Are there any adults in Washington?

Lest my readers think that I bash loony Republicans, I present to you a ridiculous rant by Democratic Congressman Anthony Weiner of Queens, who had his own rant yesterday - this one on the floor of the House of Representatives:

Striding angrily to the mike, Weiner shouted: "You guys have chutzpah. The Republican party is a wholly owned subsidiary of an insurance industry. That's the fact." Not ten seconds into his rant, he was interrupted by (what sounds like) Rep. Dan Lungren, who objected and asked the Speaker to "take down" Weiner's words. Weiner strode away angrily, then, after agreeing to retract his offending words, took the mike again. "How much time do I have remaining?" he began, enunciating clearly. "Make no mistake about it: Every. Single. Republican. I. Have. Ever. Met. In my entire life is a wholly owned subsidiary of the insurance industry."



This kind of thing is wildly unhelpful. Sure, there are a number of Republicans who basically do the bidding of the insurance companies... but so did Chris Dodd for a long time. Weiner's accusations are ridiculous - they make it sound like every Republican is taking bribes from the insurance industry. At most, they're taking campaign contributions (like the $65,000 that Weiner's taken from the insurance industry in the last 10 years), but for the most part they're motivated primarily by being re-elected, which means catering to the desires of their constituents. To the extent that Republicans shill for the insurance industry, it's often because insurance companies employ thousands of people in their districts.

Are there some Congressmen and women who cynically back the insurance industry because of campaign contributions, but I'd bet that the number is pretty small. Most Republicans honestly believe in their positions. That makes them (usually) wrong, but not in somebody's pocket.

Further thoughts on Sorba at CPAC

A friend writes, regarding yesterday's post on conservative homophobe Ryan Sorba:
"considering most in the audience booed that dbag, it seems a bit of a stretch to label the entire party as such, doesn't it?"

He definitely has a point (and one echoed by Megan McCardle in a good post today). I had initially watched this clip at work with the volume down, and didn't notice that it was booing (rather than the crow'd approval). Watching it again it's pretty clear that a good portion of the audience was shouting Sorba down, not cheering him on (or booing the people shouting him down).

I think you do have to give props to the folks in the crowd for not putting up with a homophobic rant, and I did not intend to imply that the Republican party, or all the attendees at the party hold Sorba's views. On the other hand, I do think it's fair to note that Sorba, who has a history of homophobic ranting, was given the podium at an event attended by most of the stars in the GOP firmament, and that those attendees should be pressured to distance themselves from Sorba's comments. To put the shoe on the other foot, can you imagine the press reaction if Obama, Hillary Clinton, Harry Reid, etc. attended a liberal conference where a speaker at the podium had a similar rant about rural communities or born-again Christians?

The fact is, there are significant elements of the right that are very homophobic - and the political discourse in this country, and the cause of human rights, will be furthered when the (relatively) responsible elements of the GOP take steps to distance themselves from the homophobic fringe, and make it clear that it's unacceptable. The "booers" at CPAC took a step in that direction, I'd like to see their effort echoed by the bigshot CPAC attendees.

What "Conservatism" has come to

For those of you not glued to CSPAN last week for coverage of the Conservative Political Action Conference ("CPAC"), you missed a gem of a speech by junior-conservative Ryan Sorba. Sorba (who comes off as a combination of Jerry Falwell and a Jersey Shore reject) was apparently miffed that CPAC had allowed GOPride, a gay conservative group, to have a booth at the conference, and went on a lengthy homophobic tirade:




Shortly after the speech, Sorba managed to get into an altercation with openly-gay conservative Alex Knepper, which involved Sorba asking whether Knepper's dog talked with a lisp, and threatening to fight Knepper after Knepper refused to shake Sorba's hand, stating “Well, I don’t really want to shake your hand, you’re intrinsically evil.” Andrew Sullivan has the transcript here, which is kind of hilarious and worth reading.

Now, before you write this off as just part of the side-show-freak circus that is the far right of the GOP these days, take a look at the other speakers at CPAC:


Rep. Michele Bachmann
Glenn Beck
Hon. Bill Bennett
House Leader Boehner
Hon. John Bolton
Andrew Breitbart
Vice Prseident Dick Cheney & Liz Cheney
Chris Chocola
Ann Coulter
Sen. Jim DeMint
George Will
Hon. JC WattsHon.
Newt Gingrich
Roy Innis Rep. Darrell Issa
Wayne LaPierre
Rep. Thaddeus McCotter
Hon. Bob McEwen
Rep. Ron Paul
Gov. Tim Pawlenty
Rep. Mike Pence
Rep. Tom Price
Hon. Mitt Romney & Sen. Scott Brown
Hon. Marco Rubio
Hon. Rick Santorum

This is a who's who of the GOP right now, including most of the 2012 GOP contenders. I've yet to hear that any of them have disavowed Sorba's comments - which were from the podium of their own conference on national TV. That says a lot about where the soul of the conservative movement lies these days.

Credit where credit is due (even when it's due to Joe Lieberman)

Dems have gotten used to dumping on Lieberman for things like backing McCain and doing his part to stall/kill healthcare reform in the senate - things that often make progressives (myself included) more annoyed with him than we are with the GOP.

That said, props to Lieberman for introducing a bill in the Senate that would end Don't Ask Don't Tell. In an interview with the NY Daily News, Lieberman sounded once again like the pragmatic social liberal/FoPo hawk that he used to be:

In an exclusive interview with the Daily News, Lieberman told me that his commitment to repealing DADT is twofold. First, allowing gays to serve openly fulfills the bedrock American promise of providing citizens with "an equal opportunity to do whatever job their talents and sense of purpose and motivations lead them to want to do - including military service." Second, and no less important for a lawmaker whose commitment to national security the Pentagon can't doubt, is that "When you artificially limit the pool of people who can enlist then you are diminishing military effectiveness."

Both excellent points - and hopefully Lieberman's status as a die-hard hawk, and his connections with the GOP, will make this a little easier to pass. But before you start to think that the GOP might sign on to repeal this unpopular, bigoted, and deeply counterproductive law... GOP Presidential contender and gay-basher Rick Santorum has decided that, if military brass like Admiral Mullen support ending DADT, it's because they've been "brainwashed" by liberals:

"Political correctness is reigning in the military right now," he said. "Some people say: whatever the generals say! I'm not too sure that we haven't so indoctrinated the officer corps in this country that they can actually see straight to make the right decision."

GDP and Olympic Participation

Thinking more about last night's post on China and the Olympics, I started wondering about the relationship between a country's population, the size of its economy, it's per capita GDP (or roughly how rich people in the country are) and it's participation in the Olympics. To that end, I ran the numbers this morning, using World Bank numbers from wikipedia (and using PPP for per capita GDP) and comparing the top 50 economies with Olympic participation.

It turns out that there's really very little correlation between a country's population or its overall GDP and its participation in the Olympics - particularly in the Winter Olympics. Some very small countries like Austria and Norway field really big teams, while other large countries like Indonesia, Pakistan, Nigeria and India field tiny teams or none at all. Same thing goes with economy size.

Where you start to see a relationship is, unsurprisingly, between per capita GDP, a rough measure of how rich a country is, and it's participation in the Olympics, as the charts below show:

In the summer olympics, you see a pretty close relationship between national wealth and participation, with a number of significant outliers. First, you've got a number of pretty small, very rich countries like Singapore, Norway, Switzerland, etc. that just aren't big enough to field big teams (although some of them send sizeable winter olympics squads). Then you've got most of the global powers (the US, Brazil, China, Russia, the UK) that send squads larger than their relative richness would suggest. Note here that China's participation (like Canada on the 2010 winter olympics chart below) is particularly heavy because it's the host. It will be interesting to see if India in coming years begins to act like the global power it's becoming by starting to send a disproportionately large squad to at least the Summer Games.

The Winter Olympics are somewhat different, in that they're much more the province of richer, more northern nations - with many of the poorer countries sending small or nonexistent teams, and some wealthy warm countries (like the UAE - which is unlabeled but is the dot near the 50 on GDP) also not participating. Once again, you see the global powers - the US, Germany, Russia and China overstocking their teams (along with host Canada) relative to their wealth. Again, nothing shocking here, but it will be interesting to see whether rising powers like Brazil and S. Korea begin to increase their Winter Olympic teams as part of a bid to become part of the international elite.

The Chinese Bid for Olympic Mastery

One of the interesting takeaways from watching the Winter Olympics is seeing the Chinese fielding teams in biathalon, cross country skiing, curling, women's ice skating, etc. which are not at all traditional sports in China. In this way, China is consciously acting like the US, Russia, France, Germany, etc. that regularly field big Olympic teams - in a word, like a global power.

By contrast, the two other countries you often hear compared with Russia and China as rising 21st century powers, Brazil and India (often referred to as the BRIC nations), have not used the Olympics to demonstrate their membership in the global power club.

Brazil fields a sizeable summer Olympic team (277 competitors in the 2008 field - closer to the 233 Canadians or 260 South Koreans than the 640 Chinese, 600 Americans or 540 Germans), but only sent 5 to the Winter Olympics this year - fewer than Monaco or Andorra. India only sent 57 to the 2008 summer Olympics, and only 3 to the Winter Olympics.

As far as the Winter Olympics go, neither Brazil nor India has a significant "winter sports" tradition, although both have ski areas. That does not seem to have stopped China, or other states like the UK, Australia or South Korea where I'm not sure that biathalon or curling or whatever has a deep hold.

To some degree, it looks like wealth is the biggest factor. Brazil's per capita GDP is around $10,500/person, and it fields teams in line (when population is factored in) with other countries at its wealth level like Kazakhstan and South Africa. India is only at $3,000/person - and very few countries at that economic level are able to field sizeable teams. At this measure, China, with its $6,000/person GDP really seems to be an outlier. Countries like Turkmenistan, Egypt and Angola, which have similar GDPs, field much smaller teams.*

It seems pretty clear (especially after hosting the 2008 Olympics) that China is making a concerted bid to play in the "big leagues" of Olympic competition - which means fielding full slates of competitive athletes for most sports, not just traditional local favorites. It will be interesting to see if Brazil begins to follow suit after the 2016 Rio Olympics.

*Ukraine, which has a $6000-ish/person GDP also fields large Olympic teams - 254 for the summer Olympics and 50 for the winter, perhaps as a vestige of its time as a Soviet republic.

Texas Messing with Everybody Else

Texas was one of the first states to have broadly written standards for language arts, science and social studies, which were copied by many other states. When coupled with the fact that Texas is the 2nd largest market for textbooks (after California, which has very specific standards that aren't used by other states), it makes the Texas State Board of Education the arbiter for what goes into the textbooks for 46 or 47 other states. Currently, 7 of the 15 members of that committee are avowedly banding together to bring explicitly Christian concepts into textbooks, and remove anything that smacks of liberalism.

Lead by a dentist named Don McLeroy, who believes the Earth was created 10,000 years ago, these people change the standards suggested by teams of teachers and professors to make textbooks more right-wing:

To give an illustration simultaneously of the power of ideology and Texas’ influence, Barber told me that when he led the social-studies division at Prentice Hall, one conservative member of the board told him that the 12th-grade book, “Magruder’s American Government,” would not be approved because it repeatedly referred to the U.S. Constitution as a “living” document. “That book is probably the most famous textbook in American history,” Barber says. “It’s been around since World War I, is updated every year and it had invented the term ‘living Constitution,’ which has been there since the 1950s. But the social conservatives didn’t like its sense of flexibility. They insisted at the last minute that the wording change to ‘enduring.’ ” Prentice Hall agreed to the change, and ever since the book — which Barber estimates controlled 60 or 65 percent of the market nationally — calls it the “enduring Constitution.”

Last fall, McLeroy was frank in talking about how he applies direct pressure to textbook companies. In the language-arts re-evaluation, the members of the Christian bloc wanted books to include classic myths and fables rather than newly written stories whose messages they didn’t agree with. They didn’t get what they wanted from the writing teams, so they did an end run around them once the public battles were over. “I met with all the publishers,” McLeroy said. “We went out for Mexican food. I told them this is what we want. We want stories with morals, not P.C. stories.” He then showed me an e-mail message from an executive at Pearson, a major educational publisher, indicating the results of his effort: “Hi Don. Thanks for the impact that you have had on the development of Pearson’s Scott Foresman Reading Street series. Attached is a list of some of the Fairy Tales and Fables that we included in the series.”

Because textbook publishers want to be able to sell their books in Texas, they cave to McLeroy's demands, and those books wind up being sold in other states too. So now textbooks used all over the country no longer talk about a living constitution, and have Fables with right-wing approved morals instead of stories that might speak to today's kids.

They also have completely arbitrary power. Author Bill Martin, Jr., who wrote the kids book "Brown Bear, Brown Bear" is no longer mentioned in language arts textbooks, because one of the Board members got him confused with another Bill Martin who wrote a book on Marxism (which of course is justification in Texas for banishment from elementary school textbooks).

It seems like it would be viable for reasonable states who don't want their textbooks to be held hostage to these nuts to form a book-buying consortium that would equal or best Texas in purchasing power. Even excluding Texas, as consortion of NY, NJ, Mass, Illinois, Maryland, DC, etc. would have huge purchasing clout, and could have a panel of impartial experts figure out a way to merge any inconsistent standards between states.

Evan Bayh got his way, still cries, takes his ball and goes home.

Bayh's departure from the Senate is allegedly because things are too partisan now and there's no room for pragmatic centrists like himself. That's utter crap.

Take a look at the list of ways where the administration, and liberals/progressives, have compromised to cater to Bayh and his pals:

• Stimulus bill trimmed from $1.2 trillion to $800 billion
• Healthcare bill watered down - first from single payer to public option, then from public option to in-state-only exchanges
• No Employee Free Choice Act (Union card-check)
• No carbon tax, and (at best) a cap-and-trade package where permits are given away instead of sold to polluters
• We still have don't-ask-don't tell.
• No nationalization or breakup of big banks or AIG

The truth is, because of the 60 vote margin, the entire domestic agenda has been crafted to appeal to "centrists" in order to get their votes, much to the displeasure of the "hyperpartisan" left that actually did the work to get a Democrat elected president. And now Bayh is sad that he didn't get absolutely everything he ever dreamed of, so he's crying about it and quitting.

Evan Bayh on practical problem solving.

Evan Bayh today declared his plan to retire from the Senate. Explaining why he was retiring, Bayh said:

“For some time, I have had a growing conviction that Congress is not operating as it should,” he said. “There is much too much partisanship and not enough progress. Too much narrow ideology and not enough practical problem solving.”

Now, one could suggest that perhaps the lack of progress comes from the fact that Bayh, along with other Senate "centrists" like Ben Nelson, have insisted on hijacking every bit of progressive legislation that comes their way in order to water it down. Another shining example of Bayh's "practical problem solving" is his slavish devotion to America's heirs and heiresses, as (despite his nonstop complaints about the deficit) he fought long and hard to cut the estate tax.

Given Bayh's avowed hatred of partisanship, you would think that he would want his replacement to be somebody calm and bi-partisan like himself... preferably a moderate Dem. Think again.

After announcing his retirement today, Democratic candidates have until Tuesday (tomorrow) at noon to get the required 4,500 signatures to get on the ballot. Whoever can scramble around and get this done quickly (not at all a sure thing) will be facing former GOP Senator Dan Coats (who held the seat before Bayh). Bayh was up by 20 points in polling, but Coats is pretty well funded and clearly a credible candidate. Given the timing of the announcement, this seems like an intentional attempt to sabotage the Democrats... but in favor of Coats? Coats, who is so "practical" and "nonpartisan" that, in 1998, on the Senate floor, he claimed that President Clinton's airstrikes against Osama bin Laden's networks in Afghanistan and Sudan were illegitimate attempts by Clinton to distract people from Lewinsky.

Long story short - good riddance Evan Bayh, and one can only send out a prayer tonight for the candidates and volunteers scrambling to get themselves on the ballot after Bayh's shady withdrawal.

State Budget Cuts

I just got an email forwarded from my brother from the Wildlife Conservation Society:

Governor Paterson has delivered a budget proposal that would slash funding for New York's zoos, botanical gardens and aquariums by almost 50 percent.

If this attack on our living museums is approved, it would force devastating program cuts and layoffs. These facilities are vital to the science education of millions of students each year. And they serve as economic drivers in the communities they serve, pumping hundreds of millions of dollars into the New York State economy each year.

I already sent a letter to Governor Paterson and my state legislators in Albany urging them to protect funding for our zoos, botanical gardens and aquariums. You should too!

The problem is, there are definitely going to be budget cuts - we have a huge state budget deficit brought on by a) declining state revenues from income and other taxes, and b) mandatory increases in spending for things like medicaid brought on by having more unemployed people. The state is required to balance its budget each year. That means, either taxes go up (which won't happen because of the politics) or things get cut. At this point, I think I'd rather have zoos and aquariums (which have cute animals and upper-class visitors and as such can fundraise privately) cut than schools, cops, firefighters, etc.

However, the tricky part for legislators is that they're getting hit on all sides by various interest groups (like the Wildlife Conservation Society) demanding that their slice of the pie not be trimmed. The problem with this is that it often winds up that the programs without cute animals or without an interest behind them are the ones that get cut. That often means programs for the most vulnerable and the least organized.

Paying for extra healthcare

A lot of people are worried by a rumor floating around that the healthcare reform bills would ban folks from paying for procedures not covered by their healthcare plans - like if your plan won't pay for an experimental treatment, but you would like to pay for it out of pocket.

I've been meaning to write about how this isn't correct, but just read Ezra Klein's piece here:

Let's begin with Medicare. At issue here is a provision of the 1997 Balanced Budget Act. This provision is being sold as some liberal plot, but it turns out to be an amendment by Jon Kyl, a Republican senator from Arizona. It was then put into a bill that was passed through the Republican Senate and then the Republican House. It's a pretty safe bet we're not dealing with liberal overreach here.

What the provision does is regulate how much your doctor can charge Medicare for services Medicare covers. Let's say you need a stent. Medicare will pay $10,000 (I've made this number up) for the operation. But your doctor doesn't want to take $10,000. He wants $20,000, and you want to cover that out of your own pocket. In that case, your doctor has to withdraw from the Medicare program for two years. The intent here is to ensure that doctors don't begin routinely overcharging patients for covered services.

If Medicare, however, had refused to allow your stent, then you could indeed have paid out of pocket.
...

Private insurers have similar rules. If I have insurance through Kaiser, and I go to a doctor, the doctor can't ask me for $500 above what Kaiser reimburses for the service. If Aetna agrees to pay a hospital $900 for an MRI, the hospital can't ask me to give them another grand. Insurers -- both private and public -- enter into contracts with providers, and those contracts have to be honored or the insurance wouldn't be worth much.

The Budget

The NY Times has a great graphic here that's interactive and which I can't figure out how to get it into this post (so click on the link and check it out). It shows very clearly how little of the budget (only about 1/3 of total government expenditures) is actually controlled by the budgeting process. The rest - Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, interest on the debt, etc. is all set by law (and the interest payments are mandatory, so long as we don't want to default) and can't be changed without changing other laws. Of that 1/3 left, fully 50% (1/6 of the total) is military spending.

Consequently, when you hear proposals to slash various programs in the budget, or freeze the budget, but exclude veterans benefits and military spending, you're actually talking only about a pretty miniscule percentage of the budget - only about 1/6 of federal spending falls into the "non-mandatory and non-national-security" rubric.

The other interesting thing to check out on the Times' graphic is to see how your pre-conceptions of how big various programs are match up to reality. For instance, there are lots of folks out there who think that welfare is one of the biggest federal expenditures. In fact, welfare (TANF + foodstamps + section 8 housing vouchers) make up only about 3% of the budget.

The Deficit Fallacy

As most of the people in the US aren't a.) economists or b.) freakishly addicted to political news, it's very understandable that they don't have a very clear idea of what the deficit is or how it works. As such, they often analogize the goverment's finances to their family finances, which seems like it would work but doesn't.

In tough economic times oftentimes your hours or salary is cut or you don't get a bonus (in other words, your revenues are down). When your revenues are down (particularly if it's unclear when or if they'll go back up), it makes sense that you would then want to spend less. Ultimately you want your spending to be equal to your revenues (a balanced household budget) or lower than your revenue (running a surplus). If you're spending more than you bring in (running a deficit) - you're probably running up your credit card, which for families is a bad idea in rough economic times.

On a macro level, however, this doesn't work. When you have bad economic times and high unemployment, the government's revenues go down (because fewer people are paying income taxes). However, this is precisely the wrong time for the government to try to limit its spending. That's because bad economic times and high unemployment are caused by (or at least prolonged by) decreases in demand - people are out of work, so they're not buying stuff, so the people who would have made that stuff are also out of work, and can't buy stuff, etc. etc. The government, which can borrow lots of money easily and at a really low interest rate, can step in at this point and replace that lost demand - buying goods and services from people who would otherwise be out of work.

And, if the government does it right, it gets more than a dollar's worth of economic bang for each dollar spent. For example, during this recession, a contractor and his team may be out of work because houses aren't being built. Say the government hires the contractor to build a school, and pays $1,000,000. That million dollars goes first to the contractor and his or her workers as wages, and also to other companies that supply materials. Then the contractor and his team (who otherwise would have no money to spend, were the unemployed) take their wages and spend them in local stores- the stores (which now have more business) may hire more people. That's the theory behind stimulus spending, but the government has to run a deficit in order to do it, because during a recession its own revenues go down.

People (and politicians) like to talk about "the government tightening its belt," but forget that "the government" isn't like a person or a family. When the government cuts back, it's not doing it by cutting the pay of politicians (the people that make up the government) or by having the president use Air Force One a little less. The government "tightens its belt" by cutting programs - typically things like giving less money to states to spend on teachers (which means teachers get laid off) or cutting Medicare reimbursements (which means that seniors lose medical coverage) or cutting unemployment benefits (so laid-off workers lose their benefits sooner). Even when the government cuts programs that seem "extra" or "frivolous" like NASA or aid to the arts or whatever, that means that actual people get laid off and are added to the unemployment rolls. That means that those former government workers now dont' have money to buy things at their neighborhood stores. If, during a recession, the government tried (like a family would) to not run a deficit, it would mean laying off tens or hundreds of thousands of government employees, and cutting programs that help the unemployed and other victims of recession.

Short-term deficit spending during a recession makes sense - it saves jobs, creates jobs directly (the people hired by the govt to do things) and it spurs on private-sector job creation. It helps dig countries out of recessions - and then when things are good, and people are paying taxes again, government revenue rises (and spending on things like unemployment benefits decreases) and things tend to balance out.

By comparison, long-term structural deficits are much more worrisome. These occur with programs like Medicare where you can project that future costs will be much higher than future revenue. To draw an analogy to family spending, a short-term deficit is like using your credit card one time to pay for moving expenses when you move to a new city for a new job - for that month, your expenses are higher than your revenue, but you can pay it off over time. Structural deficits would be like if you made $3000/month, and bought a house with a $3500/month mortgage.

Obama's stimulus spending is short-term deficit spending - a one time shot of money into the economy, which hopefully can be repaid when the recession ends. People are unnecessarily freaked out about it. However, what's being ignored are the huge structural deficits we face in the future (which the healthcare reform bill would help to solve).

What we really need to worry about are long-term, structural deficits that come from entitlement programs like Medicare - where you can project in the future that the costs of the program will definitely exceed their income. That's what we need to worry about

Shelby blocks appointment of heads of Customs, TSA and Food Safety because Obama shot down his earmarks

TPM reports that Alabama Senator Richard Shelby has put a hold on all of Obama's remaining executive branch nominations. That means that, under Senate rules, it will take 60 votes for cloture in order to get an up-or-down vote on confirmation. In practical terms, this means that the nation will go without:

• a head of food safety at the USDA
• the head of the office of legal counsel for the Department of Justice (their top internal lawyer)
• the top lawyer for the Department of Labor
• the head of Customs/Border Protection
• the head of the TSA
• the head of the US Agency for International Development
• about 200 other key positions

Now, why is it that Shelby is taking this unprecedented step? He's miffed that the Obama administration hasn't moved on a $40 billion contract to build planes in Alabama and a $45 million FBI center in Alabama.

I think that, when it's possible for one senator, acting alone (although with the tacit support of his party, without which the Dems could get 60 votes to move regardless of Shelby's hold), to gum up the works this badly because he's having a snit-fit about not getting some planes, folks in the Senate would move to clean up their rules. The nation's business needs to get done, and presidents need to be able to appoint people to staff key positions. It's a real problem that we don't have someone running the TSA or Border Patrol, or in charge of food safety. American lives are put in danger when those agencies don't operate properly. Shelby's move endangers Americans (even Alabamans!) and should not be tolerated.

Drug testing required to get welfare?

I've noticed a number of my facebook friends signing on to the group "Making Drug Tests Required to Get Welfare" (here). The group now has 1.3 million fans.

So here's my question on this- welfare these days really only goes to people with kids. Say a single mom with two kids is on welfare, but is also an addict. So you take welfare away from the family. That means (if you're referring to welfare broadly) that the family would lose housing subsidies, food stamps and (maybe) direct cash payments (which are a pretty small proportion of welfare benefits). So now the kids, who are not on drugs, and who can't control whether their mom is on drugs, are homeless and hungry.

I understand the impulse to not reward people who sit around stoned and don't work, and you don't want welfare payments to go to buy drugs, but you can't very well cut off aid to parents and just give it to kids. And it's not much better to take kids away from their parents, even drug-addict parents, because the foster-care system is so messed up.

One thing to keep in mind is that the vast majority of what we call welfare comes in the form of direct housing subsidies (which get paid straight to the landlord) and food stamps, which come on an EBT card. While food stamp swipes can be "sold," it's awkward and inefficient (which is not to say that people don't do it). It's not that people are getting big "welfare checks" that they cash and then use to buy drugs.

I'm not saying that the system is functioning particularly well - there's definitely abuse, and in many areas a culture of dependency where most people in the neighborhood are on public assistance, few work, and it's expected that basically everyone should sign up. However, the solution is something a lot more nuanced than just to test and cut people off. In fact, I'd be pretty surprised if all 1.3 million fans abstained from drug use. Looking over the page, there seem to be a lot of people who seem less interested in reforming welfare than in dumping on welfare beneficiaries - people like Kimberly Harchuck, whose contribution to the discussion was "i cant even go to the store within the first 5 days of the month because everyones there swiping their damn ohio card. fuck that shit test them!!"

Why we should prosecute terrorists

The Federal Court Judge to shoebomber Richard Reid during Reid's sentencing hearing, wherein he was sentenced to life in prison plus 80 consecutive years, a $2 million fine (and $5,478 in restitution to American Airlines):

This is the sentence that is provided for by our statutes. It is a fair and a just sentence. It is a righteous sentence. Let me explain this to you.

We are not afraid of any of your terrorist co-conspirators, Mr. Reid. We are Americans. We have been through the fire before. There is all too much war talk here. And I say that to everyone with the utmost respect.

Here in this court where we deal with individuals as individuals, and care for individuals as individuals, as human beings we reach out for justice.

You are not an enemy combatant. You are a terrorist. You are not a soldier in any war. You are a terrorist. To give you that reference, to call you a soldier gives you far too much stature. Whether it is the officers of government who do it or your attorney who does it, or that happens to be your view, you are a terrorist.

And we do not negotiate with terrorists. We do not treat with terrorists. We do not sign documents with terrorists.

We hunt them down one by one and bring them to justice.

So war talk is way out of line in this court. You're a big fellow. But you're not that big. You're no warrior. I know warriors. You are a terrorist. A species of criminal guilty of multiple attempted murders.

In a very real sense Trooper Santiago had it right when first you were taken off that plane and into custody and you wondered where the press and where the TV crews were and you said you're no big deal. You're no big deal.

Reid's was an almost identical case to the underwear bomber. You can't read the above and then seriously think that somehow the federal criminal justice system is not tough enough or can't handle these jerks.

In the course of my career I've met a number of federal judges and federal prosecutors from the Southern District of New York (where terrorists would be prosecuted). These are hardcore, deeply serious people. They are the best lawyers and judges in New York, which makes them probably the best lawyers and judges in the country. The underwear bomber couldn't even light his drawers on fire properly. I have no doubt who would win between him and the SDNY federal prosecutors in a match of wits or will.

(Hat tip Andrew Sullivan)

A Real GOP Plan for Healthcare

Wisconsin Representative Paul Ryan has come out with a detailed, real plan for healthcare reform, that (according to the CBO score) would actually drastically curtail healthcare cost growth (details here). The downside is that it looks like it would do so on the backs of some of America's most vulnerable - seniors and lower income folks.

The main part of the plan would essentially privatize Medicare and Medicaid by replacing guaranteed care with vouchers that could be used to purchase insurance. The value of the vouchers (initially set around $11,000/year) would be set to increase at a much slower rate than the projected cost of healthcare, so that a voucher that was good for a Medicare-level insurance plan in 2010 might pay for only a fraction of the cost of care in 2020.

Other parts of the plan involve a refundable tax credit of $5,700 for families to purchase care, the creation of state-based exchanges, tort reform, and number of other ideas.

I disagree with a lot of what's in it, but it's a positive sign that Ryan (ranking Republican on the budget committee) has crafted a serious, good-faith counter-proposal. Too often the GOP has resorted to merely shouting "no" at Democratic proposals, and you can't negotiate with "no." Ryan's plan shares some similarities (in spirit at least) to the Wyden-Bennet plan that came out last summer, which I really liked because it focused on putting consumers of healthcare in the drivers seat, and giving them information to choose from an array of policies. (the big difference is that Wyden-Bennet would have made sure that seniors and lower-income families had the resources, through government subsidies, to actually pay for the various choices).

The big deal here is that, when Congressional Republicans counter Dem plans with serious plans of their own, negotiations can be made and deals can be struck. Ezra Klein had an excellent interview this week with Ryan (available here) that had an interesting (and telling) exchange:

Klein: So there are a couple of folks out there who do this. You, Wyden, Pete Stark, who feel safe enough to propose big things. But how do you deal with the fact that nobody is wrong about the political benefits of this stance of full opposition? Republicans are doing well at it this year. Democrats did it nicely in 2006. No one is wrong about this. You and I agree that market incentives matter. And the market of elections pushes against cooperation.

Ryan: This is my 12th year. If I lose my job over this, then so be it. In that case, I can be doing more productive things. If you’re given the opportunity to serve, you better serve like it’s your last term every term. It’s just the way I look at it. I sleep well at night.

On healthcare reform, entitlements, the deficit and debt, we need people to propose big ideas, even if we disagree with them. Even though I would fight tooth and nail to keep Ryan's ideas on Medicare from ever becoming law, I welcome him to the debate.

New poll shows fewer than half of Republicans are certain that Obama wants to beat the terrorists.

Polling outfit Research 2000 has a startling poll of Republicans out today (which was commissioned by liberal site Daily Kos) that's pretty depressing for anyone hoping to find common ground:

-36% believe Obama was not born in the US, and 22% are unsure

-only 43% said no to the question "do you believe Obama wants the terrorists to win?"

-53 to 14% believe that Palin is more qualified to be president than Obama

-23% (and 33% of Southerners) believe their state should secede

-73% (with 19% unsure) think that open gays and lesbians should not be allowed to teach in public schools.

-77% believe the book of Genesis should be tought as fact in public schools.

-Only 56% believe that contraception should be legal.

I'm sure that a poll of Dems could dig up some crazy, fairly widely-held beliefs as well (I read someplace that 20% of Dems think Bush had advance warning about 9/11)... but I don't think that the crazy is nearly this wide or this deep. Moderate Republicans - take a close look. This is your party - you can accept it, try to change it, or decamp for saner pastures.

This is why demanding bipartisan solutions doesn't work

James Fallows writes:

I got this note from someone with many decades' experience in national politics, about a discussion between two Congressmen over details of the stimulus bill:

"GOP member: 'I'd like this in the bill.'

"Dem member response: 'If we put it in, will you vote for the bill?'

"GOP member: 'You know I can't vote for the bill.'

"Dem member: 'Then why should we put it in the bill?'

In most countries with parliamentary systems, this is how it works - the government/majority proposes a bill, and the loyal opposition all oppose it. However, in those countries, the bill then passes by majority vote, and the majority is then held accountable - either lauded and reelected if people like the bill, or turned out of office if they don't.

In the US Senate, we're stuck with a system where there is increasing lock-step party-line voting, and no real negotiation, but where the "majority" can't pass its bill because it needs a supermajority vote. As we're seeing, this is a recipe for gridlock and chaos.