Yesterday the President removed the limitations on stem cell research with the reassurance that "We will develop strict guidelines, which we will rigorously enforce, because we cannot ever tolerate misuse or abuse." But there is not a single word in his remarks of the principles that should drive those guidelines, or that would define "misuse."
These are not simple issues. I cannot imagine the frustration of a person with Parkinson's Disease at the impediments to research that might materially improve their lives within a decade. But neither can I, or anyone, imagine the potential danger of exploiting a manipulated human identity.
Of the dissenters, the President says "I understand their concerns, and we must respect their point of view," but then states "we make scientific decisions based on facts, not ideology." Well, there is no "scientific" definition of human life, and no technical resolution of the chief moral difficulties. Science provides us with facts and terms, but it does not provide a clear moral interpretation of those facts. A biologist may be able to describe an embryo in technical terms, and these can inform a discussion of that embryo's humanity and the application of criteria to that embryo. But that technical description cannot speak to the philosophy by which we determine whether that embryo is human, and any rights that may inhere in that embryo. A coroner can tell us cause of death, but cannot tell us if that cause was somehow justified or amounts to criminal murder. He can only give us facts which inform our assessment of how that death came about.
The question is not whether one embryo is somehow different from another that would be removed from a mother's womb by some natural operation of her body -- the question is our intentions toward that embryo.
My view any embryo is fully human in its dignity before man, society and God is not an "ideology". I do not seek to advance this view to support some larger political purpose. I hold it because I believe it to be true. I appreciate others disagree with me, for reasons of varying quality -- but their opinions are no more "scientific" than mine. Their appeal to "science" does not settle question, it avoids it altogether.
The language of the President's announcement reflects the fundamental thoughtlessness of its logic:
"But after much discussion, debate and reflection, the proper course has become clear. The majority of Americans -- from across the political spectrum, and of all backgrounds and beliefs -- have come to a consensus that we should pursue this research. "
Just what, exactly, is a "consensus" of a majority? The agreement of a majority is an agreement among a faction, not an agreement across factions. Can the President find an orthodox Catholic or a conservative Baptist who agrees with him -- and as he cannot, he cannot claim support from "all backgrounds and beliefs". And if the proper course is so clear, then why does he not address the fundamental objections raised against this policy? You cannot find a single word in his statement that suggests that anyone believes his policy permits the abuse of human life. The President has resolutely avoided the arguments of his critics, and argues for the "clarity" of his course only mangling the English language. And it is worth noting that the President resolutely ignores the development of techniques and science that promise to dramatically reduce the importance of the Bush administration research constraints.
This is not "reason", it is politics. It is the very ideology of which he accuses his critics. I simply cannot see how it is possible to have a reasonable debate of principles with a person willing to distort language like this.
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
Raise Their Rates, Until They Deduct
Budget Director Orszag explained the reduction in mortgage interest deduction to CNBC: it isn't fair that Bill Gates gets a $3500 tax break on a $10,000 interest bill while someone else gets a $2800 tax break. I think I've heard him make the same argument for the charitable deduction reduction.
But Bill Gates gets the larger break because he's paying a higher tax rate! He's paying $3500 in tax on a marginal $10,000 while someone else pays $2800. A higher rate is fair when he's paying tax, and a lower rate fair when he's deducting from them.
This isn't fairness. It's a clever formulation to justify further tax increases on wealth. It is a transparent violation of principle, a distortion of language to secure a petty increment of additional revenue.
But Bill Gates gets the larger break because he's paying a higher tax rate! He's paying $3500 in tax on a marginal $10,000 while someone else pays $2800. A higher rate is fair when he's paying tax, and a lower rate fair when he's deducting from them.
This isn't fairness. It's a clever formulation to justify further tax increases on wealth. It is a transparent violation of principle, a distortion of language to secure a petty increment of additional revenue.
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
How's That?
"What you're now seeing is profit and earning ratios are starting to get to the point where buying stocks is a potentially good deal if you've got a long-term perspective on it. I think that consumer confidence -- as they see the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act taking root, businesses are starting to see opportunities for investment and potential hiring, we are going to start creating jobs again." -- President Obama, 3 March 2009
I was going to focus on the plug for the stock market. I've never heard a President say such a thing. What if the market goes up a bit, and then craters, and stays down? This will be cited as evidence the President underestimated the contemporary economic problem while pursuing his social agenda. He has just associated his success or failure with the stock market, the very thing his larger statement was supposed to avoid. Yes, he can take credit if the market rises from here, but he could have done that anyway. Now it's easier to make him wear a collapse. This is just stupid, politically, rhetorically, economically.
But what's with the rest of this paragraph? For one thing, Mr. President, will we be _creating_ jobs? Or _saving_ them -- which, by the way, might be harder to _see_. He has just undermined a key nuance of his policy claims. For another, in a single jumbled sentence he has just associated consumer confidence and business investment with his policies. Again, dandy if they go up, but he could already have claimed credit. Now he's closer to the failures.
I get it. Savvy policymakers _know_ that markets are fickle, so they don't make promises about them. Bob Rubin famously insisted that Clinton should never ring the bell at the New York Stock Exchange. This is hardly a policy address, but these aren't the words of someone who feels in his bones the complexity and uncertainty of economic events. Either he is far more confident of his policies than I had thought, or he doesn't really understand what is going.
I have always suspected that the extraordinary estimates of his intelligence were overdone. I'm now beginning to see evidence of it. Obama has an uncommon knack for projecting mastery of the subject material. Moments like this belie that mastery.
Meanwhile, Brooks confesses he underestimated how Left Obama would be, and Gergen counsels focus on the economy. Obama has a self-supporting image of savvy and intelligence and freshness that has motivated observers to overlook flaws and read all statements charitably. Anything that depends on virtuous cycles and mutal support from interlocking presumptions is vulnerable to vicious cycles and wholesale reassessments. If the wheels start to come off this wagon, this thing could get ugly in a hurry.
I was going to focus on the plug for the stock market. I've never heard a President say such a thing. What if the market goes up a bit, and then craters, and stays down? This will be cited as evidence the President underestimated the contemporary economic problem while pursuing his social agenda. He has just associated his success or failure with the stock market, the very thing his larger statement was supposed to avoid. Yes, he can take credit if the market rises from here, but he could have done that anyway. Now it's easier to make him wear a collapse. This is just stupid, politically, rhetorically, economically.
But what's with the rest of this paragraph? For one thing, Mr. President, will we be _creating_ jobs? Or _saving_ them -- which, by the way, might be harder to _see_. He has just undermined a key nuance of his policy claims. For another, in a single jumbled sentence he has just associated consumer confidence and business investment with his policies. Again, dandy if they go up, but he could already have claimed credit. Now he's closer to the failures.
I get it. Savvy policymakers _know_ that markets are fickle, so they don't make promises about them. Bob Rubin famously insisted that Clinton should never ring the bell at the New York Stock Exchange. This is hardly a policy address, but these aren't the words of someone who feels in his bones the complexity and uncertainty of economic events. Either he is far more confident of his policies than I had thought, or he doesn't really understand what is going.
I have always suspected that the extraordinary estimates of his intelligence were overdone. I'm now beginning to see evidence of it. Obama has an uncommon knack for projecting mastery of the subject material. Moments like this belie that mastery.
Meanwhile, Brooks confesses he underestimated how Left Obama would be, and Gergen counsels focus on the economy. Obama has a self-supporting image of savvy and intelligence and freshness that has motivated observers to overlook flaws and read all statements charitably. Anything that depends on virtuous cycles and mutal support from interlocking presumptions is vulnerable to vicious cycles and wholesale reassessments. If the wheels start to come off this wagon, this thing could get ugly in a hurry.
Tax Me Later, Tax Me Now
Secretary Geithner insists the Administration will not raise taxes in a recession, as the recession will be over in when their proposed increases take effect in 2011.
Let's hope the recession is over then. But people plan for taxes, and their expectations affect their perceived wealth. If they know a tax increase is coming, and suspect a larger one may follow, they will be less confident in their wealth and less likely to consume.
The reductions in mortgage interest deductions are particularly daft. We might argue about the importance of income expectations. But any responsible homebuyer will look at their service costs over the long term. They will not estimate tax savings on interest based on temporary deduction rules. To the extent those deductions affect home prices, the proposed reductions will surely act against home price recovery. Is that the policy this Administration wants to pursue?
Let's hope the recession is over then. But people plan for taxes, and their expectations affect their perceived wealth. If they know a tax increase is coming, and suspect a larger one may follow, they will be less confident in their wealth and less likely to consume.
The reductions in mortgage interest deductions are particularly daft. We might argue about the importance of income expectations. But any responsible homebuyer will look at their service costs over the long term. They will not estimate tax savings on interest based on temporary deduction rules. To the extent those deductions affect home prices, the proposed reductions will surely act against home price recovery. Is that the policy this Administration wants to pursue?
Obama and The Dow
This morning's Journal: "Yesterday the Dow fell . . . for an overall decline of 25% in two months . . . . The dismaying message here is that President Obama's policies have become part of the economy's problem."
Well, it isn't clear whether the Administration is making things worse, or if the markets are realizing that they won't make them better. And no one can demonstrate that some other set of policies would have helped more. Perhaps the economic declines, and the market's anticipations of them, were always inevitable. The correlations between Administration statements and market declines don't necessarily distinguish between the views.
I do suspect the Administration is hurting more than it helps, that markets are pricing larger regulatory and tax burdens than previously expected, and pricing less effective financial resolution. But I can see how Obama's supporters are less concerned. I think it is really too soon to blame the markets on the President.
Well, it isn't clear whether the Administration is making things worse, or if the markets are realizing that they won't make them better. And no one can demonstrate that some other set of policies would have helped more. Perhaps the economic declines, and the market's anticipations of them, were always inevitable. The correlations between Administration statements and market declines don't necessarily distinguish between the views.
I do suspect the Administration is hurting more than it helps, that markets are pricing larger regulatory and tax burdens than previously expected, and pricing less effective financial resolution. But I can see how Obama's supporters are less concerned. I think it is really too soon to blame the markets on the President.
Monday, March 2, 2009
Tax Cuts: As Bad At The Margin As Spending
Quoth Richard Lowry, at the Corner, on the Obama Administration's priorities:
"It's as if FDR skipped the bank holiday and focused first on passing the CCC. . . . if I were Eric Cantor or John Boehner, I'd be talking about a "real recovery package" every day— payroll and corporate tax cuts, regulatory reforms for the financial and auto industries, relief for small business. "
Do conservatives favor tax cuts at _every_ margin?
If Obama is neglecting the financial system, the Congressional Republicans should be talking about it every day, never mind the tax cuts.
But they should go further. They should study and discuss the roots of the situation, and address those with their proposals. I think they'll find asset prices are collapsed by a reduction in credit for over-leveraged levels. That leverage isn't (shouldn't) return, those assets prices aren't returning, and the reversal of wealth-effect consumption will be long term. Tax cuts won't increase perceived wealth enough to overcome the perceived losses from asset price falls, especially since recipients would would anticipate higher future taxes to pay for them. The cuts would help households reduce their debt, but that would be offset by the increase in federal debt.
If they've got a better explanation of the problem, let's hear it. If they don't understand the problem, let's hear _that_ -- and when Obama et al respond with mockery, force _them_ to give _their_ explanations. I promise you, those won't make any sense at all. No one in Washington sounds like they understand the problem. They're all pretending they do, because they're supposed to, but they don't. And if everyone is just guessing anyway, "try something" sounds pretty good, and "help people at the same time" sounds good too. Confusion aids the side with the better soundbites -- and "health care for kids!" will beat "incentive for entrepreneurs!" every time.
Let's stop hearing about how complicated all this is, and start hearing people pick it apart.
If the GOP and the conservatives don't start to talk like grownups, no one will.
"It's as if FDR skipped the bank holiday and focused first on passing the CCC. . . . if I were Eric Cantor or John Boehner, I'd be talking about a "real recovery package" every day— payroll and corporate tax cuts, regulatory reforms for the financial and auto industries, relief for small business. "
Do conservatives favor tax cuts at _every_ margin?
If Obama is neglecting the financial system, the Congressional Republicans should be talking about it every day, never mind the tax cuts.
But they should go further. They should study and discuss the roots of the situation, and address those with their proposals. I think they'll find asset prices are collapsed by a reduction in credit for over-leveraged levels. That leverage isn't (shouldn't) return, those assets prices aren't returning, and the reversal of wealth-effect consumption will be long term. Tax cuts won't increase perceived wealth enough to overcome the perceived losses from asset price falls, especially since recipients would would anticipate higher future taxes to pay for them. The cuts would help households reduce their debt, but that would be offset by the increase in federal debt.
If they've got a better explanation of the problem, let's hear it. If they don't understand the problem, let's hear _that_ -- and when Obama et al respond with mockery, force _them_ to give _their_ explanations. I promise you, those won't make any sense at all. No one in Washington sounds like they understand the problem. They're all pretending they do, because they're supposed to, but they don't. And if everyone is just guessing anyway, "try something" sounds pretty good, and "help people at the same time" sounds good too. Confusion aids the side with the better soundbites -- and "health care for kids!" will beat "incentive for entrepreneurs!" every time.
Let's stop hearing about how complicated all this is, and start hearing people pick it apart.
If the GOP and the conservatives don't start to talk like grownups, no one will.
Friday, February 27, 2009
Compare and Contrast
Set aside any difference in the merits of the Constitutional deviations alleged of the Bush Administration and soon to be signed by the Obama Administration. The latter questioned the applicability of habeas corpus to enemy irregular insurrectionists (these being non-citizens, captured in locations outside and remote from the government's sovereign power, while operating against US troops and civilians of various nationalities). The latter question a plain language reading of "State" that has prevailed in common usage for more than two centuries.
Focus on their effects. Bush's Constitutional "deviations" operated against a dangerous and novel enemy. The Democrat's operates to increase their political power in the House (the Utah seat being ephemeral), and sets precedent for further increases of their power in the Senate, and rewards a key constituency.
Democrats argue the correction of political inequality overrides the plain language of the Constitution. But this negates the premise and strategy of that Constitution. If the meanings of terms like "justice" were obvious, our Constitution wouldn't require all these checks and balances. The Founders rejected simple majority rule for a complex of divided powers, and so denied the reliability of any understanding of "justice" prevailing in any particular election.
This focus on procedure is not new. No Constitutional inconsistency was egregious as slavery. Our forefathers still acted as if justice was best served by reforming that monstrosity with nice attention to the Constitutional powers of the Executive and proper procedure for amendment.
Maybe Bush was wrong about habeas corpus for al-Qaeda, but if so he wasn't contradicting the fundamental nature of our governing charter.
The Constitution does not establish equality, or seek to advance it. It presumes, rather than creates, its citizens' equality and individual rights. "Progressive" in its improvement over prior governments, it does not seek to create some quality or quantity that would not exist without it. While it imagines more perfect recognitions of liberty and equality, and is perhaps "progressive" in its inspiration, it leaves these improvements to a political process governed by its procedures.
The procedural protections of the Constitution have been eroded by the recognition of unstated purposes like "privacy rights", the elevation of equality among its purposes, and increasingly contemporary understandings of terms like "church" and "arms". I think we're now seeing that these procedures cannot be trumped by its unstated but implied purposes without installing the majority rule it explicitly rejected. And that majority will rule to further secure that rule.
Focus on their effects. Bush's Constitutional "deviations" operated against a dangerous and novel enemy. The Democrat's operates to increase their political power in the House (the Utah seat being ephemeral), and sets precedent for further increases of their power in the Senate, and rewards a key constituency.
Democrats argue the correction of political inequality overrides the plain language of the Constitution. But this negates the premise and strategy of that Constitution. If the meanings of terms like "justice" were obvious, our Constitution wouldn't require all these checks and balances. The Founders rejected simple majority rule for a complex of divided powers, and so denied the reliability of any understanding of "justice" prevailing in any particular election.
This focus on procedure is not new. No Constitutional inconsistency was egregious as slavery. Our forefathers still acted as if justice was best served by reforming that monstrosity with nice attention to the Constitutional powers of the Executive and proper procedure for amendment.
Maybe Bush was wrong about habeas corpus for al-Qaeda, but if so he wasn't contradicting the fundamental nature of our governing charter.
The Constitution does not establish equality, or seek to advance it. It presumes, rather than creates, its citizens' equality and individual rights. "Progressive" in its improvement over prior governments, it does not seek to create some quality or quantity that would not exist without it. While it imagines more perfect recognitions of liberty and equality, and is perhaps "progressive" in its inspiration, it leaves these improvements to a political process governed by its procedures.
The procedural protections of the Constitution have been eroded by the recognition of unstated purposes like "privacy rights", the elevation of equality among its purposes, and increasingly contemporary understandings of terms like "church" and "arms". I think we're now seeing that these procedures cannot be trumped by its unstated but implied purposes without installing the majority rule it explicitly rejected. And that majority will rule to further secure that rule.
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