My Political Alter Ego

The Myth of the Independent Voter

2011-12-23T12:32:00.001-07:00

Richard Wolf at USA Today reported today that the number of Independent voters have declined precipitously since 2008. Examining the registration statistics from more than 20 states, Wolf writes that voters are leaving the two major parties in ‘droves.’

He goes on to suggest that:

The pattern continues a decades-long trend that has seen a diminution in the power of political parties, giving rise to independents as Ross Perot and Ralph Nader and the popularity this year of libertarian Republican Ron Paul.

Wolf goes on to suggest that this trend could impact the 2012 Presidential election in key swing states, including Colorado. Contrary to Wolf’s assertion, however, there is little evidence for a decline in either of the two major parties.

The problem with Wolf’s argument is that the increased number of Independents does not necessarily lead to his conclusions. Indeed, the implicit assumption that most people hold about Independents is that they are unaffected by party ID, which political scientists have long agreed is the core consideration for understanding American voting behavior. That assumption, however, is far from true.

In their important book, The Myth of the Independent Voter, Bruce E. Keith et al. argue that far from being unaffected by party ID, the vast majority of Independent voters are actually closet partisans. By examining polling data gathered by the University of Michigan as part of the American National Election Studies since 1952, they find that even though there has been a remarkable increase in the proportion of Independent voters, most still lean toward one party or the other, so much so that they function essentially like partisans. The number of true Independents, the authors argue, have remained relatively constant throughout the post-World War II period.

Of course, it is impossible for Wolf to know if there has been an increase in true Independent voters or just closet partisans simply by looking at registration statistics. Polling data would be needed to make that kind of conclusion for his newspaper report. Nevertheless, this oversight does diminish the importance of the ‘trend’ identified by Wolf. In fact, the increased polarization of the electorate as well as the ideological “sorting-out” that made conservative almost synonymous with Republican has, if anything, strengthened the influence of political parties and call into question what political scientists call ‘the decline of party thesis.’

It is unlikely, in other words, that the decline in major party registration will have any significant impact on the stability of the two party system in general, let alone the 2012 Presidential election.

Al Sharpton on MSNBC

2011-12-23T10:38:00.001-07:00

I sat down and watched MSNBC yesterday for the first time in months. And, my first foray back into cable news was the tail-end of Al Sharpton’s show, Politics Nation. I was appalled. The show was horrible. Sharpton looked uncomfortable and stiff; he has no charisma in front of the camera, and he stumbled over the words on the teleprompter. The awkwardness Sharpton projected was palpable, and it affected his interactions with his guests.

More than anything else, though, the hallmark of a good cable news host is someone who is articulate and quick witted—two qualities that make Lawrence O’Donnell and Rachel Maddow, for example, so successful. Al Sharpton is neither of those things. He rambled incessantly. His political arguments often amounted to tautologies. He is loud, overly partisan, and his moralistic rhetoric was grating. It was painful to watch.

I don’t know who made the decision to give Sharpton his own show, but he needs to be fired. As does Sharpton.

Satire As The Best Defense Against Lunacy

2011-04-13T14:23:00.001-06:00

I always love it when political leaders get publicly mocked for their flagrant disregard for the truth. The most recent example comes courtesy of the Colbert Report, where he lampoons Senator Jon Kyl for making the absurd statement during last week’s budget showdown that 90% of what Planned Parenthood does are provide abortions.

Watch:

Other brilliant tweets include:

Jon Kyl holds the Guinness World Record for "Largest Collection of Penis Enlargers."

Legally, Jon Kyl cannot be within 100 yards of Helen Mirren.

Jon Kyl once ate a badger he hit with his car.

In 2009, Jon Kyl lost $380,000 wagering on dwarf tossing.

And my personal favorite:

John Kyl is 90% prune juice.

Diana DeGette Is Doing…Something!

2011-02-09T14:34:00.001-07:00

John Tomasic at the Colorado Independent published a story yesterday about the ways Colorado Congresswoman Diana DeGette is finding herself at the leading the cause against GOP efforts to curtail abortion rights:

Colorado Representative and head of the Congressional Pro-Choice Caucus Diana DeGette is surprised to find herself doing heated battle on a number of fronts in the war over abortion rights this early in the year. This session of Congress was supposed to be about jobs and the economy, she has said, but the new Republican majority right out of the gate has gone full steam ahead with two bills aimed at expanding restrictions on federal abortion funding while, outside of Capitol Hill, conservative media activists have launched an attack on Planned Parenthood, using cut-and-paste undercover videos to spur Congress to slash all federal aid to the organization.

“I’m surprised, given that the number one issue right now is jobs, that the Republican leadership would make [this] extreme position one of their top three priorities of the session,” DeGette told Politico.

DeGette’s fight in defense of abortion rights is commendable. What is more commendable, however, is the fact that she is doing anything at all. Representing CD-1, which is confined to mainly the Denver city limits, DeGette is in perhaps the safest Democratic district in Colorado. In part because of that safety, she is often criticized for being an absentee Representative for her district, rarely attending public events and doing little to help fellow colleagues during election time.

As such, I am pleased to see DeGette getting out in front on this issue. Maybe she can use this as a stepping stone for leading on other issues as the most senior Colorado Democrat in Congress.

Liberal Bias in Academia, Continued.

2011-02-09T11:56:00.001-07:00

A former colleague of mine made some interesting and noteworthy comments to me about how self-selection can lead to shoddy scholarship and diminish the stature of the academy. He writes:

I think this phenomenon is largely a product of self-selection. People who believe they can use their intellects to decipher society and remake it in their own image tend to go into sociology because that was the whole point of the discipline from Durkheim and Weber on forward. The various "studies" programs that arose out of sociology (Women's, African-American, Ethnic, etc.) tend to attract the same sort of people. One consequence is the rift between those who go into the "studies" programs vs. the traditional disciplines; just ask anyone who has ever sat through the tension of a seminar cross-listed in history and women's studies (like me, for example).

Personally, I have found this phenomenon to be quite disturbing because it stops certain questions from being asked and allows people to get away with shoddy scholarship. And that is worrisome, because the public should not be asked to shoulder the cost of a poorly reasoned political agenda.

I am reminded of the kerfuffle over Ward Churchill's remarks [at the University of Colorado] over the September 11 attacks a few years back. I think the basis of his arguments had merit. Unfortunately, he delivered them in a strident fashion that assumed a friendly audience that wouldn't bother to ask about his credentials, methodology, or footnotes, and that assumption destroyed his career and tarnished the academy. If his department and discipline had been more politically diverse and more critical of his work, he might still have a job right now, and there might be a more sustained and nuanced critique of American capital in public discourse.

As it is, professors often talk themselves into irrelevance.

Liberal Bias in Academia: It Really Exists

2011-02-09T11:48:00.001-07:00

John Tierney published an article yesterday in The New York Times that has elicited a great deal of debate and chatter across the interweb in blogs and on Facebook and Twitter. His article, which exposes the liberal biases among social psychologists across the country and the latent discrimination against conservatives that exists in that field, has been used to launch a larger discussion about liberal bias in academia and why there is a demonstrable lack of conservative voices in the Ivory tower.

In particular, the article notes an informal poll done by psychologist Jonathan Haidt at a social psychology conference. By a show of hands, Haidt asked how many conservatives were in a room of 1,000 social psychologists. Only three people raised their hand. According to Tierney, Haidt went on to make an interesting observation to suggest the possibility of discrimination:

“Anywhere in the world that social psychologists see women or minorities underrepresented by a factor of two or three, our minds jump to discrimination as the explanation,” said Dr. Haidt, who called himself a longtime liberal turned centrist. “But when we find out that conservatives are underrepresented among us by a factor of more than 100, suddenly everyone finds it quite easy to generate alternate explanations.”

Indeed, liberals and academics defend the leftward slant of their profession by arguing that there is no discrimination in academia because, for various reasons, conservatives self-select themselves out of university professions. Others, like Paul Krugman, go even a step further by arguing that even trying to create an equivalence between racial and gender discrimination and ideological discrimination is absurd because one can choose their ideology but not his/her race, gender, or sexual orientation.

I think Krugman’s argument is absurd. I would like to see him spontaneously and sincerely change his political and economic outlook to look more like Ayn Rand’s. Let’s see how easy it is for him to make that choice!

Nevertheless, even though I think there is something to the notion that liberals tend to self-select themselves into academia and conservatives tend to self-select out of it, I think there is still often discrimination at play.

Megan McArdle makes a great point when she notes the interesting role reversal that has occurred between liberals and conservatives on the standard argument about discrimination when it comes to academia:

Conservatives are usually reluctant to agree that women and minorities are still often victims of structural or personal bias--despite numerical underrepresentation and some fairly compelling studies showing that hiring is not race or gender blind. Yet when it comes to conservatives in academia, they suddenly sound like sociologists, discussing hostile work environment, the role of affinity networks in excluding out groups, unconscious bias, and the compelling evidence from statistical underrepresentation.

Meanwhile, liberals, who are usually quick to assume that underrepresentation represents some form of discrimination--structural or personal--suddenly become, as Haidt notes, fierce critics of the notion that numerical representation means anything. Moreover, they start generating explanations for the disparity that sound suspiciously like some old reactionary explaining that blacks don't really want to go into management because they're much happier without all the responsibility. Conservatives are too stupid to become academics; they aren't open new ideas; they're too aggressive and hierarchical; they don't care about ideas, just money. In other words, it's not our fault that they're not worthy.

Truth be told, as a former member of the academy, I can say that I have seen the discrimination Haidt believes exists first hand. As a graduate student in a history department at a major research university, I have seen faculty members reject prospective professors for no other reason than they thought they would be too conservative and because their research priorities didn’t comport well with the social and cultural priorities of faculty members in sub-altern studies.

It is a real problem, and I find it deeply disconcerting.

Why Teaching the Controversy Disserves Students

2011-02-09T10:52:00.001-07:00

A new national survey of over 900 biology teachers across the country found that the teaching of creationism still flourishes in American classrooms. The New York Times reports:

Researchers found that only 28 percent of biology teachers consistently follow the recommendations of the National Research Council to describe straightforwardly the evidence for evolution and explain the ways in which it is a unifying theme in all of biology. At the other extreme, 13 percent explicitly advocate creationism, and spend at least an hour of class time presenting it in a positive light.

That leaves what the authors call “the cautious 60 percent,” who avoid controversy by endorsing neither evolution nor its unscientific alternatives. In various ways, they compromise.

I am not surprised by these findings, but I am nevertheless troubled by them. Students who are not taught the fundamental difference between science and faith are being disserved by our education system, and “teaching the controversy” in scientific terms creates a false equivalence between evolution and creationism.

The theory of evolution is an accepted truth in the scientific community in much the same way as the theory of gravity and the theory of relativity. That is, it can be tested and confirmed by empirical observation and the scientific method. Creationism, by contrast, is premised not on scientific foundations, but on a belief system grounded in faith. Faith, by definition, cannot be empirically verified, and, as a result, it is a subject that does not belong in a science class room.

I am not opposed to the teaching of creationism in public schools, but I am opposed to it being taught in a science classroom. Instead, it is a subject that belongs in a philosophy, religion, history or social science class.

More on Health Care Reform and the Supreme Court

2011-02-09T10:31:00.001-07:00

Writing in the pages of The New York Times, Harvard law professor Lawrence Tribe persuasively shoots down the myth that a legal challenge to the Affordable Care Act’s constitutionality will be determined by a partisan 5-4 decision in the Supreme Court.

Echoing some of the arguments found in this blog (here and here), Tribe argues that “the constitutionality of the health care law is not one of those novel, one-off issues, like the outcome of the 2000 presidential election, that have at times created the impression of Supreme Court justices as political actors rather than legal analysts.”

In his legal analysis, which concludes that a bipartisan majority of the Court will uphold the constitutionality of the ACA, he challenges the central argument of conservatives who want to overturn the law: that is, the idea that there is a distinction between economic activity and inactivity, even though it is found nowhere in the Constitution.

Tribe writes:

The justices aren’t likely to be misled by the reasoning that prompted two of the four federal courts that have ruled on this legislation to invalidate it on the theory that Congress is entitled to regulate only economic “activity,” not “inactivity,” like the decision not to purchase insurance. This distinction is illusory. Individuals who don’t purchase insurance they can afford have made a choice to take a free ride on the health care system. They know that if they need emergency-room care that they can’t pay for, the public will pick up the tab. This conscious choice carries serious economic consequences for the national health care market, which makes it a proper subject for federal regulation.

Even if the interstate commerce clause did not suffice to uphold mandatory insurance, the even broader power of Congress to impose taxes would surely do so. After all, the individual mandate is enforced through taxation, even if supporters have been reluctant to point that out.

Indeed, often lost in the debate over the individual mandate is the original intent of the provision, which was to promote individual responsibility—a conservative notion—in having insurance coverage and to prevent the problem of free-riders in our health care system. Because free-riders can still get free care in emergency rooms and pass the cost on to the rest of society through higher premiums and higher taxes, the lack of insurance coverage by an individual has a substantial impact on interstate commerce.

In the end, its ironic that it is conservatives who are arguing that asking citizens to take a personal responsibility to pay for their own medical care, and not pass the cost onto others, is an attack on one’s essential liberties.

Health Care Reform and the Supreme Court

2011-01-31T15:45:00.001-07:00

Andrew Cohen of The Atlantic believes that the country is going to overreact to Florida district court judge Roger Vinson’s ruling against Affordable Care Act, which he struck down today as a violation of the Interstate Commerce Clause. The more important legal development as it relates to the ACA, according to Cohen, is Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia forceful dissent in the Supreme Court’s refusal to hear Alderman v. United States, a 9th U.S. Circuit Court ruling affirming the use of a federal statute that makes it a crime for a convicted felon to buy, own or possess body armor:

In the ongoing debate over the Commerce Clause and the health care law, these are akin to fighting words. This is the advocacy rhetoric of the Tea Party. It is the partisan language of Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.). It is the hyperbolic theme of the fiercest opponents of the Patient Protection Act. And coming as it does from the two justices—unsolicited, unnecessary to resolve Alderman, unrepentant about its link to current political discourse—the paragraph confirms to the world that no more than seven votes on the Supreme Court are still in play over the constitutionality of the federal health care measure. That this is not a surprise coming from these two jurists makes the development no less extraordinary -- and far more important than anything Judge Vinson can or will say in his looming order.

I agree with Cohen that decision in Alderman to deny Certiorari is far more significant than anything a few conservative district court judges may rule when it come to the ACA. However, I think he is taking the wrong message from the decision. The way Cohen’s post reads, he seems to suggest that the events surrounding Alderman portend a tough Supreme Court battle ahead for health care reform since two justices have already staked out a clear position on the issue. It could just as easily mean that the Court is weary of hearing any ole Commerce Clause case.

It takes four votes to grant Certiorari and have a case heard before the whole Court. Alderman only got two, which means the other two votes—likely Roberts and Alito—sided with the liberal wing of the Court on a case whose facts bear, it could be argued, a more tenuous relationship with the Interstate Commerce Clause than the facts surrounding the Affordable Care and Patient Protection Act. If Congress has the authority to deny ex-convicts the ability to buy body-armor using the Commerce clause, then certainly it has the ability to regulate a health insurance and care industry that comprises almost 20% of the national economy.

In other words, the message from the Supreme Court could just as easily be: If you want us to hear a health care reform challenge, you better give us more than a weak Commerce Clause challenge.

“You’re So Cool!”: Jared Polis on Repealing DADT

2010-12-19T10:44:00.001-07:00

Congressman Jared Polis was on Hardball with Chris Matthews last week to discuss the imminent repeal of the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy concerning gays in the military. It appears that their are enough Republicans in the Senate now to successfully bring the measure to a cloture vote.

Here is Polis on Hardball:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

FOX News Misinforms? Say It Ain’t So!

2010-12-19T10:00:00.001-07:00

For everyone who is blind to the obvious, The Huffington Post has an informative piece based on a recent study from the University of Maryland. It notes:

Fox News viewers are much more likely than others to believe false information about American politics, a new study concludes.

The study, conducted by the University of Maryland, judged how likely consumers of various news outlets and publications were to believe misinformation about a wide range of political issues. Overall, 90% of respondents said they felt they had heard false information being given to them during the 2010 election campaign.

Among the pearls of wisdom pedaled by FOX, the study notes that viewers were more likely to incorrectly believe that the stimulus package led to job loses, health care reform will worsen the deficit, there isn’t a scientific consensus on climate change, Republicans opposed the Wall Street bailouts, their own tax rates have gone up, and the stimulus didn’t include tax-cuts.

The New York Times also covered the U of Maryland study here.

Senator Bernie Sanders’ 9 Hours of Fame

2010-12-13T10:44:00.001-07:00

A rare Mr. Smith-goes-to-Washington moment occurred on Friday afternoon. Senator Bernie Sanders, the Democratic Socialist Senator from Vermont, stood on the Senate floor for 9 hours to filibuster the tax-cut compromise brokered between President Obama and the Congressional GOP.

Watch the first twelve minutes of the filibuster below:

Reaction to the day-long spectacle has been mixed. For example, Stan Collender at Capital Gains and Game was especially critical of the firebrand Senator:

What did Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) actually accomplish with his 9-hour speech against the tax deal this past Friday? Did he...

Change any votes?

Force the leadership to change the tax deal so that it was more to his liking?

Demonstrate enough Democratic disagreement with the deal that the White House felt the need to revise it?

Demonstrate a new coalition with Republicans that made it clear the deal in doubt?

Stop the Senate from considering the deal?

Stop the Senate from considering anything else?

Make it clear that he was able and willing to stop the debate from occurring by using the tactic again?

The answer to all of the questions above is a resounding no.

What Sanders’ filibuster did achieve, however, was completely unrelated to the tax-cut debate. He served as vivid reminder that perhaps the only real reform to the filibuster rule in the Senate that is needed is to require Senators to actually stand on the Senate floor and do it. Almost without question, Senators would use the procedural delaying tactic more sparingly—and for shorter periods of time—if it required them to actually invest themselves, both physically and mentally, in the obstructionist act.

Why Passing the Tax-Cut Deal is a Political Must-Do for Democrats

2010-12-13T09:28:00.001-07:00

If Democrats don’t pass the tax-cut deal they will effective abdicate the debate over the economy for at least the next two years and effectively ruin any chance for making electoral gains in 2012. Here is the reasoning from NBC News’ First Read:

Dems decide to fight and get nothing when the tax cuts expire at the end of the year. Then, on Jan. 6, the new GOP-led House “comes to the rescue” and passes legislation to extend the Bush-era tax cuts. So say the economy recovers a bit but not gangbusters. Well, the GOP will criticize Democrats for creating uncertainty at fragile time. Or say the economy recovers gangbusters in 2011-12, the GOP will have an argument to take much of the credit. Bottom line: If Democrats line up and try to kill the compromise, the political price they could pay might be much higher than they fathom as they'll be on the wrong side of the economic argument -- no matter the outcome. At least they can control the process for now.

This analysis is both prescient and absolutely correct. In fact, I think this is going to be the GOP’s first and last line of attack two years from now if the deal does not go through. However prudent the tax-cut deal may or may not be in terms of good policy (I am decidedly torn on whether it is good policy or not), the political calculus here could not be more clear: The Democrats are going to have to vote for this compromise.

Debunking the Liberal Purists on Health Care Reform and The Bush Tax Cuts

2010-12-10T15:17:00.001-07:00

The liberal backlash against President Obama’s tax deal, which includes a two-year extension of all the Bush tax-cuts, with Republican leadership is at fever-pitch. At no point since the debate over the public option in health care reform have liberal in Congress and across America been more critical of the President’s performance.

The common attack against Obama is that he is, at best, a weak leader and poor negotiator. If only he had been more stubborn, the argument goes, he could have gotten everything the Democrats wanted—a roll-back of the tax-cuts on top income earners, an extension of unemployment benefits, and, oh yeah, the public option that liberals wanted so during during the health care debate.

However, in a press conference about the tax deal on Tuesday, Obama defended himself against attacks from, what he calls, ‘liberal purists’:

“This notion that somehow we are willing to compromise too much reminds me of the debate that we had during health care. This is the public-option debate all over again. So I pass a signature piece of legislation where we finally get health care for all Americans... But because there was a provision in there that they didn't get that would have affected maybe a couple of million people, even though we got health insurance for 30 million people and the potential for lower premiums for 100 million people, that somehow that was a sign of weakness and compromise.”

He continued, “Now, if that's the standard by which we are measuring success or core principles, then let's face it, we will never get anything done. People will have the satisfaction of having a purist position and no victories for the American people.”

Indeed, these purists often forget that the public option died in the Senate because only half the Democrats in that chamber supported it—even through reconciliation.

Megan McArdle, however, makes even a more forceful case against these purists. In particular, she refutes the common attack leveled against Obama that he failed to “shoot for the moon before settling for the stars.” That is, she attacked the tactic advocated by liberals that Obama could have taken an extreme negotiating position that he didn’t realistically want so that he could negotiate it down to what he really wanted.

During the health care debate, for example, Obama should have started with single-payer, which he knew he couldn’t get passed, but negotiated it down to a robust public-option.

According to McArdle, however, this criticism was just as inane for health care reform as it is now with the tax-deal:

While it is true that negotiators often ask for things that they don't want, this cartoon version is really, really stupid. You can see how stupid it is by asking yourself what would have happened if Republicans had used this tactic? They could have started by demanding the total abolition of Medicare, and wound up with a massive deregulation of the health care system, right?

Yeah, not so much. If they'd started with abolishing Medicare, you know what they would have gotten? Nothing. They would have faced a massive backlash from the public that would have strengthened the hand of their opponents, and given the Democrats a stronger hand in the negotiation that followed.

Similarly, starting with single-payer would have made the average American voter, who (rightly or wrongly) has all sorts of negative preconceptions about single-payer, freak out. On the tax deal, signaling that you were prepared to veto any tax deal for those over $250,000 would have . . . well, maybe it would have made Republicans back down, as is now claimed. On the other hand, maybe it would have seriously pissed them off, and made it impossible to pass any legislation at all for the rest of this Congress, including a tax cut for lower-income folks. And it would have sent the message to average voters that you are willing to sacrifice the tax cuts for them on the altar of your ideology. Sure, they might have been just as mad at Republicans--but the best case scenario is that you're both worse off.

In the end, this compromise is a huge political victory for Obama. In exchange for an extension of the tax-cuts for top earners, Obama effectively got a second stimulus package, which if successful at boosting the economy, could mean the difference between victory and defeat for him in 2012. He also has the ancillary benefit of rising above the partisan fold by separating himself from Congressional Democrats, who currently have a lower approval rating than he does, and appealing to moderate and independent voters, who overwhelmingly support the deal.

And as Charles Krauthammer, of all people, correctly notes in today’s Washington Post, “Obama is no fool. While getting Republicans to boost his own reelection chances, he gets them to make a mockery of their newfound, second-chance, post-Bush, Tea-Party, this-time-we're-serious persona of debt-averse fiscal responsibility.”

Funding the Faithful: Another Reason for Conservatives to Love the Stimulus Package

2010-12-05T23:34:00.001-07:00

Here is yet another reason why conservatives should think twice about the stimulus package, a Democratic legislative achievement that the Republicans have made public enemy number one. On an unprecedented scale, its funds faith based initiatives. From Politico:

the stimulus is also the largest-scale embodiment of what was, not long ago, a conservative priority: directing tax dollars to "faith-based initiatives," as President George W. Bush called them. (See: Obama to rename Bush's faith office)

The story of the Obama administration's large-scale spending on faith-based groups has been largely untold, perhaps because it cuts so sharply across the moment's intensely partisan narrative. And in fact, when the stimulus was being debated in February 2009, conservatives attacked the bill as "anti-religious" in its spending guidelines. (See: Mixed W.H. signals on stimulus)

But an analysis by POLITICO found that at least $140 million in stimulus money has gone to faith-based groups, the result of an unpublicized White House decision to spend government money, where legal, supporting religiously inspired nonprofit groups. And that decision was just the beginning.

The Tea Party’s Billion Dollar Fiscal Hypocrisy

2010-12-03T07:54:00.001-07:00

Nobody hates earmarks more than Tea Partiers. That is why this report from the National Journal is so hilarious:

Members of the Congressional Tea Party Caucus may tout their commitment to cutting government spending now, but they used the 111th Congress to request hundreds of earmarks that, taken cumulatively, added more than $1 billion to the federal budget.

According to a Hotline review of records compiled by Citizens Against Government Waste, the 52 members of the caucus, which pledges to cut spending and reduce the size of government, requested a total of 764 earmarks valued at $1,049,783,150 during Fiscal Year 2010, the last year for which records are available.

Many of the members of the Congressional Tea Party Caucus who requested millions in earmarks for their districts have taken the voluntary pledge to ban earmarks.

Okay, now everyone together: HYPO-CRITES!

Health Care Reform v. South Carolina: The Law’s State Opt-Out Clause

2010-12-03T00:23:00.001-07:00

South Carolina’s governor-elect, Nikki Haley, met with President Obama today with other newly elected governors, most of which campaigned against the President’s legislative agenda. The President spent a large portion of the time defending his health care reform overhaul. At one point in the conversation, Haley implored to allow South Carolina to opt-out of the individual mandate.

The Huffington Post reports:

South Carolina's governor-elect Nikki Haley said in an interview later that she told Obama that South Carolina could not afford the health care mandate, and that it would cripple small businesses.

"I respectfully asked him to consider repealing the bill," she said, to which he clearly stated he would not. "I pushed him further and said if that's the case, because of states' rights would you at least consider South Carolina opting out of the program?"

Obama told her he would consider letting South Carolina opt out, Haley said, if South Carolina could find its own solution that included a state exchange, preventing companies from bumping people for preexisting conditions and allowing insurance pooling.

"I think it's something we go back to South Carolina and start crunching," she said. "This is about saying we're going to fight this every step of the way and use every option possible."

According to South Carolina’s home newspaper, The State, Obama gave three provisions that an opt-out plan must contain:

Obama’s conditions, Haley said, were that states would have to run exchange programs enabling uninsured residents to choose among different health plans; would have to ban coverage exclusions for treatment of pre-existing illness; and would have to create pools for large groups of individuals to get discounted coverage.

Haley said afterward that she would start working on Obama’s tentative proposals.

Haley’s exchange with the President has led many to comment that her “prominence at the high-level meeting and her confronting Obama over the signature legislative achievement of his White House tenure provides more evidence of her status as a rising star who is being eagerly promoted by GOP powerbrokers.”

Nevertheless, Obama’s apparent willingness to compromise on South Carolina’s opt-out is less significant than it appears because an opt-out provision is in the final version of the law. Indeed, the provision was added in by Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon as part of the “Empowering States to be Innovative" amendment.

Quite simply, the provision, whose language was taken directly from Wyden’s own health care reform bill, give states the “right to set up their own health care system -- with or without an individual mandate or, for that matter, with or without a public option -- provided that, as Wyden puts it, ‘they can meet the coverage requirements of the bill.’"

In other words, the exchange between the Obama and Ms. Haley amounts to little more than political theater. I wonder if Ms. Haley knows that?

The DREAM Act: A Sensible Attempt to Protect Society’s Most Vulnerable

2010-12-02T14:29:00.001-07:00

One of the issues that will likely get lost in the lame duck session of the 111th is the DREAM Act, a bill that Democrats have been trying to pass for almost a decade. In short, the bill would give legal residency to immigrants who arrived in the United States as children (under age 16) and who have resided here for at least five years, graduated from high school and completed two years of college or military service.

Harry Reid issued a release in November declaring his intention to bring it up for a vote before Congress convenes for the holidays. In his statement, Reid stated, “If there is a bipartisan bill that makes sense for our country economically, from a national security perspective and one that reflects American values, it is the Dream Act. This bill will give children brought illegally to this country at no fault of their own the chance to earn legal status.”

Indeed, illegal immigrants who were brought to this country as young children—like Michelle Rodriguez, who was profiled in a recent Washington Post article—are the most sympathetic figures in the fight over immigration reform because, as Reid correctly notes, they are often brought to the United States through no fault of their own. Their entire lives are built in this country, they are as culturally American as native born children, and they often have little memory of their lives in Mexico. Nevertheless, they exist in this country without papers and become part of a growing class of marginalized and unprotected people.

Basic human decency dictates that at least this group of people should be given a path to live in this country legally and without fear of deportation from a place that is, in every sense, their home. Nevertheless, conservatives have demagogue the DREAM act and propagandized the debate with misinformation and outright falsehoods.

Last week, for example, David Frum opined in the pages of The Week that the DREAM Act amounted to “an appalling, deceptive piece of legislation with very sinister consequences.” Using misleading terminology like ‘amnesty,’ which has become a new conservative litmus test, as well as the imagery of the pejorative term ‘anchor babies, ’ Frum outlines a nightmare scenario that would likely play out under DREAM:

You’re a 40-year-old illegal alien who entered the country as an adult. You have a third-grade education. You are barely literate even in Spanish. Your back is bothering you; you are not sure how long you can continue working. Quite frankly, no country on earth would regard you as a desirable immigrant. Don't despair. DREAM can offer you too an amnesty and gain you access to a lifetime of taxpayer-funded disability payments.

You have kids don't you? If they apply successfully under DREAM, they can sponsor you.

The problem, of course, is that flagrantly disregards the facts in favor of fear-mongering and demagoguery. Will Wilkinson offers a fabulous critique of Frum’s distorted analysis at The Economist blog, Democracy in America:

First, it's not quite right to think of DREAM, a narrowly tailored provision that offers a relatively small group of young people a path to citizenship only if they are able to clear a number or hurdles, as an "amnesty". Second, the process by which our notional 40-year-old undocumented immigrant can become a citizen is precisely the same as the process by which Mr Frum's Canadian father could become a citizen through Mr Frum's sponsorship. It's not amnesty, and Mr Frum is simply goading the nativist rabble by choosing to misuse language in this way. Moreover, Mr Frum effectively misrepresents his scenario by conveniently omitting the dispiriting timeline. Let's fix that….

Suppose DREAM becomes law in 2011. Your kid applies right away and earns status as a "conditional legal resident" (or "CLR"). Now, can you your kid sponsor you for legal permanent residency? No, she cannot. Only citizens can sponsor their parents. Suppose your kid goes to college and stays out of trouble. The earliest she can apply to become an "LPR" or "legal permanent resident" (ie, get a green card) is 5 1/2 years after approval for conditional permanent residency. That's some time in 2016 at the earliest. Now, a green card-holder can apply for citizenship after five years. Under DREAM, as I understand it, once a CLR is approved for a green card, the time spent as a CLR counts toward citizenship. So someone approved for a green card under the auspices of DREAM ought to be able to apply for citizenship right away.

So, thanks to DREAM, your daughter will be a citizen no sooner than 2016, at which point she can finally sponsor you (as long as she's over the age of 21). But don't get excited yet! You entered the country illegally, and were working illegally before applying for a green card, and that means you aren't eligible for a green card. ( See question 10 here.) So, sorry, DREAM can't help you.

Conservatives like Frum and the opinion are certainly entitled to their own opinions, but they are not entitled to their own facts. Any reasoned analysis of the sorry state of our immigration system reveals that the United States cannot continue to use immigration as a political football, and the DREAM Act is a sensible first step in protecting the most vulnerable victims of our flawed system.

Splitting Votes in 2012: Democratic Primaries and Third Parties

2010-12-01T11:24:00.001-07:00

Ed Kilgore makes a strong case for why President Obama will not face a serious primary challenger in 2012. Writing in The New Republic, he argues:

Obama's straight approval ratings among rank-and-file Democrats are very high. According to Gallup’s latest weekly tracking poll, 81 percent of self-identified Democrats give Obama a positive job approval rating. Among liberal Democrats, who are supposedly the most likely to rebel, the number rises to 85 percent. Let's compare that to the last three Democratic presidents, two of whom faced serious primary challenges: At equivalent points in their presidencies, Bill Clinton had a positive job rating among Democrats of 74 percent; Jimmy Carter's rating was 63 percent; and Lyndon Johnson had a rating of 66 percent. And Carter's and LBJ's numbers had to fall by ten or twenty more points before either attracted another contender.

The racial politics of the Democratic Party also make a serious primary challenge less likely. Sure, some progressives have been raging at Obama as of late. But anyone credibly threatening to topple Obama would have to pry away a significant chunk of Obama's support among African Americans—and in case you haven't noticed, Obama is the first black president. His job approval rating among African Americans is currently 89 percent, and it has not gone below 85 percent at any point of his presidency. Can you conceive of a left-wing revolt that runs directly counter to the manifest wishes of the largest and most loyal segment of the Democratic base? Imagine Hillary Clinton launching her 2008 candidacy without any of the goodwill that her husband's presidency had engendered among African Americans.

I think Kilgore is right. He also notes that their isn’t a single galvanizing issue to draw support away from Obama, which is necessary for a successful challenger. In my mind, the more likely scenario is that there will be a third party candidate in 2012 who will split the Republican vote on the Right, especially if the GOP Congress fails to satisfy the Tea Party’s rapacious hunger for fiscal austerity.

Balancing the Federal Budget in a Few Easy Steps

2010-12-01T09:50:00.001-07:00

A couple weeks ago, shortly after the Bowles-Simpson Deficit Commission report was leaked to the press, The New York Times created an awesome interactive feature that would allow its readers to attempt to balance the federal budget deficit by 2030. For budding policy wonks such as myself, the interactive feature is both fun and educational because it gives a slate of commonly brandied about proposals for spending cuts and tax increases that think tanks and policymakers have been discussing for years.

What follows is my plan, which can be characterized by a little entitlement reform, modest cuts to our bloated defense budget, and tax increases on the rich and powerful.

In short, the goal is to close a 1.34 trillion shortfall by 2030. Here is how I did it, making roughly equal proportions of spending cuts and tax increases:

1) Defense: Reduce the our nuclear arsenal, bring troop levels in Iraq and Afghanistan to 30,000 by 2013, and reduce the size of the military to pre-Iraq levels, reduce Naval and Air Force fleets. American spending on defense has more than doubled since 2001, and we spend more on defense than the rest of the world combined. Moreover, the United States has no peer military competitors. We can afford to make these cuts, which nets $280 billion.

If you delay some new weapon systems, like the F-35 Lightning, you get an additional 18 billion in savings.

2) Health Care: I would increase the eligibility age for Medicare to 68 years old. Even though life-expectancy figures have inherent class biases that favor the affluent, people are living years longer on average than they did in the 1960s when Medicare was originally passed. Nets $56 billion.

I would also reduce the tax break for employer-provided health insurance, which MIT professor, Jonathan Gruber, argues amounts to a regressive entitlement. It favors the top-income earners—over three-quarters of the benefits goes to the top 50% of earners. Replace it with a flat tax credit. Nets $157 billion.

And just to satisfy conservatives, I would enact medical malpractice reform. Nets only 13 billion.

3) Social Security: As with Medicare, I would raise the retirement age to 68. Then I would means test benefits to economic need, effectively capping benefits for top income earners. Lastly, I would raise the tax raise the amount of income subject to the payroll tax above $106,000. The current ceiling regressively taxes about 83% of all income; I would raise the ceiling to cover 90%, which is what the percentage was when Social Security was created. Saves $225 billion.

4) Taxes: Reinstitute the Estate Tax to 2009 levels; roll back the Bush tax cuts on incomes above $250,000; and implement the Bowles-Simpson tax reform plan, which simplifies the tax code, eliminates loop-holes, and lowers rates across the board. These three things net $335 billion.

Next, I would eliminate the mortgage interest tax deduction for high-income households. According to Rutgers University economics professor, Rosanne Altshuler, the tax deduction favors wealthy homeowners, discourages investment for the sake of homeownership, and does little to actually encourage homeownership. Saves $54 billion.

Finally, I would implement a carbon tax, which nets 71 billion and helps save the planet. And I would institute a bank tax on big banks who have risky holdings. The idea would be to discourage the riskiest actions from the most highly leveraged banks and to help cover the cost of future financial crises if they fail. Brings in $103 billion.

AND…The budget deficit is solved! To see exactly what I did, click here.

Gauging the Political Potency of Sarah Palin

2010-11-30T15:14:00.001-07:00

Over the weekend, John McCain compared Sarah Palin to Ronald Reagan. During an interview with CNN’s Candy Crowley, McCain dismissed the accusation that Palin was too divisive to be President by asserting that the Gipper was also thought to be a highly divisive figure.

Watch:

McCain’s comments have ignited a firestorm of commentary in the blogosphere. Do the Media underestimate her as a potential candidate? Is Sarah Palin the New Reagan? Is she the savior of the Republican Party? And can she beat Obama in 2012?

It goes without saying that pundits and commentators are split on the virtues of Palinism and the potential potency of a presidential bid. Even within the GOP, lawmakers and political operatives are of two-minds of the former Alaska governor. They love her as a media icon, as a cheerleader for conservative causes and as a mobilizer of the grassroots, but many insiders cringe at the thought of giving her any real power.

Even McCain is obviously torn. Just as quickly as he made the association between Palin and Reagan, he stops short of reaffirming the parallel when pressed on the matter further. He simply said, “She is doing a great job.”

The more interesting conflict is among the left, however. Consider Melissa Harris-Perry’s recent piece in The Nation, where she argues that many on the left underestimate Palin at their peril. “After reading and watching Palin and the reactions to her these past few weeks,” she writes, “I am convinced that underestimating Sarah Palin is a mistake of epic proportions.”

She continues:

Much of the urban East Coast discourse about Palin and other Tea Party women is dismissive and mocking. Most Democratic and many Republican commentators rely on a basic assertion that Palin is stupid and therefore not credible. But this perspective ignores that visceral emotions are at least as important as sober rationality in making political choices. Whatever her failings, Palin has successfully harnessed new media forms to engage and direct emotional reactions in ways that are surprisingly effective.

Using Twitter, Facebook, corporate-news punditry, readable memoirs and reality television, Palin has managed to subvert traditional media. Rather than pay for advertising, she is getting paid to advertise her politics. Rather than wait for kingmakers to declare her a contender, she smirks while predicting her victories. Her reality show is a pinnacle of this new media-saturation strategy.

Indeed, Harris-Perry is correct. Palin is mocked and scorned on the left. And many even welcome the prospect of a Palin-Obama contest for no other reason than they believe Palin isn’t a serious candidate and her presence would ultimately demoralize and discredit the GOP. But that is where is another parallel to Reagan. In 1979, the Carter welcomed Ronald Reagan as the Republican nominee for that very reason: They believed it would give Carter an easy victory because of Reagan’s perceived extremism and divisiveness.

Like Reagan, Palin is continually underestimated, but she nevertheless has the charisma and media following rivaled by none within her party. The problem, however, is that 2012 will not be like 1980, and Sarah Palin is not in the same position as Ronald Reagan despite her hopes to the contrary. That’s according to Steve Kornacki at Salon.com. There are significant differences, he argues, that call into question Palin’s ability to transform her star-power into enough votes to win.

He writes:

The most obvious is that Reagan had already run a full-fledged national campaign of his own, one that had cemented his status as the leader of his party's conservative wing -- a role he'd been building toward for more than a decade, since his celebrated (and nationally televised) address on behalf of Barry Goldwater in 1964. Reagan's near-miss loss to Ford for the 1976 GOP nomination was no ordinary second-place finish, with Reagan's campaign serving as the vehicle for "New Right" conservatives whose clout within the party was only growing. Conservative leaders had had their eyes on Reagan for years (they came closer than many realize to securing the 1968 GOP nomination for him), and his strong showing against Ford only made their commitment to him stronger.

Thus, as 1980 approached, the right wing was nearly unanimous in its support for Reagan….

Consequently, Reagan stood as the overwhelming and undisputed front-runner for all '78 and '79. Even with Ford included in polls, Reagan led the pack. And when it became clear that Ford wouldn't run, polls generally showed Reagan 20 to 30 points ahead of his nearest foe.

This allowed Reagan to postpone the formal announcement of his candidacy until November 1979, just a few months before the lead-off Iowa caucuses. (By contrast, Rep. Phil Crane, a 46-year-old New Right Illinois congressman who tried to supplant Reagan as the right's favorite, was in the race by Election Day 1978.) While everyone knew Reagan would run, this freed him to collect lucrative fees for various public speaking and media gigs; he took in nearly $1 million on the lecture circuit in '78 and '79.

Palin, who is clearly in no hurry to declare her '12 plans, is doing roughly the same thing with her Fox News contract and various book tours. But she's not the clear front-runner that Reagan was….

The right wing had enormous confidence in Reagan's skills as a national candidate after '76, which thwarted the efforts of potential usurpers like Crane. Palin, to judge from today's polling, doesn't benefit from that same confidence. Surveys consistently show her bunched near the top of the GOP pack with Romney, Huckabee and even Newt Gingrich.

Kornacki makes a persuasive case. It should also be added that he served two full terms as governor of California and Palin quit after only two years of serving Alaska. That broaches another question: Does Sarah Palin even want to be President? I am not convinced she does.

10 Years After Bush v. Gore: The Rise of Conservative Judicial Activism

2010-11-30T06:53:00.001-07:00

Former Supreme Court justice, John Paul Stevens, was on 60 Minutes over the weekend. In his interview, he called the high Court’s 2000 decision in Bush v. Gore—the highly partisan 5-4 decision that stopped the Florida recount and made George W. Bush President—one of the greatest blunders in Supreme Court history.

His comments have ripped the scabs off old partisan wounds just in time for the 10 year anniversary of the fateful decision. In the new issue of The New Yorker, for example, Jeffrey Toobin explores the troubling legacy of Bush v. Gore.

He writes:

What made the decision in Bush v. Gore so startling was that it was the work of Justices who were considered, to greater or lesser extents, judicial conservatives. On many occasions, these Justices had said that they believed in the preëminence of states’ rights, in a narrow conception of the equal-protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, and, above all, in judicial restraint. Bush v. Gore violated those principles. The Supreme Court stepped into the case even though the Florida Supreme Court had been interpreting Florida law; the majority found a violation of the rights of George W. Bush, a white man, to equal protection when these same Justices were becoming ever more stingy in finding violations of the rights of African-Americans; and the Court stopped the recount even before it was completed, and before the Florida courts had a chance to iron out any problems—a classic example of judicial activism, not judicial restraint, by the majority.

More telling, however, Toobin believes the case represents a “revealing prologue to what the Supreme Court has since become” and gives insight into how the conservative wing of the Court now operates.

Toobin’s conclusion, especially under the new Robert’s Court: “As in Bush v. Gore, nominally conservative Justices no longer operate by the rules of traditional judicial conservatism.”

Indeed, judicial conservatism, Toobin reminds us, was “once principally defined as a philosophy of deference to the democratically elected branches of government.” But, according to Toobin, the signature characteristic of the Robert’s Court has been it willingness to ignore federalism and the will of legislative bodies when it comes to striking down environmental legislation, campaign finance law, gun control measures, doctor-assisted suicide for the terminally ill, and local efforts to voluntary school integration.

The true radicals on the Court have always been within the Court’s conservative wing. As Scott Lemieux notes, “the tradition of conservative ‘judicial restraint’ that Toobin cites is just a myth; conservatives, over the history of the Supreme Court, have only shown restraint when greater activism would tend to lead to substantively liberal results.”

Although conservative judicial activism has certainly accelerated under the Robert’s Court, I think Lemieux is correct that conservatives have always only paid lip-service to the virtues of judicial restraint. If one were to use deference to democratically elected legislatures and the popular will of the people as the gold-standard of restraint, Justice Stephen Breyer (a Clinton appointee and member of the liberal wing) would likely most embody the essence of judicial restraint.

Why the New START Treaty is Necessary

2010-11-24T08:23:00.001-07:00

Joe Biden makes a strong case in The Wall Street Journal for ratification of the New START treaty:

European leaders understand that New Start advances their security as well as America's, and that is an important foundation for future negotiations on conventional forces and tactical nuclear weapons in Europe. That is why all 27 of our NATO allies expressed their desire to see the treaty's early ratification.

NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen, for instance, cautioned that delay in ratification would be damaging to security in Europe. And leaders from nations that border Russia (including Poland, Latvia and Lithuania) spoke out strongly in support of the treaty.

New Start is also a cornerstone of our efforts to reset relations with Russia, which have improved significantly in the last two years. This has led to real benefits for U.S. and global security. Russian cooperation made it possible to secure strong sanctions against Iran over its nuclear ambitions, and Russia canceled a sale to Iran of an advanced anti-aircraft missile system that would have been dangerously destabilizing. Russia has permitted the flow of materiel through its territory for our troops in Afghanistan. And—as the NATO-Russia Council in Lisbon demonstrated—European security has been advanced by the pursuit of a more cooperative relationship with Russia. We should not jeopardize this progress.

The Lisbon summit showed that American leadership in Europe remains essential. It also reminded us why the stakes of the New Start Treaty are so high. Our uniformed military supports it. Our European allies support it. Our national security interests are at stake. It is time for the Senate to approve New Start.

New Taxes, New Spending?

2010-11-24T07:56:00.001-07:00

Stephen Moore and Richard Vetter recently argued in The Wall Street Journal that tax increases always lead to spending increases:

Using standard statistical analyses that introduce variables to control for business-cycle fluctuations, wars and inflation, we found that over the entire post World War II era through 2009 each dollar of new tax revenue was associated with $1.17 of new spending. Politicians spend the money as fast as it comes in—and a little bit more.

We also looked at different time periods (e.g., 1947-2009 vs. 1959-2009), different financial data (fiscal year federal budget data, as well as calendar year National Income and Product Account data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis), different lag structures (e.g., relating taxes one year to spending change the following year to allow for the time it takes bureaucracies to spend money), different control variables, etc. The alternative models produce different estimates of the tax-spend relationship—between $1.05 and $1.81. But no matter how we configured the data and no matter what variables we examined, higher tax collections never resulted in less spending.

This is actually an interesting analysis. However, I would be more inclined to believe it had any predictive power if Republicans still controlled all branches of government. I have long thought that Republicans don’t really care about the deficit or debt.

After all, they controlled Congress for 12 years and never tried to pay for any of their new spending programs—two foreign wars and a Medicare prescription drug benefit. They did manage to cut taxes several times, which was also done on borrowed money. That is also why the cry a foul about the debt now, yet they are actively pushing to extend the Bush tax cuts, which will add over 3 trillion dollars to the long-term debt.

By contrast, with the exception of the short-term deficit spending used to stimulate the economy, which won’t be added to the long-term debt, Democrats have held themselves to rigid pay-go rules. They have been very judicious in offsetting new spending ventures with cuts in other places.

The Tim Caffrey Show: Post-Mortem on Betsy Markey’s Loss and An Analysis of Local Colorado Races

2010-11-20T15:00:00.001-07:00

This is the final segment of the Tim Caffrey Show’s post-election analysis. It was the longest segment and it had probably the most spirited disagreement of the entire program. At issue was the question of whether there was anything Betsy Markey—and, by extension, Blue Dog Democrats across the country--could have done to save her seat in Republican leaning CD-4 in her contest against Cory Gardner:

As the video demonstrates, the gap between my position and Kevin Caffrey’s was wide. My contention was that there was little Markey could have done to save her seat because of the demographic realities of the district, while Kevin Caffrey believed she could have been more liberal and energized her base more to win.

Even though there is a certain plausibility to Caffrey’s logic, it fails to hold up to close scrutiny. Indeed, it is true that an energized and committed base can go a long way for a candidate in a close election; however, in a district with 40,000 more registered Republicans than Democrats and in a political environment that heavily favors Republicans, an energized base is not enough to overcome the huge demographic hurdles between Markey and electoral victory.

After all, Caffrey even says that when given the choice between a conservative Democrat and a Republican, Republican voters and right-leaning Independents will almost always vote GOP. Why is there any reason to believe the same doesn’t hold true for a liberal Democrat?

What’s more, to use a counter-point—one that got edited out of this segment--to the assertion that independents would respect and ultimately vote for a liberal in a conservative district simply because he/she stands for his/her convictions, one only has to look at Rep. Tom Perriello (D-Virginia). Indeed, Perriello represents a district with similar demographics to CD-4.

Instead of tacking to the political center like Betsy Markey did, he operated as an unapologetic liberal. From the stimulus and cap and trade to health care reform and financial regulatory reform, he was a vocal supporter in Congress and on the campaign trail of President Obama’s entire legislative agenda.

He still lost to Robert Hurt, his Republican opponent.