The current political environment is overflowing with accusations of partisanship. It started me thinking about what constitutes partisanship.
It seems to me partisanship is one end of a spectrum of behaviors involving disagreements on how, as a country, we coexist in a manner that produces peace and prosperity.
As a democracy there are always going to be different viewpoints. People have different backgrounds, different life experiences, and, I believe, we are all endowed with slightly different brain organization that influences our perceptions. But to be a functioning and peaceful democracy we need ground rules on acceptable disagreement.
History suggest ground rules like civility, and formal procedures for resolving disagreements are useful, but ultimately the crucial value in making good public policy is respect for facts.
Disagreements over matters where there is no underlying factual context to provide guidance is not partisan - it's just having a different view of a problem. Those disagreement behaviors rely on civility and process to smooth over rough spots.
The other end of the spectrum of disagreement is where people use personal attacks, platitudes, misdirection or simply lies to distract from inconvenient facts that impact the view of the world the speaker wants to promote. To me that is the purest form of partisanship. Unfortunately that form of partisanship can thrive within the framework of civility and process if tolerated by voters.
It is difficult for any politician to resist partisanship. Their ambitions and livelihood rely on promoting a particular point of view. They invest years, and build a career, based on a particular point of view. If facts turn out to show their view is misguided, it is a rare politician that can acknowledge that they were promoting ideas that did not in fact turn out to be as beneficial as they represented.
Voters without political ambition may support a particular point of view for years and develop an emotional attachment to that view. But our careers and livelihood are not generally impacted if we change our view in light of facts. However, if we indulge emotionally comforting views by disregarding facts we as a country will make bad public policy choices. Those choices will affect our long term interests, and the interests of our children and grandchildren.
We as voters need to understand the difference between speaking different world views, and partisanship. If we are not clear on the differences between holding different political views and partisanship, and cannot distinguish between disagreement and partisanship, politicians certainly won't.
Sunday, December 22, 2019
Friday, December 20, 2019
Measuring our 21st Century Economy with 19th Century Metrics
Politicians and Journalists all seem to accept the assertion we have a "good" economy because unemployment is hovering around historic lows, about 4%.
In the 19th Century the unemployment rate really meant something. People who didn't have jobs had no income, so when folks lost their jobs there was an immediate impact on consumption based demand, which would in turn cause other folks to lose their jobs. In the 1800's and early 1900's our economy flipped back and forth between spurts of rapid growth and depressions on average about every seven years. The unemployment rate was the perfect canary in a coal mine to warn of an impending recession or depression.
But we don't live in the 19th Century, we live in the 21st Century. In the early 20th century labor organizations started to make progress on job security for workers, so employers couldn't start firing people the second they saw an advantage to their bottom line. Then mandatory unemployment insurance spread across country. During the Great Depression In the 1930's Social Security and further worker protections were enacted.
Those changes ended Depressions. After generations of our ancestors experiencing depressions every seven years or so we have not had a depression since the Great Depression in the 1930's.
The events that caused the Great Recession, if they had happened in the 19th century, would have sparked a horrendous depression. But they didn't, because the drop in consumer demand was minimized since laid off folks had income from unemployment checks, and then many older workers dropped out of the job market to receive pension and Social Security checks. We have stumbled along with mediocre growth since the Great Recession.
Our 4% unemployment rate is not a sign of economic health, it is a sign of economic stagnation. Our 4% unemployment rate masks the fact that the number of people actually working as a percentage of the population, has dropped from 64% of the population before the Great Recesssion, to around 60% of the population today. Because the population has grown by 30 or 40 million people growth hasn't completely collapsed, but where I live in the Bay Area employers tell me they have permanent help wanted signs because there are never enough workers to fill the available jobs (our foolish immigration policy doesn't help).
Wages are so historically low the 68 million people drawing social security see no reason to get a job. So their spending still provides a floor under consumption, but they are not capable of fueling growth because they live on a fixed income.
So if unemployment figures don't explain whats happening how do we understand our current economy?
Maybe stop ignoring debt? Levels of virtually every kind of debt are near historic highs. Consumer debt, lending on real estate, corporate debt - and most glaringly, our national debt.
Government debt didn't matter in the 19th century because the world ran on the gold standard, so governments that ran up debts hobbled their economy. We ran up debt during wars, then paid it down between wars. The Civil war ran the National debt up to about 40% of GDP, then it dropped down to about 5% of GDP right before jumping up near 40% of GDP in World War I. The debt dropped for a few years, then climbed to about 45% by the Great Depression, then up to 116% of GDP during World War II.
After World War II debt dropped from 116% down to about 30% by 1980.
Since 1980 it has gone from 30% to over 100%. Since 1980, as a percentage of GDP, we on average have incurred more debt each year than GDP growth. That change in economic trajectory can be traced directly to Republicans focusing on cutting taxes on the wealthy for the last 40 years. Since the Trump tax cuts our national debt has grown more than twice as fast as GDP growth.
But economists disregard government debt in computing GDP, so policitians hail GDP numbers as a badge of their competence and ignore the rising debt.
We have painted ourselves into a corner. We can't pay off our debt by taxing consumers without undermining consumption and growth. Only those with wealth beyond their needs can be taxed without undermining consumption. But that has been politically untouchable.
It is not a sustainable economic model. Unemployment as the canary warning impending short term economic problems no longer works. But the correlation of GDP growth to national debt growth is our modern canary warning us of long term economic stagnation.
In the 19th Century the unemployment rate really meant something. People who didn't have jobs had no income, so when folks lost their jobs there was an immediate impact on consumption based demand, which would in turn cause other folks to lose their jobs. In the 1800's and early 1900's our economy flipped back and forth between spurts of rapid growth and depressions on average about every seven years. The unemployment rate was the perfect canary in a coal mine to warn of an impending recession or depression.
But we don't live in the 19th Century, we live in the 21st Century. In the early 20th century labor organizations started to make progress on job security for workers, so employers couldn't start firing people the second they saw an advantage to their bottom line. Then mandatory unemployment insurance spread across country. During the Great Depression In the 1930's Social Security and further worker protections were enacted.
Those changes ended Depressions. After generations of our ancestors experiencing depressions every seven years or so we have not had a depression since the Great Depression in the 1930's.
The events that caused the Great Recession, if they had happened in the 19th century, would have sparked a horrendous depression. But they didn't, because the drop in consumer demand was minimized since laid off folks had income from unemployment checks, and then many older workers dropped out of the job market to receive pension and Social Security checks. We have stumbled along with mediocre growth since the Great Recession.
Our 4% unemployment rate is not a sign of economic health, it is a sign of economic stagnation. Our 4% unemployment rate masks the fact that the number of people actually working as a percentage of the population, has dropped from 64% of the population before the Great Recesssion, to around 60% of the population today. Because the population has grown by 30 or 40 million people growth hasn't completely collapsed, but where I live in the Bay Area employers tell me they have permanent help wanted signs because there are never enough workers to fill the available jobs (our foolish immigration policy doesn't help).
Wages are so historically low the 68 million people drawing social security see no reason to get a job. So their spending still provides a floor under consumption, but they are not capable of fueling growth because they live on a fixed income.
So if unemployment figures don't explain whats happening how do we understand our current economy?
Maybe stop ignoring debt? Levels of virtually every kind of debt are near historic highs. Consumer debt, lending on real estate, corporate debt - and most glaringly, our national debt.
Government debt didn't matter in the 19th century because the world ran on the gold standard, so governments that ran up debts hobbled their economy. We ran up debt during wars, then paid it down between wars. The Civil war ran the National debt up to about 40% of GDP, then it dropped down to about 5% of GDP right before jumping up near 40% of GDP in World War I. The debt dropped for a few years, then climbed to about 45% by the Great Depression, then up to 116% of GDP during World War II.
After World War II debt dropped from 116% down to about 30% by 1980.
Since 1980 it has gone from 30% to over 100%. Since 1980, as a percentage of GDP, we on average have incurred more debt each year than GDP growth. That change in economic trajectory can be traced directly to Republicans focusing on cutting taxes on the wealthy for the last 40 years. Since the Trump tax cuts our national debt has grown more than twice as fast as GDP growth.
But economists disregard government debt in computing GDP, so policitians hail GDP numbers as a badge of their competence and ignore the rising debt.
We have painted ourselves into a corner. We can't pay off our debt by taxing consumers without undermining consumption and growth. Only those with wealth beyond their needs can be taxed without undermining consumption. But that has been politically untouchable.
It is not a sustainable economic model. Unemployment as the canary warning impending short term economic problems no longer works. But the correlation of GDP growth to national debt growth is our modern canary warning us of long term economic stagnation.
Thursday, December 12, 2019
Magical Thinking - US Economic Policies
An article at Marketwatch (link below) uses the words "magical thinking" to describe the economic policies that have dominated our economy for the last few decades. The phrase "magical thinking" is a perfect description of the myopia economic policymakers have engaged in for decades, as we pursued the incompatible goals of tax cuts and increased defense spending, and tolerated, or encouraged, people and government to take on debt.
Evidence of this "magical thinking" includes.
Since the Great Recession the Federal Reserve has, essentially, printed money to keep interest rates artificially low - and they voted December 11 to hold interest rates between 1.5% and 1.75%, stating our economic outlook "remains favorable". They make decisions based on short term inflation and unemployment figures, with little concern about the bigger picture.
The bigger picture is our National debt has been climbing consistently for the last 40 years as government spent more than it took in and printing money is aggravating that debt.
The stock market since the Great Recession has been driven by ever rising corporate profits per share. But profits per share have been pumped up by corporations buying back their own shares. Each time they buy their own stock they push the price of their stock up by creating fewer shareholders in the same pot, not necessarily gaining even a dollar of additional earnings. This has been encouraged by unnaturally low interest rates from the Federal Reserve making debt attractive so corporations could fund other activities with debt to free up funds to buy back stock. As a result corporate debt is at or near all time highs.
Corporations make their money, ultimately, by selling stuff to consumers, or to other corporations selling stuff to consumers. Consumer debt is also at record levels, over $13 Trillion, meaning a lot of consumer spending has been propped up with added debt.
A huge percentage of the population is retiring, no longer in the job market, so the number of people in the job market is lower than it was in the past, which makes the unemployment rate misleading as an indicator of overall economic health.
The misleading economic numbers wouldn't matter as much as long as retired folk are able to keep being consumers because social security and private pensions maintain their income.
Unfortunately State, local and private pensions are also hugely underfunded. The shortfall has been masked for years by pension fund accountants using unrealistic economic assumptions about future pension fund asset growth based on present debt fueled stock prices.
But when the debt overload can no longer be ignored some funds will not have the money to pay what the retiree's expected, so retiree's will not have the income they expect so will spend less and default on some consumer debt.
All these abnormal factors are not sustainable so at some point some combination of the following events will have to occur:
1. Retiree's have less money to spend, causing a drop in consumption that undermines the foundation our economy and stock market. The drop in consumption will cause defaults in corporate and personal debt, aggravating the economic downturn. Increased unemployment will add to the drop in consumption.
2. Government will raise taxes to bail out pension funds - again dinging consumption,
3. Government will add to their already massive debt to bail out pension funds, undermining the dollars status and making foreign goods more expensive.
This does not even consider the impact of the trade wars currently slowing the world economy. It is not easy to see a path toward unwinding all that debt without a serious economic downturn. Most rich folks will survive. They take on debt through their corporations so even if the corporations go bankrupt, the personal wealth they have stashed away will be untouched. It is regular folks who will suffer.
Economic policy makers, mostly rich folks with assets stashed away, have done well using debt and are insulated from its most negative consequences. They have a hard time viewing debt as a long term problem. They are also clueless to the fact protecting working folks,and thereby consumption, is the key to long term economic health and stability in a mature economy.
If you, like me, think it is important for voters to understand this magical thinking, please don't simply like this post. Share it.
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/george-w-bushs-greatest-economic-statement-and-the-toxic-concoction-that-could-finally-crush-the-us-economy-2019-12-11?mod=home-page
Evidence of this "magical thinking" includes.
Since the Great Recession the Federal Reserve has, essentially, printed money to keep interest rates artificially low - and they voted December 11 to hold interest rates between 1.5% and 1.75%, stating our economic outlook "remains favorable". They make decisions based on short term inflation and unemployment figures, with little concern about the bigger picture.
The bigger picture is our National debt has been climbing consistently for the last 40 years as government spent more than it took in and printing money is aggravating that debt.
The stock market since the Great Recession has been driven by ever rising corporate profits per share. But profits per share have been pumped up by corporations buying back their own shares. Each time they buy their own stock they push the price of their stock up by creating fewer shareholders in the same pot, not necessarily gaining even a dollar of additional earnings. This has been encouraged by unnaturally low interest rates from the Federal Reserve making debt attractive so corporations could fund other activities with debt to free up funds to buy back stock. As a result corporate debt is at or near all time highs.
Corporations make their money, ultimately, by selling stuff to consumers, or to other corporations selling stuff to consumers. Consumer debt is also at record levels, over $13 Trillion, meaning a lot of consumer spending has been propped up with added debt.
A huge percentage of the population is retiring, no longer in the job market, so the number of people in the job market is lower than it was in the past, which makes the unemployment rate misleading as an indicator of overall economic health.
The misleading economic numbers wouldn't matter as much as long as retired folk are able to keep being consumers because social security and private pensions maintain their income.
Unfortunately State, local and private pensions are also hugely underfunded. The shortfall has been masked for years by pension fund accountants using unrealistic economic assumptions about future pension fund asset growth based on present debt fueled stock prices.
But when the debt overload can no longer be ignored some funds will not have the money to pay what the retiree's expected, so retiree's will not have the income they expect so will spend less and default on some consumer debt.
All these abnormal factors are not sustainable so at some point some combination of the following events will have to occur:
1. Retiree's have less money to spend, causing a drop in consumption that undermines the foundation our economy and stock market. The drop in consumption will cause defaults in corporate and personal debt, aggravating the economic downturn. Increased unemployment will add to the drop in consumption.
2. Government will raise taxes to bail out pension funds - again dinging consumption,
3. Government will add to their already massive debt to bail out pension funds, undermining the dollars status and making foreign goods more expensive.
This does not even consider the impact of the trade wars currently slowing the world economy. It is not easy to see a path toward unwinding all that debt without a serious economic downturn. Most rich folks will survive. They take on debt through their corporations so even if the corporations go bankrupt, the personal wealth they have stashed away will be untouched. It is regular folks who will suffer.
Economic policy makers, mostly rich folks with assets stashed away, have done well using debt and are insulated from its most negative consequences. They have a hard time viewing debt as a long term problem. They are also clueless to the fact protecting working folks,and thereby consumption, is the key to long term economic health and stability in a mature economy.
If you, like me, think it is important for voters to understand this magical thinking, please don't simply like this post. Share it.
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/george-w-bushs-greatest-economic-statement-and-the-toxic-concoction-that-could-finally-crush-the-us-economy-2019-12-11?mod=home-page
Monday, December 9, 2019
Republicans are Living an Alternate Reality
I find it embarrassing to contemplate I was a Republican for most of the first twenty-five years of my voting life.
The evidence President Trump colluded with the Russians to get elected in the first place is at best circumstantial and speculative. But the evidence he welcomed Russian interference was overwhelming -because he invited it and celebrated it in tweets and speeches.
The more recent evidence President Trump threatened to withhold Military aid already approved for Ukraine as a lever to buy a Ukrainian investigation into corruption centered on his political rivals son, Hunter Biden has become overwhelming.
The President views this all as just another partisan fight, he is blind to the implications for the institutions that have made our democracy special among the worlds democracies. The ethics of our President are not uncharacteristic of those money and power obsessed business people who think their ends justify their means.
But sadly, the President is not the only one who has bought into his view. The vast majority of the elected and appointed Republicans seem more concerned about the Republican party, and their own re-election, than the law, the Constitution and the future of our democracy.
Attorney General Barr following up on the Presidents theory that the Democrats are behind it all, authorized an investigation into the underlying process that brought the Russia meddling to light, thinking it would show illegal Democratic involvement. Apparently somehow Trump's enthusiasm for Russian involvement would be justified because the Democrats were playing dirty politics?
The investigator found that although there were mistakes made by over-zealous agents and bureaucrats, the process was lawful and justified. When it became clear the first report was not going to prove the conspiracy theories Attorney General Barr authorized a second, criminal investigation into the origins of the Russia Investigation with a broader scope and powers
But by the time the first report came out it had been overshadowed by the Presidents subsequent attempt to sell our military aid in exchange for an investigation into his political rivals son. To President Trump the aid approved by Congress to help Democratic Ukraine avoid being absorbed into not so Democratic Russia was a bargaining chip he could use to his political advantage.
Republicans have adopted the second investigation as a crutch to avoid facing the reality of the President's conduct. Now their talking points are how the new investigation will prove their conspiracy theories about "deep state" crimes. Never mind that even if the investigation produces some sort of evidence or wrongdoing, it doesn't excuse the President's conduct in telling the world he wanted Russia to meddle in our election, and using Military aid for Ukraine as a bargaining chip to try to gain a domestic political advantage.
The most insane thing about this whole process is what actually happened before the 2016 election. Shortly before election day Hillary Clinton had a comfortable lead over President Trump in the polls. Then the FBI director, Republican James Comey, ignoring FBI traditions to avoid statements that might affect an election, announced the FBI was reopening an investigation into Hilary Clinton. The announcements implication of wrongdoing caused an immediate loss of support for Clinton and Trump won by a whisker. After the election the "new investigation" into Clinton, was quietly wrapped up after producing no evidence of wrongdoing.
Trump would not be President were it not for a lapse in judgement by the FBI director who is a registered Republican. Yet elected and appointed Republican's are sure this next investigation will prove some "deep state" exists that is bent on "framing" Trump. It's just all to weird to be reality.
The evidence President Trump colluded with the Russians to get elected in the first place is at best circumstantial and speculative. But the evidence he welcomed Russian interference was overwhelming -because he invited it and celebrated it in tweets and speeches.
The more recent evidence President Trump threatened to withhold Military aid already approved for Ukraine as a lever to buy a Ukrainian investigation into corruption centered on his political rivals son, Hunter Biden has become overwhelming.
The President views this all as just another partisan fight, he is blind to the implications for the institutions that have made our democracy special among the worlds democracies. The ethics of our President are not uncharacteristic of those money and power obsessed business people who think their ends justify their means.
But sadly, the President is not the only one who has bought into his view. The vast majority of the elected and appointed Republicans seem more concerned about the Republican party, and their own re-election, than the law, the Constitution and the future of our democracy.
Attorney General Barr following up on the Presidents theory that the Democrats are behind it all, authorized an investigation into the underlying process that brought the Russia meddling to light, thinking it would show illegal Democratic involvement. Apparently somehow Trump's enthusiasm for Russian involvement would be justified because the Democrats were playing dirty politics?
The investigator found that although there were mistakes made by over-zealous agents and bureaucrats, the process was lawful and justified. When it became clear the first report was not going to prove the conspiracy theories Attorney General Barr authorized a second, criminal investigation into the origins of the Russia Investigation with a broader scope and powers
But by the time the first report came out it had been overshadowed by the Presidents subsequent attempt to sell our military aid in exchange for an investigation into his political rivals son. To President Trump the aid approved by Congress to help Democratic Ukraine avoid being absorbed into not so Democratic Russia was a bargaining chip he could use to his political advantage.
Republicans have adopted the second investigation as a crutch to avoid facing the reality of the President's conduct. Now their talking points are how the new investigation will prove their conspiracy theories about "deep state" crimes. Never mind that even if the investigation produces some sort of evidence or wrongdoing, it doesn't excuse the President's conduct in telling the world he wanted Russia to meddle in our election, and using Military aid for Ukraine as a bargaining chip to try to gain a domestic political advantage.
The most insane thing about this whole process is what actually happened before the 2016 election. Shortly before election day Hillary Clinton had a comfortable lead over President Trump in the polls. Then the FBI director, Republican James Comey, ignoring FBI traditions to avoid statements that might affect an election, announced the FBI was reopening an investigation into Hilary Clinton. The announcements implication of wrongdoing caused an immediate loss of support for Clinton and Trump won by a whisker. After the election the "new investigation" into Clinton, was quietly wrapped up after producing no evidence of wrongdoing.
Trump would not be President were it not for a lapse in judgement by the FBI director who is a registered Republican. Yet elected and appointed Republican's are sure this next investigation will prove some "deep state" exists that is bent on "framing" Trump. It's just all to weird to be reality.
Saturday, December 7, 2019
The Curse of Conventional Wisdom
Conventional wisdom, understandings about life and the world developed by past generations, has always been with us. Hundreds of years ago Galileo experienced the downside of conventional wisdom when he had the temerity to suggest the earth was round and ended up imprisoned.
Our education is rooted in teaching conventional wisdom. We go to school (or church) to memorize facts and ideas that our elders deem important. Ideally it is a starting point for understanding life. But our increasing sophistication and rapid growth of technology makes one suspect conventional wisdom is becoming ever more of a drag on society.
Biologically our brains seem to be hardwired to suck in information through our teens but our brain begins to become less flexible as we become an adult. In prior ages formal education ended very young for most people, so they were out in the world being forced to problem solve to survive very early in life.
Today conventional wisdom says if you want to do well in life you need at least a college education, which means continuing to memorize conventional wisdom into early adulthood, where we begin to approach the point where our brain is already losing some of its ability to be flexible in our thinking.
Education can help one learn to cultivate flexibility, but often to do that requires rejecting conventional wisdom the instructor is attempting to impart. That often means you end up getting a lower grade than those who just figure out what the instructor wants to hear and regurgitate it.
Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg didn't care about building a resume so they could get get a good job, they were interested in solving problems. So they dropped out of college to avoid having to regurgitate conventional wisdom and started solving problems. That approach can work in a career founded on advancing technology because you can physically demonstrate your understanding by building a better machine. But it doesn't work so well in social sciences, economics or politics as they are rooted in more abstract ideas.
So social sciences, economics and politics end up being dominated by the folks who did the best job of absorbing conventional wisdom. They got great grades, great first jobs and go from there. But they are often limited in their problem solving ability by mistakes in the conventional wisdom their thinking is rooted in. They have a hard time figuring out how to deal with data that contradicts conventional wisdom and find it emotionally difficult to contradict the conventional wisdom they spent years learning.
Our education is rooted in teaching conventional wisdom. We go to school (or church) to memorize facts and ideas that our elders deem important. Ideally it is a starting point for understanding life. But our increasing sophistication and rapid growth of technology makes one suspect conventional wisdom is becoming ever more of a drag on society.
Biologically our brains seem to be hardwired to suck in information through our teens but our brain begins to become less flexible as we become an adult. In prior ages formal education ended very young for most people, so they were out in the world being forced to problem solve to survive very early in life.
Today conventional wisdom says if you want to do well in life you need at least a college education, which means continuing to memorize conventional wisdom into early adulthood, where we begin to approach the point where our brain is already losing some of its ability to be flexible in our thinking.
Education can help one learn to cultivate flexibility, but often to do that requires rejecting conventional wisdom the instructor is attempting to impart. That often means you end up getting a lower grade than those who just figure out what the instructor wants to hear and regurgitate it.
Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg didn't care about building a resume so they could get get a good job, they were interested in solving problems. So they dropped out of college to avoid having to regurgitate conventional wisdom and started solving problems. That approach can work in a career founded on advancing technology because you can physically demonstrate your understanding by building a better machine. But it doesn't work so well in social sciences, economics or politics as they are rooted in more abstract ideas.
So social sciences, economics and politics end up being dominated by the folks who did the best job of absorbing conventional wisdom. They got great grades, great first jobs and go from there. But they are often limited in their problem solving ability by mistakes in the conventional wisdom their thinking is rooted in. They have a hard time figuring out how to deal with data that contradicts conventional wisdom and find it emotionally difficult to contradict the conventional wisdom they spent years learning.
Politics of today presents perhaps a perfect example. Economic data covering the last 100 years shows a vast gap in the economic health of the country between the half century when the US imposed income taxes at rates of over 50% on the wealthiest taxpayers and the half century when the highest tax rate paid by the wealthy was under 40%. In the high tax years growth averaged nearly 3% per year, while the National debt was stable. In the low tax years debt exceeded growth.
Conventional wisdom says high income taxes limit growth. As a result neither political party seems capable of accepting that fact the data contradicts conventional wisdom.
Accepting the truth the data suggests may fall to generations to come who are exposed to the data before their thinking loses flexibility. We don't seem currently capable of dealing with it.
Sunday, November 24, 2019
The Deep State
Republicans, and particularly President Trump, have spoken frequently over the last few years about this mysterious, malignant Deep State that is undermining our countries greatness.
It was kind of mysterious since they never really explained what, or who, the Deep State was, much less offered any proof that it actually existed. It was a great sound bite though.
President Trump has provided clarification. The Deep State he speaks of is in fact the institutions and laws that create the checks and balances our political system is built on. Those checks, balances and processes do not allow him to use tax payer money as a carrot to entice other countries to investigate his political rivals. They hinder his efforts to team up with like minded folks like Vladimir Putin, Mohammad bin Salman of Saudi Arabia or Turkey's Recep Erdogan to forward his personal power and influence. They make it difficult to funnel all Federal employee overnight stays into his properties. They expose the folly of his impulsive decision making in matters of grave importance to the country, and his tendency to mistake developing personal relationships with world leaders with representing the interests of this country.
Voters need to start challenging any politician that starts talking about the "Deep State" to be specific and offer some evidence.
It was kind of mysterious since they never really explained what, or who, the Deep State was, much less offered any proof that it actually existed. It was a great sound bite though.
President Trump has provided clarification. The Deep State he speaks of is in fact the institutions and laws that create the checks and balances our political system is built on. Those checks, balances and processes do not allow him to use tax payer money as a carrot to entice other countries to investigate his political rivals. They hinder his efforts to team up with like minded folks like Vladimir Putin, Mohammad bin Salman of Saudi Arabia or Turkey's Recep Erdogan to forward his personal power and influence. They make it difficult to funnel all Federal employee overnight stays into his properties. They expose the folly of his impulsive decision making in matters of grave importance to the country, and his tendency to mistake developing personal relationships with world leaders with representing the interests of this country.
Voters need to start challenging any politician that starts talking about the "Deep State" to be specific and offer some evidence.
Saturday, November 16, 2019
Attorney General Barr - A 21st Century Royalist
During the Revolutionary war the residents of what became the United States were divided into two camps. The Revolutionaries who prosecuted the war and the Royalists who supported the King.
Even after the Revolutionaries won the war there was still an undercurrent of support among the folks that were well situated in life for the concept of a King, and many urged George Washington to become King. The Royalist view is fundamentally if you can scramble your way to the top, or hang out with someone who has, you are untouchable.
Washington rejected the the notion the King of England, who was above the law, would be replaced by a King of the United States who was above the law. One of our Constitutional Conventions most fundamental goals was to establish the no one in government is above the law.
Attorney General Barr seems to have failed to grasp this basic purpose of the revolutionary war and the subsequent adoption of the Constitution. He regularly dismisses the investigations in President Trump's behavior, even though the pile of evidence continues to build that the President ignores the law, seeks to circumvent the law or simply outright lies about his behavior to hide illegal activities. The Attorney General bases his notions on vague ambiguities in the Constitution that he believes prevent the President from being subject to the laws the rest of the Citizens of the United States are bound by. He ignores one of the primary principles our nation is build on.
Mr. Trump is willful and runs on instinct, so he is not a good judge of character and as a result his administration has been marked by chaos and constant turnover in critical government positions. The chaos has infected our foreign policy, and our economy
But in terms of protecting President Trump for the consequences of acting illegally the President hit a home run in appointing Attorney General Barr, a modern day Royalist who thinks King Trump is above the law.
Even after the Revolutionaries won the war there was still an undercurrent of support among the folks that were well situated in life for the concept of a King, and many urged George Washington to become King. The Royalist view is fundamentally if you can scramble your way to the top, or hang out with someone who has, you are untouchable.
Washington rejected the the notion the King of England, who was above the law, would be replaced by a King of the United States who was above the law. One of our Constitutional Conventions most fundamental goals was to establish the no one in government is above the law.
Attorney General Barr seems to have failed to grasp this basic purpose of the revolutionary war and the subsequent adoption of the Constitution. He regularly dismisses the investigations in President Trump's behavior, even though the pile of evidence continues to build that the President ignores the law, seeks to circumvent the law or simply outright lies about his behavior to hide illegal activities. The Attorney General bases his notions on vague ambiguities in the Constitution that he believes prevent the President from being subject to the laws the rest of the Citizens of the United States are bound by. He ignores one of the primary principles our nation is build on.
Mr. Trump is willful and runs on instinct, so he is not a good judge of character and as a result his administration has been marked by chaos and constant turnover in critical government positions. The chaos has infected our foreign policy, and our economy
But in terms of protecting President Trump for the consequences of acting illegally the President hit a home run in appointing Attorney General Barr, a modern day Royalist who thinks King Trump is above the law.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)