This may seem like a quibble, though I don't think it is, but I'm not sure this logic holds up. To the extent the statement about the Democrats needing to win in 2016 is to be taken as a necessary condition for an electoral realignment, then one can, in fact, say that President Obama hasn't realigned the electorate. This logical misstep could be corrected if the final sentence read, "But you also can't say that he *won't* [realign the electorate]." If that's the case, though, then I'm not sure what the significance of the conclusion is beyond noting the fact that future events may imbue recent event with greater importance. To my mind, the interesting question is what you set-up in the first paragraph: How do the consolidation of the ACA and general congressional impotence (among other things) make a 2016 Democratic victory, and thus a realignment attributable to Obama, more likely?
 

past comments: http://balkin.blogspot.com/2011/01/obama-generation_24.html

http://balkin.blogspot.com/2014/11/ready-to-throw-in-towel.html

 

Connor,

I suppose I did not choose "won't" because Obama is not running again. Now, of course, you could say that as President he still is doing things to influence a possible realignment. So you're probably right.
 

Gerard's:

"I am not saying that Obama has realigned the electorate. The Democrats would need to win in 2016 to make that statement. But you also can't say that he hasn't."

might get an assist from GOP 2016 presidential candidate Donald T-Rump.

As Jack Balkin noted in his follow-up post, it's based upon hindsight. And even hindsight is not always 20-20.
 

Joe, late last night (for a geezer such as me) I took the bait of the links you provided. The fiist did not provide for comments but the second had a significant comment thread with the usual suspects' (me included) irrelevancies and of fairly recent vintage that may not age well (along with me). So I did not get as much sleep as I like to get, spending time trolling through the trolls. Thanks a lot! This has significantly cut into my Donald T-RUMP time, considering his contributions to humor and its future. [I haven't had my jon Stewart fix as yet on last night's The Daily Show, or The Nightly.]

Alas, there seem to be many rushes to judgment on presidents' legacies while they are still serving. Are law professors good at forecasting "scholarship"? How good is their hindsight? Gerard at least is bellying up to the bar [pun intended] and drinking the Koolaid.
 

GM tends to be careful and hedge, so probably is a safer bet -- the best approach is the Delphic Oracle approach where what you say can be taken various ways. You know, like the Constitution. (/innocent look)


 

Whether a political party wins the White House three times in a row or the Supreme Court rubber stamps a couple of policies does not make a reconstructive president.

There are two measures for a reconstructive president - forming a new majority coalition in favor of a particular political economy and changing the political economy itself. As our progressive political economy becomes more independent of the people and the people more alienated from the progressive political economy, achieving both becomes increasingly difficult.

FDR both formed a new majority coalition in favor of a progressive political economy and fundamentally transformed the political economy from a free market republic to progressivism. Roosevelt is the archetype of a reconstructive president.

Reagan formed a new majority coalition for at least a partial return to a free market republic, but only slowed and certainly did not reverse the progressive political economy. The Reagan and Clinton/Gingrich liberalizations were temporary and are now largely gone.

Obama has massively strengthened the power of the executive bureaucracy and the progressive political economy, but reduced the Democrat coalition to an urban rump party. The last time the voters punished a political party at all levels of government to the extent that they punished the Democrats over the past three election cycles was when they fired the GOP back in 1930-1932.

Do Reagan and Obama then qualify as reconstructive presidents?

I suspect the next truly reconstructive president will arrive when the progressive political economy fails and the United States is forced to choose a replacement.
 

Here's an adaptation of our own well-follicled CO inhaling oracle's observation applied to his Tea Party:

" ... but reduced the [Republican] coalition to a[] [rural] [T-R]ump party."

Our own WFCOINO's standards as a political scientist are down there with his his standards as a historian and economist. is our own WFCOIO's prediction:

"I suspect the next truly reconstructive president will arrive when the progressive political economy fails and the United States is forced to choose a replacement."

a wet dream endorsement of Donald T-RUMP as the Tea (Third?) Party candidate?

 

Shag:

Trump is a wealthy buffoon buying another 15 minutes of fame and a member in good standing of the class which pays politicians for sale like the Clintons to do their bidding.
 

Has my poem on an earlier thread triggered conspiratorial thoughts in the mind of our WFCOIO? Here's a reprise:



TR(i)UMPhant?

Is “The Donald” a left-wing mole
In the guise of a GOP troll,
The clown of conservative clowns
Among the GOP renowns?

Or does he serve as a foil
To get Republicans to recoil
In support of another candidate
Whom they can validate?

NH polls have him in second place
In a GOP crowded race,
Causing Republicans to despair
Ore “The Donald” of the crazy hair.

The GOP clown car debates on TV
Will serve as a reality
That this intra-party strife
Will elect Bill Clinton’s wife.

June 26, 2015

What chance does "The Donald" have without our own WFCOIO's Tea Party?

 

I just read Jimmy Carter's autobiographical look back -- tangentially relevant to a thread on presidents -- and he included some of his poetry. Shag's memoirs will have some his doggerel too, I assume. Anyway, Trump is an interesting character on some level, in that he is a mirror into the electorate. The fact he has such poll numbers to me has doubtful staying power. But, it is notable all the same. Even if Republican leadership is unsurprisingly loathe to accept him as one of themselves.
 

Trump is a wealthy buffoon buying another 15 minutes of fame and a member in good standing of the class which pays politicians for sale like the Clintons to do their bidding.
# posted by Blogger Bart DePalma : 6:02 PM

He's also currently polling better than any of the other GOP clowndidates for president, which pretty much tells you all you need to know about the GOP.

As for buying that fame, I'm pretty sure he hasn't run a single campaign ad. He buying those Tea Part followers with bald-faced racism.
 

Doggerel, indeed! Here's one more recent:

***


“T-RUMP!”

It “Fits to a T –“
What “The Donald” be,
Rich, crude and crass,
A real horse’s ass.

Picture this hyphenating
As he continues bloviating
When on the TV/stump,
Re-branded as “T-RUMP!”

“The Donald’s” political tourette
And utter lack of etiquette
Claims “John McCain’s not a hero,”
This from a draft-dodging zero.

Has “The Donald” crossed the line?
If so, was it by design?
As competing clowns despair,
He preens with his crazy hair.

July 20, 2015

***

Perhaps "The Donald's" real goal is to become President of Hair Club for Men. [Brett might become an early member.]

 

Yeah, I'm not even sure that Obama's change in the Democratic Party (shifting it to a greater embrace of the left and away from Clinton's DLC type, though often more rhetorically than anything else) will last post 2016.
 

Gerard's earlier post (the second link provided by Joe in his earlier comment here) referenced a friendly bet with Jack Balkin. In the extensive comment thread that followed, I expressed an interest in what Jack had to say. Now we have a recent post by Jack that is quite thoughtful. The message seems to be, time/events will tell. We can all guess, either thoughtfully or based upon our wishes as to just how Obama's presidency will be evaluated in the long run. In the long run, we're all dead [who said that?], I most likely me before many of the other usual suspects. But I will not guess. Things happen. Consider the steps taken by Gorge W and his gang in efforts to gloss over the Bush/Cheney 8 years. Now, with Jeb! in the hunt, other GOP candidates express some criticism of the Bush/Cheney 8 years. So much more time will be needed to rehabilitate George W.
 

This comment has been removed by the author.
 

Blogger Mista Whiskas said...Yeah, I'm not even sure that Obama's change in the Democratic Party (shifting it to a greater embrace of the left and away from Clinton's DLC type, though often more rhetorically than anything else) will last post 2016.

Obama never admitted that he was a progressive and never attempted to create a new majority coalition to support an expansion of the progressive political economy. Rather, he lied comprehensively about his policies - even after they were enacted - until he was safely reelected for his final term and his party lost Congress in 2014.

On this side of the equation, Obama was a preemptive president.

I am unsure what Team Clinton is thinking by a tacking left.

Obama did not win election by running to the left, but rather based on a largely policy free cult of personality which appealed to a coalition urban whites, minorities and Millennials.

Obama did not create a majority coalition for an expanded progressive political economy like Reagan created for a free market republic, so Clinton is not going to be able to campaign to such a coalition the way Bush 41 campaigned to the Reagan coalition.

Running as a full throated progressive/socialist only appeals to the Democrat base, which is not the same as the coalition which Obama assembled. As a result, the Clinton campaign is falling apart earlier than any serious front runner I can recall.

http://www.quinnipiac.edu/news-and-events/quinnipiac-university-poll/2016-presidential-swing-state-polls/release-detail?ReleaseID=2261
 

These poll numbers are GREAT news for John McCain!!! - Baghdad Bart 2008
 

Imagine, our own WFCOIO accuses Obama of lying, which may be something he has some expertise in. .Our own WFCOIO is dealing in his wishes, not facts.
 

Shag: Imagine, our own WFCOIO accuses Obama of lying

You are free to identify a single policy Mr. Obama and the Democrats enacted in 2009 and 2010 which Obama did not fundamentally misrepresent in 2008. One will do.

Let's take Obamacare for example. In 2008, Mr. Obama stated repeatedly that he would not impose an individual mandate, that we could all keep the health insurance policies we had, the government would not direct our health insurance and that a family would save $2,5000 when he price of insurance fell. Every single statement was a lie. Even more amazingly, Obama continued to offer these lies after the Democrats imposed Obamacare.

I believe that my description of this serial misrepresentation as comprehensive lying about his positions as more than fair.
 

Blankshot, President Obama didn't "impose" anything. Do you actually not understand how laws are passed? Maybe you should watch this video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Otbml6WIQPo
 

Does our own WFCOIO's challenge call for a comparative with with Buh/Cheney over 8 years, speaking of serial misrepresenters who cost lives, limbs and fisc. Improving the health of so many via Obamacare has saved lives, limbs and fisc. Our own WFCOIO obviously has no idea of what "fair" means.

[Off to lunch, mostly liberal and a dash of progressive - all without heartburn.]
 

BB:

The term imposition is apt.

I know this concept is alien to progressives, but the job of an elected representative is to enact the will of his or her constituents into law.

When you enact law in opposition to the will of your constituents, you are imposing your will on them.
 

The term imposition is apt.

I know this concept is alien to progressives, but the job of an elected representative is to enact the will of his or her constituents into law.

When you enact law in opposition to the will of your constituents, you are imposing your will on them.
# posted by Blogger Bart DePalma : 2:20 PM

Blankshot, we've been over this before. Elections have consequences. You lost. Nothing was imposed. Get over it.
 

BB:

You are completely correct. Elections have consequences.

The Democrats comprehensively lied to get elected in 2006 and 2008 and then, once in power, imposed their will on the American people.

The American people repaid the favor over the 2010, 2012 and 2014 election cycles by firing not only the Democrat Congress, but over 1,000 Democrats at all levels of government.
 

Blankshot, I've got some very bad news for you. Obama was re-elected in the 2012 election cycle. Elections have consequences. You lost. Nothing was imposed. Get over it.
 

BTW, Obamacare is now polling just about even. Does that mean you Tea bagging morons have to stop demanding that it is repealed?
 

After returning from lunch yesterday, I noted that this thread was in the doldrums. So inspired by Joe's reference to Jimmy Carter's recent memoirs and doggerel, I located my initial verse on "The Donald" of what turned into (so far) a "thrillogy" that I feel compelled to disclose as even blog commenters must either publish or perish. Here it is:

***


“WE SHALL OVERCOMB”*

Donald Trump announced his candidacy
As a Republican for the presidency
In the 2016 campaign
Over which he plans to reign.

His entrance on an escalator down
Was befitting that of a real clown,
Throwing his hairnet into the ring
With a flourish and a dash of bling.

He trumpeted his role as a leader,
Stressing he is not a conceder,
As demonstrated on his TV reality show,
He can tell apprentices where to go.

But “The Donald” is now on notice
That now he’s merely an apprentice,
That the process is unlike his TV reality show
Scripted and controlled by his massive ego.

“I am really, really rich,”
He stated in his campaign pitch,
Claiming $9 billion in net worth
And no question of his place of birth.

The GOP TV debates will be shown
Displaying his clowning overcomb.
So will “The Donald” be hired?
Or will viewers yell: “YOU’RE FIRED!”?

June 22, 2015


*Caption on a poster of “The Donald”
at Daily Kos

***

Timothy Egan's NYTImes column today (7/24/15) "Trump Is the Poison His Party Concocted" puts a lie to the claim of some conservatives that Trump is not a conservative.

Some other commentator/pundits refer to Trump as a "former reality TV show star." The word "former" is worth a laugh. Currently TV networks are in re-runs, re-showing some of the better episodes of returning shows this fall as hype. I propose that the TV networks use this hype-model and show re-runs of the 2012 GOP Clown Car debates" to get us excited for the limo needed for the 2016 GOP debates. Of course, Fox under pressure from Murdoch might TREXIT" "The Donald" from the first debate. Imagine the uproar. "The Donald" might then fulfill his threat of an independent campaign, pulling a Ronnie Reagan and paying for the hall as he is really, really rich. Imagine the ratings battles. For some reason "Bonfire of the Vanities" comes to mind. Are we in a "Second Gilded Age"? Let's call on our resident expert on prevarication.

 

Shag:

If you can pull yourself away from the Donald's latest reality show, do you have an opinion on whether Do Reagan and/or Obama qualify as reconstructive presidents?
 

The winds of our own WFCOIO seems to have replaced the doldrums with a question for me. I shall tack a bit to stay in the safe harbor of sanity. I'm with Jack Balkin as to Obama as he is still in his presidency. Events and time will determine whether Obama will qualify. As to our own WFCOIO's Reagan "and/or," I assume that he thinks Reagan qualifies. I don't for so many reasons, concluding that Reagan was a destructive president. Recall his openly racist entry into the 1980 campaign. Then his openly anti-union action immediately after being sworn in. And consider Reagan's conduct as a candidate regarding the hostages for purely political advantage. Then there were the tax cuts followed by many tax increases. Then there was Iran/Contra, perhaps with the excuse of health problems, passing the blame onto others. And then there was his AG Ed Meese with original intent originalism as an attack on the Warren Court and its foundational Brown v. Bd. of Educ. in 1954, spawning the Federalist Society in tandem, only to bring about activism on the Court by its conservatives. Recall CJ Rhenquist's pre-judical actions in AZ of a racial nature in conjunction with his advice as clerk to Justice Jackson on the validity of Plessy v. Ferguson.

A positive regarding Reagan pre-presidency was his role for GE when he would convincing say: "Progress is our most important product." But maybe he was merely acting. [He earlier had creds as a B actor, a much better grade than I would give him as president.]

Have I provided enough wind to make sure we are out of the doldrums? If so, hoist the mainsail and scuttle the jib.
 

This comment has been removed by the author.
 

Shag:

The definition of a reconstructive president is not whether you or I like their policies. I believe that FDR ranks among the top 3 worst economic presidents in American history, but he fits the definition.

Does Reagan?

I am unsure why we need to wait any longer to evaluate Mr. Obama. Over the next year and a half, Obama will not enact any major legislation. There is nothing on the foreign policy checklist left to do now that he has surrendered to Iran. Expect that the bureaucracy will decree another 20,000 or so pages of regulations and I suspect that he will shut down Gitmo after the 2016 election.

Assuming these facts, is Obama a reconstructive president?
 

"now that he has surrendered to Iran"

Yes, I know I'm going to the barbershop tomorrow so that I can be in compliance when the Gashte Ershad comes to my neighborhood soon. Lol, what ridiculous hyperbole.

"I am unsure why we need to wait any longer to evaluate Mr. Obama. Over the next year and a half, Obama will not enact any major legislation"

On recent threads you've bemoaned that Obama has dictatorially taken over and remade America, now you say he's a lame duck, ineffective executive. Incredible.

On a more serious note, I can see why we'd be wise to wait. If Hillary Clinton runs and wins following Obama's game plan of winning by 'changing the electorate' by bringing in lots of new voters rather than the strategy of playing the moderate that was the Democratic Party strategy from Carter to 2008, then I think it could be said that Obama's Presidential campaigns and terms have reconstructed the political playing field. We have to see if she does that and if it is successful.


 

"Does Reagan?"

I think Reagan passes here. Before Reagan would we have a Democratic Party President say 'the era of big government is over?'

Sure, you can argue Reagan and Clinton didn't really scale back much government, but the change in the rhetoric itself is significant in politics. And look at another measure: electoral maps. The South was blue for Carter in 76, the entire West Coast, red. Of course Reagan won most states in his wins, including the South, but tellingly his successor won, in a losing effort, most of the Southern states and lost every West Coast state in 92, and that pattern has held since.
 

In a more serious vein, "BREAKING NEWS" has inspired this:

POST-TRUMP-MORTEM*

GOP pros proclaim
"Trump is peaking,"
While his competitors
Are all piquing.

*[Wishful thinking.]

July 24, 2015




 

Our own WFCOIO's "Assuming these facts, ..." demonstrates once again his expertise lies more in fiction than in fact. Our own WFCOIO evaluated Obama in this manner from the day of his inauguration in January of 2009. Just check the archives of this Blog for verification.

Our own WFCOIO informs us what "The definition of a reconstructive president is not ... " but neglects to define what it is. Perhaps he could provide a definition, with a credible cite of course Googling did not provide an answer.
 

Perhaps it is time to pause and re-read Jack Balkin's follow up post to this post by Gerard. (Perhaps it is presumptuous of me to assume that some of the commenters actually read Jack's post in the first place.) Our own WFCOIO either did not read Jack's post, or fully understand it, as demonstrated by our own WFCOIO's cavalier conclusion about no need to wait any longer to evaluate Obama's presidency. Jack's closing paragraph:

"The Yugoslavian politician and writer Milovan Djilas once remarked that '[t]he hardest thing about being a Communist is trying to predict the past.' The same thing might be said about predicting reconstructive presidencies, not only while they are still ongoing, but even for years after they have ended."

can be applied to our own WFCOIO, not as a Communist, but as a free marketeer of The Gilded Age.

By the Bybee [expletives deleted], whether a presidency is considered reconstructive or transformative does not necessarily mean that the reconstruction or transformation was in America's best interests.

 

Shag:

Obama is not a lame duck precisely because he has been ruling by decree since the voters fired the Democrat House in 2010. Thus, my assumption for your evaluation of Obama that the bureaucracy will unleash a minimum of 20,000 pages of new regulations over the next year and a half. Given that the Supremes have just rubber stamped the IRS rewriting of the Obamacare statute's subsidy provision, I assume the bureaucracy will take this as a green light to freely rewrite other laws. See, e.g., the new rules redefining waterways under the Clean Water Act to include 100 year flood plains.

As Ted Cruz noted in an outstanding speech from the Senate floor today, the GOP Congress has not done a single thing to stop any of this lawlessness.

Speaking of lawlessness, I am curious whether AG Loretta Lynch has any integrity and independence. Two IGs just dumped what amounts to a criminal referral against Hillary Clinton on her desk. It is a felony crime to store classified information at an unauthorized location and, when the intelligence IG sampled jut 40 of the emails Clinton deigned to return to State, they found 4 contained information that was classified when the email was sent and stored and remains classified today. If this 10% hit rate holds for the other 55k emails, we are talking about 5,500 emails with classified information and 5.500 felony counts.

I am not holding my breath for Justice to act. Under this administration, laws are for the little people and political opponents.
 

Blankshot, you supported the Iraq disaster and torturing people. Do you really not understand why you have zero credibility when it comes to your attempts to smear Clinton?
 

As I look forward to the GOP 2016 Clown Limo debates, I thought of the late Walt Kelly' Pogo and crew in the Okefenokee Swamp addressing political issues of the day, including Sen. Joseph McCarthy. I have observed at other threads Ted Cruz's resembalance politically and otherwise to Sen. McCarthy. In honor of Pogo, I suggest as the theme for the GOP 2016 presidential debates "WE HAVE MET THE ENEMY AND S/HE IS US."

This brings me to our own WFCOIO who seems to be in lockstep (for the time being) with Ted Cruz. According to these locksteppers, the Executive and Judicial branches and even Congress are all out of step, with a cry-out for constitutional amendments. Of course, this is all part of the GOP political circus. Donald T-RUMP is merely a consolidation of the GOP candidates who preceded his entry. Poor John Kasich, the most recent entrant, with moderate intonations is being ignored. The Chicken Littles get the attention in the media.

I'm pleased that our own WFCOIO will not be holding his breath (although it might be beneficial to those exposed to his political halitosis), as he is a reminder of America's best days: "The Gilded Age" before we had pure food laws and clean water laws.

Meantime, I've got to go from bad to verse with this potential title:

"T-RUMP-TY DUMPTY BUILT A GREAT WALL"

somehow tying in all the GOP's horses and all the GOP's men.


 

Shag: Our own WFCOIO informs us what "The definition of a reconstructive president is not ... " but neglects to define what it is. Perhaps he could provide a definition...

Scroll back up to my first post. I give a definition and then apply if to FDR, Reagan and Obama.
 

This comment has been removed by the author.
 

BD: "now that he has surrendered to Iran"

Mr. W: Yes, I know I'm going to the barbershop tomorrow so that I can be in compliance when the Gashte Ershad comes to my neighborhood soon. Lol, what ridiculous hyperbole.

OK, how would you describe this situation?

Obama begins with an international sanctions regime which has plunged Iran into recession and driven it to the negotiating table.

After this deal, Obama ends by lifting not only the nuclear sanctions, but also the weapons embargo meant to slow Iran's wars across the region, in exchange for an inspection regime where Iran and a committee including its allies Russia and China have to approve inspections by the IAEA and under which the IAEA has agreed to allow Iran to take samples from the facilities which it denies access IAEA inspectors.

This is like a police officer telling a burglary suspect to inspect his own home for stolen goods and call the police department if he finds anything.

Surrender is an apt term.

 

Our own WFCOIO responds with a cite to himself in this thread:

"There are two measures for a reconstructive president - forming a new majority coalition in favor of a particular political economy and changing the political economy itself. As our progressive political economy becomes more independent of the people and the people more alienated from the progressive political economy, achieving both becomes increasingly difficult."

I asked for a "credible" cite. This was in response to my 8:57 PM comment last night. Presumably our own WFCOIO has been keeping search engines busy in search of a definition, ending up with his own. Credible? Incredible!

But I agree with our own WFCOIO that Pres. Obama is not a lame duck. Obama's j/25/15 Weekly Address [link available at Daily Kos] "Wall Street Reform Is Working" sets forth part of the foundation that will, in time, determine whether Obama is/was a reconstructive or transformative President.

And our own WFCOIO demonstrates that his foreign policy chops are as toothles, by gum, as his history and economics. Stupidity is an apt term for our own WFCOIO, although those well versed in international affairs may chuckle at his chuckle-headed:

"This is like a police officer telling a burglary suspect to inspect his own home for stolen goods and call the police department if he finds anything."


 

Speaking of reconstructive (and inspired by our own WFCOIO), here's my latest doggerel:

T-RUMP GOP RECONSTRUCTIVE?

T-RUMPT-TY DUMPTY built a great wall
Making it really quite tall,
Along the border with Mexico,
To satisfy his massive ego.

All the GOP horses and men
Tried to stop him again and again,
But his popularity soared
The more he ranted and roared.

T-RUMP-TY DUMPTY sat atop this wall,
While GOP pros awaited his fall,
But all the GOP horses and men
Couldn't put its brand together again.
 

Shag: "Our own WFCOIO informs us what "The definition of a reconstructive president is not ... " but neglects to define what it is. Perhaps he could provide a definition, with a credible cite of course Googling did not provide an answer."

BD: "There are two measures for a reconstructive president - forming a new majority coalition in favor of a particular political economy and changing the political economy itself."

Shag: "I asked for a "credible" cite"

I presume we are applying Stephen Skowronek's definition. The only link I could find is to the Google excerpts of The Politics Presidents Make: Leadership from John Adams to Bill Clinton. Go read the second paragraph of page 38.

https://books.google.com/books?id=6RUf5eY15T0C&printsec=frontcover&dq=The+Politics+Presidents+Make:+Leadership+from+John+Adams+to+Bill+Clinton++By+Stephen+Skowronek&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CCQQ6AEwAWoVChMI6oesncr2xgIVU1yICh1zWgyP#v=onepage&q=The%20Politics%20Presidents%20Make%3A%20Leadership%20from%20John%20Adams%20to%20Bill%20Clinton%20%20By%20Stephen%20Skowronek&f=false

 

John Dean, who has extended his 15m for forty or so years, had a pretty good column on Trump:

https://verdict.justia.com/2015/07/24/donald-trump-is-entertaining-but-when-will-it-end

He provided a link that neatly splits the Republican candidates into five tiers:

http://www.centerforpolitics.org/crystalball/2016-president/

Rubio is an interesting addition to the top tier (I asked a Republican who she likes & she pointed out him; not a fan of reruns or religious candidates & is a bit of a sucker for the cute ones). John Kasich is an interesting third tier guy. Seems sane. Might be a deficit.

It is interesting btw that Medicaid expansion, argued by some to be the most liberal aspect of ACA, is now accepted by many Republicans ... at least now that it's voluntary. For kicks, akin to baseball line-ups, I wonder about a few Republicans agreeing to ACA (after all the mandate portion was a Republican idea, if we take it as a serious one and not just a non-serious alternative put out there) if the Medicaid portion was voluntary. Jimmy Carter in his recent autobiography, e.g., notes his anti-abortion positions while noting prevention and government support of families is a major way to cut down numbers. So, support of contraceptives would be a pro-life move there.

Anyway, changes in gay/transsexual rights, health care, Iran/Cuba etc. is fairly transformative alone.

 

Sorry for going off topic Gerard, but I found Ted Cruz's speech on the Senate floor calling out the progressive majority leader and the rest of the leadership to be quite remarkable. You do not see this often in Washington because the leadership will punish you and GOP leadership has indeed cut Cruz out of reconciliation.

https://youtu.be/eE6HLbaAL0A
 

Joe, thanks (as usual) for the John Dean (not sausage) link, which I have downloaded to savor as dessert after lunch. I also took a peek at the Sabato link setting forth various GOP tiers, bringing tears of joy to my one good eye.

As to our WFCOIO's "apology" to Gerard for going off topic, it's feeble as it is an apparent attempt to bootstrap the "Cruz to Nowhere" he seems to be riding. As I suggested earlier, everyone but he and Cruz are out of step: the Executive, Judicial and Legislative branches. McConnell a progressive?
 

Shag:

Watch the speech before you put your fingers in gear on the keyboard.

Cruz is taking McConnell to task for fully funding Obamacare, FDR's Import Export Bank and the entire progressive state contrary to what he and party campaigned on in 2014.

Cruz's most biting observation was that every bill approved by the GOP Senate this year would have been approved by Harry Reid's Democrat Senate.

If it walks like a progressive, quacks like a progressive, its a progressive.
 

"Cruz's most biting observation was that every bill approved by the GOP Senate this year would have been approved by Harry Reid's Democrat Senate."

Considering nothing passed Harry Reid's Democrat Senate unless it had enough votes to override the inevitable GOP filibuster that doesn't say much.

"If it walks like a progressive, quacks like a progressive, its a progressive."

What ridiculous hyperbole. Mitch McConnell has a 100% rating from the National Right to Life and the National Federation of Independent Businesses and an A+ from the NRA. So that's how a progressive quacks, huh?
 

Mr. W: Considering nothing passed Harry Reid's Democrat Senate unless it had enough votes to override the inevitable GOP filibuster that doesn't say much.

The filibuster does not apply to funding bills.

Mitch McConnell has a 100% rating from the National Right to Life and the National Federation of Independent Businesses and an A+ from the NRA. So that's how a progressive quacks, huh?

And yet the GOP Senate is full funding Planned Parenthood and the regulatory bureaucracy which is crushing business.

As Cruz correctly noted on the Senate floor yesterday, the GOP establishment is very good at holding show votes (on which these "ratings" are largely based) but intentionally refuses to do anything effective with the power of the purse.

Congress can easily defund what it does not support without defending the entire government by enacting individual spending bills for each department and for major programs. For example, Congress could enact an separate funding bill for EPA which cuts their total appropriation in half and defunds entirely enforcement of coal regulations (something McConnell campaigned on back home in Kentucky coal country). If Obama vetoes this bill, he cannot shut down the entire government, but rather EPA is entirely defunded and very few voters would miss it. Congress could reverse much of the regulatory bureaucracy in this manner - if they wanted to do so. The progressive establishments of both parties clearly do not.


 

Will Cruz try to shut down government funding again? I assume our own WFCOIO is whispering encouragement in Cruz's ears as he follows in lockstep. But T-RUMP has more of the Tea Party than does Cruz. So our own WFCOIO must do some juggling to keep his Tea Party creds; he seems to be following the lead of his CO mentor anti-immigrant TOM-TOM Tancredo in not supporting T-RUMP.
 

For example, Congress could enact an separate funding bill for EPA which cuts their total appropriation in half and defunds entirely enforcement of coal regulations (something McConnell campaigned on back home in Kentucky coal country). If Obama vetoes this bill, he cannot shut down the entire government, but rather EPA is entirely defunded and very few voters would miss it.

# posted by Blogger Bart DePalma : 2:29 PM

They won't miss it until they start dying because the environment has been poisoned. Then they'll blame the morons who shut down the EPA.
 

Here's the penultimate [still my favorite word] paragraph from John Dean's Verdict column that Joe provided a link to:

***

But I can find no scenario in which he [Trump] could win the White House. Too many voters still remember Nixon, Agnew, Bush, and Cheney, who ranked high on the authoritarian leaders scale, albeit not as high as Donald Trump. Should it happen that Trump wins the GOP nomination, he will surely all but finish the destruction of the Republican Party, which began with the ascendency of the religious right and Southern conservatives leaving the “Big Tent” Democratic Party to make the GOP their unspoken racist home. The authoritarian base of the GOP has been steadily growing, and Trump could test its strength.

***

The column is worth a read, as is Peter Dreier's TPM article "Thank, Donald: How Trump Could Help The Democrats Win."

Yes, the tail is wagging the dog (and the doggerel). So perhaps it could be said that T-RUMP is transforming the Republican Party as a GOP candidate for the presidency.

 

Off topic, Ron Briley has an interesting review of David Sehat's "The Jefferson Rule: How the Founding Fathers became Infallible and Our Politics Inflexible." A link is available at the Legal History Blog's Sunday Book Roundup. The book's title sucked me in what with the current political dysfunction.
 

I'd personally love to see the destruction of the GOP. It's my home, after all, only because they got together with the Democrats to close off the 3rd party option. But, not gonna happen.

First past the post systems tend towards two major parties, and essentially all of the campaign 'reforms' of the last few decades have, no matter what their nominal purpose, had the effect of reinforcing that, further disadvantaging upstart third parties. If they hadn't done that, the GOP would probably already have gone the way of the Whigs, it is so widely hated by it's own electoral base.

And it's not in the interest of the Democratic party to have an effective opposition party. They will support the GOP to keep that space in the political system filled by an ineffective placeholder.

The only way to reform the GOP is from within, which is what the Tea party are attempting. The only way the GOP goes down is if the entire political system implodes. Which isn't off the table, if the disconnect between the national political class and the public gets any worse.
 

Is Brett the spokesperson for the Tea Party rather than our WFCOIO? Is the Tea Party so monolith that it can be described as a reform movement within the Republican Party? Trying to take over a party may re-form but not reform a party. (Recall Bundy as a prime TP-er..) A significant portion off the TP supports T-RUMP; and another portion supports Ted Cruz; and Dr. Carson and Rand Paul claim smaller portions.

Perhaps Brett and the TP should read Arthur C. Brooks' NYTimes column today "We Need Optimists." On line they can see pictures of clowns, one with a smile, one with a frown. Brooks is the President of American Enterprise Institute which long has had unsmiling faces in its membership. Brooks has been trying to change that. In his column he doesn't get into specifics on the 2016 GOP Clown Limo group, perhaps wishing to avoid the wrath of "The Donald," especially since AEI relies upon contributions from the really rich to support its political agenda.

I'm curious as to Brett's closed 3rd party option. Might it relate to Strom Thurmond or George Wallace or David Duke?

And Brett seems to be wearing his tin foil hat with his suggestion political parties implosion. That may be the chapeau of choice for self-proclaimed anarcho libertarian/2nd A absolutist.

So maybe Brett should take Brooks' advice and let a smile be his umbrella.
 

BD: For example, Congress could enact an separate funding bill for EPA which cuts their total appropriation in half and defunds entirely enforcement of coal regulations (something McConnell campaigned on back home in Kentucky coal country). If Obama vetoes this bill, he cannot shut down the entire government, but rather EPA is entirely defunded and very few voters would miss it.

bb: They won't miss it until they start dying because the environment has been poisoned. Then they'll blame the morons who shut down the EPA.

When a Democrat president "shuts down the government" by vetoing an appropriation bill, they unconstitutionally allocate tax revenues to programs they deem essential and deny funding to those they deem non-essential. Clinton and Obama have deemed nearly all of EPA and most of the regulatory bureaucracy as non-essential.

No one has died as a result.
 

Brett: The only way to reform the GOP is from within, which is what the Tea party are attempting. The only way the GOP goes down is if the entire political system implodes. Which isn't off the table, if the disconnect between the national political class and the public gets any worse.

That is what we in the Tea Party are working towards, but I have come to the conclusion that we cannot reverse the progressive political economy democratically because the bureaucracy and judiciary is now imposing the vast majority of the law, the Constitution's checks allow a political minority to prevent a congressional majority from reversing the bureaucracy, the Congress cannot keep up with the flood of regulation to identify what to reverse, and big business and the party establishments are fully invested in the progressive political economy are unwilling to use the powers they do possess like appropriations to slow nevertheless reverse the progressive political economy.

We need fundamental constitutional reform from outside of the Washington leviathan and even that may require a crisis on the scale of imminent national failure (as was the case in the 1780s) to become reality.
 

"The filibuster does not apply to funding bills."

That's not correct, is it?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/2015/06/18/democrats-block-defense-spending-bill-filibuster-summer-begins/
 

The Sunday political shows in verse:

***

T-RUMP TOWERS UBER ALLES!

Tall buildings bear his name,
TV reality shows added fame,
All before his presidential claim.
“The Donald” shows no shame,
And never accepts blame,
As his remarks inflame,
Even calling opponents lame.
For “The Donald” there is no tame
As he sits atop the polling game
With the Tea Party’s acclaim.

July 26, 2015

***

 

This comment has been removed by the author.
 

Mr. W:

Here is a good breakdown of the Senate rules concerning budget resolutions.

http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2012/02/parliamentary-procedure

I have no idea from your article what procedural mechainsm the Democrats are using.
 

No one has died as a result.
# posted by Blogger Bart DePalma : 10:50 AM

I'm completely in favor of getting rid of the EPA, as long as all the resulting toxic waste is dumped on your house. Deal?
 

BB:

I elect and pay a Congress to enact law.
 

I elect and pay a Congress to enact law.
# posted by Blogger Bart DePalma : 8:35 PM

You're also an imbecile. If the GOP honestly tried to legislate your world view, they'd never win another election. Which, thanks to candidates like Cruz and Trump, may happen anyways.

 

With this:

"I elect and pay a Congress to enact law."

our own WFCOIO seems to be making an admission that he is personally responsible for the current political dysfunction.

While voting is individual (when permitted), elections work collectively, except for those with Koch Bros. mentality (aka Citizens United) but w/o the the gelt.

And keep in mind, WE elect the Executive to execute laws and WE provide support by paying taxes. And the taxes WE pay support the Judicial branch. WE don't always agree on their wisdom. Over time, WE make progress, two steps forward, one step back, towards a more perfect Union (at least for those of US who are optimists - aka progressives). Keep in mind the Constitution starts with "We, the People ... " not "I, the libertarian .... '

And let's give a HAPPY BIRTHDAY shout out to Medicare (thanks, LBJ) as it approaches its 50th birthday (and closer itself to being eligible for its benefits).
 

It has been suggested that the GOP may go the way of the Whigs in 1854 as the 2016 GOP Clown Limo engages in a circular firing squad (with "The Donald" doing the firing). So the doggerel continues:

***


T-RUMPUS!

His opponents fret:
“Will he T-RUMP us,
Or create a T-RUMPUS?”
On the Fox debate set?

How can they prepare
For his political tourette
And unwillingness to regret,
All in TV’s glare?

Can they avoid challenging
“The Donald’s” wild views
And his tendency to abuse,
Fearful of his avenging?

He has “noticed” the RNC
That if not treated with respect
He may just defect
And form a third party.

July 27, 2015

***

The defollicling of the Whig Party in 1854 eventually led to the election of Abe Lincoln, the candidate of the then newly successful Republican Party. But the Republican Party of today has long not been the Republican Party of Lincoln, its base consisting primarily of former Democrats in the former slave states post Brown v. Bd. of Educ. (1954), such that there is some resemblance between the current GOP and the Whigs of 1854.

 

Shaq, I think the modern GOP is much more the Party of Jackson than the Whig Party:

" Jackson is, clearly, the father of the modern Republican Party. As the modern historian Daniel Howe has noted, Jackson’s aggressive policy of Indian-fighting shaped the political landscape of the era. A humanitarian protest movement sprung up to oppose Jackson’s savage aggression, which heavily overlapped with the slowly deepening divide over slavery. In the House, four fifths of slave-state representatives voted for the Indian Removal Act, while only a third of representatives from free states did.

Jackson was a populist, but he directed his populism not at the local elites (of which he was one) but at the federal government. He favored the gold standard, and his opposition to a National Bank served the interests of the local banks that competed against it. He believed the Constitution prevented the government from taking an active role in managing economic affairs. He was instinctively aggressive, poorly educated, anti-intellectual, and suspicious of bureaucrats. (Jackson replaced more qualified federal staffers with partisan hacks.) He resisted any challenge to racial hierarchies. The opposition to Jackson stood for the reverse — a more interventionist federal government, more lenient treatment of racial minorities, a less aggressive foreign policy.

The qualities of the right-wing opposition during the Obama era has made the historic reversal all the more clear. Republicans have revived what they call “Constitutional conservatism,” which reprises the Jacksonian belief that the Constitution prevents economic intervention by the government. Tea-party activists in particular have sounded deeply Jacksonian themes in their populist attacks on TARP, and then Obama’s programs, as giveaways to powerful insiders. As a writer for the right-wing Breitbart News argued several months ago, “Jackson’s views on federalism and economics should be more carefully studied today.”

http://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2015/07/the-party-of-lincoln-is-now-the-party-of-jackson-and-vice-versa

 

Jacksonian grass roots populism reversing the corrupt National Bank and "internal improvement"schemes of the day, opposing tariffs and returning to a free market is indeed very similar to today's Tea Party movement. If you read the histories of the period, it will all sound very familiar. The National Bank was printing money and lending it to its cronies, while the federal government was awarding infrastructure projects to the politically connected, which often overran their budgets or went unfinished.

However, in his racism and giving government jobs to party members, Jackson was very much the father of the Democratic Party.
 

So, Mr. W, let's take Jackson off the $20 bill and substitute Harriet Tubman. While Jackson was openly pro-slavery, the current GOP base deep down seems to resent the efforts to demise Jim Crow.

Regarding the "right-wing "Breitbart," we here have to deal with the dumb version who views "The Gilded Age" as America's best days; perhaps he will reconsider based upon the quote you provide to Jackson's days, marching even further back in time.
 

Shag:

The Laissez Faire period started with Jackson and ended when Congress tried to create economic growth through silver currency inflation and caused two deep recessions in the 1890s.

The Laissez Faire period saw nearly 5% average growth (including recessions) and saw the United States become the largest and most efficient economy on Earth with the highest wages.

In stark contrast, during the Obama Depression (2009-present), our economic growth is only 2%, our productivity growth has almost disappeared, and our incomes are falling to stagnant. The other progressive nations in the OECD are undergoing repeated recessions.

The figures speak for themselves.
 

Past party dynamics tend to be imperfect overlap to the current day but there is some truth to the LGM quote. A useful quick read there would be the OP's book on Jackson.

"Andrew Jackson and the Constitution: The Rise and Fall of Generational Regimes"

 

Our own WFCOIO proclaims:

"The figures speak for themselves."

suggesting that he need not speak. It's been said that "Figures don't lie, but liars figure." Rather than cites to credible sources, our own WFCOIO pulls "figures" our of his handy orifice. He states:

"The Laissez Faire period saw nearly 5% average growth (including recessions) and saw the United States become the largest and most efficient economy on Earth with the highest wages."

in a conclusory fashion without setting timeframes for comparison, as during much of that period "Manifest Destiny" was underway. Is that a suggestion that "the highest wages" were fairly distributed among workers or was there a 0.01 factor back then?

And our own WFCOIO neglects - but not through ignorance - the economy Obama inherited from the 8 years of Bush/Cheney that climaxed (to the max!) with the Bush/Cheney Great Recession of 2007-8. Actually there is no "Obama Depression (2009-present)" but rather the depression mentally of our dumb version of Breitbart with the election of America's first African-American President after he had marched in lockstep with Bush/Cheney, only abandoning its sinking ship of state in the manner that rats are said to do.

 

Shag:

You can calculate annual real GDP growth here: http://www.measuringworth.com/growth/

You can get the rest of the data from Contours of the World Economy 1-2030 AD by Angus Maddison.

The 2008 recession was caused by the mass default of the subprime home mortgage market the progressive banking regulators started directing and subsidizing in the mid to late 1990s. Artificial demand from this government subprime market started a housing bubble in 1997, which burst in 2007.

The following depression (a recession without a recovery) was caused by progressive taxing, borrowing, spending and regulating policy, much like the New Deal killed off the recovery from the 1930-1932 recession.

The presidents and parties responsible are really irrelevant. Blame it all on Bush, if that floats your boat.

What is relevant is the comparative results of a free market and a progressive political economy.
 

Here's a portion of our own WFCOIO' response:

"The presidents and parties responsible are really irrelevant. Blame it all on Bush, if that floats your boat."

Apparently it floated our own WFCOIO's boat in his sea of sewage in his earlier "the Obama Depression (2009-present)" presented in a pejorative manner; just check back in the archives of this Blog his reaction to Pres. Obama shortly after his inauguration in January of 2009. He serves as an anti-Obama troll at this Blog. Hoover was irrelevant? Hoover had more than 3 years following the '29 Crash to come up with some economic solution; of course he had been left with 8 years of Harding and Coolidge. By the time Hoover left office, the economy was bad world-wide. Bush/Cheney were irrelevant? They inherited a surplus from Clinton and squandered it with 2 tax cuts for the rich, 2 wars on "credit cards," lies, lies, lies, etc. Obama inherited a deep hole and the economy has clearly improved despite efforts of the GOP to thwart actions taken by Obama. Our own WFCOIO' depression claim puts him in my descriptive of a T-RUMP.

And he further responds:

"What is relevant is the comparative results of a free market and a progressive political economy."

He describes the "free market economy" as the period beginning with Jackson (1830s) to some point in the 1890s and the "progressive political economy" as beginning sometime thereafter to the present. [Note his use of "political" for the latter but not the former economy. During at least The Gilded Age portion of the former, state legislatures were bought by robber barons for the election of favorable Senators.] And he selects out Obama's 6+ years to compare with the whole of his "free market economy." Factors differed significantly during the time periods covered by his described economies, totalling perhaps 170-180 years, without historical and economic perspectives. Yes, our own WFCOIO is a cherry-picker; unfortunately he's the pits.

And the subprime market was not the sole cause of the Bush/Cheney Great Recession of 2007-2008. Our own WFCOIO conveniently ignores what the Bush/Cheney duo did to the economy over its entire 8 years. Add to this the "free market" greed of Wall Street primarily under Bush/Cheney.

Blame the progressives for pure food and drug laws, for clean water, for efforts to control the greed of Wall Street, none of which were provided for during our own WFCOIO new best days of America From Jackson to sometime in the 1890s. Up to the Reconstruction Amendments during this new best days, we had slavery followed by Jim Crow. Now just what was "free" and for whom, in that "market."
 

"What is relevant is the comparative results of a free market and a progressive political economy."

Of course, as I've pointed out here before, growth in the 1960's matched that of the 5% cited by Bart as that of the Laissez-Faire period.

As is typical of 'Austrian' economists, you just pick and choose among evidence until you get what looks like your pre-existing axioms confirmed.
 

"Now just what was "free" and for whom, in that "market.""

Indeed, considering a third of his cited 'free market' period included legalized mass chattel slavery.
 

Shag: Hoover had more than 3 years following the '29 Crash to come up with some economic solution; of course he had been left with 8 years of Harding and Coolidge. By the time Hoover left office, the economy was bad world-wide..

Good heavens, you need to brush up on your history.

Hoover was the leader of the progressive wing of the GOP after TR left the party.

Harding and Coolidge ignored Hoover's prescriptions during the 1920 recession and instead slashed taxes, slashed spending even more and started paying down the WWI debt. The result was the Roaring 20s, the most prosperous period of the past century.

When Hoover became president, he imposed a wide spectrum of progressive policy including fair trade tariffs, an effective minimum wage and a millionaire's tax to pay for a doubling of federal spending. The tariffs started a trade war which all but destroyed our foreign commerce. Businesses who relied upon international trade defaulted on their bank loans. The progressive Fed stopped lending to banks, causing mass bank failures. Hoover immediately convened conferences with business leaders and jawboned them into maintaining wages in the face of falling business income, arguing that this would stimulate demand. Instead, it caused mass layoffs. With tax revenues shrinking and a desire to double spending to pay for public works, Hoover imposed a massive income tax increase. The result was the worst recession in American history between 1930-1932.

The mass default of the government directed and subsidized subprime home mortgage market was the sole cause of the 2008 recession. We enjoyed solid economic growth and full employment after the 2003 tax reforms. If the Obama BLS used the same labor participation rate as in 2007, our current U3 unemployment rate would be about 10%.

There have only been two depressions (recessions with our recoveries) in American history - the Great Depression and our current depressions.

FDR doubled down on most of Hoover's bad policies and then added laws encouraging labor to strike and massive regulation to the mix. The result was a capital strike, depressed economic growth and mass unemployment for years.

Obama made the tax code the most progressively punitive (sharpest increase from bottom to top) since Hoover, increased annual borrowing and spending by roughly $800 billion, and unleashed the largest volume of regulation in American history (including the New Deal). The result was a capital strike, depressed economic growth and mass unemployment for years.

You have to engage in a will suspension of disbelief not to see that our progressive political economy is failing.
 

"Obama made the tax code the most progressively punitive"

By letting the Bush tax cuts at the top expire?
 

These poll numbers are great news for John McCain!!!
 

I was admitted to the MA Bar in 1954 when Ike was President. Under the 1954 Code, the highest tax bracket was 91%. The lowest bracket was 20%. As I recall, there was still on the books an excess profits tax on certain WWII income in addition.

Now our own WFCOIO looks upon the Bush/Cheney years as the good old days with this:
"We enjoyed solid economic growth and full employment after the 2003 tax reforms."

Apparently it didn't last long - and of course the benefits went primarily to the top 1%.

Has our own WFCOIO switched from Cruz to Jeg!? [Curious: How does he accomplish so many unlocksteps? Perhaps he is a contortionist not only of facts.]
 

Mr. W: Of course, as I've pointed out here before, growth in the 1960's matched that of the 5% cited by Bart as that of the Laissez-Faire period.

Over the first century after the ratification of the Constitution, the economy grew an average of nearly 5% per year, Including recessions.

From the advent of progressivism in the 1890s, we have gone through cycles of high government and low economic expansion alternating with periods of low government and high economic expansion. We have not had a multi generational expansion like during our first century.

The 1960s were part of the Post-War Recovery (1946-1972), one of the periods of partial liberalization and higher economic growth. Between 1944 and 1947, we cut spending in half, reduced the effective tax rates by eliminating the wartime special taxes and increasing deductibles, lowered the tariffs returning international trade, dramatically deregulated the economy by reversing the wartime and many of the New Deal directions, then leashed the unions with Taft Hartley. By 1947, the private economy had finally recovered from the Depression. The regulatory bureaucracy was held in check though most of this period and the Kennedy/Johnson tax cuts further reduced the tax burden.

The 1960s were the only part of this period without a recession, thus the higher growth rate. There is no comparison between the GDP of the decade of the 1960s without a recession and our first post Constitution century including recessions. The periods during this first century between recessions often grew in the high single digits for years on end.

Unfortunately, Post-War Recovery ended with our nation's second Stagflation between 1973-1982.

Now just what was "free" and for whom, in that "market." Indeed, considering a third of his cited 'free market' period included legalized mass chattel slavery.

The slave economy had low productivity and low growth. If slavery were eliminated and we enjoyed a freer market, our economic growth would have been even faster.

BD: "Obama made the tax code the most progressively punitive"

Mr. W: By letting the Bush tax cuts at the top expire?

The combination of the Obama "half-millionaire tax" and the new Obamacare taxes raised the effective top personal rate higher than during Clinton and raised the capital gains rate for the same group by 1/3. Under this new regime, the top 20% of earners pay nearly 80% of the total tax burden and the bottom 20% of earners pay almost no net taxes after all the welfare payments in the form of tax credits are factored in. The last time the tax burden was so lopsided was under Hoover. It punishes the poor for entering the middle class and punishes small business for becoming successful and entering the top 20% of earners.

 

"There is no comparison between the GDP of the decade of the 1960s without a recession and our first post Constitution century including recessions."

You're right, there's no comparison, I'll take the growth without any recession!

Regardless of your cherry picking here, the point is clear that economic growth on par with the goalpost you yourself chose is entirely compatible with what you called a 'progressive political economy,' for that was surely in effect from 1960-1969 if the phrase as you use it has any meaning.
 

"The slave economy had low productivity and low growth."

Indeed, which is why I think it's incredible that you could use the terms 'free market period' in reference to a time in which mass legal slavery existed. It's almost as if you overlooked the rather severe restrictions on the liberty of a good chunk of the population to focus on how things were for the white males of the time. That seems to be a common Tea Party failing though...Their Golden Ages were hardly that for blacks (not to mention women, gays, and other minorities), and the tendency to overlook that that is all so common among TP types is pretty incredible. Any measure of how 'free' a market is has to take into account the rather severe restrictions in economic activity on people (both slave and white, the restraints on slaves kept many whites from doing meaningful business or association with many blacks) that existed at those times.



 

The 1960s were the only part of this period without a recession, thus the higher growth rate. There is no comparison between the GDP of the decade of the 1960s without a recession and our first post Constitution century including recessions.

# posted by Blogger Bart DePalma : 5:19 PM

LOL

These poll numbers are great news for John McCain!!

Baghdad, you have an amazing ability to remain oblivious to reality.
 

Our own WFCOIO with this:

"The slave economy had low productivity and low growth. If slavery were eliminated and we enjoyed a freer market, our economic growth would have been even faster."

attempts to make an economic prediction of the past, assuming the elimination of slavery. Well, slavery was finally eliminated by the 13th A during what he calls the "free market economy" several decades before the demise of that "economy." But while it was in effect, the slave states and their disciples got into a war to preserve their slave culture; were they economically stupid? Assuming there is/ever was in reality such a thing as a "free market," how can it become "freer"? Of course, after slavery was ended, the facts on the ground substituted Jim Crow laws to economically inhibit former slaves. Perhaps the economy might have improved if the Jim Crow laws did not come into play. What role did our WFCOIO's "free market economy" play with Jim Crow laws?

Let's go back to our own WFCOIO's 10:29 AM comment that included this:


"The Laissez Faire period saw nearly 5% average growth (including recessions) and saw the United States become the largest and most efficient economy on Earth with the highest wages."

In my follow up comment, I said that he seemed to be making " a suggestion that 'the highest wages' were fairly distributed among workers or was there a 0.01 factor back then?" We know the robber barons of The Gilded Age were doing quite well, including with government subsidies. But what about the exploited labor building railroads, etc, for the robber barons? What were those "highest wages"?

 

Mr. W:

Comparing a century worth of growth with a decade is like comparing a marathon with a 5k fun run.

A more apt comparison is our first century of relative freedom versus the past century of progressivism featuring two depressions with mass unemployment and 2/3 of the growth of the first century.

A political economy where 85% are free and 15% are slave is freer and demonstrably more productive than one where everyone is half free under government direction.

A political economy where 100% are free is a golden age. Maybe some day America will enjoy one. We will not on our current road.


 

Shag:

By definition, a free market is composed of free men and women. The roughly 15% of the American economy based on slave labor was not free. However, as I noted above, a political economy where 85% are free and 15% are slave is freer and demonstrably more productive than one where everyone is half free under government direction.

The optimal solution is 100% freedom. We cannot accomplish that until progressivism is tossed onto the ash heap of history.
 

Shag:

You get wealthy by investing in a successful business, not on wages. Wages during the 19th century overwhelmingly mean working class wages.

One of the reasons why socialism never really took root in America is because our workers were paid more and had access to more and cheaper goods and services than European workers.
 

Our own WFCOIO continues to ignore the impact of Jim Crow laws on his "free market economy." Of course, Jim Crow laws continued well into the 20th century and remnants still exist with the white supremacy movement underway. But as Howell Raines said "Demography is destiny." Might that result in the "free market" that our own WFCOIO seems to think is elusive? And those "highest wages" he talks about, do they have any numbers for comparison not with Europe but here in the good old US of A in our history. The "invisible hand" has in the past picked the pockets of labor here in America.

In that first century, agriculture provided for much employment. But with technology and less need for Ma and Pa farms, "How ya gonna keep 'em down on the farm, after they've seen Paree? Changes take place effecting the economy, making comparisons with the "good old days" difficult.

Perhaps the reason socialism did not take root in America is because progressivism did. And as Ronnie Reagan said, "Progress is our most important product." Meantime, our own WFCOIO continues with his digressions and displays his personal depressions, all because of President Obama - which means that Obama must be doing something right.

Time to check under the bed for libertarians before going to sleep.



 

Shag:

The same reasoning concerning slavery applies to Jim Crow.

The Industrial Revolution and the era of invention covered most of our first century. Agriculture did not increase its efficiency dramatically until it started mechanizing at the end of that century.

After it arrived on the scene, it took about 40 years for progressivism to take hold during the New Deal. Socialism reached its zenith a couple decades before when Eugene Debs managed to get around a million votes for president.
 

a political economy where 85% are free and 15% are slave is freer and demonstrably more productive than one where everyone is half free under government direction.

# posted by Blogger Bart DePalma : 9:23 PM

They have 100% "freedom" from government in Afghanistan, you nitwit.
 

BB:

Being ruled by warlords is hardly the absence of government.

The freest society is one where government is limited to preventing people from harming one another and thus denying them liberty. In such a classically liberal political economy, neither the government or our neighbors can abridge our freedom.
 

Being ruled by warlords is hardly the absence of government.

# posted by Blogger Bart DePalma : 9:39 AM

Numbnuts, being ruled by warlords is what you get in the absence of government.
 

The freest society is one where government is limited to preventing people from harming one another and thus denying them liberty. In such a classically liberal political economy, neither the government or our neighbors can abridge our freedom.
# posted by Blogger Bart DePalma : 9:39 AM

How about the robber barons? Can they abridge your freedom? Do you think the government should do anything about that sort of behavior? Or is that how you see yourself?
 

This comment has been removed by the author.
 

BB: "How about the robber barons? Can they abridge your freedom?"

This is nearly impossible in a free market.

In a free market, a business creates the goods and services they wish and offer them for sale. In turn, the consumer can voluntarily agree to buy the goods and services, buy another businesses competing goods and services, or decide to save or invest their money. As a business owner, you can only become a successful "robber baron" by consistently providing the goods and services people want to improve their lives.

The only exception is a natural monopoly where competition is impossible like a utility.

However, this is very possible in a progressive political economy.

When the government directs the economy to create "winners and losers" among businesses and individuals, big business can and does capture the government to tax money from others to provide itself with "corporate welfare" and to carve out waivers and exceptions from the regulatory state for itself while the bureaucracy crushes its smaller and less politically connected competition.

Big business LOVES progressivism.

 

BB: "How about the robber barons? Can they abridge your freedom?"

This is nearly impossible in a free market.

# posted by Blogger Bart DePalma : 10:23 AM

I've got some bad news for you, spanky. There is no such thing as a free market.
 

bb:

I don't expect that you will actually read this, but if anyone else is actually interested in the subject, I recommend The Myth of the Robber Barons: A New Look at the Rise of Big Business in America by Burton W. Folsom, Jr.
 

The robber barons in The Gilded Age were well subsidized by governments; they bought state legislatures to better control the US Senate. But according to our own WFCOIO The Gilded Age, part of his "free market economy," were America's best days, with the robber barons free to do what they wished, but labor was denied the right to unite in order to bargain better by leveling the playing field. Our own WFCOIO dwells in the long past past, hates the present, and does not like what he sees in the future. Of course, he has choices. Maybe he will enjoy the upcoming GOP Clown Limo debates that will spew his kind of hatreds in what one pundit has tagged as the GOP Demolition Derby.

And he hates big business, that funds much of the GOP base with the Court's Citizens United (5-4) political gift blessing. As in The Gilded Age, money talks.

By the Bybee [expletives deleted], there were no libertarians under my bed and I slept soundly.
 

I don't expect that you will actually read this
# posted by Blogger Bart DePalma : 10:39 AM

Blankshot, you are as ill-informed as anyone I have ever encountered. What possible incentive do I have to follow in your ignorant footsteps?
 

This comment has been removed by the author.
 

This comment has been removed by the author.
 

Shag: "The robber barons in The Gilded Age were well subsidized by governments"

The subsidies for the transcontinental railroad were a scandal at that time, but hardly amounted to a drop in the economic bucket.

Do you realize that the entire federal budget was only about 5% of GDP?

Names, industries and subsidies, please.
 

Apparently our own WFCOIO failed to notice the plural "governments," which included states as well as the fderal government. And how were US Senators elected during tThe Gilded Age?
 

Shag:

Plural or singular, my request still stands: Names, industries and subsidies, please.
 

Our own WFCOIO pulls stuff out of his orifices by mentioning "a drop in the economic bucket" and then informing us (in the form of a question):

"Do you realize that the entire federal budget was only about 5% of GDP?"

suggesting that the subsidies of the federal government are neatly listed in GDP reporting. Subsidies provided by states are not listed in the federal GDP. And payments made to get state legislatures to elect US Senators in those days were quid pro quo to members.

But I'll get my staff to work on this, a time consuming task, as not only railroads but canals, etc, are in the mix of the robber barons' heinous activities. Meantime, you've got a few questions to respond to.

Has anyone read Zephyer Teachout's works on corruption in American? If so, a heads up would be appreciated if it addresses The Gilded Age.
 

Shag:

You are tap dancing now.

GDP estimates count all spending - private and government. Government spending - federal, state and local - is easy to reconstruct for the era before government record keeping because their budgets are public record.

Attempting to influence elected officials and other corruption is not corporate welfare. It is a problem endemic with all government, which is why you limit government power.

Just admit that that you erred when you claimed: ""The robber barons in The Gilded Age were well subsidized by governments"

It simply is not true. This was the Laissez Faire era.
 

"Comparing a century worth of growth with a decade is like comparing a marathon with a 5k fun run."

We've played this game before, and you can pick any given round decade with your preferred period and the 60's will match up with it.

"A political economy where 85% are free and 15% are slave is freer and demonstrably more productive than one where everyone is half free under government direction."

This is an astoundingly morally obtuse statement.

It is so first because it once again elides that women, gays, Native Americans, etc., that fell under US jurisdiction in your preferred age had major restrictions on their liberty. If a woman wanted to practice law or other professions, she would be denied. If a gay person lived outwardly gay he would find himself imprisoned in jail or a mental asylum (of likely face a worse extra-legal fate). Etc. So the idea that '85%' of the population were totally free compounds your previous error of discounting the experiences of those different than you and myopically fixating only on those like you.

It is so because it assumes that even people like yourself were totally free. There were plenty of restrictions in the form of laws and regulations then. Many enterprises were granted outright monopolies in many areas, for example (remember what was at issue, and what was validated, in the Slaughterhouse cases). So your calculation cannot be 85% totally free.

But this gets to the third reason which is both the worst and the most telling about the paucity of modern 'libertarianism' and small government movements. It equates a modern person today as being '50%' a slave. I'm sure you arrive at this through some silly pseudo-consequentialist reasoning such as that people today pay 50% of their income into taxes or there's so many more laws/regulations today. I certainly don't contest that (at least in regards to white, heterosexual males). What you miss is that there is a qualitative difference, not a quantitative degree of difference involved in these matters. The slave suffered a taking of his entire inalienable right of autonomy, it was nothing like a '50%' extra version of having to follow minimum wage laws, having to buy his food from FDA inspected sources and the like. Every free man lives still in a world of restrictions, of laws and regulations. The degree to which these impinge on them can vary and be complained of. But the free man under some restrictions is light years away from the slave, whose very life itself is subject to forfeit by his master. You might as well count the prisoner as simply having 22.5% more restrictions than the non-prisoner!

That you have to have this non-quantifiable specialness about the total lack of one's freedom and liberty explained to you, a purported libertarian, speaks volumes about what modern day 'libert'arianism is about (and what it is not).


 

"Just admit that that you erred when you claimed: ""The robber barons in The Gilded Age were well subsidized by governments"


How did he err? The Robber Barons were not all the wealthy people in the United States, they were specific people like Leland Stanford (who used his political connections to have the state pass laws prohibiting competition for his Central Pacific railroad) or Jay Gould (who became the dominant stockholder of the Union Pacific Railway which was built as the Union Pacific Roalroad with heavy subsidies and an important part of Tammany Hall), people who undoubtedly received important government assistance.
 

Actually it's a fandango. Check out Shmoop's "Politics in the Gilded Age" at:

http://www.shmoop.com/gilded-age/politics.html

One of my crack staff not on crack came up with this fairly quickly. While our own WFCOIO will derogate Shmoop, need I remind viewers that I think he qualifies as a Seinfeldian "shmoopi.".

But what is the goal of our WFCOIO with his stress on The Gilded Age? Is that his model for overcoming political dysfunction that we have today? It's like he's stuck in limbo. Perhaps its the best he can do to recoup his lockstep ways with Bush/Cheney that cratered with its 2007-8 Great Recession. Perhaps out own WFCOIO took Monty Python seriously.

Tonight I'll look for libertines under my bed and if I find any, I won't get any sleep what with, inter alia, fandangos.
 

Curses, no libertines! So after digesting more reports on T-RUMP, including depositions testimonies, and especially certain actions taken by a Republican in New Mexico, I was inspired, producing this epithet:

***


‘THE DONALD”
RIP*

The
Really
Ultimate
Mexican
Pinata

July 29, 2015

*Rest In Pieces

***

I'll keep my fingers crossed that this won't became a reality at the upcoming Fox 2016 GOP Demolition Derby.

 

Trump did lead us to get various reports about how many conservatives didn't want the marital rape exception to be abolished. Perhaps, we can get calls about how sexism is no more, just like some want to deem racism requiring various solutions that are imperfect as part of our distant past.

http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/meet-the-marital-rape-deniers

Harper Lee's "found" novel btw was somewhat raw as in having the flavor of a first draft, but it had some good aspects, including showing the underside of polite racism.

 

BD: "A political economy where 85% are free and 15% are slave is freer and demonstrably more productive than one where everyone is half free under government direction."

Mr. W: This is an astoundingly morally obtuse statement. It is so first because it once again elides that women, gays, Native Americans, etc., that fell under US jurisdiction in your preferred age had major restrictions on their liberty.

Women productively worked in the economy and at home. They can and did own businesses. The professions were a tiny part of the economy at that time.

American Indians were not counted as part of the US economy at that time. In any case, their economy was little more than subsistence hunter, gatherer and very basic farming. It would not have even shown up on a GDP calculation.

Gays stayed "in the closet" and worked in the economy like everyone else.

It is so because it assumes that even people like yourself were totally free. There were plenty of restrictions in the form of laws and regulations then. Many enterprises were granted outright monopolies in many areas, for example (remember what was at issue, and what was validated, in the Slaughterhouse cases). So your calculation cannot be 85% totally free.

Government created monopolies were exceedingly rare at that time. The statute involved in the Slaughterhouse Cases was meant to deal with a public nuisance.

"It equates a modern person today as being '50%' a slave."

You offered the term "slave," I did not. The progressive political economy is an entirely different critter.

The government now directs nearly all of our economic lives and an increasing portion of our personal lives.

To run a business, you must purchase a government license. Then the government directs what you can produce, how you will produce it, how you may advertise it, the locations and hours you may sell it, and to whom you must sell it.

If you hire employees, the government will mandate minimum compensation in wages, benefits and time off. The government will determine employee working conditions and the conditions under which you may fire the employee.

If you want to work in the professions and an increasing number of avocations, you must at minimum buy a license and often belong to a government monopoly like the bar association. Each of these licenses and monopolies have detailed requirements which often take up an entire books.

If you want to work for a business, the government forbids you from entering into an agreement to work for experience and a sub-minimum compensation.

If you are a young teenager and want to work to earn your own money to buy things or even to help support your family, the government generally bars employers from hiring you.

If you are a consumer, the government directs what you are permitted to buy including homes, vehicles, tools, appliances, lightbulbs, consumables, etc. I doubt you can name more than a handful of products which are not government regulated.

I have not even addressed taxes.

My use of the term "half free" may have been generous.
 

Shag:

Shmoop? Really?

For what very little that source is worth, the only government subsidy of a "robber baron" business you will find there is the transcontinental railroad I discussed above.
 

If you are a young teenager and want to work to earn your own money to buy things or even to help support your family, the government generally bars employers from hiring you.

# posted by Blogger Bart DePalma : 11:02 AM

WTF are you talking about? My niece made more money working on a movie when she was 12 than I make.
 

If you are a consumer, the government directs what you are permitted to buy including homes, vehicles, tools, appliances, lightbulbs, consumables, etc. I doubt you can name more than a handful of products which are not government regulated.

# posted by Blogger Bart DePalma : 11:02 AM

You know where there are very few government regulations (none, probably) and children can start working soon after they learn to walk? Afghanistan. That place must be awesome!
 

BB:

What makes you think places like Afghanistan have no government?

There is Sharia, tribal law, the dictates of the local warlord(s) and occasionally even the national government.

We are comparing the first century to today in America.
 

Getting back to our own WFCOIO's:


"A political economy where 85% are free and 15% are slave is freer and demonstrably more productive than one where everyone is half free under government direction."

Presumably that was for the entire US during the timeframe he selected. What would those percentages be for the then slave states to compare with how much freer the non-slave states were? Of course, we all know that the base of the current Republican Party post-Brown v. Bd. of Educ (1954) are former Democrats in the former slave states. According to our own WFCOIO some negative stats are a mere drop in the bucket.

 

"My use of the term "half free" may have been generous."

More like preposterous.

The difference between a person today under government regulation and a slave near our Founding is like the difference between a man who has entered into quite a few binding contracts vs. an indentured servant.

There are an almost infinite number of choices available to a person living under even heavy regulatory burdens (which, btw, I do not necessarily support). I could at this moment decide to pursue an almost infinite number of occupations. Now, of course, many of these will have varying levels of required 'hoops' the government says I must jump through in order for me to do it, but we're talking about the equivalent of speed bumps and stop signs on our paths. The slave on the other hand doesn't even get to choose any path to begin with. And that's just occupation. In other areas of life, contracting party, consumer, employer, tenant/property owner, marriage/family, friendly associations, hobbies, and on and on, I am also faced with a near infinite number of paths, albeit ones with increasing numbers of speed bumps and stop signs placed by the government, but all also paths of which the very first choice, the 'prime' choice, is denied the slave. They're not comparable and more different in kind than in degree.

"Women productively worked in the economy and at home. "

Actually economies in which women are free to work either in or out of the home alongside men are much more productive. It's incredibly inefficient to close off many career paths based on gender. It's as if we followed the methods of the Soviets in determining everyone's economic path but did it in an even more arbitrary way.

"They can and did own businesses."

Due largely (but not solely, much of it was due to rank discriminatory attitudes, which were of course partly the result of and partly the cause of government restrictions on women) to restrictions on professions and contracting the number of women running their own businesses was small both absolutely and proportionately to men.

"In any case, their economy was little more than subsistence hunter, gatherer and very basic farming."

Actually during your chosen period an ever growing number of Native Americans were forcibly placed and kept by the government on reservations where economic activity was largely retarded. It's a bit much to dismiss their economic activity as low when it was in some significant part destined to be so due to the naked flexing of government force.

"Gays stayed "in the closet""

When this is done out of fear of forcible governmental or extra-legal responses then this is a serious net loss on any calculation of overall liberty. It's as if you we were in medieval Spain and you dismissed the affront to liberty of forcible conversion or expulsion of Jews (and barring of certain professions) by saying that it is of little concern to liberty because most of the Jews 'stayed in the closet' outwardly displaying conversion and worked doing something.
 

"There is Sharia, tribal law, the dictates of the local warlord(s) "

These are not traditionally thought of as 'state actors' or the government, and BB's point is correct that these types of agents can be as coercive and oppressive as those from regularly constituted governments, and that in the absence or weakness of governments these actors often flourish.

Governments are like guns, they are tools that can be used for ill or good. Among the latter can include suppressing non-state coercive elements.
 

What makes you think places like Afghanistan have no government?

# posted by Blogger Bart DePalma : 11:41 AM

Dumbfuck, the fact that they have warlords is a pretty good indication that there is no government.
 

Mr. W:

You are offering a straw man. Once again, I do not compare the progressive direction of our lives with slavery in any way, shape or form. Our government can and does substantially reduce our freedom without reducing us to slavery.

These government directions are far more than speed bumps and are enforced with the full force of government power including fines, confiscation of property and imprisonment. Try practicing law without a license, even if you have not harmed a single person.

Finally, the metric I am using is economic freedom. Personal freedom is a different subject.

Outside of the property in marriage, the law placed few limits on the economic freedom of someone based on gender or sexual preference during this period of time.

American Indians were considered to be foreign nations politically and had only a negligible effect on the United States economically.

My point stands.


 

We are comparing the first century to today in America.
# posted by Blogger Bart DePalma : 11:41 AM

"We" are not doing any such thing. "You" are posting a bunch of ridiculous nonsense, and "we" are mocking you.
 

Mr. W/bb:

Most of human history has been government by warlord.
 

Our government can and does substantially reduce our freedom without reducing us to slavery.

# posted by Blogger Bart DePalma : 12:09 PM

The government has definitely reduced your freedom to exploit child labor. Most people consider that a good thing.
 

Most of human history has been government by warlord.
# posted by Blogger Bart DePalma : 12:12 PM

And if you had you way, we would return to that.
 

"Government created monopolies were exceedingly rare at that time."

What? It was common practice stretching back to Revolutionary America (and indeed in the colonies) for monopolies to be granted for most large scale improvements or common carrier operations (remember the issue in Ogden). The granting of many corporate charters were tied to monopolies. Etc.
 

Mr. W:

It sounds like you are talking about "monopolies" to provide public improvements or services.

This is not analogous to the guilds which progressive government has created to enter private practice of law or to operate a cab company.
 

"Once again, I do not compare the progressive direction of our lives with slavery in any way, shape or form."

We were comparing eras such as the Founding and about a third-half of the time period you cited as apexs of freedom with current 'progressive political economies,' and you commented that a political economy of 85% free and 15% slave is still more free than our current situation of everyone '50% free.'

"are far more than speed bumps"

No, speed bumps is a perfect analogy. If you regularly ignore speed bumps you will get consequences, up to and including quite drastic ones. This is the case with any general law, progressive or otherwise. But if I want to choose from a wide, wide range of options in terms of occupation, or as a consumer, employer, etc., I can jump through the requisite hoops much like I can slow my car over speed bumps. I'm not arguing that at some point more and more speed bumps doesn't become oppressively burdensome, I'm pointing out that that situation is qualitatively different than that faced by the slave who doesn't even get to choose among the wide, wide range of paths, speed bumps or not.

"Outside of the property in marriage"

Other than the whale there's not much fish in my pond!

"American Indians were considered to be foreign nations politically and had only a negligible effect on the United States economically."

This is a non sequiter in reply to my point. That, upon forcibly pushing and keeping the Native American onto areas where economic possibilities were greatly inhibited then used the magic words that these people under their coercive authority were really separate nations is neither here nor there in determining whether their potential economic productivity was severely restricted by government action. It was, whatever it was called.
 

Bart, if we're talking about government using it's coercive power to advantage some over other in business then of course a government saying 'Only Shaq may operate steamships on this waterway' or 'Only butchering that is done at Joe's stockyards can be sold' qualifies.
 

Mr. W:

Contrasting "a political economy of 85% free and 15% slave" with "our current situation of everyone '50% free.'" is not saying that the progressive political economy is comparable to slavery.

I have already addressed your other points. You get the last word.
 

BD: "Government created monopolies were exceedingly rare at that time."

Mr. W: 'Only Shaq may operate steamships on this waterway'

Please give me the names, dates and details of the government monopolies you contend constituted some substantial (i.e. not rare) part of the national economy at that time.

I can't make heads or tails of your general replies.
 

Bart,

Look no further than the facts in Ogden (1824) for an example. Cases involving this sort of thing seem common enough from the caselaw of the time.

http://www.oyez.org/cases/1792-1850/1824/1824_0

 

Mr: W:

The steamship line addressed in Ogden made up something less than 0.001% of the national economy.

As I noted above: "Government created monopolies were exceedingly rare at that time."
 

Bart, the discussion is about how much early government subsidized the fortunes of many of the '1%,' not how much it subsidized the average worker, so the fact that such subsidies may have not been large parts of the economy is really not that important (your .001% figure strikes me as unsupportable though). In fact, this all started with Shaq specifically referencing government subsidization of the fortunes of the 'Robber Barons.' The term referred to 'titans of industry' especially those who made fortunes in what we'd call large scale infrastructure industries of the time. Some of the individuals that have historically been included in that category, Vanderbilt for example, are probably wrongly classified but for many fortunes it's certainly apt (Vanderbilt, for example, made much of his fortune by beating out other heavily subsidized players).

Government then and government today involved some cronyism and political entrepreneurs who became quite fat cats indeed from government preferential treatment. A lot of what has changed is that a lot of government now subsidizes a much larger set of the population, the poor and middle classes, rather than just a comparatively few really fat cats. I think a lot of the growth of government you bemoan lies there.
 

Our own WFCOIO's efforts at a false debate between the first century (his "free market economy") with the alleged subsequent progressive economy is an attempt at an asinine defense of his long standing claims that The Gilded Age were America's best days. He has not as yet stated a purpose of his debate to address what, if anything, to do now to bring back those good old days, and how that might be accomplished, to resolve current problems He shows his density beyond matters of DUI in his failure to recognize that political corruption of elected officials, federal and state, constitutes a form of government subsidies (as was the case with the robber barons), which are not line items found on either federal or state budgets or other public records.
 

Gibbons v. Ogden:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QGTkRP4v8tM

To give a rough sense of things, I see by Wikipedia that the monopoly provided by NY gave "exclusive navigation privileges of all the waters within the jurisdiction of that State, with boats moved by fire or steam, for a term of twenty years."

This was given to two people, who later also got a monopoly covering the key area of lower Mississippi, thus covering two major points of trade at the time.

Land policy is also another interesting place to turn to show how a few people obtained special favors from the government. Not for nothing Fletcher v. Peck wasn't the only major land case dominating the courts those days.

Originalists suggest we look to history to apply the law, but repeatedly seem to be suspect historians. I speak in general here, not in answer to any one person.

 

This comment has been removed by the author.
 

Mr. W: Bart, the discussion is about how much early government subsidized the fortunes of many of the '1%,' not how much it subsidized the average worker, so the fact that such subsidies may have not been large parts of the economy is really not that important (your .001% figure strikes me as unsupportable though).

Another straw man. You took issue with my true statement" "Government created monopolies were exceedingly rare at that time." They were.

"In fact, this all started with Shaq specifically referencing government subsidization of the fortunes of the 'Robber Barons.' The term referred to 'titans of industry' especially those who made fortunes in what we'd call large scale infrastructure industries of the time.

Names, dates and details please. You make these broad statements without any evidence to back them up.

I recommend again The Myth of the Robber Barons: A New Look at the Rise of Big Business in America by Burton W. Folsom, Jr. Mr. Folsom's book dedicates chapters to each of the famous "robber barons" and describes their businesses to dispel the myths.

 

Shag:

One of the most common progressive talking points is accusing those who support freedom of wanting to "turn back the clock."

I am suggesting instead that we advance our society by limiting government and providing freedom to EVERYONE, something America has yet to accomplish. Under progressivism, we are moving backward from that goal.
 

I am suggesting instead that we advance our society by limiting government and providing freedom to EVERYONE, something America has yet to accomplish. Under progressivism, we are moving backward from that goal.
# posted by Blogger Bart DePalma : 1:59 PM

What a load of crap. I suspect that virtually every group in America outside of angry white male morons would find this claim laughable.
 

So,our own WFCOIO is not seeking to turn back the cloak, setting forth his goal as:

"I am suggesting instead that we advance our society by limiting government and providing freedom to EVERYONE, something America has yet to accomplish. Under progressivism, we are moving backward from that goal."

Our own WFCOIO points to what America has yet to accomplish, going back to day one of America, both during the first century that included The Gilded Age - America's best days according to him - and since then with the alleged progressive economy. Limiting government in a nation now of 300 million+ is no easy task - and such limitations may infringe upon certain in our society who need assistance. Free markets (aka Laissez Fairy) didn't work when America was much smaller and had extensive frontiers as populations grew and the economy expanded. While the goal (first sentence) may be noble, bringing it about is difficult. But our own WFCOIO reverts to his earlier claims that the first century was better than what followed. So he's still stuck in his own limbo. He seeks not a debate or a discussion but his desire to rant and rave. I wouldn't deign to ask our own WFCOIO how he would propose to accomplish his finally stated goal because he will only rehash the same old crapola he has pushed in the past for his personal self promotion. He remains a troll.
 

I am suggesting instead that we advance our society by limiting government and providing freedom to EVERYONE,
# posted by Blogger Bart DePalma : 1:59 PM

Unless they're gay and want to buy a wedding cake. Screw them, right?
 

Shag:

Now you are offering the next most common progressive talking points:

1) The modern economy is too complicated to run itself.

Quite the opposite. A government bureaucracy has no hope of efficiently running an economy of a third of a billion people. Cutting edge companies like Apple and Uber can run their own businesses quite successfully, thank you very much.

2) People cannot succeed without the assistance of a welfare state.

A means tested welfare state which literally pays people to remain under and unemployed combined with a progressive income tax system which punishes people for entering the middle class by withdrawing tax credits and raising tax rates, results in...wait for it...MORE UNDER AND UNEMPLOYED.

When Seattle raised their minimum wage to $15, already underemployed welfare state dependents actually asked for fewer hours so they could continue to qualify for government benefits.

http://www.kirotv.com/videos/online/video-workers-asking-to-cut-their-hours-because-of/vDTY6b/

This is a morally reprehensible and economically counter productive system.

 

Our own WFCOIO perhaps can identify a modern economy that runs itself, without the benefit of government policies, in the manner of a pure libertarian (aka oxymoron).

All people do not have the "wisdom" of our own WFCOIO to survive without assistance, usually involving matters beyond their control, like young children, many elderly, the sick and crippled. Oh, our own WFCOIO is so perfect, why can't everyone else be perfect and as smart as he is? (Now what's his professional specialty?)

My guess is that our own WFCOIO doesn't have 'rhoids, qualifying him as a perfect a**hole.
 

"You took issue with my true statement" "Government created monopolies were exceedingly rare at that time." They were."

I don't think so since, as I've pointed out, they appear regularly in case law from Ogden to SlaughterHouse.

Remember your corporate law class from law school. It should have covered how early American corporate charters were usually approved by legislatures, were very specific in purpose and often came with a monopoly grant. The last two went together, because of the monopoly grant corporations were policed to stick to their specifically chartered purposes (ultra vires).

"Names, dates and details please."

I've supplied them when asked. See my comment pointing to Leland Standford and Jay Gould, for example.

But I've got an excellent source for you, interestingly it is the one you've been citing for us! In The Myth of the Robber Barons Folsom does not argue there were no Robber Barons who made fortunes with the help of government cronyism, in fact he counts on the fact that there were. A central tenet of his work is that what were considered 'the Robber Barons' were actually two groups that should be distinguished: the first, like Gould, Leland Stanford, he calls 'political entrepreneurs' and he notes how they sought and received significant government assistance. The second, which he says includes Vanderbilt, Astor, etc., have been unfairly stained with the same sobriquet when they actually did not seek/receive government favors (and in fact often competed against those who did, successfully so at times). So your own source that you've been repeatedly citing acknowledges what Shaq was talking about.
 

"This is a morally reprehensible and economically counter productive system."

I actually agree that there are potentially serious problems involved in public assistance in that there will be cases where it dis incentivizes work; apart from moral concerns (self-sustaining people could be a greater moral good than equivalently 'taken care of' recipients of assistance) too much of that kills the goose that makes public assistance possible in the first place.

However, there's a serious potential for an equally, probably greater morally reprehensible and economically counter productive outcome in being strict on assistance. This case was made by Hayek: 1. there will be some people unable to participate in a modern market economy in a self sustaining way, these people cannot be left to suffer amongst the abundance that exists otherwise and 2. as he says, the risks of outcomes leaving one unable to be self sustaining in a market economy, if too great, would turn more and more people against liberty itself in the long run. So Hayek offered that a safety net of some sort was necessary. In any such system there is going to be tension in marginal cases where a too generous system leads to results like you describe but a too stingy one turns away truly needy people risking the negative outcomes Hayek described...
 

Shag: All people do not have the "wisdom" of our own WFCOIO to survive without assistance, usually involving matters beyond their control, like young children, many elderly, the sick and crippled.

Beyond creating a semi-permanent dependent class, the progressive welfare state has a much more destructive effect on society at large.

Humanity invented marriage and family to provide support for their members and these institutions managed to accomplish the task for the past few millennia. Now that progressives have replaced the family with the welfare state, children are transformed from necessities to maintain the family support system to expensive luxuries, and the reproduction rate in every progressive country (including now the United States) has collapsed below maintenance levels. The citizenry is getting older and more dependent and the labor force has either started or will soon start to shrink in all of these nations. Europe should lose more workers by 2050 than it did during the Black Death. Japan and China are in even worse demographic shape.

This is the first of several reasons why progressivism is unsustainable.
 

Mr. W: "In fact, this all started with Shaq specifically referencing government subsidization of the fortunes of the 'Robber Barons.' The term referred to 'titans of industry' especially those who made fortunes in what we'd call large scale infrastructure industries of the time.

BD: Names, dates and details please.

Mr. W: See my comment pointing to Leland Standford and Jay Gould

Both Stanford and Gould made their fortunes before participating in Congress's transcontinental railroad venture, which I noted from the outset was a rare exception to the Laissez Faire philosophy and made up a small fraction of 1% of the economy.

Try again.

Folsom does not argue there were no Robber Barons who made fortunes with the help of government cronyism, in fact he counts on the fact that there were. A central tenet of his work is that what were considered 'the Robber Barons' were actually two groups that should be distinguished: the first, like Gould, Leland Stanford, he calls 'political entrepreneurs' and he notes how they sought and received significant government assistance. The second, which he says includes Vanderbilt, Astor, etc., have been unfairly stained with the same sobriquet when they actually did not seek/receive government favors.

Excellent! You have at least read the synopsis of the book at Amazon, which is more than Shag and bb will ever do. Now order the book and read it.

Folsom is one my authorities for the proposition that government monopolies and subsidy did not create the so called "robber barons" apart from the transcontinental railroad project. Sorry, but Folsom does not support Shag's or your positions at all.

So Hayek offered that a safety net of some sort was necessary.

I basically agree with Hayek on that account. If you limit the welfare state to those who cannot help themselves like orphans and the truly disabled, then it would collapse to a small fraction of its present size and would present none of the economic and moral hazards I noted above.

The progressive welfare state is not so much about helping those who cannot help themselves as it is, when combined with the progressive tax system, a mechanism for mass redistribution of wealth.


 

Bart, I think a big part of that likely is that once coercive restrictions such as criminal punishments for adultery, fornication, contraception and abortion were lifted and technology made unwanted pregnancies easier free women decided that their lives could be better lived by having less children. Children in a modern society, well really in any society, are, especially when unplanned, prone to be incredible burdens as much as they are a ready means to 'maintain the family support system' (note that an age pyramid that is fat at the bottom is indicative of a third world nation, children take in a lot but are rarely as productive as adults, even if we bring back child labor for you ;)).
 

"Both Stanford and Gould made their fortunes before participating in Congress's transcontinental railroad venture"

Ahem. From the following source, which I think you'd like:

https://mises.org/library/truth-about-robber-barons

"In some cases, of course, the entrepreneurs commonly labeled "robber barons" did indeed profit by exploiting American customers, but these were not market entrepreneurs. For example, Leland Stanford, a former governor and US senator from California, used his political connections to have the state pass laws prohibiting competition for his Central Pacific railroad,[1] and he and his business partners profited from this monopoly scheme."

Note the footnote, I reproduce it here: [1] Burton W. Folsom Jr., Entrepreneurs vs. the State: A New Look at the Rise of Big Business in America, 1840 — 1920

Now I'm wondering if you've actually read Folsom's work? For virtually every 'hero' in his work that he redeems as unfairly stained as a Robber Baron he offers up examples of 'political entrepreneurs' that he characterizes as true Robber Barons.

As to Gould, are you really not aware of his history of bribery and corruption involvement with the infamous Tammany Gall, involvement which involved inside information and legislative favors???

"a mechanism for mass redistribution of wealth."

Considering the top 1% continue to make a greater share of all total income there doesn't seem to be any mass redistribution of wealth going on that is sticking.
 

Now I'm wondering if you've actually read Folsom's work?
# posted by Blogger Mista Whiskas : 11:00 PM

I'm quite certain he only read the parts that confirm his world view.

These poll numbers are GREAT news for John McCain!!!
 

This comment has been removed by the author.
 

HAPPY 50th BIRTHDAY, M & M, and thank you, LBJ. As Ronnie Reagan used to say, "Progress is our most important product." Our own 'rhoidless WFCOIO continues his prattle for the good old days with his hysterical histories.

But let's give credit to our own 'rhoidless WFCOIO for sticking to his principles in defending The Gilded Age's robber baron-0.01%ers even though DUI is drying up in his mountaintop community, leaving him without a pit to hiss in. He's not voting his pocketbook but that of the Koch Bros. ilk.

 

This comment has been removed by the author.
 

Mr. W: Bart, I think a big part of that likely is that once coercive restrictions such as criminal punishments for adultery, fornication, contraception and abortion were lifted and technology made unwanted pregnancies easier free women decided that their lives could be better lived by having less children.

There are studies finding a strong correlation between the size of the welfare state in general and the generosity of the public pension systems in particular and low reproduction rates. Contraception is available across the world, but progressive nations with large welfare states are the only ones with a sub-replacement rate of reproduction.

BD: "Both Stanford and Gould made their fortunes before participating in Congress's transcontinental railroad venture"

Ahem. From the following source, which I think you'd like:

https://mises.org/library/truth-about-robber-barons

"In some cases, of course, the entrepreneurs commonly labeled "robber barons" did indeed profit by exploiting American customers, but these were not market entrepreneurs. For example, Leland Stanford, a former governor and US senator from California, used his political connections to have the state pass laws prohibiting competition for his Central Pacific railroad,[1] and he and his business partners profited from this monopoly scheme."

Stanford made his fortune as a merchant before he became governor or entered the railroad business.

As to Gould, are you really not aware of his history of bribery and corruption involvement with the infamous Tammany Gall, involvement which involved inside information and legislative favors???

As I noted to Shag, bribery of elected officials is not government providing you with a monopoly or subsidy.

Corruption is part and parcel of government, which is why you limit government.

BD: "a mechanism for mass redistribution of wealth."

Considering the top 1% continue to make a greater share of all total income there doesn't seem to be any mass redistribution of wealth going on that is sticking.

It is very real and very large:

http://www.businessinsider.com/government-transfer-payments-in-the-us-its-all-about-health-care-2011-3
 

Shag: As Ronnie Reagan used to say, "Progress is our most important product."

Progressivism is to actual progress what the Democratic Party is to small "d" democracy.
 

Our own 'rhoidless WFCIO in equation form:

Progressivism Democratic Party
______________ = ________________

actual progress small "d" democracy

Did our own 'rhoidless WFCOIO actually mean this?
 

NOTE: I don't know how to underline on a blog. The equation I intended: "Progressivism" over "actual progress" equals "Democratic Party" over "small 'd' democracy" based on our own 'rhoidless WFCOIO's response. Does the equation solve out as he intended?
 

Not sure if underline tags are allowed here. I tried a common one and it was rejected.




 

"progressive nations with large welfare states are the only ones with a sub-replacement rate of reproduction."

Relatively low birth rates are a characteristic of a first world nation. Singapore and Hong Kong, regularly at the top of conservative-libertarian measures of economic freedom, have fertility rates of 1.29 and 1.28 respectively. Additionally, the fertility rate in the United States for white women was between 7-8 in 1800 and by 1900 it was less than half that. This was during your oft-cited Laissez-Faire age.

"Stanford made his fortune as a merchant before"

Of course those who get outsized government favors tended to have wealth beforehand, it's their wealth that helps get their favors. The point is their wealth is expanded or protected by government favors.

"bribery of elected officials is not government providing you with a monopoly or subsidy."

We're talking about government giving preferential treatment to some businesspersons. This can be in the form of subsidy, legal entitlements (rights of way, land grants, etc), monopoly grants, etc. The bribe secures the preferential treatment.

This part of the conversation started with Shaq bringing up Robber Barons supported by government. Not only have you been provided with examples of such, your own much cited source details examples! Some businesspersons labeled so were perhaps labelled unfairly, but the fact that during the time period the government lent significant assistance to many 'political entrepreneurs' remains.

"It is very real and very large"

As I said, considering the slice of the income and wealth pie of the wealthiest % of Americans continues to grow, it's obviously not sticking.
 

This comment has been removed by the author.
 

BD: "progressive nations with large welfare states are the only ones with a sub-replacement rate of reproduction."

Mr. W: Relatively low birth rates are a characteristic of a first world nation.

The United States did not join this group until the past few years.

Additionally, the fertility rate in the United States for white women was between 7-8 in 1800 and by 1900 it was less than half that. This was during your oft-cited Laissez-Faire age.

The welfare state and not the regulatory state is driving reproduction below replacement levels.

This part of the conversation started with Shaq bringing up Robber Barons supported by government. Not only have you been provided with examples of such, your own much cited source details examples! Some businesspersons labeled so were perhaps labelled unfairly, but the fact that during the time period the government lent significant assistance to many 'political entrepreneurs' remains.

The transcontinental railroad is one example, not many, and it is a drop in the economic bucket.

This is Exhibit 1 of the exception proving the rule.
 

"The welfare state and not the regulatory state is driving reproduction below replacement levels."

Considering fertility rates fell more during the era you site as lacking such a welfare state and that those rates are lower in places like Hong Kong and Singapore which have smaller welfare states, that's a mighty interesting theory.
 

And railroads a drop in the bucket? The transportation sector is a key segment of the economy and railroads were a virtual revolution in that sector. The ability they created to move more goods to more places in a timely fashion changed the face of our economy. There's a reason there was so much social and political focus on the emerging railroads: one way or another nearly everyone's livelihood became intertwined with them. Dismissing the economic role or railroads at that time would be like dismissing that of the internet today.
 

Mr. W:

Both Singapore and Hong Kong have welfare states.

The transcontinental railroad (not all railroads) received subsidies and made up a fraction of 1% of the national GDP of the time.
 

I had posed this to our own 'rhoidless WFCOIO at 8:44 PM yesterday in response to his comment of 5:22 PM:

"Our own WFCOIO perhaps can identify a modern economy that runs itself, without the benefit of government policies, in the manner of a pure libertarian (aka oxymoron)."

I wonder if there is an answer forthcoming.
 

Shag: "Our own WFCOIO perhaps can identify a modern economy that runs itself, without the benefit of government policies, in the manner of a pure libertarian (aka oxymoron)."

None of the OECD nations do, which is why they are all stagnant or failing - including now the United States.
 

"Our own WFCOIO perhaps can identify a modern economy that runs itself, without the benefit of government policies, in the manner of a pure libertarian (aka oxymoron)."

I wonder if there is an answer forthcoming.
# posted by Blogger Shag from Brookline : 7:51 PM

Afghanistan
 

Blankshot, he didn't ask who doesn't have a libertarian government. He asked you who does.
 

Our own 'rhoidless WFCOIO's attempt at a response suggests he is now an "INTERNATIONAL CHICKEN LITTLE!" Perhaps Pluto is a place for his libertarian utopia (another oxymoron).

Yesterday was liberal - and somewhat progressive - lunch day, so I was basically hors de combat, with a couple of Dark "N Stormies and some fine port. Upon returning home - via public transportation - my mail included the Summer 2015 issue of Constitutional Commentary. It features a Symposium on "Money, Politics, Corporations & the Constitution," with a significant group of contributors. This close to 300 pages may be my summer reading that unfortunately will require the use of a magnifying glass.

This brings to mind the upcoming Fox TV GOP Clown Limo debates. I'm hoping former TX Gov. Rick Perry makes the top 10 for the prime time debate, as it would then surely bring into play conflicting 1st and 2nd A discussion. Perry, following the theatre shootings in LA, stated that theatres should not be "gun-free zones." Perhaps the Fox prime time debate should also not be a "gun free zone," so that T-RUMP's motor mouth absolutist 1st A might be challenged by Perry's 2nd A absolutism in defending himself from "The Donald's" verbal abuse. And Sen. Rand Paul could bring his chainsaw to shred the anti-Ayn Ran Constitution. (Query: Does Paul use a chainsaw to cut his own hair?)

Perhaps Justice Kennedy, if he watches the Fox prime time debate, may be squirming as he reconsiders his contribution to this debate with his opinion (5-4) in Citizens United. I imagine that following the 2016 presidential campaigns/election there may be a need for a follow up Symposium.

Meantime, what took place at that really secret meeting that Jon Stewart had with Roger Ailes?
 

"Singapore and Hong Kong have welfare states"

They have significantly smaller welfare states. Singapore and Hong Kong's government spending as % of GDP (2012) was 17 and 20 respectively compared to 40 for the US. So we see that nations with significantly SMALLER governments with significantly LOWER birth rates. So I don't think it's the welfare state largesse causing the birth rates to fall.

"The transcontinental railroad (not all railroads) received subsidies and made up a fraction of 1% of the national GDP of the time"

Not all railroads received subsidies but ones other than the transcontinental did (and other government preferential treatment than subsidies too). And where are you getting this fraction of a percent number for that one?
 

Shag: "INTERNATIONAL CHICKEN LITTLE!"

Take a break from symposiums and take a look around the world right now.

The EU nations range between roughly 1% growth and deep recession.

Japan has not grown appreciably since the 1990s.

The Chinese stock market has crashed and their state issued economic data is likely covering up a recession.

In an attempt to make our GDP growth look better, the Obama BLS has just applied something called a "double seasonal adjustment" to the data. (Do not ask me what that means) The result was a slightly better recent quarter, but an overall fall from 2.3% average growth since the recession ended to just 2%. To give this some context. recovery level growth is historically in the mid to high single digits for multiple quarters.

When the progressive media applies words like "recovery" to this mess, I just shake my head.
 

And our own 'rhoidless WFCOIO makes an admission that he is indeed an"INTERNATIONAL CHICKEN LITTLE." His "conclusion":

"When the progressive media applies words like 'recovery' to this mess, I just shake my head."

might produce a rattle in his head and in his mountaintop community, but not beyond. I guess we can all be thankful he's not shaking his "booty" (assuming a pure libertarian actually has a "booty"). I assume our own 'rhoidless WFCOIO is a gold bug. And the media is "progressive"? Must be a result of the nasty 1st A absolutism. And our own 'rhoidless WFCOIO conveniently forgets the foundation for this current international mess laid by the Bush/Cheney 8 years that climaxed with their 2007-8 Great Recession.
 

There is probably no place on the planet more libertarian than Afghanistan. I don't understand why libertarians are not flocking to that economic giant.
 

BB:

Classical liberalism/libertarianism is limiting government to keeping people from harming one another.

Afghanistan's warlord government is the anti-thesis of classical liberalism and has far more in common with arbitrary rule by the progressive bureaucracy.

 

Classical liberalism/libertarianism is limiting government to keeping people from harming one another.

# posted by Blogger Bart DePalma : 3:02 PM

Why do you need the government to keep people from harming one another? Afghans are armed to the teeth. They don't need no stinkin' government to protect them. Yet another shining example of wingnut ideas in action. I'm surprised the Afghan national flag isn't just a portrait of Reagan.
 

BB:

Warlords ARE the government and have armed their tribesman to the teeth to wage war. Their word is generally law. They just don't bother with a pen and a phone.
 

Warlords ARE the government and have armed their tribesman to the teeth to wage war. Their word is generally law. They just don't bother with a pen and a phone.
# posted by Blogger Bart DePalma : 3:48 PM

No, they're NOT "the government", dumbfuck, they're what happens when countries are "run" by libertarians.
 

In advance of the Fox TV GOP Clown Limo debates, a NYTimes editorial "Republicans Audition for Big Money" starts with this:

"A definitive event in the plutocratic spending binge now engulfing presidential politics is taking place in Orange County, Calif., this weekend. The Koch brothers and 450 of their most affluent allies are auditioning a select group of Republican candidates, who are vying to get a share of the whopping $889 million pledged by these donors for the presidential race next year."

We know that the IRC specifically prohibits deductions for political contributions. But perhaps some creativity takes place to take advantage of the IRS' lack of funding for audit purposes. In any event, presumably these affluents do cost/benefit analyses in making their "non-deductible" contributions, anonymously (thank you Citizens United 5-4), with their wish lists for the potential benefits to offset their "non-deductible" costs.

There is much in the news about PACS, fundraising and attempts to influence candidates with the upcoming 2016 presidential campaign. A few very, very wealthy individuals are priming the pump, with the mantra money is speech. Yes, these affluents will be supporting and voting for candidates that will benefit their pocketbooks. But can they counter the many, many millions who can also vote their own pocketbooks? Let me repeat an old Italian saying: "When you're rich, you're not only smart, but good looking, too." Witness, Donald T-RUMP, who still leads the pack. So with the benefit of Citizens United, perhaps more affluents will cut out the middle man/woman and run themselves. [Note: T-RUMP was not invited to addressthese affluents. I wonder why.)

So not only Justice Kennedy but the other conservatives in Citizens United and its progeny, must be squirming with the fallout from their decision - or are they hoping to maintain their majority? The conservative 5 do not buy into the concept of appearance of corruption, perhaps as part of their DNA.

 

I re-read "Andrew Jackson and the Constitution: The Rise and Fall of Generational Regimes," a quick read since it is about 125 pages (including pictures and so on).

It is a rewarding read, especially given its discussion on how Native Americans was a big part of the conversation about equality, speak of "judicial resistance" with radical opinions, the role of each branch in constitutional change & how the meaning of the document is not fixed in time but an ongoing battle.
 

Joe's summary contrasts with originalism's fixation thesis sone 180 years after Jackson's days, claiming better knowledge of the 1787 Constitution/Bill of Rights' meanings than those closer in time to the Founders, Framers and Ratifiers.
 

Shaq, "this Court now concludes that independent expenditures, including those made by corporations, do not give rise to corruption or the appearance of corruption" is quite likely the worst, stupidest sentence in SCOTUS caselaw.
 

The Huffington Post has a lead post: "Oligarchy" on the subject of Super PACS, along the lines of the NYTimes editorial. Are oligarchs the current day versions of the robber barons of The Gilded Age?
 

One thing that made me think about that book was that it covers an age where there was a special concern for oligarchical power and so forth that is covered by the recent conversation in the comments. See also:

http://www.acslaw.org/acsblog/legal-scholar-argues-that-constitution-not-only-allows-but-requires-congress-to-act-on

And, a linked article on our "anti-oligarchical constitution":

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2431255

As to corruption, as Shag knows, Zephyr Teachout provides an alternative historical understanding of what that entails, including strong regulations in the 19th Century barring certain forms of lobbying deemed par for the course now. I think it is the minimalist view of corruption, not the "corporation are people" (which some latch on to) aspect that long term is the most problematic aspect of Citizens United.

Not recognizing corporations have certain special aspects that sometimes warrant different treatment (see Hobby Lobby) has problematic aspects too, to be clear.

 

Shag:

Name me an "oligarch" who bought an election for a presidential, senate or house candidate who otherwise would not have won.

The reason that businesses are spending more money than ever to influence government is because government is attempting to direct business more than ever.

If government was not in the business of running business, no business would waste the money trying to influence the government.

 

Is our own 'rhoidless WFCOIO with this challenge:

"Name me an "oligarch" who bought an election for a presidential, senate or house candidate who otherwise would not have won."

conceding the role of robber barons back in The Gilded Age, which according to him were America's best days?

I was merely asking, in light of recent comments by Jimmy Carter and Huff Post what with the current Super PACS. The "who other" part of the challenge is difficult to prove. The Koch Bros and Mr. Adelson must think they got some personal bang for their big bucks. But why indeed did the affluents pony up over $100 million for Jeb! as he delayed his announcement? What commitments did Jeb! make to these affluents? Are these affluents interested in quid pro quo? Perhaps some of his competitors at the upcoming Fox TV GOP Clown Limo debate may raise questions in this regard. Consider the greed of Wall street during the 8 years of the Bush/Cheney Administration that closed with the 2007-8 Great Recession that such greed, paved by Bush/Cheney, that significantly contributed to the Great Recession.

Of course our own 'rhoidless WFCOIO is himself not an oligarch, but he wants to vote their pocketbooks, perhaps hoping for some trickle-down.

By the Bybee [expletives deleted], Jeb! has stated that he wants to significantly limit Washington lobbying, suggesting it is an evil. Is he serious? Speaking of the appearance of corruption, is that part of the definition of lobbying?

Maybe our 'rhoidless WFCOIO is over his INTERNATIONAL CHICKEN LITTLE funk, putting his faith in the new robber barons with their Super PACS for what he hopes may be the Second Gilded Age.



 

Shag:

Our wealthy occupy the entire spectrum of ideologies and tend to cancel one another out.

The owners of businesses the government favors and the owners of businesses the government disfavors and harms have two diametrically opposed interests. However, they both have an incentive to attempt to influence government because government is directly involved in their well-being.

As to lobbying, the First Amendment commands in pertinent part: "Congress shall make no law...abridging the freedom...to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." Like the rest of the Bushes, Jeb is a member in good standing of the progressive GOP establishment and offers unconstitutional abridgments of our liberty when they poll well.
 

Hallelujah, our own 'rhoidless WFCOIO's funk is over , and as I suggested he's " ... putting his faith in the new robber barons with their Super PACS for what he hopes may be the Second Gilded Age." Of course, he might just be sucking up to the Koch Bros. and Mr. Adelson for some sort of a political appointment As for me, if no one hasn't figured it out, I'm hoping to be designated poet laureate in the next administration.

As to our own 'rhoidless WFCOIO's designation of Jeb! as a progressive Republican, unlike his dad and bro, offering " ... unconstitutional abridgments of our liberty ... " what does say of those affluents who ponied up over $100 million for Jeb!'s Super PACS? Perhaps wealthy business people are as selfish as libertarians.

 

Before this thread marches into the Archives of this Blog, I should have mentioned that the Summer 2015 issue of Constitutional Commentary includes a non-Symposium - and solo - article by Cass Sunstein: "There is Nothing that Interpretation Just Is." I read an earlier draft of this article via SSRN. It is relatively short and I wonder how Larry Solum's comments on the draft were addressed.

Trevor Potter was on CBS's Sunday political show with some astute thoughts on campaign financing, especially the Super PACS and the ineffectiveness of the FEC on which he once served. That ineffectiveness - 3-3 votes almost all the time - gives comfort to the Super PACS and dark money in the current presidential campaigns. Some may recall Potter's appearances on Colbert Nation as Stephen's attorney in connection with the latter's PAC exposing Citizens United (5-4) to ridicule - but leading to is prosperity what with 400 families providing more than 50% of Super PAC/dark money funding currently. The Citizens United conservative five's requirement of quid pro quo corruption perhaps has turned out to be even more stupid than understood/intended by the five's dismissal of the appearance of corruption test. Even "The Donald" raised his eyebrows at Jeb!'s and others' Super PACS as to donor expectations, such as taking donor calls if elected.
 

The past several years I have enjoyed Sundays a little more as a result of getting on the Mosaic Records Sunday Jazz Gazette email list. The one today with a date of July 26, 2015, has a lot of goodies for jazz fans. Videos and audios of past performances are included, as well as interviews with great jazz players. The current issue includes a tribute to w. C. Handy's St. Louis Blues, with Leonard Bernstein leading the NY Philharmonic, with Louis Armstrong's band joining. Handy was in the audience for this tribute. I got on the email list a few years back following purchases of several CDs. I'm too old to get more more CDs, relying upon some good radio stations. I like to hear what others select and be surprised. Gil Evans' "Sister Sadie" is on this issue, a big band arrangement. Not only jazz fans but those interested in some history of jazz and jazz greats should also find the Gazette interesting. This demonstrates that even when times were troubling, there were still good times. So let the good times roll.
 

Shag:

Why do you have a problem with the wealthy paying to communicate their own political speech, but are utterly silent on the wealthy paying a former Secretary of State and now presidential candidate's family a nine future fortune to buy influence?

http://www.cnn.com/2015/07/31/politics/hillary-clinton-tax-returns/

http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2015/07/clintons-reaped-millions-from-foreign-bank-after-hillary-intervened-in-ubs-tax-case-to-reduce-irss-r.html
 

Corruption and the appearance of corruption can - and does - exist on both sides of the political aisle. I believe in transparency/disclosure with respect to all political contributions. I believe in auditing to level the playing field and of course providing funding for such auditing. The 1st A is not absolute. Meantime, let's focus on this Thursday's Fox TV GOP Clown Limo debates featuring a minion that may exclude one of Christie, Kasich and Perry. The poll dancing can be exciting. A question I have is which one of these three would T-RUMP want excluded?

But it seems clear our 'rhoidless WFCOIO is out of his funk and sucking up to the Koch Bros. and their ilk as the solution for his Chicken Little "The Sky Is Falling!"
 

Shag:

Corruption is part and parcel of government regardless of party.

Political speech by the citizenry and their organizations is not and should never be considered corruption. "Campaign finance reform" is merely a strategy to silence the opponents of often corrupt incumbent politicians.
 

Our own 'rhoidless WFCOIO seems willing to accept corruption as part and parcel of government, regardless of who governs. This is probably an anarcho libertarian belief. He opines that "Campaign finance reform" only seems to aid "corrupt incumbent politicians," suggesting perhaps no holds barred election campaigns. Anarchy once again seems to be our own 'rhoidless WFCOIO's solution to what ails America.
 

In mycontinuing quest to be appointed poet laureate in the next administration, I submit:

***


T-RUMP: DEBATE, BAIT OR MANIPULATE?

As we anxiously anticipate
The “Top Ten” who’ll make the date
On Fox TV’s GOP Clown Limo debate
We know “The Donald” is leading the slate.

The “Others” fearing he may agitate
May be prepared to retaliate.
But T-RUMP may switch and bait,
Pulling their strings to manipulate.

Can we expect the “Others” to procrastinate,
Fearing T-RUMP’S lead will accelerate
No matter how well they may relate,
As a T-RUMP “loser” designate?

August 3, 2015

***

When the minion is set late tomorrow, I may have a "tribute" for the 11th man.

 

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