On Unilateral Disarmament

Those who know me are aware that I've worked with non-ideological, good government non-profits like Common Cause to strip away the influence of money in politics. I truly believe that buying political influence is the most pernicious development in US Politics (well, that and the use of the filibuster in the Senate). I also believe that the Citizens United Supreme Court decision ranks right up there with Bush v Gore, Plessy v Ferguson, and the Dred Scott decision as the worst in American history. Unfortunately however, the cat is out of the bag and Super PACs are a reality in American campaign finance in 2012. Thus, as much as I hate the role of campaign donations in American elections (and particularly the influence of the finance, defense, energy, and healthcare industries), it is the height of absurdity to suggest that the Obama campaign should forego the use of SuperPacs as former Senator and campaign finance reformer Russ Feingold does here. I have never, and will never, be a proponent of unilateral disarmament. These are the rules of the game and we shall play by these rules, as dismaying as they may well be. I mean, if you're the manager of the Angels, and you hate the DH rule, you don't hit your pitcher as a matter of principle. It's absurd, it's idiotic, and it does long-term damage to your own long term aims. It is not hypocritical to work within the system at hand, even if you object to specific rules that govern the system. One can legitimately criticize Citizens United, criticize the use and existence of Super PACs, and still create and empower a Super PAC to campaign on your own behalf. You do not lose credibility if you do so. Hell, you can create a Super PAC to lobby against the Citizens United decision, up to and including the passage of an amendment to the United States Constitution banning Super PACs. (This is in fact the kind of behavior we are seeing with the Colbert Super PAC). Listen, I'm not making exceptions or engaging in partisan rationalization. I think Democrats should use the filibuster if (when) they lose the Senate even though I despise the filibuster and find it to be a fundamental threat to democratic governance in general and progressive legislation in particular. But I also think Republicans can brag about earmarks and pork barrel projects that they bring back home to their districts, even if they hate the process by which these appropriations are budgeted. It's the current rules of the game and its perfectly fair for Republicans to object to the practice but wield the benefits of the existing standards (However, it is important to note that this standard does not apply to Republican representatives who rail against government spending, claiming it hurts the local economy, but who then credit pork barrel spending for creating local jobs. That is a case in which representatives cannot, and should not, have it both ways. You can't claim stimulus spending hurts other Americans but helps employ, say, local Houstonians).
This does not mean we stop fighting to reform the campaign finance system. Hell, I don't know how we fix American governance without doing so. At least on the state level, I think the public financing of elections are our best way forward. However, I don't think public financing is feasible at the national level (as presidential candidates will begin to opt-out anyway - see Obama 2008). Even opensecrets.org seems to be waving the white flag. But clearly something must be done to reduce the influence of billionaire bankers, oil conglomerates and media empires. Otherwise, we are going to see some shitty legislation continue to funnel down the turnpike (cough, cough SOPA). But Obama turning down Super PAC money doesn't get us any closer to that solution. Yes, his administration is made-up of some pretty terrible corporate lackeys with deep connections to the industries they are supposed to regulate. But the alternatives, who promise to strike down healthcare reform and the gutted down Dodd-Frank legislation on their first days of office, are much, MUCH, worse.

Where are all of my ambitious politicians?

It's actually a bit curious to me why more people haven't take up the mantle of people like Eliot Spitzer since his resignation a few years back. No one has really gone after the financial companies with equal vigor since him. That's strange. I have high hopes for people like Eric Schneiderman (NY) and Martha Coakley (MA), who have taken up the cause, but the reality is that they lack the charisma and passion of a person like Spitzer. But let's think about Spitzer's meteoric rise. The man was an Attorney General in NY and yet he had national name-recognition! No one can even name their own state's Attorney General! If Spitzer didn't get caught banging so many prostitutes, he would probably be President in 2016. So how come more politicians aren't taking on the banks? It's pretty much a shortcut to the top of the political heap. People already bought their pitchforks and torches. Now we just need some to lead the way and light the fires. Clearly the banks conspired to take Spitzer down, but come on! Every single politician in this country can't be screwing hookers, can they?



BTW, it goes without saying that Elizabeth Warren is teh awesome. But she is running for the Senate. I want to know why more state Attorney Generals aren't suing the financial banks and criminally prosecuting their officers.

Better Financial Reporting Please

One policy area I'm admittedly not very well-versed in is financial industry regulation. When we first started to hear about the need for bank bailouts and TARP, I went along with the recommendations even though one of the few risks I did recognize was the moral hazard associated with bailing out the banks for their reckless behavior. I didn't really dive into the evidence for or against the need for the bank bailout because the people I trusted on economic matters generally agreed that it was a necessary evil - people like Matt Yglesias, Ezra Klein, even Paul Krugman (who I hold above all others on economic matters). However, rightly or wrongly, people on both the left and the right really did punish candidates on both the left and the right for voting for TARP. In fact, while I think most political commentators are buffoons when they suggest that an alliance can be forged between the left and the Tea Party on financial issues, there does seem to be some convergence on the concept of "bank bailouts." That's why you'll sometimes see Paultards at Occupy Wall Street rallies, even though libertarian polices would substantially exacerbate the very economic and political inequalities the Occupy Wall Street demonstrators are said to be fighting. While I'm personally satisfied to rely on the recommendations of my economic betters, this has not satisfied the opinions of the public at-large. A public that wildly reviles TARP. A public that believes that TARP was ineffectual (it was not) and cost the US a trillion dollars (it did not). A public that thinks, due to Republican lying and the media's deference to Republican lies, that the economic stimulus was a failure. It most certainly was not. There is a rundown of the economic literature on the stimulus here. The reason why people think the stimulus did not work, and that TARP did not work, and that Obama has failed the economy, is because the economy still blows. It is still choking the middle and lower classes to death. Unemployment is still sky high. These facts are indisputable, but I promise you this - it would be much, much worse, if these steps were not taken.  I cannot even imagine what kind of grotesque economic nightmare we would be living in if John McCain was elected President. Or if the Republicans controlled both chambers of Congress these last four years (let's remember that Republicans in Congress and in the Executive branch created this mess in the first place).
This is where the financial analysis, has, ultimately, failed us - not necessarily on the internet (where one can type in "Did the economic stimulus work?" and get hundreds of well-researched, and well-cited literature on the topic), but in the more traditional forms of mass media. Let's face it, analysts and experts on TV and in the newspapers do a very bad job at explaining alternate scenarios or counter-factuals. For example did anyone (the Bush administration, the Obama administration, finance industry experts, etc.), even attempt to explain why TARP was necessary? Like I said, I deferred to my experts of choice who told me these actions were necessary. But I still don't know why these actions were necessary. I mean seriously, who gives a shit if we let Lehman Brothers fail? Who cares about Bear Stearns? I'm still not sure how the success of failures of these mega-rich banks affect me. That's what I mean about better financial reporting please - we need better talking heads on TV and in USA Today. On the cable networks and in the pages of Newsweek. I mean, Paul Krugman (who does a wonderful job), can only be in so many place at once. We need the Brad DeLong's, and Michael Lewis', and Felix Salmon's out front and center on these topics. We need Matt Bai and David Leonhardt to explain these things to people. We need (shudder) Tim Geithner to explain these things. Because right now they are not doing it. And this contributes greatly to the bewildering public clamor for the creative destruction and economic austerity that underline the conservative agenda and assure the utter destruction of our middle and lower economic classes.