I’ve often been accused of being a Bush-hater. True enough, on everything from foreign policy to spending to health care to farm subsidies to energy policy, my disagreements with the former president do run deep.
In that light, may I offer my congratulations to Brewers pitcher Dave Bush (no relation), who today took a no-hitter into the 8th inning against the defending World Series champion Philadelphia Phillies.
That’s a Bush I can cheer for!
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Posted in Political Animals, Sports
Rick Wagoner is stepping down, apparently on White House orders.
New leadership may well be a good move for GM. But that is a decision for GM’s board and shareholders to make. They have years of auto industry experience.
They also have a vested stake in the matter. If they fail, they lose the shirts off their backs. They have all the incentive in the world to choose wisely.
President Obama and the Presidential Task Force on Autos have none of these advantages.
Their line of thinking seems to be that GM is not fit to run itself. Given GM’s recent performance, they may well be right.
But how on earth does that imply that Washington can do better? The logic just doesn’t follow.
This mindset is arrogance. It is hubris.
Worse, it is poison to an already ailing economy.
(Cross-posted at Open Market)
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Posted in Economics, Political Animals
Comments Off on The World’s Greatest Deliberative Body
Posted in General Foolishness, Political Animals
President Obama stuck up for his embattled Treasury Secretary last night on Leno. He assured the nation that Timothy Geithner is doing an “outstanding job.”
Could this be the “Heck of a job, Brownie” moment that seals Geithner’s fate?
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Posted in Political Animals, Predicting the Future
My Congressman, Jim Moran, has a penchant for pork; I’d rather he didn’t. The omnibus bill that Congress recently passed contains $53 million of Rep. Moran’s goodies. The list is here.
Perhaps “goodies” is a misnomer. Some of the projects are better handled by state and local governments. There’s no need for federal involvement in, say, Gang Prevention Services in Alexandria ($250,000), or restoring the Jones Point Lighthouse ($640,000).
$53 million may be less than a rounding error in today’s spending bills — not to mention deficits.. It’s still a lot of money. If it were left in the hands of taxpayers to spend as they see fit, who knows how many jobs would be created? $53 million can support a lot of livelihoods.
Instead, Rep. Moran sees pork projects as vote-getters. We’ll never know what might have been. Similar stories are playing out in districts across the country.
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Posted in Earmarks, Economics, Political Animals
Will and Ariel Durant are two of my favorite writers. Perceptive, pithy, and always eloquent, they only rose in my esteem when they described democracy as merely “a count of noses after a contest of words.” (The Age of Napoleon, p. 286)
Couldn’t have said it better myself.
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Posted in Great Thinkers, Pith, Political Animals, The Partisan Mind
Tagged ariel durant, democracy, the age of napoleon, will durant
Hugo Chavez kicked a diplomat out of Venezuela for calling him a “dictator.”
Only a dictator would deport a man for calling him names.
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Posted in International, Political Animals
It’s well established by now that the stimulus won’t be stimulating much of anything.
Turns out one sector of the economy is better off – the lobbying industry. The Hill reports:
After a tough 2008 in which revenues at top firms fell, the stimulus package has been a boon to K Street’s economy. Hundreds of firms, companies and trade groups registered to lobby on the recovery package this January, usually a sleepy month in Washington.
Good for them, I guess. Too bad for the rest of us.
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Posted in Economics, Political Animals, Stimulus
Reps. Darrell Issa and Patrick McHenry write that the census should be free of politics, and I completely agree. Life would be better if most things were free of politics.
Wishing won’t make it so, sadly. The census determines House seat redistricting. It also helps direct where billions of dollars worth of federal goodies are spent.
The census allocates power and money, in other words. Of course it’s going to be politicized!
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Posted in Political Animals
Tagged census, darrel issa, issa, mchenry, patrick mc henry
CEI’s Wayne Crews occasionally bestows “Least Objectionable Legislator” awards when Congress critters do good things. I have two nominations of my own, one Democratic and one Republican.
The Democrat is Rep. Jim Cooper of Tennessee. At a previous job I had the opportunity to occasionally work with him and his staff. I found him to be more open-minded than most partisans, and more willing to buck his party leadership when he thinks they are in the wrong.
He gets his award for his recent remarks about the stimulus. President Obama wants a “clean” bill, meaning free of earmarks and other trickery; the House version of the stimulus is decidedly unclean.
Rep. Cooper has publicly taken Obama’s side, and voted against the bill. Leadership is furious. He is sticking to his guns, possibly at great professional cost. Well done, Rep. Cooper.
The Republican nominee is Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma. He has been a thorn in the side of both parties for years. Not only is he adamantly anti-pork, he is crafty enough to use Senate rules to make his point as irksomely as possible.
Sen. Coburn also co-sponsored the bi-partisan Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006 with then-Sen. Obama. It created USAspending.gov, which attempts to make it easier for the public to track where federal taxpayer dollars are spent.
The stimulus contains the largest earmark ever: $2 billion for FutureGen Industrial Alliance, Inc, of Illinois. Recall that the “Bridge to Nowhere” earmark that led to the end of Sen. Ted Stevens’ career cost barely one tenth that.
Sen. Coburn has offered an amendment to eliminate this earmark from the bill. But that’s not all. Another Coburn amendment “would prohibit any funding provided by the stimulus bill to be spent on casinos, museums, golf courses, stadiums, parks, or highway beautification projects.” The stimulus is supposed to create jobs; such projects don’t.
Coburn’s amendments usually fail. I expect the same fate of these latest Coburn amendments. But at least he’s trying; most members couldn’t be bothered.
Congratulations, Rep. Cooper and Sen. Coburn. Keep up the good work.
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Posted in Earmarks, Political Animals, Stimulus
Inertia Wins! 