The Bigger Picture
Published on November 1st 2011 in Metro Éireann By Charles Laffiteau
On November 6th 2012, exactly fifty three weeks from today, Americans will troop to the polls to cast their ballots in an extremely important Presidential and Congressional General election. While all elections involving the selection of America’s next president are usually considered vital for the future of the United States, in 2012 America truly stands at a crossroads because American voters will not only be choosing who the next President will be, they will also be making a decision about what they want their government to be.
After surveying the field of Republican Presidential candidates and their respective positions on a range of domestic as well as foreign policy issues, it is very apparent that regardless of who eventually emerges as the Republican nominee for President, Americans will still have a clear choice between either voting to elect a backward looking Republican Presidential candidate backed by an assortment of right wing political ideologues, or voting to re-elect a more forward looking Democratic President with a centrist legislative agenda.
But what makes the 2012 election even more significant, is what the American voters’ choices will say about what they believe our government’s role should be in stimulating the economy as well as its role in providing for and protecting the needs of American citizens. That is because the positions of the Republican presidential candidates reflect the narrow interests of Tea Party activists, evangelical Christians and other special interest groups.
The Tea Party minions claim that the solution for America’s economic ills is to eliminate the federal budget deficit by cutting government spending but they also refuse to countenance tax increases of any kind. However, most of the anti-tax Tea Partiers also don’t want to see any cuts in their Social Security and Medicare benefits, which together account for roughly 50% of government spending. Furthermore, a majority of them also don’t want to see any cuts in America’s defense spending which comprises another 25% of the budget.
The fact that no reputable economists agree with the Tea Party activists’ contention that America can eliminate its budget deficit by cutting government spending in other areas and without raising taxes is beside the point. Tea Partiers are wedded to their angry fantasy that federal government spending is the problem and cutting both spending and taxes is the solution. As a result, rather than risk the ire of these anti-tax extremists, all of the Republican presidential candidates have now adopted the Tea Party’s hard line stance and none of them will even agree to a compromise such as $1 in tax increases for every $9 in spending cuts.
But all of the Republican candidates must also appease socially conservative white evangelical Christians, many of whom were hoping Sarah Palin would run for President. Given their equally rigid anti-abortion, anti-gay marriage and anti-immigration positions, it should come as no surprise that many of these so called “Christian Values” voters are also supporters of the rigidly anti-tax, anti-government spending Tea Party movement.
However, something the Tea Party and evangelical Christian movements don’t like to acknowledge is the extent to which they both rely on support and funding from corporate special interest groups to spread their antagonistic and ideologically extreme message. Fox News supports them with in kind donations of media publicity and Rupert Murdoch then reaps profits from advertisers using Fox employees like Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck to hawk gold and books that are aimed at this segment of the American public.
But the ultimate symbol of right wing hypocrisy is the billionaire Koch brothers funding and sponsorship of groups such as Americans for Prosperity and Freedom Works that also train Tea Party activists and provide funding for the Republican candidates they support. These organizations support the Koch brothers’ opposition to an extension of unemployment benefits and federal regulation of the oil, finance, food and drug industries, but then ignore the fact that the Koch brothers’ companies also head the list of America’s biggest corporate beneficiaries of federal tax breaks for the oil and agriculture industries. I will discuss the effect they have had on the field of Republican presidential candidates in my next column.
Sunday, October 30, 2011
Friday, October 7, 2011
The latest Nobel Peace Prize recipients
The Bigger Picture
Published on October 15th 2011 in Metro Éireann By Charles Laffiteau
Now that the Republican Party’s field of presidential candidates finally looks complete, I guess it’s about time for me to begin analyzing these presidential hopefuls’ chances of winning the Republican nomination and then discuss how I think they would fare against President Obama in the November 2012 general election if they were the Republican nominee.
But before I begin discussing the next American Presidential election, I want to use today’s column to discuss the most recent Nobel Peace Prize recipients. So fresh on the heels of my previous columns about the un-liberal democracies that I am worried might emerge in the aftermath of the Arab Spring, I want to acknowledge the Nobel Peace Prizes that were just awarded to Ms. Tawakul Karman, a democracy and human rights activist who has been at the forefront of the Arab Spring protests in Yemen, as well as to Leymah Gbowee, a peace activist who organized women to help bring an end to war in Liberia, and the President of Liberia, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, the first democratically elected woman President of an African nation.
Given the fact that prior to this year 85 men but only 12 women had ever been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, I thought it was more than appropriate that 3 more women were finally recognized for their courageous work on behalf of peace, democracy and women’s rights by the Nobel Peace Prize committee. While I do not dispute the worthiness of any of the 85 men previously awarded this honour, I also firmly believe that women should have won a lot more than 15% of the Nobel Peace Prizes awarded since 1901.
Although I am somewhat familiar with Ms. Gbowee’s work organizing women from different ethnic and religious backgrounds to bring an end to Liberia’s civil war and Ms. Sirleaf’s contributions to democratic governance in Liberia, as a fellow journalist I must confess that I am much more familiar with Tawakul Karman’s work. As a young mother of 3 children, Ms. Karman first began advocating for women’s rights and journalistic freedom back in 2003. Ms. Karman then founded Women Journalists Without Chains in 2005 as a part of her effort to obtain greater freedom of expression in Yemen and other countries on the Arabian peninsula.
In fact I actually had the privilege of meeting with Ms. Karman several years ago, in her capacity as the head of Women Journalists Without Chains, and discussing the aims of her organization with her. I must say that I was also extremely impressed by Ms. Karman’s willingness to risk her life in her ongoing efforts to obtain press freedom and greater civil rights for women in Yemen. Please note that long before this year’s Arab Spring uprisings began, Ms. Karman was organizing and leading demonstrations by journalists against censorship as well as protests on behalf of women’s rights and freedoms at the Girl’s College of Sana’a University.
In my previous columns I expressed my concerns about the true intentions of many Islamic political parties and my fear that if they gain power they will impose a ‘tyranny of the majority’ on minority ethnic and religious groups. A hopeful counterpoint to my concerns about these Islamic political parties is the fact that while Ms. Karman is also a member of Yemen’s Islamic Islah Party, she has never hesitated to criticize Islamic religious extremists.
Furthermore, even though Ms. Karman is a socially conservative Muslim woman, she removed her veil at a human rights conference in 2004 and no longer wears one because it was getting in the way of what she wanted to accomplish. Still, Ms. Karman does not advocate that other Muslim women should also remove their veils, only that they should do so if they want to.
So based on what I know about this Nobel Peace Prize recipient, if Islamic political parties decide to embrace the values of women like Tawakul Karman, then maybe my fears about a ‘tyranny of the majority’ taking hold in Arab democracies will prove to be unfounded.
Published on October 15th 2011 in Metro Éireann By Charles Laffiteau
Now that the Republican Party’s field of presidential candidates finally looks complete, I guess it’s about time for me to begin analyzing these presidential hopefuls’ chances of winning the Republican nomination and then discuss how I think they would fare against President Obama in the November 2012 general election if they were the Republican nominee.
But before I begin discussing the next American Presidential election, I want to use today’s column to discuss the most recent Nobel Peace Prize recipients. So fresh on the heels of my previous columns about the un-liberal democracies that I am worried might emerge in the aftermath of the Arab Spring, I want to acknowledge the Nobel Peace Prizes that were just awarded to Ms. Tawakul Karman, a democracy and human rights activist who has been at the forefront of the Arab Spring protests in Yemen, as well as to Leymah Gbowee, a peace activist who organized women to help bring an end to war in Liberia, and the President of Liberia, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, the first democratically elected woman President of an African nation.
Given the fact that prior to this year 85 men but only 12 women had ever been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, I thought it was more than appropriate that 3 more women were finally recognized for their courageous work on behalf of peace, democracy and women’s rights by the Nobel Peace Prize committee. While I do not dispute the worthiness of any of the 85 men previously awarded this honour, I also firmly believe that women should have won a lot more than 15% of the Nobel Peace Prizes awarded since 1901.
Although I am somewhat familiar with Ms. Gbowee’s work organizing women from different ethnic and religious backgrounds to bring an end to Liberia’s civil war and Ms. Sirleaf’s contributions to democratic governance in Liberia, as a fellow journalist I must confess that I am much more familiar with Tawakul Karman’s work. As a young mother of 3 children, Ms. Karman first began advocating for women’s rights and journalistic freedom back in 2003. Ms. Karman then founded Women Journalists Without Chains in 2005 as a part of her effort to obtain greater freedom of expression in Yemen and other countries on the Arabian peninsula.
In fact I actually had the privilege of meeting with Ms. Karman several years ago, in her capacity as the head of Women Journalists Without Chains, and discussing the aims of her organization with her. I must say that I was also extremely impressed by Ms. Karman’s willingness to risk her life in her ongoing efforts to obtain press freedom and greater civil rights for women in Yemen. Please note that long before this year’s Arab Spring uprisings began, Ms. Karman was organizing and leading demonstrations by journalists against censorship as well as protests on behalf of women’s rights and freedoms at the Girl’s College of Sana’a University.
In my previous columns I expressed my concerns about the true intentions of many Islamic political parties and my fear that if they gain power they will impose a ‘tyranny of the majority’ on minority ethnic and religious groups. A hopeful counterpoint to my concerns about these Islamic political parties is the fact that while Ms. Karman is also a member of Yemen’s Islamic Islah Party, she has never hesitated to criticize Islamic religious extremists.
Furthermore, even though Ms. Karman is a socially conservative Muslim woman, she removed her veil at a human rights conference in 2004 and no longer wears one because it was getting in the way of what she wanted to accomplish. Still, Ms. Karman does not advocate that other Muslim women should also remove their veils, only that they should do so if they want to.
So based on what I know about this Nobel Peace Prize recipient, if Islamic political parties decide to embrace the values of women like Tawakul Karman, then maybe my fears about a ‘tyranny of the majority’ taking hold in Arab democracies will prove to be unfounded.
The Tyranny of the Majority
The Bigger Picture
Published on October 1st 2011 in Metro Éireann By Charles Laffiteau
I closed my last column by expressing my concern is that with no judicial institutions to protect the rights of minorities, the flowers of freedom that have bloomed in countries like Egypt and Tunisia during the ‘Arab Spring’ will be trampled by the ‘tyranny of the majority’. But I am also concerned that many of us in the Western news media who have grown up in liberal democratic societies do not fully appreciate the important role that strong electoral and judicial institutions play in protecting the rights of minorities from the ‘tyranny of the majority’.
So today I will discuss some of the more specific concerns that both I and many other citizens living in the nations of North Africa and Middle East have about what might happen in their countries if and or when protesters succeed in toppling their authoritarian regimes. But I want to begin by first noting that India is the only nation with a significant Muslim population that also has a long history of liberal democracy experience. Furthermore, according to Freedom Watch, Indonesia and Mali (I would also include Malaysia) are the only majority Muslim countries that currently enjoy the political freedoms we associate with liberal democracies.
However, even though liberal democratic political governance is a rarity in majority Muslim nations, I disagree with those Islamosceptics who argue that Islam is somehow incompatible with the citizen equality principles of liberal democracy. The arguments I hear most often in America and Europe are that most Muslims either harbor a desire to live in a society based on the Sharīʿah religious law of Islam or wish to be governed by a religious political authority al-Qaeda refers to as the ‘grand caliphate’ that will enforce Sharīʿah.
I have no doubt that the pseudo-religious political extremists in al-Qaeda and Hizb ut-Tahrir (the Party of Liberation), as well as many of the less extreme Muslims who support the Muslim Brotherhood, have a desire to be governed according to Islamic law. But I also know there are Jewish extremists who wish their societies were governed by the Halakha laws of the Torah and Christian extremists who believe Biblical laws should hold sway. In other words every religion has at least some adherents who believe their holy texts should be taken literally rather than interpreted within the context of the time when they were originally written.
No. I argue that the majority of modern Muslims are actually no different than the majority of modern Christians and Jews in that they believe their democratic societies’ civil and criminal laws should be drafted by their elected officials in accord with their national constitutions instead of the ancient texts of their respective religious faiths. In fact, if our modern laws were actually based on these ancient religious texts, then those of us who curse God or any children who curse their parents would all be condemned to death for these criminal ‘offences’.
This is why, in the wake of the ‘Arab Spring’ upheavals that have already toppled the authoritarian regimes in Egypt, Tunisia and Libya and threaten to do so in Syria, I believe most middle class Muslims in these nations share my concerns about the ethnic, political and societal instability that will result from attempting to establish liberal democracies in nations that do not have the institutional foundations or experience needed for effective democratic governance.
Middle class Muslims are afraid because they know Islamist groups will probably win the first democratic elections since they are better organized than the secular young activists who led and promoted the ‘Arab Spring’ protests. But despite assurances from Islamist groups that they will draft constitutions that promote an open-minded and peaceful version of Islam that does not discriminate against ethnic and religious minority groups, many Muslims seriously doubt this.
Middle class Muslims are afraid because they have seen the sectarian violence that engulfed Iraq after Hussein was toppled and the burning of Coptic Churches after Mubarak was driven from power in Egypt by Salafists who espouse the intolerant Wahhabist version of Islam. I hope I’m wrong, but based on what has happened thus far, I simply don’t believe that the kind of democracies that will emerge in the Arab world in the wake of the ‘Arab Spring’ will bear much resemblance to the liberal democracy that the ‘Arab Spring’ protesters were hoping for.
Published on October 1st 2011 in Metro Éireann By Charles Laffiteau
I closed my last column by expressing my concern is that with no judicial institutions to protect the rights of minorities, the flowers of freedom that have bloomed in countries like Egypt and Tunisia during the ‘Arab Spring’ will be trampled by the ‘tyranny of the majority’. But I am also concerned that many of us in the Western news media who have grown up in liberal democratic societies do not fully appreciate the important role that strong electoral and judicial institutions play in protecting the rights of minorities from the ‘tyranny of the majority’.
So today I will discuss some of the more specific concerns that both I and many other citizens living in the nations of North Africa and Middle East have about what might happen in their countries if and or when protesters succeed in toppling their authoritarian regimes. But I want to begin by first noting that India is the only nation with a significant Muslim population that also has a long history of liberal democracy experience. Furthermore, according to Freedom Watch, Indonesia and Mali (I would also include Malaysia) are the only majority Muslim countries that currently enjoy the political freedoms we associate with liberal democracies.
However, even though liberal democratic political governance is a rarity in majority Muslim nations, I disagree with those Islamosceptics who argue that Islam is somehow incompatible with the citizen equality principles of liberal democracy. The arguments I hear most often in America and Europe are that most Muslims either harbor a desire to live in a society based on the Sharīʿah religious law of Islam or wish to be governed by a religious political authority al-Qaeda refers to as the ‘grand caliphate’ that will enforce Sharīʿah.
I have no doubt that the pseudo-religious political extremists in al-Qaeda and Hizb ut-Tahrir (the Party of Liberation), as well as many of the less extreme Muslims who support the Muslim Brotherhood, have a desire to be governed according to Islamic law. But I also know there are Jewish extremists who wish their societies were governed by the Halakha laws of the Torah and Christian extremists who believe Biblical laws should hold sway. In other words every religion has at least some adherents who believe their holy texts should be taken literally rather than interpreted within the context of the time when they were originally written.
No. I argue that the majority of modern Muslims are actually no different than the majority of modern Christians and Jews in that they believe their democratic societies’ civil and criminal laws should be drafted by their elected officials in accord with their national constitutions instead of the ancient texts of their respective religious faiths. In fact, if our modern laws were actually based on these ancient religious texts, then those of us who curse God or any children who curse their parents would all be condemned to death for these criminal ‘offences’.
This is why, in the wake of the ‘Arab Spring’ upheavals that have already toppled the authoritarian regimes in Egypt, Tunisia and Libya and threaten to do so in Syria, I believe most middle class Muslims in these nations share my concerns about the ethnic, political and societal instability that will result from attempting to establish liberal democracies in nations that do not have the institutional foundations or experience needed for effective democratic governance.
Middle class Muslims are afraid because they know Islamist groups will probably win the first democratic elections since they are better organized than the secular young activists who led and promoted the ‘Arab Spring’ protests. But despite assurances from Islamist groups that they will draft constitutions that promote an open-minded and peaceful version of Islam that does not discriminate against ethnic and religious minority groups, many Muslims seriously doubt this.
Middle class Muslims are afraid because they have seen the sectarian violence that engulfed Iraq after Hussein was toppled and the burning of Coptic Churches after Mubarak was driven from power in Egypt by Salafists who espouse the intolerant Wahhabist version of Islam. I hope I’m wrong, but based on what has happened thus far, I simply don’t believe that the kind of democracies that will emerge in the Arab world in the wake of the ‘Arab Spring’ will bear much resemblance to the liberal democracy that the ‘Arab Spring’ protesters were hoping for.
Are the Arab Spring nations ready for democracy
The Bigger Picture
Published on September 15th 2011 in Metro Éireann By Charles Laffiteau
While I was watching the first nationally televised Republican Presidential debate involving all of the major Republican contenders (except for Sarah Palin?), I couldn’t help but wonder how this quadrennial American election ritual would play out if it was also conducted in all other nations around the world. But while I could envision similar exercises of democracy occurring in Europe, I had much more difficulty imagining civil democratic debates like this happening in the so called ‘Arab Spring’ nations of Egypt, Tunisia and Libya.
The nations mentioned as part of the ‘Arab Spring’ come to mind because most of the activists involved in protests that toppled the authoritarian regimes in Tunisia, Egypt and most recently (with the help of NATO) the Gaddafi regime in Libya, seem to believe that democracy will solve their nations’ problems. So since I have also been discussing America’s partisan democratic political paralysis in my most recent columns, I thought it would be appropriate to spend some time discussing both the promise and the pitfalls of democratic political governance.
Make no mistake, I have been and always will be a staunch advocate of liberal political democracy, a political governance system where all citizens not only have the right to vote in free and fair elections, but also have equal rights in all other areas of daily life. I also count myself as fortunate to have been born and raised in a nation that was the world’s pioneer in developing the concept of liberal democracy and promoting the use of it in other countries.
But having said that, I must also say that I believe liberal democracy really only works in nations that have also established the strong judicial and electoral institutions that are required for liberal democracy to be an effective political governance system for all of those nations’ citizens. These institutions ensure that decisions made by the majority in liberal democracy political systems do not place the interests of the majority of citizens above the interests of dissenting individuals, thus effectively oppressing citizens who happen to be in the minority.
The renowned French historian and political philosopher Alexis de Tocqueville discussed this very scenario in his book, On Democracy in America. In a chapter entitled, “The Tyranny of the Majority”, Tocqueville observed that the separation of powers defined in the American Constitution was designed to limit the power of the majority within America’s government while the individual citizen rights cited in the American Bill of Rights placed legal limits on the decisions made by citizen majorities in order to prevent them from oppressing minorities.
While the democratically elected American Congress operates under the same democratic principle of ‘majority rule’ that parliamentary democracies do, thanks to the separation of powers the separately elected American President still has the power to prevent legislation approved by a majority of members of Congress from becoming law. As a result, the political party with a majority in Congress cannot pass new laws or change existing ones without the consent of the President. The majority political party can more easily pass laws when the President is a member of the same party, but in practice the President is quite often a member of the minority party.
However, there have also been times in America’s history when both Congress and the President have approved of laws or refused to change laws that infringed on the rights of individuals or groups that were a part of the electoral minority. In these instances, laws that had the support of the majority of citizens were challenged by those in the minority and subsequently rejected by judges who were members of America’s independently appointed judicial system.
But America isn’t unique in having a politically independent judiciary that protects the rights of minorities since this is a defining characteristic of many parliamentary democracies. My concern is that with no judicial institutions to protect the rights of minorities, the flowers of freedom that bloomed during the ‘Arab Spring’ will be trampled by the ‘tyranny of the majority’.
Published on September 15th 2011 in Metro Éireann By Charles Laffiteau
While I was watching the first nationally televised Republican Presidential debate involving all of the major Republican contenders (except for Sarah Palin?), I couldn’t help but wonder how this quadrennial American election ritual would play out if it was also conducted in all other nations around the world. But while I could envision similar exercises of democracy occurring in Europe, I had much more difficulty imagining civil democratic debates like this happening in the so called ‘Arab Spring’ nations of Egypt, Tunisia and Libya.
The nations mentioned as part of the ‘Arab Spring’ come to mind because most of the activists involved in protests that toppled the authoritarian regimes in Tunisia, Egypt and most recently (with the help of NATO) the Gaddafi regime in Libya, seem to believe that democracy will solve their nations’ problems. So since I have also been discussing America’s partisan democratic political paralysis in my most recent columns, I thought it would be appropriate to spend some time discussing both the promise and the pitfalls of democratic political governance.
Make no mistake, I have been and always will be a staunch advocate of liberal political democracy, a political governance system where all citizens not only have the right to vote in free and fair elections, but also have equal rights in all other areas of daily life. I also count myself as fortunate to have been born and raised in a nation that was the world’s pioneer in developing the concept of liberal democracy and promoting the use of it in other countries.
But having said that, I must also say that I believe liberal democracy really only works in nations that have also established the strong judicial and electoral institutions that are required for liberal democracy to be an effective political governance system for all of those nations’ citizens. These institutions ensure that decisions made by the majority in liberal democracy political systems do not place the interests of the majority of citizens above the interests of dissenting individuals, thus effectively oppressing citizens who happen to be in the minority.
The renowned French historian and political philosopher Alexis de Tocqueville discussed this very scenario in his book, On Democracy in America. In a chapter entitled, “The Tyranny of the Majority”, Tocqueville observed that the separation of powers defined in the American Constitution was designed to limit the power of the majority within America’s government while the individual citizen rights cited in the American Bill of Rights placed legal limits on the decisions made by citizen majorities in order to prevent them from oppressing minorities.
While the democratically elected American Congress operates under the same democratic principle of ‘majority rule’ that parliamentary democracies do, thanks to the separation of powers the separately elected American President still has the power to prevent legislation approved by a majority of members of Congress from becoming law. As a result, the political party with a majority in Congress cannot pass new laws or change existing ones without the consent of the President. The majority political party can more easily pass laws when the President is a member of the same party, but in practice the President is quite often a member of the minority party.
However, there have also been times in America’s history when both Congress and the President have approved of laws or refused to change laws that infringed on the rights of individuals or groups that were a part of the electoral minority. In these instances, laws that had the support of the majority of citizens were challenged by those in the minority and subsequently rejected by judges who were members of America’s independently appointed judicial system.
But America isn’t unique in having a politically independent judiciary that protects the rights of minorities since this is a defining characteristic of many parliamentary democracies. My concern is that with no judicial institutions to protect the rights of minorities, the flowers of freedom that bloomed during the ‘Arab Spring’ will be trampled by the ‘tyranny of the majority’.
What do Americans want their government to do
The Bigger Picture
Published on September 1st 2011 in Metro Éireann By Charles Laffiteau
I closed my last column by observing that Congressional Republicans are putting their selfish personal political interests ahead of their country by pandering to no-compromise Tea Party activists in order to get re-elected. However, Republicans in Congress are not the only ones pandering to narrow minded, right wing interest groups in a bid to win elections. Almost all of the Republican Presidential candidates are also tripping over each other in an effort to appease Tea Party members as well as Christian fundamentalists. So what does this mean going forward?
In the more distant future, the impact is positive because it means the 2012 Republican Presidential candidate will in all likelihood endorse public policies and ideological positions that appeal to the extremist elements that currently control the Republican Party. However, as a consequence, American voters will also have a clear choice between either voting for a backward looking Republican Presidential candidate with a right wing political agenda or voting to re-elect a Democratic President with a much more forward looking and centrist legislative program.
Unfortunately the near term effect is decidedly negative because it means the partisan political paralysis in Washington DC, which almost lead to a historic default on America’s debt, will continue for at least another 18 months. With a national election looming, Republican candidates, whether they are running for Congress or for President, will be loathe to compromise with their Democratic counterparts on legislation that will address America’s anemic economic recovery and stubbornly high unemployment or the country’s bloated federal budget deficit.
Furthermore, even after the 2012 elections, any real action on these issues will still be contingent on the results of those elections. I believe Standard & Poor’s cut America’s AAA debt rating because its analysts agree with me that Republicans will not be able to win both the 2012 Presidential election and the 60 seats in the Senate they need so they will no longer have to compromise with Democrats after 2012. Given the fact that Republicans are unlikely to compromise regardless of the 2012 election results, a political solution for America’s debt problems also appears to be unlikely for at least one or two more election cycles.
Granted, as a part of the ‘deal’ Congressional Republicans and Democrats made with President Obama in order to avoid a bond default, a Congressional ‘Supercommittee’ will be created this month to decide by November 23 how America will cut more than $1.2 trillion of its debt. But given the Republican Party’s unwillingness to compromise, I seriously doubt that the 6 Republican and 6 Democratic members of this ‘Supercommittee’ will ever be able to agree on $1.2 trillion in budget cuts. Furthermore, even if they do reach an agreement by 23 November, both the Democratic controlled Senate and the Republican led House of Representatives will debate the ‘Supercommittee’s recommendations until Christmas or well into the New Year.
But the ‘Supercommittee’s’ budget cuts really only address the federal budget deficit over the next decade. In the meantime, Congress still has to approve the budget for the upcoming 2012 fiscal year which begins in October. Since Congress didn’t approve the 2011 budget until April of this year due to Republican intransigence, it is likely we will see more partisan political wrangling and the possibility of another government shutdown just in time for Christmas.
If the ‘Supercommittee’ is unable to agree on $1.2 trillion in budget cuts or if Congress does not approve the cuts it recommends, this will trigger automatic budget cuts for all US domestic programs as well as for the Defense Department. But as Standard & Poor’s noted, they downgraded America’s AAA debt rating because these cuts don’t demonstrate any significant progress by America’s dysfunctional Republican Party towards balancing America’s books.
So it will be up to America’s voters to decide what our government’s role in stimulating the economy and protecting the needs of its citizens should be when the cast their votes in 2012. I remain cautiously optimistic that they will choose more wisely than they did in 2010.
Published on September 1st 2011 in Metro Éireann By Charles Laffiteau
I closed my last column by observing that Congressional Republicans are putting their selfish personal political interests ahead of their country by pandering to no-compromise Tea Party activists in order to get re-elected. However, Republicans in Congress are not the only ones pandering to narrow minded, right wing interest groups in a bid to win elections. Almost all of the Republican Presidential candidates are also tripping over each other in an effort to appease Tea Party members as well as Christian fundamentalists. So what does this mean going forward?
In the more distant future, the impact is positive because it means the 2012 Republican Presidential candidate will in all likelihood endorse public policies and ideological positions that appeal to the extremist elements that currently control the Republican Party. However, as a consequence, American voters will also have a clear choice between either voting for a backward looking Republican Presidential candidate with a right wing political agenda or voting to re-elect a Democratic President with a much more forward looking and centrist legislative program.
Unfortunately the near term effect is decidedly negative because it means the partisan political paralysis in Washington DC, which almost lead to a historic default on America’s debt, will continue for at least another 18 months. With a national election looming, Republican candidates, whether they are running for Congress or for President, will be loathe to compromise with their Democratic counterparts on legislation that will address America’s anemic economic recovery and stubbornly high unemployment or the country’s bloated federal budget deficit.
Furthermore, even after the 2012 elections, any real action on these issues will still be contingent on the results of those elections. I believe Standard & Poor’s cut America’s AAA debt rating because its analysts agree with me that Republicans will not be able to win both the 2012 Presidential election and the 60 seats in the Senate they need so they will no longer have to compromise with Democrats after 2012. Given the fact that Republicans are unlikely to compromise regardless of the 2012 election results, a political solution for America’s debt problems also appears to be unlikely for at least one or two more election cycles.
Granted, as a part of the ‘deal’ Congressional Republicans and Democrats made with President Obama in order to avoid a bond default, a Congressional ‘Supercommittee’ will be created this month to decide by November 23 how America will cut more than $1.2 trillion of its debt. But given the Republican Party’s unwillingness to compromise, I seriously doubt that the 6 Republican and 6 Democratic members of this ‘Supercommittee’ will ever be able to agree on $1.2 trillion in budget cuts. Furthermore, even if they do reach an agreement by 23 November, both the Democratic controlled Senate and the Republican led House of Representatives will debate the ‘Supercommittee’s recommendations until Christmas or well into the New Year.
But the ‘Supercommittee’s’ budget cuts really only address the federal budget deficit over the next decade. In the meantime, Congress still has to approve the budget for the upcoming 2012 fiscal year which begins in October. Since Congress didn’t approve the 2011 budget until April of this year due to Republican intransigence, it is likely we will see more partisan political wrangling and the possibility of another government shutdown just in time for Christmas.
If the ‘Supercommittee’ is unable to agree on $1.2 trillion in budget cuts or if Congress does not approve the cuts it recommends, this will trigger automatic budget cuts for all US domestic programs as well as for the Defense Department. But as Standard & Poor’s noted, they downgraded America’s AAA debt rating because these cuts don’t demonstrate any significant progress by America’s dysfunctional Republican Party towards balancing America’s books.
So it will be up to America’s voters to decide what our government’s role in stimulating the economy and protecting the needs of its citizens should be when the cast their votes in 2012. I remain cautiously optimistic that they will choose more wisely than they did in 2010.
Saturday, August 6, 2011
Republicans Put Re-election Ahead of Their Country
The Bigger Picture
Published on August 15th 2011 in Metro Éireann By Charles Laffiteau
In my last column I accused Republicans of ‘kicking the can down the road’ by using a bit of legislative sleight of hand to allow an increase in America’s debt ceiling without agreeing to a plan to address the deficit.
While I applaud the fact that cooler heads within the Republican ranks were able to come up with a way to raise the debt ceiling and avoid a bond default, I nonetheless condemn Republicans for their failure to embrace a plan to take action on the ballooning federal budget deficit in conjunction with raising America’s debt ceiling. By failing to act responsibly to address the budget deficit Republicans in the US House of Representatives have shown that their real priority is getting re-elected rather than doing what is best for their country.
On the other hand, in the US Senate a coalition of conservative Republicans and liberal Democrats put partisan politics aside and drafted a very pragmatic agreement which used a combination of tax increases and spending cuts to cut the current 14 trillion dollar deficit by more than 4 trillion dollars over the next decade. The Senators used the recommendations of President Obama’s bi-partisan deficit reduction panel as a blueprint for developing their own plan to address the nation’s budget deficit while protecting America’s social welfare programs.
In contrast to the uncompromising ‘no tax increases’ stance of House Republicans, Republican Senators agreed with their Democratic Party counterparts that an increase in taxes was an essential part of any practical plan to cut the nation’s deficit. However, the Senate Republicans did not endorse President Obama’s proposal to let the Bush tax cuts for wealthier Americans making over $250,000 per year expire in 2013. Instead they proposed to raise over one trillion dollars in new tax revenues by drastically changing the US tax code.
The US Senate plan proposes to raise tax revenues by eliminating almost all of the current tax deductions and subsidies and then lowering tax rates for all levels of household income. In turn, middle class and lower income households would see their taxes reduced or remain the same while wealthier Americans would see their taxes rise even though their tax rate was lowered because they are the primary beneficiaries of the current tax deductions.
The Senate plan also addresses the deficiencies in the America’s entitlement programs which are the biggest contributor to the budget deficit. The Senators would shore up America’s retiree healthcare program by using means tests and other cost saving measures to cut Medicare costs and would change the way cost of living increases are computed, increase contributions and raise the retirement age in order to ensure that the Social Security program remains self supporting for the next 75 years. The plan would also cut spending by eliminating agricultural and ethanol subsidies and by trimming the budgets of all federal agencies including the budget of the Republican Party’s most sacred cow; the US Defense Department.
Both the Senate and President Obama’s proposals to reduce America’s budget deficit rightly spread the pain of spending cuts and tax increases across all segments of American society. But both plans also lean heavily on spending cuts rather than tax increases to close the budget gap with roughly 85% of the measures reducing expenditures and only 15% raising taxes. As such one would think Republicans would be happy to accept such a tax friendly compromise.
So why do House Republicans refuse to compromise and accept some small tax increases as part of a deal to cut the budget deficit and raise the debt ceiling? Do they really think Republicans will win both the 2012 Presidential election and the 60 seats in the Senate they need so they will no longer have to compromise with Democrats after 2012? No. Congressional Republicans are putting their selfish personal political interests ahead of their country by pandering to no-compromise Tea Party activists in order to get re-elected.
Published on August 15th 2011 in Metro Éireann By Charles Laffiteau
In my last column I accused Republicans of ‘kicking the can down the road’ by using a bit of legislative sleight of hand to allow an increase in America’s debt ceiling without agreeing to a plan to address the deficit.
While I applaud the fact that cooler heads within the Republican ranks were able to come up with a way to raise the debt ceiling and avoid a bond default, I nonetheless condemn Republicans for their failure to embrace a plan to take action on the ballooning federal budget deficit in conjunction with raising America’s debt ceiling. By failing to act responsibly to address the budget deficit Republicans in the US House of Representatives have shown that their real priority is getting re-elected rather than doing what is best for their country.
On the other hand, in the US Senate a coalition of conservative Republicans and liberal Democrats put partisan politics aside and drafted a very pragmatic agreement which used a combination of tax increases and spending cuts to cut the current 14 trillion dollar deficit by more than 4 trillion dollars over the next decade. The Senators used the recommendations of President Obama’s bi-partisan deficit reduction panel as a blueprint for developing their own plan to address the nation’s budget deficit while protecting America’s social welfare programs.
In contrast to the uncompromising ‘no tax increases’ stance of House Republicans, Republican Senators agreed with their Democratic Party counterparts that an increase in taxes was an essential part of any practical plan to cut the nation’s deficit. However, the Senate Republicans did not endorse President Obama’s proposal to let the Bush tax cuts for wealthier Americans making over $250,000 per year expire in 2013. Instead they proposed to raise over one trillion dollars in new tax revenues by drastically changing the US tax code.
The US Senate plan proposes to raise tax revenues by eliminating almost all of the current tax deductions and subsidies and then lowering tax rates for all levels of household income. In turn, middle class and lower income households would see their taxes reduced or remain the same while wealthier Americans would see their taxes rise even though their tax rate was lowered because they are the primary beneficiaries of the current tax deductions.
The Senate plan also addresses the deficiencies in the America’s entitlement programs which are the biggest contributor to the budget deficit. The Senators would shore up America’s retiree healthcare program by using means tests and other cost saving measures to cut Medicare costs and would change the way cost of living increases are computed, increase contributions and raise the retirement age in order to ensure that the Social Security program remains self supporting for the next 75 years. The plan would also cut spending by eliminating agricultural and ethanol subsidies and by trimming the budgets of all federal agencies including the budget of the Republican Party’s most sacred cow; the US Defense Department.
Both the Senate and President Obama’s proposals to reduce America’s budget deficit rightly spread the pain of spending cuts and tax increases across all segments of American society. But both plans also lean heavily on spending cuts rather than tax increases to close the budget gap with roughly 85% of the measures reducing expenditures and only 15% raising taxes. As such one would think Republicans would be happy to accept such a tax friendly compromise.
So why do House Republicans refuse to compromise and accept some small tax increases as part of a deal to cut the budget deficit and raise the debt ceiling? Do they really think Republicans will win both the 2012 Presidential election and the 60 seats in the Senate they need so they will no longer have to compromise with Democrats after 2012? No. Congressional Republicans are putting their selfish personal political interests ahead of their country by pandering to no-compromise Tea Party activists in order to get re-elected.
Legislative Sleight of Hand
The Bigger Picture
Published on August 1st 2011 in Metro Éireann By Charles Laffiteau
In my last column I discussed some of the misconceptions Tea Party activists and the ‘debtors’ have regarding raising America’s debt ceiling. But what dismays me even more is the fact that the Republican Majority leader, Eric Cantor, and the Republicans in Congress who are catering to these anti-tax right wing voters, refuse to challenge the ‘debtors’ utterly false notions.
The US Chamber of Commerce, a frequent foe of many of President Obama’s legislative proposals, as well as many American CEOs have spent much of the past year holding numerous educational meetings with members of Congress who are opposed to raising the debt ceiling. In these meetings they have repeatedly warned lawmakers of the adverse impact a US Treasury bond ‘default’ will have on America’s deficit as well as both the American and global economy.
More specifically, they have warned Congress that failing to raise America’s debt ceiling will not only lead to an increase in the interest America pays on its future bonds, but that these increased interest payments will also add to America’s budget deficit rather than reduce it. They have also warned legislators that an increase in the interest rate for US Treasury bonds, also known as ‘T-bills’, will do serious damage to America’s still fragile economic recovery.
This is due to the fact that the interest rates consumers pay for auto and home loans as well as their credit cards is tied to the interest rate paid on T-bills. Furthermore, the ripple effect of an increase in T-bill interest rates also extends to the interest rates businesses pay on the bank loans they use to finance their businesses as well as the corporate bonds they issue to finance expansions of their business operations. These higher interest rates have a chilling effect on the American economy because they leave consumers and businesses with less money to spend.
Economists from across the political spectrum have warned that a Treasury bond default will probably push the American and global economy back into a recession since the resulting higher interest rates act like a tax increase. Higher interest charges amount to a tax increase for American consumers and businesses with outstanding loans because they reduce the amount of money available to purchase goods and services as well as the money available to pay wages.
While the rise of developing economies in China and India has reduced the world’s reliance on the American economy as the sole engine of global economic growth, the fact remains that the American economy is still the world’s largest economy. America is not only China and India’s largest trading partner; it is also the largest or second largest destination for exports from the EU and Japan as well as many other developed and developing countries. As such, when America sneezes (economically), the rest of the world still catches a nasty cold.
Despite the pleas of economists and business executives to Republicans in the House of Representatives that they stop playing Russian Roulette with the American and global economy by refusing to raise America’s debt ceiling, lawmakers like Eric Cantor persist in doing so. They also know full well that more than 60% of America’s current debt bill is due to budget deficits Republicans ran up during better economic times to finance things like tax cuts for wealthier Americans, a prescription drug benefit for American retirees and the Iraq war.
Fortunately for holders of American bonds, less ideological Republicans have crafted a compromise measure to avoid a bond ‘default’. Thanks to a bit of legislative sleight of hand, Republicans in Congress will appease their Tea Party activists by voting against an increase in the debt ceiling. This will make President Obama solely responsible for increasing America’s debt ceiling when he vetoes their bill. Unfortunately, this bit of legislative trickery also means Republicans have decided to kick the can down the road when it comes to dealing with America’s budget deficit.
Published on August 1st 2011 in Metro Éireann By Charles Laffiteau
In my last column I discussed some of the misconceptions Tea Party activists and the ‘debtors’ have regarding raising America’s debt ceiling. But what dismays me even more is the fact that the Republican Majority leader, Eric Cantor, and the Republicans in Congress who are catering to these anti-tax right wing voters, refuse to challenge the ‘debtors’ utterly false notions.
The US Chamber of Commerce, a frequent foe of many of President Obama’s legislative proposals, as well as many American CEOs have spent much of the past year holding numerous educational meetings with members of Congress who are opposed to raising the debt ceiling. In these meetings they have repeatedly warned lawmakers of the adverse impact a US Treasury bond ‘default’ will have on America’s deficit as well as both the American and global economy.
More specifically, they have warned Congress that failing to raise America’s debt ceiling will not only lead to an increase in the interest America pays on its future bonds, but that these increased interest payments will also add to America’s budget deficit rather than reduce it. They have also warned legislators that an increase in the interest rate for US Treasury bonds, also known as ‘T-bills’, will do serious damage to America’s still fragile economic recovery.
This is due to the fact that the interest rates consumers pay for auto and home loans as well as their credit cards is tied to the interest rate paid on T-bills. Furthermore, the ripple effect of an increase in T-bill interest rates also extends to the interest rates businesses pay on the bank loans they use to finance their businesses as well as the corporate bonds they issue to finance expansions of their business operations. These higher interest rates have a chilling effect on the American economy because they leave consumers and businesses with less money to spend.
Economists from across the political spectrum have warned that a Treasury bond default will probably push the American and global economy back into a recession since the resulting higher interest rates act like a tax increase. Higher interest charges amount to a tax increase for American consumers and businesses with outstanding loans because they reduce the amount of money available to purchase goods and services as well as the money available to pay wages.
While the rise of developing economies in China and India has reduced the world’s reliance on the American economy as the sole engine of global economic growth, the fact remains that the American economy is still the world’s largest economy. America is not only China and India’s largest trading partner; it is also the largest or second largest destination for exports from the EU and Japan as well as many other developed and developing countries. As such, when America sneezes (economically), the rest of the world still catches a nasty cold.
Despite the pleas of economists and business executives to Republicans in the House of Representatives that they stop playing Russian Roulette with the American and global economy by refusing to raise America’s debt ceiling, lawmakers like Eric Cantor persist in doing so. They also know full well that more than 60% of America’s current debt bill is due to budget deficits Republicans ran up during better economic times to finance things like tax cuts for wealthier Americans, a prescription drug benefit for American retirees and the Iraq war.
Fortunately for holders of American bonds, less ideological Republicans have crafted a compromise measure to avoid a bond ‘default’. Thanks to a bit of legislative sleight of hand, Republicans in Congress will appease their Tea Party activists by voting against an increase in the debt ceiling. This will make President Obama solely responsible for increasing America’s debt ceiling when he vetoes their bill. Unfortunately, this bit of legislative trickery also means Republicans have decided to kick the can down the road when it comes to dealing with America’s budget deficit.
The Debt Ceiling "Debate"?
The Bigger Picture
Published on July 15th 2011 in Metro Éireann By Charles Laffiteau
The big debate currently underway here in the states is over raising the United States debt ceiling. Unfortunately, many Americans including some members of Congress don’t really understand what raising the debt ceiling is all about. So today I will attempt to explain what it really means and the ramifications for the American and global economy if Congress doesn’t take action to raise it by August 2nd.
Many Tea Party activists and Republican conservatives in Congress are under the mistaken belief that raising the US debt ceiling is like getting an increase of your credit card’s credit limit. Since the American federal government is already deeply in debt, they don’t want an increase in the debt ceiling because they are under the mistaken belief that they can hold the line at America’s current 14 trillion dollar level of debt. But these right wing ‘debtors’ have in fact replaced ‘birthers’ as the latest wave of conservative demagoguery that has no basis in fact.
What many Americans don’t understand is that the US Treasury sells American bonds worldwide and that these bonds mature at intervals ranging from one to twenty years. When the bonds do eventually mature the US government pays off the bondholders, many of whom are American citizens, and issues new bonds to sell to investors. By refusing to raise the debt ceiling Congress would in effect say the US Treasury department can no longer issue and sell new bonds to pay off the bonds issued 10 years ago when Republicans also controlled the White House. In other words the Republican Congress would be repudiating the debts it ran up in 2001
The ‘debtors’ are also under the mistaken belief that if America doesn’t pay off bondholders when their bonds mature that this won’t have any impact on them or the American economy. Since America has never defaulted on any of its sovereign debt during its two hundred plus years history, the ‘debtors’ say President Obama’s predictions of severe consequences for America’s economic recovery are wrong even though they can’t find a single economist or business CEO who agrees with them. In other words, the ‘debtors’ and their supporters in Congress are just like their ‘birther’ cousins in that they don’t like to be confused with facts.
Although the ‘debtors’ and their allies in Congress are correct in their belief that America has never defaulted on its debts, there was an incident back in 1979 that gives us some idea of what will happen if Congress doesn’t raise the debt ceiling and we do default on August 2nd.
Back in 1979 America actually went into what was called a ‘technical default’ when the government simply failed to pay off about 120 million dollars worth of US Treasury Bonds. This brief ‘technical default’ wasn’t because the debt ceiling needed to be raised or because of disagreements between Republicans and Democrats over the federal budget. It happened because of some computer system failures at the US Treasury Department that resulted in thousands of bondholders not receiving their checks until a few days after the computer snafu was discovered.
But even though this was a ‘technical default’ due to computer system failures rather than political discord, America still paid a heavy price for this default. For the next six months following this brief 120 million dollar ‘technical default’, the interest rate America was obligated to pay on new bonds it issued was a full ½ percent higher than the interest rate it paid on bonds issued in the six months before the default.
Now ½ percent additional interest may not seem like a lot, but when your debt is at 14 trillion dollars, that works out to about 4 billion dollars more per day in interest. In other words, if the ‘debtors’ get their way, America will only get deeper into debt.
Published on July 15th 2011 in Metro Éireann By Charles Laffiteau
The big debate currently underway here in the states is over raising the United States debt ceiling. Unfortunately, many Americans including some members of Congress don’t really understand what raising the debt ceiling is all about. So today I will attempt to explain what it really means and the ramifications for the American and global economy if Congress doesn’t take action to raise it by August 2nd.
Many Tea Party activists and Republican conservatives in Congress are under the mistaken belief that raising the US debt ceiling is like getting an increase of your credit card’s credit limit. Since the American federal government is already deeply in debt, they don’t want an increase in the debt ceiling because they are under the mistaken belief that they can hold the line at America’s current 14 trillion dollar level of debt. But these right wing ‘debtors’ have in fact replaced ‘birthers’ as the latest wave of conservative demagoguery that has no basis in fact.
What many Americans don’t understand is that the US Treasury sells American bonds worldwide and that these bonds mature at intervals ranging from one to twenty years. When the bonds do eventually mature the US government pays off the bondholders, many of whom are American citizens, and issues new bonds to sell to investors. By refusing to raise the debt ceiling Congress would in effect say the US Treasury department can no longer issue and sell new bonds to pay off the bonds issued 10 years ago when Republicans also controlled the White House. In other words the Republican Congress would be repudiating the debts it ran up in 2001
The ‘debtors’ are also under the mistaken belief that if America doesn’t pay off bondholders when their bonds mature that this won’t have any impact on them or the American economy. Since America has never defaulted on any of its sovereign debt during its two hundred plus years history, the ‘debtors’ say President Obama’s predictions of severe consequences for America’s economic recovery are wrong even though they can’t find a single economist or business CEO who agrees with them. In other words, the ‘debtors’ and their supporters in Congress are just like their ‘birther’ cousins in that they don’t like to be confused with facts.
Although the ‘debtors’ and their allies in Congress are correct in their belief that America has never defaulted on its debts, there was an incident back in 1979 that gives us some idea of what will happen if Congress doesn’t raise the debt ceiling and we do default on August 2nd.
Back in 1979 America actually went into what was called a ‘technical default’ when the government simply failed to pay off about 120 million dollars worth of US Treasury Bonds. This brief ‘technical default’ wasn’t because the debt ceiling needed to be raised or because of disagreements between Republicans and Democrats over the federal budget. It happened because of some computer system failures at the US Treasury Department that resulted in thousands of bondholders not receiving their checks until a few days after the computer snafu was discovered.
But even though this was a ‘technical default’ due to computer system failures rather than political discord, America still paid a heavy price for this default. For the next six months following this brief 120 million dollar ‘technical default’, the interest rate America was obligated to pay on new bonds it issued was a full ½ percent higher than the interest rate it paid on bonds issued in the six months before the default.
Now ½ percent additional interest may not seem like a lot, but when your debt is at 14 trillion dollars, that works out to about 4 billion dollars more per day in interest. In other words, if the ‘debtors’ get their way, America will only get deeper into debt.
What does the future hold for Israel and Palestine
The Bigger Picture
Published on July 1st 2011 in Metro Éireann By Charles Laffiteau
Today I want to turn my focus away from President O’Bama and his recent trip to Europe and discuss the world’s longest running conflict, the ongoing disagreement between Israelis and Palestinians over the future of Israel and Palestine.
Middle East adviser, Aaron Miller says that “In an existential conflict driven by memory, identity, religion and national trauma, the Israeli and Palestinian capacities to absorb and inflict pain are limitless.” The Islamic world has become a breeding ground for terrorists because Muslim sympathies for the plight of Palestinians, fuels the popular anti-American sentiments which drives recruits to al-Qaeda and its affiliated terrorist organizations.
On one side you have Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who represents a brand of Zionism that portrays Jews as eternal victims and uses this as an excuse to brook no sympathy for Palestinians who lived in parts of present day Israel for centuries.
So when President O’Bama publicly stated his support for using the pre-1967 Arab-Israeli War boundaries as the starting point for negotiations over the boundaries for a Palestinian homeland, Netanyahu quickly jumped on his high horse and proceeded to lecture President O’Bama about why Israel needed more defensible borders than it had prior to 1967. Although many political observers thought Netanyahu’s lecturing was both unseemly and uncalled for, many Republican and Democratic politicians in Congress also chided President O’Bama for his remarks and gave Netanyahu a score of standing ovations when he gave a speech in Congress.
Politicians in Congress responded in this way because the lobbying influence of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) is still very strong on Capitol Hill. But I think they are sadly mistaken if they believe kowtowing to AIPAC will win them any votes. While AIPAC has lurched to the right in defense of whatever Netanyahu proposes, American Jews under the age of 55 do not cast their votes based on America’s support for Israel. More than 75% of them vote Democratic and will continue to do so because they don’t agree with the Tea Party conservatives who currently dominate Republican Party politics.
On the other hand, representing the right wing of Palestinian politics we have a Hamas regime ostensibly concerned with establishing a homeland for Palestinians, when in fact what they really want is to establish an authoritarian regime along the lines of the one that currently rules Iran. The evidence of Hamas’ true intentions is already on display in Gaza where its internal security forces have been given free rein to bend dissident Palestinians to its will. For example when Palestinians protested that the taxes imposed by Hamas were adding to the burden of citizens most affected by the Israeli blockade they were rounded up and hauled off to jail.
So it is clear to this observer that Netanyahu and his right wing Israeli supporters as well as Hamas and its right wing Palestinian supporters actually have vested political interests in prolonging the Israeli-Palestinian conflict rather than settling it. Why? Because the ongoing Middle East conflict is used by both sides as a way to maintain their political power. While there is a middle ground here, both sides have shown that they will do whatever they can to crush anyone who advocates peaceful coexistence.
Juliano Mer-Khamis is a case in point. He was the Jewish son of Arna Mer-Khamis, a Zionist pioneer who later became a Palestinian rights activist. Juliano had rebuilt his mother’s performing arts workshop for Palestinian children in the West Bank town of Jenin, which the Israeli government bulldozed because they were using acting classes to teach Palestinian teens how to become more confident. Since Hamas also had no use for self confident Palestinians, a Hamas gunman permanently silenced Juliano by shooting him five times, thus ridding both sides of a mutual irritant. So much for the middle ground. If the Israeli government can’t silence you, Hamas will do the job for them.
Published on July 1st 2011 in Metro Éireann By Charles Laffiteau
Today I want to turn my focus away from President O’Bama and his recent trip to Europe and discuss the world’s longest running conflict, the ongoing disagreement between Israelis and Palestinians over the future of Israel and Palestine.
Middle East adviser, Aaron Miller says that “In an existential conflict driven by memory, identity, religion and national trauma, the Israeli and Palestinian capacities to absorb and inflict pain are limitless.” The Islamic world has become a breeding ground for terrorists because Muslim sympathies for the plight of Palestinians, fuels the popular anti-American sentiments which drives recruits to al-Qaeda and its affiliated terrorist organizations.
On one side you have Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who represents a brand of Zionism that portrays Jews as eternal victims and uses this as an excuse to brook no sympathy for Palestinians who lived in parts of present day Israel for centuries.
So when President O’Bama publicly stated his support for using the pre-1967 Arab-Israeli War boundaries as the starting point for negotiations over the boundaries for a Palestinian homeland, Netanyahu quickly jumped on his high horse and proceeded to lecture President O’Bama about why Israel needed more defensible borders than it had prior to 1967. Although many political observers thought Netanyahu’s lecturing was both unseemly and uncalled for, many Republican and Democratic politicians in Congress also chided President O’Bama for his remarks and gave Netanyahu a score of standing ovations when he gave a speech in Congress.
Politicians in Congress responded in this way because the lobbying influence of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) is still very strong on Capitol Hill. But I think they are sadly mistaken if they believe kowtowing to AIPAC will win them any votes. While AIPAC has lurched to the right in defense of whatever Netanyahu proposes, American Jews under the age of 55 do not cast their votes based on America’s support for Israel. More than 75% of them vote Democratic and will continue to do so because they don’t agree with the Tea Party conservatives who currently dominate Republican Party politics.
On the other hand, representing the right wing of Palestinian politics we have a Hamas regime ostensibly concerned with establishing a homeland for Palestinians, when in fact what they really want is to establish an authoritarian regime along the lines of the one that currently rules Iran. The evidence of Hamas’ true intentions is already on display in Gaza where its internal security forces have been given free rein to bend dissident Palestinians to its will. For example when Palestinians protested that the taxes imposed by Hamas were adding to the burden of citizens most affected by the Israeli blockade they were rounded up and hauled off to jail.
So it is clear to this observer that Netanyahu and his right wing Israeli supporters as well as Hamas and its right wing Palestinian supporters actually have vested political interests in prolonging the Israeli-Palestinian conflict rather than settling it. Why? Because the ongoing Middle East conflict is used by both sides as a way to maintain their political power. While there is a middle ground here, both sides have shown that they will do whatever they can to crush anyone who advocates peaceful coexistence.
Juliano Mer-Khamis is a case in point. He was the Jewish son of Arna Mer-Khamis, a Zionist pioneer who later became a Palestinian rights activist. Juliano had rebuilt his mother’s performing arts workshop for Palestinian children in the West Bank town of Jenin, which the Israeli government bulldozed because they were using acting classes to teach Palestinian teens how to become more confident. Since Hamas also had no use for self confident Palestinians, a Hamas gunman permanently silenced Juliano by shooting him five times, thus ridding both sides of a mutual irritant. So much for the middle ground. If the Israeli government can’t silence you, Hamas will do the job for them.
Monday, June 13, 2011
America's 'free riding' European NATO allies
The Bigger Picture
Published on June 15th 2011 in Metro Éireann By Charles Laffiteau
In my previous column about President O’Bama’s visit to Ireland, I mentioned that the primary purpose of President Obama’s other stops in the UK, France and Poland during his trip to Europe, was to reassure his European neighbours that America’s longstanding alliance with Europe was still very important to him. So today I’m going to discuss why America is also questioning Europe’s commitment to that same longstanding alliance.
Since Defense Secretary Robert Gates is retiring at the end of this month, he used his final trip to meet with his NATO counterparts in Brussels to take some of America’s European NATO allies to the proverbial ‘woodshed.’ Secretary Gates made his public remarks following two days of intense and even more critical private meetings with NATO representatives.
Secretary Gates used the recent NATO airstrikes on Libya to drive home his point that America’s European allies are not doing their fair share by noting that less half the NATO allies are engaged in Libya and less than a third are involved in the airstrikes. This is in spite of the fact that NATO ministers voted unanimously to launch air strikes to protect Libyan civilians from Khadafi. As a result, Gates said “The mightiest military alliance in history is only 11 weeks into an operation against a poorly armed regime in a sparsely populated country; yet many allies are beginning to run short of munitions, requiring the U.S., once more, to make up the difference.”
Make no mistake, Secretary Gates remarks were not just another airing of private grievances by a soon to be retired American government official. His comments were a very accurate reflection of President O’Bama’s feelings as well as those of members of Congress from both parties and American voters, because President O’Bama and Congress are under increasing pressure to cut defense spending as part of a larger plan to rein in America’s budget deficits.
Secretary Gates noted that while America’s defense spending had doubled during the past decade, European defense spending had fallen by 15%. Secretary Gates then warned NATO that the American people and US Congress have a “dwindling appetite and patience for continuing to spend increasingly precious funds on behalf of nations that are apparently unwilling to devote the necessary resources to be serious and capable partners in their own defense.”
Since the purpose of his final trip was to discuss America’s plans to begin withdrawing American troops as well as NATO forces from Afghanistan, Secretary Gates also complimented Germany, France, Canada and the UK for increasing their troop commitments in line with America’s increase of military forces as part President O’Bama’s 2009 troop ‘surge.’ But Gates also noted that many NATO members rely on the US to provide helicopters to evacuate their wounded, yet place restrictions on where their forces can be deployed and if they can be used in combat despite pleas from America and other NATO allies for them to become more involved.
Nor is America alone in its thinking that many NATO allies are not carrying their own weight. NATO ministers from Canada, France and the UK also expressed their support for Secretary Gates critiques of NATO allies for not doing their part as members of the alliance during the two days of private consultations that preceded Secretary Gates public remarks. Many NATO allies like having the security blanket that being a member of NATO provides, but they are simply ‘free riders’ because they are unwilling to pay their share of the costs of membership.
Unfortunately for America, I don’t think the Secretary Gates blunt assessments will have much effect. Too many of our NATO allies have become complacent about defense issues ever since the ‘Iron Curtain’ was lifted. So as long as they do not feel any eminent security threats, I think they will continue to enjoy their ‘free ride’ at the expense of nations like France, Canada, the UK and America.
Published on June 15th 2011 in Metro Éireann By Charles Laffiteau
In my previous column about President O’Bama’s visit to Ireland, I mentioned that the primary purpose of President Obama’s other stops in the UK, France and Poland during his trip to Europe, was to reassure his European neighbours that America’s longstanding alliance with Europe was still very important to him. So today I’m going to discuss why America is also questioning Europe’s commitment to that same longstanding alliance.
Since Defense Secretary Robert Gates is retiring at the end of this month, he used his final trip to meet with his NATO counterparts in Brussels to take some of America’s European NATO allies to the proverbial ‘woodshed.’ Secretary Gates made his public remarks following two days of intense and even more critical private meetings with NATO representatives.
Secretary Gates used the recent NATO airstrikes on Libya to drive home his point that America’s European allies are not doing their fair share by noting that less half the NATO allies are engaged in Libya and less than a third are involved in the airstrikes. This is in spite of the fact that NATO ministers voted unanimously to launch air strikes to protect Libyan civilians from Khadafi. As a result, Gates said “The mightiest military alliance in history is only 11 weeks into an operation against a poorly armed regime in a sparsely populated country; yet many allies are beginning to run short of munitions, requiring the U.S., once more, to make up the difference.”
Make no mistake, Secretary Gates remarks were not just another airing of private grievances by a soon to be retired American government official. His comments were a very accurate reflection of President O’Bama’s feelings as well as those of members of Congress from both parties and American voters, because President O’Bama and Congress are under increasing pressure to cut defense spending as part of a larger plan to rein in America’s budget deficits.
Secretary Gates noted that while America’s defense spending had doubled during the past decade, European defense spending had fallen by 15%. Secretary Gates then warned NATO that the American people and US Congress have a “dwindling appetite and patience for continuing to spend increasingly precious funds on behalf of nations that are apparently unwilling to devote the necessary resources to be serious and capable partners in their own defense.”
Since the purpose of his final trip was to discuss America’s plans to begin withdrawing American troops as well as NATO forces from Afghanistan, Secretary Gates also complimented Germany, France, Canada and the UK for increasing their troop commitments in line with America’s increase of military forces as part President O’Bama’s 2009 troop ‘surge.’ But Gates also noted that many NATO members rely on the US to provide helicopters to evacuate their wounded, yet place restrictions on where their forces can be deployed and if they can be used in combat despite pleas from America and other NATO allies for them to become more involved.
Nor is America alone in its thinking that many NATO allies are not carrying their own weight. NATO ministers from Canada, France and the UK also expressed their support for Secretary Gates critiques of NATO allies for not doing their part as members of the alliance during the two days of private consultations that preceded Secretary Gates public remarks. Many NATO allies like having the security blanket that being a member of NATO provides, but they are simply ‘free riders’ because they are unwilling to pay their share of the costs of membership.
Unfortunately for America, I don’t think the Secretary Gates blunt assessments will have much effect. Too many of our NATO allies have become complacent about defense issues ever since the ‘Iron Curtain’ was lifted. So as long as they do not feel any eminent security threats, I think they will continue to enjoy their ‘free ride’ at the expense of nations like France, Canada, the UK and America.
President O'Bama visits his ancestral home-Ireland
The Bigger Picture
Published on June 1st 2011 in Metro Éireann By Charles Laffiteau
Having already explained why I believe President Obama will win re-election in 2012 in my previous column, today I will discuss my impressions about his visit to Ireland last Monday.
To begin with I want to note that President Obama’s only public appearances on his weeklong European visit were the two he made in Ireland; his visit to his ancestral home in Moneygall and his public speech later that day at College Green in Dublin. Furthermore, the primary purpose of President Obama’s other stops in the UK, France and Poland, was to reassure his European neighbours that America’s longstanding alliance with Europe was still very important to him. But in the case of Ireland, President Obama and other Americans’ obvious affection for the ‘old sod’ made such reassurances totally unnecessary.
No, instead of seeking to reassure Ireland that it was still important to America, the real purpose of President Obama’s visit to the ‘Emerald Isle’ was to remind the Irish people of how important they are, not just to America, but to the rest of the world as well. He duly noted the fact that he is one of the more than forty million Americans with “blood links” to Ireland, thanks to over 150 years of Irish emigration to America, by joking to his audience that, “I’ve come home to find the apostrophe we lost somewhere along the way.”
But then President O’Bama (the Irish spelling of his name) went on to acknowledge Ireland’s broader contributions in the areas of food security, human rights and UN peacekeeping missions, by reminding everyone just how much Ireland also “punches above its weight” in the much larger global arena. I thought this was an excellent remark, because I think some Irish citizens may have forgotten this during the last three years of mind numbing economic recession.
President O’Bama’s speech on College Green included a message of hope for the future and solidarity with America. Just like you or I might tell an old friend going through tough times that we’re confident things will get better, President O’Bama told the Dublin crowd that “Ireland is a little country that inspires the biggest things. Your best days are still ahead.”
Then in an acknowledgement of America’s solidarity with Ireland and the Irish people, President O’Bama told the audience “Our greatest triumphs, in America and Ireland alike, are still to come.” He then closed his speech with a refrain that included the Irish translation of his Presidential campaign’s famous slogan, “Is féidir linn, yes we can! Is féidir linn, yes we can!”
Frankly, I was not at all surprised by President O’Bama’s rousing and inspiring speech to the assembled multitude on College Green. The President’s oratorical and rhetorical talents are both well known and well documented. I have also been fortunate enough to have been present for a few of his best speeches, some of which were very inspirational, while others, such as his 2009 Presidential Inaugural Address, were much more sobering.
But as an American who has also been a keen observer of President O’Bama’s demeanor and behavior in a variety of triumphant as well trying moments, I was struck by how relaxed and at home the President seemed to be throughout his entire visit. I observed some of this in person at College Green and witnessed the other moments courtesy of the wall to wall television coverage the President’s day long visit received.
Maybe I’m totally wrong about this and I was only seeing a great acting performance in front of the ever present TV cameras by President O’Bama. Regardless, I still had a very palpable sense that the President was in fact very relaxed and at ease while he was here in Ireland, more so in fact, than at any other time I have seen him since he became President.
Even before he was elected President, I never saw President O’Bama wade into a crowd of onlookers shaking hands and hoisting babies with the same kind of sheer joy and abandonment that I saw him display on the streets of Moneygall. Furthermore, although I have seen President O’Bama order and drink a beer before, I have never seen the President order another round and make a point of paying for it. Was that simply a reflection of the taste of a Guinness or of a man who felt at home even though he was among strangers?
But President O’Bama also appeared to be just as relaxed and among ‘old friends’ when I observed his behavior following his speech at College Green. He didn’t just spend the obligatory time shaking hands and posing for pictures with the guests on the stage behind him. He then went down to the crowd and shook hands with as many people as he could there as well. Indeed, time seems to stand still when you are truly at home and with your friends.
Published on June 1st 2011 in Metro Éireann By Charles Laffiteau
Having already explained why I believe President Obama will win re-election in 2012 in my previous column, today I will discuss my impressions about his visit to Ireland last Monday.
To begin with I want to note that President Obama’s only public appearances on his weeklong European visit were the two he made in Ireland; his visit to his ancestral home in Moneygall and his public speech later that day at College Green in Dublin. Furthermore, the primary purpose of President Obama’s other stops in the UK, France and Poland, was to reassure his European neighbours that America’s longstanding alliance with Europe was still very important to him. But in the case of Ireland, President Obama and other Americans’ obvious affection for the ‘old sod’ made such reassurances totally unnecessary.
No, instead of seeking to reassure Ireland that it was still important to America, the real purpose of President Obama’s visit to the ‘Emerald Isle’ was to remind the Irish people of how important they are, not just to America, but to the rest of the world as well. He duly noted the fact that he is one of the more than forty million Americans with “blood links” to Ireland, thanks to over 150 years of Irish emigration to America, by joking to his audience that, “I’ve come home to find the apostrophe we lost somewhere along the way.”
But then President O’Bama (the Irish spelling of his name) went on to acknowledge Ireland’s broader contributions in the areas of food security, human rights and UN peacekeeping missions, by reminding everyone just how much Ireland also “punches above its weight” in the much larger global arena. I thought this was an excellent remark, because I think some Irish citizens may have forgotten this during the last three years of mind numbing economic recession.
President O’Bama’s speech on College Green included a message of hope for the future and solidarity with America. Just like you or I might tell an old friend going through tough times that we’re confident things will get better, President O’Bama told the Dublin crowd that “Ireland is a little country that inspires the biggest things. Your best days are still ahead.”
Then in an acknowledgement of America’s solidarity with Ireland and the Irish people, President O’Bama told the audience “Our greatest triumphs, in America and Ireland alike, are still to come.” He then closed his speech with a refrain that included the Irish translation of his Presidential campaign’s famous slogan, “Is féidir linn, yes we can! Is féidir linn, yes we can!”
Frankly, I was not at all surprised by President O’Bama’s rousing and inspiring speech to the assembled multitude on College Green. The President’s oratorical and rhetorical talents are both well known and well documented. I have also been fortunate enough to have been present for a few of his best speeches, some of which were very inspirational, while others, such as his 2009 Presidential Inaugural Address, were much more sobering.
But as an American who has also been a keen observer of President O’Bama’s demeanor and behavior in a variety of triumphant as well trying moments, I was struck by how relaxed and at home the President seemed to be throughout his entire visit. I observed some of this in person at College Green and witnessed the other moments courtesy of the wall to wall television coverage the President’s day long visit received.
Maybe I’m totally wrong about this and I was only seeing a great acting performance in front of the ever present TV cameras by President O’Bama. Regardless, I still had a very palpable sense that the President was in fact very relaxed and at ease while he was here in Ireland, more so in fact, than at any other time I have seen him since he became President.
Even before he was elected President, I never saw President O’Bama wade into a crowd of onlookers shaking hands and hoisting babies with the same kind of sheer joy and abandonment that I saw him display on the streets of Moneygall. Furthermore, although I have seen President O’Bama order and drink a beer before, I have never seen the President order another round and make a point of paying for it. Was that simply a reflection of the taste of a Guinness or of a man who felt at home even though he was among strangers?
But President O’Bama also appeared to be just as relaxed and among ‘old friends’ when I observed his behavior following his speech at College Green. He didn’t just spend the obligatory time shaking hands and posing for pictures with the guests on the stage behind him. He then went down to the crowd and shook hands with as many people as he could there as well. Indeed, time seems to stand still when you are truly at home and with your friends.
Monday, April 25, 2011
Why President Obama will win re-election in 2012
The Bigger Picture
Published on May 15th 2011 in Metro Éireann By Charles Laffiteau
Even though the 2012 US Presidential and Congressional elections are still 18 months away, Republicans actually began their 2012 political campaigns just after the 112th Congress was sworn into office on January 3rd of this year.
First, on the heels of their November mid-term election victories, the leader of Republicans in the US Senate, Senator Mitch McConnell said “that our top political priority over the next two years should be to deny President Obama a second term in office.” Congressional Republicans then proceeded to propose and pass a series of bills to cut spending and enact their social conservative agenda instead of measures designed to reduce unemployment and spur the American economy.
Even though none of their spending bills had any hope of being passed by the US Senate, Republicans continued to reject attempts by President Obama to enact a federal budget for the remainder of the 2011 fiscal year that would eliminate a smaller amount of federal spending. The end result was a series of small spending cut measures that did nothing to reduce unemployment, but instead threatened to shut down the federal government and damage America’s fragile economic recovery in the process.
Although President Obama truly desired to work with Republicans in crafting bi-partisan solutions to America’s economic and budget deficit problems, he is also a realist when it comes to politics. So after Republicans spent the first three months of their term rejecting attempts at bi-partisan compromise, President Obama decided that since Republicans only cared about defeating him in 2012, he would announce he was seeking re-election 19 months before Election Day.
But despite his many attempts to strike a compromise with Republicans, many Americans nonetheless blame President Obama, at least in part, for the gridlock that currently envelops Washington DC, instead of just the Republicans who refuse to compromise with the President. This is a reflection of the fact that many Americans don’t really understand the constraints our Constitution places on their President’s power. The President can veto laws that he doesn’t support, but is also powerless to force Congress to pass the laws America needs to address its problems.
So if President Obama is to succeed in his quest to win re-election in 2012, one of the most important tasks for the President and his campaign team is to educate American voters about the difficulty of running a country when his opponents’ top priority is preventing him from doing so. Many Americans, including myself, have long believed that a divided government leads to more bi-partisan and effective laws and policies. But this belief is also based on our assumption that politicians on both sides will be willing to strike a compromise.
However one of the main disadvantages of a divided government is the inability of the government to function effectively if politicians on one side determine they have more to gain politically by not compromising with their political opponents. Since the Tea Party movement doesn’t believe in making compromises, Republicans, who were elected to Congress in 2010 thanks to their support, believe they have more to gain by opposing President Obama than they do by compromising with him for the sake of our country.
But in addition to painting his Republican opponents in Congress as obstructionists more interested in advancing their Tea Party supporters right wing political agenda, the President’s other task is to compare and contrast his more ‘compassionate’ vision of America with the Republican and Tea Party movement’s more selfish and self serving vision of America. The President wisely began painting this picture of his vision versus that of his Republican opponents soon after he announced he was running for re-election last month.
Since the winner of American Presidential elections is decided by the votes of moderate, independent or swing voters rather than the more liberal and conservative voters who form the core of the Democratic and Republican parties, it is important that the President spend as much time as he can between now and the 2012 election painting the Republican Party as one that is dominated by hard line conservatives. By doing this it is more likely than not that the swing voters President Obama will need to win re-election will view whoever the Republicans nominate to run against him as an extension of the party’s right wing base.
Because the President will not have any viable Democratic opponents to run against in the 2012 Democratic primaries, he will also be able to conserve his campaign funds for the General Election. On the other hand President Obama’s Republican opponent will not only have to spend a lot of money waging a campaign to win the Republican Party’s nomination, but will also have to go on the record in favour of political positions that appeal to the Tea Party movement, but are a turnoff to many of America’s more moderate independent voters.
If President Obama succeeds in portraying Republicans in Congress as obstructionists and their candidate for President as beholden to the right wing views of the Republican base, then it won’t matter who his Republican Presidential opponent is because President Obama will win the independent voters as well as the national popular vote.
But the more important electoral calculus is winning at least 270 electoral votes. If President Obama succeeds in winning the same 28 states he won in 2008, then he will finish with 359 electoral votes. 17 of these are solidly Democratic states that guarantee him 229 votes and President Obama won another 7 states with 53 electoral votes by large margins ranging from 6% to 14%. Since these states are unlikely to swing back to a Republican, even if his Republican opponent is able to win all the big swing states like Florida, Ohio, Indiana and North Carolina that Obama carried in 2008, President Obama still wins the electoral vote by a margin of 282 to 256.
So although a lot can change in 18 months, this is why I predict President Obama will win re-election in 2012.
Published on May 15th 2011 in Metro Éireann By Charles Laffiteau
Even though the 2012 US Presidential and Congressional elections are still 18 months away, Republicans actually began their 2012 political campaigns just after the 112th Congress was sworn into office on January 3rd of this year.
First, on the heels of their November mid-term election victories, the leader of Republicans in the US Senate, Senator Mitch McConnell said “that our top political priority over the next two years should be to deny President Obama a second term in office.” Congressional Republicans then proceeded to propose and pass a series of bills to cut spending and enact their social conservative agenda instead of measures designed to reduce unemployment and spur the American economy.
Even though none of their spending bills had any hope of being passed by the US Senate, Republicans continued to reject attempts by President Obama to enact a federal budget for the remainder of the 2011 fiscal year that would eliminate a smaller amount of federal spending. The end result was a series of small spending cut measures that did nothing to reduce unemployment, but instead threatened to shut down the federal government and damage America’s fragile economic recovery in the process.
Although President Obama truly desired to work with Republicans in crafting bi-partisan solutions to America’s economic and budget deficit problems, he is also a realist when it comes to politics. So after Republicans spent the first three months of their term rejecting attempts at bi-partisan compromise, President Obama decided that since Republicans only cared about defeating him in 2012, he would announce he was seeking re-election 19 months before Election Day.
But despite his many attempts to strike a compromise with Republicans, many Americans nonetheless blame President Obama, at least in part, for the gridlock that currently envelops Washington DC, instead of just the Republicans who refuse to compromise with the President. This is a reflection of the fact that many Americans don’t really understand the constraints our Constitution places on their President’s power. The President can veto laws that he doesn’t support, but is also powerless to force Congress to pass the laws America needs to address its problems.
So if President Obama is to succeed in his quest to win re-election in 2012, one of the most important tasks for the President and his campaign team is to educate American voters about the difficulty of running a country when his opponents’ top priority is preventing him from doing so. Many Americans, including myself, have long believed that a divided government leads to more bi-partisan and effective laws and policies. But this belief is also based on our assumption that politicians on both sides will be willing to strike a compromise.
However one of the main disadvantages of a divided government is the inability of the government to function effectively if politicians on one side determine they have more to gain politically by not compromising with their political opponents. Since the Tea Party movement doesn’t believe in making compromises, Republicans, who were elected to Congress in 2010 thanks to their support, believe they have more to gain by opposing President Obama than they do by compromising with him for the sake of our country.
But in addition to painting his Republican opponents in Congress as obstructionists more interested in advancing their Tea Party supporters right wing political agenda, the President’s other task is to compare and contrast his more ‘compassionate’ vision of America with the Republican and Tea Party movement’s more selfish and self serving vision of America. The President wisely began painting this picture of his vision versus that of his Republican opponents soon after he announced he was running for re-election last month.
Since the winner of American Presidential elections is decided by the votes of moderate, independent or swing voters rather than the more liberal and conservative voters who form the core of the Democratic and Republican parties, it is important that the President spend as much time as he can between now and the 2012 election painting the Republican Party as one that is dominated by hard line conservatives. By doing this it is more likely than not that the swing voters President Obama will need to win re-election will view whoever the Republicans nominate to run against him as an extension of the party’s right wing base.
Because the President will not have any viable Democratic opponents to run against in the 2012 Democratic primaries, he will also be able to conserve his campaign funds for the General Election. On the other hand President Obama’s Republican opponent will not only have to spend a lot of money waging a campaign to win the Republican Party’s nomination, but will also have to go on the record in favour of political positions that appeal to the Tea Party movement, but are a turnoff to many of America’s more moderate independent voters.
If President Obama succeeds in portraying Republicans in Congress as obstructionists and their candidate for President as beholden to the right wing views of the Republican base, then it won’t matter who his Republican Presidential opponent is because President Obama will win the independent voters as well as the national popular vote.
But the more important electoral calculus is winning at least 270 electoral votes. If President Obama succeeds in winning the same 28 states he won in 2008, then he will finish with 359 electoral votes. 17 of these are solidly Democratic states that guarantee him 229 votes and President Obama won another 7 states with 53 electoral votes by large margins ranging from 6% to 14%. Since these states are unlikely to swing back to a Republican, even if his Republican opponent is able to win all the big swing states like Florida, Ohio, Indiana and North Carolina that Obama carried in 2008, President Obama still wins the electoral vote by a margin of 282 to 256.
So although a lot can change in 18 months, this is why I predict President Obama will win re-election in 2012.
Why won't these 'children' just compromise?
The Bigger Picture
Published on May 1st 2011 in Metro Éireann By Charles Laffiteau
In order to understand why the US Congress and President Obama are finding it so difficult to reach a bi-partisan consensus on how to address America’s budget deficit problems, one first needs to understand the political parties’ respective voter constituencies.
Because most Republicans in Congress represent districts and states that are in predominately suburban or rural areas of the United States, a majority of their constituents also tend to be older members of America’s white ethnic majority. Many of these citizens are also retired and rely on government funded entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare, as well as supplemental income from private employer pensions and healthcare plans, to provide for their pension and healthcare needs. So for these voters, America’s current high level of unemployment isn’t the problem; maintaining their current lifestyles is.
Although unemployment also tends to be lower than the national average in these suburban or rural districts and states, this is not the case in all areas of the country. In a number of Midwestern states such as Michigan, Ohio and Indiana the loss of higher paying manufacturing jobs has led to higher levels of unemployment. These job losses have in turn had ripple effects on the retail, restaurant and service businesses that once catered to the needs of these workers, leading to even more job losses in these local economic sectors.
But most of the jobs that have been lost in the manufacturing and service sectors of the economies in these districts and states also did not require a college education. As a result, many of the unemployed people living there lack the education needed to acquire better paying jobs in America’s more service oriented economy. Many of them are also either unwilling to move to other areas of the country for a job or unable to do so because they can’t sell their homes in America’s still depressed housing market. So confronted with either going back to school to get a university degree or accepting a lower paying job in the service sector, these workers react by becoming angry and frustrated with America’s political leaders.
Although white Americans still make up a majority of American voters and hold a diminished but still privileged position in American society when they are compared as a group with other ethnic minorities, their grasp on electoral and economic power has been eroding for quite some time. But rather than accept this as an inevitable consequence of life in a vibrant multicultural society, many older and less educated whites are looking for someone and or something to blame. Seeking to take advantage of their discontent, Republicans in turn blame Democrats since younger, better educated whites and members of America’s minority ethnic groups also tend to vote for Democrats like President Obama.
But even though the balance of power in Congress, as well as the US Presidency, has been shifting between the Democratic and Republican political parties for years, members of both parties have historically compromised with their political opponents in order to pass important legislation. So why can’t the current Congress muster the bi-partisan support that has always been used in past to pass important legislation like our nation’s annual budgets?
The answer lies in the way most state’s Congressional districts have been gerrymandered every ten years by the Republican or Democratic parties that are in power in those states. When US Congressional districts are redesigned, the new districts are designed to favor the incumbent legislators of their party. Since the conservative Republicans or liberal Democrats elected from these districts no longer have to worry about swing voters, they are also less inclined to compromise and pass the bi-partisan legislation that America needs.
But the gridlock in Congress also makes President Obama look like an ineffective leader. So next week I will discuss how President Obama can overcome the legislative gridlock induced by Congressional Republicans and win re-election in 2012.
Published on May 1st 2011 in Metro Éireann By Charles Laffiteau
In order to understand why the US Congress and President Obama are finding it so difficult to reach a bi-partisan consensus on how to address America’s budget deficit problems, one first needs to understand the political parties’ respective voter constituencies.
Because most Republicans in Congress represent districts and states that are in predominately suburban or rural areas of the United States, a majority of their constituents also tend to be older members of America’s white ethnic majority. Many of these citizens are also retired and rely on government funded entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare, as well as supplemental income from private employer pensions and healthcare plans, to provide for their pension and healthcare needs. So for these voters, America’s current high level of unemployment isn’t the problem; maintaining their current lifestyles is.
Although unemployment also tends to be lower than the national average in these suburban or rural districts and states, this is not the case in all areas of the country. In a number of Midwestern states such as Michigan, Ohio and Indiana the loss of higher paying manufacturing jobs has led to higher levels of unemployment. These job losses have in turn had ripple effects on the retail, restaurant and service businesses that once catered to the needs of these workers, leading to even more job losses in these local economic sectors.
But most of the jobs that have been lost in the manufacturing and service sectors of the economies in these districts and states also did not require a college education. As a result, many of the unemployed people living there lack the education needed to acquire better paying jobs in America’s more service oriented economy. Many of them are also either unwilling to move to other areas of the country for a job or unable to do so because they can’t sell their homes in America’s still depressed housing market. So confronted with either going back to school to get a university degree or accepting a lower paying job in the service sector, these workers react by becoming angry and frustrated with America’s political leaders.
Although white Americans still make up a majority of American voters and hold a diminished but still privileged position in American society when they are compared as a group with other ethnic minorities, their grasp on electoral and economic power has been eroding for quite some time. But rather than accept this as an inevitable consequence of life in a vibrant multicultural society, many older and less educated whites are looking for someone and or something to blame. Seeking to take advantage of their discontent, Republicans in turn blame Democrats since younger, better educated whites and members of America’s minority ethnic groups also tend to vote for Democrats like President Obama.
But even though the balance of power in Congress, as well as the US Presidency, has been shifting between the Democratic and Republican political parties for years, members of both parties have historically compromised with their political opponents in order to pass important legislation. So why can’t the current Congress muster the bi-partisan support that has always been used in past to pass important legislation like our nation’s annual budgets?
The answer lies in the way most state’s Congressional districts have been gerrymandered every ten years by the Republican or Democratic parties that are in power in those states. When US Congressional districts are redesigned, the new districts are designed to favor the incumbent legislators of their party. Since the conservative Republicans or liberal Democrats elected from these districts no longer have to worry about swing voters, they are also less inclined to compromise and pass the bi-partisan legislation that America needs.
But the gridlock in Congress also makes President Obama look like an ineffective leader. So next week I will discuss how President Obama can overcome the legislative gridlock induced by Congressional Republicans and win re-election in 2012.
Now is not the time to cut federal spending
The Bigger Picture
Published on April 15th 2011 in Metro Éireann By Charles Laffiteau
As I mentioned in previous columns, the Republican Party seems to be enamored of the German austerity diet as a cure for America’s budget obesity. So today I want to explore some more prudent methods than the German austerity diet or starting another world war that economists believe will trim America’s bloated budget deficit without hurting its economy.
Led by an incoming class of 87 new members, most of who campaigned on a promise to their Tea Party supporters that they would cut federal spending, House Republicans continue to claim that their proposed budget cuts will actually help the economy. They also argue that the Obama and Bush administrations’ economic stimulus measures and bank bailouts didn’t work because the US unemployment rate soared to almost ten percent, well above the eight percent mark these measures were supposed to cap unemployment at.
The problem with these Republican arguments is that virtually no economists agree with them. An independent analysis of the Republican spending cuts conducted by Moody’s Analytics chief economist Mark Zandi, who was also an economic advisor to Republican Presidential candidate John McCain in the 2008 election campaign, predicts that they will reduce America’s economic growth by .5% this year and .2% next year. Another analysis by economists at Wall Street’s Goldman Sachs forecasts that the effect will be even worse, reducing US economic growth by 2% and producing 700,000 fewer jobs this year.
Furthermore, economists around the country almost universally agree that America’s economic recession would have been far worse and the unemployment rate much higher had it not been for the government’s bank bailouts and other economic stimulus measures.
But Republicans dismiss these reports as well as the analysis of the effects of their spending cuts on early education programs like Head Start and Pell Grants for students pursuing university degrees provided by economists at the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office. Not surprisingly however, Republicans have also failed to come up with any independent economic analysis of their budget proposals that supports their claims that these spending cuts will help the economy and spur the creation of jobs in the private sector.
Republicans in Congress, as well as the slew of potential Republican presidential candidates currently trying to drum up support for their 2012 political campaigns, also bash Obama for the growth of jobs in the federal government and the public sector as a whole. They contend that 200,000 people have been added to the reducing federal payroll since Obama became President and that cutting these jobs will bring down unemployment by fostering the creation of more private sector jobs.
But these claims don’t jive with the facts. Since President Obama took office in January 2009, the federal government has actually only added 58, 000 jobs and most of these were jobs in Homeland Security and Defence, two departments that Republicans don’t want to cut back. Furthermore, during those same two years more than 400,000 public sector jobs have been cut by state and local governments, raising unemployment by .35%.
As an economic conservative I am acutely aware of the long term consequences of failing to rein in America’s ballooning federal budget deficit. A full economic recovery in America will not come close to accomplishing this task, which will still require a painful combination of both tax increases and spending cuts.
But given the still fragile state of America’s economic recovery, I believe the Republican Party’s proposals to cut federal spending immediately will be just as counterproductive as President Roosevelt’s austerity measures were back in 1937, and Germany and the UK’s austerity measures are today.
Though less emotionally satisfying, the more prudent economic course of action than an austerity diet is to wait until the economy is creating enough jobs to bring down unemployment before implementing the combination of tax increases and spending cuts required to bring our budget deficit under control. Now isn’t the time to cut spending.
Published on April 15th 2011 in Metro Éireann By Charles Laffiteau
As I mentioned in previous columns, the Republican Party seems to be enamored of the German austerity diet as a cure for America’s budget obesity. So today I want to explore some more prudent methods than the German austerity diet or starting another world war that economists believe will trim America’s bloated budget deficit without hurting its economy.
Led by an incoming class of 87 new members, most of who campaigned on a promise to their Tea Party supporters that they would cut federal spending, House Republicans continue to claim that their proposed budget cuts will actually help the economy. They also argue that the Obama and Bush administrations’ economic stimulus measures and bank bailouts didn’t work because the US unemployment rate soared to almost ten percent, well above the eight percent mark these measures were supposed to cap unemployment at.
The problem with these Republican arguments is that virtually no economists agree with them. An independent analysis of the Republican spending cuts conducted by Moody’s Analytics chief economist Mark Zandi, who was also an economic advisor to Republican Presidential candidate John McCain in the 2008 election campaign, predicts that they will reduce America’s economic growth by .5% this year and .2% next year. Another analysis by economists at Wall Street’s Goldman Sachs forecasts that the effect will be even worse, reducing US economic growth by 2% and producing 700,000 fewer jobs this year.
Furthermore, economists around the country almost universally agree that America’s economic recession would have been far worse and the unemployment rate much higher had it not been for the government’s bank bailouts and other economic stimulus measures.
But Republicans dismiss these reports as well as the analysis of the effects of their spending cuts on early education programs like Head Start and Pell Grants for students pursuing university degrees provided by economists at the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office. Not surprisingly however, Republicans have also failed to come up with any independent economic analysis of their budget proposals that supports their claims that these spending cuts will help the economy and spur the creation of jobs in the private sector.
Republicans in Congress, as well as the slew of potential Republican presidential candidates currently trying to drum up support for their 2012 political campaigns, also bash Obama for the growth of jobs in the federal government and the public sector as a whole. They contend that 200,000 people have been added to the reducing federal payroll since Obama became President and that cutting these jobs will bring down unemployment by fostering the creation of more private sector jobs.
But these claims don’t jive with the facts. Since President Obama took office in January 2009, the federal government has actually only added 58, 000 jobs and most of these were jobs in Homeland Security and Defence, two departments that Republicans don’t want to cut back. Furthermore, during those same two years more than 400,000 public sector jobs have been cut by state and local governments, raising unemployment by .35%.
As an economic conservative I am acutely aware of the long term consequences of failing to rein in America’s ballooning federal budget deficit. A full economic recovery in America will not come close to accomplishing this task, which will still require a painful combination of both tax increases and spending cuts.
But given the still fragile state of America’s economic recovery, I believe the Republican Party’s proposals to cut federal spending immediately will be just as counterproductive as President Roosevelt’s austerity measures were back in 1937, and Germany and the UK’s austerity measures are today.
Though less emotionally satisfying, the more prudent economic course of action than an austerity diet is to wait until the economy is creating enough jobs to bring down unemployment before implementing the combination of tax increases and spending cuts required to bring our budget deficit under control. Now isn’t the time to cut spending.
Is an austerity diet the answer?
The Bigger Picture
Published on April 1st 2011 in Metro Éireann By Charles Laffiteau
When Senate Republicans in last year’s Congress refused to allow a vote on President Obama’s 2011 federal government budget they essentially set the stage for the political theatrics currently on display in Washington DC. They were hoping that their party would gain control of the US House of Representatives in the mid-term elections and increase their leverage on President Obama. But despite their success in achieving this objective, at least three of those same Senate Republicans subsequently voted against the ridiculous spending bill their Republican colleagues in the House of Representatives sent them last month.
So given the fact that they can’t get the support of other Republicans in the Senate for their budget cutting proposals, what explains the irresponsible political behavior of House Republicans in continuing to push for spending cuts that have no hope of becoming law? I believe the political stew Republicans have been dining on the past two years is the culprit.
For starters, many Congressional Republicans have convinced themselves that the latest government budget fad diet called ‘German austerity’ is the answer for our national government’s ‘obesity’. Then to make it more palatable to Republicans who doubt the wisdom of this fad diet, Tea Party activists have liberally sprinkled it with their homegrown flavorings of fear that Republicans who don’t adhere to this diet will lose their seats in the next Congress. The final ingredient in this stew is the rather tasty prospect of even more power for Republicans in Congress if they succeed in beating Obama at the polls in 2012.
As a lifelong Republican and economic conservative, I can understand why so many Republicans think the German austerity diet sounds so appealing. But even though the idea of balancing our national government’s budget holds great emotional appeal for me, I believe the rationale for doing so must also be based on realistic economic principles; not emotions.
To that end, I will now discuss some of the fallacies that I believe underlie the myth that the German austerity diet is the best way to cure the economic ills which currently bedevil America as well as most of the world’s other more developed nations.
This myth had its roots in the economic recovery Germany experienced during the first half of last year. Commentators here in Europe and much of the rest of the world cited this as evidence that the more modest economic stimulus measures Germany had implemented in 2009 were the answer to the economic malaise that still gripped America and most other countries in Europe.
But ever since Germany’s growth slowed sharply in the second half of last year those same commentators have been noticeably silent. The cold hard economic facts are that once Germany’s modest economic stimulus measures had run their course, the German economy stagnated. As a result, Germany’s economic output is still well below the level it achieved before the 2008 financial meltdown and the onset of the 2009 global economic recession.
But the current economic situation in the UK, another country that adopted the German austerity diet, is even worse than that in Germany. The UK is actually now on the brink of experiencing the dreaded ‘double dip’ recession, thanks in large part to the Tory government’s tax increases that will soon be exacerbated by even larger spending cuts.
Furthermore, the history of post recession austerity measures underscores the fallacy of trying to move quickly to balance a government’s books. In his first presidential election Franklin Roosevelt repeatedly called for a balanced federal budget so, following his re-election, President Roosevelt moved to balance the government’s budget in 1937. This lead to another economic recession in an economy that was still weak from the Great Depression and what actually ended up saving the US economy was the industrial growth caused by World War II.
But in my next column I’ll discuss some more prudent economic alternatives than another world war.
Published on April 1st 2011 in Metro Éireann By Charles Laffiteau
When Senate Republicans in last year’s Congress refused to allow a vote on President Obama’s 2011 federal government budget they essentially set the stage for the political theatrics currently on display in Washington DC. They were hoping that their party would gain control of the US House of Representatives in the mid-term elections and increase their leverage on President Obama. But despite their success in achieving this objective, at least three of those same Senate Republicans subsequently voted against the ridiculous spending bill their Republican colleagues in the House of Representatives sent them last month.
So given the fact that they can’t get the support of other Republicans in the Senate for their budget cutting proposals, what explains the irresponsible political behavior of House Republicans in continuing to push for spending cuts that have no hope of becoming law? I believe the political stew Republicans have been dining on the past two years is the culprit.
For starters, many Congressional Republicans have convinced themselves that the latest government budget fad diet called ‘German austerity’ is the answer for our national government’s ‘obesity’. Then to make it more palatable to Republicans who doubt the wisdom of this fad diet, Tea Party activists have liberally sprinkled it with their homegrown flavorings of fear that Republicans who don’t adhere to this diet will lose their seats in the next Congress. The final ingredient in this stew is the rather tasty prospect of even more power for Republicans in Congress if they succeed in beating Obama at the polls in 2012.
As a lifelong Republican and economic conservative, I can understand why so many Republicans think the German austerity diet sounds so appealing. But even though the idea of balancing our national government’s budget holds great emotional appeal for me, I believe the rationale for doing so must also be based on realistic economic principles; not emotions.
To that end, I will now discuss some of the fallacies that I believe underlie the myth that the German austerity diet is the best way to cure the economic ills which currently bedevil America as well as most of the world’s other more developed nations.
This myth had its roots in the economic recovery Germany experienced during the first half of last year. Commentators here in Europe and much of the rest of the world cited this as evidence that the more modest economic stimulus measures Germany had implemented in 2009 were the answer to the economic malaise that still gripped America and most other countries in Europe.
But ever since Germany’s growth slowed sharply in the second half of last year those same commentators have been noticeably silent. The cold hard economic facts are that once Germany’s modest economic stimulus measures had run their course, the German economy stagnated. As a result, Germany’s economic output is still well below the level it achieved before the 2008 financial meltdown and the onset of the 2009 global economic recession.
But the current economic situation in the UK, another country that adopted the German austerity diet, is even worse than that in Germany. The UK is actually now on the brink of experiencing the dreaded ‘double dip’ recession, thanks in large part to the Tory government’s tax increases that will soon be exacerbated by even larger spending cuts.
Furthermore, the history of post recession austerity measures underscores the fallacy of trying to move quickly to balance a government’s books. In his first presidential election Franklin Roosevelt repeatedly called for a balanced federal budget so, following his re-election, President Roosevelt moved to balance the government’s budget in 1937. This lead to another economic recession in an economy that was still weak from the Great Depression and what actually ended up saving the US economy was the industrial growth caused by World War II.
But in my next column I’ll discuss some more prudent economic alternatives than another world war.
The perils of divided government
The Bigger Picture
Published on March 15th 2011 in Metro Éireann By Charles Laffiteau
Two weeks ago, America’s divided national government averted a federal government shutdown when Congressional Republicans and Democrats reached agreement on some relatively minor spending cuts to the President’s 2011 budget. But the reality of this compromise was that politicians in both parties simply agreed to kick the can down the road for two weeks, thus setting the stage for another confrontation at the end of this week.
Now if you think the notion of funding your national government two weeks at a time sounds rather ridiculous, you would be correct. It is ridiculous! However, given the decidedly poisonous political atmosphere that currently pervades our nation’s capitol, it wouldn’t really come as much of a surprise to see this bi-monthly political brinksmanship continue until the end of this spring. That’s because some Republicans in Congress, despite all of their tough talk about reining in government spending, are afraid of how voters might react if the government shuts down because the President refuses to go along with their spending cuts.
The Speaker of the House, John Boehner, is a veteran Republican lawmaker who remembers what happened the last time a newly elected Republican majority in Congress tried to cram its budget cuts down the throat of a Democratic President. In 1995, and at the behest of putative 2012 Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich, Republicans refused to compromise with President Bill Clinton on the federal budget. This led to non-essential government workers being furloughed and the suspension of non-essential services from November 14 through November 19, 1995 and December 16, 1995 to January 6, 1996.
Like their present day Republican counterparts, the Gingrich Republicans had wrested control of Congress from the Democrats in the 1994 mid-term elections and were determined to force President Clinton to accept their cuts in government spending. The Gingrich led Congressional Republicans also initially avoided a government shutdown by agreeing to a series of continuing resolutions to fund the US Government’s spending, essentially kicking the can down the road just like present day Republicans are.
However, in order to continue operating the federal government when it is running a budget deficit, Congress also needs to periodically increase the cap or ceiling on the total amount of US Government debt that the US Treasury is authorized to issue. Gingrich believed that if he and his Republican colleagues refused to raise the US debt ceiling, President Clinton would then be forced to cave in to their demands for spending cuts.
But President Clinton proved himself to be an adept poker player by calling the Gingrich Republicans’ bluff of refusing to raise the debt ceiling, thus causing the federal government shut down. Republicans tried to blame President Clinton for the consequences, which included over 200,000 passport applications that were not processed, the closure of 368 national parks and a halt to the cleanup of toxic waste disposal sites around the country.
But despite 2012 Presidential candidate Newt Gingrich’s continuing claims to have won this standoff, most Republicans grudgingly acknowledge that President Clinton won this poker game because Republicans eventually ended the budget and debt ceiling stand off on Clinton’s terms rather than on their terms. As a consequence, voters also blamed Gingrich and Congressional Republicans for a pointless cessation of government services and re-elected President Clinton by a resounding margin in the subsequent 1996 national elections.
But the current Republican majority in Congress includes 87 newly elected members who have no memory of what happened to Republicans sixteen years ago and who have also promised their Tea Party supporters that they will not compromise with President Obama. So although the Tea Party types are currently willing to go along with their wiser Republican counterparts in kicking the can down the road to avoid a government shutdown, they are also girding for a confrontation in June when the federal debt ceiling will have to be raised. I’ll discuss their fallacious reasoning next week.
Published on March 15th 2011 in Metro Éireann By Charles Laffiteau
Two weeks ago, America’s divided national government averted a federal government shutdown when Congressional Republicans and Democrats reached agreement on some relatively minor spending cuts to the President’s 2011 budget. But the reality of this compromise was that politicians in both parties simply agreed to kick the can down the road for two weeks, thus setting the stage for another confrontation at the end of this week.
Now if you think the notion of funding your national government two weeks at a time sounds rather ridiculous, you would be correct. It is ridiculous! However, given the decidedly poisonous political atmosphere that currently pervades our nation’s capitol, it wouldn’t really come as much of a surprise to see this bi-monthly political brinksmanship continue until the end of this spring. That’s because some Republicans in Congress, despite all of their tough talk about reining in government spending, are afraid of how voters might react if the government shuts down because the President refuses to go along with their spending cuts.
The Speaker of the House, John Boehner, is a veteran Republican lawmaker who remembers what happened the last time a newly elected Republican majority in Congress tried to cram its budget cuts down the throat of a Democratic President. In 1995, and at the behest of putative 2012 Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich, Republicans refused to compromise with President Bill Clinton on the federal budget. This led to non-essential government workers being furloughed and the suspension of non-essential services from November 14 through November 19, 1995 and December 16, 1995 to January 6, 1996.
Like their present day Republican counterparts, the Gingrich Republicans had wrested control of Congress from the Democrats in the 1994 mid-term elections and were determined to force President Clinton to accept their cuts in government spending. The Gingrich led Congressional Republicans also initially avoided a government shutdown by agreeing to a series of continuing resolutions to fund the US Government’s spending, essentially kicking the can down the road just like present day Republicans are.
However, in order to continue operating the federal government when it is running a budget deficit, Congress also needs to periodically increase the cap or ceiling on the total amount of US Government debt that the US Treasury is authorized to issue. Gingrich believed that if he and his Republican colleagues refused to raise the US debt ceiling, President Clinton would then be forced to cave in to their demands for spending cuts.
But President Clinton proved himself to be an adept poker player by calling the Gingrich Republicans’ bluff of refusing to raise the debt ceiling, thus causing the federal government shut down. Republicans tried to blame President Clinton for the consequences, which included over 200,000 passport applications that were not processed, the closure of 368 national parks and a halt to the cleanup of toxic waste disposal sites around the country.
But despite 2012 Presidential candidate Newt Gingrich’s continuing claims to have won this standoff, most Republicans grudgingly acknowledge that President Clinton won this poker game because Republicans eventually ended the budget and debt ceiling stand off on Clinton’s terms rather than on their terms. As a consequence, voters also blamed Gingrich and Congressional Republicans for a pointless cessation of government services and re-elected President Clinton by a resounding margin in the subsequent 1996 national elections.
But the current Republican majority in Congress includes 87 newly elected members who have no memory of what happened to Republicans sixteen years ago and who have also promised their Tea Party supporters that they will not compromise with President Obama. So although the Tea Party types are currently willing to go along with their wiser Republican counterparts in kicking the can down the road to avoid a government shutdown, they are also girding for a confrontation in June when the federal debt ceiling will have to be raised. I’ll discuss their fallacious reasoning next week.
The 2011 State of the Union Address
The Bigger Picture
Published on March 1st 2011 in Metro Éireann By Charles Laffiteau
Last week I closed my column by stating that even though President Obama offered Republicans in Congress another olive branch in his State of the Union address, I believe America is facing 2 years of political gridlock instead of the political compromises Obama acknowledges are required to address America’s budget deficit and unemployment problems.
During his State of the Union Address President Obama offered an olive branch saying, “Now is the time for both sides and both houses of Congress -- Democrats and Republicans -- to forge a principled compromise that gets the job done. If we make the hard choices now to rein in our deficits, we can make the investments we need to win the future.”
Unfortunately for America, the Republican majority that controls the US House of Representatives has demonstrated by their actions that they have no intention of striking any compromises. In the aftermath of the President’s request to “forge a principled compromise” Republicans responded with a clenched fist by voting to repeal the healthcare reform law. Since the repeal law had no chance of being approved by the Senate this was simply a slap in the President’s face as well as a brazen example of political grandstanding by Republicans.
Mind you, there are still some Republicans in Congress who are willing to try and work with the President to address our nation’s problems. Republicans in the Senate like Richard Lugar of Indiana, Olympia Snow of Maine and Orin Hatch of Utah. There are also some in the House of Representatives, but they dare not show their faces for fear of being challenged and defeated in their 2012 bids for re-election by Tea Party activists who will brook no compromise. Therein lies the problem; politicians who are afraid to compromise.
But as I have noted in previous columns, politics is all about the art of forging compromises. So what does it say about the state of politics in America if the legislative political leaders of one of the two main political parties are either unwilling or are too afraid to strike a compromise with their political opponents? This is a recipe for disaster known as ‘political gridlock’ and there are only two things that can loosen its grip on the US Congress; a national crisis like a foreign nation attacking America or another national election.
Since I don’t foresee such a national crisis happening anytime in the near future, it will therefore be up to America’s citizens to break up this political logjam with the votes they cast in the 2012 elections for the US Congress and for President. In other words, let the 2012 US national election campaign begin!
If you think twenty one months prior to Election Day is a tad early to begin a national election campaign, then you would be correct in this assessment. But this has become the reality of politics in America’s increasingly polarized political landscape. Truth be known, the Republicans’ battle plans for the next twenty one months were actually drawn up in the days immediately following the mid-term national elections.
Based on their November 2010 electoral successes, the Republican Congressional leaders’ political strategy was to compromise with the Democratic majority, in order to pass a few important pieces of legislation during in the lame duck session of Congress, and then revert back to being the ‘Party of No’ in January once they took the reins as the majority party in the US House of Representatives. Since most of the newly elected members of the Republican Congressional majority were members of the Tea Party movement, Republican leaders in Congress also knew compromise wasn’t in the cards for these legislators.
As a result, the 2011-2012 Congressional majority version of the ‘Party of No’ is only slightly different from its 2009-2010 minority predecessor. The minority version could vote against any and all of President Obama’s legislative proposals to address America’s economic and social woes secure in the knowledge that an economic disaster would still be averted because these proposals would eventually pass. The new Republican majority version will instead be content to pass bills like the one to repeal Obama’s healthcare reforms, but also secure in the knowledge the Senate will reject them.
Even though no reputable economists on either side of the political spectrum support this notion, Republicans in Congress continue to complain loudly that President Obama’s actions to rescue the American economy haven’t helped and have in fact made things worse. They disingenuously blame Obama’s economic rescue legislation for America’s high level of unemployment and ballooning budget deficit rather than the ruinous fiscal and regulatory policies of previous Republican presidential administrations and Congressional majorities.
So the Republican strategy while they control the House of Representatives for the next two years has now become crystal clear. It is to do precisely what President Obama asked them not to do in his State of the Union address when he pleaded; “Instead of re-fighting the battles of the last two years, let’s fix what needs fixing and move forward.”
The first Republican salvo in re-fighting past battles, was their bill to repeal Obama’ healthcare reform law. But even though America still remains evenly divided on this legislation, a healthy majority of those who are or were opposed to it also do not want to see it repealed, just amended. But Republicans aren’t interested in amending the healthcare law because they are afraid of the Tea Party movement that has taken over their party.
Historically, Americans have taken a liking to divided government because they believe it forces politicians on both sides to move to compromise. Obama also alluded to this in his speech when he said, “We will move forward together, or not at all, because the challenges we face are bigger than party, and bigger than politics.” Unfortunately, Republicans believe the way to win the 2012 elections is by putting their party and politics ahead of moving forward to address America’s problems. But they do so at our nation’s peril.
Published on March 1st 2011 in Metro Éireann By Charles Laffiteau
Last week I closed my column by stating that even though President Obama offered Republicans in Congress another olive branch in his State of the Union address, I believe America is facing 2 years of political gridlock instead of the political compromises Obama acknowledges are required to address America’s budget deficit and unemployment problems.
During his State of the Union Address President Obama offered an olive branch saying, “Now is the time for both sides and both houses of Congress -- Democrats and Republicans -- to forge a principled compromise that gets the job done. If we make the hard choices now to rein in our deficits, we can make the investments we need to win the future.”
Unfortunately for America, the Republican majority that controls the US House of Representatives has demonstrated by their actions that they have no intention of striking any compromises. In the aftermath of the President’s request to “forge a principled compromise” Republicans responded with a clenched fist by voting to repeal the healthcare reform law. Since the repeal law had no chance of being approved by the Senate this was simply a slap in the President’s face as well as a brazen example of political grandstanding by Republicans.
Mind you, there are still some Republicans in Congress who are willing to try and work with the President to address our nation’s problems. Republicans in the Senate like Richard Lugar of Indiana, Olympia Snow of Maine and Orin Hatch of Utah. There are also some in the House of Representatives, but they dare not show their faces for fear of being challenged and defeated in their 2012 bids for re-election by Tea Party activists who will brook no compromise. Therein lies the problem; politicians who are afraid to compromise.
But as I have noted in previous columns, politics is all about the art of forging compromises. So what does it say about the state of politics in America if the legislative political leaders of one of the two main political parties are either unwilling or are too afraid to strike a compromise with their political opponents? This is a recipe for disaster known as ‘political gridlock’ and there are only two things that can loosen its grip on the US Congress; a national crisis like a foreign nation attacking America or another national election.
Since I don’t foresee such a national crisis happening anytime in the near future, it will therefore be up to America’s citizens to break up this political logjam with the votes they cast in the 2012 elections for the US Congress and for President. In other words, let the 2012 US national election campaign begin!
If you think twenty one months prior to Election Day is a tad early to begin a national election campaign, then you would be correct in this assessment. But this has become the reality of politics in America’s increasingly polarized political landscape. Truth be known, the Republicans’ battle plans for the next twenty one months were actually drawn up in the days immediately following the mid-term national elections.
Based on their November 2010 electoral successes, the Republican Congressional leaders’ political strategy was to compromise with the Democratic majority, in order to pass a few important pieces of legislation during in the lame duck session of Congress, and then revert back to being the ‘Party of No’ in January once they took the reins as the majority party in the US House of Representatives. Since most of the newly elected members of the Republican Congressional majority were members of the Tea Party movement, Republican leaders in Congress also knew compromise wasn’t in the cards for these legislators.
As a result, the 2011-2012 Congressional majority version of the ‘Party of No’ is only slightly different from its 2009-2010 minority predecessor. The minority version could vote against any and all of President Obama’s legislative proposals to address America’s economic and social woes secure in the knowledge that an economic disaster would still be averted because these proposals would eventually pass. The new Republican majority version will instead be content to pass bills like the one to repeal Obama’s healthcare reforms, but also secure in the knowledge the Senate will reject them.
Even though no reputable economists on either side of the political spectrum support this notion, Republicans in Congress continue to complain loudly that President Obama’s actions to rescue the American economy haven’t helped and have in fact made things worse. They disingenuously blame Obama’s economic rescue legislation for America’s high level of unemployment and ballooning budget deficit rather than the ruinous fiscal and regulatory policies of previous Republican presidential administrations and Congressional majorities.
So the Republican strategy while they control the House of Representatives for the next two years has now become crystal clear. It is to do precisely what President Obama asked them not to do in his State of the Union address when he pleaded; “Instead of re-fighting the battles of the last two years, let’s fix what needs fixing and move forward.”
The first Republican salvo in re-fighting past battles, was their bill to repeal Obama’ healthcare reform law. But even though America still remains evenly divided on this legislation, a healthy majority of those who are or were opposed to it also do not want to see it repealed, just amended. But Republicans aren’t interested in amending the healthcare law because they are afraid of the Tea Party movement that has taken over their party.
Historically, Americans have taken a liking to divided government because they believe it forces politicians on both sides to move to compromise. Obama also alluded to this in his speech when he said, “We will move forward together, or not at all, because the challenges we face are bigger than party, and bigger than politics.” Unfortunately, Republicans believe the way to win the 2012 elections is by putting their party and politics ahead of moving forward to address America’s problems. But they do so at our nation’s peril.
Reflections on President Obama's 1st 2 years
The Bigger Picture
Published on February 15th 2011 in Metro Éireann By Charles Laffiteau
Before I discuss my impressions regarding President Obama’s most recent 2011 State of the Union address, I think it would be instructive to reflect on the President’s performance during his first 2 years in office. I hope that by doing so my opinions, about both the tone and content of the President’s speech to Congress and America’s citizens; will be placed in their proper context.
It is important to note that when President Obama initially took office on January 20th 2009, America was in the throes of its worst economic crisis since the 1930’s Great Depression. Home prices were plunging and mortgage foreclosures rising in conjunction with deep cuts in consumer and business spending and ballooning unemployment rolls. Furthermore, President Obama had also inherited two foreign wars which the previous President and his Republican colleagues in Congress had chosen to finance with ever increasing amounts of deficit spending.
America was also grappling healthcare costs that were increasing rapidly, leaving some small businesses and middle class Americans unable to continue to fund their private healthcare insurance plans at a time when many Americans were also losing their jobs. Those ever increasing US medical bills were also driving up the costs of providing medical care for retired Americans, but instead of addressing this issue, the supposedly fiscally responsible Republicans simply added more fuel to the exploding federal budget deficit by providing a politically popular Medicare prescription drug benefit to retirees that was financed by still more deficit spending.
So Obama began his Presidency confronting a deepening economic recession with the added burden of a ballooning federal budget deficit that was exacerbated by years of Republican economic mismanagement. But most Congressional Republicans, still smarting from the shellacking they had taken in the 2008 General Election, were in no mood to try to work with President Obama to address America’s economic malaise, preferring instead to oppose whatever legislation President Obama and the Democratic Congress proposed to address the problem.
Fortunately for America and the nation’s economy, a few Congressional Republicans decided to put the needs of their country ahead of their political party’s agenda and decided to support the President’s bank bailout and economic stimulus measures, including an extension of unemployment benefits for the millions of Americans who had lost their jobs early on in the recession. Ironically for me as a lifelong Republican, the majority of the Republicans who opposed these economic measures justified their opposition by claiming President Obama’s economic stimulus would worsen America’s gaping federal budget deficit. As such, their opposition was also a very glaring example of ‘the kettle calling the pot black.’
While we will never know if the contentions of these Republicans that Obama’s economic stimulus measures did more harm than good to America’s economy, the vast majority of economists, regardless of their political party affiliations, shudder to think what would have happened in America and in the global economy had Republicans succeeded in blocking President Obama and Congressional Democrats economic stimulus measures. Suffice to say that most economists believe that if they had, America would still be mired in an economic recession.
Aside from his success in avoiding a more serious economic downturn than the one America has already experienced, President Obama’s other most notable accomplishment during his first two years in office was the landmark healthcare legislation he and Congressional Democrats succeeded in passing. While this was the right thing to do for the millions of lower and middle income Americans who couldn’t afford private healthcare insurance, it also probably wasn’t the most politically savvy issue for President Obama to take up while America was still in the throes of a serious economic recession. Many Americans were obviously more concerned about fixing the economy than providing healthcare to those who couldn’t afford it.
On the other hand, throughout its’ political history, the United States Congress has only passed landmark social legislation, such as Social Security, Medicare and the Civil Rights Law, when one political party has a substantial representation advantage over its political opponents. Given the fact that the Democrats in Congress only had this type of political advantage during President Obama’s initial two years as President, it might have taken another generation to muster the political support required to address this problem. I could be wrong, but I believe the President was correct in dealing with the healthcare problem while the window to do so existed.
But the President and some of his Democratic allies in Congress subsequently paid a heavy political price in the 2010 midterm elections for doing the right thing for their country. Democrats not only lost control of the US House of Representatives, but they also lost the numerical advantage they needed in the US Senate to thwart Republican opposition to President Obama’s legislative agenda in the next two years of his first term as President. Be that as it may, the President and his Democratic allies in Congress were still able to use their remaining days in power to pass additional legislation prior to the Republican takeover of the US House in 2011.
However many Democrats in Congress were upset with President Obama over his willingness to compromise with Republicans and agree to a 2 year extension of all of the Bush era tax cuts, including those that applied to the wealthiest Americans. Rather than confronting Republicans over a tax increase for wealthy Americans, President Obama wisely decided to postpone the battle over the tax increase until after the 2012 elections. But by doing so President Obama was able to provide additional stimulus to the American economy and also win enough Republican support to get Senate approval of the nuclear arms reduction START treaty, a 13 month extension of unemployment benefits and the repeal of America’s ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ ban of out of the closet homosexuals serving in the US armed forces.
Hoping to achieve additional compromises in 2011, Obama offered Republicans another olive branch in his State of the Union address. I’ll discuss their response next week.
Published on February 15th 2011 in Metro Éireann By Charles Laffiteau
Before I discuss my impressions regarding President Obama’s most recent 2011 State of the Union address, I think it would be instructive to reflect on the President’s performance during his first 2 years in office. I hope that by doing so my opinions, about both the tone and content of the President’s speech to Congress and America’s citizens; will be placed in their proper context.
It is important to note that when President Obama initially took office on January 20th 2009, America was in the throes of its worst economic crisis since the 1930’s Great Depression. Home prices were plunging and mortgage foreclosures rising in conjunction with deep cuts in consumer and business spending and ballooning unemployment rolls. Furthermore, President Obama had also inherited two foreign wars which the previous President and his Republican colleagues in Congress had chosen to finance with ever increasing amounts of deficit spending.
America was also grappling healthcare costs that were increasing rapidly, leaving some small businesses and middle class Americans unable to continue to fund their private healthcare insurance plans at a time when many Americans were also losing their jobs. Those ever increasing US medical bills were also driving up the costs of providing medical care for retired Americans, but instead of addressing this issue, the supposedly fiscally responsible Republicans simply added more fuel to the exploding federal budget deficit by providing a politically popular Medicare prescription drug benefit to retirees that was financed by still more deficit spending.
So Obama began his Presidency confronting a deepening economic recession with the added burden of a ballooning federal budget deficit that was exacerbated by years of Republican economic mismanagement. But most Congressional Republicans, still smarting from the shellacking they had taken in the 2008 General Election, were in no mood to try to work with President Obama to address America’s economic malaise, preferring instead to oppose whatever legislation President Obama and the Democratic Congress proposed to address the problem.
Fortunately for America and the nation’s economy, a few Congressional Republicans decided to put the needs of their country ahead of their political party’s agenda and decided to support the President’s bank bailout and economic stimulus measures, including an extension of unemployment benefits for the millions of Americans who had lost their jobs early on in the recession. Ironically for me as a lifelong Republican, the majority of the Republicans who opposed these economic measures justified their opposition by claiming President Obama’s economic stimulus would worsen America’s gaping federal budget deficit. As such, their opposition was also a very glaring example of ‘the kettle calling the pot black.’
While we will never know if the contentions of these Republicans that Obama’s economic stimulus measures did more harm than good to America’s economy, the vast majority of economists, regardless of their political party affiliations, shudder to think what would have happened in America and in the global economy had Republicans succeeded in blocking President Obama and Congressional Democrats economic stimulus measures. Suffice to say that most economists believe that if they had, America would still be mired in an economic recession.
Aside from his success in avoiding a more serious economic downturn than the one America has already experienced, President Obama’s other most notable accomplishment during his first two years in office was the landmark healthcare legislation he and Congressional Democrats succeeded in passing. While this was the right thing to do for the millions of lower and middle income Americans who couldn’t afford private healthcare insurance, it also probably wasn’t the most politically savvy issue for President Obama to take up while America was still in the throes of a serious economic recession. Many Americans were obviously more concerned about fixing the economy than providing healthcare to those who couldn’t afford it.
On the other hand, throughout its’ political history, the United States Congress has only passed landmark social legislation, such as Social Security, Medicare and the Civil Rights Law, when one political party has a substantial representation advantage over its political opponents. Given the fact that the Democrats in Congress only had this type of political advantage during President Obama’s initial two years as President, it might have taken another generation to muster the political support required to address this problem. I could be wrong, but I believe the President was correct in dealing with the healthcare problem while the window to do so existed.
But the President and some of his Democratic allies in Congress subsequently paid a heavy political price in the 2010 midterm elections for doing the right thing for their country. Democrats not only lost control of the US House of Representatives, but they also lost the numerical advantage they needed in the US Senate to thwart Republican opposition to President Obama’s legislative agenda in the next two years of his first term as President. Be that as it may, the President and his Democratic allies in Congress were still able to use their remaining days in power to pass additional legislation prior to the Republican takeover of the US House in 2011.
However many Democrats in Congress were upset with President Obama over his willingness to compromise with Republicans and agree to a 2 year extension of all of the Bush era tax cuts, including those that applied to the wealthiest Americans. Rather than confronting Republicans over a tax increase for wealthy Americans, President Obama wisely decided to postpone the battle over the tax increase until after the 2012 elections. But by doing so President Obama was able to provide additional stimulus to the American economy and also win enough Republican support to get Senate approval of the nuclear arms reduction START treaty, a 13 month extension of unemployment benefits and the repeal of America’s ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ ban of out of the closet homosexuals serving in the US armed forces.
Hoping to achieve additional compromises in 2011, Obama offered Republicans another olive branch in his State of the Union address. I’ll discuss their response next week.
Say hello to political gridlock
The Bigger Picture
Published on February 1st 2011 in Metro Éireann By Charles Laffiteau
Last week the 112th session of the United States Congress began with more than 60 new Republican members and a new Republican Speaker of the House of Representatives, John Boehner, wielding the gavel at the proceedings. What will be even more interesting to me though, is watching how animated the new Speaker’s responses are while he listens to President Obama’s nationally televised 2011 State of the Union address to Congress next week.
Will Boehner be wearing his usual sour face while the President is talking? Will we see him squirming in his seat when the President says something he disagrees with? Will he applaud the President or sit on his hands during the president’s speech? I honestly don’t know how Boehner will react, but what I do know is Boehner will be to the President’s left and behind him for the first time in his political career, a deliciously ironic metaphor and visual juxtaposition.
I could be wrong, and for the sake of my country I truly hope I am, but I really don’t expect the 112th session of Congress will accomplish anything of note. That is of course unless one considers legislative gridlock to be an accomplishment. On the other hand gridlock is precisely the outcome the demagogues of radio and TV, Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck are hoping for because it will give them and their Tea Party minions more to complain about.
The Republican Party and its leaders in the US House of Representatives, Speaker John Boehner, Eric Cantor and my own Representative, Jeb Hensarling, could conceivably use their legislative majority to address the federal budget deficit. They could start by taking a stand for free trade and eliminating the $20 billion in agricultural subsidies the federal government provides large ‘corporate’ farms each year. Fellow Republican Paul Ryan of Wisconsin has also suggested raising the retirement age and reforming Medicare as the most prudent way to reign in America’s soaring entitlement costs, which are the largest contributors to the budget deficit.
House Republicans could also work on simplifying America’s tax code, by lowering tax rates and eliminating a heretofore ‘sacred cow’, the home mortgage interest deduction. They could also help business owners and their investors by replacing the corporate income tax with a more appropriate and easier to enforce business consumption tax. Furthermore, President Obama and a number of Democrats in Congress have already expressed a willingness to work with Republicans to implement a number of the proposed reforms I have just mentioned.
However, unfortunately for our country, Republican leaders don’t appear to share the President and Congressional Democrats willingness to negotiate on these or any other issues. A case in point is the Bush era income tax cuts which were scheduled to expire this year. Despite the fact that politicians on both sides of the aisle agree that the tax cuts for middle class tax payers should be made permanent, Republicans insisted that the tax cuts for the wealthiest 2 % of Americans be made permanent too even though this increases the budget deficit.
Given Republicans; intransigence, President Obama instead agreed to a 2 year extension of all the Bush tax cuts in return for 13 months of unemployment benefits. But President Obama also questioned Republican’s commitment to reducing the budget deficit noting; “At a time when we are going to ask folks across the board to make such difficult sacrifices, I don't see how we can afford to borrow an additional $700 billion from other countries to make all the Bush tax cuts permanent, even for the wealthiest 2% of Americans.”
But Republican leader Eric Cantor’s response to President Obama reveals that the Republican perspective on compromise is a one way street saying; “I really want to see that we can come together and agree upon the notion that Washington doesn't need more revenues right now. And to sit here and say we're just going to go about halfway, or we're going to send a signal that it's going to be uncertain for job creators and investors to put capital to work, that's exactly what we don't need right now.” In other words, Cantor’s position on the tax cut compromise was that Democrats and President Obama had to agree to all of the Republicans’ demands. Hmm..That sounds like quite a compromise!
Mind you, I understand that in an ideal world political leaders wouldn’t need to negotiate or compromise with their political opponents. Indeed military dictators and the autocrats in control of single party states have the luxury of being able to do just that. But political leaders in a democracy can only get away with this if they enjoy an overwhelming majority in their nation’s legislature or parliament. Republicans are in control of the House of Representatives, but their opponents control the Senate and the Presidency, far from an overwhelming majority.
Sadly for America, the Republicans’ opposition to compromise on extending the tax cuts to include America’s wealthiest citizens is a harbinger of what their positions will most likely be on other issues of national importance like reducing the budget deficit. It also lends support to the contentions of many Democrats, independents and even some Republicans such as yours truly, that tackling America’s problems is not the top priority of Congressional Republicans or many other Republican leaders around the country.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has already noted what Republican’s priority is when, in the wake of his party’s midterm election victories, he told members of the news media that Republicans' top priority going forward should be ensuring that President Obama is not reelected in 2012.
I still expect President Obama to proffer an olive branch to Congressional Republicans during the course of his State of the Union Address. But given the ‘it’s our way or no way’ attitude expressed by Republican politicians, I expect the President’s open palm to be met with a clinched fist. So say hello to political gridlock and goodbye to solutions for America’s problems for the next two years.
Published on February 1st 2011 in Metro Éireann By Charles Laffiteau
Last week the 112th session of the United States Congress began with more than 60 new Republican members and a new Republican Speaker of the House of Representatives, John Boehner, wielding the gavel at the proceedings. What will be even more interesting to me though, is watching how animated the new Speaker’s responses are while he listens to President Obama’s nationally televised 2011 State of the Union address to Congress next week.
Will Boehner be wearing his usual sour face while the President is talking? Will we see him squirming in his seat when the President says something he disagrees with? Will he applaud the President or sit on his hands during the president’s speech? I honestly don’t know how Boehner will react, but what I do know is Boehner will be to the President’s left and behind him for the first time in his political career, a deliciously ironic metaphor and visual juxtaposition.
I could be wrong, and for the sake of my country I truly hope I am, but I really don’t expect the 112th session of Congress will accomplish anything of note. That is of course unless one considers legislative gridlock to be an accomplishment. On the other hand gridlock is precisely the outcome the demagogues of radio and TV, Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck are hoping for because it will give them and their Tea Party minions more to complain about.
The Republican Party and its leaders in the US House of Representatives, Speaker John Boehner, Eric Cantor and my own Representative, Jeb Hensarling, could conceivably use their legislative majority to address the federal budget deficit. They could start by taking a stand for free trade and eliminating the $20 billion in agricultural subsidies the federal government provides large ‘corporate’ farms each year. Fellow Republican Paul Ryan of Wisconsin has also suggested raising the retirement age and reforming Medicare as the most prudent way to reign in America’s soaring entitlement costs, which are the largest contributors to the budget deficit.
House Republicans could also work on simplifying America’s tax code, by lowering tax rates and eliminating a heretofore ‘sacred cow’, the home mortgage interest deduction. They could also help business owners and their investors by replacing the corporate income tax with a more appropriate and easier to enforce business consumption tax. Furthermore, President Obama and a number of Democrats in Congress have already expressed a willingness to work with Republicans to implement a number of the proposed reforms I have just mentioned.
However, unfortunately for our country, Republican leaders don’t appear to share the President and Congressional Democrats willingness to negotiate on these or any other issues. A case in point is the Bush era income tax cuts which were scheduled to expire this year. Despite the fact that politicians on both sides of the aisle agree that the tax cuts for middle class tax payers should be made permanent, Republicans insisted that the tax cuts for the wealthiest 2 % of Americans be made permanent too even though this increases the budget deficit.
Given Republicans; intransigence, President Obama instead agreed to a 2 year extension of all the Bush tax cuts in return for 13 months of unemployment benefits. But President Obama also questioned Republican’s commitment to reducing the budget deficit noting; “At a time when we are going to ask folks across the board to make such difficult sacrifices, I don't see how we can afford to borrow an additional $700 billion from other countries to make all the Bush tax cuts permanent, even for the wealthiest 2% of Americans.”
But Republican leader Eric Cantor’s response to President Obama reveals that the Republican perspective on compromise is a one way street saying; “I really want to see that we can come together and agree upon the notion that Washington doesn't need more revenues right now. And to sit here and say we're just going to go about halfway, or we're going to send a signal that it's going to be uncertain for job creators and investors to put capital to work, that's exactly what we don't need right now.” In other words, Cantor’s position on the tax cut compromise was that Democrats and President Obama had to agree to all of the Republicans’ demands. Hmm..That sounds like quite a compromise!
Mind you, I understand that in an ideal world political leaders wouldn’t need to negotiate or compromise with their political opponents. Indeed military dictators and the autocrats in control of single party states have the luxury of being able to do just that. But political leaders in a democracy can only get away with this if they enjoy an overwhelming majority in their nation’s legislature or parliament. Republicans are in control of the House of Representatives, but their opponents control the Senate and the Presidency, far from an overwhelming majority.
Sadly for America, the Republicans’ opposition to compromise on extending the tax cuts to include America’s wealthiest citizens is a harbinger of what their positions will most likely be on other issues of national importance like reducing the budget deficit. It also lends support to the contentions of many Democrats, independents and even some Republicans such as yours truly, that tackling America’s problems is not the top priority of Congressional Republicans or many other Republican leaders around the country.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has already noted what Republican’s priority is when, in the wake of his party’s midterm election victories, he told members of the news media that Republicans' top priority going forward should be ensuring that President Obama is not reelected in 2012.
I still expect President Obama to proffer an olive branch to Congressional Republicans during the course of his State of the Union Address. But given the ‘it’s our way or no way’ attitude expressed by Republican politicians, I expect the President’s open palm to be met with a clinched fist. So say hello to political gridlock and goodbye to solutions for America’s problems for the next two years.
Flaws in Tea Party members' thinking
The Bigger Picture
Published on January 15th 2011 in Metro Éireann By Charles Laffiteau
The New Year is supposed to usher in hope that the worst of the economic troubles that have battered America, Ireland and many other countries in Europe are behind us. But in my discussions with friends who are ‘independent’ voters, they repeatedly expressed the hope that President Obama would really try to work with the Republicans in Congress to address unemployment and the budget deficit during this New Year.
So what I believe American citizens need more than anything else as we enter the second decade of the 21st century; is political ‘leadership’. In America, the Democratic Party has a political leader, President Obama, but the Republican Party doesn’t. What the Republican Party does have is a lot of ‘pretenders’ and ‘contenders’ for the Republican nomination for President in the 2012 elections.
The list is as long as my arm and includes; old hands like Haley Barbour, Newt Gingrich, Mike Huckabee and Mitt Romney; some less familiar ones like Mitch Daniels, Bobby Jindal, Tom Pawlenty and John Thune; and some new ones like Scott Brown, Chris Christie and the newest Tea Party favourites; Marco Rubio and Rand Paul. Finally there is also the ‘Ghost of Elections Past’ aka former Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin, whose apparition floats above the party like an angry dark storm cloud. But at some point in the next year and a half, one of these people is likely to emerge as the new political leader of the Republican Party carrying the 2012 Presidential sobriquet.
In the meantime, by embracing the Tea Party movement, Republican politicians in Washington have elected to continue to follow another leaderless group, which in turn embraces the rhetoric of demagogues like Beck, Limbaugh and Palin. These demagogues talk a lot about politics and what is wrong with Obama, the Democrats in Congress and the federal government but what they do not discuss are any real ideas for how to address these problems. They rarely make any references to George Bush, preferring to wax nostalgically about how great a President Ronald Reagan was. What they don’t talk about however, is the fact that although President Reagan used populist rhetoric to get elected, he governed with the ideas of intellectuals like Milton Friedman and George Gilder.
Instead of discussing how Republicans can use their political power to apply conservative ideas to our problems, the demagogic leaders of the Tea party movement use their populist rhetoric to inflame their followers’ emotions and play on their fears in an attempt to neutralize political power instead of using it for the greater public good.
The problem with democracy is that it is very messy. You have to muddle around and make compromises with others who share different and in some cases polar opposite beliefs. Dictators don't have to worry about the beliefs of other citizens much less making compromises with those who don't agree with them. But effective democratic politics is all about the art of making compromises with one's opponents. At the present time though, the Republicans who hew to the Tea Party line cannot or will not make compromises. Compromise is against their 'principles'. Therefore, one cannot help but assume that Tea Partiers would actually prefer a dictatorship to democracy, provided the dictator is someone who shares their beliefs.
Members of the Tea Party worship at the altar of the US Constitution and deify America’s founding fathers such as George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison. But when historical documents become sacred scriptures and the authors of those documents are then worshipped like Gods, Truth becomes the victim.
The Tea Party’s followers revel in reading the US Constitution at their meetings, reverently treating the words as the received knowledge. They would have others believe that they not only understand what the words mean, but that they also understand what the authors intentions were. But their interpretation is actually a false mythology that they have created precisely because they don’t understand why the authors developed the US Constitution.
They believe the founding fathers wrote the US Constitution to protect the rights of states from the 'tyranny of a strong national government'. But the historical record paints an entirely different picture. I happen to agree with the Tea Partiers that America’s founding fathers were ahead of their time as political intellectuals. But they were also the wealthy ‘American elites’ of their day and the Constitution of 1787 was designed to strengthen the federal government and weaken the powers accorded to states by the 1777 Articles of Confederation. If their motivation was to protect the rights of states as the Tea Partiers apparently believe, then they never would have written a new constitution and instead just left the Articles of Confederation in place.
But the founding fathers were motivated to develop this new Constitution in part by their fears of the 'tyranny of the democratic majority' that would trample the rights of democratic minorities. They were also worried that without a new Constitution to restrict their powers, some states might actually allow women and slaves the right to vote and even to own property.
So despite what they and their demagogues like Glenn Beck say, Tea Partiers aren’t fighting to take back their government, because they have no real ideas about how they might go about making it better. They are simply a libertarian mob that only wants their political leaders to protect their God given right to do whatever they please. But the authors of the Constitution were ahead of their time as political intellectuals, in that they saw the Tea Party movement coming more than 200 years ago and took steps to prevent it and similar movements from dictating how American citizens would be governed.
Ironically, the Tea Party movement celebrates the work of America's 18th century intellectual elites while they simultaneously condemn America's 21st century intellectual elites. What members of the Tea Party movement don’t realize is they’re actually celebrating a constitution designed to prevent them from ever gaining control over America's government.
Published on January 15th 2011 in Metro Éireann By Charles Laffiteau
The New Year is supposed to usher in hope that the worst of the economic troubles that have battered America, Ireland and many other countries in Europe are behind us. But in my discussions with friends who are ‘independent’ voters, they repeatedly expressed the hope that President Obama would really try to work with the Republicans in Congress to address unemployment and the budget deficit during this New Year.
So what I believe American citizens need more than anything else as we enter the second decade of the 21st century; is political ‘leadership’. In America, the Democratic Party has a political leader, President Obama, but the Republican Party doesn’t. What the Republican Party does have is a lot of ‘pretenders’ and ‘contenders’ for the Republican nomination for President in the 2012 elections.
The list is as long as my arm and includes; old hands like Haley Barbour, Newt Gingrich, Mike Huckabee and Mitt Romney; some less familiar ones like Mitch Daniels, Bobby Jindal, Tom Pawlenty and John Thune; and some new ones like Scott Brown, Chris Christie and the newest Tea Party favourites; Marco Rubio and Rand Paul. Finally there is also the ‘Ghost of Elections Past’ aka former Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin, whose apparition floats above the party like an angry dark storm cloud. But at some point in the next year and a half, one of these people is likely to emerge as the new political leader of the Republican Party carrying the 2012 Presidential sobriquet.
In the meantime, by embracing the Tea Party movement, Republican politicians in Washington have elected to continue to follow another leaderless group, which in turn embraces the rhetoric of demagogues like Beck, Limbaugh and Palin. These demagogues talk a lot about politics and what is wrong with Obama, the Democrats in Congress and the federal government but what they do not discuss are any real ideas for how to address these problems. They rarely make any references to George Bush, preferring to wax nostalgically about how great a President Ronald Reagan was. What they don’t talk about however, is the fact that although President Reagan used populist rhetoric to get elected, he governed with the ideas of intellectuals like Milton Friedman and George Gilder.
Instead of discussing how Republicans can use their political power to apply conservative ideas to our problems, the demagogic leaders of the Tea party movement use their populist rhetoric to inflame their followers’ emotions and play on their fears in an attempt to neutralize political power instead of using it for the greater public good.
The problem with democracy is that it is very messy. You have to muddle around and make compromises with others who share different and in some cases polar opposite beliefs. Dictators don't have to worry about the beliefs of other citizens much less making compromises with those who don't agree with them. But effective democratic politics is all about the art of making compromises with one's opponents. At the present time though, the Republicans who hew to the Tea Party line cannot or will not make compromises. Compromise is against their 'principles'. Therefore, one cannot help but assume that Tea Partiers would actually prefer a dictatorship to democracy, provided the dictator is someone who shares their beliefs.
Members of the Tea Party worship at the altar of the US Constitution and deify America’s founding fathers such as George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison. But when historical documents become sacred scriptures and the authors of those documents are then worshipped like Gods, Truth becomes the victim.
The Tea Party’s followers revel in reading the US Constitution at their meetings, reverently treating the words as the received knowledge. They would have others believe that they not only understand what the words mean, but that they also understand what the authors intentions were. But their interpretation is actually a false mythology that they have created precisely because they don’t understand why the authors developed the US Constitution.
They believe the founding fathers wrote the US Constitution to protect the rights of states from the 'tyranny of a strong national government'. But the historical record paints an entirely different picture. I happen to agree with the Tea Partiers that America’s founding fathers were ahead of their time as political intellectuals. But they were also the wealthy ‘American elites’ of their day and the Constitution of 1787 was designed to strengthen the federal government and weaken the powers accorded to states by the 1777 Articles of Confederation. If their motivation was to protect the rights of states as the Tea Partiers apparently believe, then they never would have written a new constitution and instead just left the Articles of Confederation in place.
But the founding fathers were motivated to develop this new Constitution in part by their fears of the 'tyranny of the democratic majority' that would trample the rights of democratic minorities. They were also worried that without a new Constitution to restrict their powers, some states might actually allow women and slaves the right to vote and even to own property.
So despite what they and their demagogues like Glenn Beck say, Tea Partiers aren’t fighting to take back their government, because they have no real ideas about how they might go about making it better. They are simply a libertarian mob that only wants their political leaders to protect their God given right to do whatever they please. But the authors of the Constitution were ahead of their time as political intellectuals, in that they saw the Tea Party movement coming more than 200 years ago and took steps to prevent it and similar movements from dictating how American citizens would be governed.
Ironically, the Tea Party movement celebrates the work of America's 18th century intellectual elites while they simultaneously condemn America's 21st century intellectual elites. What members of the Tea Party movement don’t realize is they’re actually celebrating a constitution designed to prevent them from ever gaining control over America's government.
No more Republican compromises?
The Bigger Picture
Published on December 15th 2010 in Metro Éireann By Charles Laffiteau
The lesson Republicans need to take away from their resounding midterm election victory over Congressional Democrats is that the independent voters, who swung the election in their favour, expect them to work with the President and Democrats to address America’s fiscal and economic problems. But Republican political leaders also tightly embraced the Tea Party movement in the process of winning those midterm elections; thus leaving themselves with very little room to maneuver in striking compromises with the President and Democrats in Congress.
In other words, what the Tea Party has given; the Tea Party can also take away! So I believe over the course of the next two years, Republicans in Congress are going to find it extremely difficult if not impossible to work with President Obama and the Democratic majority in the Senate, precisely because ‘compromise’ is a dirty 10 letter word for members of the Tea Party movement. Members of the Tea Party movement believe that compromise is a sign of weakness and the demagogues who lead them have so thoroughly vilified President Obama and the Democrats, that compromise will be viewed as tantamount to ‘making a deal with the devil.’
But the reality of politics in a true democracy is that it is all about the art of compromise. Dictators and governments in single party states don’t have to concern themselves with making compromises because those who oppose them not only don’t have a voice in the decisions they make, they also don’t have the legal right to challenge or reverse government policies. Democracies on the other hand are somewhat messier when it comes to policy making. Because their legislatures are designed to represent the conflicting views of many different segments of their societies, the ruling party usually lacks the votes to pass their proposals intact.
This is especially true in the United States where laws can be approved by a simple majority vote in the US House of Representatives, but then must also be approved by a larger 3/5ths majority vote in the US Senate. If the proposed new laws can surmount these hurdles then they must also win the approval of the US President before they can be implemented. But if the US President decides to veto a new law, it must then go back to the House of Represenatitives and be approved by at least a 2/3rds majority vote instead of a simple majority vote before it can become the ‘law of the land.’ The requirements for a ‘super majority’ of votes in the Senate to get a bill to the President for his approval, and an even larger ‘super majority’ of votes in the House if the President doesn’t like a law, is one of the unique features of American democracy.
While there have been times during America’s history when either the Democratic or Republican Party controlled both the House and the Senate as well as the Presidency, this kind of political dominance by a single political party has become increasingly rare during the last fifty years. But another complication is that unlike most other democracies, elected politicians in America are more attuned to the interests of their local voters and the special interest groups that fund their political campaigns, than they are to the dictates of their respective political parties.
Herein lies the another unique feature of American democratic politics; voters in each state and Congressional district decide who will stand for election as their Republican or Democratic Party candidate, not the national, state and local party leaders. Furthermore, in many states Democratic and or Republican primaries are not even restricted to party members, but are open to all voters, be they Republicans, Democrats or Independents. Therefore, believe it or not, in some states Republicans can actually vote for the Democratic Party candidate and vice versa
So given the fact that political candidates must also fund their campaigns to win their party’s nomination without any money from the party itself, and if they succeed then provide the majority of the funds they need to win the general election, is it any wonder that they are more loyal to their local constituencies than they are to their national political party? Truth be known, the only real leverage the Republican and Democratic parties have on their candidates is deciding how much or little additional funding to give them for the general election, and if they get elected, the only remaining leverage they have is deciding the congressional committees to put them on.
The inevitable consequence of weak party loyalty in America is difficulty keeping your elected party members in line when crucial votes are needed to pass legislation. As a result, the art of compromise usually begins with negotiations between members of the same political party. After this process has played out, the party leaders then try to negotiate with members of the opposing party that they believe can be persuaded to join them in passing this legislation. While members of the Tea Party movement disapprove of the ‘back room deals’ that are made during these negotiations, they are an integral and important part of democratic political governance.
Lacking any true national leader following John McCain’s defeat in the 2008 Presidential elections, the Republican Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell, and Republican House minority leader, John Boehner, became the Republican Party’s de facto leaders in Washington DC. Given the continuing economic malaise in America, party leaders correctly calculated that the remaining Republican Party members in Congress had more to gain by locking arms and opposing everything President Obama and the Democrats proposed to address America’s domestic problems.
They succeeded in preventing Democrats from passing additional legislation designed to stimulate the economy and reduce joblessness, but also avoided being blamed for their role in slowing America’s economic recovery. So given the short term success of this strategy and the Tea Party movement’s opposition to compromise, I just don’t see any compelling reason for Republicans to compromise with Obama between now and the 2012 Presidential election.
Published on December 15th 2010 in Metro Éireann By Charles Laffiteau
The lesson Republicans need to take away from their resounding midterm election victory over Congressional Democrats is that the independent voters, who swung the election in their favour, expect them to work with the President and Democrats to address America’s fiscal and economic problems. But Republican political leaders also tightly embraced the Tea Party movement in the process of winning those midterm elections; thus leaving themselves with very little room to maneuver in striking compromises with the President and Democrats in Congress.
In other words, what the Tea Party has given; the Tea Party can also take away! So I believe over the course of the next two years, Republicans in Congress are going to find it extremely difficult if not impossible to work with President Obama and the Democratic majority in the Senate, precisely because ‘compromise’ is a dirty 10 letter word for members of the Tea Party movement. Members of the Tea Party movement believe that compromise is a sign of weakness and the demagogues who lead them have so thoroughly vilified President Obama and the Democrats, that compromise will be viewed as tantamount to ‘making a deal with the devil.’
But the reality of politics in a true democracy is that it is all about the art of compromise. Dictators and governments in single party states don’t have to concern themselves with making compromises because those who oppose them not only don’t have a voice in the decisions they make, they also don’t have the legal right to challenge or reverse government policies. Democracies on the other hand are somewhat messier when it comes to policy making. Because their legislatures are designed to represent the conflicting views of many different segments of their societies, the ruling party usually lacks the votes to pass their proposals intact.
This is especially true in the United States where laws can be approved by a simple majority vote in the US House of Representatives, but then must also be approved by a larger 3/5ths majority vote in the US Senate. If the proposed new laws can surmount these hurdles then they must also win the approval of the US President before they can be implemented. But if the US President decides to veto a new law, it must then go back to the House of Represenatitives and be approved by at least a 2/3rds majority vote instead of a simple majority vote before it can become the ‘law of the land.’ The requirements for a ‘super majority’ of votes in the Senate to get a bill to the President for his approval, and an even larger ‘super majority’ of votes in the House if the President doesn’t like a law, is one of the unique features of American democracy.
While there have been times during America’s history when either the Democratic or Republican Party controlled both the House and the Senate as well as the Presidency, this kind of political dominance by a single political party has become increasingly rare during the last fifty years. But another complication is that unlike most other democracies, elected politicians in America are more attuned to the interests of their local voters and the special interest groups that fund their political campaigns, than they are to the dictates of their respective political parties.
Herein lies the another unique feature of American democratic politics; voters in each state and Congressional district decide who will stand for election as their Republican or Democratic Party candidate, not the national, state and local party leaders. Furthermore, in many states Democratic and or Republican primaries are not even restricted to party members, but are open to all voters, be they Republicans, Democrats or Independents. Therefore, believe it or not, in some states Republicans can actually vote for the Democratic Party candidate and vice versa
So given the fact that political candidates must also fund their campaigns to win their party’s nomination without any money from the party itself, and if they succeed then provide the majority of the funds they need to win the general election, is it any wonder that they are more loyal to their local constituencies than they are to their national political party? Truth be known, the only real leverage the Republican and Democratic parties have on their candidates is deciding how much or little additional funding to give them for the general election, and if they get elected, the only remaining leverage they have is deciding the congressional committees to put them on.
The inevitable consequence of weak party loyalty in America is difficulty keeping your elected party members in line when crucial votes are needed to pass legislation. As a result, the art of compromise usually begins with negotiations between members of the same political party. After this process has played out, the party leaders then try to negotiate with members of the opposing party that they believe can be persuaded to join them in passing this legislation. While members of the Tea Party movement disapprove of the ‘back room deals’ that are made during these negotiations, they are an integral and important part of democratic political governance.
Lacking any true national leader following John McCain’s defeat in the 2008 Presidential elections, the Republican Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell, and Republican House minority leader, John Boehner, became the Republican Party’s de facto leaders in Washington DC. Given the continuing economic malaise in America, party leaders correctly calculated that the remaining Republican Party members in Congress had more to gain by locking arms and opposing everything President Obama and the Democrats proposed to address America’s domestic problems.
They succeeded in preventing Democrats from passing additional legislation designed to stimulate the economy and reduce joblessness, but also avoided being blamed for their role in slowing America’s economic recovery. So given the short term success of this strategy and the Tea Party movement’s opposition to compromise, I just don’t see any compelling reason for Republicans to compromise with Obama between now and the 2012 Presidential election.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
