Where Fun Comes to Die

Hollywood gossip column Defamer reports that television viewership for Obama’s press conferences has steadily declined to the point where networks running the most recent press conference got beat in the ratings by Fox’s “Lie to Me.”

On the one hand, Obama’s combined viewership beat Fox, on the other hand, it has shown a 42 percent decrease over the past three months from its February peak of 49 million.

At this rate, Fox only needs a few months before “Lie to Me” surpasses Obama press conferences across all networks and American Idol, at nearly 24 million viewers per show, is almost already there.

Obama was criticized during the presidential election by fellow candidate John McCain for being a celebrity, specifically he was compared to Britney Spears and Paris Hilton.  Unfortunately for him, only one of these comparisons seems accurate now.  Britney has enjoyed consistent popularity — she has been Yahoo!’s most popular search term for the last four consecutive years and seven times in the past 8 years.  Paris’s popularity, on the other hand, has recently “plummeted.”  Between the two, Obama’ resembles Paris more than Britney,  with  Britney recently surpassing Obama in google searches.  Is this happy news or unhappy news for the Obama camp?  On the one hand, there is less credibility to the argument that Obama is a supercelebrity.  On the other hand, who wouldn’t want to be popular?

The New York Times reports $70B in tax cuts for the recently signed stimulus bill.  At recovery.gov, the new website intended to promote transparency by allowing taxpayers to track the stimulus spending, the cited number is $288B for tax relief.  Why the discrepancy?  By examining the fine print you can read that “tax relief” includes “$15 B for Infrastructure and Science, $61 B for Protecting the Vulnerable, $25 B for Education and Training and $22 B for Energy, so total funds are $126 B for Infrastructure and Science, $142 B for Protecting the Vulnerable, $78 B for Education and Training, and $65 B for Energy.”  It’s not clear why these figures were all lumped under “tax relief” instead of being under their respective categories, but it is certainly misleading.  But what is politics without a few misnomers?  “Operation Iraqi Freedom,” “Patriot Act,” and now “recovery.gov” with $288B in “tax relief.”  New regime, old rules.

I almost thought President Obama’s op ed piece in the Washington Post was an internet hoax, it seemed so ill-advised for reasons explained here:

President Obama signed an op-ed this morning in the Washington Post, and it’s a quick hit that would have been better left unwritten. In it, he overpromises results from a bill that hasn’t been finalized and is still having amendments added in the Senate as I write this. But he says the stimulus bill will be “swift, bold and wise enough for us to climb out of this crisis.” How does he know that? Maybe it will, but none of us really knows yet what is going to happen.

The president promises more than a fix for housing, jobs and banks-he guarantees massive government involvement in many sectors of our economy-from energy to healthcare to schools to access to the internet. He goes on to promise “unprecedented transparency and accountability, so Americans know where their tax dollars are going and how they are being spent.” That’s a big deal if he can deliver it. We’ve been waiting for that for years.

The president would have been wise to invite the loyal opposition to join him in supporting the bill, or at least to acknowledge that reasonable minds can disagree on the road to compromise. But instead, he rejects criticism of the stimulus plan and reminds readers that his side won. He seems to blame Republicans for everything causing our country to fall apart. . . .

Anyone opposing the current stimulus package is engaging in “old ideological battles,” “narrow partisanship,” “bad habits,” and “the same old partisan gridlock that stands in the way of action,” he writes. I guess that includes not only the House Republicans, but economic experts Martin Feldstein and Alice Rivlin, the other 250 economists who have publicly stated their reservations.

Most of Washington is engaged in a battle of ideas, for the first time in a long time, about the meaning of capitalism and free markets and government intervention. The future of our economy is at stake, and the president would have been better off not engaging in overblown rhetoric and name-calling on the op-ed page. He came across as partisan and strident about the future, instead of inclusive and thoughtful. Someone else should have signed that op-ed.

I’m particularly disturbed by the president’s alarmist tone, appeal to crowd hysteria, and the pervasive feeling of extortion in the piece, but then i am always wary when a charismatic leader is able to whip up the masses to blindly follow using the carrot of prosperity and the stick of castrophe.   See, e.g., fascist leaders of the 20th century and most recently the current Iraq war which, like G.W. Bush, was extremely popular at the time.   But now I’m just fighting fear mongering with fear mongering.

An LA Times article wonders what happened to the reparations movement:

Just a few years ago, at roughly the turn of the millennium, slavery reparations seemed the coming thing. A New York Times article in June 2001 reported that the movement to obtain compensation for slaves’ descendants had “taken on substantial force” and was “gaining steam” both in the nation’s universities and in the black community.

All the major black organizations had signed on, including the NAACP, the Urban League and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Randall Robinson’s book, “The Debt: What America Owes to Blacks,” had hit the bestseller lists in 2000. Many state and local Democratic politicians started to talk up the idea.

Then: nothing. Today, reparations seem to have completely disappeared from the national agenda. Few mention them anymore. What happened?

With the election of Barack Obama, many have hoped for a reopening of the reparations discussion, however Obama himself opposes monetary reparations:

I have said in the past _ and I’ll repeat again _ that the best reparations we can provide are good schools in the inner city and jobs for people who are unemployed.

This response reminds me of those houses that give out toothbrushes and raisins for Halloween. The implicit acknowledgment in Obama’s statement is that this country owes reparations to ancestors of slaves, just that it shouldn’t be money. What is Obama so afraid of? People spending money on things they want instead of things he thinks they need? In the current economic climate, that might not be so much of a worry. Most people could probably find a lot of “needs” to put the money towards – mortgage payments, food, paying off debt, etc.  But is there anything wrong with people spending the money on wants as well? In the reparations scenario envisioned by the movie Barbershop, Cedric the Entertainer’s character argues that reparations “ain’t gonna do nothing but make Cadillac the number one car dealership in America.” Wouldn’t we rather have that than an American auto industry bailout?

Congrats to Obama, here’s hoping for strong and enlightened leadership over the next four years.  But will somebody please explain to me the following statement from Obama’s acceptance speech:

Let us remember that if this financial crisis taught us anything, it’s that we cannot have a thriving Wall Street while Main Street suffers – in this country, we rise or fall as one nation; as one people.

Is this a normative or positive statement?  In other words, is Obama saying that Main Street’s suffering led to Wall Street’s collapse?  Or is he saying that we shouldn’t allow Wall Street to do well if Main Street is suffering?  If the former, I’d like to understand what the theory of causation is.  If the latter, what would be the method of enforcement?

According to their facebook statuses, most people I know are very eager to have the elections done with.  Without the elections, though, we might never have learned how easy it is to amend the California constitution or about the existence of refundable tax credits.

Shocking revelation for me: you can receive a bigger tax refund check than the total amount of money you paid in income tax.  With refundable tax credits, you can owe negative income taxes and actually get the government to pay you the difference.  According to this article:

For the most part, the government enacts tax credits to encourage certain behavior. For instance, the Saver’s Credit is designed to give low-income workers incentives to fund retirement accounts.

Making tax credits refundable allows lower-income workers to take advantage of them, said Robert Greenstein, executive director of the left-leaning Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. Since many lower-income workers pay little or no tax, a non-refundable credit such as the Saver’s Credit isn’t much use to them. Obama wants to make the Saver’s Credit refundable.

McCain calls refundable tax credits an expansion of welfare because,

Republicans oppose sending money without restrictions on its use to people who don’t pay tax, said Douglas Holtz-Eakin, McCain’s senior economic policy adviser. And the GOP doesn’t like paying for it by increasing taxes on wealthier Americans, which they say is another example of Obama’s ideological drive to redistribute wealth, he said.

If you believe a penny saved is a penny earned, then there seems to be no distinction between a tax credit of $200 to someone who doesn’t owe taxes and a tax credit of $200 to someone who does owe taxes.  Tax credits target and reward certain behavior, whereas welfare benefits target and reward need.  I think that is the better argument for the Obama camp to make, rather than the argument they do make:

Obama supporters . . . take issue with the Republican view that the refundable credits would go to people who pay no tax. Those who don’t pay income taxes still support their state and federal governments through payroll taxes for Social Security and Medicare, sales taxes, property taxes and gas taxes.

Can’t you make the everyone-pays-taxes argument for anyone who has ever bought groceries or gas?  The problem is literally everyone pays taxes, Including everyone on welfare.  It’s not necessarily true that people who pay sales tax are supporting the government vs. being supported by the government.  If that is the justification for Obama’s increase in the number and amount of refundable tax credits, I can see why it looks a lot like welfare to the McCain camp, particularly with quotes like this from the above-mentioned Robert Greenstein:

If you are a millionaire, you get the child care tax credit. But if you make $20,000, you are denied it because you don’t make enough. It ends up going to the least needy.

It’s one thing to argue that the person making $20,000 will probably derive greater utility from the tax credit than someone making $200,000, but “the least needy”?  I know the target audience for that sort of statement is probably not libertarians, but how can people not get a little nauseous from reading such blatant paternalism?

I am not even sure if the utility argument is legitimate.  Yes the government may be getting a bigger bang for its buck by giving a tax credit to people who don’t earn enough to pay income tax than to people who earn $200,000.  But the biggest bang for the government’s buck would be to give the credit to those in the lowest tax bracket.  If my income is just under the tax cut off, I have very little incentive to make a little more money because then my entire income gets taxed.  In a normal tax credit world, you could at least argue that there is some marginal benefit to people who begin to pay taxes because they can start to access the various tax credits.  Tax credits, unlike tax deductions, can offset additional income many times larger than the amount of the credit itself, adding even more benefit to the taxpayer.  For instance, each couple hundred dollars in tax credits could mean another thousand dollars or more in income a taxpayer could earn tax free.  The value of the tax credit then is not only the money given and the utility received, but also the added incentive for the worker to earn maybe 5-10% more of their income than they otherwise would.  In a refundable tax credit world, there would be no such incentive to earn enough to enter the lowest tax bracket. If we made all tax credits refundable, it would conflict with some of the desired purposes of the tax credits themselves, e.g. the “making work pay” credit.  It could also arguably over-incentivize tax credits such as the child/dependent tax credit.

Most shocking/sickening revelation of the entire article:

“Most people pay more in Social Security taxes than in income taxes,” said John Irons, research and policy director at the liberal Economic Policy Institute.

Luckily the wealthy still benefit from the social security cap, right wealthy? (wicked laugh, twist of capitalist mustache)

Most election years I vote Libertarian, because that’s the sort of cranky weirdo that I am. And if I happen to be living in a swing state, people invariably tell me that I’m throwing my vote away and that I’ll be sorry if the Republicans (who I generally like even less than the Democrats) win. This is pernicious nonsense.

It bothers me when people talk about how close their particular state is when they’re making up their mind about how to vote, as if their individual vote could change the election. It can not. The odds against an election coming down to a single vote, even in a very close race, are astronomical. And even if it did come down to a single vote, our election systems aren’t finely tuned enough to detect the true winner at that margin. There will always be miscountings, smudged ballots, Diebold chicanery, and other such snafus. If an election is truly within a single vote, there’s no way our system is precise enough to say who actually won. 

Voting isn’t about personally making a difference. Your individual vote will not, and can not, make a difference. But your individual vote will state your preferences about who should lead the country and where it should go. Getting the opportunity to express yourself like that is a very precious right.

Here’s an analogy that I think is useful. Let’s say that Congress is considering a new bill to bail out the perverted arts to the tune of $30 billion. And let’s say for the sake of argument that I hate this bill. I write a letter to my Congressman telling him to oppose the bill, I write an angry letter to my local newspaper expressing my opinions, and I put a “Honk if you find Richard Mapplethorpe’s sadomasochistic nudes less compelling than his technically accomplished floral still lives” sign up in my yard. If the bill doesn’t pass, it will be because the bill faced opposition from a sector of society including me. But there’s no plausible set of circumstances under which my individual opposition could be the deciding factor. 

Voting is not a long-shot attempt to personally pick the President. A ballot is not a lottery ticket offering a one-in-a-billion chance to be in charge of the Illuminati’s President-picking department. What it is is a chance to express oneself and have your voice be heard. The only time a vote is ‘wasted’ is when somebody votes for their second-choice candidate out of the bizarre delusion that they need to vote tactically. 

(For the record, this year I am voting Obama.)

As most of us likely learned in grade school, the U.S. government is built on a system of checks and balances.  Each of the three branches of government — legislative, executive, and judicial — serves as a check on the others.  It could be said, not unreasonably, that the people have their own “check” on the government: amendments to the U.S. Constitution.  If the people don’t like the laws passed by the legislature, as interpreted by the courts, the people (through their representatives — an imperfect proxy, of course) have the ultimate authority: they can simply change the rules.  The Supreme Court can overturn any law passed by the legislature, but it can’t do a damn thing about what the Constitution says.

Amendments are serious business, which is why they’re also seriously difficult to pass.  First two thirds of Congress must vote in favor of the proposed amendment.  After it passes in Congress, it’s put to the vote of the states, a full THREE QUARTERS of which must vote in favor of the amendment.  Clearly, the Constitution is far more important, and far more powerful, than run-of-the-mill legislation.

Which brings us to the land of fruits and nuts, my strange and beautiful home state of California.  I learned something new this year: to amend the California constitution, you need only a simple majority.  51%.  Or, I suppose, 50.0001%, or whatever is the equivalent of a single vote tipping it over 50%.  Not a two-thirds supermajority or a three-quarters super-duper-majority.  Just a plain old majority.  The exact same majority you need to enact any old law.

So I’m just wondering: if you can change the constitution just as easily as you can make or change any other law, what’s the point of having a constitution?  Seriously, I’m wondering.

The other night I was watching this cool Discovery show about the conception, intrauterine development, and birth of puppies.  In high def.  It was pretty awe inspiring actually, and I am not a big dog lover.  In my mind, this depiction of the birth of a libertarian is just as awe inspiring, especially considering the natural inclinations of this particular budding libertarian (as you will see).  It just goes to show that there is a little libertarian in all of us, trying to claw it’s way out of our stomach and wreak havoc on the world.  That’s right, the libertarian distinction welcomes all: religious, areligious, liberal, conservative, animal lover, animal hater–just as long as you have among your myriad beliefs the core libertarian value that government should get out of people’s way as much as possible.  Here it is:

Friend: i don’t think gay couples should be allowed artificial insemination.  i also don’t believe single individuals should be allowed it.  i don’t think the right of parenting should be afforded to all people.

me: whoa, you want there to be qualifications for people to be parents?  you know people can just have sex with whoever and get pregnant, right?  there’s an easy alternative to artificial insemination if the government starts regulating it.  and even if artificial insemination was somehow necessary, basically what you would be doing is sending those and related services to the black market, like drugs.  and it would be unsafe and unregulated and the money would fund criminal organizations that would kill and oppress.  i realize that you have this idealistic view of parenting, but do realize that most of the world doesn’t share your thoughts?

Friend: i realize that.  doesn’t mean i should stop wishing that weren’t the way things went.

me: yeah, but it is totally not enforceable

Friend: i know

me: so you wish everything were different, but you are fine not doing anything about it?

Friend: as long as nobody steps on my toes.  if there is some sort of “acceptance” shoved down my throat, I don’t know if I will stay quiet

me: well how would it be shoved down your throat?

Friend: well, my personal beliefs are that children should be born to a mother and father who love each other and are in a committed relationship sanctioned by the state and by God.  that may be idealistic, but it is still my goal and i want society to be as conducive to that as possible.

me: yeah, but we’re not going to make it illegal to do otherwise, right?  single motherhood, alternative family relationships…

Friend: right, but i think those other arrangements should be stigmatized like they used to be so that they won’t happen as often

me: sure, and no one is going to stop you from trying to stigmatize it.  that’s your right, within certain parameters.

Friend: well, i just worry that sexual orientation being a protected class will disallow stigmatizing

me: right.  you can stigmatize, but you can’t do it by discriminating against people based solely on their sexual orientation.  and you wouldn’t want the law to be otherwise, either, because then you open up the possibility of whatever group you belong to being discriminated against at hotels, restaurants, hospitals…

Friend: hmm, so i guess it is best to prohibit discrimination because we’ve got our share of crazies who won’t always discriminate justly.

me: right.  i mean, do we really want each individual doctor to decide who he thinks good and bad parents will be?

Friend: no.  and generally speaking, people who are going to doctors for artificial insemination are better parents than the random teenagers who get knocked-up simply because they are making the decision by choice.  but still, i wouldn’t mind God exercising some righteous judgment.  and if we can’t have that, then i guess we don’t want anyone else to have all the power to decide.  not much government in that

me: right.  see, maybe you’re a libertarian at heart

Friend: is that what defines libertarianism?

me: as little government intervention as possible in every aspect of life

Friend: hmm.  maybe

me: that was easy.  i should be getting some sort of compensation from the libertarian party for this.

California has a Proposition to amend the constitution to state that “only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California.”  According to some polls, 10% of voters are still undecided.

The first step for undecided voters is deciding whether your preference is voting for rights or for the greater good.  If you believe that marriage is an inalienable basic civil liberty, then there should be marriage equality.  If you believe that marriage is something we permit because it benefits our society and to the extent it ceases to benefit our society we will cease to endorse marriage, then you need to examine how you think same sex marriage would benefit and/or harm society.

Although the general rule seems to be that people have the right to marry, we have traditionally denied people the right to marry anyone of their choosing in certain circumstances.  In many states there is a minimum age requirement for marriage.  In some states, certain blood relatives cannot marry, presumably even though they are consenting adults and are past child-bearing years.  People may not marry again if they already have one spouse.  Why do we have these restrictions on marriage?  Because society thinks it is bad for business.  Our forefathers made the judgment that in those marriages, the harm exceeded the benefits such that society would not condone them.

Same sex marriage has been traditionally disallowed, but just because our forefathers thought the harm outweighed the cost doesn’t mean it is true.  Anti-miscegenation laws were also presumably based on a cost/benefit analysis, but most would agree now that the benefit to allowing interracial marriage in our society outweighs the harms.  The same could be true of same sex marriage, in fact opponents of the amendment cite Massachusetts and several other countries as positive test cases for same sex marriage.  Same sex couples in California have been participating in de facto marriages, what would be the harm of making it official?

It is also possible that the harm for same sex marriage outweighs the benefits.  The California Supreme Court in the In re Marriage case relied on the rights based argument and so did not perform a detailed cost/benefit analysis, however the gay population is estimated at less than 5% of the population.  Benefits to that small a portion would have to be great to counteract even a small harm to the other 95% of the population.  Proponents of the amendment point to allowing no-fault divorces (which some blame for the current divorce rate of 50%) and allowing unwed mothers on welfare (which some argue has led to the sharp increase in the number of welfare babies) as real world examples of the unintended consequences that laws aimed at a small percentage of the population can have overall.  Proponents of the amendment also point to the fact that under California law, same sex couples in civil unions will still have all the same legal rights as married couples.  Additionally, sexual orientation will still be a protected class such that no law can discriminate against a person because of his or her sexual orientation in California.

People complain about how much time, money, and effort are being put into this debate.  To paraphrase a Chicago law professor opposed to certain campaign finance limits, with something this important, I would like to see more time, money, and effort spent on both sides of the issue.  There is a great deal of uncertainty about what effects governmental endorsement of same sex marriage will have in the long term.   The only thing that is certain is that same sex marriage will have some effect; the only question is in what ways and to what extent.  All things considered, I sort of admire the indecision of that 10% of the population in the face of such lasting potential consequences.