Against Earmarks, Except for the Popular Ones

First, John McCain says he'll veto any bill that contains earmarks. Second, ThinkProgress notes that American aid to Israel is handled through earmarks and wonders if McCain plans on cutting that. McCain's campaign responds, of course, that aid to Israel will keep flowing.

And right there you have a great example of the vacuity of McCain's budget proposals. It's easy to propose sweeping budget cuts in the abstract. But then when you start looking at it, it turns out that behind every large spending commitment there's a politically powerful constituency. And so McCain, having initially declined to promise specific spending cuts, preferring instead to propose vague general ones, winds up being asked about something specific and of course he doesn't want to cut that! But you can't start with a large deficit, add large new tax cuts, pile on a big increase in defense spending, and then make the math add up purely by cutting the most clearly absurd small-bore items.

Comments

Do you think Charlie Gibson is going to ask McCain about that? Of course he won't. Neither will George S. this Sunday.

Posted by Joe Klein's conscience | April 17, 2008 10:22 AM

But you can't start with a large deficit, add large new tax cuts, pile on a big increase in defense spending, and then make the math add up purely by cutting the most clearly absurd small-bore items.

Well, maybe you can't; but John McCain can, because he's a Maverick and doesn't play by your timid logical rules.

Posted by El Cid | April 17, 2008 10:25 AM

Second, ThinkProgress notes that American aid to Israel is handled through earmarks and wonders if McCain plans on cutting that. McCain's campaign responds, of course, that aid to Israel will keep flowing.

I know many Jews who have been aghast at Obama's lack of groveling before AIPAC (*) ... I wonder if they will display the same concern about McCain's flip-flop regarding money to Israel. After all, they were all as concerned about Hagee as they were about Wright ...

* these, of course, are the sorts of people who will never let you forget about, even if they personally are doing just fine, e.g. the Holocaust ... which is fair enough ... but then, if some African-American talks of the lingering effects of slavery and Jim Crow, this same person wonders why Black people can't just move on (and then later refers to the person who cleans their house as their "girl")

Posted by DAS | April 17, 2008 10:27 AM

I dunno...as big as the federal budget is I bet you COULD make up for it by removing all the tiny stuff that slips through the cracks.

Posted by J | April 17, 2008 10:34 AM

But, of course, Republicans have a long history of winning elections by claiming they can do so. They just call it supply-side economics.

So it is hard to blame McCain for doing what works. Republicans will keep running on a repeal of the laws of arithmetic as long as it works.

Posted by Lon | April 17, 2008 10:36 AM

As someone who supports phasing out aid to Israel, which really doesn't need it any more, I would like all three candidates to issue a statement that they would work with the Government of Israel to phase out such aid. This would be a good thing for the State of Israel as it would force the government there to put their fiscal house in order. It would also free them from US pressure to show restraint in their actions against the Palestinian terrorists.

Posted by SLC | April 17, 2008 10:43 AM

SLC,

One could additionally argue that fiscal dependence of Israel on any country is a betrayal of Zionist principles.

Posted by DAS | April 17, 2008 10:52 AM

"Against Earmarks, Except for the Popular Ones"

That summarizes the attitude of 100 Senators and 435 Representatives. How is this unique to McCain?

Posted by kafka | April 17, 2008 11:05 AM

as big as the federal budget is I bet you COULD make up for it by removing all the tiny stuff that slips through the cracks.

You, sir, are an innumerate idiot

Posted by rea | April 17, 2008 11:10 AM

"Against Earmarks, Except for the Popular Ones"

That summarizes the attitude of 100 Senators and 435 Representatives. How is this unique to McCain?

Eh, how many of those Senators and Representatives have vowed to VETO any bill that contains earmarks as proof of their fiscal responsibility? John McCain rather blatantly reprises that scene in Casablanca:

"Gambling? Here? I'm shocked!"

"Your winnings, sir."

Posted by Bill White | April 17, 2008 11:11 AM

So it is hard to blame McCain for doing what works. Republicans will keep running on a repeal of the laws of arithmetic as long as it works. - Lon

We scientimists (in the context of evolution) call this "survival of the fittest" (which does not mean survival of the most athletic, but rather survival of those who are best at getting "rewarded" by their environment). That fitness in our political and punditocracy landscapes correlates with being wrong rather than being right means that wrong politicians and wrong pundits will proliferate and out compete the ones who are good and correct. As the old saying goes, in a democratic republic the people get the government they deserve.

In my more paranoid moments I wonder if the whole push to teach "intelligent design" is not about trying to get students to think critically about evolution but rather an attempt to confuse them as to what the meaning of "evolutionary fitness" is so that they think "evolutionarily fit" means "so good it seems to some people like it's intelligently designed" rather than the almost tautological "that which survives".

The end game being a bunch of confused citizens who don't think of the larger consequences of, e.g., voting for politicians who are consistently wrong and who are easy prey to any pseudo-economics fraud that invokes notions of "competition" and other evolutionary-flavored pseudo-arguments.

Posted by DAS | April 17, 2008 11:11 AM

anyone happy with any of the so-called debates? Uninformative? Overblown sense for gotcha questions? Audience participation useless?

How about an unmoderated debate (in the sense of NOT having a celebrity journo running the debate) but with a referee/timekeeper to maintain order. Then each of the debaters provides a list of 5 questions to ask their opponent a few days in advance. Each debater gets 4 minutes to answer the question, 3 minutes to rebut, maybe a minute for ripostes. The referee gets to turn off mics to help maintain order.

The gotcha element is removed. There is time to reflect and provide the best answer to important dividing line issues (presuming that these are the questions an opponent would ask).

That would be worth watching but it won't make any money for the networks so...

Posted by mike c | April 17, 2008 11:25 AM

Lon said... They just call it supply-side economics.

I prefer the term "Tinkle Down Economics" which, BTW, has never functioned without stimulus in the form of massive government deficit spending and consumption of Social Security and Medicare surpluses (taxes increased under Reagan to "save" Social Security).

Skip the tax cuts and look at the spending under Reagan, Bush I, Bush II and then compare them to Clinton. You'll see who was the fiscal conservative. Here's a news flash to the GOP. If I borrow $100,000, I am NOT $100,000 richer. The same math scales into the trillions.

Posted by LFC | April 17, 2008 11:27 AM

How do we get this information out to the masses? The media will never cover it.

Posted by 55 | April 17, 2008 11:29 AM

DAS,

One bit of pedantry, and one real point: (I'll let you decide which is which)

I would substitute "That which reproduces" for "That which surivives" in your definition of evolutionary fitness. Survival is a dead end. Mules survive. Only those organisms that can increase their numbers over time are truly "fit".

And if intelligent design is really a plot to cause ignorance and gullibility in the general public, I'm afraid it's sort of redundant. Coals to Newcastle.

Posted by heedless | April 17, 2008 11:36 AM

How do we get this information out to the masses? The media will never cover it.

The answer involves missing white women, Aruba, and sharks.

We just have to fill in the details.

Posted by Davis X. Machina | April 17, 2008 11:38 AM

How about we feed Paris Hilton to a shark off the coast of Aruba while she's holding copies of Krugman's and Power's books? Or just feed her to a shark. I'm easy.

McCain's comment reminds of of when Bruce Willis was saying he believes in small government, but thinks we need to do more to help the poor and fully fund Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, schools and the military, which means that he basically wants the US government to be at best... 15% smaller.

Posted by Reality Man | April 17, 2008 12:05 PM

So it is hard to blame McCain for doing what works. Republicans will keep running on a repeal of the laws of arithmetic as long as it works.

If you do all budgeting using unsigned arithmetic, so that a 300 billion surplus and a 300 billion deficit are the same magnitude, it all comes out right.

Think of them as appealing to the absolute-values voter.

Posted by Davis X. Machina | April 17, 2008 12:12 PM

It's really sad to see a strong, intellectual, and progressive man such as Obama resort to jumping through hoops for the Israel Lobby. He had to prostrate himself in Pa., at the feet of his hand-holder Robert Wexler, and vow unabashed fealty to Israel.

"I don't knows no Edward Said."

Old Man Bush tried to stop the settlement building in the occupied territories by threatening to cease loan guarantees. He failed to get re-elected.

Obama and McCain know that to cease the funding would be to cease their political careers.

Posted by patrick | April 17, 2008 12:17 PM

J,

The problem is, all the easy stuff has been cut. Anything still in there has a political constituency that will scream if you reduce their subsidy.

You should check out The Federal Subsidy Beast, the best book on budget policy I've ever read (and only 62 cents on Amazon), it drills into a lot of them. Defense spending and housing subsidies are the worst economically and most untouchable politically.
http://www.amazon.com/Federal-Subsidy-Beast-Supreme-Democracy/dp/0967444519

Posted by beowulf | April 17, 2008 12:20 PM

McCain's budget proposal seems almost farcical. Entitlements get 60% of the budget, defense 23% and everything else 17%. Even at their peak earmarks were no more than 2% of the budget. This proposal doesn't pass the laugh test.

Posted by Ben Gann | April 17, 2008 12:39 PM

heedless,

You're right -- chalk it up to me being a biochemist and not an evolutionary-biologist. OTOH, I can't figure out which is the pedantic point and which one is the substantiative one.

Posted by DAS | April 17, 2008 2:20 PM

"Obama's lack of groveling before AIPAC"

Uh, would that include opening a Web site - in Hebrew - in Israel?

Or denouncing Jimmy Carter for wanting to talk to Hamas - at the same time Carter is trying to get Clinton to drop out of the race? Obama just shot himself in the foot there, I'd say.

Obama panders to AIPAC just as much as Clinton does - he just doesn't get any credit for it from AIPAC because AIPAC already owns Clinton.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | April 17, 2008 5:25 PM

Heedless: "I would substitute 'That which reproduces' for 'That which surivives' in your definition of evolutionary fitness. Survival is a dead end. Mules survive. Only those organisms that can increase their numbers over time are truly 'fit'."

To be precise, it's those who survive long enough to reproduce.

Also, increasing numbers over time begs a few questions, like, "how long is 'time'?" (stretch it out long enough and very, very few higher organisms fit the bill), and whether increasing numbers is more important than changing one's nature to adapt.

And that applies only to non-conceptual-processing capable animals. Once conceptual processing comes in, survival becomes the critical element, reproduction, not so much. Naturally, as long as humans remain mammals (or at least mammals who die of "natural causes" and other means), reproduction is a necessity.

Once Transhumans (or humans who do not die ordinarily) enter the picture, however, reproduction becomes irrelevant - first, because it conveys no survival benefit to the individual, and second, because any Transhuman can reproduce to any desired degree as long as material mass is available to do so.

As an aside, some chimps worry about cloning - a technology that still requires 15-20 years to produce a viable human, one that is still subject to every sort of environmental and cultural influence. What are they doing to do when nanotech replication becomes feasible? Exact reproduction of an individual down to the brain patterns. Cloning can't reproduce Hitler (or me or Summer Glau), "The Boys from Brazil" notwithstanding. Replication can.

However, since there is no survival advantage to the individual by such replication, I foresee it will not be used much except possibly to allow greater operations over a wider area - which, come to think of it, is what all reproduction is used for - by the parents anyway and generally by society (that and an "ersatz immortality" for the parents.)

The one valid thing Ayn Rand ever said was that values derive from life. The Transhuman position is that one's own life is infinitely valuable, everything (and everybody) else, not so much. The corollary is that the only survival that matters is immortality.

As William S. Burroughs said, "Survival must be computed in immortal terms. Beware a fool's survival."

This means "natural evolution" must be superceded by "participatory evolution."

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | April 17, 2008 7:40 PM