Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) told Roll Call what the biggest challenge is while preparing Vice President Joe Biden to debate Paul Ryan:
“I sit next to Paul Ryan in the Budget Committee day in and day out,” he said on his preparation for the role.”So, I know how he presents the Republican case.
“He presents a plan that’s bad for the country with a smile, so I think the challenge is dealing with presentation of the plan, explaining why the plan is bad for the country,” he added.
With all due respect to Rep. Van Hollen, his biggest challenge is helping Joe Biden explain how ripping out more than $700 million from Medicare to pay for ObamaCare is a better policy than Ryan’s idea to convert future Medicare benefits into a fiscally sustainable premium support voucher.
It would take all of Bill Clinton’s rhetorical sleight-of-hand to pull off that feat. Instead, Van Hollen is working with the gaffe-prone Biden.
Good luck overcoming that handicap, Congressman. You’ll need it.
Conventional wisdom (pardon the pun) holds that presidential election season doesn’t begin in earnest until the conventions conclude.
If that’s the case, Barack Obama begins his job extension tour with a faceplant.
Economists expected our economy to add 135,000 new jobs in August, but today’s unemployment report shows just 96,000. Not only is that a steep decline from last month’s already-lackluster 141,000 number, it’s significantly below the 200,000 per month we must see to keep pace with population growth and substantively reduce the festering unemployment rate. Moreover, another 368,000 Americans simply dropped out of the workforce altogether in August, nearly four times the number of new jobs. Finally, the unemployment rate remained above the 8% level that the Obama Administration promised in January 2009 we would never reach in the first place, establishing a new record 43rd consecutive month. In fact, it promised that we would be down to approximately 5% by now.
“Four more years?” Today’s news makes that an increasingly difficult sell.
No president in modern history has been reelected with unemployment above 7.2%, and even that occurred in 1984 when the rate had plummeted in just a few months from over 10%. Accordingly, today’s unemployment report makes for an ugly hangover for Obama and his fellow Democratic conventioneers as they board their planes for home.
Jonah Goldberg on the difference between conservatives and liberals as stewards of the economy:
At least Reagan argued that the economy would prosper if he were allowed to liberate it from the scheming of self-styled experts. Clinton ran out in front of a parade of free-market successes and, like Ferris Bueller, acted as if he was leading the parade.
In his manifest hubris, Obama believed it was just that easy. He, too, could simply will a vibrant economy into being through sheer intellectual force. But, unlike Bill Clinton, he wouldn’t sully himself by playing “small ball.” Obama would be “transformative.”
This reminded me of Mitt Romney’s acceptance speech last week when he said, “President Obama promised to begin to slow the rise of the oceans and heal the planet. My promise… is to help you and your family.”
Free markets and strong families. Sounds like a good combination to me.
Tomorrow the latest jobs report will be announced by the Labor Department. Tonight President Barack Obama will accept his party’s (re)nomination for President of the United States. The Wall Street Journal says that sometime before he delivers his acceptance speech he will know what the numbers say.
This could prompt a side-game for political junkies:
Assuming the president gets a briefing on Thursday before his speech, what might he do with it? He isn’t exactly getting on stage, for one of the most important speeches of his career, to recite Labor Department data. But he conceivably could tweak his adjectives in describing the economy if the employment report is a surprise in either direction. Good luck trying to figure that out while you’re watching.
Steven Greenhut in City Journal has an update on California’s nascent pension reform deal:
Despite its relatively modest contents, AB 340 has been bitterly denounced by public-employee unions. “The pension proposals outlined today represent a retreat from collective bargaining and basic principles of retirement security,” said one firefighter-union official in a press statement. Union officials obviously don’t want the state capping pensions. The unions would prefer to work out “reforms” at the collective-bargaining table, where they exert the most power and often control both sides of the negotiation (union officials and city staffers sometimes belong to the same union, and many city council members get elected with union support).
But just because the plan is angrily opposed by unions doesn’t make it a good one. “Let’s be clear,” said assembly Republican leader Connie Conway, “the Democrat proposal is no substitute for serious reforms to get our public employee pension crisis under control. This is no time for the liberal majority to pat themselves on the back and say the job is done.” Indeed, AB 340, designed mainly as a fig leaf for a big tax increase, won’t fix the state’s massive pension problem. It’s a minor reform at best—and sadly par for the course with this governor and legislature.
All true. But I submit there is still a silver lining.
Last week I posted some thoughts on this issue. In those remarks I said that any real reform is welcome, if only to set the table for larger, more substantive changes in the future.
While more can and should be done to address California’s $500 billion in unfunded pension liabilities, this kind of “fig leaf” is welcome, if inadequate.
Even though the United Nations’ Arms Trade Treaty negotiations broke down in July, gun control advocates are already promoting a new vehicle to infringe on civilian ownership of firearms.
The new document being discussed at U.N. headquarters is called a “Programme of Action to Combat, and Eradicate the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons in All Its Aspects” (or PoA for short).
As Ted Bromund of the Heritage Foundation reports, so far the PoA isn’t doing much better than the ATT:
The normal approach is to try to walk before you run. At the U.N., though, the response to the PoA’s inability to walk is to recommend running. IANSA wants the PoA to expand to cover ammunition. Parker wants a PoA that would provide a broader framework for the ATT. And McLay believes it should consider further “normative development”—i.e., in future years it should discuss “the issues of civilian possession.” Indeed, on Tuesday at the review conference, IANSA acknowledged that the PoA has served as the basis for “gun control” in many nations and encouraged others to follow along.
IANSA stands for The International Action Network on Small Arms, and as Bromund notes, it is “the leading small-arms-control NGO…”
For some reason, the United States is still involved in negotiations with groups like IANSA.
It’s not often that regulators are so transparent about their ultimate goals. With the IANSA on record as using the PoA as a basis for gun control, it’s past time for conservatives in Congress to demand that the U.S. pull out of negotiations immediately. Safeguarding the Second Amendment requires nothing less.
While the mainstream media appears more concerned with Clint Eastwood’s improv skit or Mitt Romney’s income tax returns, gasoline prices reached an all-time Labor Day high this week. Back in 2008, of course, Barack Obama thundered that high gas prices demonstrated, “Washington’s failure to lead on energy,” with the consequence of, “turning the middle-class squeeze into a devastating vise-grip for millions of Americans.” Today, in contrast, Obama accuses critics of his energy policy of “playing politics.” Funny how four years of failed energy policy and Solyndra boondoggles changed his tune.
Jonathan Allen of Politico sums up the highly successful line of attack Republicans aimed at President Barack Obama during their nominating convention:
If Republicans landed a punch on Obama, it was the kind of strategic body blow that a skillful pugilist deploys to gain better position for the rest of the fight.
No roundhouse, no jaw-splitter, no knockout. It was the kind of shot aimed at subtly shifting momentum and softening up the opponent in a way that may not be evident to the casual observer.
Allen is right and Obama’s camp knows it. That’s why they’ve been running a character assassination campaign against Mitt Romney – felon, murderer – instead of talking about any of the President’s accomplishments.
The simple fact is there aren’t any successes directly attributable to Obama worth talking about. The more the Romney team can make this election a “good man, bad president” referendum on the incumbent, the more likely it is that Obama will be a one-term wonder.
I haven’t yet read a lot of the pundit reviews of Mitt Romney’s acceptance speech last night, but I gather that most people are giving it solid grades. Unfortunately, I dissent. In ordinary circumstances, I would give it just a ‘C,’ and even considering that Romney’s task was a bit different than that of many nominees… and that he did a pretty good job at meeting the needs involved in those differences (i.e., he needed to, and did, “humanize” himself more than he has done before)… I still give him only a ‘C+’ for the overall effectiveness of his speech in terms of his long-term campaign needs. And I’m one who always has thought of ‘C’ grades not as “decent” but as “pretty bad.”
I thought it was predictable, repetitive, and nowhere near substantive enough.
I won’t go into detail, just because if some Obama researcher is diligent enough to be trolling this site, I don’t want to give him direction as to where I thought the specific weaknesses were.
I did think that he delivered the speech as well as anybody could expect. And I think that for short-term purposes, the speech was more in line with a ‘B’ than a ‘C’ — in other words, that he made an overall good impression. But I don’t think it was an impression that will have major lasting benefit in a way that significantly improves his chances at winning in November. Yes, it sets the stage for incremental gains that actually do survive the rough and tumble of the next two months of campaigning — and incremental might be enough in a race this close — but I was looking for something that undecided and/or persuadable voters could grab hold of and really embrace, in a way that could cause a surge in Romney’s favor. I saw none of that. I expect no big surge. A small swelling of support maybe, but no big surge.
I missed this two weeks ago, but it’s worth noting. Nancy Nord, commissioner of the Consumer Product Safety Commission, had an excellent column in the Aug. 20 Washington Times that detailed the left’s addiction to over-regulation.
Tree farmers and small business owners have much to celebrate from a recent executive order signed by Georgia Governor Nathan Deal, which broadens the eligibility criteria for timber used in state government building projects and maintenance.
The order allows a larger number of wood products from Georgia forests to be utilized in state construction and building projects, protecting jobs in the state’s timber industry and reducing costs for taxpayers by opening the market to products certified by the American Tree Farm System and the Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI), certification programs currently not recognized by the U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED standards.
By ending USGBC’s LEED monopoly on “green” building wood certification, which effectively governs materials used in the overwhelming majority of public building projects nationwide, Georgia has rightly chosen competition and an open marketplace for forest products over monopolistic control by a non-profit environmental group that increasingly seems driven more by ideology and influence rather than sound science and economic common sense.
Recognizing that the “LEED rating system unfairly awards its wood certification credits only to products certified to the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC)” – the preferred certification program of extreme environmental groups that notoriously ignore the economic and employment impacts of their agendas – Governor Deal’s executive order officially acknowledges that “all forest certifications will equally help promote sustainable forests” and requires that “the design, construction, operation and maintenance of any new or expanded state building shall incorporate ‘Green Building’ standards that give certification credits equally to forest products grown, manufactured, and certified under the Sustainable Forestry Initiative, the American Tree Farm System and the Forest Stewardship Council.” [emphasis added]
The order comes at a time when LEED standards are becoming more closely scrutinized by elected officials and land managers. Governor Paul LePage of Maine issued a similar executive order at the end of last year, and a growing, bipartisan group of elected officials are insisting the USGBC stop showing preference to FSC. Environmental activist groups favor FSC over other systems, although it is questionable whether an FSC-only approach produces net environmental benefits or costs. Economic logic and real-world practice suggests that a discriminatory FSC-only policy does hurt in terms of increased prices for consumers and forestry jobs.
Favoring one standard over others upsets the delicate balance that must take place between sustainability and economic viability. Georgia and Maine understand as much and have acted accordingly. More states and the federal government should quickly follow their lead.
Given the fragile state of the American economy, taking steps to break the LEED/FSC-monopoly will provide relief for taxpayers and landowners nationwide, who will be able to sell their goods in a larger number of markets.
Buried amongst lost emails I just re-accessed was a brilliant column I had missed by a great, young, innovative thinker of my acquaintance, Sean Kennedy. He proposes something called “Home Ownership Savings Accounts.” Read all about it, here.
Here’s one reason to be cautiously optimistic about a pension reform deal announced between California Governor Jerry Brown and state Democratic lawmakers:
California’s public pensions are currently governed by a patchwork of contractual agreements and retirement-system rules. The deal, likely to win approval in the Democratic-controlled Legislature, would bring most of those systems under the same pension standards.
Yes, as critics correctly point out, Brown’s deal with his fellow Democrats is “insufficient to cut billions of dollars in unfunded obligations on governments’ books.”
But the value in Brown’s pension reform deal is that for the first time most of the state’s public employees will be under the same set of pension rules.
This is important for at least two reasons.
First, it makes the pension liability problem more understandable for everyday Californians. Sure, we all know the state’s unfunded liabilities are huge – around $500 billion according a Stanford study – but what good does knowing that number do if reform opponents can sidetrack reasonable debate by citing a dizzying array of competing pension rules? By consolidating most public employees under the same standards, citizens can begin to see the pension crisis in a simpler, more straightforward way.
The other potential improvement is related to the first. Brown’s deal sets the table for a future reformer to make the changes Brown’s critics want now. No one expects Brown to be that guy, so why not welcome a plan that at least moves the ball in the right direction?
Besides, a pension reform deal like Brown’s that puts most of California’s public employees under the same standards means that a future governor will have that many less obstacles to achieve the cost savings the state needs to get back its golden sheen.
Now Barry Obama, that clever Irishman (akin to Obrien, Oflaherty and Ogrady; but please, Chris Matthews, don’t call me an ethnicist for pointing out his heritage, because I never said no Irish need apply), is claiming that he just didn’t explain the stimulus package enough back in 2009: “We didn’t have the luxury of six months to explain exactly what we were doing with the Recovery Act, which was basically a jobs act and making-sure-middle-class-families-didn’t-fall-into-poverty act.”
Really? Methinks I remember all sorts of promises about shovel-ready jobs. And methinks he later acknowledged that the stimulus didn’t work as intended, because there was no such thing as “shovel ready.” (Actually, that last link was when he joked that the jobs weren’t shovel-ready; here is where he said there actually is “no such thing.)
Obama had plenty of time to sell us his shovel full of something, and then when we didn’t buy it, he crammed it down our throats. And it wasn’t really about jobs; it was about cronyism and building the power of big government.
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