Entries categorized as ‘Executive Power’
September 16, 2009 · 1 Comment
People are often surprised to hear how similar President Obama’s policies are to President Bush’s. They shouldn’t be. One may be a Republican and the other a Democrat, but make no mistake. Bush and Obama are two peas in a pod.
-Bush signed a $700 billion bank bailout bill. Obama continued the policy. And he extended it to other sectors, such as the automobile industry.
-Bush tried fiscal stimulus twice while in power. With some help from the Bush team, Obama oversaw the largest fiscal stimulus bill in history. There is occasional talk of another.
-Bush started two land wars in Asia. Obama could end them. Instead, he is committing more troops to Afghanistan.
-Bush oversaw Medicare part D, the largest expansion of government’s role in health care since 1965. Obama also would like to expand government’s health care presence.
-And now, we have the PATRIOT Act. The bill was perhaps the largest expansion of executive power in seventy years, and the Bush administration’s signature legislation. Now that Obama has inherited all these cool powers, turns out he likes the PATRIOT Act, too. So he wants to extend some of its expiring provisions.
Predictable. Still disappointing.
Categories: Executive Power · Political Animals · The Partisan Mind
Tagged: bush, civil liberties, Executive Power, national security, obama, patriot act, Security Theater
As so often happens, Gene Healy hits a home run.
On the anniversary of 9/11, what’s clear is that, despite the cliche, September 11th didn’t “change everything.” In the wake of the attacks, various pundits proclaimed “the end of the age of irony” and the dawning of a new era of national unity in the service of government crusades at home and abroad. Eight years later, Americans go about their lives, waiting in restaurant lines, visiting our ”great destination spots,” enjoying themselves free from fear — with our patriotism undiminished for all that. And when we turn to politics, we’re still contentious, fractious, wonderfully irreverent toward politicians, and increasingly skeptical toward their grand plans. In other words, post-9/11 America looks a lot like pre-9/11 America. That’s something to be thankful for on the anniversary of a grim day.
Categories: Executive Power · Political Animals · Security Theater
Tagged: 9/11, 9/11 changed everything, Executive Power, gene healy, presidency, president, september 11
Over at CNN, John Feehery argues that it’s better not to heckle. I agree, but for different reasons.
Feehery’s line of thinking is that the office deserves respect. Holding one’s tongue is a matter of decorum. “The president is the commander-in-chief, the leader of the country, and in many unspoken ways treated as a king.”
Technically, the president is commander-in-chief of the armed forces, and of nothing else. The rest of his job consists of humbly executing the laws given him by the Constitution and the legislature. That’s why it’s called the executive branch.
Feehery, a partisan Republican, here manages to out-conservative Edmund Burke. Royal rhetoric pervades his piece – evidence of how far the presidency has strayed from its intended purpose. The cult of the presidency endures.
Don Boudreaux’s approach to the presidency is more realistic, if less romantic:
[T]he notion that the U.S. presidency is lofty or respectable in any ethically significant sense is ludicrous. As Saul Bellow said about politicians, “they’re a bunch of yo-yos. The presidency is now a cross between a popularity contest and a high school debate, with an encyclopedia of clichés the first prize.”
Hence the real reason to let the president have his say without being heckling him: politicians make themselves look bad far more effectively than any heckler could. He doesn’t need the help. Just take his ideas seriously:
-We can save money by spending $900,000,000,000.
-We can contain costs by isolating people from the costs they incur.
-The Medicare/Medicaid model works. Expand it.
Presidents are unremarkable creatures. Borne of much talent for campaigning and little for governing, more love for power than for principle, and the unyielding belief that they know best, presidents have the worst kind of hubris. This is perhaps their only regal trait.
President Bush thought he could win two simultaneous land wars in Asia, and use military might to build a new nation in Iraq. Hubris.
President Obama thinks he can run the auto, financial, and health care industries at the same time, all while controlling global climate patterns. Hubris.
Feehery is right that President Obama should not have been heckled. If not for the sheer harm his office causes, it would not merit the attention.
Categories: Executive Power · Political Animals
Tagged: burke, cnn, edmund burke, executive branch, heckle, hecklers, heckling, joe wilson, john feehery, monarchist, politicians, presidency, president, rep. joe wilson, royalist
The economist Hernando de Soto, writing about his native Peru in 1989, makes a point that holds true twenty years later and a continent away. Echoes of F.A. Hayek:
“Those who expect things to change simply because rulers with greater determination and executive skills are elected are guilty of a tremendous conceptual error.”
-The Other Path, p. 237.
Categories: Executive Power · Great Thinkers · International · Political Animals · Uncategorized
Tagged: hernando de soto
I laughed when President Bush declared a federal emergency in the District of Columbia because of the inauguration.
Yes, it was only a way to get more funding to the District. More people are in town than expected, and the city needs to maintain order.
It’s still amusing to think of a simple inauguration as a federal emergency.
Now I hear on the tv that tanks are being brought in. Wait, what?
Categories: Elections · Executive Power · Political Animals
Good people generally do not become president. Good people don’t even want to be president.
Why? Power is one reason. There is nothing dignified or noble about seeking power over other human beings.
Morality in politics is that of Thrasymachus in Plato’s Republic: might makes right. No parent would teach that to their child. It is wrong.
The brutal campaigns are the other reason good people shy away from political careers. A successful campaign for even minor office requires months of the candidate prostrating himself before people he’s never met.
He has to tailor his opinions to match the median voter’s. He dares not follow his own heart or mind; he’d lose for sure.
Good people carry themselves with pride and dignity. The man or woman who voluntarily endures the modern campaign has neither.
Pundits started talking years ago about the notion of the “permanent campaign.” It used to be a cynical joke at the expense of a politician whose powerlust was a little too obvious; proper decorum demanded such impulses to be kept below the surface.
Decorum has declined. People who play for the Red Team are already jockeying to position themselves as their team’s nominee. More than three years from now.
The Blue Team already knows who their nominee will be. And he’s already begun campaigning for a second term. His first has not yet even begun.
The Politico’s Ben Smith reports that President Obama has even named his permanent campaign: Organizing for America. This is unprecedented.
Smith describes it as a “potentially hugely, uniquely powerful tool, enhancing the muscle of the official who is already the most powerful man in America.”
Power. Always power. Politicians are terrible little creatures. May our children aspire to better things.
Categories: Elections · Executive Power · Philosophy · Political Animals · Public Choice · The Partisan Mind
Tagged: permanent campaign, plato, the republic, thrasymachus
President-elect Obama has a plan to create 2.5 million jobs over the next two years.
One of his ideas is to install energy-efficient light bulbs in federal office buildings.
In other words, we’re about to find out exactly how many federal employees it takes to screw in a light bulb.
My guess: a lot.
Categories: Economics · Executive Power · General Foolishness · Political Animals
The voters have spoken, and Barack Obama will be the next president. Watching the partisan reactions on both sides has been both amusing and disheartening. It seems as though most people see Obama as either the new messiah, or else the anti-christ.
Not a lot of middle ground out there.
Here at Inertia Wins, we proudly take that middle ground. We believe in skepticism without cynicism; in disagreement without contempt; in conviction without Certainty; and in politics without romance.
From that perspective, here are some predictions for how the Obama presidency will turn out:
-Obama will be a two-term president, though he will be significantly less popular by the time his presidency comes to a close. Stars that burn so bright tend to fade quickly. It will not help Obama that many of the problems with politics-as-usual that he speaks out against are systemic. Even the leader of the free world is powerless against the political process.
-One-party rule will not be good for Democrats. As happened with Republicans during the Bush era, unified government will lead to sclerosis, hubris, and an increase in corruption. Obama will not help; he will not risk angering his party by vetoing bad legislation. Democrats will lose their Congressional majority, probably in 2012. Voters seem to prefer divided government, which is why we’ve had it about two thirds of the time over the last century.
-We will not see a full-fledged nationalization of health care. The government currently spends about 54% of all health care dollars; I expect that figure to rise, but not above about 67%.
-Obama will withdraw most soldiers from Iraq sometime in 2011. Some small peacekeeping forces will remain there more or less permanently, as happened with Korea.
-Obama will ramp up our presence in Afghanistan, and it will not go well. This will contribute to his declining popularity. The U.S. military can fight and win almost any battle, but even they cannot build a nation. That kind of change can only come from within. Like Clinton and both Bushes, Obama will not learn that lesson.
-Taxes and spending will both go up, but not by catastrophic levels. Overall public sector growth will be slightly less than under Bush. That means Obama’s final budget will probably be the nation’s first to to exceed $5 trillion. When divided government returns, Obama will find his veto pen and strike down bad GOP legislation, no matter how similar it is to Democratic legislation. Government growth in Obama’s second term will be sharply lower than under his first term.
Agree? Disagree? Predictions of your own? Comments and emails are always welcome.
Categories: Executive Power · Political Animals · Predicting the Future
Gene Healy, a former colleague, is back from a blogging hiatus.
He has a new book coming out, The Cult of the Presidency: America’s Dangerous Devotion to Presidential Power. The gist of it is that a lot of people think of the President as some kind of national savior and spiritual protector. Think an amalgam of Superman, Jesus Christ, and Santa Claus. Gene thinks those expectations are bit much. He sees a more modest role for the executive branch.
Looks like a good book. It’s certainly timely. All three remaining candidates share grandiose, outsized conceptions of the Presidency.
Categories: Elections · Executive Power · Political Animals
As it has done with presidents of both parties, the Cato Institute has just released a study critical of the president’s consitutional record – Power Surge: The Constitutional Record of George W. Bush (23pp plus footnotes).
Now, as a libertarian who frequents Capitol Hill, a lot of republicans I talk to are skeptical of me because they think I’m liberal, and a lot of liberals won’t talk to me at all because they think I’m conservative. When a libertarian organization publishes something that breaks those conceptions, it’s pretty fun to watch, as Radley Balko points out. Since this new study is critical of a Republican administration, our progressive friends who think libertarians are Republicans are confused, even though they understand and largely agree with the study.
The Daily Kos, probably the biggest and best of the so-called “Angry Left” blogs, posted an excellent summary of the study. The comments are the fun part for me, though. It’s interesting to watch readers’ minds explore the idea that there are political persuasions besides hard left and hard right. A few astute commenters noted that it is possible to hold liberal positions on some issues (anti-war, pro-gay marriage, pro-immigration), conservative opinions on others (lower spending and lower taxes), and be philosophically consistent. In other words, what I call classical liberalism, and what most people call libertarianism.
Hat tip to Radley Balko for bringing the thread to my attention.
Categories: Executive Power · Philosophy · Political Animals · The Partisan Mind
