Grasping for Feathers

I've been trying to think of a good metaphor for the Obama Administration's economic policy. From bailouts (which in fairness began under the Bush Administration, but has been perfected over the past three months), to wild spending on who-knows-what, to the latest outrage where the president literally fired the CEO of General Motors (cementing the socialist direction in which they are taking the nation)... well, it leaves one wanting for a suitable metaphor.

My first inclination was the imagery of someone throwing darts at a dartboard while blindfolded and basing policy decisions on wherever the dart lands. That seemed too random, though; economic policy hasn't been so much "all over the place" -- there is too much of a common theme for that analogy to apply -- as it has been "everything and the kitchen sink"... which was my second metaphor idea, but it was too unoriginal.

I think the better analogy is from a classic cartoon: Do you recall the Looney Toons cartoon where Sylvester was chasing Tweety, who had gotten into Dr. Jekyll's "Hyde" formula and kept transforming into a large monster-bird? At one point, while Tweety was in "monster" form, he picked Sylvester up in his talons and began flying off with him; however, in mid-flight, he transformed back into Tweety at which point he was no longer able to carry Sylvester's weight. Terrified of falling, Sylvester begins grasping at Tweety's tail feathers, trying to get enough feathers in his hands to flap as wings to break his fall (remember this is a cartoon). Needless to say, he wasn't very successful.

This is the image that I have of the Obama Administration. They are grasping at every policy that they can get their hands on, regardless of cost, and regardless of whether or not it has a snowball's chance of actually working. It seems that they have believed their own rhetoric about "the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression" to the point that they are nearly in a panic. (As I have said before, just how bad the current recession will be remains to be seen, but regardless, the Chicken Little mentality is far from helpful.) Of course, it also affords them the chance to trot out every big-government program that Washington liberals have wanted to enact for the past thirty years. Even some European leaders, hardly known for their laissez-fair capitalist tendencies, are beginning to look askance at the furious rate at which the president is transforming our economy into a state-run enterprise.

Nonetheless, I stand by my analogy: When it comes to economic policy, the Obama Administration is grasping for feathers.

Federalism Repealed?

I got home from the gym the other night just in time to hear President Obama repeal federalism. Okay, maybe, hopefully, that is an exaggeration. But consider the following from President Obama's speech before a joint session of Congress -- to put it in context, he was speaking of maintaining accountability as to how the funds authorized under the "stimulus" package are spent:

I have told each member of my Cabinet as well as mayors and governors across the country that they will be held accountable by me and the American people for every dollar they spend. I have appointed a proven and aggressive Inspector General to ferret out any and all cases of waste and fraud.

First of all, this underscores the reservations coming from governors and state legislatures regarding the strings attached to the "stimulus" money going to the states. The broader implication however seems to be that mayors and state governors work for the president. They do not; while state governments are subject to certain federal laws under the Supremacy Clause in the Constitution, they are not mere subdivisions of the national government the way that provincial governments are in European countries. The Tenth Amendment was intended to guarantee that states maintain sovereignty over powers not granted to the federal government by the Constitution. This was intended to provide a check on the power of the national government. This has been substantially weakened over the course of the past 190 years, but liberals in Washington seem bent on finishing off the job. Finally, a number of states are beginning to buck. The language is that of nullification.

Nullification is the doctrine that states can declare a federal law to be unconstitutional and therefore declare that law to be null and void. The Framers saw nullification as a valid means of checking federal power. Consider the following thought from James Madison, considered to be the "Father of the Constitution", as stated in Federalist #46:

...should an unwarrantable measure of the federal government be unpopular in particular States... or even a warrantable measure be so... the means of opposition to it are powerful and at hand. The disquietude of the people; their repugnance and, perhaps, refusal to co-operate with the officers of the Union; the frowns of the executive magistracy of the State; the embarrassments created by legislative devices, which would often be added on such occasions, would oppose, in any State, difficulties not to be despised... [emphasis added].

Greenville Tea Party

The Upstate Young Republicans sponsored a "Tea Party" yesterday in Greenville, South Carolina. Here are the pictures that someone posted to Flickr. I hope we will see more events like this, and more importantly, I hope that the American people remain opposed to the creeping (or not so creeping) socialism coming out of Washington these days in the name of "saving" the economy.

Crusades vs. Communism

The other day, I heard for about the 1,000,000th time that "more people have been killed by religion than by anything else", with the usual citation of the Crusades and the Spanish Inquisition. I will not presume to undertake a comprehensive review of history here, particularly when it comes to comparing the death toll attributable to all of the world's religions. But since these two examples are so often cited, I decided to look into the number of casualties resulting from these two tragic events.

Records are not very good from these periods, so exact numbers are hard to come by. However, estimated casualties from the Crusades number around 200,000 over the space of about 200 years. The number of people killed in the Inquisition are estimated to range between 3,000 and 5,000.

Communism, noted for its elevation of atheism as the "state religion", is believed to be responsible for the deaths of a minimum of 40 million people between 1900-1987.

I'm just saying....

Stimulating Spending (and little else)

The Obama spending plan has been passed. The sheer size of this monstrosity should raise eyebrows; even more so when one considers the hodgepodge of new spending contained within it, and the amount by which it will run up our national debt.

The thing with this "stimulus" bill is that, despite the sales job coming from the White House and congressional leaders, many items contained in the bill have nothing to do with stimulating the economy. Even some parts that seem to be more suited for true economic stimulus are probably not going to have the desired impact. Transportation, for example, is typically a good investment, because it builds infrastructure, which expands future productivity. However, a good portion, probably most, of the spending on transportation in this bill is aimed at repairing existing roads and bridges. This is not a bad thing in and of itself; we of course found out through the tragic bridge collapse in Minneapolis that our highway infrastructure is well overdue for repair. However, so far as economic stimulus, the long-term impact comes from expanding infrastructure, not simply from repairing it. So, while repairing highways and bridges is a good thing, its impact on the economy will likely be a short-term boost from the immediate jobs created through the construction projects themselves, with little effect on the nation's long-term productivity.

However, substantial portions of the bill have little or nothing to do with economic stimulus, but are rather a wish-list of programs that liberals had been looking for a chance to implement. For example, $20 billion for digitizing health records will have no stimulative effect on the economy whatsoever, and even if electronic health records do generate benefits for patients, this change in policy should have been considered on its own merits rather than hidden in a massive spending bill that was ramrodded through Congress with little time for examination by legislators. Likewise, preventive care is very important, but the $4 billion allocated should have been considered in another bill; it simply has nothing whatsoever to do with stimulating the economy. $650 million for digital converter boxes (the DTV transition coupon program) and over $1 billion for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA) are two more examples.

Granted, the bill does contain tax incentives for improving the nation's electrical grid and investing in new energy technology, as well as some tax cuts for families. If the bill had focused squarely on these types of provisions, particularly those aimed at stimulating private investment which is what leads to job creation, it could have had a much smaller price tag and have had a far better chance of actually stimulating the economy. As it is, the massive debt threatens to crowd out private investment and drive up long-term interest rates, and the massive spending will doubtless create significant inflation. Hopefully, the economy will actually start recovering before all of this kicks in (as is often the case with government stimulus programs -- there is a substantial lag between policy implementation and the manifestation of its effects in the economy), but what we have sacrificed with this exercise in exuberance is our future productivity.

See? It's Not Just Me!

Why This Recession Seems Worse Than '70s and '80s

Kudos, Lindsey Graham

Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) deserves a big pat on the back for his speaking out against the pork-laden "stimulus" bill that the Democratic congress is attempting to foist on the American people. When Senator Graham was questioned by Senator Boxer (D-CA) on whether he ever so vociferously opposed the Bush Administration when they sent a bill "twice as big as this one", his reply was a home run. (BTW, as unrestrained as spending was under the Bush Administration, this pork-fest outweighs any single item that came out in the past eight years.)

See the video here.