Boffoblog

Our Budget Priorities

Peter Daou alerted me (and some other bloggers) about survey results on Americans' budget priorities from  a study by the Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA) at the University of Maryland.  You can read the report here and the raw results here.

Overall, the results should cause some concern among Republicans, especially the fiscal conservatives.  In a nutshell, respondents to the survey would prefer to cut defense, reduce the deficit, and raise spending for domestic programs like education, renewable energy and veterans.

The portion of the study I like was one where the respondents were given a fixed budget -- $1000 in tax money -- and asked to allocate it among seventeen budget areas and an eighteenth item for deficit reduction.  On the computer- assisted task, they got instant feedback for a budget allocation on a given item by showing the resulting increases or decreases in all remaining areas. This permitted them to fiddle with the allocations to arrive at their optimal hypothetical budget.  They also saw how the administration's own budget compared.

This method is superior to nearly all opinion surveys on budget priorities which essentially give respondents a free lunch.  Typically, a questionnaire asks only whether one wants to increase or decrease defense spending, increase or decrease education, etc.  In other words, one is freely given the option of saying "increase" to everything -- and then ask for a tax cut, to boot!  While that kind of budgeting might make sense to Bush's OMB, that is not how the real world works ordinarily.  Inevitably, budgets force difficult tradeoffs, especially in an era of large deficits.  Beware any survey results which do not ask respondents to make tradeoffs.

(For those wanting to delve deeper into public opinion on the budget, check out "Individuals, Institutions, and Public Preferences over Public Finance" by John Mark Hansen in the Sept. 1998 issue of the American Political Science Review.)

The PIPA survey does have some of the traditional free-lunch questions, but the budget task puts them into perspective.  Among other things, the exercise reveals that people want to reserve a much larger proportion of the budget for deficit reduction -- that is to say, any -- and to increase substantially contributions to the UN, job training and investment in energy conservation and renewables.  The biggest cuts?  Defense and supplemental spending on Iraq and Afghanistan.

The Bush budget is to the right not just of Democrats but of the average Republican response on the survey as well.  For sixteen of the eighteen areas, Republicans shifted their allocations in the same direction as Democrats relative to the Bush budget.  Though GOP respondents in general are more to the right than Democrats in all cases -- no surprise -- they are more moderate than the White House in nearly all cases.  And dare I say more sensible as well.

In this light, it is even less surprising that the GOP is having to temper its enthusiasm for further tax cuts, taking them off the table for now in order to satisfy other budget goals, as the Washington Post reported.  The White House, not least due to over-reaching on Social Security, is feeling the pressure from both inside and outside.  Another item on the second term agenda falls by the wayside.

GOP Falsehoods on the Filibuster

Jeffrey Toobin has an article in the current New Yorker on the fuss over the filibuster.  I'd like to say something more detailed about it in the next day or two, but for now just a few quick-hit responses to claims and rhetoric by the GOP:

• In keeping with the privatization -> private accounts -> personal accounts rhetorical evolution, the Newspeak version of the nuclear option is the "constitutional option."  Apparently calling it that makes it so.  But as the story shows, some GOP senators -- the moderates and the "traditionalists" -- are uncomfortable with removing the filibuster by fiat.  From here on in, one way to see where a senator stands is by listening for the label they use.  Let's start a tally: McCain and Specter call it the nuclear option, and Collins sits on the fence by using both names.  That's not even getting to the several others who expressed reservations.  Perhaps that is why, despite rumors Frist would force the Dems' hand in February, the nuclear option has stayed parked in the silo: They might not have enough votes to win a simple majority.  Wouldn't that be ironic.

• Grassley says "Filibusters are designed so that the minority can bring about compromise on legislation. You can always change the words of a bill or the dollars involved. But you can’t compromise a Presidential nomination. It’s yes or no. So filibusters on nominations are an abuse of our function under the Constitution to advise and consent."  First, the history is false.  The filibuster arose by accident, near as anyone can tell, due to an oversight in a rules rewrite early in the 19th century.  Beware anyone on the right or the left saying the filibuster was "designed" for anything in particular.  It was not.  Like most of the rules in Congress, their purpose comes from their use.  Second, one can certainly compromise on a nomination -- by putting forward a more moderate nominee.  The filibuster functions no differently for a nomination than for a bill.

• Part of the strategy behind the nuclear option, as Toobin describes, is that a federal court would be extremely unlikely to overturn a rule change adopted by the Senate.  The reason?  Article I, Section 5 which permits each chamber of Congress to decide its own procedures.  Ah, but there's the rub.  It is for that very reason that a federal court would not declare the cloture rule and the filibuster unconstitutional either, despite the argument of Hatch, Frist and friends.  It should hardly be surprising that for all the bluster raised, they have not whispered one syllable about challenging the practice in court.  They won't because they'd lose.  Thus, the claim that the filibuster is unconstitutional is false.  The nuclear option is the strategy that eats itself.

• If the point of order against a filibuster is raised on the basis that the action is dilatory, that, too, bespeaks the hollowness of the strategy.  For one, a perfectly forthright effort by the minority to engage in extended deliberation over a nominee might well be perceived by an annoyed majority as a dilatory tactic.  Yet, that is not the standard put forward.  Instead, we are meant to consider whether the filibuster of a nominee is per se dilatory.  On what basis?  Because it delays a vote?  Well, so does any debate.  Here the contrast with the last great effort in Congress to do away with dilatory tactics, the House circa 1890, is instructive.  At that time, all action ground to a halt due to the "disappearing quorum" -- members were present but refused to heed a quorum call, depriving the House the majority it needed to proceed.  The tactic did not involve any deliberation -- indeed, it involved nothing but refusing to answer -- and so could quite easily be labeled dilatory.  The filibuster is another animal entirely, because here it involves action indistinguishable from ordinary Senate business -- debate -- but for the fact that the majority lacks the votes to impose cloture in order to end it.

DeLay Knows How to Pick His Friends

The Washington Post had a story today about Tom DeLay's attempt to regain the confidence of his constituents in the face of the numerous corruption and abuse of power allegations, not to mention that unfortunate little trial going on right now.   Much has been written in blogtopia about it, mostly on the real chance Dems have to make him nervous in '06.  Read Off the Kuff, the Daily DeLay, DeLayWatch, and Bull Moose.

While that is the main thrust of the story, there is another angle worth exploring as well.  As part of his effort to shore up support in his home district:

In January, DeLay shook up his team of political consultants. He signed on Sam Dawson, who was a top political aide to then-House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) and helped devise the Republican strategy for taking over the House in 1994. Dawson will serve as his general consultant and media strategist.

Who is this Dawson fellow?  Thought you'd never ask.  The short answer is that he is a longtime GOP operative, a South Carolinian and former associate of Lee Atwater.  He has about 30 years of campaign experience, including Bush-Quayle in '92, Buddy Roemer in Louisiana, Coverdell in Georgia, and an extended stint with the NRCC in the '80s under Ed Rollins and again in the late '90s.  Lately he's had a media consulting firm, among other things doing ads for Republican House candidates.

The long answer is a bit more sordid.  See, this Dawson fellow has a history of playing as down and dirty as necessary to win a race, as an associate of Atwater and Rollins would.  In fact, the Atlanta Constitution back in the day called him "Atwater's leanest and meanest disciple."  To be called the meanest is surely saying something.  Some Republicans disagree -- after all, Dawson has worked for moderates as well as conservatives.  Still, in one failed Ohio race, he was brought in to pull a moderate candidate to the right in order to win the GOP primary.

The campaign he ran that everyone still talks about, however, was a 1978 race for a South Carolina House seat.  (If you'd like to consult the sources, the stories I drew most of this from are in Vanity Fair, Nov. 2004, and the NYT, Sept. 24, 1986.)  Carroll Campbell (the R) was going up against Max Heller, the mayor of Greenville and a Jewish refugee from Nazi-era Austria.  The Campbell campaign ran a push poll asking voters which of six characteristics best described the two candidates:

1. Honest
2. A Christian man
3. Concern for the people
4. A hard worker
5. Experienced in government
6. Jewish

Another question asked whether fifteen "personal qualities" would best describe the two candidates, including "native of South Carolina" and "Jewish immigrant."

The push poll, quite possibly the first of its kind, had its intended effect as a whisper campaign began to spread about Heller.  That, of course, was by design.  Dem Alan Baron wrote in a newsletter a few years afterward that, based on conversations with Campbell's pollster, the intent was to "determine the impact on voters of information that Heller was (1) a Jew; (2) a foreign-born Jew; and (3) a foreign-born Jew who did not believe in Jesus Christ as the savior."  Apparently #1 and #2 were OK with South Carolina voters, but #3 was not.  And so the Campbell campaign went after Heller.

Apparently the push poll was not enough, however, and notably Campbell never mentioned his opponent's religion directly.  A week before the election, Heller was up by 14 points.  Then, a third fringe candidate named Don Sprouse entered the race who did put Judaism front and center.  Heller, Sprouse said, wasn't qualified to be in Congress because "he doesn't believe in Jesus Christ."

Why would Sprouse enter the race then, and choose that particular line of attack?  After all, the push poll's results were not public knowledge at that point.  While Campbell and Atwater denied any role, using a third candidate as a stalking horse to make the dirtiest accusations was a strategy Atwater used that very same year to reelect Strom Thurmond.  The most direct evidence of a link between Sprouse and the Campbell campaign comes from a parking lot meeting between Dawson and the Campbell campaign's new best friend, a meeting Atwater disclosed to several people after the fact.

The anti-Semitic attacks and innuendo were effective, and Heller lost to Campbell by six points.  Sprouse's vote was negligible, but he raised the issue of religion so that Campbell himself wouldn't have to.

Dawson may have cleaned up his act some since then -- I won't claim that every race he's managed has been so utterly soiled by bigotry and manipulation -- but it did set a template by which later dirty campaigns were run, including Bush's campaign of innuendo against McCain in the 2000 South Carolina primary.

As I said, Tom DeLay sure knows how to pick his friends.  As though he needed any help playing dirty.

This Isn't TSP

The Washington Post -- finally! -- does a story taking apart one of Bush's privatization pitches, that his plan is modeled on the successful Thrift Savings Plan (TSP) used by millions of federal workers.

Except it's not.  Modeled on it, that is.  You'll already be familiar with some of the arguments in the story (you read it here), but I think this passage captures the spirit nicely:

For most federal employees, the TSP serves as one leg of a "three-legged stool" of retirement income; the other two are the traditional Social Security benefit and a government pension. But because many businesses no longer offer defined-benefit pensions, many employees in the private sector have only a two-legged stool -- their 401(k) plan plus Social Security.

The money that workers divert to Bush's personal accounts, plus 3 percent interest, would come out of their guaranteed Social Security benefit. So, in effect, the president would be shaving down one of the legs and hoping that a new one -- the individual account -- would grow at least enough to compensate for the loss.

"It's not really like TSP at all," said James Sauber, chairman of the Employee Thrift Advisory Council, a 15-member panel of representatives from federal labor and managerial organizations. "He's proposing to weaken one leg of the stool to fund another leg of the stool."

Another Domestic Priority Stalls

We know the trouble Bush has run into with Social Security privatization, and I just wrote about the obstacles "Clear Skies" faces.  Now time to remind you of another of his domestic priorities which shows every sign of stalling before it gets anywhere.  Yes, it's civil service reform again.

A couple weeks ago I wrote about the skepticism greeting the scheme from senators, including Republicans with responsibility for shepherding it through the process.  (Yes, Voinovich is causing trouble again.)  Now CongressDaily says Tom Davis is also putting the brakes on in the House.   His northern Virginia district has about 50,000 federal employees, making any support for the president on this issue rather uncomfortable.

If the Senate does block the proposal, then Davis is off the hook with the administration.  If by some chance it moves, then he will have to make a choice between his constituents and the White House.  My guess is Bush will be the one left wanting.  Either way, expanded civil service reform looks to be dead in the water, which is a good thing, at least in the form Bush wanted it.  At the very least, the longer Davis flirts with the idea the greater the opening for Dems to challenge him in '06.

Hmm, this whole second term agenda thing doesn't seem to be going very well for Bush, does it?

Clear Skies Hazy

Last Wednesday the LA Times published a letter to the editor from Paul Oakley, exec dir of the Coalition for Affordable and Reliable Energy, a coalition of manufacturers, coal producers and their allies that strongly supports Bush's "Clear Skies Initiative."  Putting his best face on a political problem, he said that Inhofe had postponed a markup of the bill until this coming Wednesday to find an agreement on "workable, bipartisan multi-emissions reduction legislation."

In a sense, he's right.  The reason the bill was pulled from the committee's agenda just prior to the February break was that it was deadlocked 9 to 9, with all Democrats together with Jeffords and Chafee opposed.  The opponents have shown little indication of folding, even in the face of Inhofe's intimidation tactics.  It's not that Republicans want to find a bipartisan solution, it's that they need to.  If anything, the only bipartisan coalition is the one blocking the bill.

Inhofe also faces dissent within his own ranks, CongressDaily reminds us today (subscription only).  Voinovich, who chairs the subcommittee with jurisdiction over the bill, wants to find a bipartisan compromise.  That's something for which Inhofe has shown little taste.

One Side Is Dirtier Than the Other

I'm sure we didn't need the LA Times to tell us that the Social Security privatization debate is becoming more heated.  My real objection, however, is that the reporter does what lazy journalists do in a polarized political world -- mistake quoting both sides for objectivity.

Let's compare the evidence of mudslinging put forward.  On the one hand, there is the campaign of the swifters to label the AARP as anti-troops and pro-gay.  On the other hand, there are ads by Campaign for America's Future run in the hometown papers of pro-privatization Rep. Jim McCrery saying he is not working in the interests of his constituents.  On the one hand, the RNC calls CAF a "liberal front group" from "the Michael Moore wing."  On the other hand, the DCCC has posted quotes from prominent Republicans showing them contradict themselves about Social Security privatization.

Notice any difference?  The strategy of the right is to attack with innuendo at best tenuously connected with the substance of the issue, not to mention tenuously connected with the truth, and to attack not the decision-makers themselves but those supporting the decision-makers.  The strategy of the left, on the other hand, is to engage on the issue at hand by documenting the record of leading Republican policymakers.  To say that the two are playing the same game, as the Times reporter implies, disguises the fundamentally dishonest and dishonorable tactics the right employs.

McCrery's response to the charges?

"I get contributions from all kinds of interests, and so does almost every other member of Congress," McCrery said. "To impugn the motives of a member of Congress based on his campaign contributions is not appropriate and has no standing in the arena of political debate."

That is patently false.  He and the rest do not get contributions "from all kinds of interests."  Interests donate money to those who will support their issues, and as such the question is absolutely appropriate and does have standing in political debate.  Perhaps he simply would prefer not to reflect on his sources of financial support.

The article points out, probably correctly, that CAF cannot identify a specific favor McCrery did due to a contribution.  That obsession over a smoking gun misses the point, however; as any prosecutor will tell you, one does not need a smoking gun to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.

It may be a topic to explore in greater detail some other day, but for now a brief sketch of the matter of campaign contributions.  There has been much research over the past couple of decades on the link between campaign contributions and policymaking.  For the most part, the evidence comes down to little more than a correlation between the two.  As any first-year stats student will tell you, correlation is not causation, and evidence of direct causation -- a contribution or a pattern of contributions leading to a specific policy -- has proved elusive.  Yes, there are a few evocative anecdotal stories, but little systematic evidence to support the broad claims of corruption.

The fundamental reason is that contributions tend to go to candidates who already support the group's point of view.  That is to say, rather than buying a vote they are a way to get a supporter of one's issue into office.  While one can still make an equity claim that this advantages those interests with the money to spend, it is a far cry from the corruption claim.

There is another element of the conventional story which is also vastly oversimplified:  Campaign contributions don't buy votes on bills.  If that were the case, then we would expect that most contributions would go to the swing voters in Congress, the moderates who would tip the balance on a roll call vote from one side to the other.  In fact, that is not the case.  A disproportionate share of contributions go to strong supporters, not to the weak supporters and undecideds.  Again, if it's about corruption and vote buying, donating to strong supporters seems a waste of money.

But these PACs and other big donors don't waste their money.  What do they get in return?  Certainly there ought to be some payoff for them in Congress -- and therefore some reason for us to be concerned -- but what is it?  A pattern we see generally, illustrated by McCrery, is that most contributions go to members of the committees with jurisdiction over an issue, and especially the chairs.  Our first tip-off, then, is that whatever influence that is bought is upstream, long before bills get to the floor.

Rick Hall at the University of Michigan has written that most of the important work of Congress is done by the select few who choose to participate in committee and subcommittee deliberations.  On a given issue, only some members of the committee or subcommittee will be involved in writing the bill and its amendments, negotiating deals, working with interest groups, and shepherding it to the floor.  Hall and a coauthor found that while campaign contributions do not buy votes, they do buy participation.  That is to say, a PAC donor is able to mobilize a supporter to become more active on the issue in committee.

Which brings us back to McCrery.  The reason the question of campaign contributions absolutely is a valid subject of debate is that he is chair of the Ways and Means subcommittee which will get the first crack at the privatization bill.  He is also someone, as Josh Marshall has documented on many an occasion, who has expressed only lukewarm support for the president's proposal at times.  What does the money do?  It prompts a conservative already sympathetic to the "ownership society" to set aside his concerns and sell the president's plan.  And lately that's just what he's done.

So while the right wages a war with innuendo, aspersions and misdirection, the left has engaged the core of the debate directly.  For once, let's hope the facts win out.

Finding One's Constituency

One of the obstacles the president has found in trying to sell his Social Security privatization is that a primary target group in the propaganda wars is voters under thirty, who voted strongly for Kerry and subsequently have proven resistant to Bush's sales pitch.

Well, if legal voters won't buy what you're selling, I suppose the next step is to turn to the grade school set.  That's exactly what they've done.  According to the New York Times, a nine-year-old presidential trivia expert is now on board and will spend his spring break barnstorming with Progress for America.  (That's the same group Josh Marshall reports has also bought a Social Security Trustee to help sell the scheme.)

I have no doubt that he is a very bright boy.  Nevertheless, this just reeks of exploitation.

Inhofe the Intimidator

As Kos pointed out, the LA Times reports that James "outraged about the outrage" Inhofe has adopted the well-worn wingnut tactic of intimidating opponents when the facts are inconvenient.  In this case, as chair of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, he demanded that a witness who testified in opposition to the president's "Clear Skies Initiative" turn over financial records.

Beyond the passage Kos quotes, there are a few things to note about this story.  First, the witness in question was not some ecoterrorist but an Ohio state environmental regulator speaking on behalf of two organizations of state and local officials.  Not only that, but he voted for Bush in 2000 and 2004.  Second, while the request for financial records is invasive and offensive, it might be marginally less so if it were the practice of the committee to ask all witnesses for the same.  As you might well imagine, the witness was singled out for such treatment.

Dems on the committee are understandably afraid to speak out since they are still in the midst of negotiations over the bill.  Waxman, with nothing to lose on the House side, in the meantime will take up their cause.  And for the record, a representative of the groups says they do not accept outside financial support of the sort Inhofe is fishing to find.

But there is another dimension to the story which might be amusing if it weren't so disturbing.  Recall that six weeks ago Inhofe gave a speech not only praising Michael Crichton's new anti-global warming novel but saying it ought to be required reading for all senators, as I blogged at the time.  No, not for a special edition of Oprah's book club, but because this novel -- a novel! -- is meant to tell us something real about the dark underbelly of scientific research into climate change and the wild-eyed tree huggers who support it.

As further evidence that Inhofe cannot distinguish between fantasy and reality, he is treating this Republican state bureaucrat as though he were an ecoterrorist out of Crichton's novel, simply because he opposed the president's proposal.  As I said, it would be amusing if it weren't so disturbing.

Disgrace in Story on Bush Tapes

I was shocked by what I read in the Washington Post today about the leaked Bush tapes.  Here is the passage:

Bush also seems to infer on one tape that he has tried marijuana, which he has never admitted publicly.

Come again?  At least three professionals at one of the country's finest newspapers -- reporters Lois Romano and Mike Allen and an anonymous copy editor -- don't know the difference between "infer" and "imply."

Either that or Bush was so hopped up on booze and cocaine that he couldn't say for sure whether he was smoking grass, too.  In which case they used the correct word.

AARP Under Attack

In the latest version of wingnuts playing Shoot the Messenger, the New York Times reports today that the mercenaries behind the swift boat ads have finally found another battle to fight: Social Security privatization.  Perhaps realizing that the administration is losing the debate on its merits, and rapidly losing GOP votes in the process, they have decided to wage war against the largest and most visible group opposed to the Bush scheme, AARP.

As Atrios has pointed out, perhaps it is karmic payback for the lobby behemoth supporting Bush's ill-conceived prescription drug plan.  Many seniors were rightly pissed off by the capitulation and ended their membership, and others -- wanting to hang onto their subscription to Modern Maturity -- have stayed despite misgivings about the leadership.  In other words, the swifters may be able to take advantage of a crisis of confidence in the organization, and the Times reports they are prepared to spend millions to do so.  AARP is large and very experienced and unlikely to fall into an August swoon the way Kerry did.  Nevertheless, the swifters have shown they will play as dirty as it takes and AARP has a fight on its hands.

While Atrios and others point to the Medicare debacle of the last Congress, the scenario reminds me of the last time AARP stumbled badly, sixteen years ago over the Medicare catastrophic coverage plan.  You can read Dan Rostenkowski's recollection of part of the story in an HHS oral history project; it's a pretty interesting read.  In a nutshell, an insurance program was tacked onto Medicare to provide catastrophic health care coverage, passed with only a minor fight and signed into law by Reagan.

Then it hit the fan.  AARP had misrepresented the program -- or at least hadn't explained its costs and benefits fully -- before it went into effect.  Rostenkowski, one of the main forces behind the bill, said later that he regretted raising Medicare taxes immediately to fund it rather than phasing them in.  Seizing the opportunity, the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare misrepresented the tax as $800/month for every senior.  The campaign worked, scaring the hell out of seniors and bringing in boatloads of new donations.  You may remember one vivid scene when Rosty's car was surrounded by irate seniors picketing and yelling.  Needless to say, Congress was scared senseless and promptly repealed the plan two years after enacting it.  Only later did the NCPSSM folks admit that they were wrong about the $800 bit (it was actually a graduated tax, with the highest bracket paying $800; most seniors would have payed only about $4).

AARP allowed itself to get into that position by not fully explaining the program it was supporting, and then reacting slowly when it came under attack by others.  The episode burned them and they had to rebuild their credibility.  Something similar is at play now following the prescription drug debacle, which is why we should not underestimate the damage the swifters could do.  The difference, however, is that AARP is not the only group coming to the defense of Social Security, and it is extremely unlikely that the swifters will replicate the stampede of public opinion NCPSSM created.

Gonzo Gone

The Denver Post, and now other leading outlets, are reporting that Hunter S. Thompson killed himself earlier this evening.  Like many college students, I found his writing years ago fresh, exciting, transgressive and indulgent.  And yes, more than a little irresponsible.  By so thoroughly putting himself in the middle of his own stories, he also provided us the rare opportunity to see the world from multiple and very different perspectives: A more-than-a-little odd Merry Prankster/Hell's Angel party as told in his own Hell's Angels and in Tom Wolfe's The Electric Acid Kool-Aid Test, and coverage of the '72 campaign in Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail (still my favorite of his books) and in Timothy Crouse's The Boys on the Bus.  Not to mention immortalized in two so-so Hollywood films and as a recurring character in Doonesbury.

Yes, he played fast and loose with the truth and cared little about properly sourcing his stories, even when he played at journalism.  But if you couldn't see through his jokes and self-conscious fabrications (Muskie and ibogaine, anyone?) he didn't think you were worth his time anyway.  Check out his interview a few years ago with the Paris Review in which he reflects on the Muskie incident and its aftermath, and deflects a few questions about journalistic ethics.  The whole  yarn hinged on an intentionally vague and suggestive "word leaked out."  What more perfect send-up is there of the addiction of political journalists to highly placed anonymous sources?  He despised the whole incestuous Washington social club, and said so on many an occasion.  Out of his drug-induced haze, Thompson made sure it was his world and we were just living in it.

With a career as colorful as his, there many moments to choose.  Here is one, for no particular reason, from Boys on the Bus:

The band was playing "Yankee Doodle Dandy" and the crowd, drummed up by the Nixon advance team, was pressing against the airport fence.  I looked around and suddenly spotted Hunter Thompson heading for the press enclosure in his springy lope, looking only moderately bizarre in his blue pants, white jacket, red-and-white shirt, and light blue aviator's sunglasses.  I introduced him to a Secret Service man, who got him his credentials.  Meanwhile, Air Force One had landed and taxied to within fifty yards of the press.  The door swung open and Nixon stepped out on the ramp, grimacing and waving.  "Go get 'em Dick," Thompson yelled.  "Throw the Bomb!"  The whine of the plane's engines drowned him out, but he got a few funny looks from immediate neighbors.  "Fifty years more!" he yelled.  "Thousand-year Reich!"

There will be no one else like him.

The Senate GOP Privatization Campaign

Yesterday the AP reported that the Senate GOP is distributing "campaign-style materials" to members in order that they push privatization during their February trip home.  Consistent with their Happy Happy, Joy Joy message, there is no mention of the benefit cuts in the president's plan.

The facts are always so inconvenient, and a downer to boot.

Greenspan, Stenholm and Others on Privatization

Today Greenspan weighed in on Social Security privatization.  As with much of his history of testimony before Congress, there was something to please everyone.  Read this NY Times story for some details.

The Bush people no doubt will walk away pleased that our monetary Yoda came out in favor of privatization, at least in theory.  We opponents will focus on the rest of what he said: The Bush plan is far to hasty and costly.  He also says that Congress should consider raising payroll taxes, which the president has ruled off the table.

Speaking of ruling things off the table, former dean of the Fainthearted Faction ex-Rep. Charlie Stenholm yesterday blamed the Democrats for ruling privatization off the table.  CongressDaily quotes him, "When anyone begins to take anything off the table, that narrows our ability to get to a solution."  Er, has he looked at the president's proposal?  Bush has made most elements of Social Security policy non-negotiable, making it all but inevitable that were privatization to occur it would be costly and rapid, contrary to Greenspan's wishes, and would do nothing to make the financing of Social Security either more stable or less regressive.

The GAO's Comptroller General, on the other hand, says that the president's strategy has turned what should be a serious policy debate into a partisan game.  Couldn't agree more, though from his other comments he seemed to see more urgency than is warranted.

Among the others who spoke, Trent Lott's stand out as the most peculiar.  He said that he would prefer the House to act first on Social Security privatization since "on stuff like this they're smarter than us and have more courage than us."  Read: Have more party discipline and don't have to worry about filibusters.  Having more expertise has nothing to do with it.  As CD points out, that also means the House GOP would be left to hang out to dry if they passed a privatization bill only to see it stall in the Senate.  Then Lott said that there is an eighteen month window to get this done, and that window is only available in a president's second term.  In other words, there is hell to pay electorally by getting out in front of this issue.  Which is exactly why he wants the House to act first (even though their electoral pressures, with two-year terms, is even greater).  As I said, rather peculiar.

Oh, and Santorum was his usual hardline self.

Update: Go read Anrig take apart Greenspan (via TPM).

Who's In and Who's Out

The Washington Post reported today on efforts by HHS to excise mention of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender from the title of a talk in a program on suicide and suicide prevention.  It is not that the issue is not important -- the article notes that suicide rates are 2-3 times higher for these groups.  Instead, the Bush bureaucrats were uncomfortable with the topic being so, well, out front.

The suggested wording reveals the prejudices behind the move.  The organizers were told they ought to replace those words with "sexual orientation."  The article continues:

[T]hat did not make sense to him. "Everyone has a sexual orientation," he said in an interview yesterday. "But this was about gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgenders."

Moreover, he noted, transgender people differ from others in terms of sexual identity, not sexual orientation.

"Unless you use an accurate term, the people you are trying to reach don't recognize themselves and don't attend," he said, adding that the agency told him he should not use "gender identity."

There are two issues, one overt and the other more subtle.  The obvious issue is that removing any mention of gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender was an attempt to hide groups that make the bureaucrats uncomfortable, and as a result do an injustice to the very real social problem the panel is meant to address.

The more subtle issue is what makes "sexual orientation" such a bad substitute, even leaving aside the fact that it is inaccurate for some people included in the original title.  It starts from the assumption that there is a baseline or default sexuality and everyone who deviates from it has a distinctive characteristic, a sexual orientation.  All others -- presumably heterosexuals -- need not reflect on their sexuality and therefore do not have an orientation.

That line of thinking is common with regards to race, gender, language and any number of other socially important categories.  In the first half of the 20th century it was common to label all music made by African Americans as "race music" -- jazz, Delta blues, Piedmont blues, gospel, jump, ragtime, big band, work songs, the gamut.  That is to say, the label signified that blacks had racial characteristics but whites did not, and those characteristics were far more salient that the myriad differences within the group.  Billboard in fact listed African American recordings as "race music" until 1949, when it decided to replace the label with "rhythm and blues" (again something of a catch-all, but with less obvious political overtones).

It's not that long ago that such thinking dominated the music industry (and in many ways never disappeared).  I remember from my youth in the early 1980s in central California walking into a record store, the Wherehouse, and seeing a section labeled "black music."  (In fact, I remember my puzzlement both at the category and the fact that Madonna's first record was put in that bin at my local store.)

Let's take another example.  For the last couple of decades there has been much discussion of a gender gap in elections, and even among the well-meaning there is an unfortunate tendency to characterize women as the source of aberration.  Yes, men and women tend to vote differently.  But is the source of it an increasing conservatism among men or liberalism among women?  By a ratio of a hundred to one, the conversation has focused on the latter rather than the former.

(As a side note, even data that would show the partisan leanings of men staying stable and the leanings of women growing more Democratic does not necessarily support that interpretation.  If the political agenda grows more conservative, then that partisan pattern would reflect women remaining consistent in their policy preferences while men become more conservative.)

Check out a brief sampling of some of the writing on the subject:

• From the American Political Science Association website: A short paper entitled "Women Voters and the Gender Gap"
• From Ms Magazine, "Why the Gender Gap Matters":  "This is a good thing for women. Without the gender gap, women’s votes — and women’s issues — would be ignored. Even with it, too often women’s issues are neglected by consultant-driven campaigns.       The gender gap is fueled by issues such as women’s rights, abortion rights, human services (education, health care, Social Security), war and gun control."
• From NOW: A page entitled "Women Voters Maintain Gender Gap in 2004 Elections"

I do not indict all such research as misguided.  There are analytical reasons to focus on the voting patterns of a certain group, and there are political reasons why we want to understand the distinctive demands and desires of female voters.  In part by shining the light here it helps makes up for decades of neglect.  However, at the same time it also makes it seem as though only women have a gender and therefore only women act politically based on their gender.  That in itself can have the paradoxical effect of marginalizing and undermining the political goals of women.  And if in fact it is men who are voting increasingly conservatively, it may be inaccurate as an explanation for recent voting trends.

The gender gap example also shows that the idea of "normal/deviant"  or "in/out" is not based on actual population distributions.  Unlike with the "race music" and "sexual orientation" examples, the group being used as the baseline category here -- men -- are in the numerical minority.  Intead, who is the "in group" is defined by social and political power.

The point isn't that someone who uses this line of thinking is always racist or homophobic or sexist -- I certainly wouldn't claim that NOW is sexist on this basis -- but that the thinking has social and political consequences.  There are consequences for who we think of as an "in group" and "out group" and whose claims for equality, tolerance or consideration ought to be heeded.  There are consequences for who we think has the power and who ought to change.  There are consequences for how we think of ourselves in relation to others.

It is far too utopian to think that we rid ourselves of all "in/out" and "normal/different" categories, and in many ways it might not even be desirable.  However, we ought to be conscious of the choices we make in using categories and their implications.  Language has power, but even more than that it is reflective of power.  The decision by HHS was a naked display of such power by a dominant social group.

Questions About Civil Service Reform

The Washington Post today has a rather tepid Federal Diary by Stephen Barr raising more questions about the proposed civil service reforms.  It quotes extensively from the rationales for the new regulations issued by DOD and DHS, which rely heavily on vague gestures at the post-9/11 world and the need to respond quickly and flexibly to threats.  This is a topic we have covered here and here.

Yes, there is a need to respond quickly and flexibly, and so some call to lend agency managers a greater hand through such things as performance rewards.  However, as Barr points out the rhetoric has not been linked directly to the kinds of department-wide changes DOD and DHS are moving toward.  While such flexibility might be justified for some positions, it is hard to imagine that it is universally justified regardless of the proximity of its connection to anti-terrorism and security.

More troubling, which Barr does not address, is that these same justifications evaporate when transporting the reform proposals to Labor, Education, and Veterans' Affairs.  A case can certainly be made for civil service reform, but the Bush Administration has not done so.  Intead it appears more like an opportunity to exert greater political control over the federal bureaucracy using -- no surprise -- vague and winking nods to the needs of the post-9/11 world.  Now where have we heard that before?

A Senate hearing late last week showed that some in Congress, including the GOP chair of the Senate subcommittee with jurisdiction over the civil service, are skeptical of the need and design of the plan.  Government Executive reports that Voinovich, together with the ranking Democrat Akaka, both expressed great skepticism at OMB's enthusiasm to roll out the reforms government-wide without seeing how they play in the two departments for which they were initially intended.  Since it requires congressional approval, and federal employee unions are poised to mobilize, there will be a fight.  Whereas the unions lost in the rush to create DHS the first time around, they have a much better shot to slow the rush to reform this time.

Valentines for Our Times

Need to find the perfect Valentine for the person on your list?  Here are a few poems you could use:

1.
Texas is red,
New York is blue.
When I cast my ballot,
I'm voting for you, except I might have to wait ten hours in line to do it and if the poll worker sends me to the wrong precinct then an Ohio court will throw it out, or Carteret County, North Carolina might not count it at all if its electronic voting machine is "full."

2.
Don't send me flowers
or chocolates with a bow.
Just convince the Supreme Court
to let me out of Gitmo.

3.
You think my theories are crackpot
and I'm crippled with fear.
But besides my tinfoil hat
my only warmth is you, dear.

4.
Our love will last forever
and that makes me glad.
Since Social Security was privatized,
one out of two ain't bad.
(Save this one for next year.)

5.
Your beauty and charm
are the weapons you wield.
My resistance to you
is like the missile defense shield.

6.
Our love is forbidden
from Oregon to Ohio.
But as med-buying seniors say,
at least there's Toronto.

Ryan's Hopeless

The Cato event on Social Security privatization had a number of interesting moments.  You read some of it here yesterday regarding Lindsey Graham and his rather independent approach to the topic.  Another speaker was Paul Ryan who has a privatization plan of his own.  Perhaps because he is not such a bright light or perhaps he is demagoguing the issue, or perhaps both, he pays for his plan through future unspecified spending cuts.  When a more senior GOP colleague pointed out to him that this wasn't realistic, according to the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel he replied, "I want to change that mindset."

That article and another one this morning on CongressDaily also quote Ryan as saying he has found it very difficult to find any Democratic allies, he says in part because Dem leaders have promised serious retribution for anyone who breaks ranks.  The Journal-Sentinel continues:

Speaking alongside Ryan Wednesday, House Republican Jim Kolbe of Arizona said "bipartisanship is essential."

"Politically, it would be catastrophic if this thing were to pass (without Democratic votes), because I think it would be demagogued very badly in the next election," Kolbe said.

Ryan then says that they will have to counter that pressure by appealing to the "grassroots" for support.  Apparently he hasn't been following the poll results which show that most people are highly skeptical of claims of crisis, and that support for privatization erodes quickly once people are informed of the costs and risks, as this Washington Post poll shows. 

CD quotes an unnamed leadership aide as saying that there has not been any such pressure, apart from some on Boyd for cosponsoring Kolbe's bill.  My reaction: That's probably right, and that's great if there was anyway.  Grassroots mobilization behind the president's scheme will fail for precisely the reason the leadership hasn't had to lean too hard on members -- the tide is running against the scheme, and this is in the face of the president's PR offensive and before counter-mobilization by groups like AARP has gotten off the ground.  Dems, and many Republicans, don't need their leaders to interpret the public's mood on Social Security.

And if the leadership has leaned on a few recalcitrant members?  Good for them. I hope there's more to come if others flirt with the dark side.  Glad to see the Democratic Caucus is willing to empower their leadership for a change and that their leaders are willing to use the power.

Chafee Is No Lincoln

Josh Marshall has made note of the obvious dithering of Lincoln Chafee over Social Security privatization (here and here).  Shorter Marshall: Chafee waffles.

And...?  This is hardly news, especially for those living in or near Rhode Island.  The man is constitutionally incapable of taking a firm stand and then stating it clearly.  Right after the election  I wrote about how he couldn't make up his mind whether to vote for or endorse Bush.  If he can't make up his mind about something as clear and discrete as that, how can we expect Chafee to take a stand on Social Security?  While ultimately I figure he will vote with the Dems on this, it is best to have very low expectations for Chafee as an ally.

Anyway, there are more important ditherers to worry about, on both sides.

Lindsey Graham Pleases Everyone and No One

I have only ten minutes, so this will be quick:  This morning's Congress Daily (sorry, subscription only) reports that Lindsey Graham is tinkering with his Social Security privatization bill in order to find a magic combination that pleases both Rs and Ds.  He may have found the magic formula that pleases neither.

In a gesture to Ds, he wants to increase the income cap on payroll taxes, to shift a little more of the burden on this highly regressive tax to (slightly) higher income earners.  In a gesture to both sides of the aisle, he wants to lower the payroll tax rate at the same time from 12.4% to 11.2%.  This would again lessen slightly the burden on workers for the Ds, and would lower the burden on employers for the Rs.

Problem is, Democrats are still extremely skeptical about anything that shifts payroll taxes to private accounts, and Republicans don't want to increase the income ceiling on payroll taxes.  So, instead of broadening his Senate coalition he may have shrunk it.  Here's what CD has to say:

But the process Graham launched to try to forge a bipartisan consensus on revamping Social Security has made little headway so far, congressional sources said. Graham was scheduled to meet with senators from both sides of the aisle Tuesday, but the meeting was canceled.

The hope was to get some Democrats and Republicans to sign off on a set of principles that would at least address such issues as what problems the system faces and how soon action is needed. But even that has run into difficulty at the staff level, sources said.

So much for that magic formula.  Can anyone spare any eye of newt?  No, not that Newt.

At the same time, Graham -- hardly a strong ally of the White House -- has been openly critical of the president's plan, especially its impact on the debt.  Once again, the Senate will be a tough nut to crack if Bush wants privatization.

Finally, the article quotes Snowe yet again as a critic of the White House plan, though again she does not sound as committed an opponent as she was prior to the SOTU.  This time she recalls the electoral grief the GOP got back in '82 after hitting Social Security too hard.  Perhaps she can remind some of her junior colleagues.

More on the House Ethics Purge

At last I have an opportunity to return to the Ethics Committee purge orchestrated by Hastert and DeLay under cover of SOTU.  As you recall, Hastert bumped off the committee Hefley, Hulshof and LaTourette, who all had the audacity to vote against the DeLay Rule permitting indicted members to keep their leadership posts.  They were replaced with pliable friends of the leadership Cole, Hart and Lamar Smith; Biggert and Doc Hastings were kept on, with Hastings being named chair.  Needless to say, all three of the new appointees and the two returning members were/are allies of the Hammer, in the case of Smith a very close ally indeed.

Off the Kuff links to a few editorials excoriating the GOP for so transparently manipulating the ethics process in the House.

As we saw awhile back, Smith in particular has been a contributor to DeLay's legal defense fund, among other things, which would seem to create more than a whiff of a conflict of interest.  We might consider an alternate hypothesis: That it was driven by ideological considerations.  However, if you look at the ideological proclivities of the members going on and off the committee, there has been a negligible change.  Let's see why.

Rather than use the National Journal, ADA or ACU ratings which have serious problems (mainly by the very selective subset of floor votes they use to calculate their ideology scores), I prefer a measure called Nominate developed by Keith Poole of UC-San Diego and Howard Rosenthal of Princeton.  It takes into account all votes taken in a chamber in a given term and locates each legislator in a single policy space.  In the typical Congress, almost all of the difference in ideology among  legislators can be explained along a single liberal-conservative dimension, just as we might expect.  You can get the data from Poole's website, and he also has some cool animations of the changes in ideological alignments for the House and Senate back to the very first Congress.

Back to the Ethics Committee.  It turns out that the ideological leaning of the committee, at least based on the voting patterns of the last Congress, will change not at all because of Hastert's reshuffle.  Using the Nominate measure where 1=most conservative and -1=most liberal, the median score for the old GOP contingent on Ethics was .44 and the median score for the new contingent is, well, .44 (and the overall House GOP median Nominate score in the 108th was, er, .44).  Hefley was very much on the conservative side (.74) with LaTourette a moderate (.25) and Hulshof in the mainstream of the party (.44).  The three new members are neither as conservative as Hefley nor as moderate as LaTourette, ranging from .44 for Smith to .47 for Hart.

So if the committee hasn't change ideologically, then what has?  As we suspected, it's loyalty to the leadership.  To see this, I took all non-unanimous roll call votes in the House in the 108th Congress and asked how often DeLay voted on the same side as each of these new and old Ethics members.  Here the message is clear.  Hefley, the chief target of the reshuffle, voted the least often with DeLay, 84.5% of the time, and LaTourette the next lowest proportion at 88.9%.  Still very high, no question, but not completely loyal.  The replacements, on the other hand, voted with DeLay 93.3 to 96.1% of the time.  The new chair, Hastings, sided with him on 95.5% of non-unanimous roll call votes.  The only anomaly is Hulshof at 91.4%, who is slightly higher than Biggert -- who kept his seat -- at 90.5%.  Here we have to return to the vote on the DeLay Rule, which certainly matters more here than whether Hulshof was slightly more loyal to the leadership in general.

This provides further evidence that the Ethics reshuffle was driven by loyalty to DeLay and the House GOP leadership.  What is odd is that this kind of move ordinarily is done for committees like Rules, which wields great power over the House floor agenda, or to install friendly chairs of important policy committees.  Ethics in the past has not been considered such a committee.  At least not until a Majority Leader was threatened with indictment or worse.  As I and others have written, the move was both brazen and craven.

LIHEAP: A Case Study in Priorities

Those of you basking on the beaches of San Diego may not be able to identify personally with this, but home heating costs are a significant drain on many households with the current very high prices of heating oil, especially for the poor and those on fixed incomes.  The Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP), administered through HHS, provides aid for purchase of home heating oil and natural gas during the cold months.  (And for those of you who are in warmer climes, the program helps with cooling costs during hot weather as well.)

In the president's FY06 budget released yesterday, he would cut LIHEAP funding from a projected $2.2 billion for the current fiscal year to $2 billion for next year.  What's that you say, that's still higher than the $1.89 billion for FY04?  Doesn't sound so Grinch-like to me, does it?

Take a look at what the numbers mean.  The nature of the program is that the need for assistance is tied directly to the cost of heat, and heating oil has been climbing steadily for the past several years.  In fact, if you graph LIHEAP appropriations and residential heating oil prices over the past fifteen years (both in nominal dollars), you see that they track closely for most years.  While LIHEAP has never been fully funded, Congress and the president have been somewhat responsive to changes in need, even during the Republican years.

So much for the good news.  No coincidence that all of the good news is in the past tense.

Given the close link between heating oil prices and LIHEAP funding, one might expect that the president recommends this budget with an expectation that heating oil prices will drop in the near future.  In fact, current projections say that will not be the case at all.  The Department of Energy's Energy Information Administration anticipates that heating oil costs a year from now will be nearly as high as last month's, and at least one independent projection predicts that they will be higher.  After three straight years of substantial increases, and with pressures on supply not likely to abate quickly, that seems likely.  So, the administration's proposed 8% cut in the program is with the information from its own DOE that heating oil costs will not be dropping in the near future.

In fact, as recently as the FY04  budget (p344) the president anticipated that funding would increase slowly but steadily through 2008.  Well, when the administration has run up massive budget deficits then the cuts have to come from somewhere.  At least LIHEAP wasn't zeroed out like Amtrak was.

Indicative of the administration's approach to heating the homes of the poor is that it is sitting on nearly $100 million as yet unallocated of $300 million in supplemental money Congress made available at the end of the 108th Congress.  As this Reuters story from a week ago says, due to the current lack of funds only 15% of eligible households are covered, making release of this money even more imperative.  The number covered is sure to drop if the White House has its way for FY06.

I wonder if they have any trouble with their heating bills?  Budgets, particularly during times of deficits, are always a matter of priorities.

Death By a Thousand Cuts

I have limited time for blogging today, alas, and always so much to say.  For now, let me provide a few links to discussions of the president's budget, which reveal the administration's priorities for the coming fiscal year.

It also bears reminding, as we look at the long list of worthy programs cut, that Bush has followed the script David Stockman outlined when he was head of OMB under Reagan: Run up deficits in the short term through tax cuts in order to induce cuts from Congress in domestic discretionary spending over the longer term in order to balance the budget.  Stockman's working assumption at the time was that defense would be exempt, given the support in '80 and '81 for defense budget increases.  Lo and behold, between the war in Iraq and the tax cuts from the first term, Bush has dusted off Stockman's old script.

So, let me piggyback on the work of others by providing you these links:

• Pudentilla and Talk Left on an array of cuts
• Samuel Taylor Coleridge Foundation on cuts to vets' health
• More details from Daily Kos on veterans
• MyDD on Amtrak

If you want to check them out yourself, go to the OMB's site.  I hope to do a little more myself later, but in the meantime have fun playing the part of amateur government accountant.

Costs of Privatization TSP-Style

Recall two days ago in my pre-SOTU post when I warned about the uncounted administrative costs of using the TSP model for Social Security privatization?  The counting has begun, and it's at least as bad as I said.  Check out this brief summary from the Century Foundation (via Kevin Drum).

As Anrig notes at the end, given the regulatory and bureaucratic structure it implies as well as the substantial costs which fall disproportionately on small businesses, this hardly seems like the kind of thing that will please the Club for Growth and Cato folks.

Give This Photo A New Caption

This photo from AP is priceless; perhaps you saw it in the print edition of the New York Times today, too.

Smackdown From Wall Street

CNN/Money reports that a leading figure on Wall Street thinks Bush's Social Security privatization plan is wrong and stupid.  And his language is as clear and blunt as can be.  Here is the lede and the nut graf (for you journalism geeks):

Bill Gross, manager of the world's largest bond fund, is criticizing President Bush's plan to privatize part of Social Security.

Gross, managing director at Pimco, called the argument about the solvency of Social Security "silly" and said it was an example of the president not focusing on more important issues, such as the budget deficit.

Let's hear more from his monthly column on Pimco's website.  First, that the plan is driven by hubris rather than a real need to "reform" Social Security:

[T]his argument about insolvency and how much money is or will be in the Social Security Trust fund is really all so silly. It is an argument to promote an agenda that has little to do with seniors and more to do with Bush, his ownership society, and ultimately his domestic legacy alongside the likes of Ronald Reagan and FDR.

Remember all the talk that Bush's scheme will "pre-fund" Social Security rather than become a sea of transition costs?

Pre-funding these systems, [Rob Arnott] argues, "is basically irrelevant." And (in my own words) it matters little whether the system is pre-refunded with Treasury bonds or privately held stocks. The fact is that both of these financial assets represent a call on future production. If that production could possibly be saved, like squirrels ferreting away nuts for a long winter, then Treasury IOUs or corporate stocks might make some sense. But they can’t. Future healthcare for boomer seniors can only be provided by today’s teenagers, twenty-somethings, and even the yet to be born. We cannot store their energy today for some future rainy day.

And privatization won't solve the problem:

While these paper assets may "pay" for goods and services, their value will be market adjusted in future years to exactly match the quantity of things we buy, and that quantity will be substantially a function of the available workforce and the price they command for their services. This is a concise way of saying that the value of Treasury bonds and even stocks will be valued down in price as they are sold to pay for future goods and services, and that the price of these goods and services will be marked up (inflation) to justify their reduced supply.

The real solution for long-term retirement security, he argues, is reducing the budget deficit, not gutting Social Security:

By reducing budget deficits now, and especially that portion of the deficit owed to foreign governments, we would be able to keep more of our domestic production within our borders and therefore available to senior citizens.... Similarly, lower deficits ultimately should result in lower future inflation, reducing the burden on seniors with fixed incomes and making it possible to channel more real goods and services in their direction. President Bush’s theoretical prioritization of fiscal conservatism is therefore a promising ray of hope in this Social Security razzle-dazzle, but I remain to be convinced of his sincerity and/or discipline on this particular issue.

He does not dismiss the demographic shifts which will put additional pressure on Social Security -- that is real -- but he sees no chance that privatizing the program will change that.  He argues that the most likely solutions rely on increasing production from employed workers (not productivity per worker), likely either through more immigration (pissing off the right) or a later retirement age.

White House Deception in Action

OK, so we had the whole Social Security privatization -> private accounts -> personal accounts -> hugs from your mother.  Yesterday Brad DeLong showed more explicit evidence of White House deception in action over the issue, and this time the Washington Post is the patsy.

Of course, when Bush can't even count on conservatives in his party to endorse his plan when he comes calling, as Josh Marshall documents regarding the president's whistle stop in Montana, and when the Ways and Means subcommittee chair who would be managing the privatization bill in its early stages begins undermining its premises in public, as the diligent Mr. Marshall also points out, then the next logical step is to become the thought police.

Yet more from Chapter 5 of 1984:

It was a fact that if Syme grasped, even for three seconds, the nature of his, Winston's, secret opinions, he would betray him instantly to the Thought Police. So would anybody else, for that matter: but Syme more than most. Zeal was not enough. Orthodoxy was unconsciousness.

Updates

Before I turn my attention to other tasks, at least until tomorrow morning, three quick updates on topics I have blogged about:

• DOJ's Inspector General has issued the report on the FBI's $171 million vaporware, Virtual Case File (VCF).  The tone is scathing: Poor management from the beginning, shifting goalposts, inadequate contingency plans (that is, any), a lack of technical expertise both by the FBI and its contractor.  Here's the bit that sums up their incompetence (on page 24):

"The lack of redundancy and resiliency in the system was seen as a major flaw because the design failed the basic 'can of soda' test. This test simply shows that if a can of soda were to be spilled on one of the servers, causing it to fail, that server’s backup would also fail because it was located directly below and would also be damaged by the liquid."

• Cartoon rabbits remain a threat to the very fabric of American society.  Can't you tell just by looking at him?  My favorite bit -- if by "favorite" I mean "vomit-inducing" -- from the CNN story on the continuing tempest in a teapot (emphasis mine):

"Tolerance and diversity 'are almost always buzzwords for homosexual advocacy,' Dobson wrote. 'Kids should not be taught that homosexuality is just another 'lifestyle' or that it is morally equivalent to heterosexuality.'"

• I'm sure you've heard by now about what we might call the Mid-Evening Massacre from last night.  Like Archibald Cox being fired under orders by Nixon because Cox was an honorable man getting a little too close to the truth, Dennis Hastert ordered a purge of anti-DeLay members of House Ethics and replaced them with pliable, ethics-challenged friends of the leadership.  Read about it at Talking Points Memo, the Stakeholder, and Off the Kuff (together with info on a third DeLay donor who has flipped and will testify for the prosecution).

A New UN Blog From Peter Daou

Since I don't quite have the clout of some others in blogtopia, I haven't made a practice of posting "say hello to" about blogs I like or have seen.  Chances are, by the time they get to me most of you have found them already.

That said, I want to let you know about a brand new blog which may be of interest to my fellow internationalists in the house.  Peter Daou of the Daou Report now has a blog, less than 24 hours old, under the auspices of the U.N. Foundation called U.N. Dispatch.  And what timing he has, with the release of the Volcker interim report.  Check out his new project, a welcome addition to the debate.

Where You Stand Depends on Whether You Sit

If you haven't seen it yet, the Washington Post has a nice little story about the reaction of members of Congress during the president's speech, specifically whether to  stand in rapturous applause or to sit in uncomfortable silence.  Little there that we didn't know already, but it is nice to see who publicly committed to oppose the president, especially on the GOP side.

To follow on my previous post, it is ever more clear that Bush can't count on Snowe's vote to gut Social Security.  In fact, by the count of who sat during that portion it appears the president will be lucky to find a simple majority in the Senate, let alone a filibuster-proof supermajority.

Maine's Senators on Social Security

As part of the blogtopia-wide search for what our members of Congress had to say about Bush's SS privatization plan outlined in the SOTU, here is what my two senators, the pivotal moderate Republicans Snowe and Collins, had to say.  First Snowe (Portland Press-Herald):

Sen. Olympia Snowe, who will play a crucial role in the debate as a member of the Finance Committee, insisted that changes in Social Security can't jeopardize guaranteed benefits for the elderly. She voiced concern about running up potentially $2 trillion in debt if workers begin diverting about one-third of their Social Security payroll taxes into personal accounts.

Bush pledged in his State of the Union speech to "listen to anyone who has a good idea to offer." Snowe welcomed his offer to work with Congress.

Now Collins:

Sen. Susan Collins praised Bush for tackling such an important generational issue, which she contends is so complicated that Congress should merely study it this year and legislate next year.

But she is waiting to hear whether Social Security will continue to guarantee benefits to all participants, even if private investment accounts are added, as Bush wants.

"He made a strong case that Social Security solvency over the long term is a problem," Collins said. "I would like him to answer the question of whether or not there would be a guaranteed benefit under Social Security regardless of how one's personal account does in the market.

"I think we need a guaranteed benefit as we have now," she said. "I want to make sure that people who work their whole lives are not in a situation where a bad experience in their personal account plunges them into poverty."

So, what to make of it?  First, I would have been surprised to hear any Republicans take the president on immediately after the address.  Snowe, for one, has made it clear in the past she's opposed to privatization.  The fact that she didn't say so again right away is not necessarily so dramatic.

Others on the GOP side of the fence made similarly conciliatory comments.  What is important to me, especially for those who aren't "loud and proud" members of Josh Marshall's Conscience Caucus, is the extent to which they make unequivocal commitments to nonnegotiable conditions.  The tighter that fence is drawn, the more impossible the task for the privatizers to find a plan that satisfies a majority coalition.

Must guarantee benefits for the elderly?  Check.  Must protect from losses in the market?  Check. Concern about the debt?  Check.  That doesn't leave much room for privatization.

And Collins would prefer studying it for a year and legislating next year.  That, of course, would be the death knell of privatization because you can be sure any enthusiasm among moderates and those in retiree-heavy districts will be sapped in an election year.

U.S. Complicity in Oil-For-Food

For all the rightwingers who used questions about the oil-for-food program to undermine Kofi Annan and disparage the U.N., a question:

Where is the outrage about the complicity of the U.S.?  CNN reports, and this won't be the last we've heard.  Not only that, but it was not just some bureaucratic oversight but instead a tool of foreign policy.  That's right, at the same time the Bush Administration was dismissing the U.N. as corrupt and inefficient, they were manipulating the program in order to shore up support among Iraq's neighbors.

Let's bottom line it: The Bush Administration helped finance Saddam Hussein.  Well, isn't that rich.

Addendum: Yes, this occurred under Clinton's watch, too.  We can't be happy about that.  But he wasn't the one guilty of gross hypocrisy on this issue by using it to undermine the authority of the U.N.  Not to mention the whole invasion thing.

A TSP of Sugar Makes Privatization Go Down

One thing to listen for in tonight's speech and the class five hurricane of spin afterward is for comparisons by Bush and friends between Social Security privatization private accounts personal accounts and the Thrift Savings Plan (TSP) for federal workers.  (The Hill thinks it will come up, too.)

If it works for our federal civilian workforce, wouldn't it work for the rest of us?  Here are a few ideas to ponder if they try to use TSP as a model:

• On the plus side, the TSP has very low fees -- eleven cents per $100, by one estimate -- but they are so low that if it were copied for Social Security, Wall Street would be decidedly lukewarm toward the proposal, as the Hill reports.  Well, at least Bush would be able to say it's not a windfall for Wall Street, but politically he would lose allies he was counting on to help push privatization.

• That said, how do the fees stay so low?  One reason is that management of the fund is handed to a single firm, Barclays.  That will, shall we say, annoy other Street firms, who will press to open the program up.  But that would result in higher fees, tighter regulation or -- most likely -- both.

• Another reason the fees stay low is that federal agencies -- i.e., the workers' employers -- pick up a substantial portion of the overhead themselves.  This investment ranges from record keeping to investment advice.  So, do you think your average small business would be willing to do that, not to mention your average regional grocery store chain?  Think again.  Either the federal government would have to step in (administrative fees through the roof) or this is a heavy burden on businesses.  Or just pass it on to the workers themselves and leave them twisting in the wind.

• But it is said that the risk under TSP is very low for federal workers.  Yes, because they are given only five investment options.  Will the Cato and Club for Growth people still be as enthusiastic for a program which nearly eliminates individual choice?  Isn't that part of the point of privatization for them?

• It does not, however, eliminate risk.  Government Executive notes the retirees who saw their TSP accounts drop just a few years ago.  Of the five, one fund lost money in 2000, 2001 and 2002, while two more that had been created in 2001 didn't turn into the black until 2003.  Only two of the five funds saw modest returns during that period.  Brad DeLong, though a lukewarm fan of the TSP option, reminds us that even with only five options, there is plenty of room for people to make stupid mistakes.  And, during a downturn in the economy, when three of the five funds under TSP lost money, I don't like those odds even for the less stupid investors.

So, be very cautious of claims that TSP automatically translates into reasonable privatization for Social Security.  With tens of millions more workers and retirees covered, and with private businesses taking on a much greater administrative load, you can bet next month's Social Security check that it won't be nearly so easy.

Counting Votes in the Senate

Josh Marshall, quoting CQ, said yesterday that Senate Democrats are unified against privatization of Social Security, based on comments Reid made that all 44 would oppose diverting payroll taxes to private accounts.

It may have been premature elation.  The Washington Post dissects Reid's comments and find