Obsidian Wings

John McCain, Tactical Super-Genius

by publius

It’s pretty hilarious to hear the McCain campaign’s whining about the press circus surrounding Obama’s Summer Tour ’08. It’s funny on one level because they practically forced Obama to go abroad by taunting him in every press release – and now it’s backfiring completely. Obama’s trip also provides a pretty stark contrast to McCain’s relative snoozers to Iraq, Canada, and Colombia (which, like Obama’s trip, were 100% for domestic consumption).

Ensuing hilarity aside, there’s a larger lesson here. The whole thing illustrates yet again why the McCain campaign isn’t quite ready for prime time.

In particular, it shows that the McCain people never look more than one move ahead on the chessboard. Kerry did that too – his campaign flailed about, attacking Bush on whatever the morning’s negative headline happened to be.

Bush, by contrast, settled in on a few core messages early and remained relentlessly disciplined about pushing them. Like Bush, Obama also stays disciplined – if you look at Obama’s press releases attacking McCain, they almost always tie in the “Bush III” theme in some way. If anything, Obama’s team has been too hesitant to go after McCain’s daily gaffes, preferring instead to keep on-message, stay relatively positive, and organize, organize, organize.

The bumbling McCain campaign, by contrast, is flailing about, attacking without giving much thought to the logical next step. For instance, attacking Obama for not going to Iraq is a fairly silly point anyway. It would have been better to stay quiet about and taunted him if he had decided to go (John McCain doesn’t need last-minute photo-ops to show he’s ready. Obama should be focusing on the American people. Etc.) But that said, if McCain had planned on using this attack, he should have at least waited until September or October when Obama wouldn’t have had time to go. Now, by contrast, is a dead news period and then come the Olympics.

Unsurprisingly, the Straight Talk Express opted for the more incompetent choice – they taunted Obama into going. And it doesn’t exactly take a Kasparov to see what would happen next. Obama would go abroad – and it would be a major international press event that would suck up coverage and spit out Obama-friendly optics for an entire week.

The whole thing just makes the McCain campaign look like a bunch of whining amateurs – first attacking him for not going, then attacking him for going. McCain may well win – but his campaign is atrocious.

He Said What?

by hilzoy

Reuters:

"Republican presidential candidate John McCain said Friday that his Democratic opponent, Barack Obama, is likely to be in Iraq over the weekend.

The Obama campaign has tried to cloak the Illinois senator's trip in some measure of secrecy for security reasons. The White House, State Department and Pentagon do not announce senior officials' visits to Iraq in advance.

"I believe that either today or tomorrow -- and I'm not privy to his schedule -- Sen. Obama will be landing in Iraq with some other senators" who make up a congressional delegation, McCain told a campaign fund-raising luncheon.

"I am sure that Sen. Obama is going to arrive in Baghdad in a much, much safer and secure environment than the one that he would've encountered before we started the surge," McCain said."

Obama's schedule was not public for security reasons: it would obviously be much, much better if people did not know when he was going to be in Iraq, Afghanistan, or any other war zone. As one of Josh Marshall's correspondents writes:

"If it is true that Obama is going to Iraq this weekend, it is a very serious mistake for McCain to have disclosed it publically. Even for run-of-the-mill CODELs the military gives guidance like, "Please strongly discourage Congressional offices from issuing press releases prior to their trips which mention their intent to travel to the AOR and/or the dates of that travel or their scheduled meetings. Such releases are a serious compromise to OPSEC." If Obama is going to Iraq this weekend, I can not begin to imagine how much this is complicating the security planning for the trip."

Josh goes on to note that McCain might have just been guessing. I honestly don't see that this makes much difference. If McCain knew when Obama was going, he should absolutely not have said anything about it. If he didn't know when Obama was going, he should not have guessed out loud: guessing and being right would have exactly the same bad consequences as saying what you know for a fact. In either case, it would at best hugely complicate the lives of the people who are charged with keeping Obama safe during his trip, for instance by leading them to postpone it and redo all the security stuff on a later date. At worst, it could endanger his life.

(Plus: read the coverage, asking yourself: is this the sort of thing that reporters who presumably know when, say, their colleagues plan to drop off the face of the earth, would write if McCain got it right, or if McCain got it wrong? Things people said about the timing beforehand helpfully listed here; there have been very few responses afterwards, but here's one. Consider its headline. Here's a Marc Ambinder post written after the Reuters story. -- Note: if Obama does not show up in Iraq tomorrow, I will neither be surprised nor take that as evidence that McCain was wrong: rescheduling everything would be one obvious response to this kind of security breach.)

This is not just another screwup from McCain. It is very, very serious. There are things you are just Not Supposed To Talk About. This is one of them. If McCain doesn't have the common sense, the decency, and the discipline not to talk about them, that's a very serious problem. Since I'm not willing to assume he did this out of malice, I have to conclude that he just let this slip. But if he were President, we would need to count on him not to let things like this slip. Apparently, we can't. And that's a very big deal.

Michael Gerson - The Worst Ever

by publius

I think it’s fairly clear that Michael Gerson is the worst op-ed writer in the United States. He’s certainly the most insufferable. Sorry Richard Cohen – maybe next year! And today’s effort doesn’t disappoint, even by Gerson’s lofty standards.

First, let’s start with the trifling stuff. Gerson’s writing annoys me because it uses too many puke-inducing adjectives. Good writing and good speechwriting apparently don't go hand and hand. His columns read like a cross between a Hallmark card and a 9th grade essay. (The majestic majesty of the eloquent sky yawned ostensibly, like a velvet monarch.)

Straight Talking (Now With Added Socialism!)

by hilzoy

More straight talk on display here, via TPM. As Josh Marshall says, the best parts start about 2:30 minutes before the end. Transcribing:

"Q: Finally, you talked a little bit about Senator Obama today, you said he was the most extreme member of the Senate...

McCain: Yeah, that's his voting record.

Q: Extreme? You really think he's an extremist? I mean, he's clearly liberal...

McCain: That's his voting record. All I said was his voting record -- and that is more to the left than the announced socialist in the United States Senate, Bernie Sanders of Vermont.

Q: Do you think he's a socialist, Barack Obama?

McCain: Oh, I don't know. All I know is his voting record, and that's what people usually judge their elected representatives by. But I know this too: that Senator Obama has not done what I've done. He has not reached across the aisle to work in a bipartisan fashion. I have. I have. And if you have an extreme voting record, it's hard to do that. And finally, Senator Obama, obviously, supported amendments that would have killed comprehensive immigration reform. Then he says that he's for immigration reform.

Q: But you flip-flop a little bit too.

McCain: No, I didn't.

Q: You flip-flop on drilling, on tax cuts...

McCain: Actually, I didn't. Actually, on the drilling issue, when gasoline reached $4 a gallon, we've got to do things that we otherwise haven't done in the past. I have not changed my mind on any other issue. On immigration, I said we need comprehensive immigration reform, it failed twice, so we've got to do what's going to succeed.

Q: But you were against the tax cuts, now you're talking about making them permanent. Isn't there flip-flopping on both sides?

McCain: Actually, no. Actually, I had a tax cut proposal of my own. Senator Obama wants to raise taxes; I want to keep them low. Somebody who wants higher taxes, I'm not your candidate. Senator Obama is. I had a package of tax cuts, and I said we had to restrain spending. We did not restrain spending, and therefore we now have the mess that we're in. We had to restrain spending. That's the main reason why I voted against them, and I had a large package of tax cuts myself, and I have voted for tax cuts in the past, and Senator Obama wants to raise them. I've heard a lot of this propaganda, and I understand what campaigns are about, and all of the back and forth, but I'll stand on my record of bipartisan effectiveness for American, and putting my country first."

This has to set some sort of new McCain record for dishonesty. Details below the fold.

Mordor Stirs

by publius

The Politico reports that the health insurance industry is gearing up for a big post-election fight over health care reform:

Ahead of the approaching health care reform storm, the insurance industry is building an ark: a nationwide education campaign aimed at raising an activist army at least 100,000 strong. . . . The massive outreach is AHIP’s attempt to drive debate in a political climate that has had the industry on the defensive since Democrats took control of Congress last year.

Portrayed cinematically, the activist army looks something like this:

Compare And Contrast

by hilzoy

George W. Bush, today:

"
President Bush said Tuesday that he will not call on Americans to conserve gasoline despite the rising price of oil, saying consumers are "smart enough" to figure out for themselves that they should drive less.

"They're smart enough to figure out whether they're going to drive less or not. I mean, you know, it's interesting what the price of gasoline has done," Bush said at a news conference in the White House press room, "is it caused people to drive less. That's why they want smaller cars: They want to conserve. But the consumer's plenty bright. The marketplace works."

"You noticed my statement yesterday, I talked about good conservation and — you know, people can figure out whether they need to drive more or less," he said. "They can balance their own checkbooks."

"It's a little presumptuous on my part to dictate how consumers live their own lives," the president added. "I've got faith in the American people." "

Ari Fleischer, May 7 2001 Press Briefing (h/t someone other than myself):

" Q Is one of the problems with this, and the entire energy field, American lifestyles? Does the President believe that, given the amount of energy Americans consume per capita, how much it exceeds any other citizen in any other country in the world, does the President believe we need to correct our lifestyles to address the energy problem?

MR. FLEISCHER: That's a big no. The President believes that it's an American way of life, and that it should be the goal of policy makers to protect the American way of life. The American way of life is a blessed one. And we have a bounty of resources in this country. What we need to do is make certain that we're able to get those resources in an efficient way, in a way that also emphasizes protecting the environment and conservation, into the hands of consumers so they can make the choices that they want to make as they live their lives day to day."

Barack Obama, today:

"The surest way to increase our leverage against Iran in the long-run is to stop bankrolling its ambitions. That will depend on achieving my fourth goal: ending the tyranny of oil in our time.

One of the most dangerous weapons in the world today is the price of oil. We ship nearly $700 million a day to unstable or hostile nations for their oil. It pays for terrorist bombs going off from Baghdad to Beirut. It funds petro-diplomacy in Caracas and radical madrasas from Karachi to Khartoum. It takes leverage away from America and shifts it to dictators.

This immediate danger is eclipsed only by the long-term threat from climate change, which will lead to devastating weather patterns, terrible storms, drought, and famine. That means people competing for food and water in the next fifty years in the very places that have known horrific violence in the last fifty: Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia. Most disastrously, that could mean destructive storms on our shores, and the disappearance of our coastline.

This is not just an economic issue or an environmental concern - this is a national security crisis. For the sake of our security - and for every American family that is paying the price at the pump - we must end this dependence on foreign oil."

As said: making strategic connections: it's a good thing.

For good measure, one more comparison below the fold.

The Fiscal Fairy

by hilzoy

A couple of days ago, the McCain campaign did something it hasn't done thus far: it provided some actual numbers to back up McCain's promise to balance the budget. The Post's editorial board thinks his numbers aren't particularly credible. They start by noting that his tax proposals would cost a lot more than he says, according to neutral analysts like the Tax Policy Center. But his claims about taxes are at least specific (if wrong), unlike his claims about cutting spending, which are from some fantasy alternate universe:

"The McCain campaign says it will fill the hole with spending cuts. It would "reclaim billions" by rooting out existing earmarks and prohibiting new ones; impose a one-year freeze on discretionary spending other than for defense and veterans; and "reserve all savings from victory in the Iraq and Afghanistan operations" to use toward deficit reduction. These claimed savings are illusory. The campaign assumes $150 billion in savings by cutting in half deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan. But the Congressional Budget Office says that even reducing troops to 30,000, far beyond Mr. McCain's estimate, would save just $55 billion in 2013 beyond the costs that the CBO projects as part of its deficit calculation. The campaign assumes an additional $160 billion in cuts to the Pentagon procurement budget and other discretionary spending. But eliminating every procurement program that the CBO has identified as a potential budget target would save perhaps $30 billion in 2013.

In any event, Mr. McCain has called for billions more in new spending: increasing the size of the military, launching a new energy independence project, fully funding the No Child Left Behind law. Where's the savings? Mr. McCain says that he would limit overall growth in discretionary spending to 2.4 percent annually. History suggests that this would not be easily achievable: Discretionary spending has grown an average of 6.9 percent over the past seven years.

Mr. McCain's campaign says that he would rein in the growth of entitlement spending, saving another $160 billion, but it does not explain how. His campaign cites "excessive agricultural and ethanol subsidies," but eliminating all farm subsidies would trim less than $15 billion in 2013. Mr. McCain's opposition to the pending Medicare bill does not offer comfort on his willingness to deal with entitlements. He's willing to reverse $13 billion in scheduled cuts to doctors but opposes paying for it by reducing overpayments to the private Medicare plans. These overpayments -- the plans cost, on average, 13 percent more -- are just about the lowest-hanging fruit in tackling Medicare. In fact, Mr. McCain's chief economic adviser, Douglas Holtz-Eakin, told USA Today in May that the plans should have to "compete on a level playing field" with traditional Medicare."

It's also worth noting that there are some very predictable future costs that McCain does not mention -- things like the increases in spending for veterans' benefits that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan require. Moreover, as the Post editorial mentions, McCain himself often makes promises that are more costly than Douglas Holtz-Eakins': his promise to repeal the AMT, for instance. It's not clear why, in estimating costs, we should take Holtz-Eakins' word about what McCain will do over McCain's own. Moreover, if McCain is serious about changing Social Security to deal with the "disgrace" of present workers paying for present retirees' benefits, he will have to come up with a few additional hundreds of billions of dollars to pay for it. And that's just for its first few years. Over the long haul, it would add trillions.

But I have to disagree with the Post's conclusion: "Mr. McCain sells American voters short -- and he does himself a disservice -- with his implausible claim." They are right to claim that McCain has promised to balance the budget by the end of his first -- oops, his second! -- term, that the budget is not presently in balance, that McCain has proposed both large tax cuts and a lot of new spending, and that the spending cuts he has proposed don't begin to pay for them. However, as we know, McCain is a man who calls things as he sees them, and as Bob Schieffer informs us, questioning his integrity is out of bounds. As I see it, therefore, there is only possible conclusion:

McCain and his advisors believe in the Fiscal Fairy, who makes our numbers add up by magic.

If you try to make sense of McCain's proposals without taking the Fiscal Fairy into account, they look pretty implausible. But that just shows what a narrow and blinkered view of things our MSM has. Real leadership, as any number of motivational posters inform us, involves getting people to see that they can accomplish the impossible, and seeing real possibilities where the rest of us just see insuperable obstacles. And where fiscal policy is concerned, McCain is a real leader and a man of vision: where the Washington Post sees only impenetrable columns of numbers that don't add up, McCain looks beyond all that and sees a chance for magic to enter the world.

***

Once you think about the Fiscal Fairy, a lot of things become clear. For instance, this passage from an LATimes piece on McCain and Social Security might once have annoyed me:

"Later, on CNN, McCain seemed to fully embrace the idea of private accounts. "I want young workers to be able to, if they choose, to take part of their own money, which is their taxes, and put it in an account which has their name on it," he said. Participation would be a "voluntary thing," he said, and "would not affect any present-day retirees or the system as necessary."

The remarks drew fire from Democrats, who accused McCain of failing to understand a system that since its creation in the 1930s has relied on payroll taxes from current workers to fund benefits for current retirees. Some supporters of this system say that allowing younger workers to divert money into private accounts would reduce the tax money needed to provide benefits for older workers once they retired."

Wrong, I might have thought. It's not just "some supporters" of the current system who say that McCain's proposals would reduce the money available to pay for benefits. More or less everyone says this, for the perfectly good reason that it's true. (See here for an explanation.) This is like saying: "Candidate X has promised to purchase flat-screen TVs for every American citizen. Yet some opponents of his proposal claim that buying all those TVs would cost the government money." -- Of course it would cost the government money, I might once have thought. That should not be up for debate. If, for some reason, someone thought that it would be a good idea to buy everyone a flat-screen TV, they would have to argue that that money would be well spent. Pretending that there's a genuine debate about whether flat-screen TVs cost money, let alone that this is a partisan issue, is just misleading and wrong. Same here. At present, taxes contributed by present workers are paying for the benefits of present retirees. If those taxes are diverted into private accounts, then someone will have to pay the benefits of those retirees. This is not a controversial or partisan point. It just amounts to thinking that we cannot conjure vast sums of money out of the ether.

But now I see things differently. With the Fiscal Fairy, you can believe that private accounts are cost-free! You can conjure vast sums of money out of the ether! Moreover, to deny the existence of the Fiscal Fairy is partisan: it amounts to thinking not just that McCain's economic policies make no sense, but to questioning his integrity. And since only a deranged partisan could possibly question McCain's integrity -- well, you do the math.

Three Cheers for "He Said/She Said" Journalism

by publius

Ron “Fightin'” Fournier achieved something I once thought impossible – he’s made me appreciate the “he said/she said” template for journalism. In case you didn’t see the Politico story, Fournier heads the AP Washington Bureau. Since he took over, things have been a little different (Steve “Ivan Drago” Benen explains why things have gone downhill since).

Anyway, at first glance, the AP shift seems promising. Fournier claims to be encouraging his reporters to look past the "he said/she said" stenography and dig deeper. The Politico’s Calderone writes:

In the stories the new boss [Fournier] is encouraging, first-person writing and emotive language are okay.

So is scrapping the stonefaced approach to journalism that accepts politicians’ statements at face value and offers equal treatment to all sides of an argument. Instead, reporters are encouraged to throw away the weasel words and call it like they see it when they think public officials have revealed themselves as phonies or flip-floppers.

Sounds great – in fact, abandoning this approach is one of the founding ideals of the liberal blogosphere, forged as it was in the fires of the BS spin supporting the Iraq War. So what’s the problem?

Well, the problem is that this approach requires a bit more of journalists. If they’re not up to the task, the end result can actually be far worse than the comparatively safer “he said/she said” template. And that’s where Benen’s post comes in – he shows in detail why the end result has indeed often been worse.

So Team Blogosphere – maybe we’ve had this all wrong. We've assumed that journalists were discerning, well-informed creatures being held back by the constraints of the oppressive he said/she said templates. In reality, it may be that these templates were a crutch, hiding the fact that many reporters really can’t see through spin – and so aren’t quite up to Fournier’s challenge.

We can, however, take solace in the fact that he will keep up the fight.

The Primary Reason McCain Sucks

by publius

John McCain may well win this fall. But he’s an atrocious candidate. And his campaign is fairly atrocious as well, particularly compared to the well-disciplined, relentlessly on-message Bush-Cheney machines of yesteryear. But it’s not just that McCain is gaffe-prone. His policy shop has been a complete joke – his policies generally lack crucial details, are incoherent, or contradict his prior positions.

Of course, McCain and his operation bear some blame for his relative atrociousness (as a candidate, not a human). But the larger blame rests with the GOP itself – in particular, with its primary election process. Quite simply, McCain’s ascendance is an indictment of the GOP primary, and frankly, of the intellectual state of the party more generally.

McCain, ‘tis true, did win the GOP primary. And normally, victory in the primary means you’re doing something right. That assumption, however, only holds true if your party’s primary does a good job testing for the skills a strong general election candidate needs. The GOP primary didn’t do that, for at least a couple of reasons – one procedural, the other more substantive.

On the procedural front, I still agree with Douthat’s early observation that much of McCain’s victory can be attributed to blind luck. He was out of the picture (and press spotlight) until the very end, when Huckabee’s meteoric rise – and Rudy’s meteoric fall – created a perfect storm for McCain.

As a result of the sudden rise, he didn’t get scrutinized the way he is now. Greater scrutiny would not only have exposed his weaknesses, but it would have forced him to adapt and become a more disciplined candidate.

But back to the procedural point, it was the GOP’s winner-take-all rules that allowed McCain to close rapidly and wrap it up early. Imagine how things might have been different if the GOP had instead adopted proportional delegate rules. McCain and Romney and Huckabee would have slogged it out month after month. It wouldn’t have been pretty, but it would have forced McCain to become a better, more disciplined candidate.

But that’s all old ground. The more interesting flaw with the GOP primary that produced McCain is substantive. The reason McCain doesn’t have any serious policy details to speak of is because the GOP primary didn’t demand it. Developing detailed ambitious policy was simply not something that GOP voters – and more importantly, GOP opinion-makers – cared about.

Say what you will about the Democrats, but the level of their policy development and debate was extremely impressive. And yes, Edwards helped blaze that trail. But the reason that Edwards’ early policy moves mattered is because Democratic “elites” cared about policy. In fact, they demanded it. To be viable, candidates had to produce serious policy proposals, and then defend them under close scrutiny. (The Obama/Clinton debate about health care mandates provides a good example).

Watching the GOP debates, by contrast, was like watching some scene out of Idiocracy. There was no demand for serious policy development – which is especially curious given that the GOP is the party of ideas. Instead, the GOP primary focused on the relative degree of one’s surrender monkey-ness and Latino-hatred -- with Ron Paul thrown in as a Shakespearian jester, drawing attention to the whole thing’s utter absurdity.

To sum up, McCain’s lack of policy and imagination isn’t simply an individual failing. It’s an institutional failing of the party. The GOP is tired – success made it complacent and caused its members to grow big sacks of money for heads. The party cares not a whit for ideas on an institutional level (except on the judicial/legal front), and it’s thus no surprise that the party nominated a candidate who reflects these underlying institutional failings.

One hopes that the intellectual collapse will cause a Douthat-style revolution from the reformers within the party, even if McCain wins. But I’m not holding my breath.

Learning To Get Online Myself

by hilzoy

From the NYT, about John McCain:

"He said, ruefully, that he had not mastered how to use the Internet and relied on his wife and aides like Mark Salter, a senior adviser, and Brooke Buchanan, his press secretary, to get him online to read newspapers (though he prefers reading those the old-fashioned way) and political Web sites and blogs.

“They go on for me,” he said. “I am learning to get online myself, and I will have that down fairly soon, getting on myself. I don’t expect to be a great communicator, I don’t expect to set up my own blog, but I am becoming computer literate to the point where I can get the information that I need.” (...)

As he answered questions, sipping a cup of coffee with his tie tight around his neck, his aides stared down at their BlackBerries.

As they tapped, Mr. McCain said he did not use a BlackBerry, though he regularly reads messages on those of his aides. “I don’t e-mail, I’ve never felt the particular need to e-mail,” Mr. McCain said."

I'm sure I speak for internet users everywhere when I say how sorry I am that we will not be able to enjoy the blogtastic stylings of John McCain in the near future. It does make me wonder on what basis he said "I hate the Bloggers", though.

That was the snarky part. Here's a non-snarky question: what is hard about "getting online"? I assume he's not talking about having trouble setting up his cable modem, or something. I also assume he's talking about he web, and not about, say, having his computer update its clock automatically. What, exactly, do you have to do to get online? Well, you have to know which application is the one you click to surf the web, I guess. And it would help to have someone set up a few favorite sites for you, so that you could jump off from them, or at least read them when you felt like it. But, having done this myself for a few people who came of age long before PCs were invented, it's really not that hard. Did none of his kids, or his friends, or the people who work for him, offer? Does he perhaps not own a computer?

It's just puzzling, is all.

A Government Of Laws And Not Of Men

by hilzoy

From the Washington Post:

"The Bush administration has decided not to take any new steps to regulate greenhouse gas emissions before the president leaves office, despite pressure from the Supreme Court and broad accord among senior federal officials that new regulation is appropriate now.

The Environmental Protection Agency plans to announce today that it will seek months of further public comment on the threat posed by global warming to human health and welfare -- a matter that federal climate experts and international scientists have repeatedly said should be urgently addressed.

The Supreme Court, in a decision 15 months ago that startled the government, ordered the EPA to decide whether human health and welfare are being harmed by greenhouse gas pollution from cars, power plants and other sources, or to provide a good explanation for not doing so. But the administration has opted to postpone action instead, according to interviews and documents obtained by The Washington Post."

Hmm: I wonder if I could try that...

"Liberal blogger hilzoy has decided not to take any new steps to reduce her driving speed on the highways, despite pressure from the Maryland State Highway Patrol and broad accord from other drivers and experts on driving laws that a speed reduction is appropriate now. She announced today that she will seek months of comments about the appropriateness of driving 85mph on the interstates.

The Highway Patrol, in a decision 15 months ago that startled hilzoy, ordered her to reduce her speed to 65mph. But hilzoy has opted to postpone action instead, according to interviews and documents obtained by the Washington Post."

Somehow, I don't think that would go over very well. And I don't think it would help much if I ordered my speedometer to tell me that I was just doing the limit, and refused to open its emails when it told me I was not:

"To defer compliance with the Supreme Court's demand, the White House has walked a tortured policy path, editing its officials' congressional testimony, refusing to read documents prepared by career employees and approved by top appointees, requesting changes in computer models to lower estimates of the benefits of curbing carbon dioxide, and pushing narrowly drafted legislation on fuel-economy standards that officials said was meant to sap public interest in wider regulatory action.

The decision to solicit further comment overrides the EPA's written recommendation from December. Officials said a few senior White House officials were unwilling to allow the EPA to state officially that global warming harms human welfare. Doing so would legally trigger sweeping regulatory requirements under the 45-year-old Clean Air Act, one of the pillars of U.S. environmental protection, and would cost utilities, automakers and others billions of dollars while also bringing economic benefits, EPA's analyses found.

"They argued that this increase in regulation should be on the next president's record," not Bush's, said a participant in the lengthy interagency debate, referring principally to officials in the office of Vice President Cheney, on the White House Council on Environmental Quality, on the National Economic Council and in the Office of Management and Budget (OMB).

Several EPA officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said that throughout the process, White House officials instructed the agency to change their calculations with the aim of reducing the "social cost of carbon," a regulatory term that reflects the economic burdens stemming from greenhouse gas emissions.

Career EPA officials argued that the global benefits of reducing carbon are worth at least $40 per ton, but Bush appointees changed the final document to say the figure is just an example, not an official estimate. They prohibited the agency from submitting a 21-page document titled "Technical Support Document on Benefits of Reducing GHG Emissions" as part of today's announcement.

"The administration didn't want to show a high-dollar value for reducing carbon," said one EPA official, adding that the administration cut dozens of pages from a draft that outlined cost-effective ways to reduce greenhouse gases.

Some officials said the administration has also minimized the benefits of tighter fuel-economy standards by assuming that oil will cost $58 a barrel in the future, compared with its current price of $141.65. While the EPA calculated in a May 30 draft that stricter standards would save U.S. society $2 trillion by 2020, officials revised that figure last month -- using the $58 estimate -- to predict that they would save only between $340 billion and $830 billion.

The proposal that the EPA will unveil today, known as an advance notice of proposed rulemaking, stands in stark contrast to the agency's original Dec. 5 finding -- backed up by a lengthy scientific analysis -- that global warming is unequivocal, that there is "compelling and robust" evidence that the emissions endanger public welfare and that the EPA administrator is "required by law" to act to protect Americans from future harm."

That is what we ordinary folk call "lying".

The Medicare Vote

by hilzoy

On Wednesday, the Senate passed a Medicare bill by unanimous consent (the vote on cloture, which was the important one, passed 69-30. Guess who the missing Senator was.) It did two main things. First, it blocked a pay cut of 10.6% to doctors. This is a good thing: we can debate reforms to physician compensation under Medicare, but cutting fees by 10.6% across the board, not as the result of, well, thought, but because a deadline had expired and no one could figure out a way to agree on how not to have those cuts kick in, is surely not the way to do it.

The reason Congress was having trouble finding a way not to make that cut was because they had the curious idea that they should, well, find a way to pay for it. As it happens, a really wonderful way was at hand: cutting reimbursement for Medicare Advantage programs.

Make Him Stop!

by hilzoy

I really don't want to write about all McCain gaffes all the time. I have lots of interesting ideas for other posts. But if he keeps saying these things, what am I supposed to do -- especially since the media doesn't seem all that interested in covering them?

In his interview with the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, he was asked about Afghanistan and Pakistan. Part of his reply:

"I think if there is some good news, I think that there is a glimmer of improving relationship between Karzai and the Pakistanis."

This reduces the extremely articulate people at Democracy Arsenal to sputtering:

"Pakiwhat? Afghaninhuh?

(...) Just what "glimmer" is McCain talking about?? Maybe he's referring to President Karzai's remarks last month, which threatened military action in Pakistan if cross-border attacks persisted? Or maybe McCain is talking about Afghanistan's allegations that Pakistan's ISI was involved in a recent assassination attempt on Karzai? Maybe in McCain's world you could call that a silver-lining, but in reality-land I'd call it something else.

Seriously, there have been NUMEROUS reports from press, think-tank and Pentagon sources lamenting a deteriorating situation in Afghanistan and Pakistan and worsening relations between their respective governments. It isn't as if the coverage isn't there. It is. Yet despite the general agreement that the situation is bad, getting worse, and demands greater U.S. attention, John McCain can't even grasp the most basic developments."

I'd add to the examples Democracy Arsenal cites the fact that the Afghan foreign minister has blamed Pakistani intelligence for the recent bombing at the Indian Embassy in Kabul, which killed 41 people and injured 141. The Pakistani government is not taking particularly kindly to this, or to Karzai's threats of military action in Pakistan, which it says will not be tolerated. The Pakistani foreign minister: “if any such violation occurs, our government will take forceful action to eliminate that reaffirming that Pakistan will not allow any foreign troops on its territory”.

There is no "glimmer of improving relationship between Karzai and the Pakistanis". There just isn't. The situation on the Pakistani/Afghan border is incredibly volatile and dangerous. Each government blames the other. I have, frankly, no idea at all what McCain is talking about: what fact he might have misinterpreted, or what grain of truth he might have misconstrued.

***

Ahmed Rashid recently gave an interview to Der Spiegel:

"SPIEGEL: What mistakes have Western governments made in Pakistan and Afghanistan?

Rashid: The original sin was made when the US abandoned Afghanistan in early 2002 in order to prepare for the war in Iraq. We did not see major reconstruction of the country until 2004 and the window of opportunity for winning over the Afghan people and truly undermining Taliban influence was lost.

SPIEGEL: Can Afghanistan still be saved?

Rashid: Yes, I still think Afghanistan is doable. But it is not a single conflict anymore -- it is becoming a regional war that is spreading to Pakistan, Central Asia and Iran. And what is needed now is a regional diplomatic approach of the West to resolve this problem. It has become a much bigger problem than it was in 2001."

He's right. We badly need to try to find some way to help Afghanistan and Pakistan resolve this problem. But to do that, we need to have a President who has some idea what's actually going on there.

More Disgrace

by hilzoy

Ezra Klein manages to find the perfect analogy for McCain's comments on Social Security:

"There are criticisms that people make of Social Security, most of them relating to a mismatch between the program's revenue and its future obligations. But McCain's comment is very different. It's like if lots of people made fun of one guy's car because it was broken down, ugly, and lacked headlights. Then one of the dimmer members of the group, sensing an opportunity to jump in, piped up with, "yeah, four wheels and an engine? What's with that!? When you gonna do something about that!?" Everyone would sort of look at the guy for a moment while they registered that this person didn't understand how a car worked. Now imagine that this person was applying to run an auto shop. And people were taking his application seriously. That's sort of the situation we're in."

To expand a little on this:

It was one thing when George W. Bush didn't know the names of various foreign leaders in 2000. It would, of course, have been better if he had, but he had, after all, been a governor, not a diplomat, and it's easy to see how someone who hadn't had to deal with foreign affairs day in and day out might not recall the name of the President of Chechnya off the top of his head, even if he had been trying hard to learn such things.

This is different. For one thing, it's not names, which you can get wrong even if you understand all about Chechnya. Much more importantly, though, while Bush had not spent a lot of time with foreign leaders back in 2000, the issues McCain seems not to know about are exactly the things he has been dealing with for decades. He is a Senator. It's his job to know about things like Social Security. (Not to mention cap and trade: He introduced legislation creating a cap and trade program. It was called Lieberman-McCain, for heaven's sake.)

For him not to know these things while trying to be President really is, as Ezra says, like someone who wants to run your auto shop not knowing how a car works. For him not to know these things after spending 26 years in Congress is like someone who doesn't know how a car works after working as an auto mechanic for 26 years. You have to wonder what, exactly, he was doing all that time.

It really is breathtaking.

***

In other McCain-related news: Steve Benen's list of McCain flip-flops is up to 61. And I don't think Steve is counting cases like today's contraceptive/Viagra episode, in which McCain just couldn't remember what his position actually was. (Watch the video: he's completely at a loss.) At the same link, you will find the record on access to contraception that McCain couldn't remember, and a reference to this (from 2007), which I somehow missed at the time:

"Do you think contraceptives help stop the spread of HIV?”

Mr. McCain: (Long pause) “You’ve stumped me.”

Q: “I mean, I think you’d probably agree it probably does help stop it?”

Mr. McCain: (Laughs) “Are we on the Straight Talk express? I’m not informed enough on it. Let me find out. You know, I’m sure I’ve taken a position on it on the past. I have to find out what my position was. Brian, would you find out what my position is on contraception – I’m sure I’m opposed to government spending on it, I’m sure I support the president’s policies on it.”

Q: “But you would agree that condoms do stop the spread of sexually transmitted diseases. Would you say: ‘No, we’re not going to distribute them,’ knowing that?”

Mr. McCain: (Twelve-second pause) “Get me Coburn’s thing, ask Weaver to get me Coburn’s paper that he just gave me in the last couple of days. I’ve never gotten into these issues before.”"

Um: he doesn't know whether condoms prevent HIV transmission?

As I noted earlier, after Phil Gramm said America was a nation of whiners, McCain said that Gramm didn't speak for him. Which makes the fact that Gramm was, in fact, speaking for him at a meeting with the WSJ editorial board today all the more amusing.

Finally, Steve Benen goes over McCain's attempt to explain away what he said about Social Security yesterday. I didn't find it particularly convincing.

Goodbye to "Sister Souljah"

by publius

I keep hearing that Nutsgate is a “Sister Souljah moment” for Obama. Frankly, it’s annoying me. First – it’s not a Sister Souljah moment at all. Second – I’m sick of that term. It’s time to retire the Sister Souljah label altogether. It’s inaccurate, and even borderline racist.

There are two interpretations of the “Sister Souljah Moment” – one benign, one less so. To be more precise, there are two distinct concepts that get conflated under the name Sister Souljah. They share a common linguistic label, but they’re substantively different.

The more benign interpretation is that a Sister Souljah moment occurs when a candidate criticizes some group or idea nominally aligned with that candidate. In short, it’s criticizing your own coalition – or some idea valued by your coalition – to show independence and courage, etc.

The less benign interpretation is that “Sister Souljah” means distancing oneself from black people. When used in this sense, the Sister Souljah label masks an uglier, racial dimension lurking below the conceptual surface.

Let’s have a little straight talk – Clinton’s original Sister Souljah moment falls squarely within the latter sense. His statement got publicity not because he was speaking out against some interest group or idea, but because he spoke out against a black rapper.

In this sense, the original 1992 Sister Souljah speech wasn’t even technically a true “Sister Souljah moment.” After all, what serious idea or interest group was represented by her or her speech? It’s not like advocating killing white people was a sacred cow of black political groups or the Democratic Party more generally. And it’s not like she was some important leader.

A better example of a Sister Souljah moment would be, say, criticizing teachers’ unions’ opposition to merit pay. Clinton, by contrast, was criticizing a marginal figure expressing a marginal sensationalized view – but got a lot of press for it.

Sadly, though, it was probably good politics at the time. Many Reagan Democrats were (and are) under the ridiculous assumption that black people were running the Democratic Party, stealing white people’s wages for welfare and robbing their children of spots at prestigious universities. So let’s not kid ourselves. Clinton wasn’t showing courage by questioning Democratic orthodoxy. He was signaling to Reagan Democrats that he wasn’t controlled by black people, thus distinguishing himself from the imaginary boogeymen liberals in Reagan Democrats’ paranoid fantasy worlds.

Nutsgate also falls squarely into Interpretation #2. Actually, it’s questionable whether it should qualify at all. Remember that Obama didn’t even say anything – the “moment” was created entirely by Jackson. Obama had nothing to do with it. But there were a bunch of black people involved, so let's call it Sister Souljah.

But anyway, the larger point is that the use of Sister Souljah here strikes me as a tad racist. Again, what idea exactly is Obama distancing himself from – castration? No, there’s nothing substantive here. The only thing that Obama is distancing himself from is Jesse Jackson – a black man who lots of white people (and the press) dislike and caricature unfairly.

If you dig a bit deeper though, something else is going on -- something that goes well beyond Jackson. I mean, maybe Jesse Jackson remains a central figure in Democratic politics, but that would be news to me. No, what’s really going on is more depressing. When I hear many people talk about what good politics all this is for Obama, what they are really saying is that “it’s good politics to be distanced from black people.”

That’s a pretty disgusting concept, so it gets dressed up as a “Sister Souljah moment,” which links it to a safe and more bland political science concept. Using the same label for both concepts masks the uglier aspects of its use. Hell, even if we’re talking solely about the benign concept, the relentless use of the name “Sister Souljah” to describe it probably subconsciously reinforces the notion that black people are a group that savvy candidates must distance themselves from.

So I’m tired of it. And after today, I’m done with the term – and hopefully others will be as well.

Whining

by hilzoy

Phil Gramm, McCain's "Econ Brain" said this in an interview published yesterday:

""You've heard of mental depression; this is a mental recession," he said, noting that growth has held up at about 1 percent despite all the publicity over losing jobs to India, China, illegal immigration, housing and credit problems and record oil prices. "We may have a recession; we haven't had one yet."

"We have sort of become a nation of whiners," he said. "You just hear this constant whining, complaining about a loss of competitiveness, America in decline" despite a major export boom that is the primary reason that growth continues in the economy, he said. (...)

"Misery sells newspapers," Mr. Gramm said. "Thank God the economy is not as bad as you read in the newspaper every day.""

Really? The stock market is officially in bear territory; gas is over $4 a gallon; foreclosures rose 53% in June and are "the highest since the Great Depression of the 1930s"; "$3.5 trillion in homeowner equity has been wiped out since the spring of 2006", while the banking sector is looking at around a trillion in losses; we're shedding jobs; the dollar is falling, which contributes not just to rising oil prices but to inflation more generally; growth is anemic at best, and possibly negative since February; and, in the latest twist, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are tanking, and some fairly serious people are using words like "insolvent." Nouriel Roubini cheerfully sums it up:

"So brace yourself for a severe recession in the US and other advanced economies, a serious global growth slowdown and a systemic financial crisis. The worst is ahead of us rather than behind us and the financial and equity markets complacency and sucker’s rally that – in April and May - followed the Bears Stearns creditors rescue and the Fed bailout of non-bank broker dealers (the PDCF lender of last resort support extended to primary dealers) was gone by June with stock markets now back to bearish 20% plus downward adjustment. (...)

So the worst is ahead of us for the real economy and financial markets. (...) Persistent headwinds hitting consumers on a more protracted basis are: falling home prices, falling home equity withdrawal, falling stock prices, rising oil and food prices, rising debt servicing ratios, falling consumer confidence, falling employment and income generation."

I'm so glad this is all in my head!

At around one this afternoon, the McCain campaign said this: ""Phil Gramm’s comments are not representative of John McCain’s views," said a McCain official." A couple of hours later, McCain spoke out more strongly:

"John McCain strongly disavowed the comments today of his campaign co-chair and economic adviser, saying Phil Gramm "does not speak for me -- I speak for me."

"So, I strongly disagree," McCain told reporters gathered for a press conference that was added to his schedule following a town hall meeting near Detroit at least in part to deal with Gramm's comments that the economy was not in as poor shape as is portrayed. (...)

"I believe that the person here in Michigan who just lost his job isn't suffering from a 'mental recession,' McCain said, citing Gramm's remarks published in the Washington Times. "I believe that the mother here in Michigan, around the country trying to get enough money to educate her children isn’t 'whining.'"

America, McCain made sure to note, "is in great difficulty.""

Gramm is one of McCain's most important economic advisors. There are already more than enough reasons why he's unsuited for that job, ranging from his role in the Enron, S&L, and subprime crises to his employment by, and lobbying for, a company presently under criminal investigation. What he said today pales in comparison to other things he's done. If we're very, very lucky, he might have just taken himself out of contention for Treasury Secretary. But he should never have been there to begin with.

[UPDATE: Steve Benen notes that the McCain campaign's initial response was to stand by Gramm's remarks, and that McCain himself has suggested on several occasons that a lot of our economic problems are psychological. END UPDATE]

***

While Gramm's involvement in economic meltdowns and his history of supporting corporations like Enron at the expense of the rest of us are the main reasons he should be kept far away from economic policy, I can't resist adding a few of his choicer displays of empathy and compassion. From Molly Ivins reminds us of:

"The rib-tickling time Gramm wanted to deny food stamps to elderly legal immigrants on the splendid grounds that extending aid would only foster dependency, thereby incicting "a new personal tragedy on the most vulnerable among us."

And:

"During the fight over health care reform, Gramm said, "We have to blow up this train and the rails and the trestle and kill everyone on board." When an elderly widow in Corsicana told him that cutting Medicare would make it more difficult for her to remain independent, Gramm said, "You haven't thought about a new husband, have you?""

He wasn't without insight into his own failings, though. He told this joke about himself:

"People say I don't have a heart. I do. I keep it in a quart jar on my desk."

McCain's Economists

by hilzoy

When John McCain released his economic plan (pdf) the day before yesterday, he also released a statement, signed by 300 economists, in support of his economic plan. I was curious about it -- for one thing, the economists' statement does not mention some central aspects of the plan released the same day, like his promise to balance the budget in four years, and while I'd ordinarily assume that economists signing on to "John McCain's plan" were signing on to the actual document he had released, the fact that those 300 names were released within hours made me wonder whether all of them had had a chance to read the document itself.

I didn't know how to answer these questions, though. Luckily, Politico did:

"Upon closer inspection, it seems a good many of those economists don’t actually support the whole of McCain’s economic agenda. And at least one doesn’t even support McCain for president.

In interviews with more than a dozen of the signatories, Politico found that, far from embracing McCain’s economic plan, many were unfamiliar with — or downright opposed to — key details. While most of those contacted by Politico had warm feelings about McCain, many did not want to associate themselves too closely with his campaign and its policy prescriptions."

On my most specific question -- were the economists signing on "in support of John McCain's Jobs for America economic plan" -- the plan released two days ago -- or to something vaguer and more general? -- the answer appears to be: the latter:

"The McCain campaign’s economic team, led by adviser Douglas Holtz-Eakin and former eBay CEO Meg Whitman, began collecting signatures from economists several months ago, with the intention of showing support for McCain's broad economic priorities, rather than the specific items in his Jobs for America proposal. (...)

“This really is a general statement on the overarching principles of McCain’s plan to grow jobs and spur economic growth,” said McCain spokesman Brian Rogers. “Obviously it is what it is and it’s a general statement about cutting spending and cutting taxes and making us more competitive to move forward.”"

The statements by some of the economists are, um, tepid:

"Howard Beales, an economist at George Washington University, explained that he signed the letter as "an expression of support for [McCain], not necessarily each and every detail of his plan, which I may not have had time to study closely."

Beales said he thought McCain had "a good plan," in general, and that his policy priorities were better than Obama's. In signing the letter, however, he did not intend to give a blanket endorsement to McCain's full agenda.

Professor James Adams of the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute declined to elaborate on his decision to sign the letter. "I'm not involved in the campaign," he said. "I simply read a statement and signed on."

Constantine Alexandrakis, a professor at the University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth, expressed second thoughts about signing.

"I would describe myself as an Obama supporter," he explained. "Maybe I shouldn't have rushed into signing the letter." [Ed. note: I couldn't agree more.]

Alexandrakis said he added his name in order to show his support for certain principles in McCain's plan — such as free trade and a reduction in corporate tax rates. But there are other aspects of McCain's proposal, such as his pledge to make permanent the 2001 tax cuts, that Alexandrakis opposes.

"While I do not agree with Obama's plan 100 [percent] either," he wrote in an e-mail, "I would prefer to see him being elected president." (...)

Gary Becker, a Nobel Prize-winning economist at the University of Chicago, said he definitely supports the plan, even if he is not completely familiar with its specifics.

"I like the main thrust of the plan,” he said. “I felt that I could support it without knowing every detail."

Likewise, William Albrecht, professor emeritus at the University of Iowa, viewed the plan in general terms. "Overall, I thought [McCain's] economics was better than Obama's," he said.

While he favors McCain's overall outlook on the economy, Albrecht said he is not sure that he would agree with all the individual measures in the Arizona senator’s economic platform. He sounded a particularly skeptical note when asked about McCain's pledge to balance the federal budget within four years.

"He's not going to balance the budget," Albrecht said. "Nobody's going to balance the budget.""

To my mind, though, the real piece of information here is that these economists were signing on to what they saw as McCain's broad principles, and not to this specific plan.

In related news, Brad DeLong notes some economists who didn't sign on. (I'm glad he did this: when I read it, I wondered how the list would look to someone more familiar with the profession than I am. I recognized some names, but had no real sense of things like: which economists that one might expect to sign such a statement are missing?):

"A lot of economists who you would expect to have signed on--subcabinet appointees in past Republican administrations, et cetera--have not. One would expect, based on political loyalties and willingness to serve in Republican administrations, to see Greg Mankiw, Paul Wonnacott, Dick Schmalensee, Michael Mussa, Thomas Moore, Gary Seevers, Marina von Neumann Whitman, Kristin J. Forbes, Katherine Baicker, Matthew J. Slaughter, Andrew Samwick, and others on the list. They are not there. That is good news."

Even More McCain

by hilzoy

Honestly, I don't want to be writing about McCain's various displays of economic ignorance all the time. But he keeps coming up with statements that are just so jaw-droppingly awful that I have to. The latest is a CNN interview from this morning, which is posted, with its transcript, here. Rather than go through it at length, I'll just list the main points:

(1) McCain is asked how he plans to balance the budget. He says that the problem is that spending is out of control, and he will control it. He adds that he will create lots of new jobs in nuclear energy and coal gasification, I assume using only controlled spending. John Roberts (who has cited figures, and seems quite well-prepared) presses him, and this exchange follows:

"ROBERTS: Senator, you can't get over the fact, though, that extending the Bush tax cuts, as you want to do, and adding in your tax cuts do take the deficit number -- we actually go from a $70 billion surplus to a $445 billion deficit.

MCCAIN: You can't seem to get over the fact that it's spending that's out of control. And you restrain spending and also you can't get over the fact that historically when you raise people's taxes, guess what, revenue goes down. Every time we cut capital gains taxes, there has been an increase in revenue. I'm glad to have this discussion with you, and obviously you disagree, but the facts are that when you keep taxes low, when you restrain spending, as we did in 1982 when Ronald Reagan came to office, then the economy grows. We've created 46 million new jobs since 1982, because of lower taxes, but the spending got out of control, and that obviously caused the deficit, which then caused us to have to borrow money from China, et cetera, et cetera. And that's our problem that we have today, is spending and not keeping taxes low and stimulating the economy."

No. When you raise taxes (within reason), revenue tends to go up. (See this helpful graph.) And when you cut capital gains taxes, revenues go down, save for short-term blips that reflect people wanting to cash in under the new rates. McCain also mentions that the CBO and others who have estimated the effects of cuts in capital gains taxes use "static scoring." According to Greg Mankiw, who was the chair of Bush's Council of Economic Advisors, even with dynamic scoring, cuts in the capital gains tax only recoup 50% of the revenue lost.

(2) Just one day after releasing an economic plan (pdf) that said that "John McCain supports supplementing the current Social Security system with personal accounts" (p. 5), McCain repeated his earlier claim that "I want young workers to be able to, if they choose, to take part of their own money, which is their taxes, and put it in an account which has their name on it."

Supplementing Social Security with private accounts is one thing. Allowing workers to divert their FICA taxes into private accounts is another. The first just gives workers more options; the second guts Social Security's funding. These are very, very different proposals. Unfortunately, McCain doesn't seem to understand the difference, perhaps because he doesn't understand how Social Security works.

I wonder how long it will take his advisors to walk him back this time, and how long it will take him to say the same thing again.

(3) This is much less important, but still amusing: asked whether a request he made for funding for Arizona was an earmark, McCain said:

"The definition of an earmark is a program that is put in, and money that is put in an unauthorized fashion in the middle of the night. So no, it's not that, and it's not the same."

***

There's a pattern to this. McCain seems to have a few ideas about economics. Spending is out of control, and if we just restrain it, things will be OK. (Moreover, none of the spending he proposes -- e.g., the spending required to add 200,000 troops to the armed forces -- actually counts.) People should have the right to put their own tax money into their own Social Security accounts. Cutting taxes raises revenue. And that seems to be about it.

Since he doesn't actually understand what he's talking about, he periodically says something ill-advised -- that he supports privatizing Social Security, that he'll balance the budget in four years, and so forth. Then his advisors walk him back -- as they have already done with his promise to balance the budget by the end of his first term, and as I expect they'll do shortly on Social Security.

But it's not just on economics that this happens. Recall his advisors taking back his promise to kick Russia out of the G-8, the way he has needed to be corrected about whether Iran is training al Qaeda, or whether al Qaeda is Shi'a, or how many troops we have in Iraq, and so forth. And remember that he doesn't seem to know what a cap and trade system is, despite having co-sponsored cap and trade legislation in Congress, and having a cap and trade system as a central part of his energy policy.

He has a few ideas lodged in his head, without anything like the background he'd need in order to question or assess them, and without any discernible interest in learning more. He doesn't keep basic, basic facts straight, or know really elementary aspects of his own policies.

I never thought I'd end up covering John McCain like this. I expected, after eight years of Bush, to be able to argue about genuine philosophical and policy differences, rather than going on about the most basic matters of competence. But McCain's performance so far is just frightening. We've had eight years of a clueless President who governs on the basis of his gut plus a few stray ideas that wafted in on the breeze and somehow stuck. We do not need four more.

The "Disgrace" of Social Security

by publius

I just wanted to follow up on Hilzoy's post. Social Security is one of the most successful, efficient, and politically popular government programs in history. John McCain -- candidate for President -- said yesterday that the funding mechanism behind this wildly successful program is an "absolute disgrace." (And that's the charitable interpretation).

Anyway, since McCain feels pretty strongly about this injustice, I'm hoping that an intrepid member of the press corps will ask John "Details" McCain a simple question: "You said that the way Social Security has been funded for the past 75 years is a 'total disgrace.' In your view, how exactly should it be funded?" And if he starts mumbling about private accounts and market returns, the reporter should follow up by asking how he intends to cover the short-term resulting gap.

Inquiring Floridian minds want to know...

McCain: Deceptive Or Stone Cold Ignorant

by hilzoy

I was watching CSPAN yesterday, while I was eating dinner, and who should I see but John McCain. And he said the most extraordinary thing. It's the second paragraph of the excerpt that follows; I've included the rest so that you can see that there was no context that made it seem more reasonable:

"I'd like to start out by giving you a little straight talk. Under the present set-up, because we've mortgaged our children's futures, you will not have Social Security benefits that present-day retirees have unless we fix it. And Americans have got to understand that.

Americans have got to understand that we are paying present-day retirees with the taxes paid by young workers in America today. And that's a disgrace. It's an absolute disgrace, and it's got to be fixed.

Now, how do you fix it? Now, how do you fix it? You fix it by reaching across the aisle, and you say to the Democrats, "Sit down with me at the table. Sit down with me, the way Ronald Reagan and Tip O'Neill did the last time that Social Security was in deep trouble, and that was way back in 1983."" (From CQTranscriptions, "SEN. JOHN MCCAIN HOLDS A QUESTION-AND-ANSWER AT A TOWNHALL MEETING", July 7, 2008. Accessed via Lexis/Nexis.)

Let me repeat the astonishing bit: "Americans have got to understand that we are paying present-day retirees with the taxes paid by young workers in America today. And that's a disgrace. It's an absolute disgrace, and it's got to be fixed."

The fact that we are paying present-day retirees with the taxes paid by workers, young or otherwise, is not a disgrace, or a scandal, or a new development. Social Security has been funded this way since its inception. The first person to receive monthly benefits, one Ida Mae Fuller, had worked for three years, and contributed all of $24.75 to the Social Security Trust Fund. She lived to be 100, and collected $22,888.92 in benefits. Did the Social Security Trust Fund found that money under its pillow? Somehow, I don't think so.

Younger workers paid Ida Mae Fuller's pension. Workers who were younger still paid those workers when they retired. And even younger workers, like me, are paying for their Social Security benefits. This is not a disgrace; it's the way the system operates. And it's certainly not a sign that we've mortgaged our children's futures, or that something has to be fixed.

One interpretation of this statement would be that McCain is being deceptive: trying to make a straightforward feature of Social Security seem like a scary new problem, in order to gin up support for his nonexistent plans to fix it. I tend to think that he just doesn't know how Social Security works. (This would explain why he doesn't see the problem with privatizing the system: the need to pay a generation's worth of transition costs.) However, it doesn't really matter which explanation is right: either one ought to be close to disqualifying.

John McCain: deceptive or stone cold ignorant? We report; you decide.

Edwards as VP, Take Two?

by publius

Ed Kilgore caught today’s NPR interview with John Edwards, who apparently signaled a greater willingness to serve as Obama’s VP. And to be honest, I’m warming to the idea.

I haven’t felt strongly about the VP pick – but my tentative preferences have been Webb, Clark, Sebelius, and Biden. All of these choices have their problems though. And Edwards does too – but he may have less problems than they do.

When you think about a VP pick, there are a couple of matrices to keep in mind. The first is “pre-election” versus “post-election.” Biden, for instance, is the strongest post-election pick, but doesn’t bring much to the table in the pre-election campaign phase. Webb and Sebelius, by contrast, might be great during the campaign, but they’re relatively inexperienced in the post-election phase. Clark is somewhere in the middle.

The next matrix is confined solely to the pre-election phase. Here, the choice is between making a safe, no-drama pick versus a more dramatic pick that reinforces Obama’s “change” narrative. For instance, Clinton would be an extremely safe pick (well-vetted, no gaffes, experienced campaigner, etc.), but she would undermine the narrative. Webb, by contrast, would be a dramatic “change” selection, but he comes with a lot of unknowns.

Anyway, if using these frameworks makes sense (“safe” vs. “change”, “campaign” vs. “governing”), then Edwards seems to be a strong choice. On the one hand, Edwards would be a fairly safe pick – he’s been a national candidate, he’s an experienced campaigner, etc. Accordingly, there’s less chance of some damning disclosure or amateur gaffe. At the same time, I think he – unlike, say, Biden or Clinton – reinforces Obama’s “change” narrative. True, he’s not Webb, but I still think he’s a relatively fresh face. In short, he hits the sweet spot between “safety” and “change.”

To the extent you care about the post-election (and you may not, though you should), I think Edwards could be an asset here too. It’s true that he lacks the experience of a Biden. But that said, he was a Senator and has become an extremely well-informed reality-based wonk who would bring passion and meticulous detail to his assignment (health care, perhaps?). While he would be weaker behind the scenes in DC, he would potentially be a stronger public face for major policy initiatives.

Edwards has his weaknesses of course – Republicans now really hate him. He might spook out Wall Street (that may be a feature though). I also think his working-class white support has been overstated.

But still, given the remaining choices, Edwards looks … not bad. Particularly for the risk averse.

Candidates Diverge

by hilzoy

This is a very puzzling article. Here's the lede:

"Sens. Barack Obama and John McCain are both proposing dramatic changes to Social Security, taking on the financially fragile "third rail of American politics" that Congress and recent presidents have been unable to repair."

Here's Matt Yglesias' comment on it:

"This is a great lead except for the fact that Obama is not proposing dramatic changes to Social Security. Well, there's also the fact that the projected deficits for Social Security are smaller and more manageable than those projected for the other entitlement programs (Medicare and Medicaid) and that the non-entitlement portion of the budget is running a huge deficit right now. Under the circumstances, Social Security would seem to be the least financial fragile aspect of the federal budget. And one more thing -- to say "that Congress and recent presidents have been unable to repair" Social Security implies that recent presidents and Congresses have been trying to repair it when, in fact, George W. Bush's Social Security proposals were, like John McCain's, aimed at phasing the program out.

I think I'm afraid to read past the lede of that particular story."

I, however, am willing to rush in where even Matt fears to tread:

Lie To Me Some More

by hilzoy

Item 1, from Jared Bernstein:

"When it comes to taxes, Obama has drawn a firm line in the sand at $250,000. He cuts taxes for the vast majority of families -- more than 95% -- and raises taxes only on those with incomes above $250,000. Whether its income taxes, payroll taxes, capital gains, or stock dividends, his plan does not raise taxes on anyone below $250,000. He articulated this point today: "...if you're a family making less than $250,000, my plan will not raise your taxes -- not your income taxes, not your payroll taxes, not your capital gains taxes, not any of your taxes."

Yet, from McCain's speech today: "If you believe you should pay more taxes, I am the wrong candidate for you. Senator Obama is your man. The choice in this election is stark and simple. Senator Obama will raise your taxes.""

Here's McCain's speech. Read it for yourselves: it says exactly what Bernstein says it does. Here's a quick summary of McCain's and Obama's tax proposals, and here (pdf) is the longer Tax Policy Center Report. See for yourselves: Obama does not propose to raise taxes on people making under $250,000 a year.

So unless McCain was addressing an audience made up entirely of people who make over $250,000 a year in his Denver Town Meeting, he was lying.

More lies below the fold.

Lie To Me, Baby

by hilzoy

From Politico:

"Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) plans to promise on Monday that he will balance the federal budget by the end of his first term by curbing wasteful spending and overhauling entitlement programs, including Social Security, his advisers told Politico.

The vow to take on Social Security puts McCain in a political danger zone that thwarted President Bush after he named it the top domestic priority of his second term.

Jason Furman, Obama's economic policy director, called McCain's pledge “preposterous." Furman pointed out that the Congressional Budget Office now estimates a 2013 deficit of $443 billion, assuming the Bush tax cuts are extended. And he estimated that McCain would have to cut discretionary spending—including defense—by roughly one-third to bring the budget into the black by then.

"McCain would have to pay for all of his new tax cuts and other proposals and then, on top of that, cut an additional $443 billion from the budget—which is 81 percent of Medicare spending or 78 percent of all discretionary spending outside of defense," Furman said."

[UPDATE: McCain's new plan is here (pdf). In what I say below, I am working from it. END UPDATE]

James Joyner adds some details [UPDATE: There is one real problem with what Joyner says: Joyner's figures are all for discretionary funding, not total funding. I was aware of this, and my subsequent analysis is in terms of the total budget except when noted, but on reflection I think it's worth flagging this more explicitly, and saying: when you're talking about McCain's plans to reform entitlement spending, which is not discretionary, considering only the discretionary budget is not the way to go.END UPDATE]:

"It’s noteworthy that the 2009 request is $987.6 billion, an increase of $46.2 billion (4.9 percent) from the previous year. [Ed. note: that's for discretionary spending.] And that’s not counting $75.8 billion in “Supplemental and Emergency Funding” (down from $104.4 billion). Balancing the budget, then, would require finding waste and reforms that would shave the budget by a quarter.

Social Security, incidentally, is only $8.4 billion. [Ed. note: also discretionary spending.] The entire Health and Human Services budget? $70.4 billion. Housing and Urban Development? Another $38.5 billion. Environmental Protection is $7.1 billion. Interior, $10.6 billion. (Those are FY 2009 requests; the appropriations will differ somewhat.) So, let’s say we reform those to run with such efficiency that they are totally self-sustaining. That’s $135 billion in savings. Only another $275 billion and we’re home free! Education is another $59.2 billion. Labor, $10.5. National Science Foundation, $6.9 billion. And “Other Agencies” — how important could they be, really, if they don’t get mentioned by name? — are $7.2 billion. That’s another $83.8 billion, getting our deficit down to $191.2 billion. If we can achieve victory in Iraq and Afghanistan by, say, the one year anniversary of McCain’s inauguration, we can save that, easy."

Actually, though, it's worse than either Furman or Joyner say, since McCain has a number of proposals that would substantially increase the deficit. For starters, there are his tax proposals. The Center for Tax Policy estimates (pdf) that these would cost an additional $783 billion dollars; to oversimplify, let's say $195 billion a year. Moreover, the TPC's analysts, working from communications with the McCain campaign, said that he planned to cap the Alternative Minimum Tax, rather than repealing it as he had previously said. In the document released today, however, McCain goes back to proposing to eliminate the AMT. This would cost an additional $50 billion a year.

Plus, McCain proposes to increase the size of the army to 900,000 troops. The CBO (pdf; h/t Democracy Arsenal) estimates that increasing the size of the army from around 680,000 to 750,000 would cost $108 billion over seven years, or about $15 billion a year. Assuming for the sake of argument that the cost of adding additional troops remains constant (which is almost certainly too conservative), we're looking at another $40-50 billion a year.

And that's not counting all the other things McCain has said he'll spend money on. For instance, his web site calls for "procuring advanced weapons systems that will help rapidly and decisively defeat any adversary and protect American lives." Will these advanced weapons systems be free? I don't think so. There are also things like $2 billion a year for "clean coal technologies", subsidies for nuclear power, his plan to deal with the housing crisis, and so forth.

$410 billion a year, plus $195 billion a year for tax cuts, $50 billion a year for eliminating the AMT, and $40 billion for increasing the size of the army comes to $695 billion a year. And that's not counting those new weapons systems, his plan to end the housing crisis, and all the other things for which I don't have figures at my fingertips.