Midnight in Paris is as much a pleasure to watch as Woody Allen’s best films even though it’s not as good — the fantasy is so powerful. This time travel film takes us, and its main character, Gil (Owen Wilson), a successful screen writer, back to the Paris of the 1920’s where we meet the artists and literati who made the city the brilliant center that we all go to Paris looking for — even those too young or unworldly to realize it.
Gil is ensconced in a fancy hotel with his beautiful fiancee, Inez — of course that’s part of the fantasy, too, that and the French food. She and her rich, conventional right wing parents are dutifully intent on seeing the sights — Versailles and all that — guided by a know-it-all smart guy and his adoring girlfriend, but Gil — vaguely discontent, and yearning to be a serious novelist, has another agenda. He withdraws from family fun to search out his own Paris — the Paris of his imagination — and wonder of wonders at the stroke of midnight, finds it.
Swept off mysteriously in a chauffeured car, he’s delivered to the intellectual and artistic soirees of 1920’s Paris, where Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald rub shoulders with Hemingway and Picasso while Cole Porter plays the piano [partial list of famous people], and eventually everybody who is anybody ends up at Gertrude Stein’s for intellectual discussions, artistic critiques, gossip and lovemaking.
Oh how marvelous to encounter Hemingway (Corey Stoll), young, darkly handsome, intense, having just published his first novel speaking in the dead-pan of his writing style about courage under fire (“I’ve read all you work,” Gil tells him though at this point Hemingway’s only published one book). How delicious to see Zelda dive too deep into the absinthe with the Princeton-elegant Scott guiding her to the next party. And joy of joys, how wonderful that our very American Gil with Wilson’s farm-boy drawl, patent simplicity and naïve aura (though he is a successful screenwriter, Woody Allen has his cake and eats it to on that one) not only meets but draws to himself Picasso’s mistress, played by Marion Cotillard looking like the dancer Olga Khokhlova whom Picasso loved at the time. (So much for prissy, materialistic Inez, in any time zone.)
And. here’s something really valuable, Gil gets a focused critique on the pages of his novel by none other than Gertrude Stein – it’s going to serve him in good stead back in his own time. To see Kathy Bates as Gertrude Stein sitting under Picasso’s famous, groundbreaking portrait of Gertrude and looking exactly like her is a high point of the movie and feels, for the moment, a high point of life (they really don’t have the same facial structure but Bates and Woody’s camera pull it off).
Gil’s travel back to the 20’s in the chauffeured car is smooth but some of the other time travels lurch and are less believable, and are accompanied by preaching about the value of being of one’s own time that sounds like forced virtue.
And Allen seems so in love with the idea of this movie that he hurries through characters, settling on caricatures for his artists and writers from the past rather than on real people, let alone the creators they were, engaged in hot struggles to develop their modes of expression. For all the fun it is to engage with Hemingway, his clipped, cliché-ridden courage talk is so obvious it’s camp, and while Adrien Brody does a great look-alike caricature bit of Salvador Dali, it’s a bit, not a person. So if you have another way of being in Paris at its beautiful best (appealing photography) and chatting with Hemingway and Fitzgerald, Matisse and Picasso, by all means do it.
If not, see this movie. It’s a treat: once again we have to thank Woody Allen for giving us great pleasure, the most fun, and a fantasy fulfilled.
Yvonne Korshak
Comments very welcome. Scroll down, click on “comments,” write in comment box and click on “post.” Emails are private, no emails ever appear with comments.
I love it when the facts come out and contradict the liberal spin on things. “Why Hasn’t the Earth Warmed in Nearly 15 Years?”by Patrick J. Michaels.
Patrick Michaels is senior fellow in environmental studies at the Cato Institute and author of Climate Coup: Global Warming’s Invasion of our Government and our Lives.
Added to cato.org on July 18, 2011
This article appeared on Forbes.com on July 15, 2011.
There is no statistically significant warming trend since November of 1996 in monthly surface temperature records compiled at the University of East Anglia. Do we now understand why there’s been no change in fourteen and a half years?
If you read the news stories surrounding a recent paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences by Boston University’s Robert Kaufmann and three colleagues, you’d say yes, indeed. It’s China’s fault. By dramatically increasing their combustion of coal, they have increased the concentration of fine particles in the atmosphere called sulphate aerosols, which reflect away solar radiation, countering the warming that should be occurring from increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide.
Further, if this is true, then (as is usual in climate-world), “it’s worse than we thought.” After all, China will eventually reduce their sulfate emissions as their population becomes affluent enough to demand something better than miasmic air. Indeed, they are already beginning to clean things up, and when they finally do, all the cooling particles will be gone and the earth will warm substantially.
Reality may be a bit simpler, or much more complicated. But the reason this is all so important is that if there is no good explanation for the lack of warming, then an increasingly viable alternative is that we have overestimated the gross sensitivity of temperature to carbon dioxide in our computer models.
One problem is that we really don’t know how much cooling is exerted by sulfates, or whether they are just a convenient explanation for the failure of the forecasts of dramatic warming. The United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which grants itself climate authority, states that our “Level of Scientific Understanding” of the effects range between “low” and “very low,” with a possible cooling between zero (none) and a whopping 3.5 degrees (C) when the climate comes to equilibrium (which it will never do). That’s a plenty large range from which to pick out a number to cancel about as much warming as you’d like.
Kaufmann’s team looked into how sulfate uncertainty impacted its results and decided that it was relatively minor. However, we can’t find any independent test showing that the geographic “fingerprint” of a dramatic recent increase in sulfate cooling is actually being observed. More on this in a minute.
The other problem — and climate flatliners hate me for pointing this out — is that the beginning of the period of “no warming” includes the warmest year in the instrumental record, caused by the great El Niño of 1997-1998. In a modestly warming world, starting off at or near an anomalously high point pretty much assures little or no warming for years afterward.
Kaufmann’s team (and others) have duly noted that El Niño cycles are one factor partially responsible for the lack of recent warming. There’s little doubt of this. Further, if you back out solar changes and volcanism, as they did, you can convince yourself that there is still an underlying “residual” warming trend, but it is masked by all these variables. This has been done repeatedly in the scientific literature, which, until now, did not include increasing the sulfate effect on recent temperatures.
Where is the test of the hypothesis that sulfates are indeed responsible for the lack of warming? In this paper, it’s simply “modeled-in” as it fits the data well. That’s correlation, not causation.
There is very little exchange of air between the northern and southern hemispheres, and basic climate science shows that most sulfates from China will rain out before they get across the thermal equator. In fact, there is a great deal of literature out there published by luminaries like the Department of Energy’s Ben Santer and NASA’s James Hansen claiming relative cooling of the northern hemisphere from sulfates, compared to the southern.
So, if it is indeed sulfates cooling the warming, given that there is no net change in global temperature, then the northern hemisphere should be cooling since 1998 (the first year in Kaufmann’s paper) while the southern warms. Here are the sad facts:
The opposite is occurring. Why this test was not performed eludes me. Perhaps that is because it provides yet another piece of evidence supporting the hypothesis that we have simply overstated the sensitivity of surface temperature to changes in carbon dioxide.
During his third news conference on the debt crisis, President Obama says Congress does not need a constitutional amendment to do its job, the constitution “tells us to do our job.”
_______________________
The problem with President Obama’s comments above is that he really does not see the tremendous increase in federal spending as the problem. He blames everything else!!!! He says we do not need the balanced budget amendment but uncontrolled federal spending is the reason we need it!!!
The White House is quietly encouraging the Reid-McConnell talks.
Meantime, there is talk of pandering to the tea party radicals in the unwieldy House by letting them pursue referral of a balanced-budget amendment to the Constitution.
Ratification would take years. If enacted, such an amendment would amount to the same abdication of political responsibility to make wise and responsible cuts in spending as has been evident in the debt-ceiling debate.
It is obvious to me that the Balanced Budget Amendment is needed because of the “abdication of political responsibility to make wise and responsible cuts in spending” that Brummett is talking about and we have all seen for decades.
Abstract:Republicans in the House and Senate have announced that they will force votes on balanced budget constitutional amendments. While the Senate and House versions of the current BBA are similar, there are some important differences that Members of Congress and the American people need to understand. For example, the Senate version makes it more difficult to enact revenue-neutral tax reform, while the House version would waive its tax limitation in times of military conflict. How Congress resolves these differences could determine whether future Congresses and Presidents balance the budget without increasing taxes.
Congress is preparing for a historic debate over what role—if any—a balanced budget amendment (BBA) to the U.S. Constitution should play in relation to the United States’ statutory debt ceiling. Some conservatives in the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate have demanded a vote on a balanced budget amendment. Other conservatives have gone as far as to demand passage of a BBA in the House and Senate as a precondition to passing a debt limit increase.
If the Senate and House were to pass identical versions of a BBA, the constitutional amendment would then be sent to the states for ratification.[1]
Republican leaders in the House and Senate have declared that a vote will be scheduled in both chambers on their respective versions of a BBA. The differences between the two versions are significant: Clearly, not all BBAs are created equal.
The provisions that vary between the House and Senate versions of the BBA may have dramatic policy implications for federal spending. For instance, the two versions of the BBA diverge significantly on such threshold questions as how each amendment’s provisions apply during times of “military conflict” and the number of votes required to waive the constitutional mandate that the budget be balanced during a fiscal year.
According to Roll Call, Republicans in the House and Senate have announced that they will force votes on balanced budget constitutional amendments.[2] The Senate is expected to vote the week of July 18, 2011, while the House is expected to vote on another version of the BBA during the same week.
While the Senate and House versions of the current BBA are similar, there are some important differences that Members of Congress and the American people need to understand. How Congress resolves these differences could determine whether future Congresses and Presidents balance the budget without increasing taxes.
The Senate BBA
Senator Mike Lee (R–UT) and Senator Jon Kyl (R–AZ) introduced a BBA that would cap spending as a percentage of gross domestic product (GDP), require supermajority votes to increase the debt limit or raise taxes, and prohibit the judiciary from using a BBA as authority to unilaterally order tax increases to balance the budget.[3]
Senator Lee’s version of the BBA included the following three pillars:
Requiring a balanced budget for each fiscal year;
Limiting federal spending to no more than 18 percent of GDP; and
Requiring a supermajority vote in both Houses of Congress in order to increase taxes, raise the debt ceiling, or run a specific deficit in a particular year.[4]
This version of the BBA, Senate Joint Resolution 5 (S.J. Res. 5), departed from the Contract with America version in that prior incarnations of the BBA did not include a spending cap.
Senator Orrin Hatch (R–UT) drafted a BBA that garnered unanimous support from all 47 Republican Senators. Senator Hatch introduced this BBA, referred to as Senate Joint Resolution 10 (S.J. Res. 10), on March 31, 2011.[5]
On June 29, 2011, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R–KY) introduced an identical measure, Senate Joint Resolution 23 (S.J. Res. 23),[6] which was then read onto the Senate Calendar on June 30. The McConnell BBA contains the following provisions:
Section 1.Total outlays for any fiscal year shall not exceed total receipts for that fiscal year, unless two-thirds of the duly chosen and sworn Members of each House of Congress shall provide by law for a specific excess of outlays over receipts by a roll call vote.
Section 2.Total outlays for any fiscal year shall not exceed 18 percent of the gross domestic product of the United States for the calendar year ending before the beginning of such fiscal year, unless two-thirds of the duly chosen and sworn Members of each House of Congress shall provide by law for a specific amount in excess of such 18 percent by a roll call vote.
Section 3.Prior to each fiscal year, the President shall transmit to the Congress a proposed budget for the United States Government for that fiscal year in which—
total outlays do not exceed total receipts; and
total outlays do not exceed 18 percent of the gross domestic product of the United States for the calendar year ending before the beginning of such fiscal year.
Section 4.Any bill that imposes a new tax or increases the statutory rate of any tax or the aggregate amount of revenue may pass only by a two-thirds majority of the duly chosen and sworn Members of each House of Congress by a roll call vote. For the purpose of determining any increase in revenue under this section, there shall be excluded any increase resulting from the lowering of the statutory rate of any tax.
Section 5.The limit on the debt of the United States shall not be increased, unless three-fifths of the duly chosen and sworn Members of each House of Congress shall provide for such an increase by a roll call vote.
Section 6.The Congress may waive the provisions of sections 1, 2, 3, and 5 of this article for any fiscal year in which a declaration of war against a nation-state is in effect and in which a majority of the duly chosen and sworn Members of each House of Congress shall provide for a specific excess by a roll call vote.
Section 7.The Congress may waive the provisions of sections 1, 2, 3, and 5 of this article in any fiscal year in which the United States is engaged in a military conflict that causes an imminent and serious military threat to national security and is so declared by three-fifths of the duly chosen and sworn Members of each House of Congress by a roll call vote. Such suspension must identify and be limited to the specific excess of outlays for that fiscal year made necessary by the identified military conflict.
Section 8.No court of the United States or of any State shall order any increase in revenue to enforce this article.
Section 9.Total receipts shall include all receipts of the United States Government except those derived from borrowing. Total outlays shall include all outlays of the United States Government except those for repayment of debt principal.
Section 10.The Congress shall have power to enforce and implement this article by appropriate legislation, which may rely on estimates of outlays, receipts, and gross domestic product.
Section 11. This article shall take effect beginning with the fifth fiscal year beginning after its ratification.
The Senate is expected to commence debate on S.J. Res. 23 during the week of July 18, 2011.
—Brian Darling is Senior Fellow for Government Studies in the Department of Government Studies at The Heritage Foundation.
Classic Ron Paul: “I expect deficits to explode, not come down” 4/9/1997, C-SPAN Steve Brawner in his article “Safer roads and balanced budgets,” Arkansas News Bureau, April 13, 2011, noted: The disagreement is over the solutions — on what spending to cut; what taxes to raise (basically none ever, according to Boozman); whether or not […]
U.S. Sen. Mark Pryor at the 2009 DPA J-J Dinner U.S. Sen. Mark Pryor at the 2009 Democratic Party Jefferson Jackson Dinner, Arkansas’s largest annual political event. (Did you notice that besides Mike Ross, EVERY OTHER DEMOCRAT THAT PRYOR MENTIONS DOING SUCH A GREAT JOB IN WASHINGTON IS NO LONGER IN OFFICE, SNYDER, LINCOLN, and BERRY)
Constitutional Balanced Budget Amendment Steve Brawner in his article “Safer roads and balanced budgets,” Arkansas News Bureau, April 13, 2011, noted: The disagreement is over the solutions — on what spending to cut; what taxes to raise (basically none ever, according to Boozman); whether or not to enact a balanced budget amendment (Boozman says yes; […]
It’s Simple to Balance The Budget Without Higher Taxes Steve Brawner in his article “Safer roads and balanced budgets,” Arkansas News Bureau, April 13, 2011, noted: The disagreement is over the solutions — on what spending to cut; what taxes to raise (basically none ever, according to Boozman); whether or not to enact a […]
Debunking White House Pro-Tax Increase Propaganda This Center for Freedom and Prosperity Foundation mini-documentary debunks White House pro-tax propaganda with a point-by-point rebuttal of a video narrated by Austan Goolsbee of Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers. http://www.freedomandprosperity.org Steve Brawner in his article “Safer roads and balanced budgets,” Arkansas News Bureau, April 13, 2011, noted: The […]
Steve Brawner in his article “Safer roads and balanced budgets,” Arkansas News Bureau, April 13, 2011, noted: The disagreement is over the solutions — on what spending to cut; what taxes to raise (basically none ever, according to Boozman); whether or not to enact a balanced budget amendment (Boozman says yes; Pryor no); and on […]
The more than 350 federal judges that Reagan appointed during his eight years in office also constitute an important legacy. He named close to half of all lower-court federal judges, more than any other president. He also elevated conservative William H. Rehnquist to Chief Justice of the United States and appointed three Associate Justices, including the first woman, Sandra Day O’Connor, a moderate conservative. Almost as important as the Rehnquist nomination was that of Antonin Scalia, a U.S. Court of Appeals judge and a former scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. Scalia has been unwavering in his opposition to affirmative action, abortion and what he has called the “liberal jurisprudence” that undergirded judicial activism.[xxxviii]
As Reagan stated in 1986, his goal was a federal judiciary “made up of judges who believe in law and order and a strict interpretation of the Constitution.”[xxxix] The man in charge of the selection progress, Attorney General Edward Meese III, emphasized that the administration aimed “to institutionalize the Reagan revolution so it can’t be set aside no matter what happens in future presidential elections.”[xl]
The president persuaded the Senate to approve his judicial nominations because he was able to forge a broad coalition among traditional conservatives like Strom Thurmond, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee; New Right conservatives like John East of North Carolina and Jeremiah Denton of Alabama; and moderate but law-and-order Republicans like Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania. That changed abruptly when Democrats regained control of the Senate in 1986 and named Joseph Biden of Delaware chairman of the Judiciary Committee.
Senator Mark Pryor wants our ideas on how to cut federal spending. Take a look at this video clip below:
Senator Pryor has asked us to send our ideas to him at cutspending@pryor.senate.gov and I have done so in the past and will continue to do so in the future.
On May 11, 2011, I emailed to this above address and I got this email back from Senator Pryor’s office:
Please note, this is not a monitored email account. Due to the sheer volume of correspondence I receive, I ask that constituents please contact me via my website with any responses or additional concerns. If you would like a specific reply to your message, please visit http://pryor.senate.gov/contact. This system ensures that I will continue to keep Arkansas First by allowing me to better organize the thousands of emails I get from Arkansans each week and ensuring that I have all the information I need to respond to your particular communication in timely manner. I appreciate you writing. I always welcome your input and suggestions. Please do not hesitate to contact me on any issue of concern to you in the future.
Government auditors spent the past five years examining all federal programs and found that 22 percent of them—costing taxpayers a total of $123 billion annually—fail to show any positive impact on the populations they serve.
The stimulus set aside $350 millionfor a national broadband coverage map—even though one private firm stated it could create one for $3.5 million.
Fannie Mae—now backed up by taxpayers—paid $6.3 million in legal defense costs for ousted executives such as Franklin Raines. An additional $16.8 millionwas spent defending Fannie Mae’s regulators in litigation against the former executives.
The Census Bureau spent $2.5 millionon Super Bowl ads, and on-air mentions by sportscasters.
New documents reveal that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) lost 1,000 computersin 2008. Not to be outdone, Homeland Security officers lost nearly 200 guns in places like restaurant restrooms, convenience stores, and bowling alleys. Several of the guns ended up in the hands of criminals.
Some say the world will end in fire and some say in ice.
But in Washington, a lot of people say it will end if we don’t continually raise the debt ceiling.
The statutory debt limit, or debt ceiling, represents the maximum amount of debt the federal government can carry at any given time. The limit was created in 1917 so that Congress wouldn’t have to vote every time the government wanted to increase the amount of debt (which was becoming a more and more frequent occasion). Since then, the Treasury Department has had the authority to issue new debt up to whatever the limit is to fund government needs. Last year, the limit was raised to $14.3 trillion, an amount that is about to reached.
As it approaches, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke has said failing to raise the limit would likely mean the U.S. would default on its debt, creating “real chaos” in place of the fake chaos that’s out there now. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has said that failing to raise the limit would be “deeply irresponsible” and and Austan Goolsbee, President Obama’s chief economic adviser, has said that not raising the limit would create “the first default in history caused purely by insanity.”
Eh, maybe.
As Reason columnist and Mercatus Center economist Veronique de Rugy, has pointed out, we’ve maxed out the nation’s credit card in the past without such dire results. In the mid-1980s, the mid-1990s, and in 2002, for instance, the debt limit wasn’t raised for months at a time and the government got along just swell. The government has a big bag of tools it can use, ranging from playing around with the amount of spending that is liable to the limit to prioritizing interest and debt payments over other outlays. Interest on the debt for this year is projected to be about $225 billion and government revenue is expected to be around $2.2 trillion, so the government can easily pay the vig and avoid defaulting.
What it shouldn’t do is simply keep piling on the debt. The limit has been raised no fewer than 10 times in the past decade. When Republicans ran the White House and the Congress, they voted overwhelmingly to charge it and Democrats, including Sen. Obama, hollered bloody murder. In 2006, he called the need to yet again increase the debt limit “a sign of leadership failure.” Now that Dems run the show, the GOP has suddenly rediscovered its inner cheapskate.
So it goes.
The boldest plan to rein in spending and debt comes from newcomer Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), a Tea Party favorite who dispatched Republican incumbent Bob Bennett in the primaries before coasting to victory in the general election last fall. Lee has vowed to block passage of a debt-limit increase unless Congress signs on to his balanced-budget amendment which would cap annual federal spending at 18 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP). The amendment would require a super-majority of two-thirds in the Senate and House of Representatives. Lee’s bill is competing with another Republican proposal from Sens. Hatch (Utah) and Cornyn (Texas) to cap spending at 20 percent of GDP. The Hatch-Cornyn bill has weaker rules on its higher cap as well.
In 2010, spending came to about 24 percent of GDP and it’s expected to come in around 25 percent of GDP in 2011. Since 1950, total federal revenues have averaged 17.8 percent and have reached higher than 20 percent exactly once. Spending over the same time has averaged just under 20 percent.
Whether Lee’s proposal carries the day — and there’s a strong case that its passage would do more to calm financial markets than simply bumping up the federal credit line — neither the Democratic nor the Republican leadership has yet to advance a serious proposal to cut spending and reduce outstanding debt. Indeed, both the president’s budget proposal for 2012 and the generally non-existent Republican response are not only deeply irresponsible but clear signs of insanity.
That ain’t right. But it does help explain why a government that has increased spending over 62 percent in real dollars can no longer get by on a $14 trillion debt ceiling.
Many of the laws covering today’s workforce were written more than seven decades ago during the New Deal. Collective bargaining and the unemployment insurance system, for example, were both established in 1935. Since then, the U.S. labor force and industrial structure have vastly changed, which creates an opportunity to update the laws to better suit the modern economy.
Let’s look at unemployment insurance. UI has aided millions of laid-off workers during the recent recession, but the system has also created problems. For one thing, high unemployment and expansive benefits have drained UI funds in most states, and now most states — including Maryland and Virginia — are jacking up UI taxes on businesses to replenish their reserves. But the economic recovery is still very shaky, and higher UI taxes will dampen business hiring at a time when unemployment is still very high.
Another problem is that UI pushes up the unemployment rate because it dissuades laid-off workers from reducing their wage demands, moving or making other tough but needed decisions. Harvard University’s Robert Barro estimated last year that recent expansions in UI benefits pushed up the U.S. employment rate by about 2.7 percentage points.
Collective bargaining is out of step with today’s individualistic culture.
There is a better way. In 2002, the nation of Chile created personal UI savings accounts funded by payroll contributions. When workers lose their jobs, they draw on their UI accounts, giving them a strong incentive to find a job quickly and not deplete their funds. A detailed study of the Chilean system found that, indeed, workers using the new accounts had shorter spells of unemployment. A side benefit of Chile’s system is that when workers retire, they have an additional pot of savings to enjoy.
We should also reform labor union rules. Workers have generally rejected the current system of collective bargaining, which amounts to monopoly union control of a workforce after a majority vote. The share of private-sector workers in labor unions has plunged from a peak of 35 percent in the 1940s to just 7 percent today — despite the pro-union tilt of federal laws.
Collective bargaining is out of step with today’s individualistic culture. The system is inconsistent with the right to freedom of association, and it effectively silences workers who disagree with union heads. Collective bargaining also creates rigid work structures in companies, which is damaging to firms competing in the dynamic global economy.
A better alternative is voluntary unions or worker associations. In Virginia, for example, collective bargaining is outlawed in the public sector, but the state has voluntary associations of teachers and other government workers. That voluntary approach should be the rule for both the private and public sectors nationwide.
The Cato Institute in Washington looks out over Samuel Gompers Park, named after the founder of the American Federation of Labor. Gompers was strongly against a federal UI system because he thought it would restrict freedom and undermine the union role in providing unemployment benefits, which was commonplace before 1935.
Today, unions based on voluntary membership — rather than forced collective bargaining — could work if they provided useful services to their members such as UI benefits. As for UI, policymakers should explore nonfederal options such as union plans and private insurance, and they should study the advantages of Chile’s savings-based system.
It appears the USA will become Greece. Even the Republicans are not willing to offer major cuts in spending. Ted Dehaven hits the nail on the head.
Washington is the only town where the circus never leaves. Elephants, donkeys, clowns and a ringmaster residing at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue — our nation’s capital has it all. And what a show they’re putting on for the American people over raising the debt ceiling for the umpteenth time in recent years.
On one side we have a president whose surrogates warn of economic Armageddon if the debt ceiling isn’t raised, despite the fact that he himself voted against raising the limit in 2006 as the junior senator from Illinois. On the other side are congressional Republicans, tasked with negotiating spending cuts in exchange for raising the debt ceiling — the same guys who happily voted for big-spending legislation when it was their guy in the White House.
In short, the two sides have a credibility gap on debt reduction that makes the Grand Canyon look like a pothole. That begs the question: What sort of deal will they ultimately agree to?
The president doesn’t want to have to rehash this debate before the November 2012 election. That means that the debt ceiling will have to be increased by $2 trillion in order to create enough space through the end of next year. House Speaker John Boehner has drawn his line in the sand: Republicans will only agree to increase the debt ceiling if spending is cut by at least as much. Thus, it is generally assumed that the two sides will have to negotiate a deal to cut spending by $2 trillion.
Here’s the problem: The $2 trillion in cuts would be over ten years, or about $200 billion a year. Suddenly, $200 billion in annual spending cuts in exchange for increasing the debt ceiling by $2 trillion through the end of 2012 doesn’t sound so great — especially when one considers that lawmakers have a storied history of changing their minds about promised future cuts. Therefore, it is imperative that any debt ceiling deal contains real spending cuts.
“Real spending cuts” means terminating programs or reducing entitlement benefits — for example, eliminating programs at the Department of Education and repealing the underlying program authorizations, or changing entitlement laws to reduce the benefit levels of programs such as Medicare. Future policymakers could reverse these cuts, but it wouldn’t be easy given that the government’s finances will probably remain in a precarious state.
Unfortunately, there’s little evidence to suggest that real spending cuts are on the table. Were that the case, we would probably be reading countless articles on the consequent suffering of those who would be separated from the federal teat. Instead, there is a growing indication that the cuts will merely be amorphous reductions against the Congressional Budget Office’s spending baseline, which projects spending over the next 10 years based on current law with an adjustment for inflation.
For example, negotiators could agree to freeze discretionary non-security spending for 10 years, which would “save” about $1 trillion compared to the baseline. However, making sure that future policymakers adhered to the freeze would require a strict budget enforcement mechanism. Such mechanisms haven’t held up well in the past for the simple reason that when it comes to spending, the legislative fox is guarding the budgetary henhouse.
Even if we knew for certain that a $2 trillion reduction in spending compared to the baseline would be achieved, again, we’re still looking at a relatively small sum of money. According to the CBO’s latest baseline, the federal government is projected to spend $46 trillion over the next decade. Regardless of whether the federal government proceeds to spend $44 trillion or $46 trillion, the government will remain on an unacceptable spending trajectory.
Unfortunately, the current state of the debt ceiling negotiations indicates that the stakes holding up the big tent in Washington aren’t going to be pulled anytime soon. On the bright side, perhaps this latest spectacle will cause more of the electorate to question why we’ve allowed so much of our collective well-being to be placed in the hands of so few. If so, there’s a chance we can at least get the animals back in their cages before it’s too late.
Reading Jason Tolbert’s take (welcome back, BTW) on the new map from Governor Mike Beebe and note that Mr. Beebe seems to be screwing the people of Beebe out of their hometown elected state Sen. Jonathan Dismang:
Sen. Jonathan Dismang’s district will also see a dramatic shift giving up much of its area of White County and instead moving more in the north Pulaski County and therefore deeper into the metro areas north of Little Rock. This puts Dismang on the far edge of his district and away from his base in Beebe where he formerly served as a state representative.
It would appear that in Mr. Beebe’s lame-duckiness, he wants his legacy to be how he punished his home of White County for having the audacity of electing Republicans.
Governor Schwarzenegger Pumps GERRYMANDERING on Leno Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger on Jay Leno promoting GERRYMANDERING, which will hit theaters later this year. “An exceptionally entertaining film!” – New York Magazine “Snappy, engaging…succeeds in holding one’s attention the way a good thriller does. It is cinematic – in the best way – all the way through.” – […]
“Gerrymandering” Film Exposes Truth of Redistricting Bill Plante talks to Jeff Reichert, the writer/director of “Gerrymandering,” a new documentary film that uncovers the way that congressional districts are drawn up. _____________________________________ In my last post about redistricting, the point was made that State House and Senate redistricting could lead to many little Fayetteville Fingers. However, […]
John Brummett in his article, “It’s a ‘little-bitty controversy,” Arkansas News Bureau, May 26, 2011 noted: The Republicans said that “even left-leaning columnist John Brummett” had said on Roby Brock’s Talk Business show Sunday night that, conceivably, the Democratic dominance of this board could result in new state House and Senate districts that would include […]
.Jason Cole reported for Yahoo Sports: NEW YORK – The New England Patriots’ selection of Ryan Mallett in the third round of the 2011 NFL draft on Friday may have made sense in a lot of ways, but it did beg one big question: Is coach Bill Belichick focused on what he has left of the Tom Brady(notes) era or […]
Jason Tolbert points out today that even though it seemed like it took forever to get this process of redistricting done, Arkansas still may be the first state in the country to finish the process. One thing I noticed about the new congressional map is that there are 75 counties and District 3 only has […]
Max Brantley thought the “Fayetteville Finger” was a joke when he first heard about it, but he later embraced it and was disappointed when the Democrats could not get it passed. Likewise other liberals John Brummett and Pat Lynch were surprised that that it did not make it. The http://bluearkansasblog.com/ was the latest to rant and […]
Rob Moritz and John Lyon in their article “Panels, Senate OK redistricting plan to split five counties,” Arkansas News Bureau, April 11, 2011 wrote: (NEW MAP BELOW) ( A new congressional redistricting plan advanced at both ends of the Capitol today, possibly signaling an end to a stalemate that has prolonged the regular legislative session […]
Jason Tolbert reported that Rep. Uvalde Lindsey (D-Fayetteville) prefers the map know as the Luker Amendment and does not mix words regarding his opposition to moving Fayetteville into AR4. Here is a clip of an interview Jason did with Rep. Lindsey below. Pat Lynch suggested today in his article “The political bog,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, […]
John Burris on Redistricting (from Tolbert Report): I watched “Arkansas Week” and I saw Rob Moritz of the Arkansas News Bureau suggest that it was very realistic that if the state legislators don’t get together soon that this could end up in court. In his article today “Lawmakers return to work on congressional redistricting,” Arkansas […]
Shame on the Politically Motivated McConnell Plan to Hike Borrowing With No Spending Cuts
The McConnell Plan to hike the debt limit has only one thought behind it — fade the political heat. The Plan purportedly makes the Democratic President bear the political burden for increases in the debt limit to the benefit of Republicans, but the Plan does nothing for the good of the country.
The McConnell Plan, if enacted, would immediately raise the amount of money the government can borrow by $100 billion above the current debt ceiling of $14.294 trillion. The McConnell Plan would then allow the President to make this year and in the coming year a total of three requests for further increases of $700 billion, then $700 billion more, and finally $900 billion more. Each of those presidential requests would take effect automatically, unless a law is enacted to reject the presidential request. Because President Obama is highly likely to retain the support of at least one-third of one House of Congress (the number of votes it takes to sustain a presidential veto of legislation), the real effect of the McConnell Plan is to raise the debt limit by more than $2 trillion.
The McConnell Plan would put America deeper into debt and achieves nothing toward the vitally important objective of getting federal overspending and overborrowing under control. All the McConnell Plan requires the President to do is submit a list of suggested spending cuts that exceeds the dollar amount of the requested hikes in the debt ceiling. The McConnell Plan does not give those spending cut ideas or any alternative ideas any legal effect or even specify an accelerated procedure for congressional consideration of such ideas — the McConnell Plan just requires the President to submit a piece of paper.
If the outcome of the current presidential-congressional negotiations over how to get spending under control is the McConnell Plan of just letting the President have the freedom to go on borrowing another $2 trillion, then Senator McConnell and every congressional Republican who votes for it will bear as much political responsibility for this action as President Obama and the Democrats.
Senator Jim DeMint was right to describe the McConnell Plan to the newspaper The Hill as “like leaving the jail door open and looking the other way, then saying it’s not our fault.” And Representative Jim Jordan was even more succinct with his view on the McConnell Plan on the website Politico.com: “I’d say ‘no way.’” Conservatives should follow their lead.
Conservatives in Congress need to focus on what is good for the country. That starts with a clear understanding that this is the moment to put the country on the path toward getting federal overspending and overborrowing under control. The guiding principle is simple: Don’t raise the debt limit, without getting spending under control. Use the legislation on the debt limit to put America on the path to driving down federal spending and borrowing, while preserving our ability to protect America, and without raising taxes.
The opposite is occurring. Why this test was not performed eludes me. Perhaps that is because it provides yet another piece of evidence supporting the hypothesis that we have simply overstated the sensitivity of surface temperature to changes in carbon dioxide.
