Redefining Recession
Redefining Recession
Paul Krugman makes a very pertinent point today in his blog: the technical definition of recession doesn’t really matter to Americans. What really matters is not how the economy is labeled, but whether or not Americans can fill their cars with gas, put food on the table, buy clothes for their kids, pay their bills — including their mortgage, and hold down a steady job with a well-paying wage.
In academic terms, a recession is defined as a “few” months of consistent pessimistic economic activity spread throughout the economy. This is normally visible in a convergence of negative GDP, income and employment levels, retail sales, and industrial production.
When all these elements converge, there is no disputing that the economy is going down the tubes. But Americans have been singing this song now for months, even years, and they don’t give two cents about dictionary definitions or Wall Street economists — they want relief. Other economic indicators tell a more revealing story:
– Gas prices, which have been quickly approaching the $4/gallon mark, have finally reached the record-breaking levels they haven’t seen since March of 1981.
– The unemployment rate has climbed to 5.1 percent and is expected to move higher in the coming months.
– Consumer spending and retail sales, which account for 70 percent of the US economy, have fallen steadily, scraping lows unseen in more than seven years.
– Home foreclosures have topped the charts, as a record 18.6 million U.S. homes stood empty in the first quarter of 2008.
– Consumer confidence levels, which record popular perceptions on inflation, the job market and the economy in general have hit bottom. The overall number has reached its lowest point since the 2003 invasion of Iraq, while inflation expectations are the highest they’ve been since Hurricane Katrina.
– The share of consumers planning to take a vacation in the next six months has plummeted to a 30-year low.
So when the Department of Commerce announces that the GDP has increased by a meager 0.6 percent in the first quarter of 2008 — signifying that the economy may not technically be in a recession — Paul Krugman asks: “Who cares?”
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Is The McCain Health Care Plan A Massive Tax Increase?
Is The McCain Health Care Plan A Massive Tax Increase?
Our guest blogger is James Kvaal, Domestic Policy Adviser at the Center for American Progress Action Fund.
We’re halfway through health care week for the McCain campaign, with speeches in five states. But one critical question remains unanswered: how does the value of the credit change over time? If it grows slower than health care costs – as does the Bush plan it was modeled on – it would be a huge tax increase over time.
Sen. McCain has proposed a massive tax shift. He would end the tax break for health benefits that workers get from their jobs – a $3.6 trillion tax increase over the next decade. Then he’d redirect those resources into new tax credits worth $5,000 per family in the first year. The change would be a tax cut for some families and a tax increase for others.
The McCain campaign has not released a lot of details, particularly for such an important proposal. But we know more about the model for the McCain plan, a very similar Bush Administration proposal. (Bush’s proposal created tax deductions, but his aides said it was equivalent to a $4,500 credit for families. Adjust for rising health costs and you basically have McCain’s plan.)
The Bush plan capped the growth of credits at the rate of inflation (expected to be about 2 percent a year). That is much slower than current tax benefits, which grow with premiums (about 6 percent a year).
For Bush, capping the growth of tax benefits has two advantages. It makes the numbers work: the plan has a large initial cost that is slowly recouped over time as the tax cut turns into a tax increase. Second, as Ezra Klein notes, it drives families into cheaper coverage that will make them pay more for health care and therefore use less of it.
But this isn’t such a good deal for families. It’s more like a Trojan Horse: a tax increase disguised as an initial tax cut. The slower growth adds up to a 30 percent cut after 10 years and a 50 percent cut after 20 years.
So here’s my question: does the McCain proposal also limit health care cost growth? If so, it will soon become a massive cut in support for families’ health coverage costs.
UPDATE: In today’s New York Times, Kevin Sack and Michael Cooper observe that McCain’s plan “would have the effect of increasing tax payments for some workers.” Sack and Cooper note that even middle-income workers with conventional coverage could pay more over time, depending on how the tax credits are adjusted for inflation.
UPDATE II: Over at Swampland, Karen Tumulty confirms with Douglas Holtz-Eakin that the tax credit’s growth is limited to the inflation rate.
RNC Celebrates Windfall For Oil Companies
RNC Celebrates Windfall For Oil Companies
The Republican National Committee has put out a press release defending Sen. John McCain’s (R-AZ) proposal to suspend federal gas taxes over the summer. The press release claims that the proposal “would save Americans over $6 billion“:
Sen. John McCain Has Proposed Immediate Gas Tax Relief, Which Would Save Americans Over $6 Billion:
Sen. John McCain’s Gas Tax Relief Would Last From Memorial Day To Labor Day. “Hard-working American families are suffering from higher gasoline prices. John McCain calls on Congress to suspend the 18.4 cent federal gas tax and 24.4 cent diesel tax from Memorial Day to Labor Day.” (John McCain For President Website, www.johnmccain.com, Accessed 4/22/08)
“A USA TODAY Analysis Showed That McCain’s Gas-Tax Proposal Could Save Motorists $6.8 Billion In Taxes During The Summer.” (Kathy Kiely, “Gas-Tax Holiday Among McCain’s Plans For Economy,” USA Today, 4/16/08)
The RNC fails to provide a link to the USA Today story. Here’s what the article actually says:
A USA TODAY analysis showed that McCain’s gas-tax proposal could save motorists $6.8 billion in taxes during the summer. Len Burman of the non-partisan Urban Institute said the money won’t necessarily go back to consumers. Refineries already are running high to meet summertime gasoline needs, Burman said, so if demand for gas increases, so will prices. He said that means “a huge windfall for refiners,” not consumers.
Reuters reiterates: “Economists said that since refineries cannot increase their supply of gasoline in the space of a few summer months, lower prices will just boost demand and the benefits will flow to oil companies, not consumers.”
OMB Calls Its Interference With EPA Regulation Of Cancer Agents ‘Sound Science’
OMB Calls Its Interference With EPA Regulation Of Cancer Agents ‘Sound Science’
Yesterday, yet more information about the politicization of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) came to light as the result of a congressional investigation.
One of the responsibilities of the EPA is to protect Americans from exposure to toxic chemicals that cause cancer, birth defects, and death when found in air, food, or water — such as Alar, chlordane, formaldehyde, and malathion. Since 1985 the EPA has placed its scientific risk assessments of such chemicals into a database called the Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS). In a contentious oversight hearing yesterday, Senate Environment and Public Works Committee chairman Barbara Boxer (D-CA) released a damning report that exposed how the “assessments are being undermined by secrecy and White House involvement.”
Before Stephen L. Johnson became administrator in 2005, the assessment process was a straightforward one run by the staff scientists of the EPA:
Even so, the IRIS assessment program was slow and deliberative, with fewer than 15 full-time staff and under 10 assessments completed each year from 2000 to 2004. But in 2004, the process was changed to give the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) oversight of the program:
Although IRIS staff has quadrupled, productivity has collapsed. In fiscal 2006 and 2007, only two assessments were completed. The current process gives OMB control over IRIS assessments — the GAO found the OMB aborted five assessments in 2006 without explanation. Other federal agencies such as the Departments of Defense and Energy — who “are among the biggest contributors to toxic Superfund sites” — can interfere with the assessment in complete secrecy and add years of delay. On April 10, the EPA announced it would be further changing the process to institutionalize this complete takeover of scientific procedure:
In the words of Richard Wiles of the Environmental Working Group, “With these rules in place, it’s now official: The Bush White House is where all good public health protections go to die.” More »
Scheunemann: Just Another Lobbyist On The Straight Talk Express
Scheunemann: Just Another Lobbyist On The Straight Talk Express
Via TAPPED, John McCain’s foreign policy spokesman Randy Scheunemann recently gave an interview to Radio Free Europe about the growing tension between Russia and Georgia. Scheunemann took a hard line against Russia’s “undermining of Georgian sovereignty” by moving to establish direct ties with breakaway regions of Georgia.
Interestingly, neither Scheunemann nor the interviewer mentioned that Randy Scheunemann used to be employed as a lobbyist for the Georgian government. That’s right, the person who’s giving John McCain advice on Russia and Georgia was “registered with the U.S. Department of Justice as a foreign agent working on behalf of the government of Georgia.”
Scheunemann is a longtime neoconservative activist and lobbyist. In addition to working for the government of Georgia, Scheunemann was was the director of the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq, a neocon front group spun off from the Project for the New American Century (where Scheunemann also works as a foreign policy and national security analyst) which lobbied for the invasion of Iraq. Scheunemann’s firm, Scheunemann and Associates, also lobbied for the National Rifle Association between 1999 and 2002.
Of course, Scheunemann is only one of the many former lobbyists helping to drive the Straight Talk Express. In fact, as Media Matters reported, “McCain has more current and former lobbyists working on his campaign staff than any other candidate in the 2008 presidential election.”
What You Need To Know About McCain’s Health Care Speech Today
What You Need To Know About McCain’s Health Care Speech Today
Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) released additional details of his health care plan today. In terms of key principles, there was nothing new. Sen. McCain is still not concerned about achieving universal coverage, and he continues to want to put a greater burden on individuals to take on health insurance companies by themselves and hope that they can get needed care.
Today, the Center for American Progress Action Fund released two new analyses of the McCain plan (you can read the whole reports here and here). The only two key things you need to know are the numbers 158 million and 56 million:
• 158 million is the number of people who could lose their existing health care coverage under the McCain plan. McCain believes that individuals should find health insurance by themselves, and he will give them a small tax credit to help cover the cost. To pay for this, McCain ends the tax break given to those who purchase insurance from their employer today. This means that all 158 million people with employer-sponsored coverage today could eventually be forced to find a new health plan.
• 56 million is the number of people who are at risk of not getting health insurance at all under the McCain plan because of their chronic condition. The individual market is notorious for denying coverage to those with preexisting conditions. By creating a system that tries to push people towards individual coverage, McCain’s plan could leave out in the cold the 56 million Americans with employer insurance who have one or more chronic diseases like hypertension, arthritis, and asthma.
Overall, the McCain plan today was just more of the same old conservative rhetoric. His promises to help cover those with pre-existing conditions have turned out to be empty. The McCain plan still doesn’t help cancer patients like Elizabeth Edwards. Far from improving health care, John McCain will only make it much worse.
Ali Velshi Hosts Glenn Beck To Promote Liquid Coal
Ali Velshi Hosts Glenn Beck To Promote Liquid Coal
Recently, CNN’s senior business correspondent Ali Velshi has been promoting coal-based liquid fuel as a response to high oil prices, even though it leads to climate disaster. Yesterday, the Wonk Room noted that Velshi has even implied coal is cleaner than himself. This afternoon, Velshi continued his obsession with liquid coal in a discussion with CNN’s Glenn Beck. Beck is a self-described “big dumb rodeo clown” who believes the United States is a “suicidal superpower” for not turning coal into gasoline:
This can be done — coal to oil — at $55 a barrel. That’s about half of what we are paying right now for oil. We can have cheap oil that is actually good for the nation because it is all home grown. We’re sitting … just Montana is the Saudi Arabia of coal.
Montana does indeed have vast coal reserves. But coal-based fuel is in fact a dangerous and expensive prospect once the high costs of its pollution are factored in — especially its carbon dioxide global warming emissions.
Velshi then noted that his “clean coal” boosterism has raised questions about his journalistic integrity:
Well you know, South Africa, most of the gasoline it uses is produced from coal. I did something on this the other day and the number of e-mails and comments I got about how I’m shilling for the coal industry . . .
After Beck scoffed, “Oh please,” Velshi then made his most accurate pronouncement about coal to date:
I don’t think it’s clean. It’s not cleaner. It just happens to not be oil.
Glenn Beck — whose response to the threat of climate change is to complain that polar bears eat people — was terribly alarmed by Velshi’s moment of truth:
Now hang on just a second. We can sequester the CO2 now. We can make it cleaner than it has been.
In fact, there is not a single coal plant producing electricity or fuel that sequesters carbon dioxide anywhere on the planet. Although we definitely can make coal cleaner, the coal industry is doing everything it can to ensure that the American taxpayer foots the bill. If Velshi were truly interested in the economics of coal, he would host financial analysts that discuss the economic risks of coal power, not global-warming deniers like Glenn Beck.
Watch it:
Transcript: More »
McCain: Against the ‘100 Years’ Before He Was For It
McCain: Against the ‘100 Years’ Before He Was For It
What to make of newly unearthed quotes from 2005 John McCain, who, unlike 2008 John McCain, seems to have understood that a long term U.S. military presence in Iraq was neither desirable nor workable. Back then, McCain straight talked that, not only could we get along without a permanent U.S. bases in Iraq, but that “one of our big problems has been the fact that many Iraqis resent American military presence”:
I would hope that we could bring them [the troops] all home…I would hope that we would probably leave some military advisers, as we have in other countries, to help them with their training and equipment and that kind of stuff.
Watch it:
McCain expressed similar sentiments in November 2007, telling Charlie Rose that he didn’t think that the South Korea analogy was a good one, which is what he thinks now. In other words, back then, he was making some sense. Since then, however, McCain has dug in under his infamous “100 years” comments, insisting that a century-long military presence in Iraq is an appropriate goal of American foreign policy, studiously ignoring or denying the fact that that presence is one of the main drivers of violence in Iraq.
This gets to the serious questions that exist over McCain’s claim of foreign policy as his area of greatest expertise. Or, as Tim Dickinson puts it, “the only game he’s got.” How does McCain’s foreign policy “game” square with the strategic confusion revealed in his flip-flopping on an Iraq troop presence?
Although John McCain’s March 26 foreign policy speech was widely praised initially, some analysts have realized upon closer inspection that, leaving aside a few head-fakes toward responsible multilateralism, the speech is essentially a manifesto for an even more activist and belligerent American foreign policy than George W. Bush’s.
Newsweek’s Fareed Zakaria wrote that “the neoconservative vision within the speech is essentially an affirmation of ideology.”
It places the United States in active opposition to all nondemocracies. It proposes a League of Democracies, which would presumably play the role that the United Nations now does, except that all nondemocracies would be cast outside the pale. The approach lacks any strategic framework…How would the League of Democracies fight terrorism while excluding countries like Jordan, Morocco, Egypt and Singapore?…Dissing dictators might make for a stirring speech, but ordinary Americans will have to live with the complications after the applause dies down.
Exactly right. No politician ever lost an American election by praising democracy and condemning oppression, but many thousands of Americans have lost their lives as a result of policies by politicians who assumed that admirable and airy sentiments were the equivalent of workable doctrine.
The real question, of course, is what policies one proposes to achieve those ends, and it’s in this area that neoconservatism has utterly and demonstrably failed in each and every particular. The last seven years of Bush have shown how destructive big and bold-sounding ideas can be in the hands of a president with no good idea of how to implement them.
CNN’s Velshi Promotes Coal: I’m Not Even As ‘Clean’ As Coal When I ‘Get Out Of The Shower’
CNN’s Velshi Promotes Coal: I’m Not Even As ‘Clean’ As Coal When I ‘Get Out Of The Shower’
Previewing his interview with the CEO of Sasol, a South African company that produces coal-based liquid fuels, chief business correspondent Ali Velshi admitted on CNN’s American Morning on Friday that “There are issues with coal,” but minimized its problems:
There are issues with coal. It’s not the cleanest thing in the world. You see the signs for clean coal, 99 percent clean. I’m not 99 percent clean when I get out of the shower. . . I just look clean.
Watch it:
Velshi’s hygiene is his own business, but it’s no secret that coal is a dirty fuel and Velshi’s “99 percent clean” is false:
– The misleading “clean coal” ads from the coal-industry front group ACCCE only claim that “today’s coal-based generating fleet is already 70 percent cleaner based upon regulated emissions per unit of energy produced.”
– The “70 percent” baseline is from 1970 and only refers to air pollutants covered by the Clean Air Act, not water and land pollution or greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide.
– Because coal use has more than tripled since 1970, total pollution from coal plants has increased. In fact, in 2004 the Clean Air Task Force found coal-plant pollution “cuts short the lives of nearly 24,000 people each year.”
Velshi has now used his position to repeatedly promote coal-to-liquids technology and minimize its problems. Perhaps he wasn’t kidding when he said, “I only look clean.”
Transcript: More »
Middle Class Families Pinch On Necessities, While The Wealthy Splurge On Luxury Goods
Middle Class Families Pinch On Necessities, While The Wealthy Splurge On Luxury Goods
In the newest twist on the trend of rising income inequality among American families, there is a growing disparity in domestic consumer spending. Forced to decide between filling up the gas tank and paying the electric bills, versus a night out to dinner and new clothes for summer, consumers are sticking to necessities.
What’s interesting, however, is not that Americans are buying only what they need, but that in today’s faltering economy, Americans are changing the very definition of necessity. Starbucks, whose profits have been falling steadily since late 2007, reported earnings last week that disappointed expectations by 11 percent, influenced by “soft sales in California and Florida, where consumers have been hurt by soft home prices and the subprime-mortgage crisis.” Formerly considered an “affordable luxury,” the purchase of a $5 latte has morphed into an extravagance for the average American.
The trend goes far beyond amenities like coffee. As the New York Times reported this weekend:
Spending data and interviews around the country show that middle- and working-class consumers are starting to switch from name brands to cheaper alternatives, to eat in instead of dining out and to fly at unusual hours to shave dollars off airfares. … Wal-Mart stores reports stronger-than-usual sales of peanut butter and spaghetti, while restaurants like Domino’s Pizza and Ruby Tuesday have suffered a falloff in orders, suggesting that many Americans are sticking to low-cost home-cooked meals.
A study conducted by WSL Strategic Retail yielded similar results:
Fashion accessories, home decor items, premium brands or food and specialty coffees, eating at restaurants and takeout foods, and tickets to entertainment, are the top areas where people are trimming their spending.
This pattern, however, hasn’t extended universally across the U.S. economy. Sales of true luxury goods — jewelry, private jets, contemporary art, expensive real estate, yachts — are higher than ever before, despite their climbing price tags. In some cases, the luxury market is setting records. In real estate, for example, 71 $10-million apartments have sold so far this year in Manhattan. In all of last year, only 17 were sold.
Expensive jewelry sales are the same way. A story on CNN’s American Morning explained this phenomenon, noting that “women or their husbands who are buying this jewelry say to a certain extent if we have the money, if we don’t buy it now, the price is only going up.”
The difference between the haves and the have nots seems to be widening by the day. The wealthiest 10 percent of Americans account for more than half of all U.S. consumer spending, and in an era where families are struggling to pay their bills, put food on the table, and secure healthcare, soaring executive profits are a little hard to swallow.
UPDATE: Calculated Risk has more.
McCain’s Health Insurance Plan Would Not Cover Child Featured At Campaign Event
McCain’s Health Insurance Plan Would Not Cover Child Featured At Campaign Event
Our guest blogger is Adam Jentleson, the Communications and Outreach Director for the Hyde Park Project at the Center for American Progress Action Fund.
Today at a campaign event, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) toured Miami Children’s Hospital and met with some of the facility’s young patients. As The New York Times reported, McCain heard the story of Jake, a 9 year-old child with a cleft palate. Cleft palates can be fixed with a simple operation, but as Jake’s father told McCain today, his family has been struggling to get their insurance company to cover the post-operation therapy Jake needs.
While Jake’s father related his story, McCain “nodded intently” –- but failed to tell him that Jake would not get coverage under his health care plan.
As we have documented on this blog, John McCain’s plan would not guarantee coverage to people with pre-existing conditions – a category that includes Jake, as well as anyone with cancer, diabetes, or even hay fever.
In fact, under McCain’s plan, insurance companies would get much broader latitude than they currently have to decide who to cover and who not to cover. Since people with pre-existing conditions are expensive for companies to cover, they’d get left out in the cold.
They wouldn’t be the only ones. McCain’s plan is a radical assault on the employer-based system of health care, and would leave many of the 158 million Americans who get health care through their jobs at risk of losing coverage. But people with pre-existing conditions – people like Jake – would be worse off than most.
In the Times article, McCain advisor Douglas Holtz-Eakin ducks the simple question of whether McCain’s plan would guarantee coverage for Jake, saying only that McCain would address the issue in his speech tomorrow.
We will be watching closely for some “straight talk” on this issue, because so far, it’s been way too serpentine.
UPDATE: Covering the same exchange, the Wall Street Journal also pointed out that “left unsaid was that McCain’s health plan is designed to weaken state regulations like the one in Florida that, like 14 other states, mandates that insurance companies cover treatment for cleft palates.”
Yglesias: ‘Look At The Failures That The Right Has Brought On Us. Isn’t It Time To Do Something Different?’
Yglesias: ‘Look At The Failures That The Right Has Brought On Us. Isn’t It Time To Do Something Different?’
Continuing Matt Yglesias‘ interview with Think Progress about his new book, (reviewed here by Democracy Arsenal’s Ilan Goldenberg), Yglesias discussed some of the reasons why conservatives have successfully colonized so much of the territory around the foreign policy debate.
Yglesias said that “Democrats and liberals have not historically made [foreign policy] their big point of emphasis.” He also noted that, over the last several decades, the right has been much more audacious about foreign policy, building institutions, creating think tanks, and “work[ing] in a very organized and disciplined way to try to change our understanding” about how the world works, and about what policies American national security requires:
There wasn’t some organic popular hue and cry to invade Iraq. This was a movement that was built up over a period of years,…before September 11th—at a time when people would have said, “Well, you know, Paul Wolfowitz, that’s totally unrealistic. This is never going to happen.” And you know, it was never was going to happen. Except, then 9/11 came. That changed the dynamic. It made it possible to do things, and they laid the groundwork for it.
Yglesias suggested that “if liberals want to accomplish things in foreign policy…they need to lay the intellectual and popular ground-work for it,” building up organizations such as the Center for American Progress and creating the institutions to support progressive arguments for better foreign policy.
Yglesias also noted that this is a particularly opportune historical moment for such an alternative:
At the moment, what Bush has done has so clearly failed, that I think anyone has to at least stop and listen to what opponents have to say. That doesn’t mean necessarily you’ll convince people. You need to have good arguments. You need to have the fight. But there’s a chance to get the hearing for it. You can say, “Look at this. Look at the failures that the right has brought on us. Isn’t it time to do something different?”
Watch it:
Transcript: More »
CNN’s Ali Velshi Promotes False Coal-Based ‘Solution’ To Gas Prices
CNN’s Ali Velshi Promotes False Coal-Based ‘Solution’ To Gas Prices
This weekend, CNN’s senior business correspondent Ali Velshi devoted his “Your Money” show to rising gas prices. In one segment, he introduced an interview with Pat Davies, the CEO of the South African energy company Sasol:
Any way you slice it, prices at the pump are high, even if you stick with the regular gas. One innovative energy company based in South Africa thinks it has a workable solution. For decades it’s been turning coal and natural gas into gasoline.
In reality, Sasol’s coal-to-liquids (CTL) technology is neither “workable” nor a “solution” to high gas prices. In the interview, Davies modestly admitted that there’s a global warming problem, saying “We need to do some more work.” The truth is liquid coal is a climate killer. The energy required to convert coal to liquid fuel doubles the amount of carbon dioxide released compared to petroleum-based gasoline, producing a ton of carbon dioxide for each barrel of liquid fuel. The New York Times shows how liquid coal is the worst of all possible alternative fuels:
Furthermore, Velshi concludes his piece by debunking the claim that CTL is a “workable solution” to the rising cost of gasoline:
This is not about lowering the cost necessarily of gasoline, it is about creating alternatives and particularly coal is something you don’t eat, unlike corn, which makes ethanol. Sasol is looking to open some facilities here in the United States and it’s conducting feasibility studies. So it would take years before the first coal-to-gasoline fuel could possibly enter the U.S. market.
Watch it:
In fact, the only benefits would accrue to the coal industry, who paid CNN millions to sponsor their presidential debates, and companies like Sasol, who paid lobbyists $400,000 last year to promote their technologies.
Yglesias: The Bush Doctrine ‘Doesn’t Go With International Law, Practicality, Or Morals’
Yglesias: The Bush Doctrine ‘Doesn’t Go With International Law, Practicality, Or Morals’
Last Friday, the Center for American Progress Action Fund hosted an event in which blogger Matthew Yglesias discussed his new book, “Heads In The Sand: How the Republicans Screw Up Foreign Policy and Foreign Policy Screws Up the Democrats.”
Afterward, Yglesias sat down with ThinkProgress. He shared his views on a liberal paradigm for the appropriate and productive use of military force. Yglesias said that it is important, first of all, “to have a recognition of what it is possible to achieve with military force”:
One thing that the United States has great success with over the past couple of decades is sort of blowing up discreet, physical targets, and you can accomplish a lot with that.[...] We’ve also seen a lot of success with multi-lateral peace-keeping forces — where different sides in a civil war…say “We want to stop this…but it’s hard to end the war, because we don’t trust each other.” [...] The United States has not historically done a ton to support those kinds of missions, and I think we should do more.
We should of course use force to defend ourselves, to defend our allies, and try to expand this sphere of who our allies are and who we can work with in a sort-of defensive way. I think those two kinds of things more or less sum up what you need to do in the core instances when force works and when force is legitimate.
Yglesias also noted the ways that this liberal internationalist approach differs from George W. Bush administration’s reckless and radical doctrine of preventive war:
No president before George W. Bush ever suggested that American security required us to just go decapitate regimes on the theory that they might some day in the future acquire weapons that would be dangerous. So, it’s only been tried once. It’s been a huge disaster. Other countries that have launched preemptive wars historically have always suffered for it. It doesn’t go with international law, and it doesn’t go with common sense—either practicality, or morals.
Watch it:
Full transcript below: More »
Stimulus Checks Set To Stimulate The Gas Pump — And Economies Overseas
Stimulus Checks Set To Stimulate The Gas Pump — And Economies Overseas
The Bush administration has made quite a show of distributing the economic stimulus checks ahead of schedule. Going into the mail on Monday, these checks are designed, according to President Bush, to “help Americans offset the high prices we’re seeing at the gas pump, at the grocery store, and will also give our economy a boost to help us pull out of this economic slowdown.”
What Bush doesn’t seem to understand is that these checks may only stretch far enough to pay for the rising price of gasoline.
The US Energy Information Administration estimates that the price for an average gallon of gas will increase by $.40 per gallon this year. If gasoline consumption remains steady at 2007 levels, then it will cost an extra $231 to fuel a car in 2008. CNN explains:
For a middle-income single person, that represents more than a third of their rebate money [...] For the average American family with two cars, that’s $462 of additional spending on gas – over a quarter of their rebate.
Hard to argue that these checks are really an economic stimulus, aimed at promoting local retail spending and the purchase of local consumer goods, when the money is going straight into Americans’ gas tanks.
Bush might still have had a leg to stand on if gasoline were produced, refined or processed here in the USA, but that’s one more thing that he forgot: most of our gas comes from overseas. In fact, two thirds of the nation’s oil is imported, mostly from Canada, Mexico and Saudi Arabia.
“The rebate goes into the tank, and then finds its way into economies far from our own,” said Jared Bernstein, a senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute. CNN breaks down cost of a gallon of gas:
In plain English, the bulk of what you pay for this gallon of gas goes to oil—and chances are, that oil had nothing to do with an American manufacturer. It looks like the only “stimulus” here in America is the 7% going to the guy who owns the gas station.
Welcome Back Sunnis
Welcome Back Sunnis
Our guest blogger is Peter Juul, a national security consultant at the Center for American Progress Action Fund.
Good news everybody! The main Sunni Arab parliamentary bloc, Tawafuq, is rejoining the Maliki government after a nine month long boycott. The bloc cited the favorable implementation of the recently-passed amnesty law and the crackdown on Muqtada al-Sadr’s militia as the main reasons for its decision to re-up with Maliki. Tawafuq’s justification is especially ironic given the fact that it partnered with Sadr’s parliamentary bloc to pass the amnesty law.
While Tawafuq’s return is a positive development in Iraqi politics, it remains to be seen whether it will have any long-term impact. After all, Tawafuq was a member of the Maliki government during the worst of the sectarian violence during 2006 and 2007. Its presence seemed to do little to move toward meaningful political progress then, and as noted key legislative initiatives were passed when it was outside government.
More important, however, is the extent to which Tawafuq actually represents Iraq’s Sunni Arabs. With the rise of the Awakening movement, Sunni politics have become more fractured. These tribal and insurgent groups are not answerable to the bloc and are seeking to enter politics on their own terms, if at all. Members of the Anbar Awakening have even threatened to fight members of the Tawafuq bloc. So Tawafuq’s return to the Maliki government does not augur full-blow Sunni-Shi’a reconciliation.
Tawafuq’s primary motivation in returning to government may be to politically outmaneuver the Awakenings, who are poised to take power in provincial elections later this year. In this respect, Tawafuq’s return may lead to heightened intra-Sunni tensions as the bloc seeks to consolidate its power at the national level and the newly-empowered Awakenings seek increased devolution of authority to local levels.
Big Oil: ‘Together, We Can’ Ignore Climate Change
Big Oil: ‘Together, We Can’ Ignore Climate Change
The American Petroleum Institute (API), the trade organization for the oil and natural gas industry, has just begun running a feel-good commercial that argues “America’s future” lies in drilling out domestic reserves of oil and natural gas off our coasts, in our western lands, and in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Here’s what the ad says:
Oil and natural gas powered the past. But the future? Fact is, a growing world will require more. 45% more by 2030, along with greatly expanding alternatives. We have substantial oil and natural gas resources right here. Enough to power 60 million cars and heat 160 million households for 60 years. With advanced technology and smart policies, together we can secure America’s future. Log on to learn more. [TEXT: EnergyTomorrow.org / The People of America's Oil and Natural Gas Industry]
Watch it:
The “facts” in Big Oil’s ad are based on a thirty-six page API document entitled, “The Truth About Oil and Gasoline.” This “primer” was published last week, with numerous figures and charts on oil company profits and gas prices, but nary a single mention of climate change or greenhouse gas emissions. Here are the facts Big Oil left out:
Future With 45% More Oil And Gas Demand Involves 60% More Global Warming Emissions. The projection of “45% more by 2030″ gas and oil demand is drawn from the International Energy Agency’s (IEA) World Energy Outlook 2007 report. The API accurately describes the increase in global oil and gas demand in the IEA’s business-as-usual scenario, although United States demand is only projected to increase by less than 5%. However, API fails to mention the business-as-usual scenario also predicts energy-related carbon emissions would “increase by almost 60%” by 2030.
Business As Usual Spells Catastrophic Future. The IEA business-as-usual scenario would put the planet on a pathway to “temperature change at equilibrium of about 4.9 to 6.1 degrees C [8.9 to 11°F] compared to pre-industrial levels.” That’s five to seven times as much warming as we’ve already experienced, and would make catastrophic global change — including mass species extinction, crop devastation, and significant sea level rise — unavoidable.
Big Oil Ignores The ‘Secure’ Scenario. The IEA’s report includes a “450 Stabilisation Case,” in which greenhouse emissions are limited such that atmospheric concentrations stabilize at 450 parts per million of CO2 equivalent — what the IPCC calculated is need to avoid catastrophic climate change. In this scenario, total global oil and gas demand only increases by 10 percent from current levels, not the 45 percent that API says the world will “require.”
The ad’s tag line, “Together, we can secure America’s future,” mimics the We Campaign climate activism spot that concludes: “Together, we can solve the climate crisis.” The path Big Oil envisions — even as warning signs increase — would instead destroy the future of America and the rest of the planet.
Small Business Is In Trouble Under McCain Plan
Small Business Is In Trouble Under McCain Plan
Much has been said lately by Elizabeth Edwards and others about individuals who would be in trouble under the McCain health care plan. But they aren’t the only ones. McCain’s plan could very well leave the engine of America’s economy out in the cold as well — small businesses.
Small businesses face significant barriers in getting and keeping health insurance. Recent survey data from the National Federal of Independent Business bear this out, with 81 percent of small business owners indicating that “finding affordable healthcare” is a challenge, with 16 percent calling it was their biggest challenge.
The reason is that small businesses do not have enough people to create a “stable risk pool.” That’s insurance gibberish for simply saying that, if just one employee develops a catastrophic disease or has a major accident, then the insurance company loses money on that small business. In the insurance marketplace, small businesses don’t have it much easier than individuals.
To help small businesses, the majority of states take steps to cap premium rates within a certain range (technically called a “rate band”), and many states will also cap the annual increase in premiums. As research from Georgetown University shows, some states have strong protections, like California. Other states do not, like Kentucky and Louisiana where insurers are allowed to increase rates by more than 20% in a single year for a small business (most states only permit increases smaller than that). Very few states offer no rate protections: District of Columbia, Hawaii, Pennsylvania, and Virginia. More »
Global Food Crisis Hits Home As Retailers Begin To Ration Rice
Global Food Crisis Hits Home As Retailers Begin To Ration Rice
As an unexpected consequence of rising commodity prices and the international food crisis, two American retail giants — Costco and Sam’s Club (a subsidiary of Wal-Mart) — have set quantity restrictions on purchases of bulk rice. Sam’s Club, who is now limiting purchases to four, 20 pound bags of rice per visit, claims that “it is a precautionary measure, aimed primarily at our business customers, making sure we have enough for everyone.” They say it is simply a reaction to “recent supply and demand trends.”
A spokesman from Costco tells a similar story:
We don’t want to create a panic where we don’t think there is a panic, if we weren’t able to get any more rice or any more flour that would be a different story but we’re able to continue to replenish our supplies.
So if there’s no panic, and no shortage in supply, then why are these mega-chains limiting rice? Most likely because the restaurant industry, whose profits have tumbled dramatically in the last twelve months, is looking for new ways to cut costs and save on expenses — particularly in light of the painful new fuel surcharges added on by their suppliers for warehouse-to-store truck trips.
Restaurant owners are therefore doing things like cutting back on sauces and portions, charging for extra condiments, and changing their food suppliers — instead of buying staples from delivery services, they are schlepping to the wholesale stores themselves. Sam’s Club and Costco provide another alternative, as both are known to cater to “small businesses including independent restaurants, nursing homes and day care centers.”
The USA Rice Federation seems to agree:
It’s possible that small restaurants and bodega-type neighborhood stores may be purchasing rice in larger quantities than they do typically to avoid higher prices.
Soaring inflation, poor harvests, and worldwide food shortages are causing other countries, such as Vietnam and India, to place temporary bans on some rice exports. American rice farmers appear to be taking advantage, holding back inventories in hopes of locking in bigger profits as worries about shortages continue to drive future prices. The U.S. accounts for only about 1.5% to 2% of global rice production, but it is the world’s fourth-largest exporter, behind Thailand, Vietnam and India. U.S. rice exports are forecast to increase 20% this year.
Dreier Says Nukes ‘Cleanest, Safest, Most Cost Effective Energy Source Known To Man’
Dreier Says Nukes ‘Cleanest, Safest, Most Cost Effective Energy Source Known To Man’
Interviewed on Dennis Miller’s radio show today, Rep. David Dreier (R-CA) discussed the House GOP “commonsense” attack on Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) over skyrocketing gas prices. He then went off into the following non sequitur on nuclear power:
And frankly, whatever you want to say, you know, eighty percent of the French energy comes from nuclear power and it’s the cleanest, safest, most cost effective energy source known to man. And they have a very unique way of disposing of it. We should look at coal to liquification. We should be looking at all kinds of alternative sources and what is it that they have done? They refuse to allow us to even have votes on that.
Listen:
Dreier is mimicking talking points from the nuclear lobby. In a recent column in the Washington Times, Spencer Abraham of the Clean and Safe Energy Coalition claimed nuclear power is the “most environmentally friendly source of all clean-air electricity options.” Dreier is spinning an utter fantasy:
– “…cleanest, safest, most cost effective energy source known to man…” Nuclear power requires dangerous mining, produces permanently deadly toxic waste, and may abet the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. Nuclear power is only “cost effective” to the degree these costs are ignored.
– “…they have a very unique way of disposing of it…” The truth is that France, like the United States, still has no solution for safely managing nuclear waste. [Forbes, 3/22/06]
– “…We should look at coal to liquification…” Liquid coal is a climate killer. The energy required to convert coal to liquid fuel doubles the amount of carbon dioxide released compared to petroleum-based gasoline, producing a “ton of carbon dioxide for each barrel of liquid fuel.” [NRDC, 2/07]
–“…We should be looking at all kinds of alternative sources…” Energy sources that are cleaner and safer than nuclear power include: energy efficiency, co-generation, wind power, solar power (photovoltaic and thermal), geothermal power, and tidal power — to name a few.
–“…They refuse to allow us to even have votes on that.” Rep. Dreier has voted against the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 and Renewable Energy and Energy Conservation Tax Act of 2008, both of which would have taken tax subsidies away from oil companies to invest in renewable energy. He was one of only 31 people to fail to vote on the Advanced Fuels Infrastructure Research and Development Act.
The truth of the matter is that this Congress has raised fuel economy standards, increased investment in renewable energy, and repeatedly attempted to reduce subsidies for oil companies. And they’ve been opposed at every step of the way by Rep. Dreier.
TRANSCRIPT: More »
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