Party Follies

For the sake of my blood pressure, I try not to pay much attention to politics. But when the Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives is voted out of that office for the first time in American history, you have to sit up and take notice.

The AP reports, in the article linked above, that former Speaker Kevin McCarthy was ousted through the actions of “a contingent of hard-right conservatives.” I can’t speak to the politics underlying the historic decision–the weird maneuvering and infighting that you find in the halls of Congress is beyond my ken–but we can certainly say as a matter of simple math that the whole scenario was made possible by the fact that Republicans have a very slim majority in the House. There are 221 Republicans, 212 Democrats, and 2 vacancies in that chamber, which means that losing the support of only a handful of Republicans was enough to tip the balance. That put a lot of political power in the hands of a few House members.

What does this all mean? It’s a historic event, literally, but short term the House will undoubtedly figure out how to elect a new Speaker, and Congress will go on. Long term, however, there might well be more significant consequences. Right now, America seems very divided–and very evenly divided. That even division gives a lot of clout to the fringes in both parties. And you wonder if those lurking at the edges of the two parties will find that they really enjoy having that clout, and conclude that they would have even more if they left their party and set up a new party that more precisely matched their particular views. If that were to happen, we would see the need for a lot more explicit coalition-building in our political processes, as in Israel or many European countries, rather than expecting Democrats and Republicans to routinely follow the leader in straight party-line votes.

The United States has long been an exclusively two-party country, but that doesn’t mean it always has to be that way. With the internet providing a ready avenue for reaching out to people of similar political persuasions, starting a new party is probably easier now than it has ever been. Who knows? Soon we may no longer speak in terms of red and blue or donkey and elephant, and instead need to add new colors to the spectrum and recruit some new party mascots. I believe the dodo and the cuckoo are available.

Football Season Is Political Ad Season

Yesterday, when we watched the Buckeyes game with Penn State at JT’s Pizza and Pub, the vast majority of the TV commercials during the game were for political candidates. The campaign strategists know that, in Ohio, virtually everyone drops everything to watch the Buckeyes on the gridiron, so it is prime time to deliver a message to a captive, very focused, every sense on heightened alert audience. It undoubtedly costs the campaigns a boatload to buy the ad slots, but they figure it is worth it–which is why Buckeye fans were seeing so many political ads rather than the standard in-game car, tire, or “remember to ask your doctor about Altavlid” commercials.

Fortunately, they had the sound off at JT’s, and we couldn’t have heard the voice over of the commercials in any event, over the din of football analysis and “OH-IO” chants. But you don’t really need to have the sound on to follow the political ads. Basically, they fall into two categories: the scary ads and the “humanize the candidate” ads. And it’s immediately clear which category a political commercial falls into, because every ad in either category shares obvious common characteristics. In fact, the touchstones are so commonplace that both Democrats and Republicans use them, and if you run a Google search you’ll find that the British and Canadian political wizards use the same techniques, as the Canadian ad above demonstrates.

Scary ads: Dark, grainy, blurry footage, with quick cuts from one troubling scene to another. Opposing candidate depicted in unflattering poses in slow motion or with some kind of color filter to give him or her a more devilish, unsettling appearance. Children in peril or worried people sitting around their kitchen tables. Messages in large type that appear on the screen like shotgun blasts that usually include the words “we can’t afford.”

Humanize the candidate ads: Candidate is shown in a bulky, woolen, Mr. Rogers-type sweater, carrying a cup of coffee and sitting on the family sofa with their spouse. Candidate makes breakfast or kicks a soccer ball or throws a football with kids. Lots of warm hues and sunshine. Candidate is shown gesturing forcefully to smiling, nodding blue-collar workers, who are deeply absorbed in everything the candidate is saying.

I’ll be glad when November 8 finally arrives and we can go back to watching the Buckeyes, the tire ads, and those helpful spots about the latest miracle drug.

Split Decision

The 2018 election results were a split decision.  Democrats won enough seats to take control of the House of Representatives, yet Republicans gained at least three seats in the Senate — with a few close races yet to be determined.  The “Blue Wave” some were forecasting didn’t really materialize, but the Democratic gains mean that we’ll have at least two years of divided government, with Ds in charge of the House of Representatives, the Rs controlling the Senate, and President Trump in the White House.

In Ohio, Republicans held on to the governorship and statewide offices, our Democratic Senator was reelected, and Republicans retained control of Ohio’s House of Representatives delegation.  Despite a lot of spirited contests, the overall makeup didn’t change much.  It’s notable, however, that the voter turnout in this election appears to have been significantly higher than in 2014, the last off-cycle election.  More than 4 million Ohioans cast their ballots in the governor’s race this year, compared to only about 3 million Ohioans voting for governor in 2014.  I don’t know what that works out to as a percentage of registered voters, but the increase in the raw number of voters is very encouraging.  And Ohio voters also overwhelmingly rejected a referendum to amend the state constitution to reduce sentences for drug offenders.

And speaking of constitutions, you could reasonably argue that the federal Constitution had a lot to do with the split decision that we saw from voters yesterday.  The bicameral approach that the Framers reached as a compromise has every member of the House of Representatives up for election every two years, making the House the voice of the people on the current issues of the day, whereas Senators, holding six-year terms that require only one-third of the Senate to stand for election in any two-year cycle, are supposed to be less prone to popular passions.  In short, it’s harder, and takes longer, to change the makeup of the Senate — but things might be different next time around, when more Republican seats are in play.

And the Constitution also will have something to say about what happens in the next two years, too.  With Republicans controlling the Senate, they’ll be able to provide advice and consent and confirm judicial nominees and other nominees, but since all bills for raising revenue must originate in the House of Representatives, Democrats will have the ability to thwart any tax or spending initiatives they don’t find palatable.  Each House will have the ability to conduct any investigations they deem necessary, and legislation will be approved only if the House and Senate leaders, and President Trump, can find common ground — a compromise approach that both parties can swallow.

“Common ground”?  It sounds like an almost mystical place in these days of incredibly sharp and heated political differences.  One of the more interesting things to look for over the next few years is just how much “common ground” can be found.

Confounding Ohio

I made a promise to myself to not post anything about politics until after the election is over next week, but I’m going to make an exception of sorts tonight.

I ran across this New York Times article about the Ohio Democratic Party’s efforts to try to get Ohio to flip from the Republican column — to my amazement, and the amazement of many, Ohio went heavily for Donald Trump in the election — to the Democratic column.  It’s an interesting treatment of how Ohio Democrats have tried to refine and revise their message to get Ohioans to vote Democratic this time.

What’s really of interest to me, however, isn’t the inside baseball talk about how the Democrats are tried to rebuild the winning coalition they used to have in Ohio, but the clear underlying message that resonates in virtually every paragraph of the piece:  none of the politicos really know exactly how Ohioans will react this year.  Whether Democrat or Republican, the political types will do their best and present what they hope is a winning message, but come Election Day they’ll hold their breath and keep their fingers crossed that they hit the target.  Until then, in Ohio, nobody really knows.

During my years of living in Ohio, we’ve had periods where Democrats dominated at the state levels, periods where Republicans dominated, and transitional periods between those two poles.  Whenever we reach one of the poles — Democrat or Republican — somebody declares that Ohio has now moved firmly and immutably into that camp, only to find Ohioans vote for the other party the next election.  In Ohio, conventional political wisdom often turns out to be conventional foolishness.

Call me a provocateur, but I think it’s great that Ohio’s unpredictability routinely confounds the political know-it-alls on both sides.  Maybe, just maybe, they don’t really know as much as they think.

Our Ever-Ignored Deficit

The Trump Administration has announced that, in fiscal year 2018, the federal budget deficit was a staggering $779 billion.  That’s a 17 percent increase over fiscal year 2017, and the largest budget deficit in six years.

In short, we’re running enormous, historically disproportionate budget deficits — even though the economy is humming, jobs are being created, unemployment has reached the lowest levels in years, and the federal government is collecting record amounts of income tax revenue.  At a time when we should be balancing our budget, or even running a surplus, we’re farther underwater than ever.

Nobody seems to really care about this — except a handful of old deficit hawks like me.  The Republicans who used to claim to be the party of fiscal discipline cut tax rates, but they just haven’t gotten around to making the necessary cuts to federal spending that are needed to bring the budget into balance.  No surprise there — cutting taxes and raising defense spending is the easy, champagne-cork-popping part of their agenda; actually digging into the details and deciding which federal programs to cut, and by how much, is the harder, painful part that every Republican running for reelection will happily defer.  And the Democrats, who have never cared too much about balanced budgets anyway, are too busy reacting with outrage to everything President Trump does or says to focus on the deficit.

Some people argue that times are good right now, so what’s the big deal?  Maybe the deficit really doesn’t make that much of a difference, they suggest.  But if the U.S. government can’t live within its means when the economy is strong and record tax revenues are rolling in to the federal treasury, what is the deficit going to look like when the economy turns sour, payrolls get cut, and tax revenues fall?  Just how big is this deficit going to get, anyway?

It all seems pretty ironic to me.  President Trump boasts of being tough with foreign governments on trade and international relations, and putting America’s interests first in all things — but the need to sell bonds to finance the growing deficit does exactly the opposite.  The Chinese, the Saudis, and everybody else who is buying the U.S. bonds we are selling are thereby acquiring enormous leverage, and if they start demanding higher interest payments before they make their purchases we’re in a world of hurt.

So pay no attention, folks!  It’s all boring numbers, anyway!  Let’s forget about the serious, long-term aspects of running a government, and go back to talking about the latest outrages that will dominate the news cycle for a day or two until some new and exciting outrage comes along.

Presidential Debates, Just Around The Corner

In case you haven’t had your fill of politics already, with an important election only a few weeks away and political stories of one kind or another dominating every newscast, here’s some encouraging news — the first Democratic presidential candidate debates for the 2020 election are just around the corner.

Politico is reporting that the first debates will probably occur in the spring of 2019, months before the first primaries and caucuses, and a full year and a half before the 2020 election.  And even though that seems ridiculously early to non-political types like me, it’s apparently causing all of the would-be candidates to ramp up their activities now.  It’s expected that there will be a lot of people who will be vying for the chance to square off against President Trump in 2020 — more people, in fact, that can reasonably fit on one debate stage.  And if sheet numbers mean there will be two debate stages and two sets of debaters, all of the candidates want to be sure that they appear on the stage that includes all of the perceived “real contenders,” and are not relegated to the “everybody else” stage.  So everybody who is contemplating throwing their hat in the ring is out there raising money, hiring staff, visiting Iowa and New Hampshire, and trying to make news and start showing up in the polls.

Who are the “real contenders” for the Democrats?  According to the Politico article, only one person — a Congressman named John Delaney, who I’ve never even heard of — has formally declared his candidacy at this point.  Among the people who reportedly are considering a bid are Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, and Elizabeth Warren, as well as Cory Booker and Kamala Harris.  Some people think Hillary Clinton might run, or Michael Bloomberg, and no doubt there are mayors, governors, other senators and representatives, and corporate figures who may launch campaigns.  If only a few of these folks actually run, you’ve already got a pretty crowded stage.

It’s hard to believe that we’re at the point of gearing up for another presidential election already, but politics being what it is, I am sure that there are a lot of Democrats out there thinking very seriously about running for President.  Why not?  After all, if Donald Trump can win the Republican nomination and actually get elected, just about anything is possible.  So why not take a shot — and do whatever you can to make sure that you get onto the coveted “contenders” stage?

Today’s Political Test Market

Columbus has a long and storied history as a test market for new products.  Soft drinks, fast-food offerings, and other consumer goods are often introduced here because central Ohio is a fair microcosm of the country as a whole, with a spread of income levels, races, ethnicities, and urban, suburban, and rural settings in a small geographic area.

Today, the Columbus area will serve as a test market of a different sort.  The product being evaluated is politics.  There’s a special election to fill the congressional seat in the 12th District, which is one of three districts in the central Ohio area, and all indications are that the race is neck and neck.  The national political gurus are focused on the race as a potential advance indicator of the country’s mood when Election Day rolls around in November.

Republicans are worried because the 12th District has long been a GOP seat, but when long-time Congressman Pat Tiberi retired in January the seat went up for grabs.  The Democrats nominated Danny O’Connor, who has campaigned as a centrist and raised a lot of money.  In a bid to appeal to a middle of the road electorate, O’Connor originally vowed not to support Nancy Pelosi for Speaker of the House if he was elected, although he recently retreated from that pledge.  The Republican candidate is Troy Balderson, a state Senator who has been endorsed by both Ohio Governor John Kasich, who once represented the 12th District, and President Donald Trump, who has been here recently to campaign for Balderson.  The most recent polls show the race is effectively tied.

Which way will the test market go?  There’s a reason the polls are close.  The economy is going strong in central Ohio, and the 12th District, which in Richland Country, follows I-71 south to touch down in the northern suburbs of Columbus, then sweeps east to Newark and Zanesville, includes some of the fastest growing areas of the state and areas that, until recently, were in a prolonged slump.  But central Ohioans are notoriously, well, centrist in their politics, and for many people President Trump’s bare-knuckled, name-calling style of politics hasn’t been well received.

Interestingly, although the race has drawn national attention, there hasn’t been a lot of chatter about it in our town, outside of Democratic and Republican circles.  I think many voters are keeping their cards close to their vests and are still making up their minds, and I wouldn’t even venture a guess on which way the race will go.

Many Democrats are hoping for a Blue Wave come November that will turn control of the House and Senate over to the Democrats and allow them to block President Trump’s initiatives.  If the Democrats can win the 12th District today, the Blue Wave may well have started rolling just north and east of Columbus.

Where’s A Budget-Cutter To Turn?

Congress has passed, and President Trump has signed, a $1.3 trillion interim federal spending bill.

That’s $1.3 trillion, with a “t.”  And that’s interim, in that the colossal amount of spending will only fund our out-of-control federal government until September 30, when another spending bill will be needed.

President Trump, who briefly raised the threat of a veto before putting his John Hancock on the bill, says he’ll never sign another bill like this one.  I’m calling BS on that one.  The reality is that, for people like me who think our country has an enormous spending problem that eventually will be our downfall, there’s nowhere to turn.  The Democrats never met a domestic spending program that they didn’t want to increase.  The Republicans, who posture about deficit responsibility, have shown that they are too craven, and too interested in avoiding ruffling any feathers that might interfere with their reelection prospects, to tackle the tough job of actually reducing, and in some instances eliminating, federal programs that really aren’t necessary.  And President Trump is a deal-maker who will gladly rationalize just about anything, just as he did with this latest monstrosity by saying that the increase in military spending makes all of the rest of the irresponsibility palatable.

There are no longer any institutional forces that will restrain federal spending or cause our political class to act like statesmen and take the long-term, good-for-the-country view.  There’s no appetite whatsoever for careful judgment, for systematic review of whether programs are actually working, and for making the thoughtful choices that are a crucial part of living within your means.  Once again, we’re seeing concrete evidence that the current class of political leaders are the worst political leaders in history.

We’re on the cash-paved road to failure, and spending ourselves into oblivion, and nobody seems to really care about doing anything about it.

Shutdown Fatigue

The federal government shut down at midnight, when Congress proved to be unable to agree on a another stopgap spending bill.  As is usually the case, the Democrats and the Republicans used the looming shutdown to try to increase their leverage to obtain their political goals — whether those goals are immigration reform, or health care funding, or something else — and when neither side blinked, the shutdown occurred.  Of course, each side then blamed the other.

We’ve been through this scenario multiple times before, most recently in 2013.  We somehow made it through each of those prior cataclysms, and I’m pretty sure that the sun will come up today as well.

I may be wrong about this, but out here in the heartland I’m sensing a lot less angst, generally, about this shutdown than seemed to be the case with prior shutdowns.  Maybe it’s because we’ve been through this same, pointless charade multiple times before, and the country just has a lingering case of shutdown fatigue.  Maybe it’s because, with the flood of scandals and tweetstorms and investigations and unseemly behavior that has been washing over the nation in recent months, we’ve already used up our storehouses of outrage and have just been psychologically bludgeoned until we’re functionally insensate.  Or maybe, just maybe, we’ve come to recognize that all of this shutdown stuff is just more callous political maneuvering by both parties, and we’re heartily sick and tired of being viewed as mere pawns to be manipulated in the stupid power games that are always being played in Washington, D.C.

Whatever the cause, we’ll just go on living our lives, without paying too much attention to the yammering politicos and their efforts to pin all of the blame for this unnecessary disruption and unending dysfunctionality and irresponsibility somewhere else.  Who knows?  Maybe if we just ignore this latest shutdown, the politicians might realize that their shutdown gambit isn’t working anymore and actually go back to doing their jobs.

Where Have All The Deficit-Cutters Gone?

From time to time, both Republicans and Democrats express concern about the out-of-control accumulation of federal debt and the annual federal budget deficit.  Republicans raise the issue when they want to get elected.  Democrats raise the issue when they want to stop the GOP from cutting taxes.

But in reality, and for years now, no one in either party has done anything meaningful about the ever-growing national debt.

Consider what’s going on now.  Republicans have been laboring over a tax bill for months, and are supposed to get it through Congress and to President Trump this week.  Of course, tax relief is an easier political sell, as rates paid by various constituencies, and backroom deals, get cut.  But where are we on spending?  Well, the House Republicans apparently want to “temporarily” extend spending for most agencies at current levels, with a $650 million increase in defense spending.  In the Senate, where Democrats hold the balance of power because of the filibuster, Democratic leaders say that we need to have equivalent increases in defense and non-defense spending.  Oh, and there’s this, too:  we’re facing another one of those stupid self-inflicted shutdown points, where some government activity will stop unless a spending bill is signed into law by Friday.

So let’s take stock here.  The House Republicans want to hold spending steady, except for an increase in defense spending — i.e., increase spending.  The Senate Democrats want to increase defense and non-defense spending — i.e., increase spending.  And our elected representatives have conveniently maneuvered themselves into a position where they can say that they need to cut a deal that will no doubt increase spending in order to avoid a partial government shutdown.  And by the way, there is absolutely no sign of the kind of thoughtful review of the thousands of ongoing government programs and subsidies and agencies to determine whether they are truly needed and should be modified or eliminated outright — which is what truly committed and rational deficit-cutters would be trying to accomplish.

Gee . . . I wonder why Congress’ credibility with American voters is so low?

In 2018, Does The Pendulum Swing?

Alabama elected a Democratic Senator Tuesday, for the first time in 25 years.  The state is so deep red that the last Democrat to be elected, Richard Shelby in 1992, decided to become a Republican two years into his term.  But on Tuesday, Democrat Doug Jones prevailed — and unlike Shelby, Jones is likely to stay a Democrat for a while.

Alabama electing a Democrat to the Senate is so outlandishly contrarian that it has people talking about whether 2018 will bring another “wave” election, where the pendulum swings in the opposite direction and dissatisfied voters rebel against the party in power and vote in droves for the other party.  We’ve seen a number of “wave” elections in recent years, especially in midterm elections, and Democrats are hoping that Jones’ unlikely triumph in the Republican solid south presages a year in which Democrats sweep to power in the House, the Senate, and gubernatorial races across the country — including Ohio.

The question that can’t be answered just yet is whether the Alabama results represent a shift in voter perceptions of Republicans and Democrats generally — or whether it was really a one-off rejection of Roy Moore, the bizarre, deeply flawed Republican candidate who was accused of sexual misconduct and who has lots of other baggage on his resume.  Did Alabamans who formerly have voted for Republicans vote for Jones because they decided that they now like the Democratic platform, or did they vote for Jones because they thought Moore would be an abject embarrassment to their state, or did they not vote at all, allowing the Alabama citizens who always vote for Democrats to carry the day in a low-turnout election?  And if it is the latter scenario, is that brooding sense of malaise by Republican voters due to national issues — like the antics of our Tweeter-in-Chief — and likely to be displayed other states?

Of course, only time will tell.  We don’t know yet who is going to be running in those House, Senate, and gubernatorial races that will be occurring next year, and the talk of a potential wave election may spur a counter-reaction by Republicans who become energized because they don’t want to see the party lose the House and Senate under any circumstances, whether they like and support Trump or find him to be a constant source of embarrassment.

I can’t speak for Alabama, having never set foot in that state, but I’m sensing a lot of unease and uncertainty in Ohio and other places I’ve visited — and while a lot of it involves Trump, a lot of it stems, too, from the sexual harassment allegations that have bedeviled both parties and a seemingly general sense of dissatisfaction with Democrats and Republicans alike.  In such a volatile atmosphere, just about anything is possible.

Hang On To Your Wallets

Here’s some news that should cause all taxpaying Americans to feel a cold, hard lump in the pit of their stomachs:  Congress has decided to focus on “tax reform.”

Congress’ decision to pivot to tax reform has produced all kinds of news stories, most of which have headlines that can only stoke the angst.  What does the proposed tax reform bill means for the value of your home?  What kind of hidden tax brackets might be found deep in the dense language of the proposed bill?  How will small business owners be affected?  What company’s stock price took a dive because the bill proposes repealing a crucial tax break?  All of these stories, and more, can be found simply by running a google search on “republican tax bill.”

The stories are indirectly reflective of the key problem with the federal tax code, because the many different areas of potential concern they address shows just how wide and deep is the reach and impact of our federal tax structure.  Virtually every company, industry, form of property, job, trade, college, technology, and concept is affected by some form of federal tax or federal tax break.  At the founding of the republic, Alexander Hamilton may have devised a simple approach to raising revenue to fund the federal government, but those days are long gone.  Now, the tax code is a complicated morass far beyond the ken of the average citizen, with special rates and breaks and benefits and exclusions and surcharges that only experts and lobbyists understand.

So, given that reality, why should the average citizen be concerned that Congress has decided it’s time to mess around with the tax code?  Because our political class, Republicans and Democrats alike, have shown they are primarily interested in raising lots of money so they can be reelected . . . which means the risk that some special provision written specifically to help a large donor will be inserted in the dead of night simply can’t be ignored.  And with the Dealmaker-In-Chief in the White House, who’s going to really dive into the details of whatever gets passed, trying to make sure that the average citizen doesn’t get gored while the special interests get their perks and sweetheart deals?

Maybe it all will work out, and the tax code will be made more fair and equitable and easy to understand, and we’ll be able to file our tax returns on postcards like the photo op pictures are indicating.  Maybe — but I’ll believe it when I see it.  Until then, I’m hanging on to my wallet.

Deal Makers Make Deals

President Trump is a deal maker at heart.  After all, he wrote a book called The Art of the Deal.  So is it really a surprise to anyone that President Trump has reached out to the Democrats in Congress to make deals?

Last week Trump reached agreement with Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi, the leaders of the Democrats in the Senate and House respectively, on an arrangement to raise the debt ceiling and provide hurricane relief funds.  Last night, Schumer and Pelosi announced that they had reached agreement with President Trump on a legislative solution to the status of the so-called DREAMers — children brought to America by illegal immigrant parents who have grown up in this country and who had been protected from deportation under Obama Administration policies.  According to the Democratic leaders, they and Trump agreed to pursue bipartisan legislation to protect the children from deportation in exchange for Democratic support of border security enhancements.  Schumer and Pelosi say the border security enhancements don’t include supporting Trump’s long-touted wall along America’s southern border; the White House says that excluding the wall was not part of the agreement.  It seems clear, however, that some kind of bargain was struck.

These recent announcements give some people the willies.  Rock-ribbed conservatives can’t stand the sight of Schumer and Pelosi, and the idea of actually sitting down and cutting a deal with them is anathema.  And lurking underneath the discomfort is a concern that, in the President’s zeal to make a deal, principles that are considered important to the conservative position might get thrown overboard.  And part of the subtext of that concern, I think, is the belief that President Trump isn’t exactly a master of the details who fully appreciates the significance of negotiating points, and as a result the President might be getting fleeced by savvy Democrats without fully appreciating it.

President Trump’s willingness to have these kinds of talks shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone.  Deal makers want to make deals.  In the real estate development world, deal makers always want to have some new project to promote, and part of the process is to create a feeling of momentum and movement.  The key goal is to get the deal done, and you commonly sacrifice on deal points and financing terms and other provisions to reach that goal.  Deal makers believe that nobody gets everything they want, but that ultimately the deal itself serves the greater good for everyone involved.

Of course, not every deal turns out to be a good one for all concerned, and politics isn’t quite like a big real estate development.  There are people out there who believe fervently in principles, and when those principles get casually tossed aside in the interest of cutting a deal they aren’t happy.  But polling results commonly indicate that the American people want their political leaders to get along and avoid things like government shutdowns because they can’t agree on raising the debt ceiling.  President Trump’s willingness to cut deals may test whether that polling data really means anything.  And if foreign leaders see evidence that just about any deal is possible, who knows what they might propose?

We’ve got a deal maker in the White House, folks, and deal makers make deals.

The Ever-Upward Irresponsible Trend

Am I missing something?  Nobody seems to be paying any attention to federal spending and deficits anymore.

The Republicans, who used to be the preachers of deficit reduction, balanced budgets, and fiscal discipline, are much too busy trying to distance themselves from President Trump to do much of anything about anything, much less something detail-oriented and difficult, like tackling federal spending.  And the Democrats never seemed to have much appetite for actually considering whether legacy federal programs make sense in the current world, or are performing as they were intended, or are actually having a positive impact from a cost-benefit standpoint.  Expecting Congress to actually pass a budget seems to be hopelessly passe, and continuing to spend more, more, more seems to be the default approach.  And, given the kinds of deficits we’re racking up, and the experience of Puerto Rico, and Illinois, and other states that haven’t paid attention to basic economic realities, “default” seems like an apt word.

In case you’re interested, June 2017 was the first month in history where the American federal government spent more than $400 billion.  You can see the number — $428.8 billion — on page 2, in the “outlays” column, of this dry document called the monthly report of revenues and outlays, issued by the Treasury Department.   And here’s an interesting statistic, for comparison’s sake:  according to this report from the Congressional Budget Office, the amount of federal government outlays for the entire year of 1976 did not even reach $400 billion.  But ever since that time, it’s been an ever upward trend, and now we’ve reach the point where the federal government spends more in a single month than it spent in an entire year only 40 years ago.

You’d think that somewhere, someone in Congress would be up in arms about what is obviously an alarming and unsustainable trend.  You’d think someone, somewhere would be waving that dry Treasury report around and asking why the spending by the list of the government agencies set forth in small type later in the report needs to be ever increasing, and demanding that those agencies tighten their belts or justify their existence.  You’d think that someone, somewhere, would be glancing uneasily at Puerto Rico and Illinois, looking at the federal trends, and deciding that we need to do something to curb our profligate ways before we’re irretrievably on the road to economic perdition and financial ruin.

Of course, you’d be wrong on that.  It’s much easier to just react to the latest Trump Administration dust-up and let things slide.  The only worrying seems to be done by those of us out in the real world whose practical experiences with household budgets and controlling family spending makes us grind our teeth at the amazing irresponsibility of our elected representatives.

A federal government that spends more than $400 billion in a single month!  And nobody is talking about it.

Lessons From A Crumbling Spillway

People have been holding their breath and keeping their fingers crossed out in northern California.  Thousands of residents from a number of communities have been evacuated after a spillway from the massive Oroville dam was determined to be on the brink of failure.  As of early this morning, fortunately, it looks like the spillway will hold.

The Oroville Dam story is an interesting one.  California has been struggling with drought conditions for years, but then recently got hit with lots of rain and snow that has filled its reservoirs and allowed officials to declare that drought conditions are over.  Now, though, the spillway failure raises questions about whether the state’s water control infrastructure is up to the task of dealing with water flow in non-drought conditions.

It’s a story that you probably could write about much of America’s infrastructure from the east coast to the west coast, and all points in between.  As you drive under bridges that look to be cracked and crumbling, with chunks of concrete missing and rebar exposed, travel through airports that are beat up and obviously overtaxed, and walk past retaining walls that are bowed out, you wonder about whether the folks in charge are paying much attention to the basics.  And, of course, that doesn’t even begin to address “hidden” infrastructure, like dams and reservoirs, sewer piping and spillways, electrical grids and stormwater drains, that are underground or removed from population centers.  There is a lingering sense that the concrete, steel, and piping that holds the country up has been neglected — perhaps because bridges, tunnels, dams, and reservoirs don’t vote, lobby legislators, or fill council chambers, demanding their share of tax dollars.

President Trump has talked about addressing these infrastructure issues — such as our “third world” airports — and it’s an issue about which there seems to be some consensus among both Democrats and Republicans in Washington, D.C.  But there’s more to it than that.  Not every bridge or reservoir is a federal issue that requires federal tax dollars or federal bureaucrats issuing approvals.  Local and state governmental officials need to recognize that they have responsibility, too, and they can’t continue to shortchange maintenance and improvement of core infrastructure.  Rather than just holding their hands out to Uncle Sam, they need to look to their own budgets and tax revenues to fund the repair and refurbishment effort, too.

Perhaps the Oroville Dam story will get people to start paying attention to what they should have been paying attention to all along.