Asymmetrical Information

"Civil liberties are the bedrock of our society. ON the other hand, the constitution is not a suicide pact. Discuss."

Nice question for a civics test.

:-)

The Constitution is also not a Chinese restaurant menu.

I am curious to see Jane's thoughts on whether the budget's tax proposals look like an incremental shift to a Hall-Rabushka flat tax, and whether it is a good idea. The tax policy choices in the budget proposals will mean a lot more than the fraction of 1% of GDP that the federal deficit might reach.

I can only speak for the Panetta/Rubin wing of "the Left," but I'd like to try to respond to your hypothetical question on the Bush deficit (and I say "try" because it's hard to imagine a gore presidency running a deficit that even comes close to the one proposed under PRESBUD 2004).

No sane person expects a balanced budget during a recession, or during a time when defense spending must be increased. But if a president Gore were to use this situation to, say, raise domestic spending on pet causes, all the while making "trifecta" claims as an excuse for record deficits, I would say vote the bastard out.

But your question isn't really a fair one to begin with. Democrats have admitted to being Keynesians, so why should they be held to the same standards of fiscal restraint?

Democrats weren't the ones calling for draconian measures like a balanced budget amendment just a few years back, so to accuse them of hypocrisy over budget deficits is pretty silly.

As I pointed out on Barlow, for a very busy person Jane writes amazingly long lame excuses.

A rather cusrsory look at Patriot II reveals that it allows Americans regarded as terrorists to be stripped of their citizenship, after which they have no legal rights. And that it will be made illegal to reveal the location of terrorist suspects. As for the budget, the Bush budget does not factor in war costs.

Many of us old ACLU liberals believe that libertarian hawks and Republican fiscal conservatives tend to be phonies. Discuss.

Zizka, that post took me ten minutes to write. Perhaps you can do a good job analyzing the budget in ten minutes, but the rest of us like to do some research.

Be an independent, just don't speak up when "your guy" is in power. C'mon Jane - yer better than that.

That's not what I said, Oliver. What I said is, if you're hysterical about the effect of deficits on interest rates now, you'd better be prepared to be hysterical about them when your guy is running 'em. Likewise, if you say it's okay now, you'd better be prepared to back that up when the opposition comes in. But I'm not going to fire off some ignorant screed about the budget when I don't have any data just because people who have already done so want company.

We already know what Gore would be saying, because he said it many times during his farewell media tour late last year:

1. Cut the deficit because higher deficits mean 65 years from now, we'll run out of money for social security and that deficits create higher interest rates which hurt the economy.

2. Cut our reliance on imports and the foreign debt. I can only imagine that this is a subtle nod to the unions since about the only way to cut the foreign debt is to manufacturer more in the states.

3. Adopt a single-payer health care system like Canada's.

Basically Gore's economic platform will be comprised of strategies that we simply know won't work.

Patriot II will be worse than that [location of detainee]...apparently it would be illegal to disclose even the NAME of someone thus detained: i.e., a wife/husband who knows his/her spouse has been so detained may not even disclose that fact to anyone, not even an attorney!

A C K !!

I find Jane's involuntary strawman particularly unappealing, as Gore has done his best over the past two years in trying to convince the US that whatever happened in the Florida recount was in the best interests of the republic. At least in the short term. But a better question is what would be a good Democratic alternative to the proposals of the Bush administration. Unfortunately, I've not heard much of anything except for polemics about what Bush supposedly is trying to do domestically. But polemics aren't policies.

You now what's incredible about the budget? It's that Krugman turned out to be an OPTIMIST!

Things are even worse than what he had predicted.

btw, Hillary's done her analysis and here's what she thinks: http://clinton.senate.gov/news/2003/02/2003203B53.html

Any lefty's care to comment?

Jane, read the last three weeks of Brad DeLong on the budget. DeLong is quite a moderate Democrat.
Brad Delong

http://www.j-bradford-delong.net/movable_type/

The Patriot II stuff is readily available in a number of places.

It takes research to write something original, but often enough people just weigh in. On the Patriot II question, especially, to do so would seem to be essential, especially for self-professed libertarians.

The flak you were getting was not mostly directed at you personally, but rather at all the war libertarians.

du.. yeah du...

oh wait.. jane, where the hell did all the leftists come from on a chicago mba grads blog??

as for budget projections.. they're mostly crap, as you can change things around very fast, and out year projections have a bullwhiip effect (1% change now means 41% change in 35 years...)

what do we know: ss will go bankrupt in the medium term unless benefits or payments are modified severely... the gov't has been engaged in accounting fraud since ss was started, and every politician and government worker associated with it should be thrown in jail for their fraud... as that is what would happen if gm did something similar (raid the pension fund every year, no matter what)

bush is showing the first of many changesto social programs, and they're going to be silently sliced, giving us needed program cuts... but as a smart pol he doesn't talk about that... hahahaha especially cause the leftists complain about spending increases and tax cuts... so then we cut spending silently... and shift entitlements to discretionary and cap their increase.. great budget work (reduces out year dependency..)

if you're a leftist/socialist/marxist/stasist, accept the fact that bush and co are a hell of a lot smarter than you give them credit for... they're using you against yourself.. actually, better yet, remember: BUSH IS AN IDIOT, HE HAS NO AGENDA, HE's INCOMPETENT and a DO NOTHING! WE CAN BEAT HIM BY SHOUTING

hahaha

Also here's a link to historical tables of the federal budget (unfortunately in PDF form).

Should be a good place to start drilling down into what changed and why.

Actually I'm mostly interested in the Patriot II question, which most of you guys don't seem to give a shit about.

Jane has a reputation with others than me as a relatively intelligent libertarian, and many are wondering how she'll fall on the Patriot II question. I personally believe that almost all Libertarians are 100% frauds; L.U.A. has just provided me with another instance.

As an old-fashioned ACLU liberal, I have always vaguely hoped that the libertarian right might be someone I could talk to on certain issues, but I've learned not to get my hopes up.

And yes, the Clintons are no good on these issues.

Sure. I wouldn't mind Gore's deficit nearly as much because it would be justified by his budget, which would contain a lot of things to help the economy, such as better health insurance incentives, a tax cut for the lower and middle classes, infrastructure investments to create jobs, etc., instead of a tax cut for the rich and a crackdown on low-income schoolchildren who might not qualify for free lunches. Gore's deficit would be part of a program to help the economy and the disadvantaged. Bush's deficit is a gift to the wealthy, at all of our expense.

Actually I'm mostly interested in the Patriot II question, which most of you guys don't seem to give a shit about...As an old-fashioned ACLU liberal, I have always vaguely hoped that the libertarian right might be someone I could talk to on certain issues, but I've learned not to get my hopes up.

Oh. Well in that case, I think that Patriot II is a bunch of crap.

But then again, I'm not a Libertarian, I'm a Republcan.

I saw this in an article in Townhall:

Chris Edwards, director of fiscal policy at the libertarian Cato Institute, notes that under (Bush's) plan, non-defense discretionary outlays, adjusted for inflation, would expand by 18 percent in Bush's first three years. In Bill Clinton's first three years, those outlays actually fell.

Enough said.

It's worth pointing out that the FY2004 %increases in discretionary spending are the lowest since GWB was elected. Yes, the increases are worrisome -- absolutely so -- but let's see what actually emerges after the Congress is done with it. Consider that the FY2003 budget has still not been approved by Congress.

You also have wonder how much spending would have gone up without the tax cut GWB proposed.

Interesting thing about your call for honesty from you lefty readers is that you presume a particular answer. You have spent lots of words explaining how unwilling you are to comment on something like the budget of the Patriot Act without some sort of background on the issues, but you are quite willing to guess (pretty nearly assert) what’s in the heads of your “left half of the spectrum” correspondents. As usual. I don’t recall the same sort of “oh, I already know what you’re thinking” attitude toward your righties, but then such attitude doesn’t seem as necessary when you and they are of like mind.

While on the subject of a President Gore, it may seem as likely to you that Gore would be flipping on the deficit issue as Bush, but that is not a foregone conclusion. I know the punditocracy has been using this line for awhile, so it’s easy to grab for. Fact is, Gore was there for the “Rubinomics” lessons a the White House, and wouild have been at least somewhat burdened by Clinton’s “save Social Security first” and end of big government rhetoric. Deficits? Sure, it’s the economy. Planned deficit out to the horizon? Not proven. Looks like you're assuming things for the big lefty that you have also assumed for all the little ones.

K Harris, what Gore might have done might have been as bad as what Bush is actually doing. You don't have a leg to stand on.

Brad deLong is a moderate (Clinton) Dem and says that he likes some Republicans, but not these. He does not trust the left wing of the Dems (i.e. me) to be fiscally responsible, and was sometimes glad to see moderate Republicans keeping them in line. But he's going increasingly nuts about Bush's economic policies.

His conclusion has been that the Bush administration knows or cares nothing about the economy and is driven entirely by electoral politics. A strategy which seems to have worked with at least one participant on this string.

I'm a liberal and I've never been a deficit hawk. But I must say that the memory of Pete Domenici, Bob Dole and Newt Gingrich lecturing to us about deficits -- and the need for a constitutional amendment -- is quite galling, considering the fact that once their guys are in power, they don't think twice about willfully exacerbating the deficit by pushing through trillions of dollars of tax cuts which will do nothing to stimulate the economy.

Pete D., where have you gone?

Zizka, what Brad DeLong has basically said is that he'd like the republicans to be in office to restrain the worst excesses of the Democrats, and then piss off the voters by raining on the parade and get unelected. Well, that's a darling proposition, but it's fantasyland. I'm sure Republicans could come up with an equally stupid wish list of Democratic politics. And come to think of it, I think the Democrats are obliging.

And K -- do you think it is unreasonable for me to assume that my lefty correspondants are hoping that I will chide Bush for acting like a Republican and lowering taxes, rather than for acting like a Democrat and raising spending? Or are you asserting that my belief that many or most of the people commenting on the budget are using criticsms or explanations of opportunity in order to support their political beliefs is incorrect?

90210: In what way do those things help the economy?

I guess you could chide Bush for passing tax cuts like a Republican while increasing spending (like a republican as well?).

The fact is that the fantasy that Republicans hold down spending has been proven wrong yet again.

The only diffrence is that the Dmocrats are at least willing to pay for it. Bush simply passes on the bill to future generations.

Talking about the budget requires doing more than recycling news accounts, downloading papers from my favorite advocacy groups, or reading my favorite confirming bloggers.

Actually, this is true of matters of foreign relations and military matters, that doesn't seem to stop anyone in the blogosphere.

From today's LA Times (Brownstein):

a tax cut that increases the national debt doesn't deserve to be called a tax cut. It's really a transfer of tax obligations from this generation to the next.

Our children will pay the bill, through the increased national debt, for the tax cuts we're voting ourselves today.

What's that Bush said, about not paasing along our problems to future generations?

It seems to be orthodoxy by now that deficits don't matter a bit. So let that drop.

Patriot I, Patriot II, Homeland Security, and a large number of executive orders and rulings by the Attorney General have gone a long way to destroying all checks on the police power. Most alarmingly, a legal category of people without rights has been produced, and as always, one of the rights they do not have is the right to show that they do not belong in that category. Americans now can be disappeared. Pending court test (by the Rehnquist court!) many of the things the Declaration of Independence protests now are allowed.

Now, libertarians obviously should be up at arms about this. But Jane and others are correct in surmising, if I did not make it explicit enough, that I did not come in friendship. I have always suspected Libertarians of being Republicans in disguise, and when Jane quotes Scalia--"the government is not a suicide pact" -- I've got a bit more evidence.

Yes, she balanced it with a more libertarian citation, but if you balance the two you get a fairly conservative (but not quite paleo-conservative) Republican.

The libertarian / ACLU liberal rule -- rather than to assume the benevolence of those in power --has always been to ask how police powers might be abused. So you might look at what they're proposing and ask what abuses are possible.

I don't really expect to change anyone's mind. And I suppose that instead of confronting people I should be sweet-talking them. (Don't all dig your heels in the sand just because I'm being awful -- yeah, I know, I'm flattering myself).

Yeah, Patriot II is probably a stalking horse / trial balloon. What we'll really see won't be quite that bad. But it will be very bad, and what we've already got is bad too.

And yes, I do blame Bill Clinton too. And yes, Ron Paul seems to about right on this one.

I'll probably HATE Patriot II, Zizka. But since I haven't read it yet, I don't know.

And "The constitution is not a suicide pact" dates rather earlier than Scalia.

Jane,

Nice wiggle, but I don't think I was all that unclear. We've had this discussion before. You make a reasonable statement about some issue, in this case not wanting to comment on something you haven't researched. Then you wander off into making assumptions about what one part of the political spectrum is thinking. It reads like an extended tag question -- "You believe this, don't you?" As my old linguistics prof once pointed out, tag questions are really just asking and answering your own question, rather than asking straightforwardly "do you believe this?" or "what do you believe?" Unreasonable? Maybe. Unnecessary? Certainly. Just ask. They'll answer.

zizka,

Gore might have done what Bush did, so I don't have a leg to stand on? That is among the weakest dismissals I have ever read. Gore might have decided to paint the White House red, but I wouldn't think to dismiss an argument without answering it based on "might" this and "might" that.

Is there a list of actual Patriot II provisions that were NOT on a Clinton wish-list?

K Harris -- irony off. Sorry. I was parodying what others were saying.

The comments we see above about the PATRIOT II proposals are typical of the misrepresentations we saw with PATRIOT I. Wild exaggerations and claims that things are unprecedented that are not. For instance, the loss of citizenship for joining a terrorist organization. Currently, one can lose one's citizenship for several acts that are deemed to indicate one's rejection of US citizenship such as enlist in an enemy's armed forces. The PATRIOT II proposal adds to that existing scheme the act of enrolling in a terrorist organization. Hardly the radical proposal it is cast as by zizka. While there are some proposals that I'm still wrestling with myself, and may oppose, I don't find the proposal as shocking as the wild exaggerations made about it.

Janet Galt wrote:

"So let me leave everyone, left and right, with this question: if Gore were president, and he were running the same budget deficit to pay for new spending by a Democratic congress, what would you be saying?"

Pretty much the same thing that a lot of us have been saying now which is that the federal government is on a spending-binge again for things like agricultural subsidies, the Department of Education, federal welfare programs for the indigent (faith-based or not), and the like along with a whole host of bad additional spending programs such as a “free” prescription drugs for Medicare recipients, tax-payer funded R&D for hydrogen fuel cell cars, and $15 Billion in additional foreign aid in the name of fighting AIDS.

Add on to that the larger concern about the ticking time bombs of federal ponzai schemes such as Social Security and Medicare which Congress and the POTUS have yet to act to fix (read: let workers opt out and thereby decrease the unfunded liabilities of these programs) and there isn’t a lot to be happy about on the spending side.

Here in Minnesota, we’re going through similar budget woes with over-spending (we have a projected $4.5 billion deficit based largely on a projected $4.2 billion increase in spending) and we’re fortunate that our governor (while the legislature has failed in its duty) is holding to his promise not to raise taxes and cutting spending through unallotment.

Maybe it is time to bring back the Balanced Budget Amendment with a requirement of a two-thirds majority to raise taxes and force the federal government and the elected officials who inhabit it to finally live within their means. There are a lot of things that ought to be cut from the federal budget such as most if not all of the budgets for the Departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Education, Energy, HHS, and HUD. We ought to reduce the Cost of Living Adjustments for federal entitlement programs that overstate inflation and begin working on letting workers opt out of Social Security and Medicare in exchange for reduced “benefits” and reduce the long-term unfunded liabilities of these programs.

Robin Roberts wrote:

“The comments we see above about the PATRIOT II proposals are typical of the misrepresentations we saw with PATRIOT I. Wild exaggerations and claims that things are unprecedented that are not. For instance, the loss of citizenship for joining a terrorist organization. Currently, one can lose one's citizenship for several acts that are deemed to indicate one's rejection of US citizenship such as enlist in an enemy's armed forces. The PATRIOT II proposal adds to that existing scheme the act of enrolling in a terrorist organization. Hardly the radical proposal it is cast as by zizka. While there are some proposals that I'm still wrestling with myself, and may oppose, I don't find the proposal as shocking as the wild exaggerations made about it.”

I agree, most of the provisions of the first and often-vilified USA PATRIOT ACT seemed to be rather modest and sensible changes to existing statutes (e.g. getting a warrant to tap all of the cloned phones owned by a suspect or letting law enforcement infiltrate a place of worship the same way it can a business or non-religious organization) or completely misrepresented by its critics (the TIPS program). IMNHO, so long as there is a sunset provision for the statute and/or we have the same or comparable requirements for getting a warrant or at least showing probable cause I doubt that either act will mean the advent of the Gestapo in our daily lives.

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