QUINN ON REDFLEX, RUBIO, ST. GERARD, DEBT, AND INFLATION

5/15/14

Since October, 2012, when the Tribune first broke the story, I have written that Redflex would turn out to be a huge story; now more chickens are coming home to roost on that front.  So I had to find time yesterday evening to write on that ongoing saga.  As things have slowed down just a bit, I’ve also managed to write on the economy, national politics, and the Church:

THE REDFLEX SAGA:  THE GIFT THAT KEEPS ON GIVING FOR CHICAGO POLITICAL JUNKIES

http://www.rantlifestyle.com/2014/05/14/redflex-saga-endless-entertainment-for-chicago-political-junkies/

Back in April, 2013, I spoke at a men’s club meeting at St. Margaret Mary here in Naperville and said that Redflex was the story to watch.  My prediction seems to be being vindicated.

BIZARRONOMICS:  FALLING CREDIT CARD DEBT IS BAD

http://www.rantlifestyle.com/2014/05/14/bizarronomics-falling-credit-card-debt-is-bad/

MORE BIZARRO ECONOMICS:  INFLATION IS GOOD

http://www.rantlifestyle.com/2014/05/14/more-bizarro-economics-inflation-is-good/

No, really…some of my best friends are economists.  One introduced me to my wife which, in our case, worked out very well.

MARCO RUBIO:  EVEN THE BEST POLS ARE FRAUDS

http://www.rantlifestyle.com/2014/05/12/marco-rubio-even-the-best-pols-are-frauds/

The incomparable H.L. Mencken saw the likes of Marco Rubio, and just about every other modern politician of all “ideological” and partisan stripes, coming.

THE CATHOLIC CHURCH, WOMEN, EXPECTANT MOTHERS, AND ST. GERARD

http://www.rantlifestyle.com/2014/05/12/the-catholic-church-women-expectant-mothers-and-st-gerard/

St. Gerard was a great guy, and I hope he’s praying for me.  But does empathy count for anything in the Catholic Church?

I thought I’d get this out early since the Redflex story is splayed across this morning’s headlines in Chicago.  Have a great weekend, everybody, and go (other) Hawks!

THE BUDGET DEAL IN WASHINGTON: “AND NOW, THE END IS NEAR, AND SO I FACE THE FINAL CURTAIN…”

10/17/13

Now that the government shutdown/debt limit standoff has been resolved, for now, the nation can proceed on three fronts.   First, the people who do the actual work in the federal government, as opposed to the politicians who make a living primping, preening, and posing for the media, can get back to work.  Second, the U.S. Treasury is “good for it” for a little while.   Third, yours truly has some comments, and hopefully some insightful comments, on the whole imbroglio.

One of the great things about being a cynic is that it allows one to overcome one’s former partisan leanings and look at political issues from a more objective perspective.   Cynicism leads one to loathe, or at least find both amusing and deeply troubling at the same time, politicians of both parties.  Being able to find very little, if anything, good in either party, we cynics can look at issues from a nearly non-partisan, nearly non-ideological standpoint, to wit…

First, the most obvious flaw with this deal is that it is only temporary.   The government will be “reopened” until January 15 and the debt ceiling will be suspended through February 7.   With the shell game tactics that the deal allowed the Treasury secretary to continue to employ, we should be able to avert another default until early March.   Oh, joy.   This temporary fix will allow the poltroons and popinjays on the Hill and in the White House time to negotiate.   Allowing the likes of Paul Ryan and Patty Murray more time to posture and pontificate is supposed to bring us relief.  O tempora, o mores!

One does not have to be too cynical to suspect that the narcissists in Washington are prolonging this soap opera because they crave the attention; see my 10/11/13 piece, THE DEBT CEILING“CRISIS”:  “HE WANTED TAN SHOES AND PINK SHOELACES, A POLKA DOT VEST AND MAN, OH MAN!”)

 

Second, the GOP does look like something of a traveling freak show after a massive deluge, an earth jarring earthquake, and a series of tornadoes at this stage.  But it is untrue that the Republicans came out of this with no victories whatsoever.  Recall that, earlier this week, the Democrats, feeling their oats, started making demands about rolling back the scheduled sequester cuts due to be implemented in January.  They quickly fell back from that position when it looked like insistence on rolling back the sequester would nearly certainly result in default.  So the GOP did achieve a small victory, along with tightening eligibility verification procedures for those receiving subsidies under the Affordable Health Care Act, or ObamaCare.  It’s certainly not much, and the GOP is looking quite ragged at this stage, but it’s not as if the GOP achieved nothing, as the media would have you believe.

Third, one of the early, and quickly abandoned, goals of the tea partiers was the postponement, or the elimination, of the ObamaCare requirement that that individuals buy health insurance.   As the Wall Street Journal put it this morning (Thursday, 10/17/13, page A6):

They (participants at the “Conversations with Conservatives” confab at the Heritage Foundation) continued to argue that the law (the Affordable Health Care Act) is unfair, and restated their goal to shield individuals who don’t buy insurance from a penalty that kicks in next year.  (Emphasis mine)

Yours truly is no fan of ObamaCare, doesn’t like to be told to do anything, and has something of a libertarian conservative streak in him.   However, protecting the right of people not to buy insurance, which is tantamount to protecting their right to welsh on their responsibilities and force others to pick up their health care expenses, does not seem like the most conservative of ideals to me.   Is this what the tea partiers were fighting for?  The right to shirk one’s responsibilities and force others to pay one’s bills?   If this is true, where do I turn in my “conservative” card?

Fourth, the most enthusiastic “conservatives” in the tea party have to be asking themselves why they are Republicans.  That they will get nowhere with the Republican Party, as it is currently constituted, is best illustrated by an odd, or perhaps intentional, juxtaposition of articles in today’s Wall Street Journal.  On page 1 of today’s (Thursday, 10/17/13’s) paper, we saw two articles with the headlines “Congress Passes a Debt Bill” and “Business Voices Frustration with GOP.”  

The GOP remains, for now, the party of business.  It will take the votes and contributions of the social conservatives and of the genuine fiscal conservatives, but when the chips are down it will do the bidding of the Chamber of Commerce, and will ally itself with the Democrats to do so, as the House vote on yesterday’s deal showed.   That was only the latest illustration of the true colors, for better or worse, of today’s GOP.    Look, for example, at whom the party nominated as its presidential standard-bearer in 2012; what in the world does a guy like Mitt Romney have in common with a populist social conservative who is willing to have the Treasury default on its obligations, and thus risk financial catastrophe, to make a point about a nearly completely unrelated issue? 

Either the tea partiers and their now social conservative allies have to take over the GOP and force the traditional Republicans out or the tea partiers and their social conservative allies have to form a third party.   The two groups can’t realistically co-exist…unless the tea partiers are a bunch of chumps.

As a side note, the President’s speech this morning, gloating and kicking the Republicans while they were down, didn’t help increase the level of “civility,” or “the ability to legislate” either.   Silliness and vanity are by no means exclusive to one party in Washington, despite what the media would have you believe.

Fifth, as much as those of us who genuinely favor a smaller government, and are nearly terrified by the rate at which the government is growing, would like to fantasize about it, there is no consensus, indeed very little enthusiasm among the populace for small government or even meaningful spending cuts.  Sure, everyone wants to cut spending in the abstract, but what those who profess such desire (everyone) really mean is that they’d like to cut the spending that benefits someone else.   No one wants his or her program even nicked, let alone eliminated.   Look at the outcry over the government shutdown and the serial re-opening of government agencies and functions that suddenly became “essential,” “vital,” or “indispensable.”  If we’d waited another week, every program would have been re-opened while the government remained on “lockdown.” Look at the understandable near panic at the prospect of the government’s missing that $50 billion social security payment on November 1.

 

Sadly, the American people, despite loud protests from some quarters about government’s reach and spending skyrocketing and seemingly out of control, have gotten very comfortable with big government, even creeping socialism.   They not only like their share of the bounty that flows from Washington, but one also suspects that, deep inside, they like being told what to do.  It makes life easier and enables one to get back to the business of acquiring crap one doesn’t need with money one doesn’t have to impress people one doesn’t like in a vain attempt to fill the gaping holes in one’s life.

Sixth, the world has to be shaking its head as it looks at once great America, having elected a cabal of mountebanks and charlatans to govern it, bringing itself to the brink of tarnishing, if not destroying, the credibility of the world’s bedrock credit and currency.   Chinese talk earlier this week of “de-Americanizing” the world’s financial structure has to be falling on fertile ground.

What’s the alternative, one might ask?  Right now, there may not be an alternative, though one suspects that when one looks at the German, British, and Japanese government bond markets, one has the makings of a realistic alternative, or set of alternatives (The last may not be a good candidate, given Japan’s fiscal problems; see my 9/13/13 piece ABENOMICS: HAVE THE GOVERNMENT CREATE A MESS AND THEN SPEND MONEY CLEANING IT UP for only my latest screed on Japanese fiscal mismanagement), and this is even before the Chinese bond market develops.  At any rate, one suspects that the search has intensified in recent weeks for an alternative to the U.S. treasury market, and thus to the dollar, that has somehow put itself in a position of being at the mercy of the whims of a pack of poltroons and popinjays who feel allegiance to nothing so much as their own visages in the paper, on television, and in the mirror.

Maybe I’m wrong; Treasuries have caught a big bid today, with the ten year yield down to 2.60% as I write this.  But gold and silver have also caught big bids today.  And the dollar is down virtually across the board.

As I have said ad nauseam in the past, one can’t draw conclusions from one day’s trading.  But yours truly’s enthusiasm for gold and silver, always present and always disproportionate, is only growing, as is my enthusiasm for foreign markets in general.   And yours truly is far from alone.

CPAC: CAN’T PLACATE A (GENUINE) CONSERVATIVE

3/17/13

The annual bleating of banalities known as the “Conservative” Political Action Conference (“CPAC”) has finally wound to a close.   So what is a genuine conservative to make of this parade of pabulum?

First, any “conservative” conference that eschews Chris Christie while embracing Sarah Palin is guilty of gross misrepresentation to those of us who believe in the sane and reasoned application of conservative principles to the challenges of government.  (See my 2/28/13 post CHRIS CHRISTIE AND CHUCK HAGEL NEED NOT APPLY.) Further, excluding the most popular conservative in the country while highlighting a national laughingstock, a walking, talking tribute to the rejection of reason and intelligence in favor of naked, unchecked emotion and gormless reaction shows why the “conservative” movement has effectively committed suicide in this country but is somehow convinced that it must dig an even deeper hole to bury its own sorry carcass.

Second, who in the world can spend an entire three days listening to political speeches?   The terms “substantive” and “political speech” have become inherently contradictory over the last, oh, fifty or so years after skating on thin ice together since the dawn of time.   And how can a “conservative,” who, at least in the past, by definition rejected the efficacy of political solutions in a free society and a free economy, eagerly seek salvation from…politicians and government?   Even yours truly, who admittedly spends far too much time thinking about politics and government, cannot listen to a politician, even a rare politician for whom I have a modicum of respect, expel hot air for more than, say, three minutes or so.  To sit there and listen to these carnival barkers for three days and to call one’s self a conservative should induce some soul-searching among those who attend such events.

Third, even when something even remotely substantive emanates from these gab-fests, it is inherently contradictory and hypocritical.   The “conservatives” propose lower taxes at the federal level, which is great, though it doesn’t address the real problem, grist for a later, but hopefully not much later, mill.   But then they fail to produce any substantive, realistic, or remotely workable, plan for reducing spending.  (See, inter alia, my 3/13/13 post, ADDRESSING THE PROBLEMS OF MEDICARE:  MR. RYAN STAYS IN WASHINGTON.)   And even if they should somehow achieve a miracle and actually cut some domestic spending, the War Party representatives of the CPAC crowd will find some way to blow such savings, and then some, on what they laughingly call “defense” but what is really international proboscis insertion into places where we are unwelcome and in which we have at best limited interests and even less business.  (See, inter alia, my 2/1/13 post JOHN McCAIN, CHUCK HAGEL, AND DEFERRING TO HISTORY.)

So, at best, the conservative call to cut taxes amounts to not paying our bills in favor of passing our expenses onto our children and grandchildren, which I never thought of as a conservative principle.  And, yes, the Laffer Curve works; I am one of its more ardent proponents.  But the Laffer Curve is an economic principle, not a miracle elixir; these deficits are too big to grow our way out of.

At the expense of being accused of further apostasy (Get in line.), it was the great conservative hero, Ronald Reagan, who told us that it was okay not to pay our bills, that deficits didn’t matter, that we could cut taxes and spend on the military and on entitlements ‘til our hearts were content and everything would be just fine.   Thus it was the Gipper and the genuine “conservatives” who followed him, some of us skeptically some more wholeheartedly and unabashedly, that set us on the path to the fiscal quagmire in which we are currently sinking.  Just look at a chart of debt to GDP since World War II if you don’t believe this.  

Fourth, what about the social agenda of the CPAC?   I, for one, agree with about 70% or 80% of the “conservative” social agenda.  I do differ with the growing “conservative” fixation with gays and have long suspected that it is a case of, as Shakespeare would say, “The lady doth protest too much, methinks.”   Do these guys perhaps some doubts about their own sexuality?  But I digress.  I also am alarmed that opposition to abortion has rather quickly morphed into a genuine uneasiness with, or outright hostility toward, contraception, which I find even more inherently contradictory than “conservatives” spending their weekends listening to lectures on how government can improve their lives.

Regardless, however, of where one stands on the social issues, if one is a conservative, one should be alarmed at the notion that the government should dictate conduct that does not infringe on the rights of others.  Yours truly is fine with the “conservative” social agenda when it amounts to opposition to the government playing for the other side but parts company when that agenda becomes advocacy for the government taking the field. 

The social issues are important cultural and moral issues, but are at best third rate political issues.  At least this conservative’s response to such discussion, regardless of which side is being advocated, amounts to “Why in the world are we talking about these things?”   Unfortunately, one gets the impression that many of the CPAC participants, and many who have highjacked the once noble tea party movement, are instead demanding that we waste even more time and effort on these sideshow political issues.

Finally, I was heartened to see that Rand Paul was the winner of a straw poll that asked CPAC participants whom they favored for president in 2016.  Though even thinking about the 2016 race at this juncture seems inherently not conservative, yours truly loves the horse race aspects of politics, especially since the stakes are all fool’s gold anyway; no politician, or at least no successful politician, is going to work to reduce the influence of government regardless of what s/he says.   Mr. Paul, perhaps seeing a real shot at the GOP nomination in 2016, is perhaps getting too cozy with the “limited government ends at the shore” approach of large swaths of the GOP, but his philosophy is in the right place.  Whether it is at all workable in a society that has grown very comfortable with big government is another issue.

The second place finish of Marco Rubio, though, is at least a little troubling.  Mr. Rubio seems to be fine fellow, and I was especially heartened that in his first speech as a senator-elect, he blasted George W. Bush (the man who gives LBJ perhaps decisive competition in the race for the not at all coveted title of “Worst President in U.S. History”) at least indirectly, as much as he went after the Democrats.  But I have the same problem with Senator Rubio that I have with Paul Ryan (See only my latest screed on Mr. Ryan, 3/13/13’s  ADDRESSING THE PROBLEMS OF MEDICARE:  MR. RYAN STAYS IN WASHINGTON), i.e., how can “conservatives” get so excited about a guy who has never been off the public payroll?  As I told a young friend last night, in a perhaps not all that rare instance of my not showing sufficient restraint in discussion of the issues of the day, “If he had ever done anything other than s--k off the public t-t, I’d kind of like the guy.”  In Mr. Rubio’s defense, sort of, he is too young to have accomplished, or learned, much in his life in any case.   (On the other hand, when I was his age, I, too, thought I knew a lot more than I did.)  The same criticisms can apply to the guy in the White House, but I thought conservatives had a different, better approach to government and a more reasoned attitude toward the worthiness of experience beyond the public sector.

ADDRESSING THE PROBLEMS OF MEDICARE: MR. RYAN STAYS IN WASHINGTON

3/13/13

As regular readers know, I am no fan of Representative and former Vice-Presidential Paul Ryan.   (See my 1/2/13 post, PAUL RYAN:   MORE PAP AND PABULUM FROM THE MASTER OF HYPOCRISY, which is only my latest diatribe on the man who represents all that is wrong with American politics.)  My problems with Mr. Ryan have little to do with policy and everything to do with his background and his presumption that, as a lifelong public payroller, he has some sort of wisdom to impart to those of us who pay the bills for the lifelong ego trip he calls a career.   This, of course, makes him no different from just about any other politician in this age of politics as a “profession;” however, it is Mr. Ryan’s hypocrisy, his endless, vocal, and stentorian paeans to the private sector bellowed while he is comfortably ensconced at the public trough, that make him more grating than the rest of the barnacles on the ship of state that inhabit Washington, D.C.

Mr. Ryan’s latest budget, which purports to balance in ten years while providing so few specifics as to be laughable, is only the latest in his insults to the intellect of the American people, a collective intellect that is, after years of endless exposure to the vapidity of prime time television, rapidly reaching the point at which it is incapable of being insulted by anyone lacking the utter lack of shame and introspection that characterizes Mr. Ryan.   The budget, unlike most other things emanating from the Janus-faced GOP, does show a glimmer of common sense in tackling brobdingnagian expenditures on foreign adventures and proboscis insertion that the bi-partisan War Party insists on calling “defense.”   So never let it be said that I have never said anything nice about Mr. Ryan.  Further, he is, I understand from those few people I know who know Mr. Ryan, a nice guy, a wonderful family man, and a good Catholic. So there…more nice things to say about Mr. Ryan.  But I digress.

The major problem with Mr. Ryan’s budget lies at the intersection of his utter lack of experience with anything remotely resembling the real world and his desire to tackle the major problem facing our budget, health care spending and, specifically, Medicare spending.   As much as I don’t like to give President Obama many kudos, either, he was nearly right when he said something like (I can’t quote directly because I don’t have the quote in front of me.)

We don’t have a budget problem; we have a health care problem.

Even though Mr. Ryan would never admit it for fear of introducing even a jot or tittle of risk to his comfortable lifetime sinecure dispensing what he thinks is his wisdom to those of us who have never had the good fortune to spend our days suckling at the public mammary gland, he agrees with the President on this point; if we don’t solve our health care spending problem, we will never solve our budgetary problems.   And if we can some how control our health care spending, we will all but eliminate our budgetary problems.

So the problem with our budget is Medicare and, to a lesser extent, Medicaid.  Mr. Ryan, to his credit, tries to attack the problem of Medicare by applying free market principles, which almost always work, to the Sisyphean difficulties Medicare presents.  But Medicare’s problems are not amenable to free market solutions.   Why?

Medicare is a huge, expensive government program simply because it is impossible to insure the elderly population profitably and the elderly population is growing rapidly.  It is impossible to insure the elderly profitably because older people, on average, spend a lot more on health care than just about any of them could possibly afford to pay by themselves.  Health insurance is essentially cost and risk spreading and the elderly, as a group, incur more health care expenditures than they could pay even if those costs are spread across their peer group.  That is why in a world in which insurance companies seek to operate profitably, being old is a pre-existing condition.   No profit seeking health insurer would sell health insurance to elderly people at anything remotely resembling affordable premiums, and charging market premiums would so shrink the insured pool that realistic cost and risk spreading would be impossible.

This inability to insure elderly people profitably, and thus the inability of elderly people, and especially elderly retired people, to obtain health insurance is what spawned Medicare.   Medicare was simply a concession to reality.   Whether it’s been run well or not is subject to debate, but there is no one who is reasonable who would argue that some kind of government program to provide health insurance to the elderly was and is necessary.  Why?   Because the cost of insuring the elderly, which could never be carried by the elderly, has to be shared with the non-elderly, if you will.   If you can spread the risks and costs beyond the elderly population, then you can insure senior citizens.   That is what Medicare, or any health insurance plan for the elderly, is designed to do.   That is why, incidentally, there will be such resistance from the not yet elderly to tinkering with the problem…they have spent years on the paying end of the cost spreading system and understandably don’t want to be denied their turn on the receiving end.

To his credit, Mr. Ryan realizes that a subsidy is necessary to insure the elderly; thus his “premium support” plan that replaces a government program that transfers costs beyond the elderly with a  (don’t call it a ) voucher for the individual to buy his or her own insurance from a private purveyor.  Mr. Ryan expects the usually nearly miraculous powers of the free market to work to drive down costs by effectively and efficiently providing health insurance to seniors.   Mr. Ryan assures us that insurance companies who participate in the program will not be able to turn down potential customers due to pre-existing conditions.  He assumes that insurance companies will be lining up to provide health insurance to those they currently would deem uninsurable, i.e., any senior citizen.  

But why would insurers volunteer to decimate their bottom lines insuring the currently uninsurable and/or to pay claims that vastly exceed the premiums they collect?  Could insurance companies make money insuring the elderly at anything like the premium support level Mr. Ryan proposes without, or even with, cherry picking those least likely to bust their bottom lines?   It seems like they wouldn’t and couldn’t.…unless the government were to provide some kind of subsidy to the insurance companies or some kind of cap on the liabilities the insurers face, a feature inherent in current MediGap policies.   And if government provides subsidies to insurance companies, either directly or through capping their liabilities, how would the new system be much different, at least in cost, from the current system?   And how would our budget problems thus be solved?  (I first addressed this problem in a 4/6/11 post on The Insightful Pontificator entitled “I WISH YOU HEALTH, AND MORE THAN WEALTH, I WISH YOU LOVE…”)

It simply isn’t possible to insure the elderly population without either losing lots of money or requiring a massive subsidy from the not yet elderly.  The free market has very few limits, but this is one of them.  That is why virtually every country has a program to provide subsidized health insurance, or health care, to the elderly.  Ours is called Medicare.   It may not be the greatest program in the world and if we don’t get it under control, it will bankrupt our country as my generation becomes entitled to its subsidies.  Mr. Ryan’s program tries to address this issue, but ignores the inherent uninsurability of the elderly by the private sector.   This isn’t surprising, however, given that Mr. Ryan has spent his life on some sort of government health insurance program.

CHRIS CHRISTIE AND CHUCK HAGEL NEED NOT APPLY

2/28/13

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, long time champion of lean, efficient, and limited governance and stalwart opponent of pubic employee unions’ efforts to highjack state and local government, was, er, disinvited to something that calls itself, still with a straight face, the “Conservative Political Action Conference (“CPAC”).”  

Former Senator Chuck Hagel, a decorated Vietnam veteran and genuine war hero who favors a defense policy that defends and a foreign policy that cultivates foreign friends and encourages reason over hysteria, was confirmed as Secretary of Defense…but with only four votes from senators from the Republican Party, which still laughingly calls itself the conservative party.   See my 2/1/13 post JOHN McCAIN, CHUCK HAGEL, AND DEFERRING TO HISTORY, only the latest in a series of posts here and at the now defunct Rant Political that argued enthusiastically for Mr. Hagel’s confirmation.

What is going on in the “conservative movement” and the Republican Party?   Why are such good men with solid values, deep seated beliefs in the primacy of the people over their government, and optimism about and confidence in the American people (misplaced in yours truly’s opinion, but that is another issue) no longer welcome among the self-styled keepers of the conservative flame?

One “conservative” beef with Mr. Christie is that he, never a poltroonish type given to the hemming, hawing, and equivocating that characterizes most of the invited guests at CPAC, very clearly let it be known that he was fed up with Congress’s delay, or worse, in passing a relief package for his state of New Jersey and other areas affected by Super Storm Sandy.   Another complaint about Governor Christies is that he appeared too chummy with President Obama when the President toured New Jersey in the wake of Sandy.

Admittedly, the “Sandy relief” bill that emerged from Congress was a crummy bill.  It was loaded with provisions and spending that had little, if anything, to do with Sandy.   But that only reinforces Mr. Christies’s point.   The reason the bill took so long to, and almost didn’t, become law is because the Congressional popinjays insisted on seizing on the hardship of those affected by Sandy to get taxpayer money for their districts.   If they just passed a clean bill, relief would have gotten to the affected areas sooner and at a lower price.   But they didn’t pass such a clean bill.   And Mr. Christie realized that his constituents needed help right away.   He didn’t put Party ahead of his state and his job serving that state.  

And, yes, Mr. Christie was courteous toward Mr. Obama when the President visited Sandy ravaged New Jersey.   Since when is civility and gentlemanliness not a conservative value?    Does calling one’s self a “conservative” require that one be so consumed with hated for the president of another party that one treats that president with coolness, or contempt, when he is there to help in a time of need?   Is it a mark of honor and “true blueness,” if you will, to dump on the president of the United States, especially when he holds the key to getting relief to people who badly need it?   Mr. Christie has a job that makes him responsible for the welfare of the people of his state; unlike that of, say, Paul Ryan, a hero of the “conservative” movement, Mr. Christie’s job does not consist of preening for the cameras and assuming that the American people are badly in need of the type of wisdom that can only be gleaned from a lifetime of bloviating from Washington.   See my 1/26/13 post, PAUL RYAN:   MORE PAP AND PABULUM FROM THE MASTER OF HYPOCRISY.

Mr. Hagel’s unpardonable sin was finally seeing the light and opposing George Bush’s excellent adventure in Iraq that has already cost us billions of treasure and the incalculable value of thousands of American lives and will cost of us for generations not only in dollars but in enmity throughout the Arab and Muslim worlds and the legions of aspiring terrorists that will result.   Mr. Hagel also has the temerity to suggest that perhaps we think before going off on ill-considered crusades designed primarily to enrich those who bankroll the lifelong ego trips those who attend CPAC call careers.   (My words, not Mr. Hagel’s.  He is too circumspect to say the things that I can say.)   The War Party is now firmly in control of the foreign policy apparatus at the likes of CPAC and those who, like Mr. Hagel, favor a foreign policy grounded in the principles of limited government and careful consideration of national interests are no longer welcome.  CPAC’s view of the world can be summarized by the admonition to shoot first, aim later, and keep the campaign (?) cash flowing from the “defense” contractors.   Who needs a skunk like Mr. Hagel at such a wonderful garden party?

I’ve spent most of my life as a conservative.   That started to change as Ronald Reagan, after a pretty good start, decided that we could give ourselves goodies without paying for them and started us on the fiscal train wreck from which we are currently suffering.   The change picked up as the despicable George W. Bush decided that big government was just fine at home and was especially advisable overseas and that score settling, or who knows what, rather than national interests, should be the guiding light in foreign and military policy.   Now the banishment of Mr. Christie and Mr. Hagel, two of the few people in public life whom I respect and admire, has completed my metamorphosis.   Into what, I don’t know.   But if the people who find Messrs. Christie and Hagel so dyspeptic are “conservatives,” I know what I am not.

PAUL RYAN: MORE PAP AND PABULUM FROM THE MASTER OF HYPOCRISY

1/26/13

Representative and erstwhile vice-presidential candidate Paul Ryan (R., Wis.) appeared at a National Review Institute event today and accomplished nothing other than demonstrating how far the National Review has fallen since the death of Bill Buckley.

Mr. Ryan offered up the usual pap and pabulum of which he is one of Washington’s foremost dispensers.  Some examples:

"We can't get rattled. We won't play the villain in his morality plays. We have to stay united. We have to show that if given the chance, we can govern. We have better ideas."

"If we want to promote conservatism, we'll need to use every tool at our disposal.  Sometimes, we will have to reject the president's proposals — that time may come more than once. And sometimes we'll have to make them better."

The Wisconsin wunderkind went on to bloviate that the GOP should have two main goals for the next four years:  "to mitigate bad policies" and "to advance good policy wherever we can."

This is what passes for deep thought in today’s GOP.

Mr. Ryan could have been truly refreshing and honest, admittedly two traits completely out of character for him, had he provided advice based not on the completely false image he seeks to portray, and that the hapless GOPers have somehow bought, but on the way he has actually conducted himself.  If he spoke based on what he DOES, rather than what he SAYS, Mr. Ryan would have said something like:

“I’ll give you some advice.   Don’t be a chump and work your butt off in the private sector where hours are long, work is tedious, no cameras follow you around and there are no legions of sycophants around whose job it is to tell you how wonderful you are.

“No, don’t be an idiot.  Get on the public payroll and stay there, like I have for my entire life.  Focus your efforts on never having to do the things you advise other people to do, on never having to live with the consequences of the laws you endorse and help to pass.  And never, ever live or work outside Washington; this place is amazing!

“And if you really want to cash in, spend your time at the public trough decrying everyone else at the public trough.  Spend your time decrying the debilitating impact and innate evil of the very government whose checks you cash for a living.

“Further, never, ever let your purported philosophy of government stand in the way of your career, of your adulation, of your advancement.   When that philosophy conflicts with further solidifying, and expanding, your spot at the trough, go with the latter.   Look at me!   I talk about small government and the virtues of the private sector all the time.  But when not voting for TARP, or the car bailout, or Medicare Part D might have had the remotest chance of ending my sinecure here and forcing me to get a real job back in Wisconsin among the people I purport to represent, why, I just voted heartily for those most egregious expansions of government in the history of my time on the Hill.

“Don’t worry about being attacked for, or even called on, the utter hypocrisy that would characterize your very career.   The so-called ‘conservative’ movement is filled with people who won’t care about what you do; they will just lap up what you say.  They will praise you as a guy with the ‘right stuff,” they will just roll around and swallow the figurative cow excrement you shovel them.   These chumps will actually believe you mean what you say!  Can you believe it?”


Now, THAT would have been a truly honest speech.  But we are talking about Paul Ryan here, so such a speech would never, ever take place.