Farm Bill and Debt Limit

 The cynic in me applauds President Biden's tactic of inviting a bipartisan delegation to the White House to discuss the new farm bill.  Why am I cynical?  While negotiations over farm bill provisions got White House attention in the 1960's and 70's, they haven't gotten that much in recent decades.  

But this year the current farm bill is expiring just as the issue of raising the debt limit and cutting spending is at the forefront.  One of the things the House Republicans want to cut is food stamps (SNAP) which is a title in the farm bill.  IIRC if the bill the House passed were actually implemented, USDA would see its spending reduced to 83 percent of current. But farm state Republican senators, which likely includes them all, listen to their farmers so Biden is putting the squeeze on.  In effect he's saying two things: 

1. you need to help resolve the impasse over debt limit so we can move on to the farm bill, and
2. you need to oppose the provisions in the House bill to make cuts, particularly in SNAP, in order to get the Democratic votes you will need to pass the farm bill.

Well played, it seems, at least at this moment.

Loan Forgiveness and Reparations

 Vox has a discussion of the student loan forgiveness program.  It seems to me there's a parallel between this program and proposal for reparations, most notably reparations to black Americans.

In both cases, at least part of the rationale is to redress wrongs which people have suffered in the past, and to recognize and mitigate the damage currently being suffered. (There is a difference--in the case of slavery the people who would receive the benefits would be the descendants of those wronged; in the case of student loans those who took out the loans would receive the forgiveness.  I'm assuming the death of the borrower wipes out the loan obligations, which isn't totally clear.)

In both cases, there's the problem of fixing the problem which caused the damage. In the case of loan forgiveness, it may have been a bad loan from the start, based on fraud or misjudgment by the lender or the borrower. Or it may have turned bad by subsequent events--illness of the borrower, economic hardship, failure of the college, etc. In the case of slavery the damages resulting from slavery have carried forward. 

Biden seems to be trying to correct the problems in student loans, although I get the idea  there's skepticism about the effectiveness.  So there's the fear that students will end up with bad loans in the future, and that colleges will raise tuition anticipating future forgiveness.  In the case of reparations it's not clear to me that the various proposals really address the ongoing problems.  IMO that's the big weakness of reparations.

Assault Weapon Ban?

 Statistia has an article on an assault weapon ban, including links to studies, like this Stanford one on the effect of the Clinton 1994 ban, which expired after 10 years. 

The sunset provision was likely a compromise to get it passed.  I wonder if it would have worked to include a criteria in such legislation--i.e., specifying that if after 10 years there was a decline in fatalities the law would continue, if not, it would end?

Biden is speaking tonight, presumably to urge passage of something which will disappoint gun safety advocates and irk those in gun advocacy organizations. 

An interesting advance in 3-D printing described in the paper today--using a person's own cells to print an ear, inserted beneath the skin (person's one ear was small and misformed).  In terms of guns, it shows how 3-D printing is advancing, reminding me of the "ghost guns".  Technology may have already outstripped any law which can be passed, at least in my lifetime.

Resolving Ukraine

 There's discussion of establishing some sort of international guarantee of neutrality for Ukraine, suggested by the Austrian precedent.  Seems to me there are questions in getting to a resolution:

• how do we assess the balance of forces and the future--who does it favor and how sure are we of our assessment? Do all the parties have the same understanding, and do the publics in the US and EU agree with their leaders' assessment? 
• how does Putin get at least a figleaf for domestic consumption, or does he get more.  The neutrality deal and possible recognition of the two breakaway regions might do it, if Ukraine agrees.
• what happens to the Russian forces now in Ukraine--do they withdraw to Russia?
• what happens to EU/US sanctions?  How do the EU, US, and Ukraine come to a coordinate agreement on time table, etc.
• what about the damages from the war--does Russia pay any reparations?
• what confidence do the parties have in Russia's signature on any agreement? If we don't have confidence do we need to build up Ukraine's military?

It's a complex diplomatic and political situation.

Things Change--Biden and Demographics

 

This is the president signing an executive order on customer service. Just a semi-routine ceremony, but I thought the demographics of the attendees were interesting, especially in contrast with the prior administration.

More on Unemployment Insurance Systems

 I noted the use of COBOL in state unemployment insurance systems. 

This GovExec article describes what the Biden administration is doing.  I wish them luck, and persistence.

The Nose of the Camel and Government Programs

 This Politico piece traces the history of the pension program for Civil War veterans (Union army) from very limited coverage to close to universal, ending with its last payment in 2020 to a widow. It argues that because the vets developed an effective lobby organization (Grand Army of the Republic) they were able to expand the program over the years.  It goes on to cite the 20th century's Social Security and Medicare programs as similar cases where a program limited initially was expanded subsequently. All of this is in service to an argument that possibly the programs included in Biden's "Build Back Better" might have a similar destiny.

I don't quarrel with the writer's logic and hope for the expansion of BBB programs.  I do offer the instance of USDA farm programs as another instance of the expansion of government programs, an instance which is even more noteworthy than his examples.

In the years since the Agricultural Adjustment Act was passed, programs have expanded to cover not only seven or eight field crops, but oilseeds, fruits and vegetables, specialty crops, aquaculture, apiculture, etc.  The only crops whose programs have been reduced as of now are tobacco, peanuts, and naval stores.

How the Sausage Is Made

 Does anyone remember the deals which Nebraska, Louisiana, and Arkansas got, IIRC, when the Dems tried to pass ACA? I don't remember whether the final legislation included the deals; I'm thinking not, but there was a lot of wheeling and dealing during the run up.  That's what I see today.

Vaccine Mandates

 I gather from this post in the FSA Facebook Group that the issue of complying with the federal vaccine mandate is controversial. I ran across a post somewhere today which indicated the actual process of implementing the mandate was going to take a while.  

I wonder whether with the delta surge declining will the administration actually go through with it.  It sounds as if even when implemented there would be a drawn-out process for penalizing anyone who didn't get vaccinated, so it may become a dead letter. We'll see.  In the meantime there's a lot of angst out there, and it may be creating conflict in small offices where there's strongly held divergent opinions.   

We who support the Biden's position need to remember the human costs of how it's implemented. 

Prisoners Dilemma and the Democrats

 Some discussion this morning on the Democrats maneuvering in Congress led to this idea:

The Prisoner's Dilemma is a part of game theory where, per wikipedia: that shows why two completely rational individuals might not cooperate, even if it appears that it is in their best interests to do so. In the game, if both players trust each other they can end up with an outcome which is good for both, but if they only look to their own interests with no consideration of the other player they end up with the worst result.

I see Senators Manchin and Sinema (MS) as one player; the progressives as the other player.  MS want the infrastructure bill; the progressives want the Biden "Build Back Better" bill. If the two groups cooperate they can get both; if they don't they may get neither.  Partially this boils down to how much trust the two parties have in each other, but mainly it rests on whether there's a compromise on the size and contents and tax provisions of the BBB which both can live with. 

Second Thoughts

My opinion as expressed in my post on Afghanistan is different than Kevin Drum's as expressed here and here.  And perhaps deviates from Tom Friedman, who in the Times writes of the "morning after the morning after".

That's bothersome, as I respect Drum's opinions on almost everything.

So time for second thoughts:

• Trump's Doha deal with the Taliban promised we'd be out by May. Pence has criticized Biden for not respecting that.  I think Biden was right to take some time, 4 months as it turned out, to figure out whether he wanted to go with his gut or follow the recommendations of the military.  He would have been severely criticized if he pulled out in May.  It's debatable whether he could reasonably taken the whole summer to consider, so the departure would have happened after the end of the "fighting season".
• There's lots of finger pointing over the intelligence, did the CIA predict it or blow it?  We'll get lots ore on this.  My guess is the CIA was pessimistic, the military optimistic, but nobody saw the quick collapse (which seems to be Gen Milley's position).
• The planning and scheduling of the departure.  Military says they planned and did exercises.  I'll be watching to see if there was State/military planning, and joint exercises--such coordination has always been problematic, and in the absence of lots of high ranking Biden appointees and the transition coordination might well have been an early casualty.
• Based on how things have gone so far, it looks as if we would have done better by bringing the 6,000 troops much earlier--let them live in field for a couple months while the troops which have been serving there departed.  The new troops would be charged with maintaining order during the departure.
• A key element of the planning should have been developing a database of Americans who might need to depart, including both government employees and civilian contractors; a database of NATO personnel so we're clear whether we need to help other nations evacuate their nationals; and a database of Afghanis who have been on our payrolls in the last 20 years, plus their families.

One point the administration has made which I hadn't considered--early steps to evacuate were opposed by the Ghani administration and could/would be demoralizing to them.   I don't know how you handle that--if we're talking 20-100,000 people there's no way to keep arrangements secret. But that demoralization seems to be the main cause of the rapid collapse of Ghani government anyway.  

Maybe in an ideal world Biden and Blinken would have gone back to the Taliban and pitched a deal--a more planned departure. (Or departures, different arrangements depending on how events transpired.)  Problem is that Trump had bargained away US leverage, so anything we could have offered would have relied on Ghani's cooperation in facilitating a transfer of power.  

It's possible that Kevin is right--if things go relatively smoothly from here on out, what seemed to be disastrous two days ago will fade into the past.  I hope so.

Buck Stops With Biden

I remember Harry S, and his buck stops.  I think that is right.  I don't know that Biden did anything which led to today in Kabul, but it's his responsibility. Presidents can take credit for things which happen during their term, even though they didn't cause them; so too should we hold them responsible for the bad things which happen.  

In my mind this parallels Obama and the healthcare.gov problems.  In both cases the leader may have done all the usual "due diligence", but in both cases there was* no appreciation for Murphy's law, for the black swan event.  And in both cases the bad happened, and it was bad.   

In an ideal world the leader would do a stress test on his bureaucracy, worrying about contingency plans.  You recall Eisenhower had at least a contingency message prepared in case D-Day was a fiasco and the troops had to be evacuated.  

* I write this knowing there's been no real reporting on the decision process in either case, at least no tick-tock book which I've read.

I'd also note that Trump's agreement with the Taliban put Biden in a tough position. My knee-jerk reaction is that he perhaps should have kept the troops and support going until the last minute while paring down the civilian contingent and especially getting all the interpreters and otherwise vulnerable people on the way  out of the country. 

Tax Reform

 Reading "The Man Who Ran Washington, the Life and Times of James A. Baker III"

On page 250 Baker, who's just moved from chief of staff to Reagan to be Secretary of Treasury is about to work on tax reform.  The authors describe the current situation in terms which sound familiar today: many big corporations not paying any taxes, effective tax rate low, multitude of loopholes etc. 

As they describe the eventual 1986 tax reform act, it almost sounds as if it's something Biden could buy.  Top rate 33 percent (using a surtax) with 35 percent on corporations.  Eventually passed comfortably with bipartisan support. 

Times have changed.

The Attitude of the Right

Powerline blog is the most right of the news/opinion source I follow.  Paul Mirengoff is usually, not always, the most sensible of the four writers on the blog.  

I'm disappointed by his post today, basically saying the right should presume that the president is always wrong.  I had hoped, because he seemed the one most open to the idea that Biden won fairly, he would be a bit more open to Biden's appeal for unity.

I remember Herblock, a Post cartoonist who always drew Richard Nixon with a heavy five o'clock shadow from the 1940's through the 1968 campaign, when Nixon was inaugurated in 1969 drew a Nixon with no shadow, and the caption reading "this barbershop gives one free shave". 

Have We Seen the Peak?

 It's possible the pandemic has peaked in the US with the graph of new infections flattening, possibly starting a decline, which would then be followed by a similar change in hospitalizations and deaths.  

The conjunction of 400,000 deaths, the Biden inauguration, and the peak would be significant.

The Era of Commissions and Czars

 President-Elect Biden is planning a covid- czar, apparently.  I suspect we'll see more czars, task forces,  and commissions in the Biden administration than in past ones.

Czars can provide the promise of greater coordination among different silos.  There's a widespread perception the government does not act effectively, so the czar is one solution.  Cynically, it also offer another prestigious position for Biden to use in satisfying the demands of various parts of his coalition for influence.  (Think of a robin with one worm in its mouth facing four hungry chicks in the next.)

Task forces do much the same.  Trump's covid0-19 task force doesn't have a good reputation, but the Operation Warp Speed seems to be doing well at combining the efforts of HHS, CDC, FDA, and the military.

And commissions are a way to seem bipartisan and, at the least, give the impression of action while kicking insoluble issues down the road.  

Undoing Trump's Work II

The Times has an article today on how the Democrats are planning to use the Congressional Review Act to undo Trump regulatory actions.  According to the article the Republicans are now within the period to which the Act applies so a new Congress controlled by the Democrats would be able to reverse any final rules published from here on to Jan. 19.

The piece quotes Sally Katzen as raising the issue of whether it's possible to reinstate the Obama regs which the Trump administration nullified using the CRA, but it doesn't explore it. I haven't looked at the actual wording of the act recently, but I wonder if the courts would uphold the ability of one Congress to bind a future Congress.

Undoing Trump's Work

Trump has made many changes in federal policy, issuing a lot of executive orders. Most recently, he's proposing to change the way the government does environmental policy.  There's already a lawsuit saying he's not following the Administrative Procedure Act. IMHO it's likely the policy won't be final by Jan 20, so a new Biden administration could withdraw it easily. My point here is actions like this are basically political campaign fodder, not realistic.  It's okay; the Obama administration did  much the same.  You spend 3.5 years hoping to do something,and you wake up and find you're out of time, but you might as well do it anyway--it will look good to your supporters and there's always the chance the new administration will carry on the work.

Other changes Trump has made are permanent, meaning a new administration will have to go through the rulemaking process to consider whether they want just to reverse the changes, or whether they want to take the occasion to make some modifications of their own.  I'm not sure whether a straight revocation of a final rule has a lower legal hurdle for justification or not--it's possible a new cost-benefit analysis would still be required.  Since Trump's people have changed the parameters for such analyses  the situation gets a bit more complicated.

Assuming Biden wins in November, watching the new administration navigate these hurdles will be rewarding.

Comparing to Whom?

I don't think I posted during the Kavanaugh confirmation process, except to predict it wouldn't matter much in 2020.  Now Biden is facing questions on his past, and the right is accusing the left of inconsistency, of applying a different standard to Biden than Kavanaugh.

Let me opine;

• first, the context.  In the Kavanaugh case the issue was whether to confirm him to a life position on the basis of known facts, and some allegations.  In the Biden case there are two possible framings: either he's just a candidate for the Dem nomination, and therefore the Dems should choose someone else, or at least investigate more, OR he's the Dem nominee in all but name and the issue is whether to vote for him or someone else in November. I think the latter position is more logical, as well as favoring my "priors". Sanders is the logical alternative to Biden as nominee, but he's my least favorite.  A dispute over who replaces Biden would kill chances to win the presidency IMO.
• In my mind some of the "We Too" movement is what was called "pour encourager les autres". In other words, we're trying to establish new social norms by levying punishments which, in some cases, are disproportionate to the crime.  I'd view Al Franken's case in that light. If he had apologized at the time of the incidents and the woman accepted it, that would have closed the case.  Even if she didn't accept it, it wouldn't be a problem for a future political career.  You have to distinguish between Franken and Weinstein or Cosby, who were accused and convicted of actual crimes. 
• The distinction between contemporaneous incidents, where the response by the victim and possibly law enforcement quickly follows the incident, and the asynchronous ones, where the victim comes forward well after the incident is important.
• Biden's touchy-feely episodes, for which he's apologized, seem not to have been crimes but breaches of good behavior as now understood. 
• The Tara Reade incident would have been a crime when committed, although a recourse to HR and not the police would be the usual response, I think.
• In judging the evidence as between the Kavanaugh and Biden cases these seem relevant:

1. alcohol involved in the Kavanaugh case on both sides, perhaps explaining behavior but also blurring memories.
2. no other accusers of Biden, which if it continues, is strong evidence--as in the Franken case once the ice is broken other people come forward.  Even with Kavanaugh others came forward.
3. the scenario for Kavanaugh drunken teenagers in an otherwise empty house seems more likely than groping in an office building presumably with other people in it.
4. Dr. Ford seems to have been more consistent with her story than Ms Reade, and her life has been smoother than Reade's.  That's classist, yes, so be it.
5. Reade has told more people her story at different times, though it's not clear how many times she alleged digital penetration. Without that there could have been a touchy-feely incident at the core of the story.
6. "Me too" movement and Biden goes too far when saying the woman must be believed: the story must be heard and carefully weighed.
7. While the difficulty of searching Biden's 1800 boxes of records can be exaggerated, assuming his office manager was well organized, I doubt the worth of doing the research.  A manager of interns and mail is likely to pass through an office without leaving much written history.

So my bottom line is I support Biden and will vote for him.  On treatment of women, Biden's record with women is much much much better than Trump's.  Indeed, on everything his record is better than Trump's.