Bush and a Strong Dollar

Bush Pledges Strong Dollar Policy

This doesn't come as much of a surprise since we want to maintain the appearance that we keep the dollar at the same strong level that we've had it at during the 1990's. The problem is that we're now approaching 2005 and we've been running some pretty big fiscal deficits over the past couple of years. That means that President Bush needs to take a real stab at some fiscal responsiblity. And not just Democratic "let's raise taxes only" fiscal responsiblity. That means taking a hard look at what the government spends its money on and making some cutbacks. The only problem that nobody looks at is that alot of government spending is tied into programs like Medicare, which increase each year and there's nothing that can be done about them. So in order for spending to decrease, there needs to be a real commitment by the President and Congress to cut the pork. And that's not about to happen anytime soon.

(Although, there was this said by the President:

Bush said that the administration's efforts to support the dollar by reducing government borrowing levels would address the unfunded liabilities in the government's huge entitlement programs, Social Security (news - web sites) and Medicare.

"I told the prime minister that Social Security reform will be at the top of my agenda," Bush said, speaking as the White House kicked off a two-day economic conference designed to build support for Bush's second term agenda.

The problem with this is that Social Security reform should be meant to keep the program solvent, not just to save the government money. The real target should be Medicare reform, but apparently the President doesn't want to touch that with a 10 foot pole. That's not a good sign.

Then there's this piece of economic goodness that the President mentioned:

Bush told reporters that the trade deficit was "easy to resolve. People can buy more United States products if they're worried about the trade deficit."

I guess that's a decent enough statement, but it does ignore the core reason as to WHY people will buy more American products. The trade deficit occurs because the United States has a comparative advantage in services while the rest of the world has an advantage in producing consumer products. There would have to be a change in prices of inputs in order for that comparative advantage to change, so I don't see that happening until the U.S. enters some kind of recession. And there's other problems if the United States enters a recession.

527's

Dan and I were just watching CNN Headline News (aka news for idiots with 5 second attention spans) and saw a graphic on how much 527's raised in contributions for the 2004 elections. It said that the Pro-Kerry/Anti-Bush 527s raised more than twice as much money as the Pro-Bush/anti-Kerry groups. And liberals want to get rid of 527s, just like they wanted to get rid of soft money contributions under McCain-Feingold. Yeah, and see how well that worked out for them.

Dean's December

That's the title of an article on the Weekly Standard website by Jonathan Last. Basically it goes over in detail what's next for the brash former Vermont governor. It mentions how Dean fails to mention John Kerry in his speeches and on Dean's website.

It remains to be seen what kind of political future Dean has inside the Democratic party. As I mentioned in one of my previous posts, if Dean does succeed in becoming the new chair of the Democratic party, it could spell the end of the Democratic Party as we know it. The article does mention:

The Dean plan, then, is to flood the Democratic party apparatus with Dean-supporting progressives at the local level, and then wrest control from the more centrist national Democratic establishment.

Normally that would mean that this would be good news for federalists like me who would like to see one party go towards setting up the idea of federalism in the United States again. But on the other hand, the article mentions

He says that Democrats must become a "50-state party" again, and must fight for every vote in every county. "There are no red states or blue states," he said, because people in "red" states are actually "hungry for new ideas."

So basically, the "progressive" Dean wants to fight for votes in every state, including the south. This would contrast with the ideas of some other "progressives" who would like for nothing better than to ignore the red states and focus on strengthening the Democrats power in the blue states.

The only problem I could see with this is that it will cause a divide between the Republicans and the Democrats on the issue of federalism. If Democrats continue down the path of wanting more local control because that's all that the Democrats can get at this point, then that means that the Republicans will be more likely to be supportive of centralizing power at the federal level. Unless the Republicans take the issue away from Democrats and then really marginalize the liberals. Then again, this comes down to whether there can be support for strict constrictionists for the nations courts. I doubt that there will be the chance for strict constrictionists, no matter how the Democrats might be leaning toward consolidating power in the blue states.

Holiday Season Giving for Our Troops

I found this on a couple of websites (Galley Slaves and Hugh Hewitt's website) and thought that this would be a really nice gesture to make during the holiday season. I've already gone ahead and sent in a phone card that I'm not using. I hope other people make a similar gesture during this holiday season.

Here's the email:

Finally, from a naval officer I respect a great deal, an e-mail on how to aid wounded troops in the two weeks left before Christmas:

"Yellow ribbons tied around trees and red, white and blue
stickers on the backs SUVs saying "Support our Troops"
are things that make civilians feel good but do nothing
for the men and women actually in uniform.

So please consider the following:

The number ONE request at Walter Reed hospital is phone cards. The government doesn't pay long distance phone charges and these wounded soldiers are rationing their calls home.

Many will be there throughout the holidays.

Really support our troops --Send phone cards of any amount to:

Medical Family Assistance Center
Walter Reed Medical Center
6900 Georgia Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20307-5001

They say they need an "endless" supply of these -- any amount even $5 is greatly appreciated.

Walmart has good prices on AT&T cards, Sams Club is even better, if you are a member.

I am sure you would feel better about doing this, than to buy something for a third cousin, that would find it on the closet shelf six months later, and wonder where it came from.

Please pass this portion on, copy and paste it into your e-mail."

Consider this during the holiday season.

Ganging up on the BCA

I too was going to write a post about the BCA's call for a boycott of black players and coaches of USC (South Carolina, not Southern Cal). The problem that I have with the call for a boycott is that this is just a matter of the BCA feeling slighted that they weren't consulted in the process. The BCA doesn't need to be consulted if the school has one candidate in mind and it just so happens that the candidate is white.

Not to turn this into a sports blog, but you see the problem that the BCA's method would turn into if they got their way in baseball. Until Willie Randolph was hired as the manager of the New York Mets, his name would continously appear as a candidate for managerial posts. He would never get hired though, which begs the question of whether he would just be interviewed because the franchise in question needed to fulfill MLB's minority hiring process. I remember the Tigers got into trouble a few years back because they didn't talk to any minorities when they had a position open.

In any case, the problem that I have the system is that it's really inefficient by forcing clubs, whether it's football, baseball, or society in general, to interview candidates even though there's no chance that they'll get the job. The idea works in theory if the candidate is good enough to get the job and wouldn't have an opportunity otherwise. Of course, if the candidate was good enough to start with, then they wouldn't need the leg-up programs supported by groups like the BCA. All it does is give marginal candidates interviews that won't get them anywhere. And as you see in baseball, many times the same candidate is interview but not hired.

I really don't see the BCA's boycott having a real effect on South Carolina's recruiting. Spurrier is enough of a big name couch that I predict he won't have any trouble recruiting talent to come to USC. In the end, the BCA's boycott is just an attempt to draw attention to itself.

Marginal Revolution: Mirror, mirror on the wall

Marginal Revolution: Mirror, mirror on the wall

Marginal Revolution is a blog by two George Mason economics professors. I make sure to read it every day if I can. They come up with some great things on their site.

Anyway, this was a great post. There's the comment by Paul Krugman, who by all means is a marginal economist. This was the comment that really set me off:

For Social Security is a government program that works, a demonstration that a modest amount of taxing and spending can make people's lives better and more secure. And that's why the right wants to destroy it.

The right doesn't want to destroy Social Security. If anything, they're trying to save it, much to save it. What leftists like Krugman don't realize is that Social Security isn't a modest amount of taxation and spending. Pensions spending is 5.1% of GDP as of 1997 and that's only going to increase as the aging portion of the population becomes larger and larger. From the UN Population Projections as of 1997, the percentage of the population that is over 60 years old will double from a little over 15% of the population to 30% of the population by 2040. That means that there's going to be an increasing amount of older Americans are going to want the government to provide for their retirement, or at least a part of it.

Of course, Mr. Krugman doesn't see a problem looming with Social Security. Rather he says:

The grain of truth in claims of a Social Security crisis is that this tax increase wasn't quite big enough. Projections in a recent report by the Congressional Budget Office (which are probably more realistic than the very cautious projections of the Social Security Administration) say that the trust fund will run out in 2052. The system won't become "bankrupt" at that point; even after the trust fund is gone, Social Security revenues will cover 81 percent of the promised benefits. Still, there is a long-run financing problem.

But it's a problem of modest size. The report finds that extending the life of the trust fund into the 22nd century, with no change in benefits, would require additional revenues equal to only 0.54 percent of G.D.P. That's less than 3 percent of federal spending - less than we're currently spending in Iraq. And it's only about one-quarter of the revenue lost each year because of President Bush's tax cuts - roughly equal to the fraction of those cuts that goes to people with incomes over $500,000 a year.

Ok, so the idea is that the problem with future social security payments is just of "modest size". His junk statistic in this case is that "with no change in benefits, would only require another half percent of GDP. But what he doesn't realize is that with COLA adjustments, benefits do increase every year to adjust for inflation. So I'm going to guess that his prediction is going to be just a bit off.

What he doesn't go into are the political ramifications of the end of the trust fund. For a tax-and-spend liberal like Krugman, he probably doesn't mind the fact that payroll taxes are going to have to increase in order to just keep payments at their current levels. However, by 2040, Krugman will be well into his retirement phase so he'll still be writing op-ed's for the AARP newsletter making damn sure that the government doesn't cut HIS benefits. Meanwhile, my generation is going to have to pay the penalty for the myopia of Krugman's generation.

Actually, that's not entirely true. I'm sure there are some of Krugman's generation that see the need for reform of the Social Security system. Rather than mocking these brave individuals (including President Bush), Krugman should be lauding them for being courageous enough to attempt to touch the "third rail" of politics.

No Big Surprise Here

Dems' pick for DNC leader will draw new map for party

Of course, the new leader will have to draw a new map for the party, it's obvious that the old map didn't work. I'm not all that surprised that this was all USA Today had on McAuliffe:

McAuliffe wins high praise for expanding the Democrats' donor base and raising more money this year than the Republicans.

Of course, it doesn't mention the fact that he's blown whatever gains the Democrats got out of the Clinton presidency. I'm not even sure if the Democrats raised more money than Republicans. But doesn't that cut against campaign finance reform? Don't all the progressives want money to be taken out of the system? So I'm not all that surprised that this the only "praise" that could be found for McAuliffe. Of course, the Clinton's lackey won't be remembered in history because nobody really cares about the party chairs...

Quick, name the Republican's chair.

See? That's what I mean. Nobody remembers the successes the Republican chair has, while nobody focuses on the failures the Democratic chair had done.

As for the potential replacements, it'll be interesting to see who comes out ahead. As a federalist, I like the idea that Donnie Fowler proposes, that is reducing the national committee and give the regional DNC offices more power. Which means he has a snowball's chance in hell of becoming the leader.

I don't see Ickes gaining enough support since it was the last Clintonista (McAuliffe) who put the Democrats in this hole to begin with.

Howard Dean doesn't have a chance of making it either, because he's too polarizing and would pull the Democratic Party into the crazy-leftist wing and would all but abandon the middle ground to the Republicans. Not that I would have a problem with that per se, but a centrist Democratic Party would be better for the nation as a whole, as real debate on the issues is better than the crazy Down with Bush stuff we've seen from leftists over the past four years.

So who does that leave? I think one of the Texas guys, like Frost or Kirk would probably be the best fit for the Democrats. Which means it'll probably be someone else, like Rosenberg or Hindery. Either way, the new DNC chair will have a long road ahead of him.

Testing the Limits of Big Government

Testing the Limits of Big Government

This is an article from the Weekly Standard outlining an upcoming case to the Supreme Court. For people like me who are federalists, I think the case is obvious that the federal law should be struck down in this case. Of course, if the case involved interstate commerce, then I can definitely see where the law would have a reason to be upheld.

I do agree with Mr. Eastland in that the court will find a way to weasel out of making any kind of definitive statement on federalism and will probably hold up the status quo. That's why I think there needs to be a shake up at the highest court in the land. Whether George Bush is the President with the cojones to make that shake up remains to be seen.

More on "The Bell Curve" and Race

I found this article on "The Bell Curve" in the Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bell_Curve

The more that I read about the book, the more I would to actually read the book. It'll be interesting to see what the authors conclude and what the effect of those conclusions would be on American politics. It looks to me that many people dismissed the claims as racist. But then again, if people seem to think that homosexuality is genetic, then why can intelligence be genetic as well.

In either case, I'll have to read the book before I make any more comments on the topic.

Yahoo! News - College Board Challenges SAT Data on Web

Yahoo! News - College Board Challenges SAT Data on Web

There's nothing new here that hasn't been said by other people before, especially that of the FairTest group. The SATs discriminate against minorities, yada, yada, yada, we shouldn't have the SAT or any standardized testing for that matter. I don't have a problem with standardized testing except for two things:

1. There is a very high correlation between income and success on the SATs. This is because people in the upper income brackets can afford to take the SAT prep courses, buy the books and basically spend whatever to get high enough grades to cover whatever deficiencies they have to get into the school of their choice. At least, that's my theory.

2. Standardized testing forces teachers to teach to the test, which is not the point. Rather, teachers should teach period and the test should reflect the student's grasp of the material. The other problem is that standardized testing forces teachers to teach students how to take tests, rather than focusing on the materials at hand.

Then there's everyone's dirty little secret, that there are differences between the average white student's SAT score and a black or hispanic student's SAT score. As far as I remember, that was the focus of the book "The Bell Curve" that came out about 10 years ago. Here's a scholarly article about the book, which I haven't read, though I probably should. It's an interesting idea, that there are differences between groups of people. More specifically, there are differences between different racial groups other than just skin color. That's something liberals don't want you to believe.

Federalism

Jonah Goldberg just put out an article on the National Review about how the left has returned to liking federalism. Here's some quotes from the article that I particularly liked:

The analogy I always use with college audiences is dorms. Imagine you've got ten dorms on a campus and a student population divided up into the usual coalitions: stoners, partiers, jocks, and so forth on one side, and study geeks, exchange students and — no offense — nerdy Mennonites on the other. A purely democratic system where all students get to decide dorm policy could result in the tyranny of 51 percent of the students over 49 percent of the students. The party-hardy crowd could pass a policy permitting loud music and keg parties at all hours of the night. Or if the more academically rigorous coalition won, they could ban "fun" of any kind, ever. Similarly, if the administration imposed its own policy from above, you could have a system that makes no one happy.

But, if you allowed each individual dorm to vote for its own policies, you could have a system where some dorms operate like scholarly monasteries and other dorms are more fun than a pool party at James Caan's house. Theoretically, 100 percent of the students could live the way they want. Maximized human happiness!

This is just an example of how federalism works, but it's better than the heavy-handed federal government imposing its will on the nation as a whole.

The whole reason that liberals like federalism now is because they don't have the power at the national level to impose their say on the rest of the nation. Goldberg himself says it better:

The problem with the last half-century of public policy is that liberals have abused the moral stature of the civil rights struggle to use the federal government to impose their worldview — not just on racial issues but on any old issue they pleased (emphasis added). But now, all of a sudden, because they can't have their way at the federal level anymore, the incandescently brilliant logic of federalism has become apparent: Liberals in blue states can live like liberals! Wahoo! (Whereas, according to liberals, conservatives could never have been sincere when they talked about states' rights; surely, they meant only to "restore Jim Crow" or some such.)

It would be nice for the Republicans to use their newfound power to cement in place a return to federalism and not to just do what the Democrats, and especially liberals, did and impose rule over the nation as a whole with their myriad of laws and regulations. A good first step would be to nominate judges that are committed to the idea of federalism and not judicial activism that we have seen from the bench over the past 40 years. This would seem to be a slam dunk for Republicans if liberals really want to see a committment to federalism. However, I think that it is further sour grapes by the Democrats, who would like to see their party cling to power any way they can. If they were to retake power in the 2006 off-year elections, then I can assure you that there won't be any further committment to federalism.