Five Years In The House

A few days ago the Webner House blog celebrated its fifth anniversary. Our first post appeared on February 1, 2009.

It’s hard to believe it’s been five years. Five years ago President Obama had just been inaugurated and began his first term in office, and the Affordable Care Act was just a gleam in his eye. Five years ago Eric Mangini was the head coach of the Cleveland Browns, and there have been three head coaches since then. Five years ago no one had heard of a Tea Party, or George Zimmerman, or Ted Cruz. For reasons like these, five years seems like a long time.

During our five years we’ve published 4,718 posts that have generated 289,076 views and 4,082 comments — all of which were welcome. We’ve made some new friends and found some blogs we like to check out, too. We’ve written some bad poetry, taken some bad photographs, and followed the Chronicles of Penny.

It’s been a fun five years. What better way to commemorate it than to post David Bowie and Arcade Fire performing the song of the same name — a song which begins one of the great rock albums ever recorded: The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars?

The IRS ‘Fesses Up — Sort Of

The Internal Revenue Service admits that its agents engaged in “inappropriate” targeting of certain conservative political groups and has apologized — but there seems to be a lot more to the story.

Some people in the IRS decided that groups with “tea party” and “patriot” in their names should be given additional scrutiny, to see whether they were acting in ways inconsistent with their tax-exempt status.  About 300 groups received the scrutiny.  The IRS says that low-level employees were responsible and that, when more senior officials learned about it months later, the practice was stopped.  However, it now appears that the IRS simply adopted new criteria that focused on “political action type organizations involved in limiting/expanding Government, educating on the Constitution and Bill of Rights, social economic reform movement.”  That doesn’t really seem much better, does it?

This story is disturbing on many levels.  First, when individual IRS agents can target groups because of their politics, that should be troubling to everyone — regardless of their political views.  When people are given the authority to act on behalf of the IRS, we expect that authority to be exercised responsibly, not politically.  If IRS agents can agree to look at groups that have “patriot” in their names, what criteria might they use under the next Administration?

Second, where were the supervisors?  How much unbridled discretion do individual IRS agents possess?  Didn’t some manager notice a pattern in what the agents were doing and realize they were targeting groups on a political basis?  The actions of the agents seem to contradict the statements made by the former IRS commissioner, Douglas Shulman, in testimony to Congress, and the IRS response contends that knowledge of what was happening was limited to people multiple levels below Shulman.  So, the IRS defense seems to be that it is so bureaucratic that the Commissioner isn’t told about what is actually happening on the ground!  That’s not very comforting, either.

In his recent remarks at the Ohio State University, President Obama encouraged graduates to reject cynicism and decline to listen to “voices that incessantly warn of government as nothing more than some separate, sinister entity that’s at the root of all our problems.”  This IRS story is precisely the kind of story that breeds such cynicism.  When IRS agents can target groups for political reasons, the IRS Commissioner denies that such targeting is occurring, and the IRS defends the truth of those denials because the agents involved were too far down the chain for the Commissioner to notice, perhaps a little cynicism is in order.

A Pox On All Their Houses

I’ve consciously refrained from writing anything about the “fiscal cliff” because I knew anything I had to say would come out as a vitriolic screed that wouldn’t accomplish anything.  But now that we’ve reached the last day before the automatic spending cuts and tax increases take effect and no deal has been struck, the time for the pointless yet heartfelt screed has come.

I say a pox on all their houses.  By that I mean the White House and both Houses of Congress; I mean the President and Congress, Republican and Democrat, “progressives,” liberals, conservatives, and “tea partiers.”  Congratulations to you all!  You’ve maneuvered us into a situation where tax increases and spending limits that were consciously designed to be so foolish and draconian that they would force a compromise look like they might actually take effect unless a lame duck Congress and a disengaged President strike some poorly thought out, last-minute deal that the American public has no opportunity to consider or voice an opinion on — just like the deal that got us into this stupid “fiscal cliff” predicament in the first place.  Your little plan about a “supercommittee” to reach a grand compromise failed, you frittered away the intervening months raising money from your pet interest groups and electioneering without doing anything to make meaningful progress on the tax policy changes and spending reductions that every conscious American knows must occur to avoid enormous impending debt problems, and now you are frantically trying to avoid the imminent, painful consequences of your years of stupid politicking, indolence, and irresponsibility.

What’s sad about this is that the President and the Republican and Democratic leadership probably all think they’ve got the other guys just where they want them; they likely think the opposing side is bound to knuckle under today and give them a huge, last-minute victory.  Here’s some news for you all:  we shouldn’t be governing through a process that sees us lurching endlessly from crisis to crisis.  Your failures to do things like propose, debate, and pass meaningful budgets, hold hearings on spending, tax and budget proposals that allow citizens to comment and thoughtful changes to be evaluated, and engage in the standard activities of government as our Constitution contemplates reflects badly on you all.  Even if an eleventh-hour deal is reached and everyone declares they won, you’ve achieved no victory.  The American people have come to realize that, unfortunately, we have no real political leaders — just political hacks, buck-passers, and pipsqueaks who don’t have the sense or courage to put the interests of the country ahead of their personal political interests and the narrow perspectives of the pressure groups that contribute to their campaigns.

I know most of the people reading this will say “hey, it’s not my guy’s fault!”  Supporters of President Obama will say it is the no-new-tax-pledge intransigence of the tea partiers that have brought on this ridiculous crisis; tea partiers will say it is the President’s and the Senate’s unwillingness to make meaningful spending cuts that is to blame; and everyone will point the finger elsewhere.  My response is that it is everyone’s fault.  In the past, when large problems have loomed, American politicians have managed to reach compromises that have allowed the country to move forward.  The difference is that, in the past, our political leaders included real statesmen.

There is a reason why there was a huge fall-off in the number of Americans who voted in the most recent election.  Naive notions about hope and change and broad social movements to achieve fiscal responsibility have given way to disgust and outrage at the continuation of politics as usual.  The “fiscal cliff” crisis will just exacerbate those feelings.  Having a disillusioned, disgusted, and angry electorate is not a good thing for our country.

Newt And Freddie

It’s amazing that Newt Gingrich has been able to depict himself as a “Reagan conservative” and surge to the top of the Republican field.  After all, soon after he left public office he began to do “consulting” work for Freddie Mac, the mortgage giant at the center of the housing crisis that crippled our economy.  Freddie Mac paid Gingrich’s consulting firm at least $1.6 million from 1999 to 2008.  It’s not the kind of resume that you would expect to find in a Tea Party favorite, given the Tea Party’s disdain for the cash-soaked, insiders culture of Washington, D.C.

Gingrich’s firm has now released one, but only one, of its contracts with Freddie Mac.  The contract covers only one year, which is curious.  Has the Gingrich Group really misplaced the other lucrative contracts?  If so, what does that tell you about Gingrich’s managerial abilities?  And if he really has misplaced the other contracts, why not just get copies of them from Freddie Mac and produce them all, so we can see what the entirety of the arrangement was?

The article linked above reprints the one contract that Gingrich’s firm produced.  It’s not scintillating reading — few contracts are — but it reveals that Gingrich’s firm reported to the Freddie Mac Public Policy Director, whom the Post article identifies as a registered lobbyist.  The firm was paid a retainer of $25,000 a month, which means its compensation wasn’t tied to how much work it actually did.  The description of what Gingrich’s firm was supposed to do is found in Exhibit 2, which states only that the firm was to provide “consulting and related services, as requested by Freddie Mac’s Director, Public Policy.”

However, Section 2(b) of the contract says that Gingrich’s group was to submit “an invoice that includes a detailed description of the Services performed” in order to get paid.  I hope a reporter somewhere is using public records requests and other methods to try to get those invoices, which might shed light on whether Gingrich really acted as a historian, as he states, or as a lobbyist and influence-peddler, as his opponents contend.  Interviewing the people that Gingrich reported to, and who requested the “consulting and related services,” would be a good idea, too.

I suppose it is possible that Freddie Mac paid more than $1.6 million for Gingrich to serve as a kind of historian.  After all, Freddie Mac was not exactly a paragon of fiscal responsibility, so it may well have spent $25,000 a month for unspecified historian duties even though its business involved mortgages, not histories.  Or, perhaps, Freddie Mac paid the former Speaker of the House to do other things.  It would be nice to know where the truth lies.

Let Them Protest — It’s The American Way

Protesters have been camping out and protesting in the Wall Street area of New York City for the last few weeks.

Some participants are protesting “corporate greed,” others object to the role of corporations in politics, and still others appear to be venting general anger and frustration about our economic problems.  Similar protests have occurred in other cities, too.  (The story linked above says “A group in Columbus, Ohio, also marched on the capital city’s street” — which makes our fair city sound like a one-horse town.  Hey, AP!  For the record, we’ve got more than one street in Columbus.)

I don’t blame people for protesting.  In my view, the Wall Street protests are a flip side of the Tea Party protests that started in 2009 and spawned significant grass-roots politicking.  The Tea Partiers dressed in colonial garb and the Wall Street protesters dress as corporate zombies, but both are expressing a deep concern, shared by many Americans, that the country is heading in the wrong direction.  The economy sucks, jobs are scarce, and nobody seems to be doing much about the problem.  The two groups’ proposed solutions to the problems are different, but the deep-rooted anger about the problems in the same.

The great thing about America is that the First Amendment allows the anger and frustration to be vented through peaceful protest, and the act of protest allows the protesters’ message to reach a wider audience.  If the protest strikes a chord with a sufficiently large segment of the population, as happened with the Tea Party, then stray protests can become a movement.  It remains to be seen whether the Wall Street protests have that kind of broad impact or staying power, but we’ll find out soon enough.  Until then, I say let them protest, and applaud their exercise of their First Amendment rights.

A Union Leader’s Thoughts On Labor Day

Today Teamsters President Jimmy Hoffa, Jr. revved up a crowd for President Obama as a Labor Day rally in Detroit, Michigan.  He said the “tea party” had declared a “war on workers” and added:  “President Obama, this is your army. We are ready to march. Let’s take these son of bitches out and give America back to an America where we belong.”

I don’t mind the vulgarity and martial imagery — anybody warming up a crowd at a union event on Labor Day can get carried away, I suppose — but I’m not sure what “war on workers” Hoffa is referring to.  Presumably he is talking about the efforts to limit collective bargaining rights for public employees in states like Wisconsin and Ohio.  For the most part, however, the agenda of the “tea party” — if such an entity can even be said to exist — seems to be a pro-worker agenda.  The “tea party” element wants to restrain the growth of government, keep taxes low, avoid unnecessary regulations that restrict economic growth, and let private enterprise develop and create jobs.  What is so “anti-worker” about that?

Many union leaders, like Hoffa, apparently equate a “pro-worker” agenda with a “pro-union” agenda.  Anybody who pushes a “pro-union” agenda necessarily supports government spending, government growth, and government regulation, because public employees have been one of the few growth areas for unions in recent decades.  If you follow a pro-worker agenda, on the other hand, you want to see jobs created, whatever those jobs may be.  How many more people — Teamsters included — would be employed on this Labor Day, for example, if our government hadn’t imposed a moratorium on certain oil drilling and imposed restrictions on our ability to exploit our reserves of oil and natural gas?

That Depressing And Degrading Downgrade

Standard & Poor’s downgrading of the United States’ credit rating, from AAA to AA+, is an embarrassment to our country — but it is a lot more than that.

The downgrade is a tangible reminder that our profligate spending and borrowing ways have yielded some of our sovereignty over our own affairs to others — be they ratings agency analysts, or bond traders, or foreign governments that hold large chunks of our debt.  When you borrow money, you inevitably give your creditors an element of power over your affairs.  They can raise your interest rate payments or tell you you can’t buy that new car.  Our staggering federal debt is giving entities like Standard & Poor’s or countries like China the ability to set their own benchmarks for our performance and to threaten further downgrades or higher interest rates if those benchmarks aren’t met.  These developments should be deeply troubling to anyone who is paying attention.

I’m afraid that the downgrade also will be another example our government’s ostrich-like ways.  Downgrades and higher interest rates are an entirely predictable result of our spendthrift budgeting, but those consequences were ignored.  We can hope that, with the shock of a downgrade, our government will start to behave responsibly — but so far the signs aren’t good.  Our Treasury Secretary argues that Standard & Poor’s got its math wrong, and our political leaders are just blaming each other for the problem.  Senator John Kerry — that well-known paragon of balanced budgeting and fiscal responsibility — even goes so far as to call it the “Tea Party downgrade,” as if the brand-new legislators who were elected on a platform of reduced spending and who insisted that the recent debt ceiling increase include some spending reductions were responsible for our trillions of dollars in accumulated debt.

We are not only burdened with unsustainable debt, but also with an inept gaggle of “leaders” who view every crisis as just another opportunity for political spin.

Protest, And Response, In Wisconsin

We are learning a lot about a changing America, and a changing political landscape, from watching the ongoing story in Wisconsin about legislation that would affect collective bargaining rules for public employees.  The story began with public employee unions flexing their muscle.  They prevailed upon their members — many of whom apparently called in “sick” — to flood the state capitol in protest.  They also prevailed upon Democratic state senators to flee the state and bring the legislative process to a halt due to lack of a quorum.

But then something surprising happened.  Yesterday, a counter-demonstration occurred, as thousands of “Tea Party” activists and other citizens came to the state capitol to support Wisconsin’s Republican Governor in his budget-cutting efforts.  In all, police estimated that 68,000 people came to the state capitol to either support or oppose the collective bargaining bill, and they did so peacefully.  Even more interesting, police report that there were heated arguments between the opposing sides, but no violence.

It is not surprising that teachers and public employees would turn out to protest; their pay and benefits will be directly affected by the outcome.  What I think is extraordinary, however, is that thousands of citizens whose interests are not directly affected were motivated to spend a Saturday outside, advocating in support of the budget-cutting efforts of Wisconsin’s governor.  It says a lot about the deep level of alarm about out-of-control spending that thousands of people would spend their precious weekend hours at a counter-protest.  Wisconsin’s governor, and his Republican allies in the state legislature, must have been encouraged by the strong show of support — which probably is the tip of a much larger iceberg.

It also says something that thousands of people could turn out to support competing sides of a hotly debated issue without violence.  The teachers, public employees, and citizens who went to the state capitol to exercise their rights to free speech and assembly look a lot more adult than the Wisconsin Democratic Senators who turned tail and ran out of state rather than participate in the political process as they were elected to do.

States In The Red, Looking For A Way Out

As even a casual follower of the news knows, many states are struggling with huge budget problems.  Ohio is one of them.  Usually the problems are the result of declining tax revenues, increased government spending and support obligations, and the fact that bills are starting to come due on grossly underfunded state employee pension and retirement plans.

States are taking different approaches to their predicament.  Illinois recently enacted huge increases to its individual and corporate income taxes.  California has declared a state of fiscal emergency.  Some states have focused exclusively on cutting spending.  And, it now appears, other states have quietly gone to Congress to explore the possibility of either a federal bailout or changes in the law to allow states to declare bankruptcy.  In these Tea Party days, there doesn’t seem to be much appetite for bailouts — especially for states that seem to have behaved irresponsibly with their budgeting decisions and can’t be trusted to behave responsibly in the future.  So, the “bankruptcy option” evidently is being seriously explored as a way to allow states to avoid their pension obligations.

I’m opposed to a federal bailout of the states.  I’m also opposed to any change in the law to facilitate states wiping out their debts through a bankruptcy-type process.  I think the bankruptcy option would be bad policy for two reasons.  First, I think such an approach is not fair to people who have agreements with the states that would be affected by a bankruptcy process.  State employees who have worked for years on the understanding that they will receive a pension should not be deprived of their pension payments.  For those workers, the pension was part of the deal, they have relied on the pension in their retirement planning, and it would be unfair for states to now renege on the deal.  Second, bankruptcy would affect not only state workers with pensions, but also all people who have contracts with the state, all people who purchases state bonds and debt instruments, and all others who do business with the states.  It would be a drastic step that would, I think, forever affect the state’s credit rating and investor confidence in government securities generally.  States that have been responsible in their budgeting and spending would be tarred, too, and would have to endure higher interest rates on their own borrowing as a result.  Obviously, neither of those results would be welcome.

The solution for states that are in a budget bind should lie in the state, itself, making the tough choices and difficult changes necessary to get their fiscal houses in order.  Cut spending.  Eliminate programs that aren’t essential.  Sell state property and assets.  Negotiate changes  to future pension obligations and eliminate pensions for newly hired employees.  Change laws that require automatic escalations in pension payments.  Explore users fees as additional revenue sources.  But don’t come to Uncle Sam for a bailout, and don’t take a bankruptcy option that could leave retirees high and dry and cripple state credit ratings for decades to come.

Illinois Ups The Ante

Last week Illinois passed legislation to significantly increase its income taxes in order to help solve its dismal budget deficit problems.   Personal income tax rates in Illinois will go from 3 percent to 5 percent — a 66 percent (!) increase — for the next four years.  Corporate taxes also will increase.  Legislators passed the bill only hours before a new legislature was sworn in, and coupled the tax increases with a promise that, during the four-year period, spending increases would be limited to 2 percent a year.  Given that Illinois has a $25 billion annual budget, the “strict limits on spending increases” means the Illinois legislature will have to scrimp by on only $500 million in new spending every year.

The actions of the Illinois legislature and Governor are precisely why “tea party” candidates were successful in the 2010 election and will be probably continue to be successful so long as government spending is out of control.  It will always be easier for politicians to defer hard choices on spending, so as to avoid upsetting any constituency, and then seek tax increases imposed by lame-duck lawmakers who are leaving office and, perhaps, seeking jobs with the same constituencies who are trying to avoid spending reductions.  I’m sure, however, that Illinois residents will appreciate the brave actions of their elected representatives and will be happy about paying even more taxes in a down economy where families have already engaged in significant belt-tightening.

I’m hoping that Governor Kasich and the Ohio General Assembly don’t follow the lead of the Illinois legislature.  The path to a balanced budget lies in spending cuts, not tax increases imposed on struggling citizens and businesses that are expected to produce jobs.  And if the Ohio government can resist the urge to raise taxes, it may find that Illinois residents and businesses may look favorably on Ohio as a more tax-friendly place where they can relocate and leave corrupt, spending-addicted Illinois politics behind.

Congress And The Constitution

Earlier this week, after the new Congress was seated, members of the House of Representatives read most of the Constitution aloud.  The decision to do so was surprisingly controversial.  Some pundits contended that the reading of the Constitution was a sop to “tea party” activists, and others suggested that the Republican majority of the House was treating the Constitution as if it were some kind of sacred document (which, in a very real sense, it is).

You wouldn’t think that the reading of our country’s foundational document — the one that establishes the structure of our government, identifies its three branches and defines their powers and responsibilities, and articulates the rights of American citizens — would provoke such a firestorm.  Why shouldn’t members of Congress and CSPAN viewers be reminded of what the Constitution actually says?  And to those who say the House of Representatives was just wasting time, I would respond that the floors of the House and the Senate have often been commandeered by members to address minutiae, in the form of turgid speeches about arcane issues like National Olive Month or the accomplishments of a local high school marching band. The simple, precise language of the Constitution is vastly superior to 99.9% of the commentary ever heard in the House or Senate.

I’m not sure that reading the Constitution aloud will have any impact on how this Congress does its job.  But I also don’t see how it can possibly hurt, either.  Every once in a while, it is useful to remember your roots, and your purpose.

High Tea

The results in last night’s primaries are being hailed as examples of the surging power of the “Tea Party,” as “Tea Party” candidates defeated establishment Republican candidates in a number of states.  I think the results are as much attributable to frustration with establishment candidates as to endorsement of any specific “Tea Party” platform.  The familiar names that were running in places like Delaware and New York have not gotten the job done in the past, so why not try somebody new?

The performance of “Tea Party” candidates in primaries may turn out to be a double-edged sword.  Because you are reaching out to select a new face, by definition you are getting someone who has been less vetted and less tested by prior political experience.  Who knows what skeletons may be found in the person’s closet, or what personality quirks may make the candidate less attractive in a general election?  On the other hand, I think voters are fed up with know-it-alls telling them that some candidates cannot win and they should settle for a compromise candidate who is “electable.”  I think many voters believe that, in this climate, no one really knows who is electable and who is not, and in any case they want their vote to send a message.  President Obama’s 2008 campaign showed that an energized, ready-for-a-change electorate can lift a political novice to victory  — and in many states 2010 will again be a year with an energized, ready-for-a-change electorate.

Goodbye, Incumbents

More evidence that the nation’s voters are not happy with our elected representatives:  five-term Senator Arlen Specter, who casually switched parties at the start of the Obama Administration, was defeated in yesterday’s Democratic primary in Pennsylvania, Blanche Lincoln, the Democratic Senator from Arkansas, was forced into a run-off election, and Rand Paul, the “tea party” favorite who was seeking the nomination for U.S. Senate in Kentucky, crushed the endorsed establishment candidate in the Republican primary.

We’ll learn more about how deep and wide this voter unhappiness is in the coming months, but so far it seems pretty clear that voters want to change direction, and in a significant way.