at bank bailouts and big bonuses – Wall Street has become a synonym for greed and arrogance that caused the financial meltdown, with little recognition that government and quasi-government entities like the Federal Reserve and Fannie and Freddie contributed to the financial problems.

Though some banks deserve much of the public disapprobrium because of their mismanagement and sellout on TARP funds, even those banks that were healthy or fought their own way back to solvency are being asked to pick up the tab for their less-responsible brethren. Expect the Democrats to exact more such retribution from banks — in the name of the people.

In addressing the big issues of jobs and the economy, the Democrats will have a hard time spending more money on stimulus packages that seem to evaporate before any jobs are created. But there will probably be an even bigger push for “green jobs.” Democratic leadership may decide that a massive and economically destructive cap-and-trade bill isn’t feasible in this political climate.  They may look to more “green jobs” and “alternative fuels” boondoggles through taxes and fees on fossil fuel industries as a better way to sell the idea of restrictions on and higher costs for energy use. Yet those subsidized jobs themselves are costly, as the Wall Street Journal noted in mid-December 2009 about the 253,000 of direct jobs created:

The 253,000 direct jobs works out to a cost of about $90,000 a head-just for one year. Clean-energy manufacturing jobs are even more expensive to create, costing about $135,000 per job.

It will be difficult to relate the Democrats’ health care proposals to jobs and the economy when the costs are projected by the Congressional Budget Office at $1 trillion in additional federal spending over the next 10 years. But that figure – while astronomical — doesn’t include the states’ mandates, which will cost $25 billion more over 10 years or the unknown costs of the mandates for individuals and employers to buy insurance. Those costs will be paid for by increased yet hidden taxes – and not just on the so-called rich.

Plus, the closed-door negotiations on the bills have resulted in deals that most people consider unfair and outrageous, for instance, Nebraska is the only state that won’t have to pay future unfunded Medicare and Medicaid mandates; Louisiana gets $300 million for agreeing to support the Senate bill; and union members don’t have to pay “Cadillac-plan” taxes on their generous health care plans. These proposals will actually hold back job creation by causing uncertainty among both small and large businesses and thus reluctance to expand jobs. And taxpayers rightly understand that they will bear the increased costs.

In the wake of Scott Brown’s election, whether the Democrats will continue their shenanigans on their health care proposals isn’t yet clear.  Right now, they’re damned if they do and damned if they don’t.

Recently, CEI’s president Fred Smith wrote an article titled “Change we can really believe in,” which sets out a blueprint to stimulate the economy by liberating it.  Fred must have been prescient when he wrote this on January 4 — before the surge for Scott Brown:

This year holds promise for a new start for America. As 2010 begins, we may be teetering on a cliff, but Americans aren’t lemmings. Support for statist policies is dropping, and taxpayer anger is growing. There is a renewed understanding that the limitations on government of the Constitution are the best protections of our liberties. Their restoration should be the primary hopeful change advanced by all friends of liberty.

Sorry, no RIP yet for the health care reform legislation

by Michael Fumento on January 20, 2010

in Healthcare

It’s fine to celebrate the Massachusetts victory of Scott Brown. I like how Daily Show host Jon Stewart put it: “The Kennedy legacy goes down to a naked guy who owns a truck.” (He once posed for Cosmopolitan.)

But remember from civics class that the legislation only need 51 votes to pass (technically 50, with Biden as tie-braker) and all Brown’s win does is allow a filibuster with one vote to spare. And as the Washington Post’s Steven Pearlstein writes today:

There is very little in the latest version of the health-care bill that Maine’s two Republican senators haven’t supported in the past or couldn’t support in the future. In succumbing to the intense social and political pressure from their caucus, both Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins flunked the leadership test last year. Massachusetts has now given them a second chance to redeem their reputations and political fortunes in a state that has always valued independence over party loyalty.

So here’s to the naked truckdriver, but we need to continue to get the word out on the need for health care reform but the terrible problems with the legislation that the Democrats are trying to foist upon us.

LibertyWeek 77: The Future of the Senate

by Richard Morrison on January 19, 2010

in CEI Projects, Podcast

Richard Morrison, Jeremy Lott and the American Spectator’s Joseph Lawler assemble to bring you Episode 77 of the LibertyWeek podcast. We explore the Massachusetts Senate race, Google vs. China on web censorship, the debate over global warming in Detroit, the cost of doing business in Venezuela and the inspiring philanthropic response to the humanitarian crisis in Haiti.