Bring on the Crazy

Again, I'm sorry we've been sucking at blogging lately. There's been a lot going on, and we've been whiffing. I did receive a request from our good friend Natty to blog on Rick Santorum, the crazy former senator from Pennsylvania. Batting leadoff and playing right field for the Crazies, Santorum had this to say on abortion: "The reason Social Security is in such big trouble is we don't have enough workers to support the retirees. Well, a third of all the young people in America aren't in America because of abortion, because one in three pregnancies end in abortion."

I'm not even sure where to begin. First, I guess Santorum believes that children only exist to sustain the elderly? Second, I'm pretty sure his numbers are wrong, that sounds like a lot of abortions. And we all know that of all the services Planned Parenthood performs, 90% or so are abortions. I'm sorry, that was not intended to be a factual statement. The real number is 3%. Finally, Social Security isn't in "big trouble." It's fully funded through 2037. And if we really wanted to ensure its solvency beyond then, we could raise the arbitrary cap on a person's income that a person pays Social Security taxes on. It's currently $106,800. We should raise that number and exempt a portion of the first dollars you earn, similar to income tax. Furthermore, we shouldn't have passed a Social Security payroll tax holiday, which brought the rate from 6.2% to 4.2% for a year. I'm afraid we won't ever get that 2% back. Those are two measures that would ensure Social Security's solvency well past 2037.

Or I guess I could just let Jon Stewart do what he does best:

The Daily Show - Indecision 2012 - Base Race - Santorum, Barbour & Trump
Tags: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook

Krugman on Mellon

I know, it's been a while, but I hope to get back to regular blogging this week. I just read a Krugman column on American economic policy. It makes me wonder why we can't ever have good ideas. Here's the crux of it:

So that’s the state of policy debate in the world’s greatest nation: one party has embraced 80-year-old economic fallacies, while the other has lost the will to fight. And American families will pay the price.

And we wonder why we're still in a recession

Balanced Budget

I just read this on Political Wire:

"They literally think you can just balance it, you know, by cutting waste, fraud and abuse, foreign aid and NPR, and it doesn't work like that."

-- House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI), quoted by the Washington Post, on lawmakers and Tea Party activists who believe the deficit can be reduced without substantial cuts to Medicare and Social Security benefits.

At least Representative Ryan is right that we can't balance the budget by ending fraud and waste while cutting discretionary spending. However, I love that the chairman of the House Budget Committee doesn't know that Social Security doesn't add to the deficit. And I'll add one more thing. Representative Ryan literally thinks you can balance the budget by cutting taxes. It doesn't work like that.

Jon Stewart

According to Comedy Central:

The Associated Press is reporting today that Jon Stewart is being named to the 9/11 Memorial Foundation Board this afternoon. This of course comes in the wake of Senator Kirsten Gillibrand and many others recognizing the instrumental role Jon and The Daily Show played in pushing Congress to pass the 9/11 First Responders health care bill.

Well earned.

Gas Tax

Thomas Friedman recently wrote that we should institute an additional $1 per gallon gas tax, phased in at 5 cents a month. To me, this is the most sensible of the new taxes - except for 3% on all income earned over a certain amount (Obama says $250,000, I would be fine just over $500,000. It's only income earned over that amount, not all income earned. But I digress). One dollar is a lot, but smaller increments are a perfect way to raise revenue without the average person really feeling it. Starting at 5 cents gallon, that's probably up to $1 every time you fill your tank. However, the benefits to the country would be huge. We could pump money into infrastructure, public transportation, clean air, and green technology all while reducing our dependence on middle eastern oil. Friedman compares our politics in the middle east as building a house at the bottom of a volcano that is about to blow. In his words:

Legislating a higher energy price today that takes effect in the future, notes the Princeton economist Alan Blinder, would trigger a shift in buying and investment well before the tax kicks in. With one little gasoline tax, we can make ourselves more economically and strategically secure, help sell more Chevy Volts and free ourselves to openly push for democratic values in the Middle East without worrying anymore that it will harm our oil interests. Yes, it will mean higher gas prices, but prices are going up anyway, folks. Let’s capture some it for ourselves.

Even if these goals are not that important and you think that the tax might really affect some people, it means fewer cars on the road, less traffic and congestion, and less productive time lost commuting. To me, that's a win-win situation.

On Wisconsin

I wanted to post quickly about some bullshit arguments that conservatives are whining about regarding the Wisconsin public unions protesting to retain their right to collective bargaining, which costs the state nothing and does not help reduce any deficits.

1. "Greedy" unions are whining about pensions and health care.

They're not actually protesting paying more for these. They're just asking to retain their right to bargain collectively. That's a big difference.

2. Public unions shouldn't be able to protest because it's a conflict of interest.

This is one of the dumbest, most self-service statements I've ever heard. It's along the lines of Pat Sajak's "public employees shouldn't be allowed to vote" argument. Apparently some Republicans think that if you work for the government you don't pay taxes yourself and you shouldn't be allowed to vote. I'm glad that some people want to strip the right to vote from hard working Americans or that they think their tax dollars are meaningless. Really, this flies in the face of all American values, and I'm sure the same people making these arguments are also turning around and yelling about how everything else violates the Constitution - like the Census! Brilliant.

3. It's a problem when public unions make political contributions to a politician if he "agrees to the terms of the contract."

Sure, but it's perfectly fine when huge corporations do it for tax giveaways.

4. And finally, we get back to the "Governor Walker had to do it because of the dire financial straight."

This is where I hear arguments again that the unions caused the deficit. Again, simply not true. And what they're protesting isn't adding to the deficit. Wisconsin's problem right now is that their Governor entered office and instantly gave tax handouts to large corporations, who mostly don't pay taxes in Wisconsin anymore at the expense of its citizens - which includes (wait for it . . .) its public employees. I'll just point out that the billionaire Koch brothers practically own all the energy infrastructure in the state just got huge tax cuts. While they rake in billions of dollars, they are laying off employees in the state. That's good fiscal policy. Let the rich get richer while the middle class goes unemployed and then, because its the only terms conservatives understand, soak up state resources on unemployment. Then, the Koch brothers will fund more "grassroots" tea parties to make sure they never have to pay taxes and that the states can never balance their budgets, and more hardworking public employees and middle class workers suffer at their expense. THAT, is a "vicious cycle" if I've ever seen one.

Did Justice Thomas Cross the Line

I can go for quite a while about whether Justice Clarence Thomas's recent actions have crossed the line. To be brief though, I think his extra-judicial activities (and those of his wife) have raised at the very least, the appearance of impropriety. I also think that failing to disclose his wife's income on a simple federal disclosures form is unacceptable. Unfortunately, there is no oversight of Supreme Court Justices outside impeachment, and I don't think impeachment is really appropriate here. At least not based on what we currently know. Representative Chris Murphy is introducing legislation to increase oversight of the Supreme Court:

Murphy's bill will:

• apply the Judicial Conference's Code of Conduct, which applies to all other federal judges, to Supreme Court justices. This would allow the public to access more timely and detailed information when an outside group wants to have a justice participate in a conference, such as the funders of the conference;
• require the justices to simply publicly disclose their reasoning behind a recusal when they withdraw from a case;
• require the Court to develop a process for parties to a case before the Court to request a decision from the Court, or a panel of the Court, regarding the potential conflict of interest of a particular Justice.

I know the Supreme Court is a co-equal branch of government, but shouldn't the ethical rules that apply to all other federal judges also apply to the Supreme Court? The judicial branch was designed to be insulated so that political forces wouldn't sway their decisions. Isn't it troubling that Supreme Court justices are entering into political disputes and then failing to disclose payments they've received for doing so?

Hat tip to the Constitutional Law Prof Blog