Hit Them Where it Hurts

[quote]As Congress finds new and ever more inventive ways to spend money (both real money and imaginary money) more and more voters are waking up to find themselves becoming fiscal conservatives. First off, I must say that there are not nearly enough of us among the voters and secondly I feel compelled to add that we would be in a much better position to be taken seriously if there had been many more converts to the cause while Bush was still in office.

Earlier this week a friend of mine asked for my thoughts on an idea he had to slow and/or reverse the growth in government spending. (I feel compelled to state that said friend was awake to this issue well before Obama was elected – lest anyone mistakenly think that he just woke up to this in the last week.) His idea consists of two parts and boils down to this:

  1. Have states set the wages for their Congressional delegation.
  2. Have each member of Congress pay for 0.00001% of the federal budget out of their own paychecks. (That’s one out of 10 Million dollars for each member of Congress.)

My initial response was to point out the fact that it would take a Constitutional amendment to make the first part legal due to the provisions of Article I Section 6 that their salaries be paid out of the U.S. treasury (not that state money is not already mostly from the U.S. Treasury).

After thinking about the proposal more I recognize that it only works if both parts are enacted because if only the second portion is enacted it would only take about 30 minutes for the House to pass emergency legislation (or simply attach it to that proposal if they want to be efficient) in which the calculation for Congressional salaries is changed from it’s current “$170,000 plus an automatic annual cost of living increase” to “0.000012% of that year’s annual budget plus $169,999.99 plus an automatic annual cost of living increase.”

The real kernel of the idea was to hit Congress in the wallet – where it hurts – for the egregious budgets they pass from year to year like kidney stones in the national economy. For myself I have long believed that we should make congress feel the pain of their overspending by having them be responsible for a portion of their deficit spending – say 3 times whatever portion of their budget is financed by deficits. (In other words,  if 15% of the budget is deficit spending then members of Congress lose 45% of their salaries – and probably the same portion of their budget for staffers etc. for the year – to help offset their budget.) This only works if there are no exceptions (“oops, we had an emergency and had to overspend – but our regular spending didn’t include a deficit so we should not pay a penalty.”) On the other hand they should also receive some incentive for wise management by offering a bonus of one tenth of any percentage surplus they run for their personal salaries. (That would be, if 10% of revenues were in excess of the annual budget they would get a 1% bonus on their salary for the year.)

Theoretically this would have the downside of encouraging them to raise taxes to cover their spending priorities thus causing citizens to bear a greater cost for their government. Personally I think that would be beneficial because people would spend less time clamoring for more government handouts because they would almost universally feel the effects of any spending increases. Such a change should also have the side effect of having people be more engaged in the process of removing representatives who ignore them because they would be more likely to feel the effects of whatever votes their elected officials cast.

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You Must Answer These Questions

Jim Matheson voted against the health care bills – that’s old news already. Some Democrats have, with varying degrees of seriousness, questioned whether they should  run or nominate someone else for his seat – that’s not really fresh news either. The news that I am following is that along with the ruminations regarding a new nominee there are some important questions being asked among some 2nd district Democrats:

Do you really think you’ll be better off if you take him down in the convention or a primary?

. . .

Is it more important to have the seat in your camp or feel good about pushing out anyone who doesn’t push the party line?

1) Is there anything that I’m currently getting with Jim Matheson as my “representative” that I couldn’t get with a Republican in his seat?

2) Is there anything Democrats living in the 1st and 3rd Congressional Districts get with Matheson in office that they otherwise wouldn’t get.

While these are specifically being asked about Matheson by these people right now, they are the same questions that the members of any party must ask when they are unhappy with the incumbent of a seat they currently hold. It should be noted that there is no universal right answer. Sometimes it’s more important to keep a Matheson and other times it’s more important to toss a Cannon. (I chose both of those examples because they are choices that have been made in the past – I do not intend to either endorse or refute those actions nor am I trying to suggest that the actions of the past must determine the actions of the future.)

These are the same questions that Republicans all over the nation are trying to answer on a large scale as well as in individual races (just notice that the number of Republican challengers for Bennetts’ seat changes regularly). Sometimes (such as with Bennett) tossing the incumbent does not do much to endanger the chances that the party will continue to hold the seat while other times (such as with Matheson) it could seriously endanger those chances. Regardless of how it alters the outlook for the party those questions can go either way.

The choice of who to support hinges not only on how well you like the incumbent, but also on answering those questions.

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Why Life Imprisonment is Wrong


photo credit: BlatantNews.com

When I read Jay Hutchinson’s post about Why Capital Punishment is wrong I could not sit still without sharing the opposite perspective so that some people can recognize that the issue is not one sided or clear cut. I am not one who believes in excessive punishment and I would not argue that a justice system without an option for capital punishment is inappropriate, but the longer I live the more I recognize that I have never heard an argument against capital punishment that did not ring hollow on some level.

When Jay speaks of the “hypocrisy” of a government killing to prove that killing is bad he both makes a very poor argument and misses the point of capital punishment entirely. The shallowness of that argument is apparent when we recognize that government has a legitimate position of authority with regard to society and thus has some limited permissions not available to society as a whole. For his argument to work you would have to be able to argue that a father was being a hypocrite for making a rule that his child could not use matches when he uses matches to light the furnace when it goes out. Another example would be trying to argue that police departments are hypocritical for enforcing speed limits on the population while they and other emergency workers regularly exceed the speed limit in the course of their work. The use of capital punishment is not to show that killing is bad, it is meant as a consequence of certain actions as a way to demonstrate unacceptable behavior through the punishment and as a way to remove future threats to society. That certainly does not mean that capital punishment is the only way, or even necessarily the most desirable way to meet these goals, but it is not simply to show that killing is bad.

Of Jay’s three official arguments, two of them hinge on far from common occurrences – the change of heart and the wrongful conviction. That these are not true in the majority of cases does not mean that they are not legitimate concerns, but governing based on exceptions is a very dangerous practice. The fact is that most of the time the person convicted is the guilty party and of those convictions that are overturned a sizable number are overturned on technicalities, not necessarily because the defendant was innocent  – nothing we can do in our justice system will ever make it 100% accurate, but we do fairly well. Jay gives exactly one exceptional example of a change of heart while claiming that “people often have a change of heart on death row.” I’m not sure how we could determine “often” since no metric, including professions of innocence, can accurately draw a line between those who have a change of heart and those who don’t. Even if we could draw that line accurately part of a change of heart for those who are guilty is an acceptance of the consequences of their actions. If society has determined that death is the appropriate consequence for our actions then a real change of heart would include coming to terms with that punishment for our actions. (After all, just because Bernie Madoff changes his heart about defrauding millions of people out of billions of dollars and promises never to manage money again does not mean that he should not face the consequences of his previous actions.)

His third argument is not dependent on the exceptional case – the financial cost of capital punishment is almost universally higher than the financial cost of life imprisonment. Like governing based on exception however, governing based on financial considerations alone is dangerous. Besides that, there are things we can do to change the equation (considering that the vast majority of appeals result in no change of sentence one option would be to reduce the number of available appeals).

For those who are still convinced that capital punishment is just wrong please consider the alternative and see if we are not stuck between a rock and a hard place.

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Constituent Communication Can Innoculate Against Insiderism

When I wrote about a legislator’s role as an information analyst the comments initially centered on Sen. Bob Bennett because of a quote I had used despite my desire to not single anyone out. Later in the comments on that post I made this statement that deserves to be elevated to its own post here:

In my opinion, the best defense against staying too long and becoming part of the problem is to maintain communication with constituents that is open enough for the constituents to indicate when the officeholder is compromising too much (or not enough in some rare cases) and the integrity to step aside when the officeholder finds that they consistently cannot act in accordance with the feedback they are receiving from constituents in good conscience.

Now that Senator Bennett has demonstrated a refusal to maintain open communication with constituents I am singling him out and exposing his refusal to communicate openly.

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Individualism vs Collectivism


photo credit: 416style

It seems that the churning within the GOP is a conflict at various levels between the forces of individualism and collectivism. There is the question of whether the party faithful should do what they think is best or what the party determines to be best. There is the question of whether the national party should be uniform, or whether the local parties should be more autonomous, and there is the question of whether government should enforce the collective good, or allow for more individual choice in society.

With all the jockeying within the GOP there have been plenty of calls for a return to small government principles within the party and generic statements about various groups spoiling the supposed conservatism of the party but in a Los Angeles Times article yesterday Edward Crane sounded a call I never thought I would hear – The GOP Should Dump the Neocons. The first thing I had to do as I read that was confirm the accepted definition of “neocon” to decide if I could believe what I was reading and if there were any implications that I would disagree with. It turns out that I think I can fully agree with this position.

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Decision Time – GOP or ATTAP


photo credit: Pat Rioux

When I learned that Dede Scozzafava dropped out of the NY-23 race, and even more when I learned that when she dropped out she endorsed the Democratic candidate rather than the Conservative candidate, it really got me thinking about what parties are supposed to be. That endorsement would indicate that the GOP establishment in that district is closer to the Democrats than it is to the Conservatives (or else Ms. Scozzafava is playing sour grapes, but somehow I don’t think that’s the explanation). In theory there’s nothing wrong with being closer to Democrats than Conservatives but in practice it depends on what the GOP stands for – which is the question currently raging within the party membership.

Political parties, rightly and of necessity, are coalitions of voters. In theory those voters share some political views in common in order to participate in the coalition. If that is the case then it must be accepted that some parties will have no presence in some locations because in some locations there will be no voters who share the views belonging to a particular party. I’m not suggesting that a place as large as a state would be devoid of voters for any significant party, but individual districts, cities, or precincts might easily be split more between the Green party and the Democrats or between the GOP and the Constitution party than they are between the Democrats and the GOP – assuming that the GOP and the Democratic party each have some core values politically.

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Go Vote

I’d like to add my voice to that of at least six other blogs today by encouraging everyone who is registered to go out and vote today. (Props to Jason for posting four of those.) As this is the year for municipal elections your vote has the greatest impact for three reasons:

  1. You are voting in a smaller race so there are fewer voters in any given contest.
  2. Municipal elections have the most direct impact on your daily life.
  3. Voter turnout is lower so your vote counts for even more among the already small races.

This widespread blogger encouragement to vote is just an example of the last push on election day of what I hope political bloggers can and will do in every election.

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Knowledge – the Key to Sound Government


photo credit: TheAllNewAventuresOfMe

Although I had never heard it before, this quote in Utah Policy really captured the essence of some of what I have been trying to convey in posts and comments on what makes an ideal legislator:

“A popular Government, without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a Prologue to a Farce or a Tragedy; or, perhaps both. Knowledge will forever govern ignorance: And a people who mean to be their own Governors, must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives”.  James Madison

We are supposed to have a popular government (government of and by the people) and it must have popular information (information from the people) if it is to function properly. This is one of the reasons that backroom politics is so undesirable. In this age of hyper-communication every elected official (or even candidate) has the means of acquiring popular information and they must do everything in their power to acquire that information.

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The Dangers of a Crisis Mentality


photo credit: paparutzi

Soon after the election last year in the Wall Street Journal, Gerald Seib wrote about the  opportunity presented by the financial crisis for Barack Obama. Perhaps he was simply reacting to Rahm Emanuel’s statement that, “you never want a serious crisis to go to waste.” Seib summed up that perspective on crisis by saying that:

The thing about a crisis is that it creates a sense of urgency. Actions that once appeared optional suddenly seem essential.

That really captures the essence of a crisis mentality. Unfortunately it only looks at the silver lining while ignoring the cloud in front of it. The assumption is that we all can see the dangers of the crisis cloud. Unfortunately the only part of the crisis cloud that most people see is the front side – the possibility with any crisis that we will fail. The problem is that right in front of the silver lining he spoke of there is the hidden backside of the crisis cloud which we conveniently forget.

Because of the sense of urgency that tends to accompany a crisis we not only begin to view once optional courses of action as essential, in many cases we go beyond that and begin to view once forbidden courses of action as excusable.

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Legislator as Analyst

Earlier this year at a town hall type breakfast meeting I had the chance to ask Senator Bennett what he considered to be the most important task of a Senator. I was not very impressed with his answer that the most important thing was to try to see the future clearly. I still argue that keeping their oath of office is what all the actions of an elected official should revolve around, but upon further reflection I think I have a better understanding of what he meant and it was closer to acceptable for me. His third item in the list of of most important jobs was that they should do their homework. I think that what he was trying to get at was that legislators need to study the information that is available to them and then make wise decisions about how to deal with whatever information is available. After all, that is the whole point of a representative form of government – voters are essentially selecting someone who will have access to more information than most of them with the expectation that the elected official will make a better than average decision with that more comprehensive information.

While that task of analyzing information to make decisions should be anchored to keeping the oath of office it is truly one of the most important tasks of a legislator. As an analyst, a legislator must always be seeking as much information as possible on the issues they are called to decide upon. They should seek that information from their constituents as well as all the official sources of information that are brought before them (such as task forces and committee reports). Their job is to take all that information to put together as accurate a picture as possible of the reality they are dealing with and then make as wise a decision as possible with that understanding.

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