Pro-Congress Post

In keeping with my current regime of proving all my ideological tendencies wrong: this little news event, with both the Republican chair and ranking minority in bipartisan agreement, on the side of genuine science, and with a note of fiscal responsibility, while NASA falls back on the golden Cold War fright-call of the loss of "leadership" if most of its budget isn't sunk in manned exploration, without parsing exactly what those astronauts are supposed to be doing, with a rigorous cost-benefit analysis.

So saith this starS-in-eyes type.

Anti-Libertarian Note

In penance for taking a quizzie and scoring moderately high on the Libertarian axis:

Property is a creation of government, or at least at the most primitive and limited level, of artificial and probably unstable social norms. It is not an apriori term, and I'd like to believe the story that "the pursuit of happiness" was a deliberate and substitution for "property" in the Declaration of Independence. Possesions, of course, aren't social constructions - but that's where "stole it fair 'n' square" has real meaning.

The guarantee of "private property" is a mutual pact, and even in a perfectly transparent system, the condition of holding title must be subject to social utility.

A Modest Proposal

President Clinton perjured himself, but a greater crime is that we do not give more of our Presidents the opportunity to do likewise. Clinton was hauled up on a matter utterly trivial to the interests of the Republic. What if we required a President to present his budget, the blueprint of most of the U.S. Government's activities for the forthcoming fiscal year, under oath, including:

- That the economic projections represented the best estimates of his Council of Economic Advisors, some of whom actually have professional reputations to lose, and had not been adjusted upward to make the numbers look better.

- That all changes for the revenue-raising mechanisms the President thought advisable have been included, and if he did not include provisions, for example, to modify the Alternative Minimum Tax, then it was because he opposed doing so, in comparison with maintaining the revenue and spending provisions of his budget as submitted.

- That he faithfully included all likely expenses in his projections, including a modest contingency fund, and if he did not include provision for, as an example, any military activity in Afghanistan and Iraq beyond FY-2007, it was because he believed such activity to be unlikely.

But, in the face of all this honesty, how would we keep the opposition from its own dishonest grandstanding, e.g. over the proposed elimination of the Social Security $255 death benefit.

First Amendment berserker

At the risk of losing my recent membership in the responsible, radically moderate (and quite select) John Spruce Society:

While recognizing the importance of freedom of the press and expression, U.S. State Department press officer Janelle Hironimus said these rights must be coupled with press responsibility.

"Inciting religious or ethnic hatred in this manner is not acceptable," Hironimus said. "We call for tolerance and respect for all communities and for their religious beliefs and practices."

Listen, Hironimus, you cow. And Rice for that matter:

Okay, as I choke down the the notion of the foreign affairs arm of the United States government using the word "responsibility" and presuming to lecture the free press of what it may consist, let me say this: if diplomacy and the military might of the United States is to be used for anything, it should be used in the defence of our constitutional rights, and among the most prominent of these is freedom of the speech and the press. Goverments cannot define "responsible," because they are interested parties. You must defend them all, from all enemies, domestic (well, except yourselves, of course) and foreign. You took an oath.

You talk about "transformational democracy?" Do you really think that any
democratic virtue is more important than letting the other guy have his say, regardless of how offended to you are? Is there a more important lesson?

How serious am I about this? For a dozen reasons, philosophical and practical, I opposed the invasion of Iraq and continuing operations there. But if any nation assisted action against for an American citizen publishing a caricature of Mohammed, I would support converting that country to the Luminous Republic of Glassistan. Bin Laden's grievances cited as cause for the 9/11 attacks -- factually accurate -- were at least arguably hostile acts against the rights of Muslims; the "right" not to be offended emphatically excluded.

How serious am I about this? I think it was criminal that Britain hid Rushdie instead of setting up a series of sting operations to kill anyone who would have assassinated him for The Satanic Verses.

And I say this as someone who does not believe Islam is inherently more prone to terrorism than Christianity, Buddhism, atheism or any other belief system, or any more inherently intolerant. I also say this as someone who loathes most of Rushdie's work, including the Satanic Verses. You know that old line about disagreeing with someone but defending their right to say it to the death? I wouldn't presume to courage I've never had to demonstrate, but I approve of the sentiment. Especially if we're talking about the other guy's death, the one who would abridge that right.

Of course the conservatives in the Congress and this administration who would amend the First Amendment to specifically outlaw flag-burning because this political act offends their feelings clearly understand from where the denizens of the outraged Muslim street are coming.

But, wondering: do Ann Coulter's "Invade, kill their leaders, and convert them to Christianity" and Pat Robertson's advocacy of assassinating Hugo Chavez constitute a classic example of "fighting words," especially as influential memebrs of a representative democracy, and are therefore quite outside First Amendment rights? Like the Arabs or Venezuelans would be within their rights to, ah, silence them, in pre-emptive self-defence?

But let me say for the record, in my view: Mohammed was a liar; Allah is largely a myth; the Hadith are likely forgeries; Islam is full of the detritus of desert polytheism.

Yeah, Like That

Congressmen are generally very generous in providing support for a basic EOP position: that while it's possible, even obligatory, for thoughtful folks to vote against a candidate, a vote for anyone running for political office is, at best, a sad compromise with one's principles.

Anyway, apropos of the Asset Bubble thing below, this by the Honorable Senator Jim Bunning, R-KY on Alan Greenspan:

During his tenure at the Alan Greenspan has done an admirable job. However, he has always erred on the side of raising rates. I am not alone in this opinion. History is showing that he made mistakes in raising rates for too long.

I don't agree, but it's certainly an arguable position. But not if you also want to point out:

Yes, Chairman Greenspan's tenure held relatively low inflation with a growing economy. But his record on the economy came about from the creation of a record market bubble that ultimately popped. Then there was a housing bubble. It led to an unbalanced recovery fueled by soaring housing costs that resulted in record household debt.

Right. Sound position (see The Economist), although again not necessarily correct. But this implies that rates were not raised quickly or substantially enough to prevent the formation of the bubbles, or early enough to let air out without a painful correction in valuation.

And the contradiction illustrates the difficulty Greenspan would have had in responding to Problem B when he was already getting complaints about Problem A. And his attempts to jawbone the bubbles down with quite accurate remarks about "irrational exuberance" and "frothy" markets? Well, Herr Bunning
also states:

Aside from being addicted to rate increases, another one of my qualms with Chairman Greenspan was that he talked about everything under the sun - from trade deficits to budget deficits, tax policy to fiscal policy, and even the nation's oil patch.

For dinner conversation, these would be fine topics to discuss. But the Fed's jurisdiction is supposed to be purely monetary policy. Hopefully, his successor, Ben Bernanke, will be a different kind of chairman in these respects. He should stick to monetary policy and not interfere with fiscal issues, which rattle markets and get the bulls and bears into a tizzy.

So, not talking about asset bubbles. And, most of all what really hurts is when Greenspan points out that a profligate fiscal policy (set by Senator Bunning and his colleagues) constrains the Fed's monetary policy options, especially in regards to lowering those nasty high rates without re-igniting inflation. Pointing out further that such fiscal policy immediately prior to the beginnings of exploding entitlements due to demographics and the cost of medical technology within medical access Americans are willing to accept will make monetary policy even more problematic in the future: well, I think that's just being a Fed Chairman. Anyway, QED political constraints at the Fed. It also puts a sock in my mouth regarding my usual complaint about Greenspan - that he should have been screaming bloody murder at the deficits.

Oh, and this is also the Senate, which delayed the expensing of stock options (e.g. a more accurate although not perfect accounting procedure) by threatening to hamstring the SEC.

My position: the idolatry of Chairman Greenspan is overdone. He had limited tools and hence limited decisions to make; his was the strongest voice on the Fed, but there was strong consensus among the Governors. He neither created nor specifically encouraged the tech advances (and corporate bloodletting) that gave America productivity gains it hadn't experienced in several decades. But, like a good physician, first he did no (or little) harm.