Unions and weatherization programs

Public-sector unionization rates

Iraqi elections

Me? Not so much. “Three strikes” laws are turning our prison system into an overpriced geriatric ward. Taxpayers will now have to feed, clothe and shelter this woman for the rest of her life, even though she’s likely at the end of her career as a strong-arm robber.

We’ve received a few comments from listeners, mostly accusing me of being a bit hysterical about the whole thing. And while I generally understand that criticism, I do think that the country’s taking an ugly turn.

Apparently, I’m not the only one who thinks so:

No one knows what history will make of the present — least of all journalists, who can at best write history’s sloppy first draft. But if I were to place an incautious bet on which political event will prove the most significant of February 2010, I wouldn’t choose the kabuki health care summit that generated all the ink and 24/7 cable chatter in Washington. I’d put my money instead on the murder-suicide of Andrew Joseph Stack III, the tax protester who flew a plane into an office building housing Internal Revenue Service employees in Austin, Tex., on Feb. 18. It was a flare with the dark afterlife of an omen.

Rich — somewhat unusually — has quite a bit of fact packed into his piece. Anyone who isn’t worried about the dark turn America has taken would do well to give it a read.

He’s now having to walk back his proposed staff cuts in the face of opposition from the entrenched bureaucracy:

During his campaign, McGinn promised repeatedly that if elected, he would cut hundreds of “political appointees” added by his predecessor Greg Nickels—strategic advisors and “senior management” who owe their jobs to political patronage. The claim, a staple of McGinn’s stump speech, was a red-meat line for the fiscal-conservative wing of his supporters.

The problem, as the testimony at this morning’s meeting laid plain, is that most of the folks McGinn is targeting aren’t political appointees at all. In fact, the majority of those who spoke this morning have been at the city for many years or decades. And many were elevated to their current positions after taking on new responsibilities, or, ironically, as a way of saving money—because strategic advisors are management, they aren’t paid overtime for working extra hours.

Come on dude, get it together.

I’ve been complaining for the last few weeks to anyone who will listen that the increase from 5 Best Picture Nominees to 10 is a bad move, because it will increase the randomness — for lack of a better word — of the winner. When you have 10 choices, I argued, then a movie could theoretically win with 11% of the vote. In other words, the Best Picture of the Year could be a film that 89% of voters didn’t consider to be the best picture of the year.

Happily, I was wrong! The Academy is using a fantastic voting strategy called instant runoff voting (a.k.a. Ranked Choice Voting). IRV lets you rank your preferences, so that if your first choice is eliminated, your vote goes to the second or third choices, if they are still in contention.

Voting-reform nerds love IRV because it means you can register a preference for a candidate without “throwing your vote away” on a long-shot. If we had IRV in the 2000 presidential elections, for example, one could vote for Ralph Nader as #1 and Al Gore as #2. If Nader didn’t garner enough votes to qualify, the ballots that listed Gore in the second slot would be added to his totals.

To put that in context, the total discretionary budget for every other department of government combined — that’s education, HHS, agriculture, commerce, the VA, everything — totals $437B.

Eisenhower is rolling over in his grave.

It was sort of like the Iraq war, really. I went in all optimistic, assuming that the walls would greet my wife and I as liberators. But not too long after the primer was applied the schedule went to hell, and, well… we didn’t really have a contingency plan. I’m hoping to draw down gradually and leave a small peacekeeping force (my dog) in charge on Monday, at which point the Prof and I will be able to sit down and tell you what we thought about the SOTU and America’s answer to Prime Minister’s Questions.

Update: Podcast is now live.

SEATTLE – Today Mayor Mike McGinn announced that outgoing Office of Sustainability and Environment Director Michael Mann will work with the McGinn administration to craft a plan for a public-private partnership to lead the economic recovery through a retrofit agenda in Seattle.

Word is that Mann’s first effort will be to commission a 3-hour epic documentary about global warming called “Heat 2″.

1. In general, I thought the speech was solid — rhetorically, not a masterpiece, but it accomplished what it needed to.  I was most impressed by the President’s solid instinct to generally avoid the rhetorical cliches that too frequently pepper our political discourse; early in the address, I thought to myself “he’s giving someone else’s speech”, but then he moved past it.  Good job.
2. I was disappointed by the lack of focus on infrastructure investment.  $8bb for trains in Florida and California is great, but that will about pay for the environmental studies, and not much else.
3. Likewise, I was disappointed by the promise to cut spending starting in 2011 (with the exception of defense spending, of course — I mean, how could we POSSIBLY feel safe with fewer F-22s?).  I’ll do Paul Krugman’s work for him and say again that SPENDING CUTS IN A RECESSION ARE THE WRONG ANSWER!!!  [There, I used 3 "!"s, so you know I mean it.]
4. Last, I though the “guilt-trip-them-into-submission” approach to dealing with health care and the loss of the Senate supermajority was novel, but, yeah, when pigs fly. it’s sad how deeply cynical the GOP has become, but there it is.

As a special bonus, I’d like to offer a shiny new Sacajawea dollar to anyone who cares to produce a MST3K-style voiceover to Bob McDonnell’s GOP response.  I pretty much tuned this out after the “Sportscenter” reference.  Matski’s official fiance didn’t appreciate me, in my best North Carolina accent, trying my own soundtrack, so I need some help.   Here’s the line I started with: “He watches Sportscenter too! He must be a good man jus’ like me!” Really, Republicans?  Really?  America desperately needs a functioning opposition party that, you know, like, has ideas and stuff.  If you must have a sports reference, the GOPs current approach is something like “let’s show up at the field and just not play – that way, it won’t really be a forfeit, but we can’t lose the game either!”

So, all in all, a good speech, although I’m concerned at some of the specifics.  Probably most of them are throwaways anyway, so I won’t worry about it too much.

1. Spending, not tax cuts — as pretty much any economist who’s ever bothered to, you know, read the history of the Great Depression will tell you, FDR nearly killed his own recovery by pulling in spending too soon. Had it not been for the massive Keynesian opportunity presented by WWII, the US would likely have been mired in recession – or worse – through most of the ’40s. Unfortunately, most of the money spent on recovery to date has gone to financial institutions. It’s debatable whether or not that was the best, or most necessary, use of taxpayer money, but what’s NOT debatable is that much of that money went to shore up the balance sheets of banks, and not into the kind of direct investments that both create jobs and long-term economic strength — the trains, roads, ports, and sewers that we so desperately need to rebuild in America. Don’t let the budget hawks fool you — America needs MORE spending, not less.
2. Restraint, not populism — It’s a strong temptation, no doubt, for an embattled President to turn to populism in this crisis. The President needs to resist this urge. Stoking the gathering fires of classism and populist anger isn’t a way to win in the long term. It’s anti-elitist fervor which has been the Democrats undoing for most of the last 20 years. Playing to the hairy knuckles crowd just re-orders the line at the guillotine; better to lead.
3. Renewed commitment to health care — The President’s big problem on health care is that he’s failed to outline a solid vision for what, exactly, health care reform is going to accomplish. Is it to reduce costs? Provide universal coverage? Improve quality of care? The GoP has succeeded in scuttling reform because, without a clear vision for what health care reform IS, they’ve been able to find something in it for everyone to hate.

I’m pretty much expecting the President to take the opposite approach on all of these points, but a guy can hope, right?

* I suppose I should use a song title from US band (not the UK’s Stone Roses) to preface my preview of the SotU.