I’m down at KVNU this morning working for Al Lewis and read a news story about USU seeking a $65/semester student fee increase to increase the athletics budget.

What goes through my head?

OH HELL NO!

Of any department on campus, athletics has perhaps the single best ability to do their own fundraising. As such, it is entirely unfair for them to seek placing an additional burden on students to fund what many would argue are non-essential programs.

Right now, if you take more than 10 credits at USU you pay $56.75 in student fees. That’s out of a total of a little more than $300. WIth a $65 increase that would make athletics a recipient of about $120 of $360 in fees, by far the largest portion. To compare, the library only gets $16 of fees, computer labs $60 and a building fee is $70. Music and theater, meanwhile, get just $5.50.

I’m a fan of athletics. I like sports. But in a time when students are arguing against tuition increases (although I favor increasing tuition as a way to balance budget cuts) it is asinine to ask for a student fee increase like this. Moreover, this is not a good time to come and ask for this.

An election will be held for students to vote on this issue in March, but traditionally few students vote in these elections. I hope that students will rise up and not buy into any theatrics that athletics department puts up such as “we may lose football” or “if you want the basketball program to continue” as bait to get ignorant students to vote FOR this massive increase.

Just as we say no to increased taxes, students must fight to keep their fees in check. A fee increase is fine, but let it enhance the academic experience. Let athletics go out and raise their own money.

The recent post by Jason Williams ["Some (Reality Based) Thoughts on the Stimulus"] is basically a counterargument to my earlier “Thoughts on the ‘Stimulus‘” post, which criticizes the Democratic stimulus plan.

Jason’s post is revealing for it demonstrates the kind of argumentation being used to discredit (not disprove) those who oppose the Democratic agenda.

Throughout the debate on Tuesday, Jason repeatedly alleged that those in favor of the stimulus enjoyed the support of “most economists,” whereas the puny opposition derived its objections from the phony expertise of House Republicans, the Wall Street Journal, and Rush Limbaugh. Jason’s infatuation with associating virtually any argument against the stimulus to House Republicans and “listening to Rush Limbaugh,” are clear examples of how legitimate points are being lost in the world of political spin; these kinds of attacks are classics, pulled straight from the playbook.

By discrediting the source or by establishing an absolute claim to credibility, the debate itself becomes more of a “gun show” than an actual discussion, with both sides scrambling to discredit, not disprove. This is apparent in Jason and Company’s constant ridicule of sources from the Wall Street Journal, yet unabashedly partisan sources (mainly blogs) like OpenLeft, Hiuffington Post, and Daily Kos are considered appropriate and accurate. And of course the expertise of select individuals like Paul Krugman (disregard his blatant partisanship, as well), automatically disprove any adverse claim and transforms the contender into a “true conservative alarmist.”

In Jason’s “reality based” post, 7 points are confronted which I supposedly ascribe to:

1. You can’t stimulate the economy and promote a political agenda at the same time.
2. Tax cuts stimulate the economy better than spending
3. This plan increases the national debt.
4. Only infrastructure jobs count as economic turnaround.
5. Even Paul Krugman Admits This Isn’t 1930
6. The New Deal didn’t pull us out of the depression, the war did.
7. Government spending reduces private spending.

It must be recognized that these 7 points are fabricated by Jason, and at times makes it seem that Jason is in fact arguing with himself, not me.

“You can’t stimulate the economy and promote a political agenda at the same time.”

Jason, if you care to read my post once again, you will notice that the thing called into question is what is intended by the economic stimulus. I raise the question whether the intention behind the stimulus is to promote an agenda, or to stimulate the economy, and  “could it be both.” Again, what is being called into question is the intention of this stimulus. Instead of addressing this at all, an entire paragraph is devoted to proving how the economy can be stimulated while still championing a political agenda (i.e. Bush Tax Cuts).

If the Democrats were serious about stimulating the economy, the creation of this bill wouldn’t have been limited to input from just House Democrats and their Speaker. If truly serious, the plan may just try to confront the housing crisis and credit crisis which have propelled the US into such dire circumstances. And if this bill was primarily intended to create jobs, hundreds of billions of dollars more would have been allocated for sectors with significant percentages of unemployment (manufacturing and construction), and not just government jobs with relatively low unemployment rates. If job creation truly was the focus of this stimulus, then why is so much of it devoted to extending unemployment benefits and subsidizing healthcare?

Is the agenda or the economic stimulus paramount? Well, even advisors to President Obama are confessing that parts of the bill will do absolutely nothing, what makes you so confident then that this bill has the good intentions you seem to assume? I question the intent behind the stimulus, mainly because this bill doesn’t directly confront any of the causes of this economic crisis, and as you admitted yourself, it is riddled with pork projects. Undoubtedly you will express your support for pork projects, no matter how futile, for they employ workers. The “reality based” assumption behind this idea may be fun to entertain, but Harvard economists like Jeffrey A. Miron would probably disagree. For the assumption is that government spending will have some “social or economic value,” yet as we have seen so often with pork projects, such things are rarely the impetus behind the projects themselves.

“Tax cuts stimulate the economy better than spending”

Hmm, I never said that.

“This plan increases the national debt”

If the government “tightens the belt” right now, it will further deflate the economy. This is one of the biggest mistakes FDR made.

I will agree with you that FDR made a serious mistake by trying to balance the budget during the Depression. Yet I see serious dangers in the way in which the stimulus has not been explicit about how this kind of debt will be handled in the future. From Jeffrey Sachs at the Financial Times:

Neither the White House nor Congress has offered the public a scenario of how the proposed mega-deficits will affect the budget and government programmes beyond the next 12 to 24 months. Without a sound medium-term fiscal framework, the stimulus package can easily do more harm than good, since the prospect of trillion-dollar-plus deficits as far as the eye can see will weigh heavily on the confidence of consumers and businesses, and thereby undermine even the short-term benefits of the stimulus package.

If the present stimulus package is adopted without a medium-term plan, it will go the way of the earlier stimulus package and the Tarp, yet also put the US into a fiscal straitjacket that could paralyse public sector action in critical areas for a decade or more to come.

Jason, as we have seen with the bailouts, this money is coming from a foreign source (China), and will have to be eventually paid back by the American taxpayer. How long can we balance a raging national debt with a moribund economy, and still pay for all of the programs which require so much money?

You say:

In a nutshell, yes it is frightening to add billions to an already ballooning national debt, but the fact that Bush and the Neo-Cons have been spending so much in Iraq for nearly a decade does not change economic facts.

It seems peculiar to me that while extolling the virtues of government spending, you take the time to lambast the spending of “Bush and the Neo-Cons” for spending on the War in Iraq. If government spending is the solution to our problems, Jason, why hasn’t spending on the War in Iraq and the War on Terror in general, stimulated our economy?

“Only infrastructure jobs count as economic turnaround”

Uh, when did I ever say that? My exact words were:

Jason was quick to point out that this economic stimulus was most effective because it would “qucikly create lots of jobs.” Yet what still puzzles me is how “lots of jobs” are going to spring from such a weak infrastructure allotment; just about 1/5th of the stimulus will be actually used for infrastructure projects. Just $30 billion (5%) is going for roads and bridges, and slightly more will go for replacing electrical grids; that makes up only a little more than 10% of the stimulus.

How does anyone expect me to believe that a stimulus which only grants about $70 billion for infrastructure (which will create jobs), and yet throws $127 billion “over the next two and a half years to individuals and states for health care alone.” On top of that, nearly a quarter of the money going to state/local governments will be consumed by social programs: food stamps, extending unemployed benefits, and subsidizing health insurance. Medicaid for the unemployed, for example, will be covered 100% by the federal government until 2010.

Jason, there is obvious benefits from an increase of jobs in the realm of infrastructure. Yet I am still confused as to how expanding unemployment benefits will create all of these jobs you are speaking of. Maybe you need to educate me with your Econ 1010 textbook, but I am still unaware of how spending more money on unemployment benefits and health insurance subsidies is going to lead to “rapid job creation.”

As we all know, this economic stimulus is primarily for the purpose of creating jobs, right? This bill allocates a much higher percentage towards expanding benefits than improving infrastructure. Does that mean that all of these jobs coming from unemployment benefits and healthcare subsidies are more reliable and valuable than those in infrastructure? By the looks of this stimulus, that seems to be the assumption.

This is from Martin Feldstein, a Harvard economist and president emeritus of the National Bureau of Economic Research:

On the spending side, the stimulus package is full of well-intended items that, unfortunately, are not likely to do much for employment. Computerizing the medical records of every American over the next five years is desirable, but it is not a cost-effective way to create jobs. Has anyone gone through the (long) list of proposed appropriations and asked how many jobs each would create per dollar of increased national debt?

The largest proposed outlays amount to just writing unrestricted checks to state governments. Nearly $100 billion would result from increasing the “Medicaid matching rate,” a technique for reducing states’ Medicaid costs to free up state money for spending on anything governors and state legislators want. An additional $80 billion would be given out for “state fiscal relief.” Will these vast sums actually lead to additional spending, or will they merely finance state transfer payments or relieve state governments of the need for temporary tax hikes or bond issues?

The plan to finance health insurance premiums for the unemployed would actually increase unemployment by giving employers an incentive to lay off workers rather than pay health premiums during a time of weak demand. And this supposedly two-year program would create a precedent that could be hard to reverse.

The problem with the current stimulus plan is not that it is too big but that it delivers too little extra employment and income for such a large fiscal deficit. It is worth taking the time to get it right.

And what of all those other projects outlined? Is it likely that we will see an ecomonic recovery any time soon? A great perspective can be found by one of Obama’s earlier advisers, who criticized similar plans for a stimulus by saying:

“Practically speaking, however, public works involve long start-up lags. Large-scale construction projects of any type require years of planning and preparation. Even those that are “on the shelf” generally cannot be undertaken quickly enough to provide timely stimulus to the economy. For major infrastructure projects supported by the federal government, such as highway construction and activities of the Army Corps of Engineers, initial outlays usually total less than 25 percent of the funding provided in a given year. For large projects, the initial rate of spending can be significantly lower than 25 percent.

“Some of the candidates for public works, such as grant-funded initiatives to develop alternative energy sources, are totally impractical for countercyclical policy, regardless of whatever other merits they may have. In general, many if not most of these projects could end up making the economic situation worse because they would stimulate the economy at the time that expansion was already well under way.”

Hmm. I’ll side with the Obama adviser.

“Even Paul Krugman Admits This Isn’t 1930”

Jason, again, you are spinning out of control on this one. I cite Paul Krugman because he openly favors government spending on infrastructure, AND he is consistently reminding the public that the same methods of recovery used during the Great Depression are not necessarily applicable in today’s world. That is precisely why the credit crisis and the housing crisis need to be addressed if any economic stimulation is going to take place, not just immediate government spending.

“The New Deal didn’t pull us out of the depression, the war did”

Please read my post and comments here: http://kvnuforthepeople.com/2009/01/29/paul-krugman-and-the-new-deal/comment-page-1/#comment-50952

Jason, you want to know the truth? The most obvious reason for the US remaining in an economic depression for nearly a decade was because of protectionists acts like the Hawley-Smoot Tariff, which effectively limited American access to foreign markets and placed extremely protectionist barriers to trade. That act, in my opinion, drastically exacerbated the crisis and left the US economically weak for years. Yes, I realize that this was a Republican policy (protectionism used to be a Republican hallmark), and I am of the impression that had the nation not passed the act, the US would have escaped from the Great Depression years before.

Nevertheless, Jason, I see some dangerous protectionist standards coming from this stimulus bill, which makes me even more opposed to it than before. By “buying American,” we are essentially cutting off one of our only positive economic resources for the time being. International trade has been probably the most economically beneficial characteristic of our country over the past few decades. Thanks to free trade policies, the US has had access to markets all over the world, and likewise, foreign investment in the US has been on the rise. This country benefits TREMENDOUSLY from trade, and yet, if the US were to return to the kind of protectionism that has stunted its growth periodically, this nation will certainly see an extended recession. From the International Herald Tribune:

China recently surpassed Japan as the U.S. government’s largest creditor. Any decision by Beijing to move its money would deal a dizzying new blow to an already tottering American economy. Yet relations between China and the new Obama administration are off to a rocky start.

For now, Beijing continues to loan Washington money by buying Treasurys and other U.S. government securities, helping to finance the ever-growing U.S. budget deficit. But there are signs its leaders may be considering trimming these holdings as that country experiences its own economic slowdown. Strains between the two economic powerhouses seem to be growing with the change in administrations.

The latest irritants are a “buy American” provision attached to White House-backed stimulus legislation moving through Congress and criticism of China’s currency policies by Vice President Joe Biden and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner.

Jason, have you entertained the thought that China could possibly do just that, “trim these holdings” in the US? Do you know what that would do for future spending projects? Do you know what that would do to all of your precious special programs? If I were Obama, I wouldn’t press my luck with China right now.

Another observation about Obama and protectionism from The Times:

Politicians are turning protectionist on the sly, slipping manufacturers discriminatory subsidies, dressing up state aid as training, raising tariff barriers and inhibiting global capital flows by encouraging the banks that they now part-own to intervene to concentrate their lending “at home”.

Trade leadership will have to come from Britain because it will not come from the America of Barack Obama. There, “economic patriotism” is the new protectionism, prettily wrapped in stars and stripes but just as damaging to the world’s prospects of recovery as was the 1930s variety.

Is Mr Obama a protectionist? Instinctively, yes; he has never seen a free-trade deal he would actually vote for, and he talks about trade policy as a tool “to support good American jobs”. But as the election campaign wore on, he toned down his invective against foreign competition, and, because his economic team is basically free trade, the jury is still out.

The verdict, however, will be in very soon. At the behest of the most protectionist Congress in memory, Mr Obama may be about to repeat, at the dawn of his presidency, the same historic error that the much derided Herbert Hoover made just before quitting the White House in 1933. In the depths of the Great Depression, he signed into law the innocent-sounding Buy America Act. It required the US Government to use American suppliers in all public contracts. Less notorious than the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act, “Buy America” did huge damage. It proved a disaster for US manufacturing exports and the global economy. Other governments followed suit, and it took decades to begin to reverse the closure of markets.

Good luck, Obama.

“Government spending reduces private spending”

From Jason:

Sometimes true, other times not.  Definitely not the absolute Marc makes it out to be, and either way, completely irrelevant.

I love how you “find” all of these claims that I am secretly making. Where have I ever made the assertion that governmenbt spending reduces private spending? Or is this just a convenient tagline for you to tackle?

Yes it’s our cash.  Yes it’s excessive spending.  Yes it’s going to lead to the Democrats getting their way on the programs they would like to see better funded.  But elections have consequences, my Republican friends, and more money for Planned Parenthood or the NEA may infuriate you, even make your blood boil, but it doesn’t not change the fact that federal spending will do more to create jobs, positively effect our GDP, and get us more quickly to a point when we can again focus on our national debt than a few tax cuts for millionaires (all the Republicans have suggested at this point) will ever — or could ever — do.

No, it’s actually China’s cash, and it sure is excessive. Federal spending will “positively effect our GDP?” Please explain in detail what contribution Planned Parenthood makes towards our GDP? Hopefully our GDP will fare better during Obama’s economic stimulus than it did during the Great Depression, despite all of those government jobs.

This economic stimulus is losing its momentum, and not because everyone is listening to Rush Limbaugh or because House Republicans are operating a major propaganda machine. It is because more and more Americans and economists alike are skeptical that such an expensive, pork-riddled stimulus plan will actually achieve what it is envisioned to.

Hundreds of economists have come out in condemnation of this stimulus; economic experts from universities around the United States, some of which are Nobel laureates. Martin Feldstein of Harvard, who argued for an economic stimulus last year, has been highly critical of this plan and proposes that it be reexamined and better designed.

Jason would like to make this simply a debate between the “conservative alarmists”  on one side, and the experts, economists, and “reality based” on the other. But such a view of this issue is simply not supported by reality. Jason’s counterarguments consistently misrepresented my position and my views (especially on the Great Depression), and were plagued with classic political spin. He associates all detractors with his Republican foe, as if they are official representatives of the party.

Jason, I am a Republican, but I never voted for Bush. I never felt comfortable with the War in Iraq. I have ALWAYS been critical of Republican spending habits under the Bush presidency, and I have NEVER been one who ascribes to “compassionate conservatism.” I don’t like most of the House Republicans, including Boehner, and I feel that their objections to the stimulus plan are weak and not sincere; they would rather play political games than actually revive their own party. So if you want to disprove my claims, it would be wise to stop trying to discredit me by consistently associating me with “the Republicans.”

But in closing, I have little faith in this stimulus plan. It is allocating monies to the wrong areas and doesn’t even attempt to solve this country’s credit and housing crisis, which need to be addressed somehow. The stimulus is plunging this nation into more and more debt. It is protectionist. It is pork. It is not realistic in terms of timing. And the benefits that it will supposedly provide for the economy are secondary to the Democratic social agenda.

Hopefully this will be one of the last of my posts on this subject, for I am needing to get more sleep and I can’t remember what a razor looks like! And Jason, if you truly value freedom (and not just when it comes to criticizing the PATRIOT act or the War in Iraq), I suggest reading “Capitalism and Freedom” by Milton Friedman. Having free markets is the only way in which to remain truly free… if the government can’t even respect your right to a free contract, how do you expect it to respect any of your other rights? Down with this stimulus.

- Marc

Here Paul Krugman admits that FDR’s New Deal didn’t pull the US out of the Great Depression.

According to Krugman, it was World War II. (It appears that both Krugman and I are “eccentric”)

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3yAyQV8gOjo[/youtube]

- Marc

*Sigh*

Rebecca Walsh has a new column in the Salt Lake Tribune, and shockingly it is critical of the LDS Church & Republican legislators:

Mormon church elders met with state legislative leaders at 50 E. North Temple last week.

It happens every year — like General Conference or political neutrality statements. Republican lawmakers hashed over their legislative agenda with a church apostle, the presiding bishop, a church lobbyist and PR staffers. Two weeks ago, it was Democrats’ turn.

After consulting the oracles, the Senate president and House speaker reported back: LDS Church leaders might be willing to do away with private club memberships if lawmakers come up with a system for scanning driver licenses.

Utahns are so used to it, we don’t even blink anymore. It was a routine news story, rather than an unconstitutional outrage.

“Unconstitutional outrage”?

Everyone knows that I am a strict separationist and that I am no apologist for Republican legislators, but I have to say that Ms. Walsh’s most recent pronouncement is, well, ignorant. Stupid. Uninformed. Lacking a rudimentary understanding of the Constitution that I would expect from 6th graders.

Walsh is alleging that the meeting between legislators and Church leaders wasn’t just a bad idea, but that it was illegal- and not just illegal, but in violation of the Constitution of the United States, and not just unconstitutional, but an “unconstitutional outrage“.

If Walsh’s understanding of the Constitution was correct, our elected officials could not meet with, consult with or be lobbied by faith leaders.  More damaging, faith leaders would have their First Amendment rights cut short and would be unable to lobby and petition government.

Now, there is a question about whether it’s good public policy- but that is entirely different than whether it is Constitutional.

I’m calling you out Rebecca Walsh.

Find me one court case from a Circuit Court or the Supreme Court that has ruled that elected officials meeting with faith leaders is “unconstitutional”.  Rebecca Walsh, you’re the one that called the meeting an “unconstitutional outrage”.  Now let’s see you be a good little reporter and verify it.

If you find it, I will publicy acknowledge you were right and that I was completely wrong.

Just one case.  One.

Rebecca?

-Tom

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5WCTn4FljUQ[/youtube]

Posting in response to Marc’s well thought out argument against the Stimulus. This is an important discussion to have, not simply as an opportunity readers/listeners to hear Marc and I argue, but I believe in a grander scheme, such discussions give us a chance — going back to the “Dead Ideas” discussions we had on air last week — to ad more to our understanding than we can get from any of our elected officials or party leaders.

Marc makes several points in attacking the Stimulus plan. He asserts the Stimulus will fail because:

1. You can’t stimulate the economy and promote a political agenda at the same time.
2. Tax cuts stimulate the economy better than spending
3. This plan increases the national debt.
4. Only infrastructure jobs count as economic turnaround.
5. Even Paul Krugman Admits This Isn’t 1930
6. The New Deal didn’t pull us out of the depression, the war did.
7. Government spending reduces private spending.

Taking them one by one:

You Can’t Stimulate the Economy and Promote a Political Agenda at the Same Time

Bull. If this is true, no plan will work. Not Obama’s federal spending. Not Bush’s tax cuts for the wealthy. Both are solutions that also promote a political philosophy and agenda. Marc asks “well which is it?”  To which I respond, where did you get the idea it could only be one or the other, and are you seriously telling me Bush’s Tax Cuts were free of agenda?  To cast a blanket assertion that a political agenda and a plan for economic recovery are by nature mutually exclusive is not only impossible to justify, it’s factually incorrect as well as completely irrelevant (except to the whining minority part, of course). We’ve solved many problems as a country while one party or another has been promoting their political preferences, in fact, there is rarely a time when this isn’t happening.  Straw man argument, and it’s already on fire.  And one final point here.  Marc mentions the ‘socialization of healthcare’ (earning two points for getting that word into the mix somehow, like a true conservative alarmist).  The stimulus plan actually does more to slow down the implementation of universal health care.  There will, quite simply, not be enough money left to do so as soon as I would like to see it down.  Seems the opposite of the implementation of the Democrats “socialist” agenda though, doesn’t it?   Marc also mentions that there isn’t a majority in the stimulus plan being directed at roads and bridges.  There is a lot more to infrastructure than roads and bridges.  Some of which we might all feel is unnecessary because we don’t use or depend upon it.  To use an extreme: A federally funded movie theater could quality as infrastructure.  It would create jobs, and also provide added entertainment/distraction for a depressed working class.

All in all, I find Marc’s arguments on this point a gross oversimplification of what economic recovery entails, and a weak attempt to find something sinister in the Democrat’s plan for recovery for cheap political points.  Of course they have an agenda.  So did (would) the Republicans.  Let’s not be naive.

Tax Cuts Stimulate the Economy

Yes they do. But only if they are given to people who will spend the money, not stash it away. Those with a lower income will be more inclined to spend the money (i.e. they have no choice… gotta pay the bills!) and that spending would then stimulate the economy. In essence, simply hanging onto Bush’s tax cuts and “riding this one out” would have zero positive change, especially when compared to the effect federal spending tends to have on unemployment rates and GDP. We’d simply have more rich people with larger bank accounts and investment funds, and even fewer jobs 2-4 years from now.  If tax cuts can save us all, why are we in this crisis to begin with?

This Plan Increases the National Debt

Indeed it does. But this is like saying “My car is out of gas, I need to get to work, but I’m not going in until I’ve brought down the prices of gas.  I’m sure my boss will understand.”  Republicans suddenly remembering the national debt (hey, what’s this?!) does not change the principles of what is or isn’t an effective economic recovery policy. In a nutshell, yes it is frightening to add billions to an already ballooning national debt, but the fact that Bush and the Neo-Cons have been spending so much in Iraq for nearly a decade does not change economic facts. If the government “tightens the belt” right now, it will further deflate the economy. This is one of the biggest mistakes FDR made. After installing the apparatus that made up the “New Deal” he saw encouraging results and tried — too quickly — to balance the budget, undermining his own plan for economic recovery. He got a pass with WWII, which allowed (nearly mandated, actually) a return to the New Deal principles in an even more emphatic way (i.e. nationalizing just about everything — which I’m not arguing for in our current situation, btw) and authored the unrestricted use the federal government as a tool to pour money back into the hands of average Americans with phone/heat/house-loan bills to pay. Republicans would like to re-write this piece of history right now and give all the credit to the wartime economy, but their memory doesn’t fit with the realities of that time. The War simply gave the New Deal it’s teeth. It allowed FDR to move away from the post-New Deal efforts to balance the budget and return to what he had originally planned (and what worked, in the end): federal spending, which created jobs.

This isn’t to say a balanced budget is without merit. But there is a time to balance the budget, and there is a time to repair the economy. If the two happen to be out of sync, you just have to suck it up. And again, Marc — or any Republican, John Boehner –  suddenly remembering the national debt so quickly after Bush leaves office is intellectually dishonest. To say we can’t spend now to repair our economy because Bush’s war has so unbelievably wracked up our debt might sound nice on the TeeVee, making us feel all warm and fuzzy inside about those oh-so-responsible Republicans, but it doesn’t change the facts of what would or would not bring about economic recovery. Yes we will see a growing debt, but the alternative is an economy that continues to shrink, and a continuing surge in unemployment.  All of which will also grow our debt. It’s much more intelligent at this time to repair the economy, then work toward reducing our debt, learning our lessons from FDR.

The Republicans are in a death spiral, and I can understand their desperation to reclaim relevancy.  But rewriting history isn’t going to help the cause.  Fixing the economy would.

Only infrastructure jobs count as economic turnaround.

Ah, no.  A job is a job.

Even Paul Krugman Admits This Isn’t 1930

Yes he does.  He also argues that the federal government can spend more thoroughly and quickly during a recession than a private sector currently laying off thousands of employees.  Also, to be nit-picky, Krugman’s definitions of difference between today and the 1930′s are more to point out that in the 1930′s we didn’t have the additional burden of having a non-manufacturing economy, which — ironic that Marc would bring this up — makes federal spending into programs even more important, as there are so few manufacturing jobs left for us to dumb money into as there were in the 1930′s and 40′s.  Rather than revise history, confuse microeconomics with macro, and over-simplify the debate, Krugman is simply arguing that the New Deal had many flaws, but anyone who argues it didn’t bring about recovery is pulling your leg to win re-election.

The New Deal Took Too Long (it was the War, not FDR)

Economic recovery is not a quick process.  And as I have already state above, one the biggest mistakes FDR made was not letting the New Deal recovery apparatus do it’s thing long enough before attempting to balance the budget.  The most glaring fact consistently omitted by Marc, as well as every Republican within 10 feet of a microphone recently, is that post-war, spending was reversed, and economic growth halted.  Then — thanks to the previous economic growth — the national debt started to come down.  What can be taken from that is a very simple fact:  if growth halted, yet the economy remained stable and debt began to come down, there must have been some real meat to the economy, right?  And what caused that meat?  Was it magic fairy dust?  Was it American’s sense of self satisfaction at the defeat of Hitler’s Germany?  No (although I think that helped our national psyche a lot).  It was the 15 plus years of federal spending.  Again: 15 Plus Years of federal spending.  One more time:  MORE THAN FIFTEEN YEARS OF CONSISTENT FEDERAL SPENDING (that’s me yelling).

Marc’s rendition seems akin to the Underpants Gnome Theory of Prosperity (i.e We have the start and the end… the middle part… well we’ll just make it up.)

Government Spending Reduces Private Spending

Sometimes true, other times not.  Definitely not the absolute Marc makes it out to be, and either way, completely irrelevant.  The private sector is shrinking.  Unless we’d like to just ride this one out (always an option, I will admit) we need a stimulator.  There are times — and this is one of them — when the private sector cannot afford to bolster the economy.  When that happens, the federal government is the only machine that can dump boat-loads of cash back into the system.  Yes it’s our cash.  Yes it’s excessive spending.  Yes it’s going to lead to the Democrats getting their way on the programs they would like to see better funded.  But elections have consequences, my Republican friends, and more money for Planned Parenthood or the NEA may infuriate you, even make your blood boil, but it doesn’t not change the fact that federal spending will do more to create jobs, positively effect our GDP, and get us more quickly to a point when we can again focus on our national debt than a few tax cuts for millionaires (all the Republicans have suggested at this point) will ever — or could ever — do.

To end, I’d like to get back to the idea of “Dead Ideas” a bit.  I really think this is a time for us, as a country, to get past unproductive economic arguments, and failed economic ideas.  I believe the Republicans in Congress right now have nothing to offer (name one suggestion they had during this debate, besides complaining about STD funding?… Yeah I didn’t catch on either).   And while the Democrat’s plan isn’t perfect, it’s at least something, and it’s based on a good chunk of lessons learned, rather than campaign jargon about tax cuts.   America’s attitude toward government and taxes is shifting, and this crisis is a seriously reality for million of working people.  The result, simply put. is Americans want their government to do more for them. From GOP pollster Frank Luntz:

Last month, I conducted a national survey of 800 registered voters on their attitudes toward infrastructure investment…The survey’s findings were unlike any other issue I have polled in more than a decade…A near unanimous 94% of Americans are concerned about our nation’s infrastructure. And this concern cuts across all regions of the country and across urban, suburban and rural communities. Fully 84% of the public wants more money spent by the federal government — and 83% wants more spent by state governments — to improve America’s infrastructure. And here’s the kicker: 81% of Americans are personally prepared to pay 1% more in taxes for the cause.

This isn’t “soft” support for infrastructure either. It stretches from Maine to Montana, from California to Connecticut. Democrats (87%) and Republicans (74%) are prepared to, in Barack Obama’s words, put skin in the game, which tells you just how wide and deep the support is…

Put skin in the game.

Fear is a factor. But we have an enormous advantage over our predecessors in 1929. We have the fact that the New Deal happened. And we have the institutions of the New Deal, though they have been badly damaged in the last decade, they are still with us. We have deposit insurance. We have Social Security. We have a government which is capable of acting as the lender of last resort, which can borrow and spend as needed to deal with this crisis.

So here in the United States the capacity to handle the crisis exists. What we need is a government that’s willing to use that capacity, that believes in it. And that’s where the collapse of the old objectivism of Alan Greenspan is such a fundamental feature of the present situation, and very timely. With the collapse of that system of ideas perhaps the way will be cleared for thinking afresh and clearly about the problems that we face and how to solve them.

Marc predicts we will see no improvement from this stimulus.  I disagree, but I have to admit I cannot do so with much pride in my intellect because realistically, Marc’s prediction is an impossibility.  We either see improvement or we’re all living in a dust bowl and there will be no internet for Marc to use for gloating.  We’ll be too busy scrounging for grubs to remember we even had this argument.  We will see improvement, and our economy will turn around.  What this argument is really about is what can we do to make it happen faster.  Federal spending (yes, even into those evil socialist government programs that help poor people and the unemployed looking for work and the struggling entrepreneur looking for a start-up grant), I believe, would do more for us than a tax break for Donald Trump, who probably isn’t too concerned about the economic crisis, himself.

(If you’d like to “check my work” or simply learn more, you can find reference to everything I’ve written here in several places:  the journals/published articles of economist James Gailbraith and his book The Predator State, How Conservatives have abandoned the Free Market, and why Liberals Should Too, David Sirota of OpenLeft,  Wiley’s Journal of Public Economic Theory, and the Economics 101 book I kept from my first year in college on my bookshelf — Marc, you’re welcome to borrow it.  Proudly researched without a single reference to the WSJ.)

UPDATE: A couple of timely headlines from today’s Salt Lake Tribune that I feel emphasize my point.  Here and Here. Tell me again this plan will not create jobs.

As some of our listeners observed, Jason and I feel rather passionate about the proposed “stimulus” which passed the House earlier today.

This stimulus plan is intended to “stimulate” the economy, yet it is unlikely that such a proposal can have any serious shortterm or longterm economic benefit. Instead, I agree with the New York Times that:

The stimulus bill working its way through Congress is not just a package of spending increases and tax cuts intended to jolt the nation out of recession. For Democrats, it is also a tool for rewriting the social contract with the poor, the uninsured and the unemployed, in ways they have long yearned to do.

So which is it? Is this intended to be an economic stimulus or a vehicle for a Democratic social agenda? Could it be both? I doubt it.

The problem is, the Democrats’ defense of this pork-riddled “stimulus” plan is shamefully hypocritical. Just a few observations:

How many times have you heard Democrats tell you that “tax cuts don’t stimulate the economy?” (Or that was the narrative when it was conveniently George W. Bush making the tax cuts) Well in the Obama stimulus ruse, $275 billion (1/3rd of the stimulus) will come in the form of tax-cuts. And while many will point out that the tax cuts are intended for the “poor,” it is important to note that families earning up to $150,ooo a year will also be entitled to such cuts; hardly part of the “poor” of this country. Okay, so now that the Obama stimulus contains tax cuts, they become a valuable part of our economic recovery, whereas tax cuts by past presidents (Reagan, Bush, etc.) where utterly useless.

Democrats have been enthusiastic critics of George W. Bush for his accelerated spending habits. And predictably, such comments are always followed by the “Clinton balanced the budget” bit (well, that is true if you discount the money that Clinton “owed” to federal entities- social security, if you do factor this in you will see that unlike the myth which has become so commonly accepted, the national debt kept on rising during the Clinton years). Republicans have been attacked constantly for contributing to the rising national debt, nevertheless, in the economic climate which we are facing today, Democrats don’t seem to remember that increasing the national debt is bad. And what a better way to inflate that debt by borrowing hundreds of billions of dollars from China as a “tool for rewriting the social contract with the poor.”

And as much as the Democrats have sought to exploit “Republican pork projects” over the past eight years, this “stimulus,” as Jason himself acknowledged, is practically nothing but pork. From the Wall Street Journal:

“Never let a serious crisis go to waste. What I mean by that is it’s an opportunity to do things you couldn’t do before.”

So said White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel in November, and Democrats in Congress are certainly taking his advice to heart. The 647-page, $825 billion House legislation is being sold as an economic “stimulus,” but now that Democrats have finally released the details we understand Rahm’s point much better. This is a political wonder that manages to spend money on just about every pent-up Democratic proposal of the last 40 years.

We’ve looked it over, and even we can’t quite believe it. There’s $1 billion for Amtrak, the federal railroad that hasn’t turned a profit in 40 years; $2 billion for child-care subsidies; $50 million for that great engine of job creation, the National Endowment for the Arts; $400 million for global-warming research and another $2.4 billion for carbon-capture demonstration projects. There’s even $650 million on top of the billions already doled out to pay for digital TV conversion coupons.

Jason was quick to point out that this economic stimulus was most effective because it would “qucikly create lots of jobs.” Yet what still puzzles me is how “lots of jobs” are going to spring from such a weak infrastructure allotment; just about 1/5th of the stimulus will be actually used for infrastructure projects. Just $30 billion (5%) is going for roads and bridges, and slightly more will go for replacing electrical grids; that makes up only a little more than 10% of the stimulus.

How does anyone expect me to believe that a stimulus which only grants about $70 billion for infrastructure (which will create jobs), and yet throws $127 billion “over the next two and a half years to individuals and states for health care alone.” On top of that, nearly a quarter of the money going to state/local governments will be consumed by social programs: food stamps, extending unemployed benefits, and subsidizing health insurance. Medicaid for the unemployed, for example, will be covered 100% by the federal government until 2o10.

And yet, the major argument made by Jason and other Democrats is that this stimulus is going to create lots of jobs, and quickly. I have yet to hear how fueling social programs across the country is creating jobs; infrastructure I could understand, but powering Medicaid?

It is also ironic that more than one Democrat has tried to justify the stimulus plan by using Paul Krugman as a reference. Some of Paul Krugman’s main arguments for the stimulus rest on the infrastructure plans purported, yet again, with just over 10% of the stimulus actually going for infrastructure, how can that argument alone win the stimulus debate? It is also important to mention how hypocritical it is for Dems to hail Paul Krugman while dismissing those economists who disagree with the stimulus as “partisan nut-jobs.” Afterall, isn’t it Paul Krugman who not only touts his experience as an economist but a political voice. But hey, come on, he just claims to be “an unabashed defender of the welfare state,” attributes most of the problems of the world to George W. Bush,  and writes the “Conscience of a Liberal” for the New York Times. What does that mean, anyway? Economists who ascribe to free markets are the ones to distrust, for they are the ones with a real political agenda.

And one more problem. Defenders of the stimulus will spend all day citing FDR’s New Deal during the Great Depression as evidence that government-created jobs can pull us out of this mess. Yet as I learned tonight, even the great Paul Krugman doesn’t believe that those times are necessarily relevant to our own. So why is it so important to defend the stimulus by citing the New Deal? Well, mainly because there is little evidence that inflating social programs is going to rescue such a large country from the brink of an economic disaster. Does extending benefits lead to more job creation? Does this stimulus even remotely address the credit crisis? If this stimulus is supposed to give more people money to spend on the economy, is buying food and other necessities going to compensate for the lack of CREDIT in the market needed for making investments, buying homes, cars, etc.?

The New Deal, if it was successful, sure took a long time to solve the problem. Today on the show I expressed the view that the New Deal didn’t pull the US out of the Great Depression, but instead, might have lengthened the Great Depression. I was told that such a view was “ridiculous” and not supported by economists today, and yet a survey was recently taken in which 51% would have disagreed with me and 49% agree; hardly unsupported. In my view, the War pulled the US out of the Depression. Afterall, unemployment “remained in the double digits until the onset of World War II;” at one point, almost a quarter of Americans were unemployed (1932). And possibly the most powerful defense of this view comes from the fact that if Keynesian economics were the reason for why the US recovered from the Great Depression, it would have been expected that after the War ended, the millions of Americans previously employed by the government would have lost their jobs and faced rampant unemployment. Yet as we all know, this wasn’t the case, the private sector accepted these working men and women into its ranks, and virtually no economic decline was noticeable. If anything kept us in the Depression, it was protectionist trade policies like the Hawley-Smoot Tariff, which is almost universally agreed upon to have prolonged the economic hardships. Conveniently enough, however, the “stimulus” plan has its own dirty, little protectionist slant:

The stimulus bill passed by the House last night contains a controversial provision that would mostly bar foreign steel and iron from the infrastructure projects laid out by the $819 billion economic package.

A Senate version, yet to be acted upon, goes further, requiring, with few exceptions, that all stimulus-funded projects use only American-made equipment and goods.

Proponents of expanding the “Buy American” provisions enacted during the Great Depression, including steel and iron manufacturers and labor unions, argue that it is the only way to ensure that the stimulus creates jobs at home and not overseas.

This stimulus is a ruse, and conceals much of the impetus behind the plan, which is an agenda to eventually socialize health care and expand other social programs that the Democrats have been itching to inflate.

From Professor Richard Wagner of George Mason:

Any so-called stimulus program is a ruse. The government can increase its spending only by reducing private spending equivalently. Whether government finances its added spending by increasing taxes, by borrowing, or by inflating the currency, the added spending will be offset by reduced private spending. Furthermore, private spending is generally more efficient than the government spending that would replace it because people act more carefully when they spend their own money than when they spend other people’s money.

If you think that I am just a “conservative nut-job,” I will be willing to bet you that in 2-4 years, this economic crisis will not have abated; if anything it will be worse. And if you actually believe that this is somehow going to “stimulate” the economy, you need to get your head examined.

- Marc

Salt Blog: The Daily Feed From City Weekly: Greg Curtis Sprints Through Revolving Door.

Good stuff from the Salt Blog here…former Utah House Speaker Greg Curtis is now a registered lobbyist for……PHILLIP MORRIS!!!!!

WOW!

h/t Tom Grover

I hope we don’t see a lot more of this.

A US university is being forced by the sagging economy to close its celebrated museum of modern art and sell off its 8,000-piece collection, which includes works by Jasper Johns and Andy Warhol, it said in a statement Tuesday.

“Brandeis University’s board of trustees has voted unanimously to close the Rose Art Museum as part of a campus-wide effort to preserve the university’s educational mission in the face of the historic economic recession and financial crisis,” the statement said.

The museum will close in “late summer 2009″ and the art collection will be sold through a top auction house, the statement said.

It’s one thing to “tighten the belt.” Quite another to imagine institutions of higher education holding fire sales on classroom equipment and library collections in order to keep the heat and lights on.

Sutherland Institute to Present Sacred Ground Initiative at Feb. 5 Event
SALT LAKE CITY – January 27, 2009 – Following an unsuccessful campaign to dismantle traditional marriage in California, gay rights advocates are now turning their focus to Utah.  Known for strong family values, Utahns are now being exposed to deceptive marketing campaigns based on a non-threatening appeal to “common ground.”

To learn more about the battle that has come to Utah, and be introduced to the Sacred Ground Initiative, the public is invited to join Sutherland Institute on Thursday evening, February 5, 2009, for State of the Union II: The Challenge to Family and Freedom.  The event will be held at the Show Barn at Thanksgiving Point from 7:00 to 8:30 p.m.

“Sutherland continues to defend the sacred ground of traditional marriage, and family as the fundamental unit of society,” said Institute President, Paul T. Mero.  ”This session will talk directly to Utahns about how the gay marriage controversy has come to our state and what responsible citizens can do to stand up for and be advocates to protect marriage and optimal family structures.”

Speakers will include Mero, LaVar Christensen, primary author of Utah’s Constitutional Amendment in support of traditional marriage, and Lauralyn B. Swim, Sutherland benefactor and former member of the Young Women General Board of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

The program is free to the public.  Those who are interested  in attending must call (801) 355-1272, e-mail si@sutherlandinstitute.org, or visit www.sutherlandinstitute.org to reserve seats for the event.

To obtain more information on the event, as well as additional information you should know about the “common ground” initiative, please visit http://sutherlandinstitute.org/newsletter/newsletter.asp?n=106

###

The Sutherland Promise: Sutherland Institute will strive to keep Utah free and prosperous by defining, defending and promoting responsible citizenship through authentic, conservative values.

Show us your smarts.

Also check out the political challenges. Watching the prediction patterns can be very entertaining. On the “Obama Charged in Blago Scandal After Inaugruation” question, Utah and CT are the only states with a “Yes” percentage. On another question, 53% of those answering believe Hillary Clinton will attempt to retake the White House for herself and Bill by June of 2009 (some Utah “yes” votes on that one too… C’mon people!).

Good stuff.

I tried. Seriously. I sat down, laptop in hand, volume high, fully intending a serious live blog of The Gov’s address. My brain wandered about 3:12 MIN in, but I forced it back on track. The ‘serious’ I was never able to muster.

It began a lot like this:

1. Utah – great place to live
2. Big challenges ahead, but we can get the best of them
3. I know some famous people, and they are here with me. Give them a hand!
4. And I’d like to thank The Academy…

What substance there was, in a nutshell: Math and education are the future of our workforce. Renewable energy from Utah by 2012. “Look beyond 20th Century mentalities to 21st Century realities.” Natural gas corridor. Lyle Hillyard wants to create a “High School Musical Tax” or something. Digital government (he makes that sound creepy). We have an ethics deficit. Without public support and participation, we have no democracy. We are one (especially me and my party… please lets not fight guys!). We’ll be building some roads as soon as we cash this stimulus check. G’nite.

Speech text and Democratic response @ kutv.com.

This was published a few days ago, but it’s great. Mickey Edwards, a former congressman and colleague of Ronald Reagan’s, calls to the carpet the Republican Party of today that by most accounts is not the Republican Party that Reagan was involved with.

The Republican Party that is in such disrepute today is not the party of Reagan. It is the party of Rush Limbaugh, of Ann Coulter, of Newt Gingrich, of George W. Bush, of Karl Rove. It is not a conservative party, it is a party built on the blind and narrow pursuit of power.

Edwards continues…

Not too long ago, conservatives were thought of as the locus of creative thought. Conservative think tanks (full disclosure: I was one of the three founding trustees of the Heritage Foundation) were thought of as cutting-edge, offering conservative solutions to national problems. By the 2008 elections, the very idea of ideas had been rejected. One who listened to Barry Goldwater’s speeches in the mid-’60s, or to Reagan’s in the ’80s, might have been struck by their philosophical tone, their proposed (even if hotly contested) reformulation of the proper relationship between state and citizen. Last year’s presidential campaign, on the other hand, saw the emergence of a Republican Party that was anti-intellectual, nativist, populist (in populism’s worst sense) and prepared to send Joe the Plumber to Washington to manage the nation’s public affairs.

Listen, I don’t like two party politics. I realize there are other options out there, but there are not any other viable options. There’s this abomination that is the current Republican Party, and there’s the Democrats. It’s black and white, and the Democrats, to me, are the lesser of two evils. Perhaps if the Republican Party can ever overcome their identity crisis and get back to the roots of Reagan, they can return to be a true force of benefit to the American people in this country…but until then, the words of Edwards hit the nail on the head.

Reagan wouldn’t recognize this GOP – Los Angeles Times.

The Huffington Post has an absolutely phenomenal play by play account of how the purple ticket holders got screwed on Inauguration Day.

Basically, HuffPo concludes, there never was a real line for purple ticket holders, rather just organized chaos.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4rVbian4vGA&eurl=http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/01/23/purple-ticket-turmoil-wha_n_160150.html&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]

Watching the video or looking at the photos can only give you a small idea of how crowded and packed it was, and I am still amazed there wasn’t violence or a riot.

This photo shows the crowd of purple ticket holders up against the gates that were shut down, and in my opinion was the time that the crowd got closest to rioting. There were some people shouting to break down the fence and most of all, holding our tickets in the air shouting “LET US IN!.” With this photo, keep in mind that there are thousands upon thousands of people still in the tunnel and on the streets blocks behind these folks still not knowing that they’re not getting into the event.

The coolest part about the HuffPo report is this interactive map (click on the map to view the interactive version) that shows where the roadblocks were, where the tunnel started and ended, where where the purple, blue and silver ticket holders were supposed to be sat.

Revisiting this, it’s bringing back a flood of memories and aside from the disappointment of being involved in this event, reading a recap like this is just stunning. Fantastic reporting here.

Been watching the debates on C-Span today (while I should be working), as Democrats scramble to appease obstructionist Republicans, and obstructionist Republicans avoid solving problems in light of getting re-elected in 2010 by opposing solutions. I guess. Apparently Democrats have already forgetten completely their majority and Republicans are hoping you won’t remember their temper tantrums in two years.

It’s frustrating, and this guy is right:

It would be stupid for Republicans to try and obstruct the bill, but there’s no political reason for them to support it. Democrats have the votes to do pretty much whatever they please. So it’s best to lay out a competing agenda (i.e. more tax cuts for the rich!) and then use those distinctions to start building their new messaging. Worst case scenario for Republicans, the stimulus works and they’re toast in 2010 anyway. Best case, the stimulus does little to help the nation’s economic recovery, and they can play the “change” card next election.

Therefore, if Republicans won’t play, why should Democrats water down the stimulus to the point of ineffectiveness and cave to ridiculous ideological demands (like the family planning stuff) when they won’t get their cherished “bipartisanship” anyway? They should craft the best solution possible to the nation’s woes, and if those solutions work, people will know exactly who to credit. And if they fail, they’ll know exactly who to blame.

There’s a reason Democrats won massively the last two cycles, and it wasn’t because people were desperate for “bipartisanship”.

I’m really getting tired of hearing the word.

John Cole gets it right as well:

If I were to give advice, I would say to just forget the politics of it all, at least in the House. You have the votes. Just put whatever you think will best get the economy rolling again, and if the Republicans have an idea that will help, add it. If the House Dems lard it up with useless stuff, get it out. The majority of the Republicans can be counted on to act in bad faith, so bipartisanship should not be giving them symbolic nods just to get their votes. Bipartisanship should be including their good ideas when they have them.

Trust me. That will be so rare, it will be obvious when they have a good idea. It will look as out of place as a whale in a salad bowl.

After much delay, 2008 candidates’ campaign finance disclosures have been made available through the Lt. Governor’s website. The SL Tribune reports:

Utah campaign finance disclosures are finally available online to the public, but are two weeks late and still have problems.

The Web site cannot be accessed by Mac operating systems because of the site’s coding format, and can only be seen through the Internet Explorer and Firefox browsers on PCs. Also, users have to look in two different Web pages for financial disclosures, depending on whether they were filed before or after 2008.

“It’s not close to where we want it yet, but we’re just happy that it’s finally up,” said Mark Thomas, of the lieutenant governor’s Office.

I was only able to open the page in Internet Explorer, not Firefox or Google Chrome, but you can give it a shot here.

Latest from bloggingheads.tv: Ezra Klein and Jonathan Cohn on the future of health care in the US.

The charter for the Sigma Nu Epsilon Upsilon chapter at Utah State University reportedly has been pulled. KVNU has learned that the organization will be allowed to attempt to reorganize in five years, but until then, no dice.

This obviously is in the wake of the death of Michael Starks, a man who was in the process of becoming a member of the organization. He died of alcohol poisoning in November.

Criminal charges are still pending against the organization and some of its members, as well as against the Chi Omega sorority at USU. The Chi Omega sorority also was ordered closed this week by its national organization, and its members have the rest of this week, reportedly, to move out.

For the past few days, I have been debating the closing of the Guantanamo Bay Prison with friends and strangers alike. One particularly heated discussion has taken place on the OneUtah blog, where I have been arguing against the closing of Gitmo and the granting of alleged “enemy combatants” access to US federal courts; not to mention, in my opinion, the Bush Administration reserved the rights enumerated by the Constitution and years of practice to reinterpret foreign policy decisions, treaties, and/or international laws/statutes.

The interview that “For the People” had with Professor Anthony Peacock was very enlightening and only fortified my resolve that closing down Gitmo and granting detainees certain rights (which never before existed) is disastrous for the United States in terms of legal precedent, national security, and the future of Executive authority over foreign policy.

This morning I came across an article which I felt articulated my own reservations over the Guanatamo issue.

From Bret Stephens at WSJ:

Guantanamo Is No Blot on U.S. Honor

President Obama’s decision to close the detention facilities at Guantanamo Bay within a year is being hailed as a necessary step in restoring the good name and moral hygiene of America. Fundamentally, it tests the proposition that self-esteem can be a form of self-defense.

But the best case against Guantanamo was always inherently odd. It came down to the view that its benefits as a holding pen for the world’s most dangerous men could not outweigh the inevitable PR disaster of removing such men to an exotic locale, a step removed from ordinary conventions of law, prone to lurid speculation about Papillon-like goings on, corroborated by the testimony of inmates trained to cry “torture” whenever incarcerated.

In other words, the smart case against Gitmo is that the stupid case against it was bound to prevail, with first-order consequences for America’s image and self-image, and second-order ones for our ability to inspire, lead and be followed.

Read the complete article here.

A recent poll found that a slim majority of Americans favored the closing of Guantanamo Bay Prison (http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2009/01/21/cnn-poll-americans-split-on-closing-guantanamo-bay-prison/), and that majority clearly is made up of Democrats and Independents; on the other hand, known Republicans are strongly against it.

Yet public opinion may shift in favor of keeping Gitmo, especially in light of cases such as that of Said Ali al-Shihri, a freed Guantanamo detainee who has since become the deputy leader of al-Qaeda’s Yemeni branch.

The case of Said Ali al-Shihri is a sobering one, and should remind Americans that just because someone claims to be innocent (or “tortured,” for that matter), doesn’t mean that it is so. Said Ali al-Shihri professed his innocence over and over, claiming he was heading to Iran “to purchase carpets for his store in Riyadh,” when he was detained. And many Americans assumed that such a story was completely true; another indication that a “majority of detainees were ‘innocent.’”

Now Said Ali al-Shihri is safely hiding among his Al-Qaeda comrades, undoubtedly planning death and destruction.

- Marc