Matthew Yglesias » Consistency

I've been saying for a while that the Democrats need to get some spine in how they play politics. Here's Matthew Yglesias saying the same thing. Here's the point I agree with:

"Politics in a democracy isn’t a blood sport. We don’t kill members of the other side or intimidate them with violence. But it’s not a parlor game either. It’s serious stuff, and it deserves to be taken seriously. Republicans do a good job of that, and their approach to process “hypocrisy” merely reflects the fact that they have a reasonable sense of priorities."

Matthew Yglesias » Consistency

Matthew Yglesias » Saving The Economy Reduced The Deficit

Yep.

Matthew Yglesias » Saving The Economy Reduced The Deficit

Extra Bonus Quote of the Day

Extra Bonus Quote of the Day

Uh, yeah.

Rebutting climate science disinformer talking points in a single line « Climate Progress

A good run down of the facts to counter the various arguments of climate deniers.
Rebutting climate science disinformer talking points in a single line « Climate Progress

Federal Court Dismisses Prosecution Under Stolen Valor Act « JONATHAN TURLEY

An article of interest.

Federal Court Dismisses Prosecution Under Stolen Valor Act « JONATHAN TURLEY

If you want it, pay for it

So, some of my conservative friends (mostly just ProfMondo) have argued that the threat from al-Qaeda and the so-called militant Islamists is an existential threat to us. They want to wipe us off the face of the earth, so we really, really need to go after them. And the wars over there are entirely justified on the basis of their enmity toward us. I disagree with that characterization of the threat (and of the severity of the threat too - existential? Really?). But my argument has been - OK, assume that's the case. The war is totally justified. But if you really, truly think that our very existence is in jeopardy, shouldn't you also pay for the war? Instead of institute tax cuts (another way of saying revenue decreases) at the same time you're getting ready to have a huge increase in wartime expenditures. The answer from conservatives is generally, well yeah, but the fact that happened back then is no reason not to fund the war now. Or something like that.

So, I note with some interest an article from Matthew Yglesias talking about how conservatives don't really care about the deficit and it strikes me as a similar idea. In 2003, the conservatives really didn't care about the deficit when they ramped up spending at the same time as they cut revenues. Because it was 2 things they love a lot - war and tax cuts. Now though the tax cuts they specifically designed to expire this year are an issue and they're at it again. They balk at implementing any economic recovery legislation suggested by Democrats if it adds a cent to the deficit. Yet the continuation of the Bush tax cuts mean a much larger deficit. So additional spending to help the economy must be paid for (meaning little help to the economy in the end), but extension of tax cuts (which makes a huge impact on the deficit) need not be paid for. Bottom line - Republicans and conservatives don't care about the deficit if it gets them other policy items they really care about.

Additional links:

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/07/28/tax-cut-truthiness/
http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/2010/07/gdp-revisions-highlight-dismal-bush-era-economic-performance/
http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/2010/07/bush-tax-cuts-where-was-the-growth/
http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/2010/07/the-tax-debate/
http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/2010/07/tax-cuts-dont-increase-revenues/

Online gambling: Place your bets | The Economist

I promised to focus on some liberaltarian issues and here's one. Chalk this up as one the conservatives deviate from their rant about liberties in favor of their law and order personas. I suspect some of the anti-gambling sentiment comes from the theocons. There's some reason gambling is bad according to Christians - what is it exactly? Anyway, here's a story on that issue from the Economist.

Online gambling: Place your bets | The Economist

Don't forget the war on drugs

Another liberaltarian issue where conservatives favor government action over personal liberty.

Another post from Professor Berman.

Legalization of marijuana

This is another issue where the liberals are on the side of liberty and the conservatives swallow their supposed hatred of government to oppose liberty.

Proposition 19 on the ballot in California in November addresses this very issue. It's currently behind slightly in the polls.

Here's a post from the Sentencing Law and Policy blog. Professor Berman is following this issue closely.

Cocaine/Crack sentencing disparity

This is an issue where the liberals are on the side of liberty and conservatives find a reason for heavy handed government involvement.

Here's a post on this issue from the excellent Sentencing Law and Policy blog.

Great quotes from Bruce Bartlett

So here's an interesting post from the Economist's Democracy in America blog. Mr. Bartlett is one of those that you might call a former conservative in today's political world. He's conservative, but since the Republicans have gone Tea Bag crazy and Mr. Bartlett doesn't just parrot whatever Mitch McConnell says, he's on the outs with the conservative powers that be.

I got a kick out of some of his comments and thought I'd share (any emphasis is mine)...

"Given the likelihood of Republican gains in the November elections and the strong Republican incentive to make the economy as bad as possible going into 2012, I don’t think it would even be possible to pass a stimulus package that was 100% composed of tax cuts—the only stimulus Republicans might support."

"I would add that I do disagree with the Republican fixation on taxation. Federal taxes as a share of GDP are at their lowest level in two or more generations—14.9% versus a postwar average of 18.2%. There is not one iota of evidence that the economy is suffering from excessive taxation and no evidence that the sorts of tax cuts favoured by Republicans—mainly tax cuts for the wealthy—would do any good given the nature of the economy’s problems."

"In my view, the Republican obsession with taxes is based on pure dogma, not analysis."

Question is "More generally, which party do you find more credible when discussing America's fiscal challenges?"

"The Republicans don’t have any credibility whatsoever. They squandered whatever they had when they enacted a massive UNFUNDED expansion of Medicare in 2003. Yet they had the nerve to complain about Obama’s health plan, WHICH WAS FULLY PAID FOR according to the Congressional Budget Office. The word “chutzpah” is insufficient to describe how utterly indefensible the Republican position is, intellectually."

"Furthermore, Republicans have a completely indefensible position on taxes."

"The Democratic Party is now the “adult” party in American politics, willing to do what has to be done for the good of the country. The same cannot be said of Republicans, who seem unwilling to do anything that would interfere with their ambition to retake power so that they can reward their lobbyist friends with more give-aways from the public purse."

Thanks Mr. Bartlett - that was fun.

Twenty to One?

So I've had a running discussion on politics with my best friend - ProfMondo - who happens to be as dedicated a conservative as I am a liberal. One of the points I've tried to make with him is that while both political parties and ideologies have their extreme views, the crazy on the Right is much more pervasive and accepted by mainstream political actors than it is on the Left. I think the point I made over in one of our back and forths on FB was that for every one politician that tries to appeal to his base by going to the crazy stuff (he cites 9/11 truthers as one such area of leftwing craziness), I could probably find 20 such politicians on the left. So I'm going to try and put my money where my mouth is. The rules of the game are going to be: 1) my definition of crazy; 2) the political actor should be a politician running for office or a high profile political pundit. We'll see how it goes...

And here's the first award (from TPM):
The TN Lt Gov who's one of the GOP candidates for Governor says, "Now, you could even argue whether being a Muslim is actually a religion, or is it a nationality, way of life, cult whatever you want to call it."

Liberaltarianism

I've had an idea kicking around in my head for a little while. Liberaltarianism. Not really an original thought, since various liberal bloggers out there occasionally bring it up. Here's a recent one from Matthew Yglesias.

The idea in Yglesias' post seems to be that many libertarians share some views with conservatives (low taxes, business friendly regulations, school choice, guns), but they also share other views with liberals (foreign policy, civil liberties, gay rights, drugs, immigration, abortion, torture and the death penalty). The inherent complaint is that the conservative/libertarian ideas get all the think tank money and media attention, while the liberaltarian issues don't get much play. I agree.

For a while now, I have considered myself a pretty straightforward liberal (for political purposes). At the same time, I've used the liberaltarian issues listed above as a club to beat the hypocrisy drum whenever my conservative friends want to stray over into the "Both parties are terrible; I'm for personal liberty" area. I think I'm going to keep doing that. Maybe even a little more. But I'm going to try and focus for a while on liberaltarian issues here. Not that I'm going to abandon my team - I'm still going to be a partisan Democrat. I just think I'll start pushing the liberaltarian thing a little bit and see if I can help that idea grow in my own modest way. In case you were wondering.

Inspiration

I'm getting inspired by the path taken by my best friend of many, many years - Professor Mondo. I abandoned this blog a while back for the ease and...ease of just throwing linx and moderately pithy remarks up on Facebook. I feel like I've got some less pithy, more substantive comments to make, so I guess I'll bring my act back here for a bit. More soon to follow.