RSS Feed MenuRepublicans are poised to make big gains in November. My latest column for The Week though worries that the party has not done the serious policy work needed to govern.
Republicans badly need a platform this year — not for campaigning, but for governing.
A party manifesto imposes discipline on a party, giving it things to do and steering it away from things it should avoid. The alternative? The alternative is hinted at by an ominous story in Politico:
If Republicans win the House in November, John Boehner and his top lieutenants say they’re ready to spread the power.
Look for a return of committee influence in preparing legislation — re-establishing the authority of diminished chairmen — and an easing of the hammerlock that leaders of both parties have exercised. … Boehner is mindful that “House members have a pent-up desire to legislate … instead of having bills written in the speaker’s office,” said a senior House Republican aide.
Uh oh. That “pent up desire to legislate” sounds like a joke in which the punch line is “Tammany Hall.” Here’s a rule of thumb: Parties with ideas and agendas — parties that want to accomplish big things — concentrate power in the Speaker’s office. Look at the Democrats in 2009-2010, the Republicans in 1995-97, and the Democrats back in 1975-77. A strong speaker sets priorities, mobilizes majorities, creates a one-stop shop for negotiations with the other party, the Senate, and the White House.
But when a party exhausts or abandons its policy impetus, power devolves to committee chairs. Politico describes this devolution as “opening” government. Well, yes — but opening to whom? Committee chairs occupy one corner of what used to be described as the “iron triangle” — with the other two corners occupied by industry lobbyists and federal regulators.
Click here to read the rest.
balconesfault // Sep 6, 2010 at 7:13 am
Williams and Zabel favor much more draconian approaches to climate change – carbon fees and an outright ban on new coal-fired power plants without carbon sequestration.
So while they are challenging the idea that a cap and trade mechanism is the best means for moving the ball, they would essentially agree with the statement I made above:
And any conservative who understands the free market would admit that increasing the price of burning fossil fuels is the only way we can push people to make those lifestyle changes in a meaningful way without top down governmental edicts making them do it.
They are just favoring a different means of increasing the price (a carbon fee, rather than a cap and trade regime), and they’re adding in a “top down governmental edict” in the form of their ban on new coal burning that emits CO2.
But to take on their examples in the article cited:
But if the landowner wasn’t planning to cut his forest, he just received a bonus for doing what he would have done anyway. Even if he was planning to cut his forest and doesn’t, demand for wood isn’t reduced. A different forest will be cut. Either way, there is no net reduction in production of greenhouse gases.
This ignores the amount of forest that’s been cut in the last few decades – an enormous number of square miles of forest in the Brazilian rain forest, for example – not for wood production, but just to clear land for other use. Cap and trade offset credits provide a landowner with financial incentive to leave his land forested … incentives which don’t currently exist.
Or consider the refrigerant HCFC-22, the manufacture of which creates an extremely powerful greenhouse gas as a byproduct. This byproduct is relatively easy and cheap to destroy, and governments could require refrigerant manufacturers to do just that. But offset investors have persuaded regulators to approve destruction of the byproduct as a carbon offset, making it twice as profitable to sell byproduct destruction as it was to sell the refrigerant.
Notice what they’re favoring here – instead of harnessing the free market to encourage positive behavior (destruction of the byproduct), they’re calling for once again a top-down governmental edict.
This is one of the ironies of the current debate on cap and trade. Cap and trade is actually much more consistent with free market principles traditionally espoused by conservatives than many of the other regimes proposed for control of carbon emissions. I disagree with Williams and Zabel over whether we can just go around banning everything or mandating everything that will have the biggest positive effect on climate change … and figure that the combination of fees and incentives in Cap and Trade will change the game and incentivize decisions to reduce carbon, which I see as a path to more sustainable progress than government trying to make every decision individually.
You, I suppose, must agree with Williams and Zabel and favor a scheme where government will be in charge of declaring exactly what technology new coal plants must implement in order to get permitted, or where government goes through the list of byproducts each manufacturer produces and dictates exactly how those will be disposed of.
Xunzi Washington // Sep 6, 2010 at 8:33 am
Nice fisking, Balcone. Clearly you can see at this point, though, that by stating that he’s looking for “intellectual scrutiny” Brandon means he’s looking for “confirmation of [his] bias”. Every time you fisk something he says, or URLs he posts, he’ll just move to a different one without batting an eye.
It’s the old Wack-a-Mole approach to argumentation. Of course, the first time he posts something and you say “not sure about that” he’ll start excitedly jumping up and down yelling “SEE! SEE! I TOLD YOU!!”
TerryF98 // Sep 6, 2010 at 9:18 am
brandon, meet brandon’s ass, it has been handed to you by two people who are wiping the floor with your arguments.
TJ Parker // Sep 6, 2010 at 10:01 am
Please explain to me how Larry Kudlow is not credible. He is a “Distinguished Scholar” at the Mercatus Center of George Mason University. He also serves as a member of the Fordham University Board of Trustees and is on the advisory committee of the Kemp Institute at the Pepperdine University School of Public Policy. His work has been in numerous publications from the Wall Street Journal to the City Journal. He served in the Reagan administration and has been a private economist for numerous Wall Street firms.
And yet Larry Kudlow is a clown, and in his day job on CNBC he proves it constantly. He does not debate with rigor, but by bludgeoning his interviewees with his own opinions, rarely giving anyone a chance to respond. He is a reliable mouthpiece for 1990’s vintage GOP talking points.
On Wall Street, the nickname for the show that he and Jim Cramer had during the first Bush recession — “Kudlow & Cramer” — was “Dumb and Dumber”.
Let’s add to that list of accomplishments that he’s a recovering alcoholic, had a well-publicized cocaine addiction, and is a thrice-married Catholic.
balconesfault // Sep 6, 2010 at 10:05 am
The amusing thing is that citing Williams and Zabel as an example of opposition to Cap and Trade is like looking for someone who opposed the invasion of Iraq … and coming up with someone who favored simply nuking Baghdad instead of invading.
brandon // Sep 6, 2010 at 11:06 am
“meet brandon’s ass, it has been handed to you by two people who are wiping the floor with your arguments.”
And you guys accuse the right of not being intellectual?
“citing Williams and Zabel”
There is more than one discussion going on in this thread.
The first is does the right still have intellectuals and do we still hold our viewpoints to “intellectual scrutiny?” My point is that there are many intellectuals on the right and there are many venues where conservative solutions to the nation’s problems are given analysis and debated in a factual and logical manner. The fact that many here are unaware or ignorant of those people or places does not mean they don’t exist.
The second point in this thread was to hold up 3 “liberal” ideas to “intellectual scrutiny” of which cap and trade has gotten the most discussion.
My point about cap and trade is that even if you accept that carbon emissions are the main cause of global climate change, cap and trade is an expensive solution that will do no good. The cost far outweighs the benefit.
I cited Williams and Zabel to show that even those on the left admit it will do no good, so what’s the point of a cap and trade scheme if it will do absolutely nothing about the stated goal of reducing carbon emissions.
Cap and trade fails the “intellectual scrutiny” test on all levels.
anniemargret // Sep 6, 2010 at 12:00 pm
Frankly, I don’t give a hoot about ‘distinguished scholars’ of any stripe. That is only important if their ideas actually can assist the average American. Most of these brains do not live in Real Life.
I am still shocked that working class Americans would want to be embrace what Republicanism has to offer. Half of them don’t even fully realize that they are voting against their own interests for themselves and their families. And they do it because Republicans have become the masters at Schtick. They’ve muddied the waters with their infernal and never-ending culture wars. They know it sows the seeds of suspicion and hate, a very useful means to the ends for some Americans who get caught up in it.
Of course, it does absolutely nothing to improve the country.
Most working class Republicans nowadays are worrying about whether or not Obama is a ‘real American’ or some other shady character, or whether or not Christianity should be a state-mandated religion, or whether or not Palin’s or Beck’s incessant fear-mongering about their ‘real America” is really going to play out.
Oh…they are also concerned about the rising deficits (as we all are), but want ’smaller government.’ They still haven’t adequately defined what that actually means. Do they really want to decimate SS, Medicare and Medicaid? After all, most of them will end up using Medicaid when their beloved family member needs a nursing home, and they realize they cannot afford the typical $10,000 monthly price tag for a private one?
We Americans are typically a people that want easy and fast answers. It is totally understandable that Obama’s poll numbers are sinking. He is two years into it and he hasn’t yet resolved our not-bright future economic forecast. At the same time, recent polls are showing the vast majority of Americans still think that the Bush administration is ultimately responsible for the state we are in now. It’s almost quixotic.
Of course, while most Americans understand instinctively that the mess we are in is due to Republicans’ lack of results-oriented governing, the only thing Democrats have to do now is to go on the counter-attack.
After all, Republicans are *still* spouting the same/old, same/old ineffective ways to govern this country. This same/old culture wars are still in vogue. The same/old ‘tax cuts’, deregulation, healthcare reform resistance, climate-change denial, and war-mongering (Iran) are only some of them.
balconesfault // Sep 6, 2010 at 1:14 pm
brandon: My point about cap and trade is that even if you accept that carbon emissions are the main cause of global climate change, cap and trade is an expensive solution that will do no good. The cost far outweighs the benefit.
Well, if it does no good, of course the cost would far outweigh the benefit. Because there would be no benefit.
But there are a lot of scientists and engineers working in the area of CO2 reduction technology who disagree with you.
I cited Williams and Zabel to show that even those on the left admit it will do no good, so what’s the point of a cap and trade scheme if it will do absolutely nothing about the stated goal of reducing carbon emissions.
This is not an “admission” – this is two lawyers who believe that a much more stringent set command and control measures are necessary to really do something positive.
They are not representative of the “left” as a whole – although admittedly they are probably more representative of the extreme left – more moderate members of the left favoring a system which creates economic incentives for CO2 reduction via the marketplace that Cap and Trade will create.
Cap and trade fails the “intellectual scrutiny” test on all levels.
Bullshit. A smidgen of denialism, mixed with dollop of disagreement on the left as to what is the best means of controlling CO2 emissions, is not a legitimate argument proving failure to meet intellectual scrutiny.
If there’s a failure of intellectual scrutiny, it’s your totally dodging my critique of Williams and Zabel’s argument and then acting as if their position represents a full on cynicism on the left as to what Cap and Trade will do. You, sir, are intellectually bankrupt if that’s the best you can come up with.
SpartacusIsNotDead // Sep 6, 2010 at 9:22 pm
brandon: “And you guys accuse the right of not being intellectual?”
Not once had I leveled that accusation against you personally – until now.
In the midst of a debate on intellectual rigor, you cite a partisan hack TV talk show host to buttress the patently false claim that the stimulus bill did not create/save jobs. I, on the other hand, cite a detailed study by the non-partisan professional economists charged with measuring these things to refute your false claim, and somehow you think both of these opinions are of equal weight.
More importantly, let’s assume for the sake of argument that all of your claims about HCR and the stimulus are actually correct. That does not mean that the HCR and stimulus bills were not subjected to intellectual scrutiny. Indeed, the Administration consulted experts (by definition, that excludes Kudlow) across the political spectrum for both bills and the projections the Administration made about these bills are consistent with the opinions of most of these experts. The experts may indeed eventually prove to be wrong, but there was nevertheless intellectual scrutiny.
Now, compare that to the ideas from the Right. There are no commonly accepted data that support the claims from the Right regarding their ideas. Tax cuts have already proven to cause large deficits and to have minimal impact on job growth. The data clearly show that and most respected economists attest to this. Yet, the Right continues to proclaim this with evangelical zeal. Similarly, there are no data to support the Right’s claim that tax increases kill jobs. We have empirical data that show that claim to be clearly false. Yet, the Right continues to claim this.
Three times now I’ve asked you to respond to this and you have repeatedly failed.
I haven’t read most of your posts on FF, but nothing I had read led me to believe you were this deficient. You seem either too proud to admit error, in which case there is never any point in engaging any other poster because you will not allow yourself to “lose” an argument, or you’re simply not intelligent enough to recognize you’re in error, which was my criticism of the Right in my initial post.
brandon // Sep 7, 2010 at 12:47 am
balconesfault: You have not addressed the fact that a domestic cap and trade policy will have very little impact on climate change. China is the world’s largest emitter of carbon dioxide. During the last 10 years, China’s emissions increased 98 percent, India’s increased 36 percent and Russia’s increased 10 percent. If America completely stopped using fossil fuels, increases from the rest of the world would replace U.S. emissions in less than eight years.
The Brookings Institute estimated that cap and trade would reduce GDP by 2.5%. Why should the American taxpayer suffer for a scheme that will not help stop “climate change.”
Spartacus: It is difficult to discuss such complex subjects as healthcare reform or the U.S. economy on a message board especially one that tends to thrive on “gotcha” moments so I will admit my approach of bringing up those subjects was not the right way to debate this topic.
But my original point is that for you to say that “intellectual scrutiny” does not exist on the right is just sheer stupidity.
Surely, you realize that the pros and cons of “Keynesian stimulus economics” is discussed and debated by economists of both the left and right at all levels of academia as have all aspects of health care policies.
The posters around here who are “simply not intelligent enough” are those who throw out broad generalizations about Republicans and conservatives. I gave you a list of several “intellectuals” on the right. Do yourself a favor and read some of their work and maybe you will stop repeating such nonsense as “tax cuts have already proven to cause large deficits.”
SpartacusIsNotDead // Sep 7, 2010 at 1:34 am
brandon: “I gave you a list of several “intellectuals” on the right. Do yourself a favor and read some of their work and maybe you will stop repeating such nonsense as “tax cuts have already proven to cause large deficits.””
So, instead of relying on the economic analyses by the CBO and other non-partisan economic professionals, I should read the opinions of Charles, Krauthammer, George Will, Thomas Sowell and Jonah Goldberg to find out whether tax cuts have caused deficits? That would be completely ludicrous. Except for Sowell, none of these “intellectuals” are experts on economic matters. They are nothing more than newspaper columnists and, in the case of Jonah Goldberg, not even especially well educated. And Sowell, although trained as an economist, writes primarily on social and race issues – not on macroeconomic issues. Thank you, but I’ll continue to rely on actual experts.
http://www.cbpp.org/cms/?fa=view&id=966
The prevailing belief on the Right that the opinions of newspaper columnists are a substitute for the expertise provided by well-trained and experienced professionals demonstrates my point that the Right does not subject its ideas to intellectual scrutiny. Instead, it is content to accept the opinions of entertainers, whether they be partisan newspaper columnists, talk radio hosts or TV show hosts.
I see you still won’t admit that the 3 Obama ideas were, in fact, subjected to intellectual scrutiny. After darn near half a dozen posts on this specific issue, you apparently still maintain that, because unemployment rose above 8%, Obama’s ideas weren’t subjected to intellectual scrutiny even though there were multiple CBO and independent analyses proving otherwise.
Do you genuinely believe the things you’re saying or are you just so inflammed by my allegation that those left defending the Right’s ideas are intellectually inferior that you simply refuse to admit to being wrong (as is usually the case with Sinz)?
brandon // Sep 7, 2010 at 1:58 am
“Instead, it is content to accept the opinions of entertainers, whether they be partisan newspaper columnists, talk radio hosts or TV show hosts.”
I was just naming some of the smarter, but still mainstream conservative pundits. I will change my suggestion and tell you to start reading the columnists at the American Enterprise Institute: http://blog.american.com/
You may disagree with them, but you can’t credibly say that there is not intellectual discourse at that site.
“the 3 Obama ideas were, in fact, subjected to intellectual scrutiny”
Maybe they were, but certainly not by the majority of Democrats in Congress or by Obama who has practically admitted they were more for political reasons. I would still argue that anyone looking at those 3 issues in an intellectual and logical way would come to the conclusion that none of those policies are good for the long term fiscal health of the United States.
I’m not “inflammed” by your allegation, I just consider it nonsense as any generalization of that type would be. I would consider your allegation just as dumb if you said the same thing about the left. I might disagree with their viewpoints, but clearly the articles one would find in the New Republic or The Nation or The Progressive would be of an intellectual quality.
SpartacusIsNotDead // Sep 7, 2010 at 2:59 am
“You may disagree with [AEI], but you can’t credibly say that there is not intellectual discourse at that site.”
You seem to have completely misinterpreted my position. I don’t dispute that intellectual discourse occurs among people on the Right. Most of the intellectual writings I read on the web are at right-of-center websites. My claims are that (1) there are no Rightist intellectuals defending the current ideas/policy initiatives of the Right, and (2) the ideas of the Right are not subjected to intellectual scrutiny. So, while there are intellectuals on the Right, their intellect is not engaged in defending/promoting the current ideas/policy initiatives of the Right. A good example of this is Daniel Larison at The American Conservative. He is on the Right and has an extremely sharp intellect. He does not, however, defend many of the current ideas of the Right, largely, I suspect, because most of those ideas are loony. Absent people like Larison et al (e.g. Bruce Bartlett), the people remaining on the Right who defend the ideas of the Right are, by and large, not as sharp as the people who oppose those ideas.
“Maybe [Obama's ideas] were [subject to intellectual scrutiny], but certainly not by the majority of Democrats in Congress or by Obama who has practically admitted they were more for political reasons.”
Thank you for admitting his ideas were subjected to intellectual scrutiny. As for Congress, people very often vote for a bill they think is flawed and do not like because, despite those flaws, the bill is a significant improvement over the status quo. There is much about the HCR bill that I do not like and I personally question whether insurance rates will go down or the deficit will be reduced despite what the CBO has said. But, I absolutely would have voted for the bill because it was clearly better than the status quo or any of the “ideas” from the GOP.
“I just consider it nonsense as any generalization of that type would be. I would consider your allegation just as dumb if you said the same thing about the left.”
Why do you believe intellect is evenly distributed among political factions? I recognize it’s not particularly polite to say someone or some group is less intellectual than some other person or group, but this is absolutely true unless one believes all people/groups are equally intellectual. I am not aware of any person who holds this belief.
westony // Sep 7, 2010 at 6:25 am
Is Boehner going to stop drinking???
Slide // Sep 7, 2010 at 7:57 am
Regarding intellectual scrutiny between liberals and conservatives, I found the below poll quite startling. It had to do with misconceptions involving the Iraq war. Such misconceptions included:
1) that Iraq was directly involved in 911
2) whether WMD had been found in Iraq or not
3) that world opinion favored the US invasion of Iraq
The frequency of Americans’ misperceptions varies significantly depending on their source of news. The percentage of respondents who had one or more of the three misperceptions listed above is shown below.
Percent that had one or more misperceptions:
FOX 80%
CBS 71%
ABC 61 %
NBC 55%
CNN 55%
NPR 23%
Percent that had NO misperceptions:
FOX 20%
CBS 30%
ABC 39%
NBC 45%
CNN 45%
NPR 77%
Now one can assume that FOX news has mainly conservative listeners while NPR has mainly liberal listeners. The difference is startling. One could speculate that there is significantly less “intellectual scrutiny” on the right than there is on the left at least on this issue. I would imagine that you can take any issue such as Health Care Reform, who initiated TARP, crime stats involving immigrants in Arizona, etc. and that liberals would score higher on basic knowledge. That might not mean that their viewpoints are right but I think the degree of intellectual ignorance on the right to be a significant barrier to rational debate. Brandon here exemplifies that.
http://www.worldpublicopinion.org/pipa/articles/international_security_bt/102.php
abj // Sep 7, 2010 at 9:24 am
Slide,
I don’t know anything about the poll you’ve cited, but the conclusion you reach is questionable. The overwhelming majority of CBS and ABC viewers were apparently also deeply confused, as were a majority of NBC and CNN viewers. The results don’t really fit into your “uninformed conservative” meme, but rather seem to indicate large swaths of the American public are uninformed.
Moreover, I don’t think anyone who regularly watches Fox News would be under the impression #3 is correct, nor, really, #2. Perhaps #1, in that I imagine Hannity et al. merely dropped the issue once it became clear that Saddam had nothing to do with 9-11 without explanation.
The problem with this sort of tit-for-tat is obvious. There are lots of uninformed people out there. I can’t begin to tell you how many liberals I’ve tried to engage in serious discussions about healthcare reform, financial reform, etc, who seem capable of nothing more than mouthing cheap talking points. Debating people like that is about as useful as arguing with a parrot. Same applied during the 2008 campaign. Here’s a pretty good boilerplate example:
Uninformed Liberal (UL): “I’m voting for Obama.”
Me: “Why?”
UL: “He’ll really change stuff.”
Me: “What will he change, and how will he change it?”
UL: “He’ll put the country on the right path.”
Me: “How? What, specifically, do you think he’ll do, and what do you want him to do?”
UL: “He’s a smart guy. Went to Harvard.”
Me: “Ummm…..nevermind.”
I’m not pretending that there aren’t uninformed people on the right, but this idea that they’re overwhelmingly concentrated on the right is just silly.
Slide // Sep 7, 2010 at 10:58 am
abj // Sep 7, 2010 at 9:24 am: “I’m not pretending that there aren’t uninformed people on the right, but this idea that they’re overwhelmingly concentrated on the right is just silly. ”
Then we will agree to disagree. I think the poll speaks for itself. A hugely higher percentage of Fox viewers believed things that were patently false than did NPR listeners. That tells me either that they were less knowledgeable or that they just repeat what is fed to them by conservative entertainers without any critical thought on their part. I think some of them even call themselves “dittoheads” actually proud of the fact that they just regergitate what their entertainers tell them.
Oh, you do know that an anecdote about a conversation you supposedly had with a “liberal” is so very silly. Is this your refutation of scientific poll that I referenced above? If so, then you have unintentionally made my point better than I could ever have.
abj // Sep 7, 2010 at 11:19 am
Oh, you do know that an anecdote about a conversation you supposedly had with a “liberal” is so very silly. Is this your refutation of scientific poll that I referenced above? If so, then you have unintentionally made my point better than I could ever have.
No, it isn’t a refutation of your poll – the poll doesn’t prove the point you think it proves. As I pointed out, the poll shows the vast majority of CBS and ABC viewers are deeply confused about the Iraq war, and that a majority of CNN and NBC viewers are deeply confused about the Iraq war (suffice it to say that if you think any one of those three statements is true, you really lack a basic understanding of the Iraq war…would you not agree?).
What the poll proves, if anything, is that a wide swath of the public is misinformed (unless you’re trying to argue those CBS, ABC, NBC and CNN viewers are all Republicans). I am taking for granted, for purposes of this discussion, that all, or a vast majority of, those Fox viewers who believed the three fallacies listed are Republicans.
The anecdote wasn’t to refute that point, but rather to point out that there are uninformed liberals out there. The liberals posting on this site are well-informed, but I don’t think they’re representative. At least not based on my (admittedly, in the aggregate, very limited) personal experience.
SpartacusIsNotDead // Sep 7, 2010 at 1:57 pm
abj: “What the poll proves, if anything, is that a wide swath of the public is misinformed . . . ”
The poll does indeed prove that a wide swath of the public is misinformed. But, if you accept that Fox has the highest concentration of conservative viewers and NPR has the highest concentration of liberal listeners, then the poll also proves that conservatives are substantially more likely to be wrong on the questions polled than are liberals.
Again, there is no reason to believe that intellect or knowledge are evenly distributed among political factions. That means that some political factions are going to have more intellect and knowledge than other political factions. We now have a scientific poll that shows that conservatives are substantially more likely to be uninformed on various issues than are liberals.
It simply does not follow that the group that is grossly uninformed is subjecting its ideas to intellectual scrutiny, which by definition, requires knowledge of facts. And, any group that is content to support ideas that are not subjected to intellectual scrutiny (or is unaware that it is doing so) is, by definition, intellectually inferior to a group that does not do these things.
brandon // Sep 7, 2010 at 7:02 pm
One poll doesn’t prove your statement at all Spartacus.
“(1) there are no Rightist intellectuals defending the current ideas/policy initiatives of the Right, and (2) the ideas of the Right are not subjected to intellectual scrutiny.”
How many times in the last year have you read an issue of “Policy Review,” “The New Atlantis,” “Commentary,” “Harvard Salient” or “The National Interest.”
How many times in the last year have you attended a lecture or discussion presented by the Heritage Foundation, the American Enterprise Institute, the Hoover Institution or the Foreign Policy Research Institute.
If the answer is zero times, which I highly suspect, then to continue to espouse that the right is not “subjecting its ideas to intellectual scrutiny” is making you look not only uniformed but silly.