Honeymoon’s Over

“Yes, we wrote the bill.  Yes, we won the election.” – Rep. Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House, 26 January 2009

What a difference a week makes.  I was feeling optimistic after the inauguration, as President Obama was meeting with Republican House Leader John Boehner more often than with Pelosi and the Democratic Caucus.  I said to myself, here’s a man that wants to get things done, for the people, with the full support of the American people.  It seems that may have been nothing more than a good act.

The pivotal moment came seven days ago when President Obama flew down to Williamsburg, VA, to speak at the Democratic House Retreat; a hypocritical move, of course, as these are the same folks that criticized Wall Street for doing the same thing.  Nevertheless, Obama, in perpetual campaign mode, took the opportunity to lambast the Republican members he was supposedly trying to work with on his Stimulus Plan.

Perhaps he was upset his Bill was hijacked by Pelosivich and her Politburo, and that it received unanimous opposition from the minority in the House two days prior.  His bill, set for a final vote tomorrow, was in trouble, and he knew it.  What he did, perhaps haphazardly, in his hyperpartisan speech is alienate himself from bipartisan agreement, saying, “I welcome this debate, but we are not going to get relief by turning back to the same policies that for the last eight years doubled the national debt and threw our economy into a tailspin.”

Although he had been off to a good start, our President had a critical decision to make; triangulation between the two parties, a challenging move, to say the least, or comfortably pandering to his base.  He chose the latter, and popular support for his Bill moved downward, in his proverbial “tailspin.”  Ever the campaigner, our young President was not to be outdone by truth.  So he struck out to sell this beastly bill to the half of America below average intelligence (don’t blame me – it’s a statistical fact).

I take this moment to discuss Henrietta Hughes, the homeless woman who was living in her truck with her adult son, who just happened to wander into the Obama Stimulus Revival in Fort Myers, Florida, and who just happened to get a hug and a kiss from Barack Obama, and, subsequently, just happened to get a $150,000 house – a gift – from her local state Congressman.  Oh, how the saints come marching in, when the every media agent in America is watching.  What is going on here?  Who is this man that comes down from on high to give gifts to the poor and downtrodden?

There is a man – a certain man
And for the poor you may be sure
That he’ll do all he can!
Who is this one?
This fav’rite son?
Just by his action
Has the Traction magnates on the run?
Who loves to smoke?
Enjoys a joke?
Who wouldn’t get a bit upset
If he were really broke?
With wealth and fame
He’s still the same
I’ll bet you five you’re not alive
If you don’t know his name
What is his name?…
It’s Charlie Kane.
CROWD:  It’s Mister Kane.
He doesn’t like that Mister
He likes good old Charlie Kane.

 Who says a miss
Was made to kiss?
And when he meets one always tries
To do exactly this?
Who buys the food?
Who buys the drinks?
Who thinks that dough was made to spend?
And acts the way he thinks?
Now is it Joe?
CROWD:  No, no, no, no!
I’ll bet you ten you aren’t men
If you don’t really know!

 Urgency Over Accuracy

The compromise bill between the House and Senate carries a price tag of $789 billion, just slightly less than the amount of all U.S. currency now in circulation.  Senator Alren Specter, the most senior Republican of the famous three who defected in support of this bill, said recently, ”It’s a good plan, not a perfect plan.  But a good plan and I’ll take my chances.”

Now, I respect Arlen Specter for his decision, but this is more than a political chance he’s taking.  Personally, I’ve spent more time deliberating over buying a car than Congress spent crafting this bill.  Due to the American people’s fatal conceit, our government stands ready to spend your money more liberally than you spend your own.

If you’ve been paying attention, you’ve probably heard Nancy Pelosi preach about “civility, accountability and fiscal responsibility,” but given the track record of recent major spending bills under her Speakership, namely the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), I’m not very hopeful.

Tom McCool, director of the center of economics at the Government Accountability Office, said it’s not yet possible to know exactly where the money is going, let alone the effectiveness of the TARP, which was created when Congress authorized $700 billion last October to help shore up the financial system by shoveling money to America’s banks.  “We are not actually sure how it (TARP) is functioning,” Tom McCool, said. 

It’s no surprise, then, that when our new Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner took the mic, with a $1.5 trillion price tag but no actual plan for his new TARP, the Dow Jones dropped nearly 400 points.  So much for a new era of hope and change.

This couldn’t have been what the President wanted, though.  This bill has turned out to be hyperpartisan and unilateral.  The Democrats have the votes to act unilaterally.  But we’ve seen the effects of unilateral action before. 

One party rule was prevalent in both the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany.  America is not the Soviet Union, though, and Republicans are not Mensheviks; furthermore, Democrats are not Bolsheviks.  Legislation should not be rammed through without regard for the opposition party.  This is not a duma; this is not a politburo; this is the United States Congress, and it takes actual negotiations and compromise to get things done.  Bipartisanship means both parties; unilateral compromise is simply surrender. 

Likewise, we saw the effects of Gleichschaltung in Nazi Germany, with the quick succession of consolidating powers; let’s not be too hasty to endorse a plan to simply appease an incoming President.  We did that eight years ago with Bush, in actions that rendered the No Child Left Behind act, a well-meaning, albeit fatally flawed program.  Similarly, this stimulus-spending bill will be part of Obama’s legacy.

President Obama wanted 80 votes in the Senate, with a majority of Republicans supporting his bill; due to Congressional Democrats, he’ll get 61, with only 3 Republicans joining ranks with the Democrats.  He’s likely to get zero Republican votes in the House… so it’s the Democrat’s Bill.  They won the election.  Now that it’s their turn to be in the opposition, Republicans couldn’t be any happier.

Democrats have made this easy for the GOP, as their opposition is valid.  Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell recently said, “We need to sober up here and take a look at what we’re doing.  Everybody agrees there ought to be a stimulus package.  The question is:  How big and what do we spend it on?  Nobody that I know of is trying to keep a package from passing.  We’re trying to reform it.”

Senator Claire McCaskill couldn’t disagree more, when she said on Meet the Press this past weekend, “You know, the building is on fire, and what we typically do in Washington is argue what color of fire truck do we send to the scene. They do not want us arguing about the color of the fire truck. They want something bold, they want something swift. . . . We could pass this thing on Monday if we would quit playing the political inside-the-Beltway games of figure out a way to get a political advantage.”

Why then, Senator, does the Congressional Budget Office report that the Senate stimulus legislation would have the macroeconomic effects of increasing government debt, which would “crowd out private investment – thus reducing the stock of private capital and the long-term potential ouput of the economy?”  Additionally, “the CBO estimates that by 2019 the Senate legislation would reduce GDP by 0.1 to 0.3 percent on net.”

Does that make sense to you?  This legislation will hurt – not help – our economy in the long run.  I would contend, Senator McCaskill, while we’re using burning building analogies, that there are two ways out of the second story window of a burning building; you can take the stairs, backwards through the raging inferno, or you can take your chances and jump out the window.  This rushed piece of legislation, while it seems safe to the weak-minded, will have the net effect of slowly burning this country.  In this case, I’d take the window, because I plan on still being here in 2019.

Democrats are little concerned with the future, compared to what Obama calls the “fierce urgency of now.”  Consider Senator Chuck Schumer’s statement on the Senate Floor:  “Let me say this to all of the chattering class that so much focuses on those little, tiny, yes, porky amendments, the American people really don’t care.”  I guess that’s why there have been calls to the Capitol hundreds-to-one in opposition for the bill.

I agree that something obviously must be done for the country, and I also don’t think tax cuts alone will fix the problem… but neither will the pet projects or extensions of the welfare state this bill carries with it. 

In fact, I don’t believe government should not be in the business of business at all, but since it is, we should expect the utilization of sound business models.  Congress should pay attention to the GAO and CBO; these organizations work for them, after all.  That’s sadly postscript in politics today; reelection trumps all.  For this bill, I believe the Hippocratic Oath, “First, do no harm,” should be considered when taking this high of risk with America’s tax dollars.  I value accuracy over speed, for the good of the country and future generations.

Politics Meets Business

Before the Fort Myers Revival occurred, Mitch McConnell said on CBS’ “Face the Nation,” “It may be time for the President to kind of get a hold of these Democrats in the Senate and the House, who have rather significant majorities, and shake them a little bit and say, ‘Look, let’s do this the right way.  I can’t believe that the President isn’t embarrassed about the products that have been produced so far.”

But he didn’t do that.  Instead, he went to campaign rallies across the United States.  He should have been in Washington, in a room with bipartisan, bicameral representation, hammering out this bill.  Instead, there has been no Captain driving this vessel.

 So as long as we are reverting back to campaign mode, it should come as no surprise that John McCain has emerged as lead opposition to this stimulus bill.  After Obama spoke about the amount of spending in this bill at the Democrat retreat, saying, “What do you think a stimulus is?  That’s the whole point,” McCain shot back from the Senate floor, saying, “The whole point, Mr. President, is to enact tax cuts and spending measures that truly stimulate the economy.  There are billions and tens of billions of dollars in this bill which will have no effect within three, four, five or more years, or ever.  Or ever.”

The sad thing is, John McCain is not a partisan figure.  He has an illustrious past of ravenous bipartisanship, some of which landed him in hot water with his own party.  He was ready to work with the Democrats, saying, “We can either fight the Democrat proposals, which would increase the deficit incredibly and mortgage our children’s futures and not beneficially stimulate our economy, which we will do, in many respects.  But we have to have a proposal of our own.”  He offered alternative solutions along with his opposition, which were all shot down on an entirely partisan basis. 

Thus, he says of this bill, “You can call it an agreement, but you cannot call it a bipartisan agreement.”  He’s right; three Republicans out of the 219 in Congress support the current bill.  That’s hardly bipartisan.

I was in the Senate Gallery last week, watching this debate, when John McCain called this stimulus package a “generational theft bill.”  Isn’t it, though?  How else do we pass multi-trillion dollars worth of spending and bailouts and couple it with tax cuts?  Perhaps I won’t be the one to pay for this, after all… maybe that check will fall in the lap of my unborn son’s generation.  For that, son, I am sorry.  I don’t see things getting much brighter in the near future.

America’s Future

I think America can recover from all this.  We’ve been through worse, recovered stronger, and although this crisis is different than any other, that serves as both a curse and a blessing.  We are more apt to recover, standing on the shoulders of our forefathers, having gleaned what we could from their success and folly.  I expect the pendulum of freedom will swing back from its current lurch, back from the safety of socialism, as it has before, towards the cause of liberty.

The political situation ripens for an earlier regime change than I expected just two weeks ago.  If the Democrats want to commit the serious error of seizing total control through this crisis, they can have it.  Remember, it’s their bill.  In the meantime, Republicans need to cut the fat, hunker down, and get ready for the storm.

“Nothing in the world can take the place of Persistence.  Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent.  Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb.  Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts.  Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.  The slogan ‘Press On’ has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.” ~ Calvin Coolidge (1872 – 1933)

“When you get to the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on.” ~ Thomas Jefferson (1743 – 1826)

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