What role for business? for government?

What role should government play in society?
A question that is central to politics in the US: our individual answers suggest something about our ideologies.

While we associate conservatisvism with free market economics, I have claimed in class that business people do not want a freely competitive market: they like regulations that benefit them.

1. The Missouri General Assembly has voted to require that you buy ethanol if you buy gasoline in Missouri. The Senator that represents our distric, John Cauthorn, is a major supporter of the bill, and also a corn farmer.

Sponsoring Sen. John Cauthorn, R-Mexico, said it would be an economic boon. "We're forcing them to leave their energy dollars in the state of Missouri," he said.

The most vocal opposition came from a small group of Republicans who said such a mandate conflicted with free-market principles.

Sen. Luann Ridgeway, R-Smithville, said the government has no business making choices for consumers, who can now buy ethanol-blended gasoline if they want.

2. Should government help you with the pain of high gas prices?

Sharp Reaction to G.O.P. Plan on Gas Rebate
WASHINGTON, April 30 — The Senate Republican plan to mail $100 checks to voters to ease the burden of high gasoline prices is eliciting more scorn than gratitude from the very people it was intended to help.
(April 30, 2006)

Aides for several Republican senators reported a surge of calls and e-mail messages from constituents ridiculing the rebate as a paltry and transparent effort to pander to voters before the midterm elections in November.

"The conservatives think it is socialist bunk, and the liberals think it is conservative trickery," said Don Stewart, a spokesman for Senator John Cornyn, Republican of Texas, pointing out that the criticism was coming from across the ideological spectrum.

3. the insurance industry market requires they can be profitable:

Insurers Retreat From Coasts
Katrina Losses May Force More Costs on Taxpayers

By Spencer S. Hsu
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, April 30, 2006; Page A01

Alarmed at the sharply rising cost of hurricanes and other disasters, home insurers are pulling back from some U.S. coastal markets, warning of gathering financial storm clouds over how the United States pays for the damage of catastrophe.

The development is yet another legacy of Hurricane Katrina, whose mounting toll of destruction along the Gulf Coast has crystallized a growing industry debate about the combined effect of climate trends and population growth in coastal areas. Some believe the two are creating a risk of losses so large that insurers could be pushed to the breaking point, leaving the government and taxpayers holding the tab for the next disaster.
...
They propose establishing a greater role for the federal government in backing up new state catastrophe funds or private insurance firms when losses exceed a certain level, toughening state and local building codes and increasing premiums to accurately price risks. Some also want to potentially pool the high costs of covering perils such as earthquakes, hurricanes, tornadoes and even floods into regional or national groups to ease consumer cost, and to use some money to help improve first responders and local preparedness.

Note in the second paragraph, that those who have an interest in being accurate about global climate change -- insurance companies that may have to pay -- do not dismiss it as a hoax or as unsound science.

Foreign and Defense Policy

In chapter 15, we see two basic approaches to foreign policy: Moral Idealism and Political Realism. they differ in how we might think, and talk, of interacting with other nations. Should human rights matter to our foreign policy?

Bush praises Azerbaijan's president, despite spotty record

By James Gerstenzang
Los Angeles Times

WASHINGTON — President Bush praised Azerbaijan's president Friday despite human-rights problems documented by the State Department, and he said the country has a "very important role to play" in meeting global energy needs.

Bush met in the Oval Office with President Ilham Aliev, who succeeded his father 2 ½ years ago in a ballot that the State Department said suffered from "numerous, serious irregularities."

With Aliev sitting in an armchair next to him, Bush held out Azerbaijan as "a modern Muslim country that is able to provide for its citizens, that understands that democracy is the wave of the future."

The meeting demonstrated the difficulty the administration faces as it seeks to maintain U.S. access to oil and gas supplies from countries that may be unstable or unreliable, often because of corruption or human-rights abuses.

Also on the foreign and defense policy front, an article from Thursday's Washington Post on the cost of our Wars.

Projected Iraq War Costs Soar
Total Spending Is Likely to More Than Double, Analysis Finds

By Jonathan Weisman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, April 27, 2006; A16

The cost of the war in Iraq will reach $320 billion after the expected passage next month of an emergency spending bill currently before the Senate, and that total is likely to more than double before the war ends, the Congressional Research Service estimated this week.

The analysis, distributed to some members of Congress on Tuesday night, provides the most official cost estimate yet of a war whose price tag will rise by nearly 17 percent this year. Just last week, independent defense analysts looking only at Defense Department costs put the total at least $7 billion below the CRS figure.

Once the war spending bill is passed, military and diplomatic costs will have reached $101.8 billion this fiscal year, up from $87.3 billion in 2005, $77.3 billion in 2004 and $51 billion in 2003, the year of the invasion, congressional analysts said. Even if a gradual troop withdrawal begins this year, war costs in Iraq and Afghanistan are likely to rise by an additional $371 billion during the phaseout, the report said, citing a Congressional Budget Office study. When factoring in costs of the war in Afghanistan, the $811 billion total for both wars would have far exceeded the inflation-adjusted $549 billion cost of the Vietnam War.

Policies we pursue have tradeoffs: human lives, standing int he world, and money. And not pursuing policies have tradeoffs, too.

Multiple Goals

In the final chapter, Foreign and Defense Policy, we see the President is the main actor. Congress still has a role to play. But to understand how they play it requires us to think of other goals beyond "keeping America safe."

Recall the Dubai Ports debacle, that cost President Bush some political capital with conservatives. While it may not matter much who operates the ports, this was an area where a simple narrative -- "Arab ownership" --outweighs rational argument.

One simple way to secure ports is to require the screening of each container entering the US. But repeatedly, efforts to require this are shot down:

Panel defeats comprehensive cargo screening amendment

By Chris Strohm, CongressDaily
cstrohm@nationaljournal.com
Under intense election-year pressure from interest groups, Republicans on the House Homeland Security Committee on Wednesday defeated an amendment from Democrats that would have required all U.S.-bound cargo to be inspected at foreign ports.

By an 18-16 vote, Republicans rejected the amendment, sponsored by Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass., during the committee's markup of the House's leading port security bill. Voting for the amendment were all the panel's Democrats, joined by Rep. Christopher Shays, R-Conn., who broke with his party and explained that he believed that Congress needed to establish a firm deadline for scanning cargo abroad.

Like the toungue-in-cheek exam question: it is not that Republicans in Congress hate security. It is that there are competing goals: satisfying a well organized ocnstituency is one. And it is an issue most of us pay little attention to.

Upcoming extra Credit

As suggested by a classmate (e.g., what would you like to suggest?)

There were two things coming up next week that caught my attention.
1. Capstone Presentations in Sociology and Anthropology that are on
the 24 and 26 of next week in the SUB 306

and

2. The Global Issues Colloquium that is being held on 27 in VH 1000.

I thought both would be very interesting the first focusing on
presentations by senior SOAN students on a multitude of subjects including inequalities in health care (which we are talking a little about in the book, and child abuse policies amoung other things. The second event discusses how literature can build bridges with the Middle East and is being given by a professor from Washington University...and as an Education student I thought this would be a very interesting lecture as it would be for any major. These are just a few things I ran across that I thought would be interesting and wondered if would work for extra credit.

Let me know of other worthy events: free and open to all. For the SOAN, attend at least an hour of presentations; please do not walk in, or out, while someone is presenting.

Policymaking: Means and Ends

Recently we defined rationality as means-ends calculation. One defines the goals they they want to achieve, and then figures out the means, or ways, of acieving those goals.

In a representative democracy, one goal is winning elections; since elections are organized around parties, party-building activities are important.

One virtue of the Hacker and Pierson book is its emphasis on party discipline and "power brokers." One vice is that they do not come across as neutral analysts. So sometime it is difficult to evaluate their argument -- we get distracted by their language.

In this final section of the course, I want to emphasize the politics of policy making --

“politics is the struggle over power, or influence within organizations or informal groups that can grant benefits or privileges.” (BSS, 3)

So we want to ask, who stands to benefit from this policy?

Chapter 14 begins with a discussion of the five stages of the policy making process, with an application to Medicare Part D: the Prescription Drug Benefit. Who stands to benefit from it?

1) Seniors, who might have assistance in purchasing drugs.

2) The Republican Party, which gets the support of seniors, who have been helped by this. (see figure 8-4, page 260 of BSS to se the Democrats' advantage on this issue)

3) Insurance Companies

The Wall Street Journal

April 21, 2006

Large Insurers Are Big Winners
In New Medicare Benefit
By SARAH LUECK and VANESSA FUHRMANS
April 21, 2006; Page B1

With the May 15 enrollment deadline for the new Medicare prescription-drug benefit approaching, private insurers and the government are making a last-ditch push to sign people up and declare the venture a success. Already, though, the massive effort has produced clear winners and losers among businesses and seniors.

The early winners include some of the nation's largest health plans, which are peddling the drug coverage. After a rocky start in January, the plans have snagged roughly 15 million new customers and healthy government subsidies. Also buoyed: drug makers, which are reporting increased demand for some products used by seniors, such as drugs for chronic conditions. Many seniors are also giving the benefit good reviews, despite initial confusion about which plan to choose.

In this story you get the end of drug coverage, and importantly, the means of "private market".

See the discussion of Policy Formulation, page 467: Democrats would have been likely to create a bill to provide the coverage through a single payer; Republican's "private" system means government cannot negotiate with business (drug companies) for lower costs.

So keep in mind: its not only the what government chooses to do, but the how (and there is a reason conservatives want to replace FDR with Reagan on the dime). As a voter, you can decide which you like better. As a student of politics, you need to understand the politics of policymaking.

Constituent Casework

The function that gets members reelected is constituent casework: easy to do, with a supporting staff; not likely to be thwarted, unlike legislation. Except if you hire the wrong intern. Perhaps there is another explanation for this:

Congresswoman Puzzled Over Obscenity in Letter to Constituent

Thursday , April 20, 2006

WASHINGTON — Nobody expects to get a letter from a member of Congress that ends with an expletive.

But that's what happened when Rep. Jo Ann Emerson, R-Mo., recently corresponded with a resident of her southeast Missouri district.

The letter ended with a profane, seven-letter insult beginning with the letter a — "i think you're an. ..."

Emerson says she can't explain how the offensive language made it into the letter, which otherwise reads like a typical response to a citizen's question about last year's testimony of oil executives before the Senate Commerce Committee.

White House Management

By 930's class Wednesday, we had heard Scott McClellan was stepping down as White House Press Secretary. Also Wednesday, Karl Rove stepped aside as policy director; the move was portrayed as an opportunity to focus on the Fall 06 congressional elections. All of this is in the wake of last week's replacement of Andy Card with Josh Bolten as Chief of Staff.

The Press, and other analysts, are reading Wenesday's news differently:
1. The Official Line, in the New York Times: Rove Is Giving Up Daily Policy Post to Focus on Vote

USA Today plays it pretty neutrally in the headline: White House 'transition' continues , although the hotlink includes the phrase "whitehouseshakeup" and transition is in scare quotes.

Two other nationals provide more political explanations:

3. LA Times: Rove's Role Reduced, McClellan Resigns in White House Shakeup

WASHINGTON -- Moving to reinvigorate his presidency and recover from low public approval ratings, President Bush on Wednesday reduced the official role that Karl Rove, his chief political strategist, will play in setting policy and accepted the resignation of spokesman Scott McClellan.

The latest moves were part of an effort by Bush's new chief of staff, Joshua B. Bolten, to energize an administration that has faced bad news from Iraq and seen a number of second-term initiatives stall. The difficulties have left Republicans nervous about losing control of Congress....
A former White House official who had talked recently with Bolten said Wednesday's moves resulted from Bolten's view that he needed to address three serious problems facing Bush: deteriorating press coverage, souring relations with Congress, and increasing tensions between the White House and GOP candidates. The former official asked not to be identified because of concern the White House might not appreciate his comments during a difficult time.

4. Washington Post: White House Shifts Into Survival Mode

In a White House known for both defiance and optimism, yesterday's senior staff changes represent a frank acknowledgment of the trouble in which President Bush now finds himself. They are also a signal of how starkly Bush's second-term ambitions have shifted after a year of persistent problems at home and abroad.

5. I could not find a static link on Foxnews.com -- many many links about immigration, "Americans fleeing to the suburbs, and Cynthia mcKinney, but nothing about the administration's switcheroo. Odd. there is video content, but I disable java and often use dial-up, so that's not very helpful.

China and human rights

In the 830 class, we mentioned the news item China's President Hu visiting the US. I nodded forward to the topic of foreign policy, and discussed briefly why we should be invading Iraq to liberate it while welcoming President Hu: what is the principle that justifies the differential treatment?

In the discussion, I claimed China bills the family of the executed for the bullet. More disturbing are recent claims that China appears to harvest the organs of the condemned

From CNN International (via AP):

"A reported close relationship between transplant units and the authorities regulating executions and the availability of organs is unethical," said Stephen Wigmore, chairman of the group's ethics committee.

"The alleged sale of organs derived from executed prisoners for financial gain is a lamentable practice," he said.

Human rights groups have long claimed many of China's transplant organs come from executed prisoners who may not have given their permission. China routinely denies the claims.

Last month China's Health Ministry banned sales of human organs in an apparent attempt to clean up the country's laxly regulated transplant business. The new rules, which take effect July 1, also state that donors must give written permission for their organs to be transplanted.

Taxes

Our reading in public policy includes chapter 2 of Hacker and Pierson, Partying with the People's Money, regarding the Bush Tax Cuts. Hacker and Pierson argue that the policy of tax cuts was chosen in part by ifnoring policy tradeoffs -- what else coould have been done with the large surpluses projected in the early 2000s -- and rosy scenarios of overestimating the size of those surpluses (as well as underestimating the size of the cuts -- including backloading th ecosts, and inserting "timebombs."

Several recent articles on taxes in the US:

First, an excellent article on politics of taxes, including historical perspectives:
Taxes Flatten but Deep Pockets Still Bulge
By Joel Havemann, Times Staff Writer
April 17, 2006

The idea that income tax rates should be graduated, with those who had more money paying a larger share of it in taxes, was a fundamental premise of the federal income tax system when it was created by constitutional amendment in 1913 on the eve of World War I.
...
Although the top tax rate is 35%, nobody pays that percentage in total because it applies only to income beyond the first $326,450. At the other end of the income scale, the lowest rate — 10% — applies only to the first $7,300 in income.

And then there is the regressive effect of the payroll tax, which finances Social Security and Medicare. Social Security's share of the tax — 6.2% — applied last year only to the first $90,000 in wages. People who earned more than that paid a smaller percentage of their income in payroll taxes than did those who earned less.

As a result, people with income between $500,000 and $1 million owed the same share of their income in combined federal income and payroll taxes — 22% — as did taxpayers reporting at least $1 million in income, according to the Tax Policy Center.

The New York Times' David Kay Johnston writes about taxes regulalry: he won the pulitzer prize for the articles that formed the basis of his book Perfectly Legal. Recently he wrote about the benefits to the investor class of the Bush tax cuts: as a student of politics might well expect:

Big Gain for Rich Seen in Tax Cuts for Investments

When Congress cut investment taxes three years ago, it was clear that the highest-income Americans would gain the most, because they had the most money in investments. But the size of the cuts and what share goes to each income group have not been known.

As Congress debates whether to make the Bush tax cuts permanent, The Times analyzed I.R.S. figures for 2003, the latest year available and the first that reflected the tax cuts for income from dividends and from the sale of stock and other assets, known as capital gains.

The analysis found the following:

¶Among taxpayers with incomes greater than $10 million, the amount by which their investment tax bill was reduced averaged about $500,000 in 2003, and total tax savings, which included the two Bush tax cuts on compensation, nearly doubled, to slightly more than $1 million.

¶These taxpayers, whose average income was $26 million, paid about the same share of their income in income taxes as those making $200,000 to $500,000 because of the lowered rates on investment income.

¶Americans with annual incomes of $1 million or more, about one-tenth of 1 percent all taxpayers, reaped 43 percent of all the savings on investment taxes in 2003. The savings for these taxpayers averaged about $41,400 each. By comparison, these same Americans received less than 10 percent of the savings from the other Bush tax cuts, which applied primarily to wages, though that share is expected to grow in coming years.

As we resurrect the notion of myths and symbols, of symbolic politics, we want to pay attention to the justifying nature of these myths. Is it true that tax cuts actually "grow the economy" and thus pay for themselves? Partisan defenders of the policy might not care too much about the answer to this -- a tax cut is good for the party?

A Conservative might care about the answer to this: if you define yourself in part by fiscal responsibility, being fiscally irresponsible is bad. Writing recently on the Heritage Foundation's webpage, conservative Bruce Bartlett concludes:

Revenues as a share of the gross domestic product fell every year from 2000 to 2004, from 20.9 percent to 16.3 percent. The 2005 increase only raised revenues to 17.5 percent -- still well below their historical average of 18.1 percent of GDP. It seems to me that the normal cyclical expansion after the end of the recession in 2001 has done far more to raise revenue than any Laffer curve effect. Revenues are simply returning to trend, nothing more.

In short, there is very little likelihood that revenues are rising because the 2003 tax cuts or would fall if they are not extended. The case for extending them must be made on other grounds.

As Hacker and Pierosn tell us, the sunset provision in these tax cuts was purposeful, both to limit their estimated size, as well as to have a permanent campaign issue.

Bureaucratic rulemaking

Bardes et al.(425) tell us, "bureaucrats and politicians and policymakers." And how.

From the Washington Post:

Wait Ends On Rules For Katrina Rebuilding
$2.5 Billion More for Levees Also Proposed

By Peter Whoriskey and Spencer S. Hsu
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, April 13, 2006; Page A01

The Bush administration proposed spending an additional $2.5 billion for New Orleans levee construction yesterday as it issued long-awaited construction guidelines for the flood-prone region that would require rebuilding many heavily damaged houses at least three feet above ground.

With tens of thousands of houses awaiting reconstruction, the move could resolve an impasse over how to rebuild the low-lying metropolis. Uncertainty over the levees has left homeowners unsure about whether to rebuild and about how high houses should stand to avoid future flooding.

What's not clear in the early part of the Post article is in the New York Times' headline: Lenient Rule Set for Rebuilding in New Orleans

NEW ORLEANS, April 12 — Federal officials issued unexpectedly lenient guidelines on Wednesday for rebuilding the flood-damaged homes of New Orleans, potentially allowing tens of thousands of homeowners to return to their neighborhoods at costs far less than they had feared.

Under the guidelines issued here by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, huge swaths of homes might still have to be rebuilt at least three feet off the ground, or risk getting no federal reconstruction money or insurance.

But the announcement, anxiously anticipated as a critical step in rebuilding this still-ravaged city, was nonetheless greeted with some relief by local officials and residents. They had feared that, in the wake of Hurricane Katrina's catastrophic flooding, the government would demand that some houses be raised as much as 10 feet, at enormous expense.

Where's the politics?

The announcement dovetails with a political climate in New Orleans in which the idea of not rebuilding damaged neighborhoods has been taboo. In a heated mayor's race that is now reaching its conclusion, no candidate has been willing to say some areas should not be rebuilt because of flood danger.

Navigating the shoals

Hacker and Pierson discuss the difficulty of being a moderate in a world where party discipline matters. Today's Washington Post discusses the predicament Senator Lincoln Chaffee (R-RI) finds himself in -- being a moderate Republican in a more liberal state:

A Republican on the Edge
Chafee's Defections Loom Large in Senate Race

By Shailagh Murray
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, April 14, 2006; A01

...

The GOP senator had appeared the previous night before the Scituate Republican Town Committee to seek the endorsement of the small but influential group. In his halting, soft-spoken way, Chafee defended his opposition to the war in Iraq, domestic wiretapping and the confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. as the principled positions of an old-school conservative.

Chafee, 53, once could count on voters in Rhode Island to tolerate his maverick ways, but this time the response was blank stares. "Nobody listened to my reasoning," Chafee recounted as he piled hay into a wheelbarrow. "They support the president on everything."

Few paths to victory are more convoluted than the one Chafee must travel to win election to a second term this year in this strongly Democratic state. Chafee will face Cranston Mayor Stephen Laffey, a conservative, in the Sept. 12 GOP primary, and he must convince voters that he is "Republican enough," despite his numerous defections from the party and President Bush. If he survives the primary, Chafee then must hope that he can hold the Republican vote while wooing moderate Democrats and independents to stave off what is sure to be a strong Democratic challenge.

Immigration Politics

The LA Times has a swell story on the political maneuvering on immigration:

President Bush accused Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid on Thursday of "single-handedly thwarting" action on immigration legislation, and got a brisk retort in return.

"President Bush has as much credibility on immigration as he does on Iraq and national security," shot back the Nevada Democrat.

Thinking back to 2003-04, Its amazing to think that Iraq and security would be viewed as a weakness for Bush.

Bush and Reid swapped charges as Republicans disclosed a Spanish-language radio advertising campaign designed to shoulder Democrats with the responsibility for legislation passed by the GOP-controlled House that would make illegal immigrants subject to felony charges.

Given the majoritarian nature of the House, how could this be?
Alternatively, does reality matter in a world of "Symbolic Politics" -- with a disinterested and uninformed public, only about half of Americans report knowing which party controls the congress in the first instance.

Medical Care in the United States

Here are the two citations I mentioned in class on Friday April 14.

1.For Americans, Getting Sick Has Its Price

Survey Says U.S. Patients Pay More, Get Less Than Those in Other Western Nations
By Rob Stein
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, November 4, 2005; Page A02

Americans pay more when they get sick than people in other Western nations and get more confused, error-prone treatment, according to the largest survey to compare U.S. health care with other nations.

Bardes Shelly and Schmidt claim there are "numerous reasons" for growth of costs, although they discuss only two: the aging population, and advancing technologies.

2. Does Medical Malpractice drive costs? The evidence is "statistically, no." The source is the Congressional Budget Office's 2004 report that links malpractice insurance to 2% of overall medical costs.

Certainly here are horror stories of rates for some specialties, in some locations, being dramatically increased. As students of politics, we might ask whether that is due to costs of litigation, as claimed, or if this is an attempt by an industry to leverage doctors into lobbying on their behalf.

Here are a couple sources to read about malpractice politics
a. The Medical Malpractice Myth, by Tom Baker.
b. Kaiser Family Foundation's Medical Malpractice Policy

Government Contracting

In the previous post I wrote abou thow government contracting can serve political purposes: sinc eFederal workers are more likely to be Democratic, and business people more likely to be Republican, contracting allows Republicans to provide a service by not creating bureaus, and Democrats.

the Washington Post has an artilce today from the point of view of contractors who worked very hard to be successful, or happened to get lucky, or both:

Contractors Cash Out but Try to Stay Humble

By Ellen McCarthy
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, April 10, 2006; A01

Washington companies received $52.5 billion in federal contracts in 2004, an increase of more than 55 percent over 2001 and the largest concentration of government work in the country, according to the Institute for Public Policy at George Mason University.

While federal employment has remained mostly steady, or declined a bit, over the past 30 years, this "outsourcing" masks how many people indirectly depend on "government jobs."

Bureaucracy, Party Building, and Patronage

In discussing bureacuracy, I noted how political parties attemptto use government for building and keeping political majorities.

We discussed how the Democrats' New Deal Coalition created numerous jobs for people who tended then to support Democratic policies and candidates. Federal Workers are known to e more sympathetic to Democrats than to Republicans.

In the same manner, Republicans are more interested in privatization of services (since the service will be provided by a company -- and business tends to support Republicans; perhaps you saw the famous incident recently of Barbara Bush donating money to Katrina Relief on the condition that it be used to buy software from a company run by her son Neil
Yes, she gets a tax deduction for that.

The creation of Homeland Security Department in 2003 involved a political battle involving the parties and their constituencies. President Bush initially resisted the creation of DHS: as a conservative, he did not want another federal bureacuracy. But also, as a Republican, he did not want more Democratic federal workers. So when it became clear in 2002 that the Senate was going to go ahead with a bill, Mr. Bush could not afford to be portrayed as not caring about Homeland Security.

The result was his own bill, that in the name of flexibility, gutted workers civil service protections. The Democrats in the senate balked, and Mr. Bush successfully used that in the fall senate campaigns to take the senate back for Republicans. In early 2003, the bill Bush wanted was law.

But the political battle did not end: as reported in today's Washington Post, the civil service rule suspension has been battled over for several years:

Congress set up the Homeland Security Department in response to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, and the Bush administration has made "flexibility" a buzz word to justify weakening the clout of unions at the department. But such phrases as "flexible and contemporary" have not fared well against the established rules that govern binding contracts and collective bargaining.

Unions, led by the National Treasury Employees Union, have argued that Homeland Security went far beyond what Congress intended in revamping labor rules and persuaded a U.S. District Court judge to block the department's plan. The unions contend the department's changes would nix contracts, take topics for negotiation off the bargaining table and rely on an in-house board, beholden to the homeland security secretary, to resolve labor disputes.

Symbolic politics: while the real battle is over constituents and party building, the public battle is over "homeland security": in a race for Senate in 2002, Incumbent Max Cleland waqs defeated by challenger Saxby Chambliss:

Cleland had sided with fellow Democrats by insisting that workers' civil-service protections be retained. Chambliss even ran a TV ad picturing Cleland with Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden.

Bureacuracies and control

James Hansen, who directs NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, ...suggested to an audience at the New School University in New York that his counterparts at NOAA were experiencing even more severe censorship. "It seems more like Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union than the United States," he told the crowd.

This quote is pulled from the middle of an article on control over government scentists (bureaucrats) in communicating with the press.

Presidential Ambitions and lawmaking

A post below suggests Majority Leader Frist is conducting Senate business with an eye to 2008. Not surprising -- recall the desire by Kerry in 2004 to cast a vote on veterans issues after missing nearly 80% of the votes due to campaigning, and Frist's efforts to reschedule the vote to thwart Kerry.

Now comes news that campaign finance reformer John McCain wants to change the very bill that he helped to craft to remove some money influence in campaigning (about the time you were born, McCain was involved in a money scandal: he took money from Savings and Loans people, and then pressured S&L regulators to not regulate very much. In the end, failed S&Ls cost taxpayers billions. And just as today the money problems are the majority party's (Republicans) so were they then mostly the majoroity party's (Democracts): you try to influence those who have the power.

so: McCain, House GOP strike a BCRA deal
By Alexander Bolton

House Republican leaders have struck a deal with Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) to eliminate restrictions on coordination between national parties and federal candidates, a change in the law that would be of great benefit to the winner of the 2008 GOP presidential primary, according to congressional sources.

Republican and Democratic campaign-finance experts alike believe the change would be a boon to McCain’s campaign, if he wins his party’s nomination in three years, an outcome that political handicappers are beginning to view as a real possibility.

Wedge-islation

Parties work hard to attact and mobilize voters. Our powerpoint on congressional functions discussed the role of wedge-islation. From The Hill, April 5, 2006:

Senate Dems to pursue new strategy on abortion
By Alexander Bolton

The Senate Democratic leadership says it has found a wedge issue to strengthen the party’s position on abortion rights, which top strategists think has become a liability in recent years.

The wedge is legislation expanding access to contraceptives and sex education, which polls show a majority of Americans support but which Democrats are betting will be difficult for social conservatives in the Republican base to accept.

Democratic strategists say the time is right for action because women who support abortion rights but are not politically engaged are alarmed by the confirmation of Samuel Alito as Sandra Day O’Connor’s replacement on the Supreme Court and by the passage of legislation strictly curbing the availability of abortion.

Congress and the Budget

we will return to the budget in the final section of the course. By law, Congress is supposed to pass a budget resolution by April 15. Its easier to be an opposition party than to be a majority party and to have to unite your coalition, however:

House Republicans on Course for Budget Clash

By Jonathan Weisman and Shailagh Murray
Tuesday, April 4, 2006; Page A21

At least half a dozen moderate Republicans have declared their opposition to the budget, as written, and with Democrats united in opposition, GOP leaders cannot afford many more defections.

Moderates are demanding $7 billion more for labor, health and education programs, the same amount that their counterparts in the Senate were able to extract in their budget fight last month. To get that increase, they will propose either raising the cap on discretionary spending or offsetting the domestic spending through defense cuts.

But conservatives are just as resolute that Republicans hold the line on spending, lest the GOP's base voters abandon a party that has overseen the most dramatic fiscal shift from surpluses to deficits in the nation's history. Even with a virtual freeze on domestic programs, the House budget would add $3 trillion to the national debt over the next five years -- largely by extending expiring tax cuts and allowing spending on entitlement programs such as Medicare to rise virtually unimpeded.

Castle would not venture to guess how the showdown will turn out. But moderates, many of them eyeing tough reelection fights in the fall, are ready to test the House's new leadership team.

Tom Delay

Few of us heard of Tom Delay before this class. He is featured prominently in Hacker and Pierson, and I know some of us wondered if their characterization is fair. Make no mistake of the impoirtance of Mr. DeLay to Republican fortunes over the past few years. Here is an article from 11 months ago, from the Christian Science Monitor:

In a tribute to DeLay, a bid for party loyalty
Amid ethics questions, the powerful House leader seeks anchor in his GOP base as he headlines a gala event.

By Gail Russell Chaddock | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor May 11, 2005

Thursday night's tribute to embattled House majority leader Tom DeLay at the Capitol Hilton aims to send a message to GOP colleagues contemplating jumping ship: Do so at your peril.

President Bush won't be there, but a near who's who of Washington's conservative establishment will. ("Near" is the operative word: Absences will be noted.)

"The tribute is a statement to him: You're not alone. We'll stand by you. And it's to say to people in this town: If you pick a fight with him, you've got us to contend with," says organizer Cleta Mitchell, a GOP election lawyer on the board of the American Conservative Union. "Our target for that message is Republicans in the House and the Senate," she adds.

Sponsors of Thursday night's tribute say DeLay is the most effective GOP legislator in Congress, and they can't afford to lose him. "The reason why conservatives are sticking with DeLay is that he has always been for them on issues," says Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform, a sponsor.

Other sponsors include David Keene of the American Conservative Union (ACU), Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council, Ed Feulner of the Heritage Foundation, Paul Weyrich of the Free Congress Foundation, Gary Bauer of American Values, and Emmett Tyrrell, Jr., of the American Spectator - key contacts for conservatives aspiring to higher office.

Upcoming extra credit

Thursday April 6: the Center for Teaching and Learning is hosting a Global
Issues Colloquium - "The U.S. Army's Transformational Imperative" It
goes from 7-9 in Violette 1000

Tuesday April 11
7:00pm Baldwin Auditorium
Brief notes: Rich Lowry, nationally syndicated columnist and editor of
National Review magazine, will speak on the topic "American Power: The
Bush Administrations War on Terror."

what presidential role is this?

President as Misleader?

In the 830 class on Friday 3/31, we were discussing President Bush's departure from international law (critics call it violation, defenders say "everything changed after 9/11") to begin a preemptive war.

One argument offered to support the war was that Saddam did not let the weapons inspectors in. I said that on that matter, the president was lying.

From the Washington Post, almost three years ago, and several months after the war began:

The president's assertion that the war began because Iraq did not admit inspectors appeared to contradict the events leading up to war this spring: Hussein had, in fact, admitted the inspectors and Bush had opposed extending their work because he did not believe them effective.

In the face of persistent questioning about the use of intelligence before the Iraq war, administration officials have responded with evolving and sometimes contradictory statements. The matter has become increasingly charged, as Democrats demand hearings about Bush's broader use of intelligence to justify the Iraq war.

As you are well aware, the hearings never took place. To hold hearings prior to a reelection would be problematic for a same-party congress. And this July 15 2003 article was before the insurgency took hold: criticism of the war today is often countered by the claim that we harm America, we harm the troops, to question the president during wartime.

Two stories from last week also speak to the president as misleader, and they have recieved surprisingly little attention. Either they are true, and should receive lots of attention, or they are false, and should be debunked:

1) New York times, Monday March 27: Bush Was Set on Path to War, British Memo Says By Don Van Natta Jr.

But behind closed doors, the president was certain that war was inevitable. During a private two-hour meeting in the Oval Office on Jan. 31, 2003, he made clear to Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain that he was determined to invade Iraq without the second resolution, or even if international arms inspectors failed to find unconventional weapons, said a confidential memo about the meeting written by Mr. Blair's top foreign policy adviser and reviewed by The New York Times....

The memo also shows that the president and the prime minister acknowledged that no unconventional weapons had been found inside Iraq. Faced with the possibility of not finding any before the planned invasion, Mr. Bush talked about several ways to provoke a confrontation, including a proposal to paint a United States surveillance plane in the colors of the United Nations in hopes of drawing fire, or assassinating Mr. Hussein.

2) PREWAR INTELLIGENCE
Insulating Bush

By Murray Waas, National Journal

Karl Rove, President Bush's chief political adviser, cautioned other White House aides in the summer of 2003 that Bush's 2004 re-election prospects would be severely damaged if it was publicly disclosed that he had been personally warned that a key rationale for going to war had been challenged within the administration. Rove expressed his concerns shortly after an informal review of classified government records by then-Deputy National Security Adviser Stephen J. Hadley determined that Bush had been specifically advised that claims he later made in his 2003 State of the Union address -- that Iraq was procuring high-strength aluminum tubes to build a nuclear weapon -- might not be true, according to government records and interviews.

Some would argue that presidents effectively have to lie -- surely they could not tell the truth about everything. When is misleading necessary? understandable? regrettable? despicable? In thinking about these quesgtions, Eric Alterman's book, When Preidents Lie might be a place to start.

President as Average Joe

The President as Average Joe
Trying to Boost Support, Bush Brings Banter to the People

By Peter Baker
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, April 2, 2006; A04

President Bush was taking questions from an audience the other day when he was asked about the immigration debate raging in Washington.

"It's obviously topic du jour ," he said.

The audience laughed at the famously Francophobic Texan's faux accent.

"Pretty fancy, huh?" Bush asked, mocking himself. "Topic du jour ?"

The audience laughed again.

"I don't want to ruin the image," he added conspiratorially.