Bell Curve The Law Talking Guy Raised by Republicans U.S. West
These babies will be in the stores while he's still grappling with the pickle matrix! Well, he's kind of had it in for me ever since I accidentally ran over his dog. Actually, replace "accidentally" with "repeatedly," and replace "dog" with "son." Hmm... Abortions for some, miniature American flags for others. How I am supposed to hallucinate with all these swirling colors distracting me?

Monday, April 25, 2011

The Republican Dystopia

I've been thinking a lot lately about what our country would look like if Republicans got what they wanted. I'm not talking about them forcing government shut downs or a default on the national debt which is what they are threatening if they don't get what they want. Rather I'm thinking about what the consequences would be if they actually got their wishes fulfilled. Granted, not all Republicans agree with the dominant faction within their party on each issue but I think we can have a pretty good idea of where they would take the country if we assume that for each faction the usual suspects will drive the GOP's policy.


Foreign Policy: Our foreign policy in the Middle East would continue to be based on military conflict with "terrorists" and unconditional military support of Israel, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and a slew of less important but more violent regimes. We would put ground troops in Libya to overthrow Qaddafi even while openly speculating about the Al Qaeda connections of the rebels. Would this mean that Republicans envision a 10 year nation building project in Libya along the lines of what they attempted in Iraq and Afghanistan? My impression is that a Republican policy in the rapidly changing Middle East would be confused and directionless - but violently so.

Taxes: Taxes on corporations and higher income individuals would be lowered. Taxes on inheritances would eliminated altogether. To the extent that the government needed to raise revenue to pay for "necessary" things like constant warfare in the Middle East and subsidies for big oil and big agriculture, they would institute a national sales tax.

Health Care: The so-called Obama Care would be repealed and replaced with a privatization/defunding of Medicare and Medicaid. Even if we take the Ryan plan as it is spun by the Republicans, it includes at it's core a voucher system for health care costs to replace public financing of health care under those plans. But the voucher's values are supposed to be indexed to inflation and health care costs are rising considerably faster than inflation. So the plan has built within it a gradual defunding of public health care support for the elderly and poor.

Education: The Republicans are really hostile to public higher education. They're not thrilled about public primary and secondary education either. The attacks on public education by Republican governors like Walker in Wisconsin and others are well known. In a Republican America, public school teachers would earn wages and benefits similar to, if not worse than, the average worker regardless of skill level and far below the wages typical of college graduates. All this while public funding for public universities was cut so much that college graduates would have to be either from wealthy families willing to pay the high fees/tuition or incur enormous student debts (which would be entirely provided by private banks at unsubsidized interest rates). Who would take a job as a teacher under such conditions? Certainly not the best and brightest?

The world the Republicans envision is not what they say it is. They would have us believe that they offer a return to some nostalgic post-WWII, pre-Vietnam golden age (a Boomertopia if you will). But what they really offer is much more like the 1890s (but with more wars) than the 1950s. I find it hard to believe that more than a small minority of Americans actually wants to live in this kind of world. But the Republicans have become masters of speaking to emotions while obscuring the consequences of their policies.

Saturday, April 23, 2011

Obama and the Middle East

There is an emerging meme in the media that Obama "is a weak president." It's getting to the point where the parrots in the news cycle have repeated it so often that this has become the starting point for any discussion of Obama's foreign policy in particular. I think this is not only unfair but a serious misunderstanding of the American position with regard to the ongoing crisis in the Middle East.


In the Libya the US is supporting an allied effort to prevent Qaddafi from wiping out a nascent revolution with heavy weapons. Critics (like Senators McCain and Lieberman) argue that the US should engage more directly and more forcefully. I give them points for consistency, but I really think repeating the Bush strategy from Iraq in Libya would be a disaster waiting to happen. It's much better to let the British, French and Italians take the public lead (by sending advisors - we all know where that can lead) while remaining dependent on US power to actually accomplish anything. The recent introduction of low flying pilotless drones into the Libyan mix will give NATO the ability to counter Qaddafi's latest tactic of deploying his forces in small units that are difficult to identify from high altitude. Most importantly in this, Qaddafi is very unpopular in the Middle East and the rebels are asking for our help - loudly.

In Bahrain, the US largely stayed out but when the local government cracked down (with Saudi help) made strong critical statements against the crackdown - albeit without actually doing anything about it. In Yemen, the US is staying out of the issue as well.

Now, Syria which is turning out to be rather key. The demonstrators in Syria are showing a willingness to continue hitting the streets despite repeated bloody crackdowns by the Syrian government. That government is now getting major support from Iran. And Secretary Clinton and then President Obama announced that Iran was backing these violent crackdowns and condemned that assistance strongly.

Here is why what Obama's been doing makes sense. If we had been following a Neo-con approach like that advocated by McCain and Lieberman, we would have supported Mubarak in Egypt. If that had succeeded in propping Mubarak up, there likely who not have been rebellions in Bahrain, Yemen, Libya or Syria. At the same time, we might have found ourselves backing, like Iran is now, an increasingly bloody minded dictatorship. But if Mubarak had fallen anyway, which may well have happened, the US would be in a horribly undermined diplomatic position in the region. If the rebellion in Libya had taken place anyway, the neo-cons would have had us invading Libya to support that even while Mubarak was shooting people in the streets with US support. Under those circumstances, any criticisms we would level at Iran at that point would be completely transparent.

Instead, the US picked the correct side in Egypt and Libya. This makes our criticism of Iran have real force, not only with Europe but with people in the Middle East. The center piece of the Obama foreign policy has been to isolate Iran by behaving reasonably in the region. That strategy has been far more successful than the Bush/Neo-con strategy of isolating Iran through constant and often military confrontation.

The Middle East is at a crossroads now. It is still unclear which way things will go. Egypt and Tunisia may transition to democracies or not. Libya may get rid of Qaddafi quickly or settle into a prolonged stalemate. Syria's Assad has been revealed as a bloody tyrant and may be overthrown or not. Regardless of the turn events take, the US is in a position to be a constructive force for positive change. Or if you prefer a more 'realpolitk' frame - in a position to end up on the winning side. In contrast, Iran is clearly on the side of bloody crackdowns and the status quo. No matter what happens, this cannot be good for Iranian influence in the region. It is true that Iran seems to be behind some of the nastier factions in Iraq but that is the one country where we've dug ourselves into the deepest whole, thanks the reckless policies of the same people criticizing Obama for being weak. And even there, I suspect that the popularity of any politician with close ties to Iran will be trying to spin what their constituents are watching on Al Jazera. If the US had backed a crackdown in Egypt and/or then invaded Libya that explaining would be laughably easy for them to pull off.

Wednesday, April 20, 2011

A Thought on the Military Budget

There is no doubt in my mind that we can and must cut the Defense Budget. In fact, it is arguably the most poorly run budget in Federal Government. In 2010, the GAO declared the department’s finances “unauditable”. No surprise. But le'ts think about the DoD budget beyond the weapons systems and soliders.

One of the reasons the DoD budget is so big ($664 bil.) is that it is basically the 51st state of the union. To give you an idea, in 2010-2011, California will have spent $230 bil. (I am sure it, too is unaditable.) The DoD has all the facilities that your state government has, and then some. If you start looking at the budget in detail, you will be amazed at what that department does:
Take a look at The Sec. Of Defense’s Operations and Maintenance Overview from 2010 to get an idea. This isn't even its totality. Here's a short list:

1) Infrastructure maintenance: The DoD has to maintain all the military bases and offices across the globe. This includes base housing and transportation networks for military and dependents, medical facilities for active duty, roads, and even air ports. Computer networks must also be maintained and secured. Utilities have to be provided to base residents. Each base has its own police and fire department. The family housing budget, but the way, was cut by 20% between 2009 and 2010, but military construction was up by 19% in that same period. Non-combat Infrastructure has to be upgraded and maintained just like everything else.

2) Subsidized Shops: Because many military personnel are paid less than people in the private sector, they have to shop at the PX, which are grocery and household goods stores. There, products are sold at lowered prices that are more in line with military pay. Usually the “discount” is that federal and local taxes aren’t applied to purchases. Sometimes prices are lower because the military can cut a good deal with wholesalers. These are especially important overseas where US military personnel and their families are discouraged from shopping “on the economy”, meaning in local stores. So basically, the DoD runs a “Wall-Mart” style business for its personnel.

3) Environmental Protection: The DoD funds several programs to limit it’s environmental footprint and protect the health and safety of its military and dependents. They run restoration programs, clean ups, research programs, etc.

4) International Sporting events: Who do you think pays for all those jet fly overs at football games? In addition, the military has to maintain a budget in case they are called upon to provide security at international sporting events.

5) Humanitarian work: Schools for Afghans and water treatment for Iraqis. Assisting in natural disasters around the world. That sort of thing.

6) Dept. of Defense Education Activity: This is a civilian run organization that is part of the DoD . It runs 194 schools in 14 districts located in 12 foreign countries, seven states, Guam, and Puerto Rico serving 86,000 students (military dependents). I once heard that this is the largest school district in the world. In 2009, it cost about $3bil.)

These are just a few that I can come up with off the top of my head. But when people start talking about cutting Defense, they need to think about all the functions that the DoD actually has to manage. I liken it to a socialist country. They subsidize, control, and operate everything for their personnel and their dependents.

Saturday, April 16, 2011

Political Implications of Demographic Shifts

In 2008 pundits said that the Republican Party was doomed. Then with the election results in 2010 many of the same pundits are saying the Democratic Party is doomed. This view has been compounded by people doing naïve analyses of the electoral vote changes resulting from the 2010 census. However, a closer look at these demographic trends yields a picture more favorable to Democrats than the commonly expressed interpretation would (Here is a map of population changes by county that might make for a good reference for this discussion).

The 2010 census revealed a shift in population from the Northeast to the South and West. With one exception, Michigan, all US states gained population between 2000 and 2010. But the size of those population gains has been higher in the South and West than in the North and East. This has led to a shift in the apportionment of congressional representation and Electoral College seats that seems to favor states that usually vote for Republicans. For example, eight states (AZ, FL, GA, NV, SC, TX, UT, and WA) gained congressional seats. Of those, Obama won three (FL, NV, WA) and two of those, FL and NV, are notoriously closely fought in most elections. On the other side of the equation, ten states lost congressional seats (IL, IA, LA, MA, MI, MO, NJ, NY, OH, and PA). Of those, Obama won all but two, LA and MO. Many people are taking this to indicate a shift in favor of Republicans for 2012 and beyond.

Two factors undermine the argument that the Republicans are going to clean up as a result of this shift: the increasing Hispanic population and the increasing urbanization of the South and West. Hispanics make up an enormously disproportionate share of the population growth in the highest growth regions of the country. This is politically relevant because Hispanics are also much more likely to vote Democrats and Republicans. This trend is showing few signs of changing as the Republican party becomes more and more associated with anti-immigrant, nativist attitudes and policies. Most worrying for Republicans, Texas, their great bastion of electoral votes, is becoming increasingly Hispanic at a much faster rate than the country as a whole. This could mean that even as Texas adds 4 Electoral College votes (!), it could be moving away from being completely safe for Republicans and towards something more like Florida where both parties can hold out hope of a win (I’m not saying this is going to happen overnight, just that this is the direction things are moving in Texas). Most of this has been well covered in the mainstream media. And of course the low rate of voter registration among Hispanics mutes this effect somewhat.

The effect of urbanization is perhaps much more important and has gotten much less attention. Urbanization is happening in both the high growth and low growth parts of the country. This is politically relevant because voters in urban areas are much more likely to vote for Democrats than are rural voters. For example, in Ohio, it used to be the rule that the Cleveland metropolitan area voted for Democrats and the less densely populated Central Ohio area was a Republican bastion. As the population of Cleveland declined and that of Columbus rose, many Republicans saw reason to believe that Ohio was becoming a solidly Republican stronghold. However, as Columbus grew it became increasingly prone to vote for Democrats and for the last several election cycles the county around Columbus has emerged as a safely Democratic bastion within Ohio even as Cleveland's influence on statewide results has declined. To link this with the discussion above, it's worth noting that the Hispanic share of the overall population of Franklin County (in which Columbus is located) has increased by 129% and the African American share of the population increased by 29% while the share of Franklin county that is "White" declined by 2%. That cannot be good news for an increasingly xenophobic and anti-urban Republican party.

Two examples of how urbanization impacts the population shift can instructive. Utah is one of the fastest growing states in the country but it’s not the rural areas of Utah causing that growth. Rather it is booming metropolitan area centered on Salt Lake City that is driving this growth. Utah is going to get another congressional seat (and Electoral College vote). And it is also true that Utah is overwhelmingly Republican in its voting history. That may mean that Utah’s extra electoral vote will likely go to Republicans for the foreseeable future. However, the congressional seat will likely have to lead to more representation for urban voters in Salt Lake City. Because the newly drawn districts in Utah will have to have roughly the same population within them and since most of the new population is concentrated in and around Salt Lake City, it will be hard to avoid, even with gerrymandering contortions, either creating an entirely new urban district or make several existing districts significantly more urban. So even in Utah, perhaps the safest state in the country for Republicans, the population shifts may pose some hard choices for Republicans and some opportunities for Democrats. When one considers that a lot of the population growth in Texas is not only Hispanic but concentrated in urban areas, like Houston, that are already starting to trend Democratic, one starts to see the fly in the demographic ointment for Republicans.

On the other side of the equation we have Iowa losing a congressional seat and an electoral vote. However, within that state, the population is becoming more urban (at least by Iowa standards). Most of the rural counties in the state are losing population while most of the population growth is concentrated in the relatively urban counties around Des Moines, Cedar Rapids, Waterloo, Iowa City, and Davenport. The new plan for the new districts has been proposed and is likely to pass. It combines the district in rural SW Iowa with the district around Des Moines. This new district would be the home district of the long standing incumbent Democrat who has represented Des Moines for several terms. The plan also shifts boundaries of the districts in such a way that the two Republicans who had represented two rural districts in NW and SW Iowa are now both residing in a single rural district in NW Iowa. At the same time, the boundary line between the two districts in the more urban eastern part of the state was shifted so that the two Democrats who represent those two districts are now both residing in the same district. One of those two Democrats lives very close to the boundary and has announced his intention to move to the other side of the boundary and take up residence in what would otherwise be a district with no incumbent, most of which had been part of his old district. The result is that while Iowa is losing a seat, it will most likely be a Republican who gets eliminated. A similar process is likely taking place in Illinois, New York and Pennsylvania. Only in Michigan and Ohio where large urban areas are in serious decay (Detroit and Cleveland) could there be some serious deviation from this effect.

America's population is shifting to the South and West, traditional strongholds of Republicans and conservatism. However, as it makes this shift, the American population is becoming more urban and less "White." The result of all of this could be that while the Republicans will see a short term advantage in the Electoral College, they will see a short and especially a long term disadvantage in Congress. And even the short term advantage in the electoral college may prove difficult to realize for Republicans as the vote rich, and once safely Republican, Florida becomes increasingly likely to vote for Democrats as its population also becomes more urban and more (non-Cuban) Hispanic.

Sunday, March 27, 2011

New Nuclear Politics in Germany

Hi Everyone,


There were two big shocks in the Land (state) elections in two large German Lander: Baden-Wurttemberg and Rheinland-Pfalz. The Greens won big in both elections! The recent crisis at the Fukushima nuclear plant in Japan seems to have been a major factor in both elections. You may ask, "so big deal, the Greens won a by-election." But Baden-Wurttemberg is one of the most conservative Lander in Germany. This would something like the American Green Party winning the governorship in Georgia. The Greens won enough seats that they can take the Premiership of the Land if they can form a coalition with the slightly smaller, Social Democrats (see election results here). In Rhineland-Pfalz, the Social Democrats had hoped to continue to govern alone but will be forced into a coalition with the Greens (see election results here). Both elections mean that the Greens will have more representation in the German upper house (Bundesrat).

Earlier I posted an attempt to start a discussion about the new politics of alternative energy that will result from the Fukushima crisis (and the oil price increases we're likely to see for the foreseeable future). These election results in South Western Germany suggest that the new political landscape is already emerging.

Germany gets about the same share of its electricity from nuclear power as Japan does (a little more than a quarter). The Social Democratic and Green Party coalition that governed Germany until 2005 had begun a plan to gradually phase out their nuclear power. The Greens had said from the start it wasn't going far enough quick enough but in any case, that coalition lost the election the Christian Democrats. In 2009 with the Christian Democrats consolidating their power, German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, announced a major extension of the date by which nuclear power would be phased out. After Fukushima, Merkel announced that she was flip flopping and suspended operation at several older plants and suspended the extension of the phase out. Too little, too late apparently.

If these results had happened in one of the more left leaning, northern Lander like Nordrhein-Westfalen, I'd be less impressed by this. But that these elections, especially the one in Baden-Wurttemberg, are happening in the more conservative south western part of the country suggests a major shift in German politics. One might be inclined to say this was a fluke resulting from the high profile coverage of the Fukushima crisis. But anti-nuclear sentiment in Germany had been building for a long time. Fukushima may have just put it finally over the threshold where nuclear power is permanently on the outs in Germany.

Germany cannot hope to supply its power needs with wind power or current solar technology. Germany is already a world leader in research and development in alternative energy sources. I think there will be a number consequences of this. One of them will be that it will be even harder for Germany (and the EU) to meet their Kyoto targets. Another will be that the Germans are about to ramp up their investment in non-nuclear alternatives. This will mean that the warnings that Obama has been sounding about the US falling behind in the fields of research that will generate the 21st century economy are even more valid.

Saturday, March 19, 2011

The Libyan Situation

Here are my opening two cents on the complicated situation in Libya:


Value and limits of US power: The US cannot and should not try to impose its will on the world unilaterally. It doesn't need to do so really. Many countries benefit enormously from a world organized in the way the US likes it to be organized. The US should not need to always be the unilateral "international cop." Sometimes direct US involvement simply isn't worth much of a US commitment even if the stakes are high for some of our allies. I think that is the situation in Libya. The stakes are much higher for Europe than they are for us and it is as correct as it is novel that Europeans shoulder the majority of the burden here. But even if the US doesn't want commit much, the US is unique in its ability to project power around the world. The Western European militaries are very capable. They have air forces that are nearly as capable as ours. They operate fancy jet fighters like F-16s, the Rafale and the Eurofighter/Typhoon. These forces are more than a match for the aging and poorly trained Libyan air force. But they will be hard pressed to operate those air forces even in nearby Libya. The Europeans will probably need US logistics support if not US combat support. A friend of mine in the USAF told me that even if they are operating from bases in Sicily, F-16s (for example) would probably need to refuel on the way to and on the way back from Libya to give them much air time over the combat area.

Why the Situation in Libya Matters More to Europe than to the US: If there is a bloodbath in Libya, it would provoke a massive refugee crisis in Tunisia and Egypt both of which are in no position to deal with such. Very quickly, many of those refugees would end up in Western Europe (especially France, Italy and Spain). Also, there is the possibility that European leaders still feel some shame about their inability to act in Bosnia in time to prevent a bloodbath there. While Americans may look at Libya and see Iraq: Part II, Europeans see besieged Libyan towns like Misrata and Benghazi and fear another Srebrenica. At the same time, the current President of France, Sarkozy, is facing Bush-like disapproval ratings. Two thirds of Frenchmen disapprove of his policies. Sarkozy may be trying to "wag the dog." Much of that disapproval is tied to Sarkozy's reaction to the revolutions in North Africa and the Middle East (his initial move was to stand by Tunisia's ousted dictator - le oops).

What the US Should Do: I think Obama is correct that this is NOT a situation that warrants the commitment of US ground troops. The only exception to that I could imagine being worth while would be a temporary deployment to secure a landing zone to evacuate a small number of foreign nationals or perpetrate a snatch and grab operation to kidnap/arrest Gaddafi and get the heck out of Dodge. I don't think anything that happens in Libya (even the emergence of an Islamist regime or the shut off of Libyan oil) is worth the long term deployment of US troops.

What Will Happen Next?: The short answer is: "who knows?" It's up to Gaddafi, who is probably lurching from one psychotic break to another, and the people around him. All of the inner circle people in Libya probably fear, with much justification, that there are few options for them other than to go out in a blaze of gunfire. If the US has visions of a decade of quagmire in Iraq and the Europeans have visions of Srebrenica, Gaddafi probably has nightmares of Saddam Hussein's execution and the killing of his sons in gun fights. If he would have thought more clearly, he would have jumped on a plane to Venezuela as soon as things looked to get ugly. But the man is clearly insane. If you make me guess, I'd put my money on Gaddafi trying to go down fighting. So far it looks like Gaddafi is trying to retake as much of the country as he can before European forces can get into action. There are rumors that Egypt is arming the rebels in Benghazi. If that's true, there may be a scenario whereby France, Spain and the UK et al, cripple Gaddafi's forces with air strikes which gives the rebels time to get organized and equipped to take over the country themselves. It's worth noting that every time the Libyan army (based on the Islamic Legion and its successor organizations) has gone up against organized resistance they have been routed.

Thursday, March 17, 2011

The New Politics of Alternative Energy

The Winter/Spring of 2011 will go down in history for two major events. Both of them will end up having a huge impact on how Americans view energy sources in the future. I’m referring, of course, to the latest round of unrest in the Middle East and to the earthquake, tsunami and subsequent nuclear power plant crisis in Japan.

I’ll discuss the Middle East first. So far, authoritarian regimes in two non-oil exporting states in the region have been overthrown and replaced by transition governments pledging to oversee a move to a more democratic and open regime. It remains to be seen what will happen in Yemen, another non-oil exporting state, as it teeters on the brink of failed state status. The regimes in the oil exporting states seem to all be willing to use massive amounts of force against any demonstrators. Libya’s Qaddafi seems poised to reconquer the eastern provinces of that country. The Saudis have already cracked down on their own population and are in the midst of a crackdown on Bahrain’s population. The unrest itself is making oil prices spike in the short run. If this period of unrest becomes a longer term problem of continued instability (a fairly likely outcome if you ask me), then we can expect periodic disruptions to the oil supply from the Middle East. There is a lot of talk about the Straights of Hormuz being a choke point for oil exports from the Persian Gulf states. But Gulf of Aden (between Yemen and Somalia) is just as important. If Yemen becomes a full fledged failed state, that water way would become even more plagued by piracy than it already is. This could force oil tankers on their way to the US and Europe to run a gauntlet of pirates and political instability all the way from Basra to the Suez Canal. I doubt this would lead to a cutting of the oil supply lines but it would make it more costly to transport the stuff and I have every confidence that the Big Oil companies would figure out how to pass those additional costs onto consumers. Rising and consistently high oil prices will increase political support for any alternative to imported oil. The Republicans will try to make this into a justification for “drill baby drill” but we all know that domestic oil reserves are simply incapable of making a dent in the price let alone significantly reducing our dependence on imported oil. In the final analysis, the only alternative to imported oil is something other than oil. It might mean a shift to natural gas but even that will need to be largely imported. That means that a long term solution to our energy needs will have to depend on some combination of wind power, solar power, biofuels, hydroelectric and nuclear energy which leads us to …

The tragic situation in Japan. The Fukushima plant seems on the verge of a meltdown. US authorities are openly second guessing the reserved reports from the Japanese. I’ve seen comments from US experts to the effect that the Japanese should just give up on saving any of the plant at all and get to work on a cement “sarcophagus” to entomb the ruined and toxic fuel rods as soon as possible. This is part and parcel with an ongoing drum beat in the US news media that is largely serving to spread the idea that the situation in Japan proves that nuclear power is fundamentally unsafe. I’m no physicist but it seems to me that much of this criticism of nuclear energy as a hole is exaggerated and unjustified (perhaps Dr. Strangelove would care to elaborate on these issues in the comments). Certainly putting nuclear power plants in earthquake and tsunami prone areas is a bad idea but if the Fukushima plant had been in the American Midwest and suffered a direct hit from an F5 tornado, I doubt we’d be talking about a meltdown. In any case, this is largely irrelevant in the short term because the political environment for nuclear power just got A LOT worse in the US.

All this adds up to a potential “I told you so” moment for President Obama. A key part of Obama’s agenda has long been investment in future technologies, especially alternative energy and infrastructure upgrades such as “smart grid” technology. In 2009, Republicans often scoffed that it was a waste of money and their criticism often stuck in people’s minds because oil prices were temporarily low due to the global recession. But now, with oil prices rising again, investments in anything but oil are looking like a pretty smart thing to have advocated. The Republicans will be left to criticize Obama for agreeing with them that nuclear power should be part of the future mix and renewing their chant of “drill baby drill.” But both of these Republican strategies have no real substance behind them. On nuclear power, Obama has two obvious ways out of the Republican accusations. First, he can say Republicans are even bigger fans of nuclear energy than he ever was. Second, he can offer a reasonable sounding compromise by reviewing any nuclear power plant in an earthquake zone and dare the Republicans to demand an outright moratorium on nuclear energy. On “drill baby drill” Obama also has two obvious responses. First, the BP oil spill in the gulf was not only a traumatic demonstration of the dangers of unrestricted oil drilling in the US, it made for good TV making it ready made for political ads in 2012. After all of that all that is left if Obama’s original agenda of increased government support for research in alternative energy technology and infrastructure upgrades. It should be clear to any thinking person that sooner rather than later, our country will not be nearly as dependent on fossil fuel technologies as it is today. We have a choice, not between the status quo and a fossil fuel free future but between a future of our own making or one that we will have to buy from China. Obama is 100% right to push hard to invest in alternative energy sources and he should use the events of this winter to underscore his advantage on the issue.

Wednesday, March 16, 2011

The Politics of Japan's Recovery

Hi Everyone,


The deadly earthquake and tsunami in Japan are rightly dominating the news broadcasts these days. It’s even largely knocked the civil war in Libya and the increasing instability in places like Bahrain off the top of the news agenda. Most of the coverage is focusing on the immediate tragedy of the devastation and the following nuclear crisis. It’s reasonable that this should be focus of the 24 hour news crowd. But every now and again, they will bring up the economic consequences of this disaster – usually with a “what will this mean for the US economy” emphasis. What’s not being discussed is the politics of Japan’s response to the tsunami both in the short term and in the medium term.

Japan entered into this crisis already in a deep and ongoing recession. Japan’s economy has been struggling with deflation for more than a decade. Deflation is inflations nastier cousin. While inflation may be the “thief that robs in the night” by making everyone’s assets worth less, inflation at least benefits debtors. Deflation benefits no one. When the economy shrinks there is simply no way out of the reality that fewer assets are left to be divided up. Japan’s economy has been shrinking for a long time and the massive devastation to the North Eastern portion of the country will not help at all.

Adding to this economic misery, Japanese public debt as a percentage of their GDP as of 2010 was over 225%. That makes them #2 in the world in debt to GDP ratio. To put this in perspective, Greek and Irish public debt as a percentage of GDP are 144% and 94% of GDP respectively (as of 2010, the USA is at 58%). Japan may find it difficult to borrow the money to finance the rebuilding of a large part of their country.

Japanese politics is currently dominated by two major parties. The party that governed Japan for most of the post WWII period is the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP). The LDP set up a managed a protectionist, corporatist state that has been struggling for a long time. LDP officials dominated the politics of the country both legislatively and administratively. For decades, the civil service was hired, fired and promoted at the whim of the senior leadership of the LDP. They had cozy relations with big business and used their dominance of the courts and regulators to protect their corporate allies. There have been allusions to a scandal some time ago involving falsified inspection reports for the nuclear power plant currently in crisis in Fukushima.

The party in government at the moment is the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ). This is a reformist, centrist party that grew out of the merger of a number of center-left parties and break away factions from the LPD in 1998. They finally won a majority in the Japanese lower house in 2009.

To manage the crisis, the government will have to establish the trust of the people and authority over private interests that may seek to take advantage of the crisis or escape responsibility for mismanagement (for example TEPCO's and their nuclear power plant). The long history of cozy and often corrupt relations between Japanese civil servants and corporate big shots may hinder this on two fronts. First, the Japanese civil service may still, after just two years, reflect the influence of 6 decades of LDP dominance. Many of these government bureaucrats may have more affinity with the executives at TEPCO than they do with their own elected superiors. I've heard comments from American media that various ministries in Tokyo are starting to give the press the run around - for example the science ministry refusing to discuss the Fukushima situation and referring all questions to the Prime Minister's office. This may be what the PM wants but it may also be unwillingness by the government officials with the most knowledge and responsibility to be forthright about what TEPCO is doing. Second, as the government appears to only release information once the story has already broken, it will lose the trust of the population and may not survive the next election.

To rebuild, Japan will have to either generate economic growth or borrow to finance government recovery projects. Japan is not in the best position to do either. We may be witnessing the event that marks the final transfer of regional leadership from Japan to China and South Korea.

Friday, March 11, 2011

Wisconsin, Walker and Reagan Democrats

I think it's been mentioned on this blog recently before (I think by US West) that the union voters in Wisconsin who are now the arch enemies of that state's Republican party are exactly the demographic that the Republicans have depended on to undermine Democratic candidates. These are the so called "Reagan Democrats" who vote Republican for the nationalism and the odd tax cut here and there. But this attack by the Wisconsin Republican Party (and other Republican legislatures in other states) have laid bare the extent to which these people have been voting against their own self interest all this time. At the very least, even if this group has not completely defected to the GOP, they have largely stayed at home and not come out to vote for Democrats.


I often find myself wondering how many of the union members demonstrating in Madison in 2011 either voted for Walker or did not vote at all in 2010. To them I point them to a famous scolding from Harry Truman. He said then that the refusal of organized labor to support Democrats in elections had led directly to Republicans passing union busting legislation. Like Truman, part of me is inclined to think that these disloyal blue collar voters are getting exactly what they deserve. I hope the nationalist zeal and tax cuts compensate them for the years of reduced income that the elimination of their collective bargaining rights will produce.

But the less vindictive side of me looks at this and sees hope for the future. Has Scott Walker done to the blue collar Republicans what Pete Wilson did to Latinos in California? When Governor Pete Wilson began his anti-immigrant campaign, California was a swing state. But by completely alienating Latinos from the Republican party, Wilson doomed his party to permanent minority status. Has Governor Scott Walker (and Kasich in Ohio, and others) done the same thing for the relationship between the Republican Party and blue collar voters in the Great Lakes region? I doubt the anti-Republican backlash will be as severe as in the Pete Wilson case but I do think Republicans badly overreached on their anti-union agenda. So long as Republican union bashing was limited to depicting union leaders as stogie smoking hypocrites, they could count on some agreement from many blue collar voters and even from union members. But by directly targeting collective bargaining rights, they shifted the public image of their targets from the leadership to the rank and file. Bad idea. At the very least, they've handed Democrats in Wisconsin, Ohio and other Great Lakes states, a cause to rally behind. At worst, they've just jettisoned another part of their national electoral coalition.

Tuesday, March 08, 2011

Bigger Fish to Fry on the Arabian Peninsula

With all the news about Libya, it’s easy to forget that there two other countries in protest- both of which are very important to U.S. security, Bahrain and Yemen. The catch is, they are also very important to Iran.

In Yemen, Protesters are calling for the resignation of President Salih. His term ends in 2013, but there are concerns that he may change the laws to allow himself another run. For updates on protests on Yemen, go to Aljazeera English.

In Bahrain, a constitutional monarchy, protesters are calling for the royal family to implement reforms that would open up more benefits for the majority Shia population. At the moment, most of the social benefits run to the Sunni elite. For more see the Christian Science Monitor.

Protests are being planned in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia as well.

See this map.


Notice the strategic locations both of these nations possess. Both are located on important trade routes for oil and natural gas. The Gulf of Aden has suffered in importance as of late because of Somali pirates. But it is still important for shipping.

Iran is watching all of this unrest in Yemen and Bahrain with great interest, I am sure. With the U.S. scheduled to leave Iraq in December, the Iranians are biding their time. Unless the Iranian opposition is successful (highly unlikely, I am afraid- moderate Hashemi Rafsanjani has been forced to step down from his post as chairman of the Assembly of Experts, signaling the tighter grip of hardliners), the Iranian government is sure to take advantage of the instability in Iraq. In fact, I’d speculate that they are covertly contributing to it by providing funding to opposition groups and clerics. They would also like to see Saudi Arabia destabilized. One way to do this is to covertly stir the pot in places like Yemen and Bahrain.

Iran wants to be a regional power. At the moment, it has to do little to achieve that goal. Since it has the Western World wrapped up in its nuclear game, it can play quietly on the side, sowing dissension. So, we should be watching these two nations more closely than we are Libya. Libya is all about internal forces whereas Yemen and Bahrain potentially involve external forces. Getting involved in Libya would be unwise as it would divert even more attention and resources from the bigger kettle that is simmering further south. The potential risk to US security would be much greater there than Libya.

UPDATE: March 14th

Saudi Arabia, along with other nations of the Gulf Cooperation Council are sending troops into Bahrain to quell protests. Saudi sent 1000 troops on Sunday, March 13. Secretary Gates was in Bahrain March 12th. According to reports from STRATFOR, Gates encouraged the Bahrainis to speed up implementation of reforms, warning that Iranian interference would become a greater possibility if Bahrain fails to do so.

Barhaini Shiites are now split into two factions. The Wafa and Haq blocs have formed a coalition with the Haq bloc headed by Iranian supported Hassan Mushaima. The Al Wefaq movement is the other side and has been trying to negotiate with the regime for reforms.

For Full story at www.stratfor.com: http://www.stratfor.com/analysis/20110314-saudi-intervention-bahrain?utm_source=redalert&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=110314&utm_content=readmore&elq=c7a52d0c9b5442b0886d1d5eca569692

Saturday, March 05, 2011

Class Resentment Misplaced

I was looking around the web the other day and ran across this story on the political blog, The Monkey Cage. It’s an analysis by a University of Wisconsin political science professor, Kathrine Cramer Walsh, about what is going on in Wisconsin politically. Dr. Walsh happens to be in the middle of field research in Wisconsin about regional differences in public opinion. Her analysis focused on the conflict between rural and small town Wisconsinites from northern parts of the state and the more urbanized Wisconsinites from Madison and Milwaukee. One quote from her interviews around the state stuck with me. One of her northern subjects expressed his resentment of public employees, and teachers in particular, this way…

“Sam: I think a school teacher -- I know it can be hard. But they got great benefits. Tremendous benefits. And if you've been there for 15, 20 years, you're making 50 grand a year. There's nobody in town other than them making 50 grand a year. The guys in the [local] mill makes 20 thousand.”

Dr. Walsh’s intent was to present the dimensions of conflict driving the political scene in Wisconsin for the governor’s supporters. She was not seeking to engage their views or do anything other than present solidly objective political science. But I’d like to address the politics (as opposed to the political science) of her subject’s views.

He seems to think that someone making $50,000 after 15 or 20 years in a career is unusually and unfairly privileged. From the other comments in Walsh’s report, Sam and his neighbors have the view that they pay taxes on their small salaries to pay for high salaries and benefits that are not justified. They love seeing Walker stick it to those lazy public employees. This observation by Walsh seems very intuitive to me. It certainly seems to be my experience of how small town Midwesterners think of urban Midwesterners. But how does $50,000 really stack up to a teacher’s private sector peers?

According to teacherportal.com, teachers in Wisconsin start at about $25,000/year. The average teacher in Wisconsin makes about $46,000/year (close to the $50k figure referenced by “Sam”). But according to “Payscale.com”, the average starting salary for a graduate of the largest public university in the state, the University of Wisconsin – Madison is $47,900/year and the “mid career” salary is $87,400. The same numbers for graduates of UW-Oshkosh (a smaller, less prestigious branch campus of the UW system) are $38,900 and $67,800. Since all teachers have to have at least a Bachelor’s Degree, deciding to become a teacher upon graduating from college means making a massive sacrifice in pay. The gap is probably biggest for math and science teachers. Taken as a group overall, teachers make about half as much as their private sector counter parts throughout their careers. I know that teachers often get good health care and retirement benefits. But there is no benefits package I can imagine a teacher getting that's worth $40,000 a year.


What’s more, according to the National Center for Education Statistics, the average salary in 2008 of a male with a high school diploma was $32,000 (women average $25,000). So it is possible that a new high school teacher could congratulate her graduating students and watch them earn more than she does with nowhere near the same investment in education and training. If anyone should be resentful, it's the teachers.

This source also points out that the real value of the salaries of high school grads has dropped quite a lot in the last 30 years. No doubt, this perception of declining living standards drives the resentment that people like “Sam” feel towards teachers and other public employees. But I argue that Sam’s resentment is horribly misplaced. Over the same period, college graduates’ salaries have more or less flat lined (even including the private sector). If Sam and his neighbors want to find out where their share of the national economic pie went, teachers are not the place to look. They should look at Wall Street. But the Republican party has successfully convinced Sam and his friends that their real enemies are the people are managing to tread water while Wall Street pushes Sam and his friends under water.

Friday, March 04, 2011

The Word!

New Country for Old Men



What an innovative idea!

Amen and Thank Goodness

Finally, we have some defense in the mainline media for Federal workers.

From Thomas A. Kochan , professor of management at MIT's Sloan School of Management:

But let's be clear about the stakes: Wisconsin's governor is attacking a fundamental human right, the freedom of association and the right to have an independent voice at work. This is not only unacceptable; I hope we will have the courage to call it un-American.

In case anyone is interested, most public employees don't have the right to strike. So all they can do is collectively bargain or protest in their free time.

The problem is scandals like that in Bell, California confuse people. Scandals like that are NOT because of unions and they are NOT typical of public employees. Scandals like that are simply corrupted officials.

In interviews with people in Egypt, many cited corruption among their public officials. They had to pay bribes for everything from getting birth certificates to passports. This is what happens when governments fail to pay their civil servants living wages. I work with people from all over the world, many of them from very corrupt places. They marvel at the trust and honesty of most Americans. We do not know what it is in this country to pay a bribe to get a birth certificate, building permit, or stamps at the post office. We pay our public servants a living wage, and for professionals a competitive wage because the American people deserve the very best service and quality from its public servants. If that argument can be used to defend the over-sized salaries of bankers, why is it not legitimate for use when talking about public servants?

According to Transparency International the United States ranks 22 out of 178 countries for corruption. This, by the way, is the first year since the index started that the United States has fallen out of the top 20. Why? Was it because of unions and the public sector? NO! It was because of the financial collapse and the various banking scandals caused by Wall Street as well as by weakened government oversight.

Why is government oversight weak? One word: Deregulation. There aren't enough civil servants to do the hard work of monitoring food quality, building and environmental safety, tax compliance, banking rule compliance, etc. And that has been a Republican tactic: Bleed the system dry through cuts to everything and everyone EXCEPT the very wealthy and their supporters.

Nancy Boswell, president of Transparency International U.S.A, refers to an "Integrity Deficit."
We're not talking about corruption in the sense of breaking the law. We're talking about a sense that the system is corrupted by these practices. There's an integrity deficit.

"These practices" refers to loose lending in the subprime crisis, the disclosure of Bernard Madoff's Ponzi scheme, rows over political funding,various financial scandals at state and city level, etc.

And when I made arguments about Democracy or the lack thereof, my co-bloggers were correct to say that we do have a Democracy. My problem is that the type of sophisticated, white collar corruption that we have witnessed in this country for too long undermines faith in the system. And so much of our success as a nation has been because of the faith we've placed in it. Without faith, you end up in revolution.

Tuesday, March 01, 2011

Point of the Blunt Spear

Over the weekend, Secretary Gates told a group of West Point cadets that they will be entering a very different military from that of their predecessors. He pointed out that financial and human resources are necessarily dwindling and that any president who thinks a ground war in Asia is a good idea needs "his head examined".

I am a big fan of Secretary Gates. And considering that Rumsfeld is out promoting his book claiming that Iraq was NOT a mistake, Gates offers a reasoned view that is very much grounded in reality. He gets it!

George Freidman writing for STRATFOR has put together a very good article on why Gates is correct in his analysis. The short version is that the US military faces three problems in Asia. 1) long supply lines that require huge human resources for logistics and 2) an inability to field a large enough fighting force (i.e so many human resources are taken up by logistics, little is left over for the actual fighting force) 3) the populations in Asia are disproportionately large compared to the size of US forces.

The one thing this article doesn't mention, but is becoming more an more discussed is the role of mercenary insurgents. It is more and more evident that many nations keep a stock of mercenaries available to fight anything from wars to suppressing uprising. That will be the next fad in military analysis if it hasn't already started.

To respect all copyright laws: Never Fight a Land War in Asia is republished with permission of STRATFOR.

Monday, February 28, 2011

Double Your Pleasure, Double your Fun With Double Mint Gum

No one needed Wikileaks to learn about the latest diplomatic flops in the world. Let’s take a minute to amuse ourselves yet again with those consummate diplomats, the French.

French diplomacy, which seemed to enjoy a pretty good reputation as reasoned and measured during the Bush administration, has taken a nose dive. It’s amateurish to the point of cartoonish. Let’s consider recent events.

This weekend, French Foreign Minister Michele Alliot-Marie “resigned” her post to be replaced by the once exiled Alain Juppé. Now this is a story that is worth following just for the pleasure of seeing that other nations have screwed up politics. Alliot-Marie had ties to now deposed Tunisian President Ben-Ali. Here is a short list:
· Alliot-Marie had accepted visits to Tunisia in the private plane of a wealthy Tunisian businessman who is connected with Ben-Ali. That created a scandal back in December.
· Her parents and she are involved in a real-estate deal with the same business man, that broke while she was in Tunisia on vacation.
· She offered Ben-Ali the assistance of French security forces in crowd control. Not such a good thing to do in a former colony.

Her replacement, Alan Juppé has been serving as Defense Minister. This has helped re-integrate him into the French political scene after being convicted in 2004 for participation in Chirac’s jobs scandal during Chirac's mayoral tenure in Paris. He was given a 14 month suspended prison sentence and a one year ban from participating in French politics. He was mayor of Bordeaux throughout the whole thing.

Then there was the holiday taken by Prime Minister Francois Fillon to Egypt last fall. Much of his week-long vacation was paid for by the Egyptian government. Oops. Joke in France now is if you want to know which regime will fall next, see where French politicians are going on vacation. As a result of this, Sarko has declared that all French officials had to take their holidays in France. Just take a moment to digest the comic irony in that. Do you get the vision of little Napoleon jumping up and down complaining that none of his ministers like France well enough to vacation in it, so he’ll make them!

If you all recall, it was Sarkozy who tried to launch a Mediterranean Union in 2008. There was one meeting at the launch and nothing since. There was an attempted meeting in November, but it was postponed. The Co-president of the barely-formed Union was none other than Hussny Mubarak. How times have changed.

The most recent and comic blunder is a tit-for-tat with the Turks. There is no love lost between French President Sarkozy and Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Again, no need for Wikileaks to know that. But it reached a comic level this weekend.

It all started with Erdogan expressed his disappointment that Sarkozy was coming to Ankara in his capacity as head of the G20 rather than as President of France. Both Erdogan and the Turkish President, Abdullah Gul have both been to France, and I suspect that they expected a reciprocal visit. Back in 2009, when Gul went, Sarko greeted him while chewing gum. Probably not very polite.

The personal rapport between Sarko and Erdogan is sour. Erdogan went on to acknowledge as much when he said, “Relations between political leaders shouldn’t erode relations between two countries.” He was disappointed that the visit was only scheduled for 6 hours. In an expression of his disappointment, he sent a Foreign Ministry Undersecretary and the Mayor of Ankara to greet Sarkozy.

Then, to add insult to injury, Sarko descended down the stairs of his plane openly chopping away on gum. Crude little habit, I’d say.

At the end of the visit, Sarko holds a press conference with Gul rather than the Prime Minister where he says Turkey's accession would “destabilize” the EU. This further offended the Turks. But they got the last word on this trip. The Mayor of Ankara, who was part of the delegation seeing Sarko off at the airport, put a wad of gun in his mouth and chewed away as he said good-bye.

Friday, February 25, 2011

Another Mysogynist

So now some democratically elected office in Georgia wants to make miscarriages illegal. Cobb County Representative Bobby Franklin has proposed a bill that would potentially define a miscarriage as "parental murder".

Now this bill will probably die. But what a tactic to use. What he really wants is to outlaw abortion. So he proposes something outrageous like this, then he "negotiates" away the crazy parts and campaigns on what a "reasonable", "bipartisan" person he is. In the meantime, everyone in the opposition wastes time knocking this crap out of the way rather than focusing on the big stuff.


Who's to say that Walker in Wisconsin isn't using the same tactic against unions? It's good that the Obama Administration isn't getting involved in this type of stuff. It's better for them to stay focused on the big stuff and not get drawn into these fights. They are right to let their state organizations do that fighting.

Update:2/28/2011

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Walker and Union Busting for Benefits

Check this out: Rachel Madow has outed Scott Walker. What a sleaze ball! And when you are done with the video, go for this article where a journalist, posing as David Koch totally bonks Scott.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

The Nature and Quality of American Democracy

A recent comment and tangent to an earlier thread about the Middle East has lead to a request for a new thread on the nature and quality of American democracy. One anonymous commenter argued that the US "Never has, never will be a democracy." This commenter started by implying that anyone who disagreed with this view was suffering from a "delusion." I hesitate to engage such statement but US West would like to discuss it and I respect her so here is my first pass at starting just such a conversation.

First, I think it is important to understand that whether a country is a democracy or not is about the process used to determine policies not about policy outcomes. This is consistent with most of the political science research on the nature of democracy. A good example of this kind of literature is Polyarchy by Robert Dahl. It’s an old book but the definition of “polyarchy” (the term Dahl coins for regimes that are close enough to the democratic ideal as makes little difference), or something very much like it has become the standard working definition of democracy in political science. Dahl’s definition is about process not outcomes. He does not say “democracies have income disparity measures between this and this level” or “anything other than minimal flat taxation is undemocratic” or “democracies have this level of welfare spending” or “democracies have this level of unionization.” Rather he focuses on whether there are free and competitive elections and freedom of the press, speech, association etc. But this view goes far beyond the personal views of Robert Dahl. The process not outcomes definition is the standard in the field.

Second, given the standard definition of democracy, we can say that the United States is clearly a representative democracy (Dahl would call it a “Polyarchy” but that’s just semantic preference on his part really). We enjoy free, competitive elections. We also enjoy a range of rights that support the free competitive nature of those elections namely: freedom of association, freedom of the press, freedom of speech etc. We also enjoy a relatively stable rule of law with an independent judiciary and the right to due process before our life, liberty or property is taken away by the state (with some relatively isolated exceptions which we have complained about on this blog before). Any assertions that the United States is not a democracy are either based exaggerated definitions of democracy that make it an ideal that is impossible to attain (and so not a practical basis for reasoned discussion) or based on erroneous or highly selective use of evidence.

For example, debating about the degree of income inequality in the country, or the level of unionization etc really amounts to a debate about policy outcomes. Framing such a debate in terms of “my view represents democracy and the opposing view does not” is not really productive either for reasoned policy debate or a reasoned discussion of what democracy is.

All that said, there are useful questions about how our processes could be reformed (I might say "improved"). For example, money plays a big role in our elections because of the nature of our campaign finance laws. A reasoned person could argue that the representative quality of our democracy would be improved by instituting something like public financing for campaigns. Another example, commonly raised, is that our primary and secondary electoral rules distort representation. Specifically, some people would prefer that the US adopt a more proportional electoral system such as proportional representation, the single transferable vote or alternative list method for counting votes and assigning seats in the legislature. Others focus on how district shapes are assigned. Still other reform advocates suggest that voting should be made mandatory. But none of these dimensions of possible reform are of the order that we would expect to see if we were to claim that the US is not a democracy.

Sunday, February 20, 2011

The Future US Role in the Middle East

The measured US response that leaned increasingly towards the pro-democracy demonstrators combined with the stark contrast between the government responses to similar demonstrations in US ally, Bahrain and former Soviet client and pan-arabist dictatorship, Libya may be setting up a new role for the US in the Middle East.


We may be seeing a new US role in the middle east emerge in which our allies are more likely to democratize relatively smoothly if slowly and gradually (with a small number of exceptions like Iraq, Afghanistan and Yemen). While Bahrain is showing promising signs of opening up another round of liberalizing reforms, Libya's Gaddafi seems to be intent on killing as many of the protestors as he needs to. He may even be using foreign mercenaries (from other non-US allies like the Sudan) to do it.

For once, the US is not the outside power backing the ruthless dictator. Finally there are signs that the US can be a constructive influence on policies that really matter to Arabs. In the end, for the US to be the moderating restraining influence on dictators under pressure to reform may be more important than if the US were to suddenly abandon Israel. Call me crazy but I am of the opinion that if Israel were surrounded by reasonable, relatively peaceful governments that nevertheless kept the pressure on them it would do more to shift Israeli policy than all the bellicosity and threats of war and extermination that have been the mainstay of Islamist strategies. One possible consequence of this is that if Israel can no longer credibly claim that only unwavering US support prevents the genocide of Levantine Jews, it would allow the US to finally put real pressure on Israel. It would also empower the growing segment of Israeli society that genuinely wants a peaceful solution to the problem.

On Wisconsin!

The situation in Wisconsin is really touching a nerve with me. Governor Walker (R) was elected as part of the Republican victory in 2010. He is now proposing a combination of policies that the country recognizes as a preview of things to come for many state governments. In his first month in office, Governor Walker pushed through a package of tax cuts for corporations. Wisconsin's corporate tax rates are comparable or below those of their main neighbors: Illinois, Minnesota, and Iowa (Wisconsin and Michigan share a border along the base of the Upper Peninsula but this is a sparsely populated part of Michigan that depends largely on mining which cannot relocated because of tax rates). Wisconsin's personal income tax rates are slightly higher than those in Illinois and Iowa but somewhat lower than those in Minnesota. Wisconsin's sales taxes are lower than those of Illinois, Iowa and Minnesota. I go through these comparisons to suggest that Wisconsin's citizens are not excessively taxed. Wisconsin's tax rates are comparable especially to its neighbors. This is important because a major argument that state leaders put forward for cutting taxes - especially on businesses is to encourage new businesses to relocate to their state and deter old businesses from relocating out of their state. My brief survey of Wisconsin tax rates suggests that this probably not a major problem for the Badger State.


Now, there is a recession on as you know. So by cutting taxes on corporations, Governor Walker is worsening his state's revenue short fall problem. This brings us to the other part of his policy agenda. Walker is proposing significant cuts to public employee benefits and a dramatic curtailment of public employee unions right to collectively bargain. The implication of his rhetoric and policies is that the public sector is over paid at the expense of a long suffering private sector. Walker's proposals have provoked a bitter fight. Wisconsin Democrats have left the state to prevent a quorum in the legislature. Public employees and union activists and sympathizers have hit the streets. Tea Party counter protesters soon followed. The newly elected Republican governor of Iowa is making exactly the same noises and a similar fight is coming for Iowans along with many other states.

But are public employees really over paid?? US West posted about this earlier but it bears repeating. Public employees are not paid more than their private sector counter parts with similar qualifications and responsibilities. In fact, they are paid significantly LESS than their private sector counter parts. In fact, the gap between private and public salaries increases as the qualifications expected of the worker go up. At the level of high school graduates, public employees make about 97% of their private sector counterparts. For college graduates public employees make just 75% of their private sector counterparts. Once you get to the level of professional employees (people with JDs, MDs, and PhDs), public employees make just 63% of the salaries awarded to their private sector counterparts. The only thing that public employees can point to that compensates them somewhat for this gap is their benefits packages. Public employees do tend to have good health and retirement packages that are seen as more secure than those operated by many companies because they are guaranteed by democratically accountable state governments rather than by corporations prone to rob their pension funds as they sink into bankruptcy.

I really hope the Democrats and the unions in Wisconsin can stand up to this. And I'm very glad that President Obama called this for what it is, an assault on unions. But it is also part of a broader assault on non-military public employees.


UPDATE (2/21): I found this video online of a Wisconsin Democratic legislator angrily describing the tricks that the Republicans have been using to ram through the Walker budget bill. What he is describing is tyranny of the majority.