A cornerstone of the global financial system was shaken Friday when officials at ratings firm Standard & Poor’s said U.S. Treasury debt no longer deserved to be considered among the safest investments in the world.
S&P removed for the first time the triple-A rating the U.S. has held for 70 years, saying the budget deal recently brokered in Washington didn’t do enough to address the gloomy outlook for America’s finances. It downgraded long-term U.S. debt to AA+, a score that ranks below more than a dozen countries, including Liechtenstein, and on par with Belgium and New Zealand. S&P also put the new grade on “negative outlook,” meaning the U.S. has little chance of regaining the top rating in the near term…
S&P said the downgrade “reflects our opinion that the fiscal consolidation plan that Congress and the administration recently agreed to falls short of what, in our view, would be necessary to stabilize the government’s medium-term debt dynamics.” It also blamed the weakened “effectiveness, stability, and predictability” of U.S. policy making and political institutions at a time when challenges are mounting…
The WSJ report (and here are others from the NYT, NPR, BBC and the WashPost) goes on to say that it might not be too bad, since the other ratings agencies have kept the U.S. at the triple-A rating, then says…
But the move by S&P still could serve as a psychological haymaker for an American economic recovery that can’t find much traction, and could do more damage to investors’ increasing lack of faith in a political system that is struggling to reach consensus even on everyday policy matters. It could lead to the prompt debt downgrades of numerous companies and states, driving up their costs of borrowing. Policy makers are also anxious about any hidden icebergs the move could suddenly reveal.
Just what we needed, right?
As you see, the reason is that we failed to reach a comprehensive, rational, credible agreement on reducing U.S. debt. That was always the greater danger than the debt ceiling not being raised. And our elected representatives descended to the challenge of eroding the full faith and credit of the United States of America.
Of course, all involved in the government will vehemently defend their agreement against such condemnation as Standard & Poor’s. The Obama administration scoffed at S&P for making “a $2 trillion error” in its calculations. And indeed, well they might lash out, because all will share the blame.
But here’s the thing: Obama was willing to do a real deal. I’m not saying it would have fixed everything, but at least he was pushing the essential elements — both spending cuts and tax increases (or “reform” or “enhancements” or “revocation of cuts” or whatever you want to call it). That was and is essential to real deficit reduction for the simple fact that no one wants to go far enough in cuts.
Oh, four of the SC5 would go far enough. They have a nihilistic desire to cut, slash and burn; they are ideologues, and are not affected by pragmatic considerations. But Joe Wilson wouldn’t be with them; he wants to be re-elected. And if the cuts were deep enough to essentially eliminate the deficit without any revenue increases, they would be replaced in the next election by people who do give a damn about the essential functions of government (or what most voters regard as the essential functions of government, which in political terms amounts to the same thing). It would probably also split our two senators: DeMint cares little for the consequences of cutting, but Graham would balk at emasculating the U.S. military.
Gentlemen, if I may go so far as to call you “gentlemen,” you and those like you have brought us to this. I will watch, not without some trepidation, to see what you do next.
CREDIT RATING AGENCY MOODY’S REAFFIRMS SOUTH CAROLINA’S AAA CREDIT RATING
Rating agency’s negative outlook for US economy could impact South Carolina
(Columbia, SC) – State Treasurer Curtis Loftis issued the following statement in response to the action taken by credit rating agency Moody’s, who has reaffirmed South Carolina’s AAA credit rating but added a negative outlook similar to that given to the federal government.
“South Carolina has AAA credit for a reason,” Treasurer Loftis said. “We live within our means and are constantly guided by sound financial principles. The negative outlook for the federal government has spilled over to the states and is a wake-up call that government must not spend more than it has. The State Treasurer’s Office is monitoring this situation and is in constant contact with the rating agencies.”
South Carolina’s AAA credit rating means it costs less to borrow money for things taxpayers depend on like schools, roads and bridges.
Moody’s Investors Service will be conducting a credit review of select states including South Carolina within the next 90 days. According to Moody’s, in order for South Carolina to earn a stable outlook, the state must maintain credit quality higher than that of the federal government in the event the U. S. government credit would be downgraded.
“The bottom line is simple: the action by Congress and the President causes uncertainty in the business community,” Treasurer Loftis said. “We must demand fiscal conservatism and transparency from Washington. South Carolina is doing its part and I ask D. C. to do the same.”
South Carolina, along with Maryland, New Mexico, Tennessee and the Commonwealth of Virginia, are the five states Moody’s confirmed AAA with negative outlooks with ratings indirectly linked to the U. S. government. Those five states have a combined $24 billion of outstanding debt.
Well, that’s good to hear. Because I was worried about the credit agencies not being pleased with the debt deal signed earlier in the week. (Hey, neither I nor anyone else was happy with it; why should they be?)
All along, the word had been that the credit rating was endangered less by the debt ceiling deadline, and more by the failure of the gummint to come to terms with the deficit. Which they still haven’t done, of course. But let’s embrace whatever good news we can get.
A packed house watches "Page One" at the Nickelodeon last night.
Last night, I went to see “Page One: Inside The New York Times” at the Nickelodeon. I had been asked to watch the movie, a 2010 documentary, and then stay to be a panelist for a discussion — along with Charles Bierbauer of USC and Dan Cook of the Free Times.
As I arrived, I felt a pang of guilt that yet again, I was making a public appearance and forgetting to tell you, my readers, in advance, in the remote chance you’d like to attend. But I needn’t have worried. The show was sold out. The audience included a lot of familiar faces, such as my old boss Tom McLean, who hired me at The State and was my predecessor as EPE, and the paper’s long-time attorney Jay Bender.
On the way in, I ran into Bill Rogers, head of the state Press Association. He said he was sorry he wouldn’t be able to hear me, because the show was sold out. I told him they had given me two tickets, and my wife was at a book club meeting instead, so he could be my guest. When he sat next to me at the back of the theater (I couldn’t sit at the front because of my neck thing, for which I’m going to get another shot next to my spine today), I took advantage of his slightly owing me to make a pitch: Look Bill, I see that the Press Association is offering online, multi-publication ad packages, and advocacy-ad packages as well. Why not throw come blogs in? It might add some value for the buyer, and I need somebody to sell ads for me.
Shameless, huh? Well, that’s the state of news media in America today.
In fact, one of the most meaningful lines in the film, to me, was spoken by David Carr, who was essentially the star. He’s a great character. A former crack addict, he’s now a media columnist for the NYT — a brilliant reporter, and an awesome bark-off spokesman for why a dying industry matters. (Favorite momentThe movie wasn’t so much about the Times as it was about the horrific troubles of the MSM, using the media desk of the NYT as a window on that world.
Great Carr moment: He’s interviewing the founder of Vice, and said founder is going through the usual mantra about how the MSM don’t cover the real story, so you need the gutsy, edgy fringe guys to tell you what’s really going on and Carr interrupts:
Just a sec, time out. Before you ever went there, we’ve had reporters there reporting on genocide after genocide. Just because you put on a fucking safari helmet and looked at some poop doesn’t give you the right to insult what we do. So continue.
Excuse the language, but one of the things this movie does is show the way people talk in newsrooms. And Carr was talking to a guy who pumped that up to the nth degree to show how hip and edgy he is, so Carr used his own terminology to put him in his place. By the way, here’s the story Carr wrote from that interview.
But that wasn’t his most meaningful line to me. That came when he had been researching an in-depth story about how the boorish Sam Zell had run the Chicago Tribune the rest of the way into the ground, and had done the obligatory interview with the Trib’s spokesman in which you say, Here’s what I’ve got; what’s your reaction? After the ritual comments about “hatchet job” and “I’ll get back to you,” Carr hangs up the phone. Sometime later, after communications from the Trib’s lawyers, he says,
The muscles of the institution are going to kick in at some point. It’s not up to me.
Exactly. And that’s one of the virtues of working in the MSM. There’s somebody to sell the ads, and you’re not even supposed to talk to them (usually, you don’t know them). There’s somebody else to worry about threats of legal action. You just worry about getting your story, and getting it right. And people who’ve never worked at such an institution — or even the somewhat smaller ones like it, across the country — have no idea how liberating and empowering that is.
Frequently, people ask me today whether I find I have greater freedom as a blogger than I did as editorial page editor of the state’s then-largest newspaper. That’s a really stupid question, although I don’t say that, because the asker has no way of knowing that.
Part of the stupidity of the question is based in the notion that when you work at a newspaper, “They tell you what to write.” I’m not entirely clear on who “they” are, but I suppose it’s the owners of the paper. I suppose, and I’ve heard, that when you work at a locally-owned paper where your masters are intricately tied into the community you cover, there are sacred cows, and positions you are told to take and others you are told not to take. But that doesn’t happen when you’re a part of a publicly-traded corporation. In all my years as editorial page editor, only once did anyone at corporate made even a suggestion about editorial content: Tony Ridder tried to make the case to Knight Ridder editorial page editors that the company’s papers should not endorse in presidential elections. His reasons for saying that appeared to be a) that we needed to concentrate on local issues; b) that what we said on our local levels about national politics didn’t matter; and c) that such endorsements only made about half of our readers furious at us. That last reason was, as I recall, more implied and stated; he really concentrated on reason a).
I thought that was a fine theory for a guy who lived and worked in California, but a pretty silly one for an editor in the home of the first-in-the-south primaries. For months before a primary, I had media from all over the country, and from abroad, contacting me to know what I, and we, thought about the candidates. I wasn’t going to tell our readers what we thought? How absurd. I ignored Tony’s suggestion. So did most of the other editors, to the best of my knowledge — I didn’t check, because I didn’t care what they did.
There’s another comment I used to get from people a lot, when I was at the paper. They used to commend me for my “courage” for taking a certain stand. That, too, was ridiculous. I got paid no matter what I wrote. I wasn’t taking any risk, beyond the inconvenience of maybe a source not talking to me any more. So I might as well take stands that mean something rather than write pap, right? I had that whole institution standing behind me, that warm blanket of security.
Here’s what I wrote a while back about the “liberating” effect of no longer working for the MSM:
The first casualty of unemployment is the truth.
OK, maybe not the first. First there’s the blow to one’s bank account. Then the loss of self-confidence. But truth is right up there. Especially for me. Until I was laid off in March, I was editorial page editor of South Carolina’s largest newspaper. A colleague once said to me, accusingly, “You don’t think this is the opinion page. You think it’s the truth page.” I just looked at her blankly. Of course it was the truth page.
Readers expected me to tell everything I knew, and plenty that I only thought I knew – about South Carolina’s feckless politicians (Mark Sanford, Joe Wilson – need I say more?), or whatever struck me, without reservation. And I delivered.
My reputation survives my career. Recently, a friend warned me that people feel constrained in talking to me, because their confidences might turn up on my blog. After all, bloggers tell all, right? Ask Monica Lewinsky. Ask ACORN.
“HAH!” say I.
As a blogger who answers to no one, I am not nearly as frank and open as I was as a newspaper editor who thought he had a secure job.
I haven’t disclosed whom I have worked for on consulting gigs since leaving the paper, because my clients haven’t been crazy about the exposure. Every word I write, I think: Might this put off a prospective employer? And I know it has, despite my caution.
There are things I have not written – pithy, witty, dead-on observations on the passing parade, I assure you – because I think, “Do you have to write that and run the risk of offending this person who MIGHT point you to a job? Can’t you just write about something else?”
And where am I applying for jobs? Well, I’m not going to tell YOU, am I?
People used to praise me for my courage for taking on powerful people at the paper. But I was taking no risk whatsoever. As long as I was supported by advertising, a transaction I was ethically barred from even thinking about, I had impunity.
But an unaligned blogger still trying to function as a journalist stands naked and alone, and is not nearly as free and honest as he was writing from the once-impregnable citadel of an editorial page. At least, this one isn’t. Keep that in mind, citizen, as newspapers fall around you.
Watching that movie launched me on many different streams of thought; I could have talked about them all night. What I just told you describes part of my reaction to a single line. As Tom McLean said after one long-winded response I gave as a panelist, I always needed an editor.
South Carolina hardly rates a mention in this report in the WSJ today (“Amazon Battles States Over Sales Tax“), but I thought some of y’all, your nerves still jangled from the recent battle at the State House, might be interested in this step-back report on what was at stake for Amazon, and how SC fits into the company’s grand strategy. An excerpt:
SEATTLE — Amazon.com Inc., the world’s largest online retailer, hasn’t charged sales tax in most states since its founding in 1994. And it has taken some extreme measures to keep it that way.
Among them: Staff traveling around the U.S. have been required to first consult a company map that shades each state red, yellow or green, said three people who have worked for the retailer. These people said they needed permission from managers or company lawyers before entering “red” states because a worker’s actions might trigger laws that force Amazon to collect taxes in those states.
Such steps to avoid local levies allow Amazon to undercut in-state retailers by the amount they must add in sales tax, which can exceed 8%.
A close examination of Amazon’s corporate practices, based on interviews with more than a dozen former employees and people who have done business with the Seattle company, as well as a review of corporate documents, indicates that the company believes its sales-tax policy is critical to its performance…
This release came out a little while ago from Lindsey Graham:
Graham to Oppose Debt-Limit Compromise
WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) today said he will oppose the compromise debt-limit agreement negotiated between congressional leaders and President Obama.
Graham said:
“I cannot in good conscience support this deal. Simply stated, it locks us into more debt, bigger government and most devastating of all, a weakened defense infrastructure at a time when we face growing threats.
“This agreement adds over $7 trillion in new debt over the next decade and only makes small reductions in future spending. We hardly address the future growth of entitlements, a major contributor of future budgetary problems. Instead of our nation running toward bankruptcy we will be walking toward bankruptcy.
“If fully implemented, the consequences to our nation’s defense infrastructure would be severe. And these deep cuts would come at a time when threats to our nation are increasing, not declining. What has happened to the Party of Reagan who viewed the primary purpose of the federal government was to provide a strong national defense?
“This agreement legitimizes the concept that defense spending is not only equal to other areas of federal spending, but is of lesser importance. This is a philosophical shift I will have no part of.
“I fear this agreement will destroy our nation’s defense infrastructure at a time when we need them the most. The only part of our nation’s budget which is really exposed to serious consequences under this compromise is the Department of Defense.
“I have always believed we have to raise our nation’s debt-ceiling but it should be done in a responsible manner. I support raising the debt-ceiling for a period of nine months, the historical average since 1940, accompanied by a dollar-to-dollar spending cuts to debt-ceiling increase. In effect, this basically is the first portion of the Boehner-Reid proposal.”
#####
And it got me to thinking…
Almost by definition, almost any deal at this point that both raises the debt ceiling and addresses the deficit (which must happen to avoid a devastating credit downgrade) will contain elements that do things no intelligent person would want to do.
Such as, as the senator mentions, eviscerating our defense infrastructure.
And yet we have to go ahead and make a bad deal anyway, because we’re out of time to make a good one that would benefit the country.
Normally, I never see the Sunday morning political talk shows. I have other activities I deem more important at that time of the week: sleeping, making coffee, eating breakfast, and getting ready to go to Mass.
But I got up a little early this morning, and had a few minutes, and was burning with curiosity about this “deal” that was supposedly nearing on the debt insanity in Washington.
First thing I saw was Mitch McConnell. I heard him say some standard partisan “Thank God for us Republicans” rhetoric about how far we’d come since April, when the White House simply wanted the debt ceiling raised with no spending cuts.
So he patted himself on the back for that for a moment — apparently in a bid to pull the Tea crazies along, tell them that even if they don’t get the moon the way they want, they’ve gotten a lot, etc.
Then he briefly described the direction in which negotiators were working. The only part that jumped out at me was, “no job-killing tax increases.”
A moment for translation. We of the UnParty just go ahead and say “tax cuts” or “tax increases,” because they hold no deep-seated emotional baggage for us. They are just options, tools, things you might do or not do. To Democrats and Republicans, these things have profound religious significance, and they have ritual words they have to say along with them. For instance, to Democrats there are no such things as mere “tax cuts;” there are only “tax cuts for the rich,” or, if they are inclined to used what they consider to be curse words, “Bush tax cuts.” For Republicans, there are no secular, matter-of-fact references to be made to the expedient of raising taxes. They must say something like “job-killing tax increases.” You must forgive them. They have to do the verbal equivalent of making a face and spitting on the ground on such occasions. They would explode if they didn’t get it out.
Anyway, modifiers aside, I was just hoping he was lying, or misunderstood. Because if that is really what is being discussed, it’s rather disgusting from an UnParty perspective.
Here’s the thing, folks: No sensible person wants to do either — cut spending drastically, or raise taxes — at a moment when the economy seems to be sliding backwards. But we do need to tame the deficit at some point, and there is a gun at our heads to make us do something about it now: Raising the debt ceiling won’t be enough to preserve the nation’s (and South Carolina’s) credit rating. The ratings agencies have to see progress on the deficit. So we need a nice, neutral, everybody-gives-something deal to do that.
But it’s not much of a deal if the Republicans — who hold the House, and therefore bear some responsibility toward the nation rather than the Tea Party — aren’t bringing anything to the table.
I saw a silly movie the other night, “Couples Retreat.” There’s a seen in it in which a guy drops his trousers. Vince Vaughn, not looking, says something like, “Is his junk out?” When the people around him confirm the fact, he adds, “NOW it’s a party!”
I’ve been trying not to watch this stuff myself, in spite of the morbid fascination. But when somebody tells me that both spending cuts and tax increases are hanging out there, I’m going to say, “NOW it’s a deal!”
You may have heard about John McCain’s speech excoriating the likes of the South Carolina delegation, and the Tea Party in general. Here’s the full text. Here’s an excerpt:
I will take a backseat to none in my support of the balanced budget amendment to the Constitution. I have voted for it 13 times. I will vote for it tomorrow. What is amazing about this is, some Members are believing we can pass a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution in this body with its present representation, and that is foolish. That is worse than foolish. That is deceiving many of our constituents by telling them that just because the majority leader tabled the balanced budget amendment legislation that, through amending and debate, we could somehow convince the majority on the other side of the aisle to go along with a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution. That is not fair. That is not fair to the American people to hold out and say we will not agree to raising the debt limit until we pass a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution. It is unfair. It is bizarro. Maybe some people who have only been in this body for 6 or 7 months or so believe that. Others know better. Others know better.
I especially like the way he ended it:
It is time we listened to the markets. It is time we listened to our constituents. Most of all, it is time we listened to the American people and sit down and seriously negotiate something before we face a situation where we are depriving the American people of the fundamental right of having a government that doesn’t deprive them of the essential services, goods, and entitlements which they have earned.
Oh, and in case you wondered where the “hobbits” part come in. That was from when McCain was quoting from this piece in the WSJ. An excerpt from that:
The idea seems to be that if the House GOP refuses to raise the debt ceiling, a default crisis or gradual government shutdown will ensue, and the public will turn en masse against . . . Barack Obama. The Republican House that failed to raise the debt ceiling would somehow escape all blame. Then Democrats would have no choice but to pass a balanced-budget amendment and reform entitlements, and the tea-party Hobbits could return to Middle Earth having defeated Mordor.
We’ve been here before, back in the late ’20s and throughout the ’30s. But this time, we’re going to do it on purpose.
There’s blame to go around, in the long view. The Democrats did their bit leading us up to this point, but they’ve been offering compromises lately, and occasionally even making sense. Here in the home stretch, most of the “credit” for a crash will belong to the Republicans and their Kool-Aid-drinking — I mean Tea-drinking — friends.
Yesterday, the five Republican members of South Carolina’s congressional delegation “distinguished” themselves by being the most obstinate state bloc in the GOP caucus. Not that the Boehner plan was anything to write home about, or anything likely to get us toward a resolution. Today, I see that Boehner’s doing better among his caucus, but for all I know, our guys are still firing on Fort Sumter. (Anybody see an update on the SC part? I haven’t yet.)
But after all the tears and folderol in the House, whatever they pass will be DOA in the Senate, where Reid has a plan of his own. I fail to see how these two plans lead us to an actual solution before Tuesday.
And here’s the thing, folks — it’s not good enough to raise the debt limit. The ratings agencies will still probably downgrade the nation’s (AND South Carolina’s) credit rating, which will likely take our already staggering economy (did I mention that the newspaper company that laid me off two years ago just posted a 2nd-quarter loss of 32 percent?), and knock it right down onto the mat. UNLESS we take serious steps toward getting the deficits under control. And that’s WAY harder than just raising the ceiling.
You’d think — what with the fact that about the only thing our state’s leaders have had to brag about for the last 20 years has been our vaunted AAA rating — that the SC delegation would want to do something positive toward averting this disaster, wouldn’t you? Well, so far, you’d be wrong.
You know what happened in the U.K. after the Conservatives — the real conservatives, not these ruffians over here who take pride in throwing the Tories’ tea into the harbor — took over the government? They cut spending, and raised taxes. I was there when the taxes went up (see, “The terrible, awful, horrible day that the VAT went up,” Jan. 4) Far as I know, England is still there. Scotland, too. Maybe even Wales, and Northern Ireland.
Nobody wants to raise taxes at a time like this. It can have a cooling effect. Nor does a sensible person want to see drastic spending cuts, which can do the same. But the alternative to doing both looks considerably worse at the moment. And wanting to do one without the other — no, insisting upon doing one without the other, no matter what — is a form of madness.
Just something to think about, guys. Here at the last minute.
Bud has a legitimate desire to read more about the debt debate here. And if I can when I get done with ADCO stuff today, I’ll have something to say about the embarrassing behavior of South Carolina’s House Republicans.
But in the meantime, I’ll take just a second to express my utter frustration that we’re having such a big fight over THAT (which we should have been able to work out in a few hours, long before now), when there are things such as this going on in the world:
WASHINGTON—The U.S. for the first time formally accused Iran of forging an alliance with al Qaeda in a pact that allows the terrorist group to use Iranian soil as a transit point for moving money, arms and fighters to its bases in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
The Treasury Department outlined on Thursday what it said was an extensive fund-raising operation that uses Iran-based operatives and draws from donors in oil-rich Persian Gulf countries such as Kuwait and Qatar. The Treasury said it had sanctioned six al Qaeda members for allegedly overseeing this network.
The U.S. has long been concerned about alleged Iranian support for the terrorist group, though Iran and al Qaeda hold differing interpretations of Islam and divergent strategic interests.
But Tehran, anticipating the U.S. troop withdrawals from Iraq and Afghanistan, has been moving increasingly to assert its regional influence. Iran has helped smuggle sophisticated weapons into those countries to hasten the withdrawal of American forces, the U.S. says—a charge Tehran has denied….
Until this morning, I had not had a chance to look at the congressional districts as passed by the Legislature on Tuesday. All that hoo-hah over the new 7th District distracted the coverage from what I, and others who live in the Midlands, wanted to know: What do the 2nd and the 6th look like?
But The Post and Courier has obliged me, and I urge you to go there to see the graphic full-sized.
This was brought to my attention this morning by a friend who presented it as a political Rorschach test: Look at the images, and then state which of them you think is the more gerrymandered, the old or the new?
Not to prejudice your opinion, but to me it’s fairly obvious that the new is less gerrymandered. Certainly the 2nd — no more of that reaching-down-to-Beaufort nonsense. And the new 7th is nicely blocky — no spider legs there.
Of course, the 6th still looks ridiculous coming into Richland only to cut the heart out of it, leaving the rest to Joe Wilson.
And of course, there’s the beef for Democrats — the 6th has WAY more Black Voting Age Population than Jim Clyburn wants or needs. It is the dumping ground for black voters, so that the Republicans don’t have to deal with them in the other six districts.
But don’t look for Dick Harpootlian’s threatened lawsuit to materialize. Or if it does, don’t look for a court to give it the time of day. The Legislature passed this; there was no impasse. The Dems just lost the argument. Their interest in it is clearly partisan.
It is of course inherently racist to gather up as many black voters and stuff them into one district. But Republicans will point to Tim Scott and go their merry way.
Not cheeky in the way these young women got infamously cheeky — we wouldn’t want to see that sort of mucking about, would we? — but in the English slang sense.
Kept hoping — against hope, of course — this debt thing would get resolved before I had to say something about it. I’ve had observations to make about it along the way, but just haven’t wanted to get into it. I hate the subject; it bores me to tears. But it also makes me angry. Part of the anger is over the substance, of course. But part of it is that they’re making me think about this stuff. This is why we have representative democracy, you see. We elect people to go off and handle this stuff and make sure they don’t drive the country onto the rocks — and NOT bother us with the excruciating details.
They’re not getting the job done. Part of the reason, of course, is that there are a bunch of people in the House — the Tea Party guys — who don’t get what the responsibility of public office is all about. They think their bumper stickers slogans, the things that got them elected, are reality, and don’t understand that the world is more complicated than the concepts that got them elected. Unfortunately, they also have a certain cognitive block from ever learning they are wrong. Most people go into elective office with all sorts of misconceptions and foolish ideas. Most, whether they are “liberal” or “conservative,” realize with experience that there are broader responsibilities to the country (and in this case, to the entire world, since the already-weakened worldwide economy is poised to go over the brink with us). It’s not just about how they and their constituents feel about things, and unfortunately they have very powerful resistance to learning, ever, how wrong they are.
Part of the problem is that a significant part of their ideology involves rejection of the idea that experience is valuable. This is a common populist fallacy, of course, but it’s particularly malignant in this case, in terms of its effect on the world. People who go to Washington — or Columbia, or wherever — and study issues and come to understandings different from the prejudices they had originally… are considered sellouts, under this ideology. Such people who embrace larger responsibilities are not wiser in this view; they are corrupted.
Another obstacle is that this ideology is particularly nihilistic toward what happens to the world at large, as long as the ideology is served.
This makes it very dangerous for people with such a worldview to hold office. Oh, it’s not so bad to have one or two of these anti-Mr. Smiths at the table (Mr. Smith went to Washington to make the world a better place; these guys go to Washington to tell the world to go to hell). Unfortunately, the party that now holds a momentary (and at my age, I consider two-year cycles to be “momentary”) majority in the House knows that it holds that tenuous power because of the knot of such people in its midst. And is held hostage by it.
Speaking of “hostage,” did you see that performance by Boehner last night? He was like the prisoner forced to recite the propaganda with an AK-47 pointed at his head just off-camera. The only think lacking in his performance was the blinked Morse code (or maybe it was there; I don’t read Morse) saying “I don’t really believe this stuff; I just have to say it.” But his tone and body language did that. The performance brought to mind all those meetings I read about in which Boehner was the Soviet commanding officer caught in the middle, trying to do the right thing, and Eric Cantor was the sneering zampolit, ready to report him to the Central Committee for the slightest lack of revolutionary zeal.
Obama, by contrast, was more convincing last night. Part of that was pure talent. I’m not accustomed to watching Boehner, but I doubt that he’s nearly the orator Obama is. Almost no one is, particularly at communicating sober conviction.
I heard some commentary on the radio (NPR) this morning that said neither man gave America what it wanted last night — a way out — but simply acted as apologist for his own side’s position.
I suppose that’s true. But Obama’s position is the defensible one. He wants cuts and revenue increases, which is what a rational person who is not blinded by ideology would choose. Neither is what said rational person would want. Until the economy is ticking along a lot more strongly, both spending cuts and tax increases could have a chilling effect.
But here’s the thing: NOT getting control of our mounting debt, under these circumstances, would have a much worse effect. It’s not just about raising the debt ceiling. If you do that, and don’t reduce the gap between spending and revenue, we’re still likely to have a devastating downgrade of the nation’s credit rating. And we can’t afford that.
To let one’s natural reluctance to cut spending or raise taxes get in the way of dealing with that would be unconscionable. And letting a narrow ideology (particularly one that holds that it is ALWAYS right to do one and NEVER right to do the other, regardless of circumstances, which is the height of foolishness — but I guess that’s a workable definition of ideology) get in the way is much, much worse.
Former Utah governor Jon Huntsman’s (R) presidential campaign manager, Susie Wiles, is resigning and will be replaced by communications director Matt David, according to the campaign.
Huntsman is announcing the changes to his staff at a meeting this afternoon. Top adviser John Weaver confirmed the changes to The Fix.
“Susie has served the campaign well and was vital in getting it off the ground in such a short time-frame,” Weaver said in a statement provided by the campaign. “In just under three months, Governor Huntsman has returned from China, launched a campaign and created a strong infrastructure in the three early primary states. He’s built important relationships with donors, as well as political, policy and grassroots leaders that other candidates have been courting for half a decade.
High-level staff departures early in a presidential campaign are generally not seen as a good thing, but thus far, Wiles is the only known departure from Huntsman’s team. (Another staffer recently took a leavefor personal reasons.)
The campaign did not expound on the reason for Wiles’s departure. Weaver said the campaign is simply shifting gears…
The thing I’ve thought about is this: Who in the world would want to work on a political campaign?
OK, that’s not quite what I mean… I know lots of people who DO work on campaigns, and who do little else. So the answer to the “who” is easy. But I’ve always sort of wondered about them, and marveled at them.
They mystified me more back when I had a long-time steady job. I just could not imagine anyone deliberately taking a job with such little job security — back when I had been working for the same company for 24 years, with good pay and benefits, and intended to stay until retirement.
Now, I’ve had more experience with the ad hoc lifestyle, and it’s not as scary as I always figured it would be. I see how someone can get used to it. I still don’t see choosing it.
Even if you really, really believed in a candidate… even if that was the only candidate in the world you would work for, and you were willing to give up all the comforts of a steady job in order to help that person get elected… it still sort of befuddles me.
There are problems with the whole campaign-staff career, as I see it, both from the perspective of the staffer, and from the perspective of those of us who want a healthy republic:
Lousy job security, in the sense that the “firm” for which you work — the campaign — is an extremely volatile enterprise. It could become essential to the success of the enterprise (or perceived as essential, which amounts to the same thing) for you to be fired at any moment. And there will be little warning, if any. One day, you’re fine. Next day something erupts that makes in impossible for you to stay.
Even worse job security, in the sense that even if things go well and you don’t get fired, the job only lasts a few months. Yeah, you might get hired by the newly elected official if things go really well and he or she wins, but that’s dicey. That’s like counting on getting hired when your boss moves on to another company. Could happen. Might not. Just as likely, you’re going to be looking for another campaign to work on the day after Election Day.
Once or twice in a lifetime, if you’re lucky, you’ll get to work for a candidate you really, truly believe in (unless you’re pretty indiscriminate). And it won’t last long.
You will probably have to associate yourself, permanently, with one of the political parties. This wouldn’t be a drawback for a lot of people — obviously is not a drawback for the people who actual do this for a living — but it certainly would be for me (speaking as a guy who’s had occasion to think of it since leaving the newspaper biz). The kinds of people who do the hiring for campaigns may run across an independent who is really knowledgeable about issues and politics and messaging and the rest, and really believes in the candidate individually, but they are not likely to hire such a person because there’s a long line of loyal party people wanting the job.
Finally, the big drawback to society of all of the above… It’s bad enough that politicians have trouble leading normal lives. It would be great if they could have some people around them who DO live normal, workaday lives in the regular economy and therefore have a deep, personal, working understanding of regular voters and their concerns. But for the reasons I cited above, the fraternity of people likely to work on a campaign and be in the best position to advise the candidate tend to be rather insular. (By the way, the newspaper industry is the same way — ever since afternoon newspapers died, newspapermen and -women have tended to be people who all work weird hours and therefore mostly associate only with people like themselves. Which is not good, in terms of staying in close touch with the community.)
It would be great if some of you folks who do this for a living, or at least have taken time out from the rest of life to work for pay on a campaign, would weigh in and enlighten us on this. I know there are quite a few of you who read this blog.
I don’t go in for blasphemy, which means I don’t like it when politicians (usually conservatives) claim to be tighter with God than other people, or when critics (usually liberals) make fun of them for it. I especially, speaking from my own brand of conservatism, don’t like it when people presume to put words in God’s mouth.
But I must confess to you, my brothers and sisters, that I did find the point brought up by The Onion here at least worth discussing:
July 21, 2011 | ISSUE 47•29
AUSTIN, TX—Describing Texas Gov. Rick Perry as grossly unqualified for the position, God, the Creator and Ruler of the Universe, urged Perry not to run for president of the United States Wednesday. “I prayed last night and asked the Lord to support my candidacy, and He said no,” Perry told reporters outside the Texas Capitol, explaining that God had cited the governor’s rejection of federal stimulus funds to expand state jobless benefits, his irresponsible speculation about Texas seceding from the union, and his overall lack of concrete solutions to nation’s problems as reasons why He could not endorse a Perry presidential bid. “I believe God made some valid points about my lack of credentials, and He’s absolutely right. My extreme beliefs when it comes to social issues and states’ rights are not only disturbingly narrow-minded, but would also make me a horrible president.” When reached for comment, God said He would not be present at Perry’s much-talked-about Christian day of prayer on Aug. 6, calling the governor’s use of his public office to endorse a religion both “irresponsible” and a violation of the Constitution.
OK, it’s not as funny or creative as some Onion stuff. I’ll confess that, too. I think they sort of called this one in. They thought, “Somebody needs to make this point, and it might as well be us.” What keeps it from being brilliant is that the writer couldn’t resist making serious points, and even doing it in a sort of preachy manner.
But hey, I thought that referring you to it would be one way of bringing up the topic of Perry suggesting that he is on a mission from God. So we could discuss it.
Personally, I don’t think God wants to get involved in the Perry candidacy one way or the other. I am, of course, not positive about that. I could ask Him, in order to make sure, but I really don’t like to bother Him with stuff like that.
Cindi had a good column today on the subject of arbitrary caps and limits and pledges and the like. There are a number of good things to get out of it.
The first is the fact that Jon Huntsman is the only Republican presidential candidate who has refused to sign Jim DeMint’s Cut, Cap and Whatever pledge — which apparently irritates our junior senator no end.
Jim is all like, “I won’t support any candidate who does not support balancing the budget. … So for me, he’s out.”
Which ignores reality, of course. It doesn’t occur to Jim (or at least, he lets on that it doesn’t occur to him, on account of amassing personal political power now being the most important thing to him, judging by his actions) that a guy could be for a balanced budget amendment (which Huntsman is) and not want to kowtow to him by signing his pledge. For that matter, just to go way deeper into territory that Jim DeMint would find impossible to imagine, one can be for, very passionately for, a balanced budget — and yet not favor a constitutional amendment mandating it.
Personally, I’m ambivalent about the amendment thing. A balanced budget should be standing operating procedure, except in times of full-mobilization war and other serious emergencies. But that should be an annual decision by Congress, not a mechanism. Whether we’ve reached the point that we have to throw out that process is not yet entirely clear to me. Maybe we have. I’m just not sure.
That aside, though, there’s a bigger point here — a point even bigger than the national debt. It goes to the heart of representative democracy:
But there’s an important principle involved as well: Pledging to do or not do anything important is an abdication of elected officials’ duty to examine the issues before them and make their own decisions on behalf of their constituents. And it makes it impossible for officials to govern in a changing world. Imagine the pledges some politicians might have signed before 9/11 — and how that could have prevented them from taking necessary actions to protect our nation after the attacks “changed everything.”
Yes! Yes! YESSSS!!! (Waiter, I’ll have what he’s having…) Continuing…
When you sign away your right to consider all your options, when you are bound by uninformed opinions, when you take directions from people whose primary purpose is to maintain power and defeat those who don’t think exactly as they do, rather than taking advantage of different points of view to come up with the best solutions, then you can’t even imagine the complex solutions to our state’s interwoven ills, much less enact them.
Sounds like Cindi was listening all those years, huh? Not that she couldn’t have come up with all those thoughts on her own. Come to think of it, maybe it was me listening to her…
All day, I’ve meant to write a post about the debt battle in Washington, and haven’t found the time, and now Steve Benjamin has gotten out ahead of me. This just in:
Dear Friends,
Today I’d like to take a moment and talk with you about an issue of critical importance.
Right now, whether broadcast on our nightly news, echoing through the halls of Congress, or debated and discussed over kitchen counters and coffee tables across America, our entire country is immersed in a great conversation about budget deficits, debt limits, and our national priorities.
As Mayor, I am no stranger to this conversation. In fact, it was not that long ago that Columbia’s future was so unsure that Moody’s Investor Service assigned the city’s credit rating with a negative outlook questioning our ability to right the ship and stabilize operations.
But we took action and, by working together, we made the tough choices. We streamlined our operations. We saved taxpayers over $1 million by removing unnecessary budget vacancies. We increased oversight, installed new financial safeguards and we rewarded employees for being more efficient.
It wasn’t easy. But through hard work and sacrifice we improved our credit rating in record time and finished this fiscal year with a $3 million budget surplus.
We made the tough choices just as local governments across America have, by putting the public good ahead of political ambition. Now, with the August 2nd default deadline only weeks away, we expect our federal government to do the same.
We need to put our nation’s fiscal house in order so that we can move forward with investments in our infrastructure and communities that lay a foundation for future economic growth and prosperity.
The United States must pay its bills. Failure is not an option.
The consequence of default or delay would mean military salaries, Social Security and Medicare benefits would go unpaid while cost of our national debt would grow as would the cost of carrying that debt.
Everything from your home mortgage to your car loan and credit cards would cost more while your 401(k) and college savings account would be worth less.
Our fragile economic recovery would come to a halt and we would come face to face with the very real prospect of another recession, longer and deeper than the one before.
We cannot afford to simply kick the can down the road. We must believe in what is possible and overcome the challenges before us.
But in the midst of this challenge, I see reasons to be hopeful.
I see President Obama and Vice-President Biden working across the aisle with men like Speaker John Boehner and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell to find a bipartisan solution.
I see a movement to close special interest tax loopholes so we all pay our fair share and shoulder this burden together.
I see a commitment to entitlement reform and a framework to make Medicare and Medicaid stronger and more efficient without shifting the cost of care to seniors and those with disabilities.
I see real progress being made and, beyond the shouts of hecklers and cynics, I still believe.
I still believe we can still do big things. I still believe we can make a real difference. I still believe we can overcome the challenges before us because I still believe in America.
The time to act is now. Call your Congressman and Senator today. Tell them it’s time to protect Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. Tell them it’s time to protect our future. Tell them it’s time to stand up against the special interests and for the American people.
Tell them to act now and raise the debt ceiling before time runs out.
Last evening I tried to post on Twitter, and for some reason (probably the fitful Internet connection at my house, which is why I’m about to change providers), it did not transmit. I found it in drafts this morning:
As you can see from the links (which illustrate an advantage of this medium over Twitter), all of those petty political potshots were fired on Monday.
One of them is out of place. Yes, for some reason, Dick Harpootlian is not content to sit back while Republicans tear each other apart. He is joining in, and attacking one of them in particular.
A couple of weeks ago, I asked Dick why Huntsman? Is it because that’s the Republican he fears the most? The one who might be a threat to Obama in the general election, if he can get past the extremists in his own party? Does he feel a particular responsibility as the Democratic chair in the first-in-the-South primary state to stop him here?
Dick said no. But his actions say otherwise.
Yesterday, I received three separate emails from Dick about Huntsman — the first two telling me, then reminding me, that Dick would have a conference call about Huntsman at 2:30. I missed the call, because I was tied up after the Haley appearance at Rotary. But no fear. Dick summarized his message in this release:
Harpootlian calls Jon Huntsman disloyal and disingenuous.
Columbia, S.C. – South Carolina Democratic Party Chair Dick Harpootilan held a conference call today to welcome Jon Huntsman back to South Carolina.
During the opening of the call, Harpootlian discussed Huntsman’s support for Rep. Paul Ryan’s radical revision to Medicare. In response to Huntsman’s comment on his support, “[If Ryan’s plan is radical] then guilty as charged”, Harpootlian replied:
“He supports a plan that would double the out-of-pocket Medicare expenses to those who are younger than 55, but yet, the taxpayers are paying for the subsides of his private jet, every time he turns it on.”
Finally, when asked if he thought Huntsman was President Obama’s biggest threat on the Republican ticket, Harpootlian responded:
“Here’s a guy who had his lips firmly planted on the president’s butt three months ago, and now is speaking ill out of ’em out of those same lips. Can you trust a guy who turns this quickly? He is somebody who apparently will say whatever it takes to get elected. Huntsman, not only is he disingenuous, he’s disloyal.”
# # #
Of course, that “lips firmly planted on the president’s butt” phrase is classic Dick, but it’s interesting to note that if he can get Republican primary voters to hear it, it will resonate with their Obama Derangement tendencies.
Between the last time Dick went after Huntsman and this time, I don’t recall him going after any other particular Republican candidate so specifically (it’s possible that he did in passing and I missed it in the flow of my IN box, but I know he didn’t go to this much trouble to attack them). It will be interesting to see whether he does so subsequently.
No, this is not a reference to the report that terrorists are now planning to board planes with surgically-implanted bombs — although we can talk about that if you’d like.
I was just facetiously invoking Tom Wolfe’s characterization of the hysteria in this country when Sputnik went up. I don’t think any politician actually said “the Soviets would send up space platforms from which they could drop nuclear bombs at will, like rocks from a highway overpass,” but I enjoyed Wolfe’s hyperbolic description of the concerns of House Speaker John McCormack.
The last U.S. space shuttle is scheduled to blast off Friday. After that, the U.S. and other nations will rely on vintage Russian spacecraft to ferry their astronauts to the $100 billion station. Russia will hold a monopoly over manned spaceflight, and tensions already are rising. The Russians are in the process of nearly tripling the cost of using their Soyuz crew capsules for transport to the orbiting base, and other countries have little choice but to pay up.
“We are not in a very comfortable situation, and when I say uncomfortable, that is a euphemism,” said Jean-Jacques Dordain, director general of the European Space Agency, one of five international agencies that jointly manage the orbiting laboratory. “We made a collective mistake.”
While there is less chance today of our going to sleep “by the light of a communist moon” (as LBJ warned), I still find this development disturbing.
I miss the halcyon days when this country did exciting stuff in space (and the Shuttle, essentially a space bus driving around the block, never quite qualified). I’m ready for Mars.
John O'Connor, looking all self-conscious at the Capital City Club this morning, on account of someone taking his picture. I need to come up with a sneakier way to do that.
More than 2,200 Twitter followers have been sorry to hear that John O’Connor is leaving The State. But they needn’t worry. He’ll keep Tweeting. He just might have to change his avatar.
John is moving to Tampa to work for NPR. The really cool thing about this is that it’s a new initiative. Not many journalists get to plow new ground. Oh, sure, there are thousands of us blogging and Tweeting away out here. What I mean is, not many of us get to try something new and get a steady paycheck for it.
NPR is hiring people to cover specific issues on the state level. John will be covering education in Florida. The emphasis will be on computer-assisted reporting — lots of number-crunching, to measure what is working and what isn’t. Florida has the reputation nationally of being willing to try anything, and it has: vouchers, charter schools, teacher evaluations (which may or may not be connected to merit pay; I’m not sure), and so forth. Currently, it’s doing all these things under one of the most unpopular governors in the country, so it’s quite a political stew. Although John will be concentrating more on the policy and the numbers than on the politics.
This will mean a lot of people (even more, he hopes) will continue to follow his Tweets, since the nation watches Florida on education policy. He will probably still have something to say occasionally about SC, since he’s been here for eight years and has been at the middle of so much here, covering the State House.
John will supplement his radio reports with a blog, which I will make sure to add to my blogroll as soon as it’s up and running.
He’s really pumped about the new opportunity, not least because the Orioles train in Sarasota (John’s from Baltimore). I look forward to watching him have great success in this cool new endeavor.
In case you wondered — Adam Beam (another of The State’s most aggressive users of social media) is moving from City Hall to cover John’s State House beat. And veteran Clif LeBlanc is taking Adam’s place covering the city.
Today I’d like to take a moment and talk with you about an issue of critical importance.
