Rick Perry doesn't realize that he is Pope Urban VIII

Scene from last night's Republican debate:

Jon Huntsman: Listen, when you make comments that fly in the face of what 98 out of 100 climate scientists have said, when you call into question the science of evolution, all I'm saying is that, in order for the Republican Party to win, we can't run from science....

Rick Perry: Well, I do agree that there is -- the science is -- is not settled on this. The idea that we would put Americans' economy at -- at -- at jeopardy based on scientific theory that's not settled yet, to me, is just -- is nonsense. I mean, it -- I mean -- and I tell somebody, I said, just because you have a group of scientists that have stood up and said here is the fact, Galileo got outvoted for a spell.

Boy, you couldn't make this stuff up. Recall that Galileo was hounded by the Catholic Church, who objected to his scientific theory because it conflicted with their religious ideology. Catholic Church, meet the 21st century Republican Party and the American Petroleum Institute. Pope Urban VIII, meet Rick Perry.

The great divide

Just got back from a lunch where Susan Eisenhower spoke to White House Fellows and Gettysburg people. She spoke eloquently about her fear that America may not be up to the task of dealing with all the crises we face because we are more interested in winning political points than solving problems. She lamented that when you bring people from the right and left together to talk even about straightforward technical issues, they can't even agree on the facts.

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that these days it is our friends on the right of the political spectrum who are more factually challenged. To whit, the latest Newsweek poll, which reports that 52 percent of Republicans believe that Barack Obama "sympathizes with the goals of Islamic fundamentalists who want to impose Islamic law around the world." Seventeen percent of Democrats believe this and 27 percent of independents, so Republicans don't have a monopoly on stupidity here. Still - if a majority of Republicans believe Obama sympathizes with Islamic fundamentalists, what hope is there for a reasoned debate about the issues?

What's motivating Obama and the Democrats?

President Obama is once again stirring up the ire of liberals for his handling of the debt ceiling mess. Paul Krugman is calling him "President Pushover," echoing Elizabeth Drew's critique that Obama has decided that ruling like a moderate Republican is the key to winning the independent vote in 2012. That may very well be true. Obama has put up no struggle as Republicans have turned the economic debate from creating jobs to reducing spending. His proposals for resolving the debt embroglio are heavily weighted toward big spending cuts. It does indeed seem crazy, as Krugman writes, for Obama to be pinning his reelection hopes on a set of programs that seem to guarantee continued high unemployment going into the 2012 election while forcing Democrats to share the stain of cutting Medicare with Republicans.

But what explains Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi? In their current negotiations with John Boehner they are apparently offering spending cuts in exchange for lifting the debt ceiling with no guaranteed increase in taxes. As David Kurtz says, "Dems to GOP: If we give you everything you want, will you finally raise the debt ceiling?" I don't see how their position is any better than Obama's.

It seems to me there are three possible interpretations. (1) The Democratic Party in general is just as hapless as Obama. They've all bought into the arguments of what Krugman calls the Very Serious People who think that deficit reduction is good for the economy; they are all pushovers before the Republicans' scorched earth tactics. (2) Reid and Pelosi believe that the independent vote is also key to their maintaining / regaining control of their respective houses in 2012. (3) Reid and Pelosi, like Obama, are simply calling the Republicans' bluff. They know the Republicans won't take yes for an answer so their offer of significant spending cuts is so much cheap talk. They also know that they have an ace in the hole - it will require legislation to extend the Bush tax cuts, and without such legislation they're guaranteed big revenue increases.

My money is on (2) or (3). At any rate, all of the criticism of Obama seems misplaced to me. Senate and House leaders have not acquitted themselves any better than Obama since the health care fiasco of 2009-10 and the failure to pass a budget in 2010. Obama's missteps are not the product of his own unique failings - they are either symptomatic of problems in the Democratic Party as a whole, or are actually not missteps at all but shrewd political gamesmanship on the part of all of the major players in the party.

Joe Barton on the perils of wind energy

Joe Barton (R-Texas) warns of the perils of reliance on wind energy:

Wind is God's way of balancing heat. Wind is the way you shift heat from areas where it's hotter to areas where it's cooler. That's what wind is. Wouldn't it be ironic if in the interest of global warming we mandated massive switches to energy, which is a finite resource, which slows the winds down, which causes the temperature to go up? Now, I'm not saying that's going to happen, Mr. Chairman, but that is definitely something on the massive scale. I mean, it does make some sense. You stop something, you can't transfer that heat, and the heat goes up. It's just something to think about.

I'm less worried about our using up all the wind and leaving the earth a still, lifeless wasteland (though that's a possibility that we can't entirely ignore) than I am of the possibility of a giant wind spill. Suppose the offshore windmills broke down and unleashed a torrent of 200 mile-per-hour winds on Cape Cod. A disaster on that scale would have us wishing that all we had to worry about was oil spills in the Gulf.

Job-killing spending cuts

During the debt ceiling battle the Republicans have shown once again how much better they are than Democrats at the rhetorical aspect of politics. When Republicans talk about government debt, they never fail to claim that reckless spending is costing jobs, whereas the Democrats' proposals for "job-killing tax hikes" on "families" and "job creators" will just make matters worse. Democrats weakly counter that cutting spending during a recession will slow down the recovery, but their words lack the force that comes from endlessly repeating phrases like "job-killing tax hikes", "failed economic stimulus", and so on. I recommend that from now on, no Democrat ever mentions spending cuts without attaching the modifier "job-killing".

To bring the matter home: this spring President Obama, caving into pressure from Republicans for spending cuts, slashed funding for community action programs. These federal budget cuts and similar cuts at the state level have forced the South Central Community Action Program, which provides social services in Adams County, to terminate some important programs. Most crucially, Wee Care, my kids' day care center which also serves a lot of low income people in Gettysburg, is closing at the end of the summer. They need something like $100,000 a year to operate, and they're no longer going to get it from the state and federal government. So they close - and with their closing, a dozen or so hard-working, patriotic Americans who have devoted their lives to educating our children, will lose their jobs. Jobs killed by our politicians' obsession with cutting spending and unwillingness to raise taxes even a little bit to preserve essential programs. To quote Charlton Heston: "Damn you! Goddamn you all to hell!"

This episode is really a microcosm of what's happening all over this country. The recession is grinding the life out of low income communities while the well-healed protect themselves from the pain. Over the next few years I suspect that the class divide in this country is going to be more and more obvious, and eventually too toxic to ignore. Let's put this in perspective: Gettysburg College is gearing up for another fund-raising campaign with a goal of raising something over $100 million dollars. I wish us luck. That kind of money will allow us to continue to (start to?) pay competitive salaries for faculty, offer new programs for our students, and overall sustain the quality of our college. But an endowment of just $2 million or so - the kind of generous donation Gettysburg gets every year or so - would save the SCCAP programs permanently and, I'd argue, do much more good at the margin than anything Gettysburg College is going to do with this money. Will anyone step up? Will anyone even think of asking? No, I'm afraid Gettysburg College and society's upper crust in general will continue to get along just fine while the bedrock beneath us crumbles away.

Mixed bag

I've been unimpressed with the stance of today's Republican party. In a time of national crisis - depression wars, environmental catastrophe - confronted with a government committed to addressing the problems facing the country, the Republicans have chosen the path of obstruction. One can't help noticing the parallels between the political problems facing the Obama administration and those facing the Roosevelt administration in the 1930s and 1940s. So I wonder, what were Republicans thinking in 1940, a time when a progressive Democratic president was trying to lead America in a time of war and Depression? Here's the Republican party platform for the election year of 1940. Turns out to be somewhat of a mixed bag - crazy in some ways, but not as crazy as 2010-style Palinism.

National Defense

The Republican Party is firmly opposed to involving this Nation in foreign war...

The Republican Party stands for Americanism, preparedness and peace. We accordingly fasten upon the New Deal full responsibility for our un-preparedness and for the consequent danger of involvement in war.

We declare for the prompt, orderly and realistic building of our national defense to the point at which we shall be able not only to defend the United States, its possessions, and essential outposts from foreign attack, but also efficiently to uphold in war the Monroe Doctrine. To this task the Republican party pledges itself when entrusted with national authority. In the meantime we shall support all necessary and proper defense measures proposed by the Administration in its belated effort to make up for lost time; but we deplore explosive utterances by the President directed at other governments which serve to imperil our peace; and we condemn all executive acts and proceedings which might lead to war without the authorization of the Congress of the United States.

Re-Employment

The New Deal's failure to solve the problem of unemployment and revive opportunity for our youth presents a major challenge to representative government and free enterprise. We propose to recreate opportunity for the youth of America and put our idle millions back to work in private industry, business, and agriculture. We propose to eliminate needless administrative restrictions, thus restoring lost motion to the wheels of individual enterprise.

Money

The Congress should reclaim its constitutional powers over money, and withdraw the President's arbitrary authority to manipulate the currency, establish bimetallism, issue irredeemable paper money, and debase the gold and silver coinage. We shall repeal the Thomas Inflation Amendment of 1933 and the (foreign) Silver Purchase Act of 1934, and take all possible steps to preserve the value of the Government's huge holdings of gold and re-introduce gold into circulation.

Jobs and Idle Money

Believing it possible to keep the securities market clean without paralyzing it, we endorse the principle of truth in securities in the Securities Act. To get billions of idle dollars and a multitude of idle men back to work and to promote national defense, these acts should be revised and the policies of the Commission changed to encourage the flow of private capital into industry.

Equal Rights

We favor submission by Congress to the States of an amendment to the Constitution providing for equal rights for men and women.

Negro

We pledge that our American citizens of Negro descent shall be given a square deal in the economic and political life of this nation. Discrimination in the civil service, the army, navy, and all other branches of the Government must cease. To enjoy the full benefits of life, liberty and pursuit of happiness universal suffrage must be made effective for the Negro citizen. Mob violence shocks the conscience of the nation and legislation to curb this evil should be enacted.

Un-American Activities

We vigorously condemn the New Deal encouragement of various groups that seek to change the American form of government by means outside the Constitution. We condemn the appointment of members of such un-American groups to high positions of trust in the national Government. The development of the treacherous so-called Fifth Column, as it has operated in war-stricken countries, should be a solemn warning to America. We pledge the Republican Party to get rid of such borers from within.

Immigration

We favor the strict enforcement of all laws controlling the entry of aliens. The activities of undesirable aliens should be investigated and those who seek to change by force and violence the American form of government should be deported.

Hawaii

Hawaii, sharing the nation's obligations equally with the several States, is entitled to the fullest measure of home rule; and to equality with the several States in the rights of her citizens and in the application of our national laws.

Puerto Rico

Statehood is a logical aspiration of the people of Puerto Rico who were made citizens of the United States by Congress in 1917; legislation affecting Puerto Rico, in so far as feasible, should be in harmony with the realization of that aspiration.

Third Term

To insure against the overthrow of our American system of government we favor an amendment to the Constitution providing that no person shall be President of the United States for more than two terms.

Petard hoisting

Judge rules Defense of Marriage Act unconstitutional on 10th Amendment grounds:

A federal judge in Massachusetts found Thursday that a law barring the federal government from recognizing same-sex marriage is unconstitutional, ruling that gay and lesbian couples deserve the same federal benefits as heterosexual couples...

In the Coakley case, the judge held that that federal restrictions on funding for states that recognize same-sex marriage violates the 10th Amendment, the part of the Constitution that declares that rights not explicitly granted to the federal government, or denied to the states, belong to the states...

By citing the 10th Amendment and making what is essentially a states’ rights argument, Professor Balkin said Judge Tauro was “attempting to hoist conservatives by their own petard, by saying: ‘You like the 10th Amendment? I’ll give you the 10th Amendment! I’ll strike down DOMA!’ ”

While I'm 100 percent in favor of repealing DOMA and having all levels of the US government recognize same-sex marriages, I'm concerned about accepting an expansive interpretation of the 10th Amendment. There's much to dig in this opinion if you're a Tea Partier.

The politics of financial reform

I'm having a hard time figuring out Congress' motivations regarding financial reform. While Congress worked on health reform my political science colleague and I discussed the infuriating behavior of "moderate" Democrats in light of two competing theories of Congressional behavior. One theory holds that our representatives in Congress are intensely concerned with appealing to the median voter in their districts. They will not act on principle if doing so leaves them even minutely vulnerable to defeat in a primary or general election. Thus Ben Nelson, Blanche Lincoln and the like dug in their heals against the public option and other key parts of the reform package because their constituents opposed these provisions. An alternative theory is that our Congressional representatives seek to retain their seats in a less direct manner. Their goal is to maximize campaign donations, ordinarily from special interests of one kind or another, in order to build up a campaign war chest that will ensure victory and/or discourage viable opponents from running. Thus Max Baucus' goal in negotiating with the Republicans on the Senate Finance committee in the summer of 2009 was not to reach bipartisan agreement on a bill, but to string negotiations along as long as possible in order to squeeze campaign contributions out of the health care lobbies. Ben Nelson was responding to the interests of Mutual of Omaha, not the median Nebraska voter.

Now comes financial reform. At the end of 2009 the House of Representatives, typically, passed a fairly aggressive reform package. The Senate's job, it seems, is to water consequential bills down to the point of being completely toothless. In this case, however, the Senate passed a bill that in some respects (the Volcker rule, treatment of derivatives) was harsher than the bill that passed the House. The conference committee, remarkably, seems to be forgoing opportunities to weaken the bill. And here is the puzzle. Bank lobbies are pouring billions of dollars into this process. According to theory number two, members of the conference committee ought to be weakening provisions right and left. Perhaps they don't because they are concerned about the likely reaction to a weakening of financial reform by the median voter in their districts - that's theory number one. But look at the issues they are debating: how much authority should the Federal Reserve have to regulate interchange rates on debit cards? Should banks be required to spin off their swaps units or can these be operated as separately capitalized subsidiaries within the same bank holding company? Can banks continue to count trust-preferred securities as Tier I capital? It's safe to say that the median voter in any Congressional district has absolutely no understanding of any of these issues, which in theory gives the conference committee members leeway to make concessions to the banking industry while claiming to their constituents that they are putting the screws to them. This seems to be happening to some extent, but by and large the provisions that are most costly to the banking industry continue to be part of the legislation. The article linked to above quotes a banking industry analyst as saying:

“Even if Congress moderates some of these provisions, they are going to be onerous,” said Jaret Seiberg, an analyst with Washington Research Group, a division of Concept Capital. “We continue to believe on issues like interchange and derivatives that the movement will be toward the banks, even though it will be hard to describe any of this as a real victory. It just won’t be as brutal a defeat.”

So what explains Congressional behavior in this case? It's quite a mystery. It can't be that our Congressmen are acting according to principle, can it?

Grand unified theory of everything

A quick thought on Brad DeLong's post on fiscal austerity and link to post on EPA regulations on carbon emissions. The Obama Administration would solve a number of problems in a couple of fell swoops if it (1) had the EPA draw up a state-level cap-and-trade system for carbon emissions to be phased in beginning in say 2012; (2) introduced legislation imposing a carbon tax phased in beginning in say 2012, with the proviso that proceeds would be used first for reducing the budget deficit, and offset by a payroll tax reduction only if the deficit was under control; (3) sell a bunch of gold to the world's insatiable gold bugs and use the proceeds to pass a "clean jobs bill" focused on teachers, cops, firefighters, and oil spill cleanup. We'll get BP to reimburse us for the cleanup later, if they've got any money left.

Rating Anthony Weiner

How serious are Anthony Weiner's transgressions? What is the appropriate punishment? Here's how Weiner stacks up against some of his recent competitors.

The criminality of the underlying act. Sending pictures of his junk to women he met on the internet is not a crime. Good patriotic God-fearing capitalists make billions facilitating this kind of behavior every year and we hardly blink an eye (how much do you think Twitter or Google would be worth if it weren't for internet porn?). This is no Abu Ghraib or Watergate. On a scale of zero to 5 (5 being ordering the torture of people scooped up on the battlefields of Afghanistan), Weiner's actions earn a score of zero "Cheneys".

The sordidness of the underlying act. Again, Weiner was engaged in conduct that lies within the range of "normal" as it has been defined down in the internet age. What sordidness there is comes from the fact that he is married, plus the possibility that some of his partners in smut were quite young. Still, this does not compare to Newt Gingrich's or John Edwards' or even Arnold Schwarzenegger's betrayal of their wives. And it doesn't come close to the standard-setter in this category, Larry Craig's solicitation of sex in the stall of an airport men's room. On a scale of zero to five, we'll give him one bathroom stall.

Sheer stupidity. Here's where Weiner picks up some serious points. Middle school children are warned of the dangers of sexting. Surely a United States Congressman should know better. Elliot Spitzer might have reasonably hoped to keep his d'alliances with prostitutes secret, but Weiner should have known that when the internet is involved there is no such thing as privacy. On a scale from "Congressman" to "Republican" to "Republican Congressman" to "Tea Party Republican Congressman," Weiner scores a near-perfect Republican Congressman. He does not earn the coveted "Tea Party Republican Congressman" only because in contemplating his actions he did not deny the validity of well-known scientific laws (although erasing the images on his computer in the hope that that would prevent them from being further circulated comes close).

Dickishness. Weiner's attempts at denial are really in a class by themselves. There are three essential elements that define the denial of an embarrassing act as dickish. The first is that the stakes must be low. Covering up the break-in of your opponent's campaign headquarters is criminal but not dickish. Covering up a sexting incident, where nothing illegal was done and the only punishment would be embarrassment and some marital tension, is dickish. The second element is the ease of falsification of the denial. There was no way the truth was not going to come out in a matter of days, especially since it was already known that there were other photos in addition to the original junk shot. The third element is a broad category that is related to the second: the brazenness of the denial. Weiner didn't just deny the charges against him, he engaged in verbal combat with the press, then gave separate interviews to a dozen news organizations in which he repeated his lie. What a dick. For these efforts Weiner earns a full 5 Clintons. This is quite a feat considering that Bill Clinton himself only earned 4 during the Monica Lewinsky scandal (he had one point shaved off for valiantly continuing to do the job of president even during the impeachment proceedings).

So that's how we rate the severity of the acts. How about the punishment? I recommend the full Spitzer. Resign in disgrace, be photographed in your shame with your wife looking like she's deciding whether to use the hedge clipper or electric sander on the offending anatomical parts, then condemned to spend eternity as a CNN talking head.

It's not always all about the media, is it?

So here's Mark Leibovich taking the media to task for being miffed that Sarah Palin has kept them out of the loop during her non-campaign tour up the East Coast.

But how dare she disregard the media like that?

That was a subtext of so much of the press grumbling that followed Ms. Palin and her family as they zigzagged through a Northeast itinerary of “biker caravanning” (at a veterans’ motorcycle rally), historic sightseeing (Gettysburg, etc.), office politicking (the headquarters of her employer, Fox News) and Donald Trump (his own category). By “winging it,” or at least not telling journalists where she was headed next and leading them on what some called a “wild goose chase,” Ms. Palin once again showed contempt for a class of people she plainly despises.

“I don’t think I owe anything to the mainstream media,” Ms. Palin said in an interview aboard her bus with Greta Van Susteren of Fox News.

But Ms. Palin does owe something to her fans/supporters, doesn't she? What does Palin's secrecy during her trip say about her attitude toward the poor deluded Palin supporters who donned their American flag tee-shirts, grabbed their Don't Tread on Me banners and waited for her in vain for ten hours at the Pennsylvania Monument in Gettysburg? I think Palin's message to her supporters is: It's not about you, it's about me. I don't need to respect you because you are so in love with the image I have cultivated about myself that you will stick with me no matter how much I abuse you.

And I do believe Palin is right about that.

Blog posts I never finished reading

From Atlas Shrugs:

John McCormack at the Weekly Standard has obtained an advance copy of Governor Palin's imminent Facebook Post:...........

Adventures in pivoting

President Obama apparently is trying to take advantage of the BP oil spill to push for "clean energy" legislation. As a card-carrying environmentalist and policy wonk egghead, I wholeheartedly approve. But right now more Americans are worried about jobs than clean energy, and the president could do himself more good by pivoting toward the jobs bill that is currently languishing in the Senate than the energy bills that are currently languishing in the Senate (the Senate: where good policy initiatives go to languish).

So President Obama, go out on the hustings today and propose a "clean jobs bill": strip out the "doc fix" and research tax credit extension and other garbage from the Senate bill and replace it with funding to hire - pick a number, say 100,000 - people to spend the summer cleaning up the coastal areas in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and (coming soon) Florida. Challenge Congress to pass the jobs bill - jobs for teachers, firefighters, cops, and oil cleanup crews - right now. Dare Republicans to stand in the way over concerns for the deficit.

Gaza

Running an illegal blockade to bring food and medicine to starving civilians is a noble act. But my idea of "peace activists" is people who engage in nonviolent resistance to show the world the inhumanity of their opponents. Beating soldiers with metal pipes as they try to detain you tells me that whoever they are, the people on the flotilla trying to bring aid to Gaza are not "peace activists."

Fiscal stimulus round II?

With the recovery still shaky and the crisis in Europe threatening growth in the months to come, it makes sense to think about another (smaller) round of fiscal stimulus. Congress is considering a bill that would do some good by providing aid to states and extending unemployment benefits. One provision that is always mentioned in descriptions of various stimulus packages but never described in detail is a tax credit for research and development.

Democrats said that the safety-net aid was desperately needed and that the business tax breaks included in the measure, like a popular credit for research and development, would help spur employment.

Sounds good on paper - who could be against research, development, and employment? But what exactly is this proposal?

It turns out that the proposal is to renew a tax credit for research and development that was originally enacted in 1981 and has been renewed every year since. The tax credit provides a subsidy amounting to about 6.4 to 7.3 percent on qualified R&D expenditures, according to the GAO (2009 report here, 1996 report here). The reports do not explain what types of research has been done as a result of the credit. The reports do indicate a number of things: no one is sure how much additional spending is induced by the tax credit, with estimates ranging from near zero to two dollars per dollar spent; no one has studied the benefits to society of this spending in terms of new products created or any other metric; much of the tax credit is simply a windfall to companies that would have done the research anyway; because the terms on which companies qualify for the tax credit are so confusing, many small businesses who might qualify never apply; of the $6 billion spent on the credit in 2005 (the latest year for which data is available), over half of the money went to large corporations with revenue over $1 billion.

Corporate lobbies claim that failing to renew the credit would put jobs at risk:

Every day the R&D tax credit remains expired, the well-paying jobs, economic growth and revenue to the treasury it supports are placed at risk. TechAmerica calculates $45 million and 330 jobs are at risk each day the credit remains expired. With more than 70 percent of credit dollars going to U.S. wages, the R&D tax credit is a jobs credit.

But until I see some actual analysis of the effects of the tax credit, I'm going to assume it's just a bit of corporate welfare that Congress won't make a permanent part of the tax code because renewing it annually gives them an opportunity to extort money from corporate lobbies. (Hey, I agree with the WSJ on this one - though the WSJ gives the corporations who have come out against the stimulus bill a lot more credit for virtuous behavior than they deserve.)

If the size of the stimulus package needs to be reduced to get it through Congress, the R&D tax credit would be a good thing to drop (how much do you want to bet aid to states to keep teachers and firefighters from being laid off will be reduced instead?). If we want to promote R&D spending, there are surely better ways: increase funding for the National Science Foundation and other scientific agencies or subsidize undergraduate and graduate students in the sciences for a start.

America's dirty secret

Interesting if true. Fortunately, probably not true.

Ranjan Sreedharan, "America's Secret Competitive Advantage is a Dirty Secret," MPRA Paper No. 22024.

Abstract
The noted management guru Michael E Porter identifies seven unique competitive advantages for the U.S. economy to explain the country’s pre-eminence; they range from (among others) its environment for entrepreneurship, its institutions of higher learning, its technology and innovation machine, to its commitment to competition and free markets.

In this article, I argue that there is another critical competitive advantage exclusive to the U.S. that arises from its electoral system characterised by consistently low levels of voter turnout in national elections and with disproportionately large numbers of its poorest and least educated citizens not voting. I begin by looking at reasons why the poor in America vote in far lesser proportions than their numbers, and particularly, at the various formal and informal impediments that prevent voting by the poor. I then consider the impact this would have had on America’s economy and its competitiveness.

The core idea of this paper is that when an electoral process effectively filters out significantsections of the poor, the country would find it far easier to put in place (and sustain) soundfree-market economic policies focussed on long term objectives with generous incentives for creation of wealth and with a tight leash on welfare and other entitlement programmes. I contend that America’s undeniably greater acceptance of the rigours of the free-market system is not (as is commonly believed) a product of a unique history or culture but, in truth, is closely tied to a discriminatory and exclusionary electoral system that has strong historical roots.

But the US growth rate has been lower since the 1970s than it was in the decades before, while voter turnout has fallen.

Financial reform

David Leonhardt has some sensible comments on how to strengthen the financial reform bill. Financial reform is a rare example of legislation being improved as it passes through the Senate. As further evidence that the Senate liberals are serious about reform, the American Banker has a story headlined: Democrats Reg-Reform Conference Choices Bode Ill for Banks. Senate Democrats on the committee include Tom Harkin, Chris Dodd, Patrick Leahy, Tim Johnson, Blanche Lincoln, Chuck Schumer, and Jack Reed. Harkin, Dodd, Leahy, and maybe Schumer provide some real liberal firepower. But a bill is not expected to reach President Obama until July 4. That gives banks an awful lot of time to do some damage.

Sestak

The New York Times learns the wrong lesson from Joe Sestak's victory and Blanche Lincoln's failure to win the Arkansas Democratic primary outright:

The outcomes of both contests, along with a Democratic primary in Arkansas that pushed Senator Blanche Lincoln into a runoff election in June, illustrated anew the serious threats both parties face from candidates who are able to portray themselves as outsiders and eager to shake up the system... The results were sobering for both parties, amounting to a rejection of candidates selected and backed by leaders in Washington who found themselves out of step with their electorates. Republicans and Democrats alike are now left to learn the lessons from the frustration being expressed by voters, and to unify behind nominees who face daunting general election campaigns.

The anti-incumbent mood is clearly dominant in the Republican primaries. But the dynamic of these Democratic primaries is not anti-incumbency - it's that Democrats want our representatives in Congress to push back harder against Republicans than they have done to date. Democrats don't trust Specter and they punished Lincoln for holding up health reform.

It's also clear that Obama was not prepared to go to the mat for Specter. He had promised his support when Specter switched parties, but was not going to do more than the bare minimum that was expected of him. Robocalls, but no trip to Pennsylvania. It'll be interesting to see what positions Specter takes for the rest of this session. For thirty-odd years he's been a finely calibrated voting machine, first triangulating between the demands of the Pennsylvania electorate and first the Republican, then the Democratic Party. He has developed fence-sitting and vote-trading to an art form. Now he is free to vote his conscience. His challenge is going to be remembering what that is.

What next after bin Laden?

I'm with those who believe that the killing of Osama bin Laden will make it easier for the US to withdraw from Afghanistan (relevant articles here and here). It's been clear for a couple of years now that, surge or no surge, the US cannot "win" in Afghanistan, if winning means wiping out the Taliban as a serious military force and establishing a functioning government that denies sanctuary to terrorists. The best we can do, it seems to me, is to negotiate a deal by which the Taliban remains an important player but perhaps not (for the time being) the dominant force in Afghanistan, with some assurances that Afghanistan won't (for the time being) allow al Qaeda back in. I think Obama recognizes this and his inclination is to stick with his originally stated goal of beginning a withdrawal this summer. I think even Republicans understand this, which is why Afghanistan was not a political issue in 2010 and is not on anyone's radar in the runup to 2012. Bin Laden's killing lets us strike a crappy deal with the Taliban and begin the withdrawal of our forces while declaring victory on the way out.

But there's another possibility that's not as pleasant. That is that our military-industrial / national security-counterterrorism complex will use the success of the bin Laden operation as a pretext for an expansion of our special operations capabilities. Bigger budgets, more of those exciting cloak-and-dagger operations. Why not go after Qaddafi next, will go the argument, and then the slippery slope takes us into operations in Syria, Iran, who knows maybe some day Venezuela or Cuba. This one ended like the final episode of 24, but the next one could end like Black Hawk Down. I hope that ten years from now we don't look back on this and regret the turn in national security policy that the killing of Osama bin Laden engendered.

Jobs bill?

Brent Budowsky says the Democrats' only chance to avoid catastrophe in the November elections is a jobs bill. Specifically,

1. The president and Congress should enact a substantial tax credit for new job creation that would become effective immediately and expire Oct. 31, 2010.

2. For new hires that increase net company jobs, the tax credit should be $10,000 per new employee hired in May or June, $7,500 for those hired in July or August and $5,000 for those hired in September or October.

3. The tax cut should be financed by a tax on bank profits, speculative trading and/or Wall Street bonuses at bailed-out firms. It should replace the program in the financial bill that would transition failing firms, which would be removed in my plan. The $50 billion raised in the current bill would be applied instead to the jobs tax credit along with any additional bank levies needed to pay for the jobs bill.

4. The jobs bill would be passed on a fast track at the same time as the financial bill. Republicans would be asked to give bipartisan support for the jobs bill in return for removing the provision they oppose on the financial bill.

The plan would be a good idea on political grounds. But Congress toyed with this idea last year and couldn't get over all of the logistical problems (how many firms would fire their current workforce and hire them all back as new employees to collect the credit?). Furthermore, I'm guessing that with jobs growth in the 250,000 to 300,000 range beginning this month and lasting through the year, the economic rationale (and a big part of the political rationale) will fade away. My prediction is that the Democrats will do better than expected because the economy will do better than expected, and Democrats will justifiably take credit.