Swiftboating the Deficit

Burgeoning social programs, massive injections of funds into work programs, and nationalist calls for a rallying around a common purpose: rebuilding America.  These three components highlight the recovery of 2009-10 in much the same manner that they did in the New Deal, the extensive reconstruction of the American economy after the Great Depression.

John B has expressed on several occasions the ways in which President Obama's programs mirror the New Deal in both aim and execution, but suddenly there's trouble afoot.  The same ideals that crowned the policies of FDR now threaten to nurture the greatest threat to our Democracy since the election of the president himself: the deficit.

You cannot turn on the news anymore without hearing some talking head comment about the ballooning deficit. In their defense, the prospect seems attractive: ballooning debts and deficits are no way to run a business so why should America be exempt from the rules of the market?  When are lenders just going to quit lending, sensing that there is no end in sight?  Surely large swaths of the global community will see us as a joke and our national identity will suffer, right?

The problem is that, according to an article by Paul Krugman in the NY Times, the deficit and national debt are far less serious problems then we are being lead to believe.  I admit, even I was concerned with the concept until I read Krugman's outlook (he likens current tactics to the kind of fear-mongering that lead us into Iraq).

Now, it's not my job to sit here and point out where the right fails like a glorified (?) watchdog.  Shoring up national debts and relinquishing ourselves from the grasp of the Chinese economy sounds like a perfectly respectable thing to do.  However, the constantly repeated talking points and misinformation of the political right in this country is clearly in full swing on this matter, convincing average Americans that the goal posts of health insurance (!) reform and job creation are not nearly as important as "fiscal responsibility", now a concrete pillar of the Republican line.

Yet we do not challenge it.  The deficit was never in question when President Bush manufactured consent for two wars, the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act, and tax cuts to the wealthiest 2% but when Obama's well-vetted programs (whose recommendation come from the godfather John Maynard Keynes himself) threaten to temporarily increase government spending en route to a reduction in the national debt, it's time to rally that Tea Party "populism".

Some of you may think that you can't make a difference on the matter, but when "experts" are out there claiming that a necessary run of deficit spending is endangering our standing as a nation, it is time to put out what word we can and convince whoever may read our words that they are being lied to.  This stands to become a big issue in the coming election, which means its our time to be citizens.

Write as you see fit, agree or disagree, and remember that America was founded on the open forum, the polis, of the printed word.

Climate Change, an Update (You're Lucky to Get This Post)

Due to a full dead week here at Iowa State and a more than overloaded Blogger named Moi (not actually my name), I wanted to dive into a topic that I really care about: Climate change.

As we all know, world leaders are lined up in Copenhagen today to make non-committal and probably weak agreements regarding the future of our planet and while I know this is slightly hyperbole, it really isn't.  Here's a video about the event.

While the fanfare is all well and good, I do have to address Alex K's fear: what if we reach the tipping point?  For those of you without nerd-like knowledge of the topic, the tipping point is the point where the climate has changed enough that the effects are irreversible.  According to a recent article on NPR, the public's concern for climate change is dwindling (though not by direct choice) and with industrialized nations hesitant to jump into concrete goals for carbon emissions reductions, it seems more and more every day like the tipping point is a real possibility.

So my question for you is this: what's next?  What is the best move politically and socially for you and I and the government to take in order to prevent this catastrophe?  Is it President Obama enforcing emissions reductions on his own now that the EPA has ruled that greenhouse gases are a danger to human life?  Is it coddling Congress into another slow and arduous "bipartisan agreement" on climate change?  Should we even leave the decision to the flawed logic, swiftboating, and PR funding of climate skeptics vs. science and reason showdown?  What is next for the administration and for you and I?

Feel free to leave your comments at the front desk.

Welcome Back/The Housing Crisis

Well it was a heck of a Thanksgiving break and if you're like me, all you managed to accomplish was nothing.  Amidst more homework than ever before and an extremely uncomfortable bed at my girlfriend's mom's house, its hard to feel like we got any gains out of the too-late break.  However, there's only a couple weeks until finals so I guess we just have to get tough... To think we have two more years of this!

Anyway, down to brass tacks.  While the economy continues to make gains throughout the country with stocks rising and companies posting profits, the one area where gains are not being seen is the one that's most important to you and I: employment and the housing industry.

A recent NY Times article highlighted the unfortunate shortcomings of the current administration's program, Making Home Affordable.  The government incentives offered under the program clearly aren't pushing lenders any closer to permanent restructuring of loans and the rising unemployment continues to drag foreclosure numbers upward.

President Obama is feeling more pressure than ever to use the bully pulpit for good and Senators are looking at measures to restructure the Fed's current housing program to put more pressure on lenders for the good of delinquent borrowers.  Anti-government tea baggers heads' are spinning.

The following brief explanation sums up the article well:

From its inception early this year, the Obama administration’s program, called Making Home Affordable, has been dogged by persistent questions about whether it could diminish a swelling wave of foreclosures. Some economists argued that the plan was built for last year’s problem — exotic mortgages whose payments increased — and not for the current menace of soaring joblessness. Lawyers who defend homeowners against foreclosure maintained that mortgage companies collect lucrative fees from long-term delinquency, undercutting their incentive to lower payments to affordable levels.

Now at the end of the day, I think it's time to stop the bleeding.  The article suggests that one measure under consideration is mediated renegotiation of home loans by bankruptcy judges, putting pressure on lenders to cut their losses in lieu of financial stability.  While this will ultimately hurt the financial industry a bit, I am staunchly of the opinion that they've received quite enough of our money and this would help us by making them shoulder the burden for their deeds.

In the same breath, tighter controls need to be put in place to prevent the wild borrowing that lead people to default on their mortgages.  If we do not curtail both wild financial speculation by banks and unsafe borrowing practices by consumers, then we have learned absolutely nothing from this catastrophe.

The bottom line is this, flex muscle on lenders, relieve pressure on consumers, get money back into the economy, spur job growth.  Seems like a simple chain but as I'm sure Alex K will demonstrate, it probably isn't.

You know what to do cats and chicks.  Feel free to leave comments at the front desk.

So Much for Compromise

When Obama was elected, he did so on a platform of Hope.  Hope for peace, hope for an end to societies ills, and, most optimistically, hope for bipartisanship in a country whose divide between the left and right is deepening every day.

Let's be honest with ourselves, if we all step off of our respective political soapboxes, we can probably find the best action for policy through compromise.  Somehow through that daily gnashing of teeth, the Democrats and the Republicans (at some time I'm sure) have eeked out bipartisan agreements for the better of the country.

Not to pick on them, but Republicans obviously do not agree.

According to a recent NY Times article, Republicans are experiencing extensive party infighting that threatens to divide them into moderate and far-right camps.  Even the candidates that the RNC recently elected (in what they purport is the most poignant referendum on the Obama agenda yet) are in danger of falling victim to the party's mechanics:

Conservatives counter that Republicans have become Democrats’ enablers in bigger deficits and bigger government, and that the way to win is to sharpen the distinctions between the parties.

And there you have it folks.  Conservatives and Republicans.  Now I know its politically reductionist to lump them into the same camp but for at least the past eight years they've both run under the same banner.  Furthermore, if compromise is the best road to productive legislation, it appears that the right will have nothing of productivity.

The next big question is, what effect will this have on the midterm elections next year?  Democrats are, as a historical trend, poised to lose seats in the next election, but will this new found infighting between conservatives, Republicans, Fox News, and the RNC have an effect?

You know what to do.  Feel free to leave your comments at the front desk.

Republican Problems Back Home

While most of the talk in the news has been at the possibility of Democrats losing seats in the House and Senate in the midterm elections of 2010, Republicans have not been encased in this glass bubble of political immunity (though that's not what most analysts would have us believe)

Along with a further discussion of his politics, a recent New York Times article depicts the impending fall of Senator Lindsey Graham (R - SC).  Apparently his more progressive stances have won him a censure by his own party.  According to the article:

The executive committee of the Charleston County Republican Party voted unanimously on Monday to rebuke Mr. Graham “for many of the positions he has taken that do not represent the wishes of the people of South Carolina, such as: passing a ‘cap and trade’ energy bill, bailing out banks and granting amnesty for illegal aliens.”

 Perhaps Republicans should be just as scared as Democrats by the winds of change.

Do you think this has more to do with Republican - Democrat battles or with the pile of failed political careers that change inevitably leaves behind?  Please feel free to leave comments at the front desk.