Help Me Out Here
What's wrong with this sequence?
1. We absolutely have to pass an $800 billion stimulus package without really looking at it."With the stakes so high we simply cannot afford the same old gridlock and
partisan posturing in Washington. It's time to move in a new direction.
Americans know that our economic recovery will take years -- not months. But
they will have little patience if we allow politics to get in the way of action,
and our economy continues to slide." (Obama, 1/31/09)
"... we can't afford to make perfect the enemy of the absolutely necessary. The scale and scope of this plan is right. And the time for action is now.Because if we don't move swiftly to put this plan in motion, our economic crisis could become a national catastrophe. Millions of Americans will lose their jobs, their homes, and their health care. Millions more will have to put their dreams on hold." (Obama, 2/7/09)
2. Now that we pass that, we positively have to have $200 billion more for additional things.3. The President threatens mayors and governors if they waste any of it.4. Now that we've committed a trillion dollars we didn't have to begin with, we're going to cut the Bush-era deficit in half. I'm missing the logic behind this.
A Doctrine of Fairness
I continue to hear calls for [conservative] critics of President Obama to back off and let the president be president for a while.
I've addressed this before, and it turned up again in my study this morning:
Then Paul, looking earnestly at the council, said, “Men and brethren, I have lived in all good conscience before God until this day.” And the high priest Ananias commanded those who stood by him to strike him on the mouth. Then Paul said to him, “God will strike you, you whitewashed wall! For you sit to judge me according to the law, and do you command me to be struck contrary to the law?” And those who stood by said, “Do you revile God’s high priest?” Then Paul said, “I did not know, brethren, that he was the high priest; for it is written, ‘You shall not speak evil of a ruler of your people.’”
-- Acts 23:1-5
Even though Paul had a justifiable claim against the unjust treatment he was receiving, he repented when he realized the position of the one he was addressing. Calling the high priest a "whitewashed wall" is probably an example of
the kind of reviling Christ condemns.
But if the president [our "king"] claims our consideration out of respect for his position --basic fairness, maybe -- then what should we make out of this passage?
Do not curse the king, even in your thought;
Do not curse the rich, even in your bedroom ...
-- Ecclesiastes 10:20a
Is there some
unbridled rhetoric and heavy-handed policy coming from the new administration? I think there's room for self-examination and repentance on the other side of the aisle, too.
Maybe Obama Rejected The Wrong Churchill
Not long after 9/11, the British government loaned a valuable bronze bust of Winston Churchill to President George W. Bush. It occupied a prominent position in the Oval Office for the rest of his term.
Now President Barack Obama has returned it, unrequested, and provoked puzzlement and conjecture in British circles.
The London Telegraph suggests it may be because Churchill was Prime Minister when Britain suppressed the Mau Mau Rebellion in Kenya, and reportedly detained and tortured Obama's Kenyan grandfather.
The (UK) Spectator's Alex Massie opines it is a sign of Obama's "maturity", a sign that he doesn't need the inspiration of Winston Churchill looking over his shoulder to be president. He further lambasts "neoconservatives" as "traducing Chamberlain" and living in a "cult of Churchill" in the U.S. which needs taking down and no delay about it. (HT:
The Corner)
I think it's likely nothing more than housecleaning (if you want to say that of an artwork worth hundreds of thousands of dollars). Obama likes Lincoln, so Abe it is in the statue corner.
Anyway, this whole argument loses traction in the reality of Early Churchill v. Later Churchill. We conservatives do admire
Churchill's clear understanding of Britain's crumbled national security, his accurate identification of the threat that was Hitler and Nazism long before the rest of the government, and his stalwart leadership of his embattled nation before the Americans were stirred to engage the foe directly, and then ever afterward.
We forget however that Churchill's domestic policies were by no means conservative, including strong support for national socialized medicine, unemployment insurance, huge public works programs and old age pensions decades before we came up with the New Deal.
For a time, he was a big-L Liberal. I've commented on this
elsewhere before.
Contra
The Spectator, I would argue that maybe President Obama would find a kindred spirit in the Early Churchill of 1904-1923, rather than the more remembered Later Churchill of 1939-1945 he supposedly rejects when he evicts Winston's image from the White House. Maybe it is Massie guilty of oversimplifying the history of a very long political career in his own country, and not we American provincials, y'know.
Besides, we have our own leadership cult now, and we've successfully exported the American Up-Leg Thrill to many countries already.
Maybe
The Spectator would like a bronze bust of Barack Obama for their offices in return ?
BONUS: If President Obama had kept the bust, would he have been accused of trading on a famous relative?
Our Side Is Bipartisan, Too
Just as President Obama's jibe, "We won!", is a false justification for staunching opposition, it should be noted that there was
bipartisan opposition to the stimulus bill. While true that three Senate Republicans joined the Democrats in the Senate -- not that Senators Specter or Snowe were any surprise in that role -- in the House, there were eight Democratic Congressmen who voted no on the final ballot for the bill. While Speaker Pelosi didn't have to have their votes, I still commend the eight who voted right, and point out that "bipartisan" goes both ways.
Voting NO on H.R. 1:
Bobby Bright (D-AL)
Parker Griffith (D-AL)
Heath Shuler (D-NC)
Gene Taylor (D-MS)
Walt Minnick (D-ID)
Peter DeFazio (D-OR), and
Collin Peterson (D-MN).
Another Thing Wrong With The Stimulus Vote
With so many bad economic ideas and such glowing setups for fraud, waste, and abuse of taxpayer funds, this may be just one puff in a whirlwind. However, here's a direct Biblical warning of one of the major features of this bill's passage:
He who answers a matter before he hears it
It is a folly and shame to him.
-- Proverbs 18:13
Question: How many members of Congress could honestly say they had read the bill? Or even, that their staff had been able to read the bill and brief the member on its contents?
For further consideration:
Prov 14:29 -
He who is implusive exalts folly Prov 21:5 -
The plans of the diligent lead surely to plenty, but those of everyone who is hasty, surely to poverty.Prov 29:20 -
Do you see a man hasty in his words? There is more hope for a fool than for him.
Saving and Creating? Really?
The president and his supporters are claiming that his economic plan “will save or create three to four million jobs”. This is a non-falsifiable statement. Can they tell us, at the next reckoning, which particular jobs were saved? Can their opponents, for that matter, say which particular jobs were not saved, or were lost as a result of the plan? In both cases, it’s impossible to answer. They might as well claim they will save every American job — as the repeated warning of “catastrophe” suggests — since they can no more be called to account for tens of millions than for the few they now claim.
I listened (with pain) to part of President Obama’s prime-time press conference last night, and he is continuing to set up straw men labeled “market economists” and “George W. Bush” and heroically swat them around. I wonder if he’s okay if the real George W. Bush applies the same logic Obama does, and make lots of public appearances to boast of a specific number of American lives saved by his administration successfully thwarting terrorist attacks since 2001.
But whatever might be said of George W. Bush’s policies, I don’t think he indulges in fanciful conjectures as if they were quantifiable facts.
(Cross-posted on The Inundated Calvinist)
Striding Into A Mine Field
The President's op-ed in yesterday's Washington Post was a toned-down version of his recent rhetoric. While not quite as blunt as the vaudevillian "Shut up, he argued," President Obama contines to insist that his 52% margin in the general election trumps all considerations from the conservative side.
In recent days, there have been misguided criticisms of this plan that echo the failed theories that helped lead us into this crisis -- the notion that tax cuts alone will solve all our problems; that we can meet our enormous tests with half-steps and piecemeal measures; that we can ignore fundamental challenges such as energy independence and the high cost of health care and still expect our economy and our country to thrive.
I reject these theories, and so did the American people when they went to the polls in November and voted resoundingly for change. They know that we have tried it those ways for too long.
The President conveniently ignores the fact that 100% of House Republicans and 17 Republican Senators (of 35 seats on the ballot this year) also won their elections last November.
Analyzing the Sarah Palin phenomenon for
Commentary,
Yuri Levin writes that
"Both economic and cultural populism are politically potent, but in America, unlike in Europe, cultural populism has always been much more powerful. Americans do not resent the success of others, but they do resent arrogance, and especially intellectual arrogance."This is dangerous territory where the President's increasing reliance on the formula, "I won" to support his sweeping actions to bypass Congressional deliberation. It is going to go up with a bang soon.
Charles Krauthammer thinks it already has:
After Obama's miraculous 2008 presidential campaign, it was clear that at some point the magical mystery tour would have to end. The nation would rub its eyes and begin to emerge from its reverie. The hallucinatory Obama would give way to the mere mortal. The great ethical transformations promised would be seen as a fairy tale that all presidents tell -- and that this president told better than anyone.
I thought the awakening would take six months. It took two and a half weeks.
UPDATE: Rich Lowry at National Review writes today :
[Circumstances] change, and no president can adhere to every jot and tittle from his campaign, but the “I won” argument only works if the campaign program matches the governing program. ...
When Barack Obama ran last year, he didn’t say he’d engage in faith-based economic policy on a grand scale. He didn’t say he’d toss aside the normal processes of governing. He didn’t say he’d quickly act to add waste to the federal budget. And he didn’t say he’d try to brush away criticism with the mere assertion of his victory. On the stimulus, when Obama says “I won,” he’s out of better arguments.
More Ethics
From
a WSJ story this morning:
On Thursday, the White House conceded that the husband of Labor Secretary-nominee Hilda Solis this week paid about $6,400 to settle tax liens on his business that had been outstanding for as long as 16 years. The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee postponed a confirmation hearing after the news broke.
She was the fourth nominee to come under questioning on tax-related issues. Health and Human Services Secretary-designate Tom Daschle and White House performance czar Nancy Killefer withdrew their names from consideration this week after their own tax problems came to light. Mr. Geithner won confirmation despite failing to pay tens of thousands of dollars in payroll taxes on time.
Peter Kirsanow says there is a
"strange ineptitude" in the Administration's otherwise exhaustive vetting process for nominees, describing the voluminous disclosure forms, FBI
and IRS investigation, and detailed interviews for potentially disqualifying or embarrassing information. "Either Obama and his nominees aren't easily embarrassed, or the vetters have tin ears the size of satellite dishes," he concludes.
The Home School Legal Defense Association has called for members to oppose the candidacy of David Ogden for
deputy attorney general, based on his support for conscience-violating provisions of the unratified U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child.
Given the success rate of President Obama's nominations recently, it may behoove us to pay careful attention to the deputy positions as well -- they may be promoted soon.
Religious Discrimination Retained in Stimulus Bill
Sen. Jim DeMint of South Carolina pointed out that the stimulus package contains the following restrictions on the use of $3.5 billion in renovation funds for colleges and universities:
(2) PROHIBITED USES OF FUNDS.—No funds awarded under this section may be used for—
(C) modernization, renovation, or repair of facilities—
(i) used for sectarian instruction, religious worship, or a school or department of divinity; or
(ii) in which a substantial portion of the functions of the facilities are subsumed in a religious mission; or construction of new facilities
His amendment, which would have removed this language, was
rejected by a 54-43 vote in the Senate today. I note that Sen. Kay Hagan voted no on the amendment; given the hullabaloo that was raised by former Sen. Elizabeth Dole's questioning Hagan's Christian commitment, this would have been a quiet way for her to show otherwise. I don't think this vote proves anything one way or another, but it doesn't help her any.
Sen. DeMint responded afterward,
“This is now an ACLU stimulus designed to trigger lawsuits designed to intimidate religious organizations across the nation. This language is so vague, it’s not clear if students can even pray in a dorm room renovated with this funding since that is a form of ‘religious worship.’ If this provision remains in the bill, it will have a chilling effect on students of faith in America. ...
... Our culture cannot survive without faith and our nation cannot survive without freedom. This provision is an assault against both. It's un-American and it's unconstitutional. Intolerant and it's intolerable.”
HT: Mark Hemingway, The Corner
How "Urgent" Is This?
It took me a couple of days to dig up the quote, but our Congressman, Rep. Bob Etheridge (D-NC2), spoke on behalf of the stimulus package (HR 1) last week and illustrated one of the main problems with it all:
Madam Speaker, I rise in support of the rule for H.R. 1, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, and for the underlying bill. This bill provides urgently needed relief for struggling individuals and businesses and will create or retain three to four million jobs in this country.
H.R. 1 includes America's Better Classroom Act, which will provide tax credits to enable up to $25 billion in school construction and modernization, an initiative that I've been working on for over 12 years, along with my colleagues.
In other words, this gigantic bill is an opportunity to enact a proposal that Rep. Etheridge has been unable to bring to passage in six terms in Congress -- including the time under the control of his own party.
And it's a matter of grave urgency now?
(Quotation from Congressional Record: January 28, 2009 (House), page H613)
