How do you kill the economy? Pass a balanced budget amendment.

Guest post by Publius

The House recently passed “Cut, Cap and Balance” (see John McCain’s fantastic take on it here). Republicans are convinced of the need for a balanced budget amendment, and one of the most cited arguments for they give for a balanced budget amendment is that 49 states have one so the federal government should too.

The concept of a balanced budget amendment sounds intuitive enough. “Ordinary Americans and 49 states have to balance their budgets,” the argument goes, “so Congress should too.” Well, not exactly.

First, there is a huge difference between the balanced budget “amendments” (several states have laws instead of constitutional amendments) at the state level and the proposed amendment at the federal level. The state amendments, for example, do not even attempt to balance the entire state budget. Instead, they almost exclusively only apply to a state’s “general fund.” The general fund oftentimes constitutes less than half of a state’s budget. It is the fund out of which general expenditures flow and into which general revenues enter. “Special” expenditures and revenues, such as gasoline taxes, education expenses, etc., have nothing to do with the general fund and are exempt from the balancing requirement.

If Congresspeople would stop and think about their argument for a moment, they would quickly realize that the balanced budget requirements at the state level either can’t apply to the entire budget or are laxly enforced. Most every single state is currently running a deficit, and has been for several years! Further analysis by these Congresspeople would also show the issue isn’t lax enforcement- at least exclusively.

In 1987, the Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations published an oft-cited study (PDF) of state balanced budget requirements. The study examined each state’s budget balancing requirements and the mechanisms each used to enforce the requirements. It then ranked each state on a scale of 0-10, with 0 being no enforcement mechanism and 10 being the strongest possible enforcement mechanism. 26 of the states ranked a “10,” and in 2004, California recently became the 27th state to join that category by adopting an amendment to its constitution. Here’s how those states have done with their deficits since FY 2009:

States in categories 3-5 (fairly lax enforcement) had the largest deficits by far over the measured periods, but states in category 10 (most stringent) were the next worst deficit spenders. Ironically, states with little to no enforcement mechanism had almost no deficit (though only 2 states fit in this category, so not much of a sample size). This suggests that stringent enforcement of a balanced budget amendment is insufficient to produce a balanced budget for the states.

The scatterplot table below (amounts in thousands) shows the deficits by year, state and category. California’s enormous deficits and NY’s 2010 deficit were removed from the scatterplot because they shrunk the scale of the chart so much the rest was not legible:

The scatterplot is a bit messy, but it shows the size of the deficit for each state within the 0-10 enforcement categories described above. There’s no getting around it. No matter how strict a state balanced budget requirement is, states continue running deficits during this economic downturn. This doesn’t mean the balanced budget requirements have no impact- only that they don’t accomplish what Republicans in Congress think they accomplish.

One might ask, “Why isn’t the federal proposal (which demands that the entire budget be balanced) more workable than the state proposals?” Well, first consider that the federal “general fund” only accounts for about about 35% of the entire federal budget. That number includes defense spending, however (which is considered “discretionary” even though it has a history of only going up). Non-defense discretionary spending only accounts for about 15% of the budget.

A true “balanced budget amendment” like what Republicans have proposed could require that money which is allocated to defense spending or other mandatory spending (social security, Medicare, Medicaid, interest on the debt, etc.) be cut in order to balance the budget. In FY 2010, for example, the deficit was about $1.3 trillion. Total non-defense discretionary spending in FY 2010 was only $714 billion. Even if all non-defense discretionary spending was eliminated in FY 2010 (no spending on education, justice, health, roads or other infrastructure, etc.), we would have still had a $586 billion deficit. Total defense spending in FY 2010 was only $663.7 billion, meaning to avoid any cuts to mandatory spending (which, as its name implies, is money we must spend), the Department of Defense budget would have been reduced by 88% (to a total of $77 billion). The last time defense spending was that low was 1973.

As should be obvious, when a severe recession hits, it’s quite difficult to balance a budget. In fact, it’s also precisely the wrong thing to do in a recession (when spending should go up as a stabilizer). The federal government has a macroeconomic role through fiscal policy which it cannot play if it is hamstrung by a balanced budget amendment. But even assuming that wasn’t the case, there’s just not enough discretionary spending to cut to balance a budget in a severe recession. Recessions reduce tax revenue dramatically because people lose jobs and stop paying FICA and income taxes. There just aren’t enough discretionary dollars to eliminate to keep pace. That means defense spending and/or mandatory spending has to be cut. So who should cut it?

This is the next problem with the balanced budget amendment. The enforcement mechanism. If the Constitution requires Congress to balance a budget and it doesn’t- what happens? In some states, the governor can eliminate spending without legislative approval (like a line-item veto). In 2010, however, there is no chance any politician would have voluntarily eliminated 100% of discretionary spending plus a large amount of defense/mandatory spending. The courts, then, would be required to mandate the cuts or, alternatively, raise taxes (also a bad idea during a recession). One can only imagine the Republican cries of “activist judiciary” in such an instance- and ironically they would have been the ones demanding that the judiciary take such an activist role. I should mention that tax increases could be adopted in lieu of spending cuts, but I haven’t spent much time on that option because: a) Republicans would never agree to tax increases; and b) to ensure no tax increases are passed, Republicans have proposed in Cut, Cap and Balance that all tax increases require a 2/3 vote, effectively making them illegal.

So, what happens if the courts also don’t act to force the budget to balance? The Constitution is violated and, as we are seeing with the debt ceiling debate, the nation’s credit rating would beat risk as a consequence (thereby threatening global economic instability).

Of course, the federal amendment could be fashioned to look more like the state balanced budget requirements and only apply to discretionary spending. Needless to say, such an amendment would not eliminate federal deficits (which is the stated purpose of enacting such an amendment). The amendment would be circumvented entirely in recessions (appropriately so from an economic perspective) which would only serve to undermine the Constitution and the rule of law. The accounting tricks employed by states to “balance their budgets” would only be magnified at the federal level thereby creating far more frustration with the system (California technically has a balanced budget this year, despite its projected $17.9 billion deficit).

The balanced budget amendment as included in Cut, Cap and Balance is quite possibly the worst economic idea any major party has actively promoted in modern history. It can’t work- except to wreak havoc. Few other proposals stand to do as much harm to the US and global economies, particularly during recessions.

(Cross-posted at The Fourth Branch.)

Billion-dollar coins and exploding options -- oh my!

By Capt. Fogg

Maybe the president can't simply cite the 14th Amendment and raise the debt ceiling, maybe he can -- but does the Constitution provide a paddle? Must he allow the Tea Party to shut down the government as the more mainstream Republicans attempted to do in 1995 during the Clinton administration? 

You remember President Clinton, don't you, the guy that the snickering snarkmongers told us would only serve one term, who would destroy capitalism, plunge us into debt and start fake wars simply to allow him to become a dictator. I'm sure the parallels are coincidental (wink-wink, nudge-nudge).

But Obama, even if if no Clinton ( for better or worse), may still have options, says Jack M. Balkin, Knight Professor of Constitutional Law at Yale Law School. The Constitution has as many loopholes as the Tea Party has loonies, although some of them are as arcane as something out of The Da Vinci Code. There's the Platinum Coin Gambit and the Exploding Option Strategy, for instance.

Even so, all may not be lost for 14th Amendment solution protagonists, like Bill Clinton and a few others, says Balkin:

If the president reasonably believes that the public debt will be put in question for either reason, Section 4 comes into play once again. His predicament is caused by the combination of statutes that authorize and limit what he can do: He must pay appropriated monies, but he may not print new currency and he may not float new debt. If this combination of contradictory commands would cause him to violate Section 4, then he has a constitutional duty to treat at least one of the laws as unconstitutional as applied to the current circumstances.

Balkin likens this dispute to recent attempts to topple the president over his ability to use the military to protect the national interest or in emergencies: 

If the courts won't intervene in the Libya affair, they probably won't intervene here.

But regardless of your opinion on the best way to beat back the barbarians, whichever side you think they're on, Balkin's CNN exclusive interview is great reading and gives a glimmer of hope that the Constitution will do what it was designed to do: protect us.

(Cross-posted from Human Voices.)

Taking the 14th

By Capt. Fogg

"The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned."

14th Amendment, U.S. Constitution
____________

Now, I'm no lawyer, which means that I generally take such statements at face value and have no knowledge of what pretzels they've been twisted into by various courts in various cases, but it seems to me that if congress can't question the validity of our public debt, then congress can't refuse to pay it or more importantly say it's only valid under a certain amount authorized by Congress after they've already deemed it legal. What do you think?

I hate to bring up the Constitution at a time when the Tea Bag Patriots are pretending to worship it while claiming that those who would like to actually conform to it are "shredding it," but the situation is getting serious.

Of course, this whole controversy is about "taking down" the president we elected by a good margin and replacing him with a Tea Party Republican of their choice hell bent not on reducing the debt, but killing Social Security, Medicare, all forms of welfare, and any protection for the public against the health insurance cartel -- and all to make sure people like me can put an extra tank of fuel into the yacht every now and then thus creating jobs in the Bahamas and Taiwan.

After all, they raised the debt ceiling every year a Republican was in office since the beginning of the Reagan administration and authorized Bush's massive debt explosion like a well-disciplined private army. Remember when "debt doesn't matter" was the slogan? No? Well I do.

Obama would be impeached if he blocked debt payments,

says Rep. Steve King (R-IA) and he'd also be impeached if he invalidated the debt ceiling based on the 14th Amendment, says Rep. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) Talk about a poker player with a "tell." Might as well lay the cards on the table.

It's all about impeachment and all about finding some flimsy excuse for forcing the president into a position where they will impeach him if he does and impeach him if he doesn't. No more revolting, I guess, than impeaching one for asking his secretary not to tell his wife he was having an affair. Talk about insurrection and rebellion! No sooner did we lose the Cold War gravy train then we embarked on the Cold Secession.

President Clinton told us recently he wouldn't hesitate to use the 14th to raise the debt ceiling and "force the courts to stop me." You'll remember the attempts to impeach him on any pretext and how the talk of the "failure of the Clinton presidency" preceded the Clinton presidency and how he would certainly be a one-term president and how his tax policies would bankrupt the economy. They hope you won't remember, of course, because we're hearing the same damned bullshit again.

I think the Constitution is clear and I think this idea that the Congress gets to vote twice on whether to pay for [expenditures] it has appropriated is crazy,

said Bill Clinton to The National Memo last week. No wonder slimy things like the Newt are challenging the Constitutional basis for even having a Supreme Court.

Meanwhile that extra 3% tax cut I get on anything I earn over $250,000 is going to prompt me to create jobs for those struggling people now paying for the longest, most expensive wars in American history while losing their houses, jobs, and medical insurance, waiting for the voodoo to kick in and save us all -- and all will be fine just in time for a Tea Party president. I can feel it in my bones.

(Cross-posted from Human Voices.)

Pants on fire

By Capt. Fogg

The judicial power of the United States, shall be vested in one Supreme Court, and in such inferior courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish.

Article III of the U.S. Constitution

There is no Supreme Court in the American Constitution.

Newt Gingrich

Really, Newt? Are you really a history professor? Do you really think we're that stupid?

It's getting hard to tolerate the stench coming out of the pre-primary Republican cesspool; from presidential candidates getting government funds -- our tax dollars -- to teaching people how to pray away the gay and advocating the use of federal might to stamp out all forms of pornography frowned on by their frowning religion and to legislate and limit and punish our personal relationships -- while griping about too much government interference and too much spending and too much social engineering. It's getting damned hard to tolerate morally, mentally, and ethically bankrupt creeps like Newt Gingrich, who is quite happy to feed the malignant idiocy now consuming the remnants of our Republic by telling us that our constitution does not "mention" much less provide for a Supreme Court, Article III of the Constitution notwithstanding. 

We now have this entire national elite that wants us to believe that any five lawyers are a Constitutional convention. That is profoundly un-American and profoundly wrong,

lies the moral multimillionaire elitist with the million dollar line of credit at the jewelry store and a string of illicit mistresses and abused ex-wives. That's profoundly un-American and profoundly wrong and profoundly Republican. But of course anyone who thinks the highest court is an extra-legal ad hoc assembly of five self-appointed members foisted on the public by "elitists" and with no constitutional authority can hardly be considered an elitist of any kind unless there's a ranking of candidates according to their ignorance and mendacity and greed. Perhaps Newt just forgot that the Supreme Court justices are approved by Congress or perhaps he's just a lying tub of septic scum who thinks he's entitled by birth and party affiliation to feast on the corpse of America.

You can fool some of the people all of the time: you can fool a lot of them in fact. They're called Republicans. They're called perverts, they're called liars, thieves, embezzlers and saboteurs.


(Cross-posted from Human Voices.)

Debt ceiling madness: Standing on the brink of economic apocalypse

By Michael J.W. Stickings

There may soon be a deal, and maybe even a "grand" one (or maybe this more realistic one), that will see America's debt ceiling raised. It has to be, if economic apocalypse is to be avoided, but the default deniers in the GOP are resisting to the end and seem to have no problem, probably because they have no idea what's really going on here and what the consequences would be, accepting, as Sen. Jim DeMint ignorantly put it, "serious disruptions" to the economy.

Of course, there wouldn't just be "disruptions." Defaulting would wreak havoc on the economy and on millions and millions of Americans:

If Congress fails to raise the national debt limit by early August, the Obama Treasury Department will have to choose between defaulting on obligations to the country's creditors -- triggering higher interest rates and perhaps damaging the country's credit rating for months and years to come -- or freezing outlays to contractors, entitlement beneficiaries and others who are also expecting prompt payment as well. In either case, the macroeconomic impact will be staggering.

This according to Mark Zandi, Moody's chief economist and former McCain advisor.

Now, if there's no deal, there's another option, a constitutional one:

Last month, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner suggested that the debt ceiling is unconstitutional because of Section 4 of the 14th Amendment, which states that "the validity of the public debt of the United States... shall not be questioned." If the Obama administration were to embrace this view, the country could avoid default in the event that the debt ceiling is not raised by the Aug. 2 deadline.

This may not be the preferred option, and it may just be the option of last resort, but what else is there to do when the other party has succumbed to sheer madness?

And mad it is. House Republicans are actually considering filing articles of impeachment against Obama should he end up having to go the constitutional route. That's how wildly disconnected from reality they and their priorities are, how blindly partisan they are, how closed to compromise in the name of any sort of common good they are, how unable or unwilling they are to dealing in any meaningful way with the country's long-term fiscal problems, not to mention the debt ceiling crisis they themselves have created.

Look, there are good reasons to criticize the president. To say the least, he has handled the debt ceiling issue poorly. He seemed (and still seems) to have all the leverage, with Republicans torn between the party's corporate establishment (which understands that the debt ceiling needs to be raised) and the Tea Party (which fervently opposes any compromise on the debt ceiling and will launch a primary challenge against any Republican who violates its extremist demands). Boehner is the one in the difficult position, not Obama. And yet it is Obama who is the one giving in, and who is prepared to give the other side almost everything it wants just to get a deal done. No, not what the extremists want, but certainly what Republicans should be prepared to accept and what would, for them, constitute victory.

Obama has even put Social Security and Medicare cuts on the table. This has justifiably incurred the ire of many liberals, including this one. It appears that Obama is desperate to do a deal -- or, if not desperate, willing to go to great lengths, willing to give up a great deal, to avoid risking a debt ceiling crisis, even if it would be the Republicans to blame for it. (The White House is pushing back against the story, saying that it "overshoots the runway" and that the president wants to strengthen Social Security. But that's awfully vague and keeps everything on the table.)

But, seriously, impeachment? Republican craziness is piling up, higher and higher, at a time when what is needed is maturity and sobriety, a willingness to work for the American people, including for future generations of Americans, by putting aside ideological extremism and working towards a deal that makes sense to both sides.

Yes, Obama deserves to be criticized -- though we'll have to see exactly how much he gives up if and when a deal gets done -- but we mustn't forget that this is all happening because Republicans simply refuse to work constructively with the president and the Democrats, that is, refuse to help govern the country in any productive way. They're such extremists, and so ignorant of what they are doing, that they're taking the country to the brink of economic apocalypse and are willing, it seems, to pull it into the abyss.

Ultimately, Obama and the Democrats, along with the few Republicans who actually want to help, must do whatever it takes to save America.

If they're for it, we're against it.

By Capt. Fogg

The natural state of men, before they were joined in society, was a war, and not simply, but a war of all against all.

-Libertas, Thomas Hobbes -


Scanning the Facebook page of my congresscritter, Tom Rooney (R-FL) I find the real interest not to be the simplistic banalities and the strained attempts to generate outrage against Barack Obama. It's not the continuing effort by Rooney to portray the assistance being given NATO's actions in Syria as a constitutional violation; it's more about the truly demented calls for impeachment by the people who post there; calls that remain in view without comment by Mr. Rooney, who claims that he maintains the page to be more "in touch" with the sentiments of his constituents rather than as a tool to promote irrational rage for political purposes.

If he has some constituents other than me who disagree with the "Oh I just hate, hate him" and "Oh he just makes me sick" and the "he uses the constitution to line his bird cage" swamp dwellers, they must indeed like me, be very reluctant to post comments there under their real names. He's created a milieu quite hostile to reason and reasonable people offering constructive criticism.

Yes, of course there are many questions about the legality of George W. Bush's legacy, some of which -- too much of which -- remains in place, but the War on Obama is not really based on his alleged and often misrepresented constitutional infractions, and we know it because they weren't presented as such during the previous administration and indeed were eagerly supported by the reactionary beasts who hang out on the Rooney page to congratulate themselves and outdo each other on the size of their hate. Indeed, that place is a microcosm of our war against ourselves, a war of all against all.

It's not that I like Senator Rand Paul or his familiar pose of principled outrage, but I am indeed on his side when it comes to addressing the real constitutional outrage of the Patriot Act. I have to smile at what may be the end of his naivete because it isn't the Democrats at war with the Leahy-Paul Amendment, designed to allow greater oversight of ever increasing Government warrantless surveillance powers under that cynically named act. It's the Republicans supporting precisely the kind of power they pretend to oppose while posturing as libertarians to the frothy-mouthed and furious rabble.

“Unfortunately, what we’re finding now is that the Democrats have agreed to allow me to have amendments but my own party is refusing to allow me to debate or present my amendments.”

Said Paul. Imagine that.

But as the man said, the joining of people into a society serves to prevent the chaos of nature, and I have to ask myself whether the effort to portray anything social or designed for the common good as the unqualified evil of Socialism, did not have the promotion of that very bellum omnium contra omnes; everyone at war with everyone and every man for himself as a purpose. Perhaps when everyone is against everyone, such things as consistent viewpoints are illusory as is anything resembling principle. If you're for it, I'm against it may be as close as we can get.

(Cross posted from Human Voices)

Just wrong

By Carl 

It makes little sense to spread democracy around the globe if we are not going to practise democratic ideals:

The Daily Telegraph, along with other newspapers including The Washington Post, today exposes America's own analysis of almost ten years of controversial interrogations on the world’s most dangerous terrorists. This newspaper has been shown thousands of pages of top-secret files obtained by the WikiLeaks website. 

[...]The files detail the background to the capture of each of the 780 people who have passed through the Guantanamo facility in Cuba, their medical condition and the information they have provided during interrogations.

Only about 220 of the people detained are assessed by the Americans to be dangerous international terrorists. A further 380 people are lower-level foot-soldiers, either members of the Taliban or extremists who travelled to Afghanistan whose presence at the military facility is questionable.

At least a further 150 people are innocent Afghans or Pakistanis, including farmers, chefs and drivers who were rounded up or even sold to US forces and transferred across the world. In the top-secret documents, senior US commanders conclude that in dozens of cases there is "no reason recorded for transfer".

However, the documents do not detail the controversial techniques used to obtain information from detainees, such as water-boarding, stress positions and sleep deprivation, which are now widely regarded as tantamount to torture. 

Now, let's see what the Framers had in mind with respect to "democracy":

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

Words you and I, if you're American, had to learn by heart. This doesn't mean that some men who are not American do not have the same rights and privileges as Americans. It says that the Creator made all men equal, that all men are entitled to life and that all men are entitled to their personal freedom. It also says that even a Teabagger ought to recognize these rights, that it doesn't require deep thought or evidentiary hearings. All men are entitled to these rights. Period.

The Framers were smart enough to elucidate these points and outline these rights in a supporting document to this Declaration, our Constitution.

Right up top in the first Ten Amendments, the Bill of Rights, the Framers delineated what is liberty. Liberty is the protection of the individual from the tyranny of the majority, that beautiful phrase of John Stuart Mill. That majority can take the form of mob or governance by mob rule.

It means that any man in the entire world should be free from the depredations of our exertion of American will and might over him. One can make the case that in war, these rules should be suspended, and perhaps there is a point to be made there but it seems to me that if you can't have a higher batting percentage than roughly .500 in the application of that suspension versus harming innocents, you have no business being in the business of war in the first place.

The willful negligence... and that's being overly polite... of the Bush and Obama administrations in the pursuit of the aims of their aggressions in Afghanistan, Iraq and now in Libya will come back to haunt American citizens. How can it not? How can Americans expect to live a life of freedom in a world where freedom is a slogan and not a philosophy? How can we expect to continue to presume that what we own and what we enjoy cannot be taken from us at a moment's notice, not just by those who would do us harm, but also by those who wave the flag of "freedom" in our faces?

How can we in good conscience say we are bringing freedom to the world, but only to the part of the world that agrees with us? For if one man is not free, they I am not free. And if I am not free, then my fellow Americans are not free. 

(Cross-posted to Simply Left Behind.)

So you think the Tea Party GOP isn't a cesspool of bigotry?

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Add this to all the evidence that's accumulated so far:

As the Republican presidential nomination process begins, one GOP candidate is making a name for himself as the Islamophobia candidate: Herman Cain.

Earlier this week, Cain gave an interview to Christianity Today in which he declared that, "based upon the little knowledge that I have of the Muslim religion, you know, they have an objective to convert all infidels or kill them."

ThinkProgress caught up with the former CEO of Godfather's Pizza [on Saturday] at the Conservative Principles Conference in Des Moines, Iowa, to discuss his comments further. We asked him, in light of his statements on Islam, would he be comfortable appointing any Muslims in his administration. Rather than skirting the question or hedging his answer, as most presidential aspirants are wont to do, Cain was definitive: "No, I would not."

You'll note that Cain won a fairly significant Tea Party straw poll last month, is a major figure in the Tea Party, and is one of those on the right for whom the Tea Party and the Republican Party should be one and the same.

And now he's on record exposing himself as a bigot -- and as someone who apparently has no regard for the Constitution, which states that "no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States."

Much of the anti-Muslim bigotry within high-profile Republican circles -- say, among the likes of Sarah Palin and Newt Gingrich -- is carefully constructed so as to appear not to be bigotry. (Consider, for example, the flap over the Park51 community center near Ground Zero.)

At least Cain is being honest with us.

Passion play

By Capt. Fogg

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof...

___________

If you managed to get through grade school, you've read this many times, but it never seems to influence the way Americans act or feel: a syndrome that seems more influenced by mob psychology and sectarian chauvinism than anything else. Of course, it's long been this way and we've long been a xenophobic and gullible nation, but with the advent of round-the-clock swineherds like Fox News, the grunting and squealing of feral-hog America is drowning out the voice of our founding fathers and of decent men and women everywhere. 

[E]ven if the Mufti of Constantinople were to send a missionary to preach Mohammedanism to us, he would find a pulpit at his service. (Ben Franklin) 

The same folks who want to persecute Muslims for their religion and prohibit the free exercise thereof will assert, without twitching their nostrils at the smell of hypocrisy, that this is a Christian nation and that Christian laws, whatever they might be, supersede our national laws about abortion, birth control, spending government funds on Christian activities, and browbeating children into theological submission. It's not okay that a Muslim man doesn't want to drink alcohol or a Jew doesn't want to eat pork, but it's fine that a Christian pharmacist refuses to dispense condoms. Damn the Constitution, we're a Christian nation. The laws of other religions need not apply, and, in fact, although there is no chance whatever that the United States will adopt the Qur'an as a replacement for the Constitution and its body of laws, it's not enough for the grunting pigs of God who would like to make the free exercise of Islam illegal. 

He was despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. (Isaiah 53:3) 

The latest crusade seems to be about portraying every comment by every Muslim as an example of Sharia, from a cabby in Detroit asking that he not be forced to transport alcohol to someone praying in Arabic in front of the White House. According to one witness, he was asking for a blessing on those "Christians" who seemed oblivious to the staggering irony of a mob mocking and cursing a bearded man, bent in prayer, forgiving them for persecuting him. None of this has anything to do with any effort to replace our laws and courts with Islamic laws or Islamic judges, nor can it since no effort exists. As to the rules of private observance, let's let only Christians do that! The only credible attempt of theocratic pretenders to the throne is of course by self-styled Christians, as the porcine squeals of the glossolalians Palin and Huckabee would prove. 

As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquillity, of Musselmen... (George Washington) 

Perhaps it's fortunate that such people are stupid enough to hoist themselves with their own petty petards. You'll recall, and perhaps with a smile, Oklahoma's attempt to thwart the non-existent Islamic takeover by attempting a tin-foil-hat law banning all religious commands -- which in effect banned the Jewish commandments they had been trying to insert into American life, but we can't afford to depend on their congenital stupidity when so much is at stake. And yes, it takes a stupid man to think that somehow Americans would decide to write Sharia or Islamic tribal practices into American law in open defiance of the Constitution or that the tiny percentage of Muslim Americans would somehow magically or accidentally do it by themselves.

The courts have decisively ruled that the establishment and free exercise clauses forbid the federal and state governments to prefer one religion to another, or religion to irreligion or atheism. The Torah, the Bible, the Qur'an, the Gita, the works of Nietzsche: state or federal government may not adopt any of them as preferable, much less mandatory. But we're a little people, a silly people -- greedy, barbarous, and cruel people, if I might borrow from T.E. Lawrence -- and a cowardly, ignorant, and hateful people as well. "Conservative" legislators continue and will persist in thriving on our traditional sins by inventing threats that must be countered by measures to accelerate our inexorable descent into loserhood. They'll continue to demonize the way their predecessors demonized German, Irish, Italian, Mexican, African, Catholic, Jewish, Chinese, and Indian immigrants, and history will continue to prove them wrong.

(Cross-posted from Human Voices.)

How about a real government for the people?

By Distributorcap

We thought it was bad when Bush was in charge, but just look at the simpletons running the House of Representatives now. It's Titticut Follies meets Duck Soup.

Boehner, Cantor, McConnell, and the entire new crop of teabagging dingbats like Rand Paul and the freshmen reps give new meaning to the Peter Principle. Face it, we have a completely broken government put in power by a completely broken electoral system.

It is really time Americans took a hard look at our system and organization of government (which we won't) and change the things that are driving us into the cesspool (which of course we won't). For over 200 years we have basically followed the principles and doctrines of the founding fathers -- Madison, Jefferson, Adams, and all the other 18th-century scholars. Stability in the process of law has been our strength. It might now also be one of our greatness weaknesses. Plus, it is the 21st century, and most Americans are barely treated as 3/5 of a person.

The Amendments

So grounded are we in NOT changing, there have only been 27 amendments to the U.S. Constitution in over 200 years. Of the 27, some are not really laws to govern by but rather corrections to flaws and issues stemming from the original document.

The 18th and 21st amendments deal with prohibition (which in reality had nothing to do with government) and negate each other. The 23rd (electoral representation for D.C.) and the 19th (giving women the right to vote) are corrections to obvious flaws. One can argue the 20th (which deals with term-end dates), the 24th (poll taxes), and the 25th (presidential succession) are really just clarifications of early laws. And finally the last amendment, the 27th (congressional compensation), has nothing to do with the rule of law. That leaves 19 amendments that have dealt with shifting times and a more complex country. One could even argue that the 13th amendment, which abolished slavery, is not an amendment to govern but a correction to a horrible mistake. Many racists Republicans are gunning to get rid of the 14th.

And guess what, with so few changes to an ideology established in a period that bears little relationship to an era of instant information in a shrinking world, our government continues to detract from its original aspiration and devolve into an incredibly dysfunctional body. Sure, a large chunk of people (like the right wing and others) will say our Constitution is the single greatest document laying down the basis for the single greatest political system ever (it is not; it allowed George Bush to be elected). So how dare we tinker with it. Well, arrogance knows no bounds from people unwilling or unable to adjust to the world as it is. That attitude and a quarter gets you more worthless American currency and more Congressmen like Jim DeMint and Louis Gohmert.

Here is my two cents: The Constitution (and the political process) ain't working. It needs an extreme makeover. Think Joan Rivers. There are those who do not want change: those in power (who are more and more looking like a bunch of less and less intelligent media whores) and the (allegedly non-ideological) media, both of whom have very little incentive to alter the structure that put/keeps them in power in the first place. Almost anyone in government today (from all political bents) would poo-poo any suggestion of major constitutional rewrites. But to survive as a viable and thriving society in a world of diminishing resources, floundering leadership, and increased divisiveness, we must consider moderation to the very fundamentals that brought us to the place we are at. Change or die. Survival of the fittest.

Here are some of my thoughts – food for discussion. They are not wrong or right, just some ideas on improving a broken (yes, broken, dilapidated, and now dangerous) system.

Elections

First I will say that I wish we had the parliamentary form of government like Canada, Britain, or Australia, where the party in power chooses the leader of government and can also fall from power before the end of the term. There are tons of pluses and minuses to this form of government. But for now I will work within the basic confines of the current government structure.

All elections should be held on Sunday (don't give me the lame excuses of Church or religion or the day of rest -- almost every other nation in the world votes on a weekend, and most churches today are political hotbeds anyway), so yhat people could vote and not worry about the kids at school or getting time off from work. Or if that doesn't suit you, have a two-day election Saturday and Sunday. EVERY polling place in the nation has the same equipment, all with paper trails. If you want early mail-in voting, fine. For the presidential elections, all polls close at the same time, 12 midnight ET, 9 pm PT, 6 pm in Alaska and Hawaii -- one day every four years is not too much to ask of a late-night election. This Tuesday nonsense is, well, nonsense and utterly ridiculous.

The campaigns go on way too long – they really become more of a turnoff and often evolve into a mudslinging anger-fest right out of As The World Turns. The 2012 campaign has been in full force for nearly a year (just watch any cable show and the handicapping is in full bloom). Stopping candidates from early or long campaigning is impossible and fraught with free speech implications, but you can limit advertising and debates to a narrow period of time. (I realize there are major freedom of speech issues with this as well, but what is more important, an honest debate or permanent campaigns to ensure pundits have a job?) The primary process sucks. It is long, expensive, and cumbersome. It should be divided into four regional super-primaries instead of a six-month drawn-out media party. The primaries should be about the candidates and issues, not about what the media wants in terms of covering the candidates and the issues (there is a big difference). Plus, it is expensive. We complain about all the money in politics, and all the donations. When you have a six-month primary system done on such a local-local level, it is bound to get very pricey.

(This issue of money and elections is a whole post unto itself.)

Presidential Election

The Electoral College needs major reformation or to be junked completely. My belief is to ditch the bitch -- get rid of it. It is an anachronism, developed (in my opinion) for arrogant and snobby reasons. The presidency is the only political office in the country that is elected by the entire country, and the current bizarre system allocates votes based on a lopsided and unfair weighting system. This is an electoral system that puts the states (or federalism) above the people (or populism). Votes in Alaska count much more than votes in California. It is a ridiculous and dispiriting procedure. And it is expensive. It is not one man, one vote, and it seems to me to be more Soviet-style than democratic.

We should have a national election where the winner is determined by a plurality of the popular vote, period. Sure, the "get to know the candidate" in more remote places will go away, but to my mind that is a small tradeoff for having every person count the same. Besides, with social media and invasive cable, every candidate is everywhere, everyday. Hand-to-hand campaigning would still be necessary, as would local stops. Right now a Republican would barely venture into New England or New York, a Democrat avoids the places like Kansas or Idaho -- that all would change. The Republicans in Massachusetts would have to be courted, just as the Democrats in Utah would have to be. Diehards would hate this, but too bad -- who cares what the diehard traditionalists think? The upside of this change far outweighs the downside, since the current system is ALL downside.

There is really no valid reason to keep the Electoral College other than tradition and the excuse that James Madison knew more than we did. Sure people will say it protects states' rights, minorities, and the two-party system. Protecting the two-party system is the last thing we should want. But is the presidency about the federal system or about representing the people of the nation?

Three times -- in 1876, 1888, and 2000 -- the candidate with the most popular votes lost to someone with more electoral votes. That is clearly not the will of the people but rather the will of the states. Why should someone in Wyoming have more say that someone in Oregon? The Declaration of Independence should be re-written to start "we the states" rather than "we the people" if that is what we really want from the presidency.

More importantly, we all know first-hand what happens when someone ignores the will of the people -- you get the idiocy of the self-anointed and power-hungry King George (yes we could have dumped him in '04, but if logic prevailed he should not have even been there for dumping). Plus, a little-revealed fact, the current Electoral College setup basically allows the electors to vote for whomever they want to. They do not have to vote for the candidate chosen by their state. While 24 states have laws to punish this, only ONE (Michigan) has the power to actually cancel that "faithless" vote. So in some surreal setting, a candidate could win the popular vote and the electoral vote and still not be elected president. Unlikely, but theoretically possible. This is not democracy, it is lunacy. To me, almost anything is better than the current Electoral College.

I go back and forth as to what would be best with regard to term limits for the president. As currently -- two four-year terms? One six-year term? No limit? I am not sure, but I lean towards one six-year term.

And oh, the Supreme Court cannot stop recounts, and if a justice fails to disclose his wife's income he is automatically impeached.

Congress

The District of Columbia either becomes or is treated just like a state for national political purposes. Zero discussion on this. The fact D.C. residents have no Congressional representation is ludicrous. They're held hostage by the Republicans since over 80 percent of all voters in D.C. are Democrats.

The House of Representatives continues to be population-based. I don't know what the magical number of reps should be, but for argument's sake I would up the number to 565, which is taking the U.S. population of 309,000,000 in 2010 and dividing it by the population of the smallest state (Wyoming at 545,000). Of course, you wouldn't want to change the number of reps every year or even every ten. Just keep it at the base of 565. Frankly, the larger number, the more unmanageable an already unmanageable body would become. Under this algorithm, New York would have 34 reps, while Colorado would have nine.

There should be no gerrymandering of districts -- districts should ONLY be reassigned if the state gains/loses a House seat every ten years after the Census. Districts should be redrawn by bipartisan committee, with strict guidelines, not by state legislatures (no weird shapes to get in certain groups, minorities, or parties in certain districts). You cannot keep all politics out of districting, but it can and should be limited.

Reps should be required to be present for a certain number or percentage of votes or else are admonished, fined, or kicked out. Terms should be increased to three years (these two-year terms practically require reps to start campaigning the day the are elected). One-third (188) could be elected every year, keeping a rotation.

The Senate should be adjusted for some population-based figures. Having two senators from Alaska and two from California is plain stupid and unfair. I propose the top 17 states get three senators, the next 17 get two senators, and the bottom 17 (remember D.C. is added) get one senator. 102 senators, voted by their full state. In addition, three senators are elected by the entire country, essentially stateless senators, for a total of 105. The party with the most senators is in charge. Six-year terms remain, with 1/3 up for election every two years. Same deal on the minimum number of votes as for the House. NO FILIBUSTERS unless the senator actually does his best James Stewart.

If you think that basing both Houses on some sort of population count will really tilt the Congress towards the big states too much, then let's go with the Senate remaining with two senators from each state (102 including D.C.), plus three at-large senators elected either regionally or nationally. These senators would not answer to any one state. Total: 105 senators. There is nothing magic about 100 senators other than the round sounding of the total. Before 1959, there were 96 Senators.

Both bodies should be required to remain in session a minimum of 230 days/year. NO DISCUSSION. This is not a country club. That still leaves six weeks vacation for all Congressmen and plenty of time for Boehner to play golf.

Supreme Court

For this body I have absolutely no issues with term limits -- there should be. These are not elected officials answering to the people, they are appointed, and appointed with politics squarely in mind.

Nine justices, 18-year term limit. Every two years one justice steps down as his/her term expires. This way every president would get to nominate at least two justices (resignation and death would cause an immediate refill of the seat, regardless of the term order, and the appointee would fill the remaining term). The president continues to nominate and the Senate continues approval. This way you would not be stuck with a Scalia or Thomas for a lifetime. The politics of the Supreme Court could change every two years depending on the rotation and the president. In today's court you can predict the vote on every case almost to a tee. There should be strict ethics and guidelines for justices with respect to politics and even the appearance of impropriety. No lunches with the Koch boys.

Chime in. Am I that out to lunch?

Craziest Republican of the Day: Lee Bright

By Michael J.W. Stickings

South Carolina's Republican secessionist flag

Republicans really seem to miss the Confederacy. And they certainly seem to hate America. For yet another example of secessionist, anti-Washington thinking, let's head down to South Carolina, one of the craziest states in the union:

Continuing a pattern of attempts to assert South Carolina's independence from the federal government, State Sen. Lee Bright, R-Roebuck, has introduced legislation that backs the creation of a new state currency that could protect the financial stability of the Palmetto State in the event of a breakdown of the Federal Reserve System.

*****

"If there is an attempt to monetize the Fed we ought to at least have a study on record that could protect South Carolinians," Bright said in an interview Friday.

"If folks lose faith in the dollar, we need to have some kind of backup."

The legislation cites the rights reserved to states in the Constitution and Supreme Court rulings in making the case that South Carolina is within its rights to create its own currency.

Um... really? I'm hardly an expert on constitutional law, but Article I, Section 10 states no state shall "coin Money" or "emit Bills of Credit," which is to say, no state may have its own currency. Yes, a state may allow "gold and silver Coin" to be "a Tender in Payment of Debts," but as Madison explained in Federalist 44, "it may be observed that the same reasons which shew the necessity of denying to the States the power of regulating coin, prove with equal force that they ought not to be at liberty to substitute a paper medium in the place of coin. Had every State a right to regulate the value of its coin, there might be as many different currencies as States; and thus the intercourse among them would be impeded." That's pretty clear, it seems to me.

Now, Bright wants South Carolina's currency to be "gold or silver, or both," according to the legislation. His target is the federal reserve system, which is to say, the federal government (which is explicitly authorized by the Constitution (Article I, Section 8) to "coin Money" and "regulate the Value thereof," and one suspects that the Founding Fathers would not be amused.

But we're not there yet. "Bright's joint resolution calls for the creation of an eight-member joint subcommittee to study the proposal and submit a report to the General Assembly by Nov. 1."

As Phil Bailey, the director of the state Senate Democratic Caucus, quipped, "[i]t's a waste of time; it's a waste of resources. I mean who's paying for this study? Will they be paid in actual dollars or gold doubloons?"

Good question.

Craziest Republican of the Day: Mike Lee

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Think Progress:

There's three things Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) likes in a sentence: a noun, a verb, and "unconstitutional." Indeed, Lee has recently claimed that federal child labor laws, FEMA, food stamps, the FDA, Medicaid, income assistance for the poor, and even Medicare and Social Security violate the Constitution. Yet Senate Republicans have inexplicably chosen to put Lee on the very Senate committee that has jurisdiction over constitutional questions and the judiciary...

Placing Mike Lee in charge of overseeing the Constitution is a bit like putting Dick Cheney in charge of hunting and gun safety, yet the Senate GOP was so eager to put this radical tenther on the Judiciary Committee that it waived a rule prohibiting both of a state’s senators from serving on Judiciary in order to ensure Lee's membership.

That's right, this Teabagging Republican -- one of the four members of the Senate's Tea Party Caucus -- thinks that child labor laws, along with food/drug regulation, federal emergency management, and social assistance programs for the poor, are unconstitutional.

Which means, one must presume, that he's fine with child labor (and, of course, screwing the poor).

And far from being on the fringe of the GOP, he and his views are being empowered, literally, as he takes on a significant position on constitutional matters.

As crazy as he is, the party that enables him (and celebrates him) is crazier still.

(photo)

Bill Maher to the Teabaggers: "The Founding Fathers would have hated your guts."

By Michael J.W. Stickings

I'm generally not much of a Bill Maher fan, even if I agree with more often than not, but I think he's quite right about this. The Founding Fathers would have hated the Teabaggers, and vice versa.

Mustang Bobby posted the clip at his place yesterday. Here it is for your edifying amusement -- the part about the Teabaggers starts at 2:51, but it's all pretty good:

Out, out, damned spot

By Capt. Fogg

I saw this clip on The Impolitic this morning: Sharron Angle having a bit of a smugfest about how Thomas Jefferson and James Madison and Ben Franklin really wanted us to have the uninfringable right to own firearms, not to facilitate raising a militia, as was stated, or to put food on the table or keep the fox out of the henhouse, but to protect us against tyrannical despots demanding to provide us with affordable health care.



To be fair, I'd like to know the rest of the sentence starting "we need to take Harry Reid out. . ." Vote him out of his elected position, or just "take him out?"

Inquiring minds want to know, but batshit crazies with their hairy ears glued to the radio don't bother to ask. They already know. One has already spoken and as in Mao's famous statement about the voice of revolution -- from the muzzle of a gun. Indeed many self styled conservatives seem to have read intensively from the little red book.

I'll give her the benefit of the doubt for the nonce, but although Jefferson did indeed, how literally I don't know, suggest further revolutions, one would have a hard time convincing me the system he helped design wasn't intended to facilitate that process bloodlessly and with due process of law.

The bit about guns being needed to protect against "tyranny?" to allow the minority to have bloody revenge for the actions of elected representatives? Sorry, Sharron, this is beyond the boundaries of acceptable speech and perhaps even further into the territory of treason, if fomenting armed insurrection against an elected government be such.

It recalls Henry II crying "will no one rid me of this troublesome priest?" Not exactly a demand that someone kill Thomas à Becket, but someone soon did and Hank got to wash his hands of the matter. Whether it be the king of England, the Queen of Scotland or a Prefect of Roman Judea, some bloody bastard is always seeking such cleanliness, but that damned spot usually proves rather difficult to remove.

(Cross posted from Human voices)

GOP theater: Now starring the U.S. Constitution

By Nicholas Wilbur 

Republicans take control of the lower branch of Congress on January 5. On January 6, members of the new Republican-controlled House will do what no Congress member has done in the entire history of the country: they will read the United States Constitution from start to finish. 

If it sounds like a new age of honor and accountability in politics is on the horizon, don't be fooled. 

Republican leaders plan to emphasize their vigor in carrying the water for this nouveau wave of patriotism by instituting a mandatory practice of attaching a citation of constitutional authority to every piece of legislation presented in the 112th Congress. But that too should be taken with a grain – or possibly an entire box – of salt.

Tea Partiers across the country are howling a victory song over these surface-level gestures, and I'm beginning to feel that unpleasantly familiar tingle in the back of my throat that usually precedes the uncontrollable outpouring of vomit from my mouth.

"It appears that the Republicans have been listening," Jeff Luecke, a Tea Party organizer in Dubuque, Iowa, told The Washington Post. "We're so far away from our founding principles that, absolutely, this is the very, very tip of the iceberg. We need to talk about and learn about the Constitution daily."

Indeed.

No one could argue against learning. Education is the backbone of American enterprise, the foundation of individual liberty, the necessary prerequisite for responsible media consumption and informed voting.

This is not that. This is the GOP wrapping a bow around a cheap, as-seen-on-TV gimmick. This is an embarrassment to all who are capable of distinguishing between real progress and mere shadows dancing nude in front of a perpetually digressing and intellectually devolving populace. This is entertainment broadcast for the masses at the expense of actual, measurable enlightenment.

And, sadly but not surprisingly, no one seems to notice.

A wise man once told me that extremism is borne of ignorance, while intelligence is necessarily cultivated, instructed, and nurtured over time.

"Whenever we wish to understand something other than ourselves, we must remember that we never really escape ourselves, our place and time, saturated as they are with a multitude of experiences and assumptions." 

The subject of this quotation was Islam, but the core of this man's statement is a timeless and universal maxim for approaching education in general.

Knowledge is not innate, but particularly during the learning process itself, an individual's perceptions, stereotypes, experiences, and assumptions undoubtedly influence the way new information is absorbed and understood.

Do you know what Muslim terrorists read in order to justify blowing up buildings, planes, and marketplaces? (Hint: It's the same book that billions of moderate, peace-loving Muslims read daily.)

Do you know what extremist Christians read before hosting book-burning parties, protesting the funerals of U.S. military service members, and murdering abortion doctors? (Hint: It's the same "good news" that billions of moderate, peace-loving Christians read daily.)

Hearing verbatim recitations of the Constitution isn't akin to terrorism. To claim such would be idiotic beyond measure. But exactly what purpose is served by the GOP's bright idea to have story time with the American people?

Is it possible that reading the U.S. Constitution will prove only to reinforce the radical ideas of a group of revolutionists suffering from intellectual retardation (per its actual definition: delayed, slow, inhibited, hampered)?

Considering that the Tea Party believes that anything not specifically mentioned in the Constitution is therefore unconstitutional, then yes.

Health-care reform, for example, isn't in the Constitution.

The Internal Revenue Service isn't in the Constitution.

Public schools, specifically, are not in the Constitution, and neither are unemployment benefits, anti-discrimination laws or women's rights.

There are millions of reams of case law defining and interpreting probably every sentence of this historic document. Without the context provided by centuries of interpretation, analysis, and application, reading the Constitution and/or citing the Constitution will do nothing to bring America back around to what the Founding Fathers intended (assuming we're so far off base that such a revolution is necessary at all).

Republicans are planning a reality show for the ages, and it's sure to be full of the same sensational, headline-grabbing theatrics that helped rally the base in the 2010 midterm election. But it won't mean anything. It won't change anything. And it won't fix any of the problems we're faced with as a nation.

Like many of the Republican Party's tactics, it's good politics, as it appeals to the masses who believe America is straying from the intentions of its Founding Fathers. But in practice, such histrionic displays of alleged patriotism will only further enrage the blindly faithful and context-averse followers of the GOP by giving Republicans a seemingly legitimate reason to block Democrat-sponsored legislation in the 112th Congress.

That is what this nouveau wave of patriotism is all about – not education, not enlightenment, just more smoke, mirrors, and entertaining shadows on the wall.

Skidamarink a dinky dink, Skidamarink a doo. Welcome to the Elephant Show!