♫ Daisy, Daisy give me your answer sure... ♫ ♫ Trump's half crayzeee... ♫ ♫ That's why I'm voting for her... ♫

 I fixed the 'Daisy Ad" for the Clinton campaign. You're welcome, John Podesta  

Our last post outlined some of the geopolitical policy ramifications of  an American president being "unpredictable" with nuclear weapons - as was suggested by presidential nominee Donald Trump. Spoiler Alert: It's bad policy. Really, really bad. Not quite as important, but just as interesting, are the political ramifications of Trump's loose nuclear talk in this election.

This is not the first time the American voting public is being asked to consider the suitability of a Presidential candidate to have access to nuclear weapons. Probably the single most influential political TV ad in history was the infamous "Daisy Ad" run by the LBJ campaign against Goldwater in 1964:

A palpable public mood for change. Or not.

As noted in a previous post, I read David Mayhew's "Divided we Govern" during my sea-faring holiday. This is a book I had intended to read for some time. It is a foundation work of scholarship on which we have built the divided government voting heuristic promoted in this blog.

The book is a bit of a tough slog for the casual reader, a group in which I include myself. I recommend reading it while trapped on sailboat in the middle of the Pacific Ocean for two weeks when you have little else to do. Working through extensive footnotes and supporting material that some would consider dry, perhaps arid, maybe even Sahara Desert-like, requires some perseverance. But Mayhew writes with clarity, and if you bring a curiosity of why things really get done (or don't) in Washington - it is fascinating.

There is a pervasive belief - a nugget of "conventional wisdom" - that if you want to "get things done" in Congress, whether legislation, investigations to clean up governmental abuses, or just promote "change", a single party must control the Presidency and both legislative branches to avoid gridlock. It certainly seems intuitively obvious that the the federal government would be more productive if it all branches are run by one party. David Mayhew proved this conventional wisdom flat wrong, at least in the modern era. He puts the proposition to the test by rigorously quantifying and analyzing all legislation and investigations (the two primary functions of Congress) from 1946-2002. First published in 1991, the book was updated with a second edition in 2005. This book is the seminal work that debunked the notion that the federal government functions more effectively with unified single party control.

Watching the ubiquitous blue "Change" signs waving at the Democratic convention and listening to McCain's born-again "Change" message at the Republican convention, I was reminded of another Mayhew theme in the book. In his data, he documents periods spanning many years, where Congress becomes very productive in what Mayhew calls a legislative and/or investigatory "surge". Having completely dismantled any consideration that single party government is correlated with these productive congressional eras, he speculates on other factors that might drive these legislative surges.

This portion of the book is considerably less rigorous statistically, but it is interesting and potentially directly relevant to what we are seeing in this 2008 election season. Specifically, Mayhew explores the notion that the primary pre-requisite for theses periodic legislative "surges" is a pervasive "public mood" demanding "change". He wrote this more than a decade before the Obama candidacy, but his analysis may be the key to unlocking one of the great puzzles of this election. What does "change" really mean in this context?

"... causes of legislative surges can be found in extended expressions of "public purpose" or creedal passion." To put it another way, they can be located in a certain kind of "public mood" that favors change via government action (Some "moods" have that aim; others, as in the private- oriented 1920s, discourage government action). A "mood" seems to be one of those phenomena that drive political scientists to despair by being at once important and elusive. But perhaps something useful can be said. In principle, a "public mood" probably has the following features. First, much of at least the politically aware public, inside and outside Washington, shares a certain outlook about what can and should be done right now on a wide range of political issues. Second, a large number of people who possess that outlook bring considerable intensity to it; they are not lukewarm. Third, to the extent that the outlook calls for it, an appreciable number of people go on to engage in, to use a term that is probably as serviceable as any, citizen action. They actually do things: They may form organizations, persuade others, go to meetings, give money, write letters, join protests, approach members of Congress, in general make themselves heard and felt. Fourth, the outlook in question is in some sense dominant: Non- sharers of it have a hard time wholly resisting its intellectual or political appeal or mustering intensity or action against it... Fifth, a "public mood" has a beginning and an end. The outlook, the intensity, and the citizen action emerge or balloon at some detectable juncture, and then several years later, at another juncture, they deflate or disappear... An anti-government mood may not call for much citizen action, but a mood favoring change through government action requires -or at least seems to be associated with- a great deal. Levers need to be moved." - David Mahew - Divided we Govern

The examples offered by Mayhew of documented decade-long legislative surges that were driven by a palpable "public mood favoring change" included reconstruction in the 1860's, the "progressive"movement in the 1910's, Roosevelt's "New Deal" of the thirties and the civil rights/ womens' rights/environmental and social programs of the LBJ/Nixon era (yes, you read that right - Mayhew documents that the generally liberal legislative surge of that era equally bracket both the LBJ and Nixon presidencies.) The question on the table, is whether the much heralded appetite for "change" that has been promoted by the Obama candidacy and adopted by the McCain candidacy, is in the category of a "public mood favoring change."

If you look at Mayhew's five criteria for a "palpable public mood", it is easy to conclude all the conditions have been met. Certainly if the Obama campaign is used as a proxy for that public mood, we can certainly check off criteria 2 through 5:

#2 - Observable supporter intensity? - Check.
#3 - Large numbers engaging, joining and doing things? - Check.
#4 - Difficult for opposing views to resist? - Well the Clintons will agree, and since McCain adopted rather than fight the mantra - Check.
#5 - The mood has a beginning and an end? - Certainly the beginning is in evidence. - Check.

But then we have criteria #1: A common outlook about what can and should be done right now on a wide range of political issues.

So exactly WTF is it? What specifically is this public political appetite that Obama and McCain are trying to feed? What are the specific political issues that both Obama and McCain supporters broadly agree must be changed right now? The phenomena is real, but do we know what it is really about?

We can ask the candidates. In their acceptance speeches, both candidates endeavored to define and promote the "change" they represent. Obama offered an unremarkable litany of liberal Democratic policy positions. McCain offered an unremarkable litany of conservative Republican policy positions. So each candidate, acutely aware of a "palpable public mood for change", wraps themself in the rhetoric of change, then explicitly pitches the proposition that the same partisan bromides that Republicans and Democrats have been flogging for decades, represent the change that the public seeks. Tough sell.

Here is the rub - Mayhew's criteria specifies that the kind of pervasive public mood for change that results in a real legislative surge, that results in real change, must include broad agreement on what can and should be done across the partisan divide. Do we have that now? Do we have broad agreement on environmental policy? global warming? education policy? taxing policy? deficits and spending policy? judicial appointments? abortion? religious participation in governmental policy? same sex marriage? right to work? Equal pay? Immigration policy? homeland security? I don't think so. So they are all off the list. Moreover, both presidential campaigns are useless at articulating what exactly this "change" means. So we are left to our own devices.

Here is my take on what this inchoate public impulse for "change" really means, and by extension, what this election is really about. Your mileage may vary.

Consensual Change Champions

(In reverse order)

2nd Runner Up - Health Care / Energy Policy (tie)
These are both a close call for me, I profess no certitude about either, but I am saying that they both make the cut. Barely. In both cases, there seems to be a hue and cry in the electorate that "something must be done." For both issues, strong sentiment is generated on both sides of the partisan divide. While there are obvious policy disagreements between Republicans and Democrats on these issues, it is possible to craft a general solution statement with which most Americans will agree. Not an overwhelming majority, but a majority. On health care - most Americans want a solution where people do not fall between the cracks, and are not risking financial ruin to get the care they need. On energy policy, most Americans will agree we need to drill and develop more in America, conserve more, build nukes, and work aggressively to invest in and develop alternative energy sources. Both candidates are missing the boat to some degree on these two issues. McCain and the Republicans are misreading the degree to which Americans are willing to socialize medical care. Obama and the Dems are misreading the degree to which Americans are willing to drill for fossil fuels here and develop nuclear energy as part of the solution.

First Runner-up - The War in Iraq.
12-24 months ago, this was the number one issue that was driving the "change" mantra and the fuel that propelled the Obama candidacy. The change that people wanted, was quite explicit. A large majority of Americans wanted us out of the quagmire of Iraq. If the status of the war in Iraq was the same now as it was then, there would be no contest. Obama would be 20 points ahead in the polls. But events have overtaken the campaign rhetoric and morphed the meaning of "change" in the process.

Violence in Iraq is down, and the Iraqi government has effectively removed the issue from the campaign. Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki set a time "horizon" for us to be mostly out by 2011, so - that is going to happen regardless of who is elected president. It is not a presidential campaign issue anymore.

Yes, looking back, Obama was right and McCain was wrong about the war in 2002. But McCain was right and Obama was wrong about the surge in 2006. It is a political wash. The war was the "Change" issue, but now it has been rendered effectively moot. Getting out is still part of the "change" people want, but, looking forward, there is simply no practical difference in the rate at which we can and will redeploy out of Iraq regardless of whether McCain and Obama are elected president. It is even reasonable to postulate that we will be able to reduce our military footprint faster with a McCain presidency. The only difference between the candidates on Iraq, is the rhetoric they use to posture for their respective base.

Change Champion - Exorcise the Bush administration, and punish incumbent Republicans.
That is it. That is what is left of the "pervasive public mood for change" mandate, once the issue of the war in Iraq was rendered moot by Maliki. There is broad agreement among Americans that the occupation of Iraq was a mistake, that the strategic execution of the war was flawed, and the Bush administration was largely incompetent (see - he was a uniter not a divider!) Blame for the war falls squarely on the Bush administration, enabled by a gutless, ethics challenged, mostly Republican Congress. The punishment for the Republicans will be meted out in the congressional elections. It is very possible that the Democrats will finish with a 100 seat majority in the House of Representatives, and secure a filibuster-proof 60/40 majority in the Senate. The Republican party may well be rendered impotent as a opposition party in Congress. So that leaves the presidency.

The issue that is now determinative in that contest, is whether the electorate believes that McCain/Palin is an extension of the Bush administration. If the Obama campaign succeeds in painting that picture (hence the oft-repeated "McCain is 90% Bush" canard), Obama wins. If McCain succeeds in separating himself from Bush and painting himself as a maverick, the "pervasive public mood for change" does not hurt him, and may even help his candidacy. Early indications are that his acceptance speech and the Palin pick accomplished exactly that.

Which means we may still have a change election, but it may be John McCain that leads it.

Divided and Balanced.™ Now that is fair.

Technorati tags: Iraq, 2008 election, John McCain, Divided Government , Republican, Democrat, Maliki, Barack Obama , change .

GWB vs. LBJ Redux

Last week David Lightman wrote a column for McClatchy Newspapers comparing the spending record of the current Bush administration to the generally acknowledged gold standard of big government spending - LBJ. The column was entitled "Bush is the biggest spender since LBJ", but the statistics quoted in the article crown George W. Bush as the U.S. discretionary spending champion of the modern era:

"Take almost any yardstick and Bush generally exceeds the spending of his predecessors. When adjusted for inflation, discretionary spending — or budget items that Congress and the president can control, including defense and domestic programs, but not entitlements such as Social Security and Medicare — shot up at an average annual rate of 5.3 percent during Bush’s first six years, Slivinski calculates. That tops the 4.6 percent annual rate Johnson logged during his 1963-69 presidency. By these standards, Ronald Reagan was a tightwad; discretionary spending grew by only 1.9 percent a year on his watch ... Brian Riedl, a budget analyst at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative research group, points to education spending. Adjusted for inflation, it's up 18 percent annually since 2001, thanks largely to Bush’s No Child Left Behind act. The 2002 farm bill, he said, caused agriculture spending to double its 1990s levels. Then there was the 2003 Medicare prescription drug benefit — the biggest single expansion in the program’s history — whose 10-year costs are estimated at more than $700 billion. And the 2005 highway bill, which included thousands of “earmarks,” or special local projects stuck into the legislation by individual lawmakers without review, cost $295 billion. “He has presided over massive increases in almost every category … a dramatic change of pace from most previous presidents,” said Slivinski."

The column got a lot of attention in the blogosphere and MSM, including the Washington Post, James Joyner at Outside The Beltway, Justin Gardner at Donklephant, Steven Reynolds at the All Spin Zone, 6SpeedTA95 at The Liberty Lounge, The Street.com, Gray Matter, Leisure Guy at Later On, Deraj at Volcanvo, Ed Morrissey at Captain's Quarters, Investor's Business Daily, Taylor Marsh, USA Today, Houston Chronicle, MVDG Gazette, and many more.

The most interesting aspect of this coverage, is that they all missed the real story, including David Lightman. The source of the data used in Lightman's story is the research done by Stephen Slivinski, Director of Budget Studies at the Cato Institute, author of Buck Wild, and DWSUWF favorite. As Stephen himself explains:

"Further to Dan’s post below, here’s the McClatchy story arguing that President Bush is the biggest spending president since LBJ. The article got lots of notice — probably because it was linked on the Drudge Report for most of Wednesday. The story is mostly old news — I’ve been making the same point for years. But, because it is based on updated data that I provided to the reporter, I’m happy to see the message ripple through the news cycle."

This is also old news to DWSUWF readers, as we have been covering Slivinski's analysis of this story since May, 2006. So what is the real story? It is not about whether GWB or LBJ is the biggest spender. It is not about whether Republicans or Democrats are bigger spenders. It is about spending under divided vs. single party control of the government. Once more, lets go to the source of the research for the Lightman column - Stephen Slivinski from September, 2006:

"...government grows slower when at least one house of Congress is controlled by a political party different than the president's—a condition known to political scientists as "divided government," or popularly known as "gridlock. Since 1965, government has grown slower in periods of divided government than in periods of united government. On average, united government tends to lead to a 3.4% annual increase in federal spending in real per capita terms—over double the growth under divided government: 1.5%. When you look at the data in terms of how fast government grew in relation to the economy, the results still favor divided government. The average yearly increase in government above and beyond GDP growth is 25 times faster when one party has a monopoly over both the legislative and executive branches than it does when gridlock is present. The one thing you can usually count on in Washington is partisanship. When Republicans are the beleaguered minority—or a congressional majority fighting a big-spending White House—they are in their element. Big Government is the clear enemy. But once they find themselves in control of it all, they don't rein each other in. Instead, they egg each other on. We can see this by comparing how a GOP Congress treated the proposed non-defense budgets of Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. During the years of divided government under Clinton, a sort of gridlock ensued. The Republican Congress managed to cut Clinton's domestic spending requests by an average of $9 billion each year between fiscal 1996 and 2001. Contrast that with the budget outcomes under President Bush—specifically the years in which Congress was held entirely by Republicans. Between fiscal years 2003 and 2006, Congress passed, and Bush refused to veto, non-defense budgets that were an average of $16 billion more than the president proposed each year."

To my knowledge, William Niskanen, former chairman of President Reagan's Council of Economic Advisers, was the first to document this effect. Slivisnski's research has built on and amplified Niskanen's work. It is beyond dispute that the two biggest spending Presidents of the last 50+ years are GWB and LBJ. Depending on which metrics are used, one can quibble about who is the single biggest spending pig, but by any measure, they are the top two. LBJ led a unified Democratic government during his tenure. GWB led a unified Republican government for the first six years of his administration. During the time this administration also enjoyed majority control in the legislature, discretionary spending was increasing at over 7% per year, blowing away LBJ's record. Since GWB faced a divided government this year, the annual spending increase has dropped to a 3% rate. I am not going to try and explain the mechanism of why it works. It just does. Every time, without exception. If the objective of limiting the growth of federal spending is important to you, there is one sure way to get there - keep this government divided.

Let's not kid ourselves. A single party Democratic government in 2009 will be every bit as bad as the single party Republican government of the last six years. The only difference will be which special interests and lobbyists will be the beneficiary of the increased spending of our tax dollars. The logical vote in 2006 was to vote for a straight Democratic ticket to divide our government. The logical vote to avoid LBJ Redux in 2009 is to vote for a Republican president in 2008 to keep it divided.

Divided and Balanced.™ Now that is fair.

Technorati tags: Divided Government, Republican, George Bush, LBJ, Democrat.

Is Iraq like Vietnam? Dubious history.

In the last post, we examined the question "Is Iraq like Vietnam?" , concluding it is the wrong question to ask about our involvement in Iraq. In the next two posts we address the President's analogy directly.

The President's speech to the Veterans of Foreign Wars Convention, made this comparison of Iraq to Vietnam:

" ... one unmistakable legacy of Vietnam is that the price of America's withdrawal was paid by millions of innocent citizens, whose agonies would add to our vocabulary new terms like 'boat people,' 're-education camps' and 'killing fields'"

Contrary to the President's assertion, it is indeed a "mistakable" legacy, dubious history, and a poor analogy. Particularly if this assertion is meant to communicate, as has been asserted by many bloggers and columnists, that the 1975 Congressional vote to cutoff funding for Vietnam was the primary cause of the death of millions of Cambodians at the hands of the murderous Khmer Rouge regime. The first step in deconstructing the President's version of history, is to separate the Vietnamese and Cambodian horrors that followed our withdrawal.

For the purposes of this post, we will stipulate that a direct consequence of the 1975 vote was hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese displaced, killed, and imprisoned after Saigon fell. These were the 'boat people' and victims of 're-education' camps' that the President references. It did happen but it did not have to happen that way. We could have planned better to support those who supported us. But as bad as it was, it still must be seen in the context of a fifteen year war, where two to three million Vietnamese and 52,000 Americans lost their lives. Such is the grisly calculus of war. Continuing American involvement after 1973 or 1975 does not mean that fewer Vietnamese lives or even the lives of our Vietnamese supporters would have been lost. After 15 years of American involvement in the fighting in Vietnam, it is hard to imagine how a better outcome would have resulted from an additional two or five or ten or fifteen more years of American intervention, as implied by this speech.

Nevertheless, what happened in Vietnam after the fall of Saigon happened to our shame. But the blame does not fall exclusively on the shoulder of the Democratic Congress that voted to cut off funds. That guilt must also be shared by the Republican Commander-in-Chief, Secretary of State, and administration that set the wheels in motion for that vote and its consequences.

Consider this transcript of a taped conversation between Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger in the Oval Office in August 1972:

Kissinger: If a year or two years from now North Vietnam gobbles up South Vietnam, we can have a viable foreign policy if it looks as if it's the result of South Vietnamese incompetence. If we now sell out in such a way that, say, within a three- to four-month period, we have pushed [South Vietnamese President Nguyen Van] Thieu over the brink... even the Chinese won't like that. I mean, they'll pay verbal-- verbally, they'll like it--

Nixon: But it'll worry them.

Kissinger: But it will worry everybody. And domestically in the long run it won't help us all that much because our opponents will say we should've done it three years ago.

Nixon: I know.

Kissinger: So we've got to find some formula that holds the thing together a year or two, after which-- after a year, Mr. President, Vietnam will be a backwater. If we settle it, say, this October, by January '74 no one will give a damn.

Actual events did not stay precisely on Kissinger's schedule. This conversation took place in August, 1972. The Paris Peace Accord was signed five months later in January, 1973. Saigon fell a little over two years later, in April, 1975. Duplicity and domestic political gamesmanship by a Republican President and his Secretary of State set the timetable for the fall of Saigon. The Democratic Congress was an accessory to the crime. There is plenty of blame to go around.

As an interesting aside, we learned in September of last year, courtesy of Bob Woodward, that Henry Kissinger was again on the case:

"He said Kissinger, who served in the Nixon and Ford administrations, has been telling Bush and Cheney that 'in Iraq', he declared very simply, 'Victory is the only meaningful exit strategy.' This is so fascinating. Kissinger's fighting the Vietnam War again because, in his view, the problem in Vietnam was we lost our will."

Kissinger's views apparently had evolved by November, when asked in a BBC interview "whether military victory in Iraq was still possible?" Kissinger responded:

"If you mean, by 'military victory,' an Iraqi government that can be established and whose writ runs across the whole country, that gets the civil war under control and sectarian violence under control in a time period that the political processes of the democracies will support, I don't believe that is possible."

I found no comfort in learning that Henry Kissinger was also advising this administration, but I digress. Back to the President's dubious history lesson.

The use of the words 'killing fields' by the President in this same context (Congressional vote for withdrawal equates to bloodbath and massacre) is a bridge too far. Those words are a specific reference to the massacres that took place in Cambodia under the Pol Pol led Khmer Rouge regime. The assertion that there is a direct cause and effect link between Congress voting to cut off funds for Vietnam in 1975, and the millions who died in Cambodia is dubious at best. Nevertheless, it has been seized on by many right-of-center bloggers and columnists as a justification for continuing our occupation of Iraq. Examples:

• "Vietnam, as in we fled and millions are now dead." - PeejZ at RightVoices
• "Millions died and many countries were in turmoil.Once more, it seems the ‘lessons of Vietnam’ need to be learnt once more, but not the lessons the left have us believe." - Fairfacts at No Minister
• "So Sirik Matak stayed in Phnom Penh and a month later was killed by the Khmer Rouge, along with about 2 million other people." - Mark Steyn in OC Register
• "Things were worse in Cambodia where the Khmer Rouge liquidated over a third of the population, over two million people were murdered, while the rest of the population were used as slave labor. That is what happened when we abandoned South Vietnam, at the insistence of the Democrats who ran Congress." - Squatty at Kowabunga
• "...withdrawal does not mean putting the whole sorry mess behind us and returning to peace. Rather, it means great loss of life and of American credibility" - DC Innes at Principalities and Power
• "if we let Saigon happen to Baghdad. Let the death camps, the boat people and three decades of war happen all over again." - Lee at Postpolitical
• "2 million Cambodians were slaughtered by the Khmer Rouge as a result of America's betrayal in Southeast Asia" - Jon Roth at GOP Bloggers
• "By injecting the aftermath of Vietnam into the post-Iraq War debate, President Bush opened the refrigerator door — and that sent the apologists for Ho Chi Minh and Pol Pot scurrying." - Don Surber at DailyMail.com

Let us start with few indisputable facts. In 1975 a Democratically controlled Congress voted to cutoff funding for Vietnam. That is a fact. Later that year Saigon fell to the North Vietnamese Army. That is a fact. In 1975-79 as many as two million Cambodians died at the hands of their own government under the despotic hand of Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge government. That is fact.

The fallacy is stopping with those facts and ignoring others when drawing the conclusion that the Congressional vote in 1975 is responsible for the death of two million Cambodians. The bloggers linked above do not stop there, but claim that Congress cutting off funding for Vietnam in 1975 is pretty much responsible for every bad thing that has happened in the world since 1975, including the Iranian hostage crisis, both Iraq wars, Saddam Hussein, 9/11, Valdimir Putin's poor fishing technique, and Rex Grossman unable to hold on to the football in last years Superbowl, et.al.

The problem with that formulation, is that these bloggers ignore inconvenient facts that undermine the argument. With those facts, we can come up with a whole host of other reasons for what happened in Cambodia. Take your pick:

• In 1975 Congress voted to cutoff funding for Vietnam that ultimately led to the death of two million Cambodians in 1975 -79 at the hands of the Khmer Rouge government.
• In 1972 President Nixon and Henry Kissinger planned a withdrawal they knew would lead to the failure of the South Vietnamese government and ultimately led to the death of two million Cambodians in 1975 -79 at the hands of the Khmer Rouge government.
• In 197o Cambodian leader Prince Sihaounok was deposed by pro-American general Lon-Nol in a coup widely understood to have been engineered by the CIA. He was perceived as an American puppet further fueling the Khmer Rouge insurgency which ultimately led to the death of two million Cambodians in 1975 -79 at the hands of the Khmer Rouge government.
• In 1969 President Nixon ordered the carpet bombing of supply lines in Cambodia, with over 540,000 tons of American bombs killing between 140,000 and 500,000 civilians, fueling popular Cambodian support for the Khmer Rouge that ultimately led to the death of two million Cambodians in 1975 -79 t the hands of the Khmer Rouge government.
• In 1968 with 25,000 American dead in Vietnam, SECDEF Robert MacNamara, the architect of the Vietnam war, quit or was fired after informing LBJ that the war was not winnable. He chose to not share that insight with the American people until writing his memoirs some 30 years later. As a consequence, the war continued for another five years costing 27,000 American lives and ultimately led to the death of two million Cambodians in 1975 -79 at the hands of the Khmer Rouge government.

Which of these where most responsible for the Cambodian massacres? Who knows? Yes, there was a bloodbath in Cambodia and there was suffering in Vietnam. But it is not clear that there was a direct causal relationship between the cutoff in funds in 1975 and the bloodbath in Cambodia. It is not clear that we would have or could have prevented the genocide in Cambodia if we stayed. It is easier to make the case that the bloodbath was not a consequence of leaving Vietnam too early (after over a decade of war and 52,000 American lives), but because we left Vietnam too late. Indeed, one can as easily extract a lesson from Vietnam that the risk of a bloodbath increases the longer we stay. There is no historical certainty here.

The assertion that the "killing fields" in Cambodia were a consequence of a Congressional vote to cut off funds for Vietnam is bad history, and a false analogy for Iraq. Obviously, if the history itself is wrong, extracting an analogous lesson for Iraq from that falsity is complete fantasy. Does this mean there is no risk of a bloodbath in Iraq should we leave? Of course not. That risk is real. As we begin our withdrawal from Iraq, as we inevitably must, we should strive to do so in a responsible way and minimize the likelihood of a bloodbath.

A bloodbath in Iraq is not certain, but there is no guarantee that a bloodbath will not occur.

There is no guarantee that we can prevent a bloodbath from happening.

Not if we stay.

Not if we go.

For the next and last post in this series, we will revisit the question of what lessons were learned from Vietnam. We will reference the lessons that were researched, codified, and understood by the military strategists that studied that war, and the military leaders who were soldiers in that war. Soldiers like General Colin Powell.

Divided and Balanced.™ Now that is fair.

Technorati tags: Colin Powell, 1975, Vietnam, George Bush, Iraq, surge, Henry Kissinger, Powell Doctrine.

Bartender! One more Rum & Mac for the road.

Time Magazine Covers from 2004 and 1966

It is closing time here at the Repeating History Bar. We are way past final call, but I'm a regular, and the bartender slipped me one more Rum & Mac for the road. Hey, I'm a big tipper, he takes care of me. I didn't think much of this drink when I started sipping it here, but after pounding down doubles all night, I'm beginning to appreciate the peculiar character of this drink more and more.

Speaking at Donald Rumsfeld's retirement ceremony, Dick Cheney hailed Rumsfeld as "the finest secretary of defense this nation has ever had." In Sunday's interview with Bob Schieffer on on CBS News' Face the Nation, Colin Powell declined to agree:

SCHIEFFER: "Let me ask you about the retirement ceremony they had for Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld. The vice president said Secretary Rumsfeld is the finest secretary of defense in the history of this country, or words to that effect. What is your assessment?

Mr. POWELL: "Well, that's the vice president's judgment. I've known many fine secretaries of defense: Caspar Weinberger comes to mind, and Dick Cheney comes to mind himself. But it's history that will judge the performance of all of us in this troubling time of history, and it is a history that I think will ultimately be written as a result of what happens in Iraq."

Sometimes, a judicious amount of alcohol helps one to see things more clearly. With the copious quantities of R&M's I have ingested here at the RHB, I have developed a GWB-like capacity to peer into the soul of my fellow man and read their innermost thoughts. For the benefit of my loyal reader, a transcript of what Colin Powell was really saying:

Mr. POWELL: "Well, that's the vice president's judgement. As we all know, Rumsfeld had his nose so far up Cheney's fat ass, I am surprised they could pull him out to fire him. I've known many fine secretaries of defense: Caspar Weinberger comes to mind, and Dick Cheney comes to mind himself. I wouldn't put Don ahead of Bill Cohen, Les Aspin or William Perry either. Now that I think about it , he wasn't better than Frank Carlucci or Harold Brown. Of course, Don couldn't carry the jockstrap of James Forrestall, George Marshall, Bob Lovett, Charles Wilson or Thomas Gates. And I'd definitely put Elliot Richardson, Melvin Laird, Neil McElroy and James Schlessinger ahead of Don SecDef-wise. Clark Clifford ... now thats close, but I'd have to give Clifford the edge. McNamara! Thats it! He is a marginally better secretary of defense than McNamara. No doubt. Don was better than Bob. But it's history that will judge the performance of all of us in this troubling time of history, and it is a history that will ultimately be written as a result of what happens in Iraq. I just hope I don't find myself burning in historical hell right next to Rumsfeld for all eternity. "

Bartender, could you freshen this up? Whenever I drink R&M's I feel the need to ramble on a bit about our outgoing Secretary of Defense. You know, I am not the only one that noticed the parallels between Don and good ol' Bob. Richard Galli of the Galli Report scooped DWSUWF by several months with a press release last June - excerpted here :

Bush Accepts Rumsfeld Resignation, Hires Robert McNamara

"I have a Thinkpad now" confident Vietnam warrior assures skeptics - "George Bush informed Donald Rumsfeld yesterday that one of his resignation letters had been discovered under a pile of unread security briefings, and the President had belatedly accepted it...In a statement released shortly after the press conference, Robert McNamara said he will be honored to answer his country’s call to service once again. “I have spent the last 30 years of my life educating the American people about the War in Vietnam without ever being held accountable for it,” McNamara said. “I have the experience and the skill set that the White House desperately needs right now.”

Hey! Is that Robert Scheer from TruthDig at end of the bar? He must be drinking Rum & Macs too - You know he's got the same mind-reading skills as me - look at this column where he's channeling Rumsfeld - gives me the willies just to think about it...

One Last Lie for the Road
"Did I write a secret memo saying that I don’t believe in this thing anymore? You bet! But you can’t let the public in on that and just cut-and-run. Jeez, how would that look for the Rummy Legacy? ... I’m not going down that negative road that finished off old Bob McNamara’s legacy. What a disappointment—this is a guy who could sell us the Vietnam War and then blows it by suddenly getting all squishy about the truth when he’s long retired. Jeez Louise, he was once my role model. No secretary of defense ever sold a losing war better. They think I’ve got a frozen smile, just look at those old pictures of Mac flying into Saigon and giving an upbeat assessment in the midst of carnage. Talk about whistling past the graveyard. And he stayed on the “We’re about to turn the corner” message right to the end when LBJ fired him, just like Georgie Porgie did me. "

Ah yes. The confidential memo. One last unexepected and somewhat astonishing bit of synchronicity between the outgoing SecDefs - 39 years apart, writing hand-wringing memos to their respective commanders in chief, outlining options for a failing war policy, and getting canned shortly thereafter. I pull a crumpled piece of paper out of my pocket, smooth it out on the surface of the bar and wave it in the bartenders face. "Look at this!" I said. "I couldn't believe when I heard about the Rumsfeld memo. I had to see for myself how it compared to McNamara's 'Draft Memorandum From Secretary of Defense McNamara to President Johnson' ... I actually looked up the orginal text of both messages to compare them." The bartender, seemingly unimpressed, topped off my glass and retreated to the other end of the bar, leaving the paper behind. "McNamara was a lot wordier." I mumbled under my breath to no one in particular. "But ... definite similarities... definite... similarities...."

MCNAMARA MEMO:
"Subject: Future Actions in Vietnam - May 19, 1967"
RUMSFELD MEMO:
"Subject: Iraq — Illustrative New Courses of Action - Nov 6, 2006"

MCNAMARA: "This memorandum is written at a time when there appears to be no attractive course of action. The probabilities are that Hanoi has decided not to negotiate until the American electorate has been heard in November 1968. Continuation of our present moderate policy, while avoiding a larger war, will not change Hanoi's mind, so is not enough to satisfy the American people; increased force levels and actions against the North are likewise unlikely to change Hanoi's mind, and are likely to get us in even deeper in Southeast Asia and into a serious confrontation, if not war, with China and Russia; and we are not willing to yield. So we must choose among imperfect alternatives."
RUMSFELD: "The situation in Iraq has been evolving, and U.S. forces have adjusted, over time, from major combat operations to counterterrorism, to counterinsurgency, to dealing with death squads and sectarian violence. In my view it is time for a major adjustment. Clearly, what U.S. forces are currently doing in Iraq is not working well enough or fast enough. Following is a range of options."

MCNAMARA: "The Vietnam war is unpopular in this country. It is becoming increasingly unpopular as it escalates--causing more American casualties, more fear of its growing into a wider war, more privation of the domestic sector, and more distress at the amount of suffering being visited on the non-combatants in Vietnam, South and North. Most Americans do not know how we got where we are, and most, without knowing why, but taking advantage of hindsight, are convinced that somehow we should not have gotten this deeply in. All want the war ended and expect their President to end it. Successfully. Or else."
RUMSFELD: "Publicly announce a set of benchmarks agreed to by the Iraqi Government and the U.S. — political, economic and security goals — to chart a path ahead for the Iraqi government and Iraqi people (to get them moving) and for the U.S. public (to reassure them that progress can and is being made)."

MCNAMARA: "Publicly, emphasize consistently that the sole US objective in Vietnam has been and is to permit the people of South Vietnam to determine their own future, and declare that we have already either denied or offset the North Vietnamese intervention and that after the September elections in Vietnam we will have achieved success. The necessary steps having been taken to deny the North the ability to take over South Vietnam and an elected government sitting in Saigon, the South will be in position, albeit imperfect, to start the business of producing a full-spectrum government in South Vietnam."
RUMSFELD: "Recast the U.S. military mission and the U.S. goals (how we talk about them) — go minimalist... Begin modest withdrawals of U.S. and Coalition forces (start “taking our hand off the bicycle seat”), so Iraqis know they have to pull up their socks, step up and take responsibility for their country."

MCNAMARA [Course A - Not Recommended] : "... neither military defeat nor military victory is in the cards, with or without the large added deployments, and that the price of the large added deployments and the strategy of Course A will be to expand the war dangerously."
RUMSFELD [Below The Line - Not Recommended] : "Increase Brigade Combat Teams and U.S. forces in Iraq substantially."

MCNAMARA: "Move the newly elected Saigon government well beyond its National Reconciliation program to a political settlement with the non-Communist members of the NLF--to try to arrange a ceasefire and to reach an accommodation with the large number of South Vietnamese who are under the VC banner; to accept the non-Communist members of the NLF as members of an opposition political party and, if necessary, to accept their individual participation in the national government--in sum, a settlement to transform the members of the VC from military opponents to political opponents."
RUMSFELD: "Provide money to key political and religious leaders (as Saddam Hussein did), to get them to help us get through this difficult period... Initiate a massive program for unemployed youth. It would have to be run by U.S. forces, since no other organization could do it."

MCNAMARA [Recommended Course of Action - Course B] : "Limit force increases to no more than 30,000; avoid extending the ground conflict beyond the borders of South Vietnam; and concentrate the bombing on the infiltration routes south of 20 degrees. Unless the military situation worsens dramatically, add no more than 9 battalions to the approved program of 87 battalions....A part of this course would be a termination of bombing in the Red River basin unless military necessity required it, and a concentration of all sorties in North Vietnam on the infiltration routes in the neck of North Vietnam... We recommend Course B because it has the combined advantages of being a lever toward negotiations and toward ending the war on satisfactory terms, of helping our general position with the Soviets, of improving our image in the eyes of international opinion, of reducing the danger of confrontation with China and with the Soviet Union, and of reducing US losses."
RUMSFELD [Recommended Options - Above the Line]: "Significantly increase U.S. trainers and embeds, and transfer more U.S. equipment to Iraqi Security forces (ISF), to further accelerate their capabilities by refocusing the assignment of some significant portion of the U.S. troops currently in Iraq....Retain high-end SOF capability and necessary support structure to target Al Qaeda, death squads, and Iranians in Iraq, while drawing down all other Coalition forces, except those necessary to provide certain key enablers for the ISF... Position substantial U.S. forces near the Iranian and Syrian borders to reduce infiltration and, importantly, reduce Iranian influence on the Iraqi Government.
GATES: - Recommended Course of Action- TBD

The glass is empty. No one else is here. I steady myself on the bar as I roll off the stool. After the room slows to a manageable shimmer, I make my way to the door and out into the cold night fog. "This is not going to feel good in the morning." I think to myself, adding - "I'm not drinking those anymore."

Hangover Update 12/21/06: 06/11/07 Corrected Typos
I didn't drive in that condition. Still got caught in the Beltway Traffic Jam.

Divided and Balanced.™ Now that is fair.

Technorati tags: divided government, Colin Powell, libertarian, , Vietnam, ,Robert McNamara, Iraq, surge, Donald Rumsfeld, Powell Doctrine.

Iraq ,Vietnam, McNamara, Powell, McCain, Warner, Graham

In a previous post, I drew a historical comparison between Robert McNamara and Donald Rumsfeld. While the prediction in that post has yet to be realized (Runsfeld quitting or being fired) I do think the historical comparison is apt. At the time I wondered if I was making the right comparison and whether Colin Powell might, in the judgement of history, carry the label of being to Iraq what McNamara was to Vietnam.

In 1995, Robert McNamara (widely referred to as "the architect of the Vietnam War") writing in his memoir "In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam", revealed that as early as 1967 (with 25,000 American dead) he no longer believed that America could win the war in Vietnam, and as a direct consequence of expressing that view, resigned (or was fired) from the LBJ administration. This McNamara quote is excerpted from Harold P. Ford's analysis "Thoughts Engendered by Robert McNamara's In Retrospect":

"We were wrong, terribly wrong... Enemy morale has not broken . . . . It appears that [the enemy] can more than replace his losses by infiltration from North Vietnam and recruitment in South Vietnam. . . . Pacification has if anything gone backward. As compared with two, or four, years ago, enemy full-time regional forces and part-time guerrilla forces are larger; attacks, terrorism and sabotage have increased in scope and intensity. . . . In essence, we find ourselves--from the point of view of the important war (for the [hearts and minds] of the people)--no better, and if anything worse off. This important war must be fought and won by the Vietnamese themselves. We have known this from the beginning . . ." Robert McNamara -"In Retrospect" (pp. 262-263).

Neither McNamara nor LBJ chose to share that insight with the American public. Ultimately it took 50,000 American lives for a majority of Americans to learn that their government could not be trusted on the reasons for, nor the "light at the end of the tunnel" progress in, Vietnam. It is reasonable to posit, that if McNamara had recognized in 1968 that his loyalty was owed first to the American people, and second to the LBJ administration, had communicated what he knew then to the American people, we might have seen a better end, a quicker end, and fewer deaths and casualties in Vietnam.

Full disclosure: I supported President Bush in the decision to invade and change the regime in Iraq. My support was based on two factors. One, I believe that in matters of security of the United States, the commander-in-chief automatically gets the benefit of the doubt from the American people until shown not to deserve it. In 2003, the commander-in-chief said there was an imminent threat from Iraq that required immediate military action. That is his job. That is his first responsibility. If there is a threat to the U.S., he is obligated to respond, and we are obligated to support him. The second factor, was when Colin Powell, a man I respected, backed the administration's argument in a speech to the United Nations. That combination, at that time, was good enough for me.

Subsequently, the stated reason given by the administration for the invasion has changed and the rationale that was the basis for the action proved to be false. Colin Powell has since recanted on much of the evidence he offered to the United Nations, and subsequently resigned or was fired by the administration. In addition to the obligation to protect the United States, the Commander-in-Chief has an obligation to be right about the reasons given to the American people to go to war. The commander-in-chief also has an obligation to prosecute a military objective with clarity and competence. Failing these obligations, the administration should not expect, and should not receive the support of the American people.

This administration has given Americans like myself ample reason to be skeptical of their ability to garner accurate intelligence, to interpret the intelligence, to develop and promote a correct course of action based on that intelligence, or even their ability to execute a war policy or plan to secure a specific military objective. As a direct result, Americans have correctly withdrawn their support, but with the unfortunate consequence that this administration has been rendered impotent in the face of threats like those presented by Iran or North Korea.

Colin Powell enabled the administration to garner the support needed to put us on this course. I suspect that Colin Powell, out of misplaced loyalty, like McNamara on Vietnam, failed to be forthright and honest with the American people about Iraq. Should Colin Powell, in future memoirs, like McNamara, proclaim that he knew that the Iraq occupation was a wrong policy, he will, like McNamara, have blood on his hands for every day that passes between the time that he recognized the mistake, and the day he finally comes clean with the American people. It took McNamara 27 years. How long will it take Powell?

Where am I going with this? In regard to Colin Powell, I am going here:

This is a facsimile of a message sent from Colin Powell to John McCain in support of the congressional opposition to President Bush's call for "clarification" of how we will apply the Geneva Convention to enemy combatants. This is a clear statement of unequivocal support by Powell for John McCain, John Warner, and Lindsey Graham, who are leading the charge in Congress to return traditional American values to the debate on how we, as Americans choose to treat enemy combatants. This debate, has prompted paranoid suspicion from the left ("I’m suspicious over the outrage by Republicans because they usually twist and shout for a while and then rubber stamp Bush.") and incoherent, irrational, immoral screeds from the right ("We first need to worry about winning the war. Then we can start worrying about the morality of the whole thing"). These leaders, military men all, Republicans all, Vietnam veterans, but first and foremost, patriotic Americans, have put their loyalty to country ahead of their loyalty to party or to this administration on this issue. This is an important step to reassert the constitutional war-making and oversight role of Congress. If the administration had correctly come to Congress to legislate the power he was seeking in the first place, there would be no need to rush this legislation through now. It deserves careful deliberation and will now get it.

"GOP Infighting on Detainees Intensifies" by Peter Baker - Washington Post

"Bush is pressing for legislation endorsing his leadership against terrorism, including warrantless surveillance of overseas telephone calls, military commissions to try enemy combatants and expansive rules permitting tough interrogations. The most explosive debate centers on how the Geneva Conventions should apply to U.S. intelligence officers, who captured, held and questioned terrorism suspects in secret overseas CIA prisons for years until the last 14 detainees were transferred recently into military custody at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The Supreme Court ruled in June that U.S. detainees fall under the Geneva Conventions, which require that wartime captives be "treated humanely" and ban "outrages upon personal dignity."

Ariana Huffington's post "On Fear, Yellow Cars, Colin Powell, and Redemption" reflect my thinking about Powell on this issue:

"I've found Colin Powell's sudden display of fearlessness particularly significant... Powell framed the debate in the most profound way possible, as a moral question not a legal one... It was a bold move for Powell, a potentially redemptive line drawn in the sand for a public figure whose reputation has fallen on hard times in the wake of the Iraq debacle...Whether it was motivated by a desire to be a team player, a loyal staffer, a good soldier, or a fear of not pleasing his boss, Powell's stomach-turning role in selling the war to the world led to those 80 minutes he spent in front of the UN Security Council throwing his considerable reputation behind the administration's ginned-up case for invasion. Definitely not his finest hour. They turned him from a can't-miss presidential contender into a man who has, like the country he has so loyally served, seemingly ceded the moral high ground. His unequivocal rebuke of his commander-in-chief is a powerful step toward retaking that hill. Let's hope that fearlessness is as contagious as fear."

"Step" is the operative word. With his note, Powell has taken a step on the path to redemption but only a step. Powell has yet to face the American people and fully explain what happened in '03, what he did and what he did not do, to help or hinder a bad decision to go to war. It is my fervent hope, that it will not take Colin Powell 27 years, as it did McNamara, to finally reveal, too late, a failure to fulfill his obligation to trust the American people with the truth.

But a step in the right direction, is a still a step in the right direction. One other needed step to ensure that Congress fulfills its obligation to provide checks, balance and oversight of the executive branch, is to elect a divided congress in November.

UPDATE - September 19, 2006:
Reading Eugene Robinson's column "Torture is Torture" at the Washington Post one wonders how it is that we got to this state, where our leaders, in our name, debate whether and how we will torture prisoners:

"It is not possible for our elected representatives to hold any sort of honorable "debate" over torture. Bush says he is waging a "struggle for civilization," but civilized nations do not debate slavery or genocide, and they don't debate torture, either. This spectacle insults and dishonors every American. There is one ray of encouragement: the crystal-clear evidence that the men and women of our armed forces want no part of torturing anybody. The members of the Republican resistance -- Sens. John Warner of Virginia, John McCain of Arizona and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina -- have impeccable Pentagon connections and are not operating in a vacuum.... Colin Powell's strongly worded rejection of torture should have embarrassed and chastened the White House, but this is a president who refuses to listen to critics of his "war on terrorism" -- even critics who helped design and lead it."

UPDATE - October 19, 2006: June 11, 2007
I noticed that the London Guardian Unlimited NewsBlog linked to this post, prompting a hasty housecleaning to correct a few typos and spelling errors. Welcome to any visitors from across the pond.

Two updates of potential interest since this was posted. On September 25, I expanded on the theme of this post, wrote and posted an Open Letter to Colin Powell. It was prompted by a rereading of his memoir "My American Journey" and the striking parallels between his words about Vietnam and our current quagmire in Iraq. I did not really expect a a reply, and I have not been disappointed. I have also subsequently read this 09-October-06 LA Times review by Tim Rutten of a new Colin Powell biography Soldier:The Life of Colin Powell. Mr. Rutten sadly validates my fears regarding how history will treat Colin Powell and his role in the Iraq adventure:

"At the end of the day, these two exemplary soldiers, Powell and Lee, shared the same tragic flaw — an inability to recognize the moment in which personal loyalty becomes civic folly."

Divided and Balanced.™ Now that is fair.

Just Vote Divided.

Big Spending, Big Deficit, Big Government Republicans

The congressional budget office released new budget projections last week. The "good" news in the report is that this year's deficit is not as bad as was feared. Of course, use of the word "good" in the same sentence as the CBO report, makes about as much sense as a fish on a bicycle, or, perhaps a more appropriate absurdity - flying pigs. If, before GWB was elected in 2000, I was told that the Republicans would become the party of big government, and the Democrats would become the party of fiscal responsibility, I might have replied "Right. When pigs fly out of my ...". As this chart from the CBO report confirms, we are halfway there. This is not good news. In a year that the CPI increased 3.6% and the Gross Domestic Product increased 6.6%, our Republican leaders in Washington have increased federal spending by an astounding 7.7% and are adding an additional $260 Billion to our national debt.


Here we have yet another illustration of how far today's Republicans have strayed from the path of limited government and fiscal conservativism. Adding insult to injury, we have apologists for this administration promoting the patently false, intellectually dishonest pretense that this CBO analysis is good news. What is absolutely clear from this report, is that the Republican party running our government has only a name in common with the party of Ronald Reagan, or even the party of Newt Gingrich's "Contract with America".

Apparently, the "preferred spin" is to compare this report's projection with the inflated estimates from earlier this year. Some examples, from disingenuous or delusional bloggers:

Blog on The Hill:Tax Relief Helps Shrink Deficit posted by N.J. GOP Rep. Scott Garrett

"Today’s CBO projection of another drop in the Federal budget deficit is further proof that the tax relief policies passed by this Republican Congress are fueling a real economic rebound. This latest prediction puts the deficit at $36 billion lower than the mid-year economic report from the Office of Management and Budget in July. "

A blog for all: The President's 2006 Budget Shrinks Deficit

"CBO now projects a deficit of $260 billion for fiscal year 2006, about $111 billion less than it estimated in March for the President’s budget ...I say take a bow Mr. President, the CBO was wrong, you were right, take some credit for a job well done."

Dissecting Leftism

"For 2006, the government deficit will be 2 percent of gross domestic product, down from the old baseline prediction for 2006 of 2. 6 percent. ... On Aug. 17, when the more extensive annual Update of the Budget and Economic Outlook appears, that 2 percent figure is likely to show up more definitively..."

Wow! What great news! Only last March we were prediciting that we would lose an arm and a leg, and yes we actually lost the leg but the arm was only lost up to the elbow! We saved the stump from the shoulder to the elbow! What a triumph! Just think how much greater a triumph this CBO report could have been, if we only had predicted losing both arms and legs in March!

I just don't get it. Who do they think they are kidding? I guess they are writing crap just to appeal to themselves, sort of a right wing daisy chain of mutual pseudo-intellectual masturbation. Well, at least they are enjoying themselves. In the meantime, they are helping enable this adminstration to continue driving the country at high speed, while drunk on spending, careening recklessly down a fiscal highway to hell.

I have no problem with tax cuts in general, nor with the Bush tax cuts in particular. I agree that tax cuts help the economy. I agree that they have helped stimulate economic growth and tax revenues. The problem is not the tax cuts. The problem is with the wild spending that continues to accelerate under this administration and this Congress. The spending orgy is still spinning wildly out of control. There are still no spending veto's from this President. There is still no discipline from either Congress or the President. But, there is plenty of "earmarked" pork to go around. Even enough for good old Joe Lieberman. This single party controlled government of big spending, big deficit, big government GWB Republicans were already documented last fall to outspend the single party controlled LBJ Great Society / Vietnam Democrats. This CBO report makes it clear that there is no improvement, and this administration and Congress will set the new high water mark of big government, big spending, big deficits, that may last for all time. We will never again be able to say those words "big government, big spending, big deficits" without following it with the word "Republican".

Fortunately there are conservatives that have maintained some intellectual integrity about what is really going on:

"Accusations that the administration is employing the famous UPOD business principle -- "under-promise, over-deliver" -- are not entirely unjustified, considering that the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office had originally forecast a deficit of just $350 billion. Still, both were wrong by a very large margin (15.4 percent for the CBO and 30 percent for the White House), and the positive reversal of fortune clearly had nothing to do with fiscal discipline in the Congress." - Robert Novak

DON’T POP THE CORKS - CBO Outlook for the Federal Budget Is Still Bleak by James Horney and Richard Kogan

"The Congressional Budget Office today released new budget projections showing a deficit of $260 billion for fiscal year 2006, which will end on September 30.[1] Although such a deficit would be $30 billion lower than the Office of Management and Budget estimated on July 11, and just over $100 billion less than CBO projected last March (excluding the effects of legislation enacted since March), the new CBO projections of spending, revenues, and deficits through 2016 are not cause for celebration by those troubled by the bleak federal budget outlook. Among the reasons those concerned with fiscal responsibility should not break out the champagne are: CBO is not projecting that revenues will be higher in 2006 than the Administration estimated last month — CBO and the Office of Management and Budget both project that revenues will total $2.403 trillion this year.CBO is projecting a lower deficit for 2006 than OMB did because it believes federal agencies will spend less of the funds currently available to them by the end of the fiscal year than the agencies reported to OMB. (In some instances, that simply means that more of the funds will be spent next year.)

* A deficit of $260 billion in 2006 would represent the largest 6-year deterioration in the budget in 50 years. In 2000, there was a surplus equal to 2.4 percent of Gross Domestic Product. A deficit of $260 billion this year would be equal to an estimated 2.0 percent of GDP. That 4.4 percentage point deterioration in the budget would be the worst 6-year deterioration in half a century (the next worse was from 1998 to 2004, when the deterioration was slightly less than 4.4 percentage points). This deterioration is hardly a reason for jubilation. CBO’s deficit estimate of $260 billion in 2006 illustrates one other reality as well. Based on Joint Committee on Taxation estimates, the total cost of tax cuts enacted since January 2001 in 2006 is $258 billion (including the increased interest costs of the debt that result from the borrowing that is required to cover the lost revenues). This means that even with the spending for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the response to Hurricane Katrina, the federal budget would essentially be in balance this year if the tax cuts had not been enacted, or if they had been offset by either increases in other taxes or cuts in programs, as would have been required under the Pay-As-You-Go rules that tax-cut proponents first ignored and then allowed to expire."

Cato Institute: CBO Releases Latest Deficit Numbers

"The U.S. budget deficit will rise to $286 billion in fiscal 2007, up from this year's projected deficit of $260 billion, the Congressional Budget Office [CBO] predicted on Thursday. The CBO's deficit projection for the coming fiscal year was higher than the $265 billion it predicted in March."
Stephen Slivinski, the Cato Institute's director of budget studies and author of Buck Wild: How Republicans Broke the Bank and Became the Party of Big Government, comments: "The CBO report shows that the economy is rapidly expanding. Unfortunately, it shows that the budget is, too. Total government spending is expected to grow by a dramatic 7.7 percent this year -- that's faster than the projected economic growth rate (6.6 percent). And the federal budget is projected to hover at 20 percent of GDP until the end of Bush's presidency. Contrast that with the 18.5 percent of GDP that government consumed when the Republicans took total control of both Congress and the White House. It's a stark example of how the GOP has taken on the role of the party of big government... it is not blue skies ahead: the CBO report projects staggering growth in the so-called entitlement programs. Medicare spending is expected to skyrocket from $372 billion in 2006 to $909 billion by 2016. This is a spending crisis that needs to be addressed."

Repeat after me -

The Disease:

Big Spending, Big Deficit, Big Government Republicans.
Big Spending, Big Deficit, Big Government Republicans.
Big Spending, Big Deficit, Big Government Republicans.

The Cure:

Just Vote Divided.

UPDATE August 22, 2006
Speaking of conservatives with intellectual honesty, who needs Air America, when you have pundits like Joe Scarborough? Conservatives in open revolt about the spending policies are commonplace. Conservatives questioning GWB's suitability to be President? Leave it to Joe. The Washington Post covered the right wing sh*t storm in the wake of Scarborough's segment "Is Bush an Idiot?" last week:

Pundits Renounce The President
Among Conservative Voices, Discord By Peter Baker
Washington Post

"For 10 minutes, the talk show host grilled his guests about whether "George Bush's mental weakness is damaging America's credibility at home and abroad." For 10 minutes, the caption across the bottom of the television screen read, "IS BUSH AN 'IDIOT'?"Couldn't let this pass without comment... In a later telephone interview, Scarborough said he aired the segment because he kept hearing even fellow Republicans questioning Bush's capacity and leadership, particularly in Iraq. Like others, he said, he supported the war but now thinks it is time to find a way to get out. "A lot of conservatives are saying, 'Enough's enough,' " he said. Asked about the reaction to his program, he said, "The White House is not happy about it."

Joe sticks to his guns in his "Regular Joe" column:

"These days the President seems distracted, disjointed and dumbed-down in press conferences. His jokes fall flat and are often inappropriate. And like Reagan, George W. Bush seems to be getting worse with age instead of better... In the case of Bush I wonder whether there no one in the West Wing that can tell their boss he needs to spend more time in front of a teleprompter and less time watching ESPN... Has anyone considered keeping the President away from the press altogether if he is no longer up to the task of answering questions? I’m seriousIf George Bush has lost his ability to give a commanding presser, then stage manage him differently. Play to his strengths. Control Bush like Deaver controlled Reagan. Show him only in settings where he is in control ... Right now, this President cannot afford to bumble his way across the world stage. He needs to be seen as a strong, confident leader capable of managing the greatest foreign policy crisis since the Cold War."

OK, Joe says to keep the President from the press, manage him like an actor on a stage, and almost says he has alzheimers, but he still says he would vote for him. Whatever.