Yesterday I posted about Sen. Claire McCaskill’s proposal to legislate a maximum salary. Simple economic logic shows it to be a bad idea.
This bad idea also gets 92% support in a CNN.com poll. Sen. McCaskill must be smarter than I thought.
And far more cynical.
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Posted in Economics, Political Animals, Price and Wage Controls
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.
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Posted in Executive Power, Great Thinkers, International, Political Animals, Uncategorized
Tagged hernando de soto
The House stimulus vote did not contain a single Republican “yes” vote. Andy Roth thinks that “Democrats now ‘own’ this massive spending bill.”
Maybe the public will see it that way. If they do, that would be a coup for Republicans, akin to the Clinton health care debacle in 1994. If they succeed in labeling Democrats as the bigger-spending party, they’ll probably gain seats in 2010.
All this political maneuvering got me thinking. The Republicans’ main selling point is that Democrats are unfit to govern. They’re right.
The Democrats’ main selling point is that Republicans are unfit to govern. They’re right, too.
Sometimes I think it’s a real shame that elections have to have a winner.
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Posted in Elections, Political Animals, Stimulus, The Partisan Mind
Tagged 2010 election, andy roth, clinton, democrat, election, election 2010, hillarycare, republican
“We have a bunch of idiots on Wall Street that are kicking sand in the face of the American taxpayer,” says Sen. Claire McCaskill.
One could level the same charge at Congress; but I digress.
Sen. McCaskill was talking about her new bill. It would cap salaries at companies that take bailout money. In a nice bit of symbolism, Wall Street executives would be allowed to earn no more than President Obama’s salary.
Now, suppose that you’re a talented executive who specializes in rehabilitating poorly performing companies. A turnaround artist. Why would you go someplace that would only pay you $400,000? You’ll work somewhere else. The companies that need top talent the most wouldn’t be able to attract it. To do so would be illegal.
Somehow, I don’t see Sen. McCaskill’s legislation helping ailing companies. Or the jobs they provide.
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Posted in Economics, Political Animals, Price and Wage Controls
Tim Geithner was confirmed as Treasury Secretary today. He’s been dealing with a scandal lately over unpaid taxes. That’s probably why the Senate’s confirmation vote for him was the narrowest for a Treasury Secretary in over 60 years.
Here’s what’s troubling. I haven’t heard a peep about Geithner’s stances on the issues, or his qualifications for the job. This despite being a bona fide news-hound.
What does Geithner plan to do as Treasury Secretary? Who knows? All we hear is unpaid taxes this, unpaid taxes that. Who cares! Of course he should pay what he owes. It’s a good way to stay out of jail.
But late tax payments have little to do with whether or not Geithner is a good fit for his new job.
That’s the kind of news I’d like to see. How sad that that’s precisely the kind of coverage that would lose the ratings race, and hence we do not see.
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Posted in Media, Political Animals, The Partisan Mind
Maybe President Obama really does believe that he can change Washington. Let us laud his intentions while smiling at his naivete. He’ll learn.
His first learning experience is happening right now. Obama has pledged that his stimulus package would be pork-free. All $825 billion of it.
But Washington does not work that way. President Obama’s earmark ban is only one more rule for lobbyists to circumvent; rules are made to be broken. This morning the AP reports that lobbyists are quick learners.
Washington’s Iron Triangle works like a balloon. President Obama is pushing down on one end of it. But the amount of air inside stays the same; it simply moves to the other end of the balloon.
Obama’s earmark ban may actually have an unintended negative consequence. Earmarks won’t go through the usual channels, where it’s easy to keep an eye on them. They will be forced underground. Less transparent. More secretive.
In this case, banning pork could mean more pork. A paradox. But it’s how Congress works.
Good luck to you, President Obama, in your fight against earmarks. You’ll need it. Just don’t expect very much to, ahem, change.
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Posted in Earmarks, Political Animals, Spending
Reason‘s Nick Gillespie asks: “Can somebody invent a machine capable of fully measuring the disaster that was the Bush presidency?”
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Posted in Political Animals
This blog has a dim view of politicians. But intellectual integrity demands that we give praise where due, as well as criticism. And the Obama administration certainly seems to be putting its best foot forward in its opening days.
Not only is Guantanamo Bay shutting down, but President Obama has made a few other positive moves on government openness and some of the Bush administration’s civil liberties shortcomings. Radley Balko details them here and here.
More, please.
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Posted in Political Animals, Security Theater
There is a great deal of romance in politics. Why else would we spend $170 million on an inauguration? H.L. Mencken had a more sober view of political animals. They are rarely chosen for their merit, or their stances on the issues of the day. The successful candidate actively avoids such things in his speeches. No:
“They are chosen normally for quite different reasons, the chief of which is simply their power to impress and enchant the intellectually underprivileged. It is a talent like any other… [B]ut it is obviously not identical with a capacity for the intricate problems of statecraft.”A Mencken Chrestomathy, pp. 148-49.
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Posted in Elections, Great Thinkers, Political Animals
Tagged a mencken chrestomathy, h.l. mencken, henry louis mencken, mencken
President-elect Obama became President Obama today. It is worth taking a minute to reflect on the nature of his office. Exactly what has he gotten himself into?
Good men rarely become president. Good people don’t even want to be president. Once in a while, one slips through the cracks. George Washington. Abraham Lincoln. Grover Cleveland (not kidding). Maybe Barack Obama will be added to that list some day. It’s too early to tell.
I have some doubts. Here’s why: becoming president requires years of campaigning and fundraising, handshaking and deal-making — no one can possibly endure the modern campaign unless they thirst for power to their very core.
Campaigning for even minor office requires months of the candidate prostrating himself before people he’s never met. Making grand promises he couldn’t possibly keep. The things that must do to his mind. Especially if he starts buying his own hype.
Our candidate must hide his true beliefs. 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 embarks on the modern campaign has neither.
And the media coverage. The spotlight so bright that it burns. Unkempt reporters always scurrying underfoot. Never a moment to yourself on the campaign trail.
Worse, the strain it puts on your family. Long weeks of separation. Unflattering exposés, revealing your relatives’ personal lives for millions to see.
Good people do not do that to their families.
Nor do good people seek 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.
Yet it is the morality that men must follow to become president.
Politicians are terrible little creatures. May our children aspire to greater things than the presidency.
Posted in Elections, Philosophy, Political Animals
Inertia Wins! 