Question of the night: Is the personal political?

Posted on January 23, 2012 by Fairlington Blade

Hi all,

We’re about an hour from debate time and I wanted to expand upon something that came up in an earlier debate. Rick Perry voiced what I thought was a dangerous line of attack on Newt. Here’s the quote: “If you cheat on your wife, you’ll cheat on your business partner, so I think that issue of fidelity is important.” It’s an interesting challenge and one worth expanding upon.

Let’s take fiscal conservatives as an example. I consider myself a fiscal conservative in both the personal and political senses of the world. We bought our house in 2005, when the real estate world seemed to have gone mad. People were getting all kinds of crazy mortgages, which really pissed me off as it meant I couldn’t afford the kind of home I hoped to have. We held to a firm rule. 10% down. 15 year fixed mortgage. It would mean sacrifices, but it made fiscal sense. I’m glad we were careful as despite our care, we had financial troubles. The place needed a good deal more work than anticipated and so we blew through our savings, I took out a $15k improvement loan, and we were still running a bit short. [I’m fiscally conservative, but also make mistakes.] We bore down, built up some minimal savings, and paid off that loan 7 years early. We’re working to pay off my wife’s student loans next year (way early after having consolidated), and I want to pay off the mortgage by the time the boys exit elementary school (that’d be about 3 – 4 years early). I don’t want to be in a position of needing a paycheck ever again. I’ll note that I’m lucky in that I’ve had a relatively secure position during the last 4 years and my wife’s freelancing has taken off.

I’m also a fiscal conservative in the political sense. For me, being a fiscal conservative means that expenditures should match income. Cutting taxes without cutting expenditures is the act of a fiscal fool. So is increasing expenditures without increasing taxes. So, Medicare Part D was reckless. Expanding Medicare to include a drug benefit? Great idea! Doing it without touching FICA rates. Terrible idea¡ If you want federal taxes to be limited to 20% of GDP, fine. Then propose a budget that meets that.

Now, shocks occur. I am horrified by the present fiscal situation, but it beats a second great depression. It flips my personal stance (short term pain for long term gain). Ironically, the opposite seems to be the case. Short term deficits and long term cuts. The alternative is Greece (or the UK, which slipped back into recession).

That’s a somewhat lengthy example. Let’s bring it to politicians. Example A would be Rep. Joe Walsh (R-Illinois). Owes child support, a condo foreclosure, and tax liens. How can anyone take such an individual seriously? I’ll also put Charlie Rangel in the same class. For all his tap dancing, the attacks on Al Gore for his mansion hit home.

I’m curious as to other analogues. Do apparent contradictions between a politician’s personal behavior and their political positions matter to you? Are there any cases of where your vote has been affected by a politician’s personal actions?

And most important of all. Would you like to grope Sen. Rand Paul? 😉

BB

Filed under: politics | 15 Comments »

4th Amendment News: SCOTUS Rules GPS Tracking is a Search

Posted on January 23, 2012 by novahockey

We’ve talked about this case before.  Details at Wired.  The case was unanimous.   Scalia wrote the opinion and was joined by 4 others and Alito wrote a concurring opinion that was joined by three.  So 9-0 in favor of limiting a police power.

What’s really surprising is that it a 9-0 in favor of tossing a death sentence of a DC drug dealer.

The case is available here.

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The Effect of Eliminating AFDC 1996-2010, a history lesson

Posted on January 23, 2012 by markinaustin

AFDC was a part of the original SS program that we older folks knew as “welfare”.  It was assailed by folks from all directions.  The late Patrick Moynihan decried the incentive to have more children on welfare because the checks were sized based on the # of children.  The Nobel winning physicist Shockley thought it encouraged the spawning of poor black kids who he wrote were inferior.  I think he called it a dysgenic effect, but I may have that word not quite right.  This was in the sixties.

Rs and some Ds pointed to the building of a permanent underclass. 

It was in 1992 that WJC campaigned to get rid of welfare as we knew it. Ds in Congress opposed him. He finally found an ally in Newt.  In 1996, AFDC was replaced by Temporary Assistance to Needy Families. Assistance is limited to two years, and not a lifetime. Work retraining or schooling is a requirement.  Here is how the numbers dropped:

Year Average monthly TANF recipients US Population (%) Poverty rate (%) Annual unemployment rate (%)
Average monthly TANF recipients, percent of U.S. families in poverty and unemployment rate
1996 12,320,970 (see note) 4.6 11.0 5.4
1997 10,375,993 3.9 10.3 4.9
1998 8,347,136 3.1 10.0 4.5
1999 6,824,347 2.5 9.3 4.2
2000 5,778,034 1.4 8.7 4.0
2001 5,359,180 1.9 9.2 4.7
2002 5,069,010 1.8 9.6 5.8
2003 4,928,878 1.7 10.0 6.0
2004 4,748,115 1.6 10.2 5.5
2005 4,471,393 1.5 9.9 5.1
2006 4,166,659 1.4 9.8 4.6
2007 3,895,407 1.3 9.8 4.5
2008 3,795,007 1.2 10.3 5.4
2009 4,154,366 1.4 11.1 8.1
2010 4,375,022 1.4 11.7 8.6
       

 Many Euro countries still have permanent welfare, and thus have %s on welfare like we had on AFDC.  I thought the move from AFDC to TANF was long overdue and I thought it put a big crimp in whatever “culture of dependency” had been created.  I would oppose deleting TANF.  I still think the public believes we have the old AFDC system, but I may be wrong.  I offer this in the spirit of historical information, just in case it is new to some of you. 

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Morning Report

Posted on January 23, 2012 by Brent Nyitray
Vital Statistics:
Last Change Percent
S&P Futures 1311 0.2 0.02%
Eurostoxx Index 2442.2 15.200 0.63%
Oil (WTI) 98.97 0.640 0.65%
LIBOR 0.5601 -0.001 -0.18%
US Dollar Index (DXY) 79.746 -0.410 -0.51%
10 Year Govt Bond Yield 2.06% 0.04%
Congrats to the Pats and G-Men.
Markets are slightly higher this morning as Greek bondholders have made their best and final offer to the EU and IMF. Much of Asia was closed overnight in observance of the Lunar New Year.
Even Krugman is figuring out the economy is improving. He notes that housing has been a drag on the economy, but six years into the bust, it is becoming less and less of a drag as the excesses have been largely worked off. If housing becomes a positive, it could finally set the stage for the virtuous economic cycle we have been waiting for.
Of course Krugman takes shots at Obama for “giving into Republican demands that he slash spending” and at Bernake for giving in to Republican demands that it tighten money, positing that we wouldn’t be on the slow road to recovery if we had simply listened to him. He also goes on to slay the Bush dragon and the ECB dragon as well. The Fed tightened? Obama slashed spending? Whatever, Paul. I used to like Krugman when he was just an economist, now he is more of left wing Larry Kudlow.
Earnings Season continues this week with a ton of reports. The biggest names will be Apple, Boeing, and McDonalds, but there are a lot of industrials and energy names reporting as well. In economic data, we have the FOMC decision this week (will be interesting to see if the recent economic strength is noted in the statement). Durable Goods and Leading Economic indicators will be good data points this week.

Filed under: Earnings Announcements, Economic data, Uncategorized | Tagged: | 56 Comments »