Um, Really?

Tim Geithner and a dubious talking point:

“We have a pro-growth agenda. Part of the agenda is growing exports. They’re central to our future. … [W]e’re going to be committed to making sure we’re that we’re expanding opportunities for American business everywhere. Now, this president understands deeply that governments don’t create jobs, businesses create jobs. And our job as government is try to make sure we’re creating the conditions that allow businesses to prosper so they can hire people back, get this economy going again.”

Government doesn’t create jobs? Um, really? Sadly, this looks like a bit of the party line coming out of the White House of late. In May, President Obama said:

“Now, government can’t create jobs, but it can help create the conditions for small businesses to grow and thrive and hire more workers,” President Barack Obama said yesterday as he urged Congress to take up new jobs legislation at an event honoring Small Business Owners of the Year. “Government can’t guarantee a company’s success, but it can knock down the barriers that prevent small-business owners from getting loans or investing in the future.”

Um, really? I’d really like the President to go to AIG or Goldman Sachs or Bear Stearns or GM and say, with a straight face, that “government can’t guarantee a company’s success.”

First, the government obviously can create jobs. Infrastructure improvement, school construction, hiring more civil servants to police the streets, stop fires from taking lives, or driving ambulances are all direct ways the government can create jobs. Hell, the Census has been the main driver of job creation over the last three months. So this is a talking point that tests well, but doesn’t have any basis in reality.

Beyond that, our economy is moving forward out of the collapse caused by Wall Street speculators solely because the federal government stepped in and prevented these firms from taking  any losses on their bad bets (bets which were also ignorant, uninformed and just plain stupid). That the Captains of Finance on Wall Street now have the temerity to complain that the administration is “anti-business” only speaks to the true extent to which these buffoons care nothing for the the country on whole and only value enriching themselves.

Government can create jobs. Government can guarantee private companies’ success. The only way out of this depression is unleashing the power of the government spending to stimulate the economy and create jobs. Of course, this can be done in a way that benefits small businesses, though we should be deeply skeptical of blanket tax cuts that will likely only benefit the richest of the rich.

What’s really frustrating is that a persuasive communicator could get past the binary that has been presented by conservatives for decades of Business vs Government. But this administration buys into this dichotomy whole-heartedly and, even worse, repeats patently wrong conservative talking points.

Look, I don’t care how deeply you bow before Wall Street and the GOP, they’re never going to like you guys. And while you pursue the support of people who slur you regardless of whatever you do for them, the economy gets worse and working Americans suffer ever more.

Exactly Right

Markos, in looking at polling that shows while Democrats are very unpopular in Ohio, Republicans are even worse, writes:

By all rights, Democrats should get crushed in November. They took office promising change, and their actions have been, at best, weak tea. Hostile corporatist interests have successfully watered down every bit of legislation passed. The job picture is dismal, with zero apparent urgency in DC to do something about it. Democrats have actually convinced themselves that voters care more about deficits than they do about job creation. We’re still myred in unwinnable wars. And remember, this was all with super majorities in both chambers of Congress.

So yeah, there’s plenty of motivation to punish Democrats for their ineffectiveness and timidity in the face of dramatic challenges.

But Republicans, as effective as they’ve been in blocking much of the change Democrats could’ve delivered, have utterly failed in presenting an alternative. And in that vacuum, voters can only assume the GOP agenda is exactly what they delivered in the eight years of the Bush Administration.

So one party is hated, the other one is seen as ineffective. What’s a voter to do? We’ll see, but it’s clear as this cycle has shaped up, that the biggest impediment to massive Republican gains this November is the GOP itself.

This is exactly right and a big part of why I highly doubt that, as of now, Democrats will suffer large-scale loses in November. The alternative is utter crap and the American people know it.

At War

Reading Glenn Greenwald’s latest posts on the war in Afghanistan and the bizarre place the rule of law currently stands in America (viz. no longer existing in a meaningful form), I can’t help but think that Hunter S. Thompson was 100% right and utterly prescient when he wrote this on the morning of September 12th, 2001 on ESPN.com:

The towers are gone now, reduced to bloody rubble, along with all hopes for Peace in Our Time, in the United States or any other country. Make no mistake about it: We are At War now — with somebody — and we will stay At War with that mysterious Enemy for the rest of our lives.

It’s truly saddening that Thompson continues to be proved right, day in and day out, five years beyond the end of his life.

Grim’s Look At the White House

Ryan Grim’s piece yesterday on the role the political team in the White House has played in shaping the administration’s policy agenda over the objection of policy experts is pretty startling. It puts together a narrative that explains why the White House continues to eschew emphasizing job creation and stimulus spending, while favoring talk of deficits and cutting entitlements.

There’s clearly and rightly a concern in the White House about winning elections. What is remarkable, though, is the complete lack of recognition that good policies lead to good political results. Further, by pushing good policies and building public support for them, there’s an opening to make them politically even more valuable. That is, the White House has the ability to help make electing candidates that support their agenda easier.

What’s particularly bizarre is how wrong the White House political team is when it comes what the public sentiment is on the economy, jobs, and deficits. Grim notes:

Senior White House adviser David Axelrod told the New York Times recently that “it’s my job to report what the public mood is.” The public mood, said Axelrod, is anti-spending and anti-deficit and so the smart politics is to alleviate those concerns. “I’ve made the point that as a matter of policy and a matter of politics that we need to focus on this, and the president certainly agrees with that,” said Axelrod of the deficit hawkery that the administration has engaged in over the last several months.

But the public isn’t primarily concerned about deficits and spending! They’re most concerned about jobs and the economy! The polling is really clear on this and yet it doesn’t seem to penetrate the Beltway Bubble. In one of the most crucial moments of this administration’s political life, they are buying Republican and Blue Dog spin. The result will be conservative policies that present the administration and Democrats as nothing more than Republican Lite. That it is coming from this White House is depressing, but not surprising.

At the end of the day, I’m not sure why leaders of the Democratic Party think having 9.7% unemployment is acceptable or that it’s something that voters will forget when they go to vote in November. Even if the deficit was the top public concern (it isn’t), eliminating it by fiat tomorrow would not change that at least one in ten Americans do not have jobs. Someone who does not have a job isn’t going to have their rent or food bills paid by a lower deficit. Decisions about who to support politically will be made in light of the factors in peoples’ lives, not abstractions that aren’t lived day to day by unemployed or under-employed Americans. It’s hard to believe that the political team at the White House thinks otherwise, but then again, it isn’t.

Galbraith: How To Shrink the Labor Force

James Galbraith has a very interesting idea for how we can help the economy and create jobs without spending money (though he does think spending money is the right course). Galbraith says we need to shrink the labor force by lowering the Medicare eligibility age to 55, as well as temporarily removing the early retirement age, which will allow people to retire earlier. Add in more funding for college, and you’ve reduced the work force and lowered unemployment, while providing substantial benefits through programs that we all know work well. Getting on to why the government needs to still actually spend money, Galbraith writes:

But with work to do and people to do it, the government should spend more. States and localities could hire teachers, teachers’ aides, doctors and nurses, fire and police, librarians and park attendants and street cleaners. If they do not have the cash, the easy way to create jobs is for Washington to write checks. This is called “revenue sharing” and it was invented by President Richard Nixon.

Galbraith’s ideas represent three major prongs of progressive policy that has been pushed through legislation recently or is expected to be done soon. Health care reform briefly looked at, but did not include, lowering the age people were eligible for Medicare. While most expect Social Security “reform” will inevitably lead to a shrinking of the program, the best course would actually be to expand it in ways that help more people. And jobs bills before Congress – including one rejected yesterday by the Senate – have the opportunity to provide states with major funding to support the important work of fire fighters, teachers, police, and medical professionals. That is, the pieces of Galbraith’s plan aren’t outside the range of conversations going on in Washington. The problem is that these are not Serious ideas held by Serious people, only by dirty hippies and accomplished economists with an honest understanding of the crisis our country is in. Conventional Wisdom says these are Unserious ideas and so I don’t have any hope that we’ll get this sort of smart, progressive, policy making out of decision-makers in Washington.

China Jails Karma Samdrup

I’m just getting word that Tibetan environmental activist Karma Samdrup has been sentenced to 15 years over bogus charges of political activities that defy even the cynical standards of the Chinese government’s crackdown in Tibet.

Andrew Jacobs of the New York Times had a great piece on Karma Samdrup and his brothers, as well as other instances of the Chinese government’s crackdown on Tibetan intellectuals, artists, and activists.  I’ve seen a lot of crazy cases where the Chinese government drums up charges against Tibetan political figures, but the Samdrup case goes so far beyond what even the CCP does, that it is truly Kafka-esq. What makes it particularly remarkable is that Samdrup is a wealthy art dealer and environmentalist who is widely known in China and viewed as someone who has really worked within the system and did not engage in politics.

Kate Saunders of the International Campaign for Tibet summed up what’s happening with the current crackdown well:

Kate Saunders of the International Campaign for Tibet said the recent arrests of about 50 poets, bloggers and songwriters represented the most concerted attack on the educated and artistic elite since the Cultural Revolution ended in 1976.

“It appears that almost any expression of Tibetan identity can be categorized as separatist or reactionary,” she said in an interview from London. “These are not angry monks raising their fists in protest but people working within the system who are engaged in work that’s essential for a healthy civil society.”

What is also remarkable is the extent to which a number of the recent cases of China detaining and jailing Tibetans have received a fair deal of international attention, including that of the writer Shogdung, the musician Tashi Dhondup, the blogger Kunchok Tsephel, and the film maker Dhondup Wangchen.

The Chinese government is petrified of Tibetans. That much is clear. What is frightening is that they are more scared of Tibetans than what the outside world thinks of their actions. Though, that may be a statement about how little the West is willing to pressure the Chinese government on human rights and political prisoners.

“Tax and Axe”

The austerity measures unveiled by the David Cameron’s conservative government in the UK are really brutal and certain to put a huge hurt on working families in Britain. But at least conservatives across the pond have the honesty to recognize that if deficit concerns are to be addressed, you can’t simply cut spending and not raise taxes. I don’t know enough about how the tax hikes are distributed, though it’s clear they will disproportionately hurt lower income Britons based on the hike in the VAT and the capital gains tax is still relatively low.

Nonetheless, deficits are not the problem when the economy is in freefall and unemployment is rising. I don’t think the conservative plan in UK will help solve their economic problems. But at least, and this really isn’t much but for the fact that conservatives in the US are so fundamentally dishonest and craven, they are willing to tax the rich more as well.