Day: March 24, 2005

I like the new look (“pool”). A little cleaner, a little more graphic. These “themes” look easy enough to customize, but I don’t know when I would find time to make my own.

Here’s a little rule of thumb. When two branches of the government pass a bill that only applies to two citizens, that’s not a good bill. I don’t know how many bills meet that description, but I feel confident the rule holds. I didn’t even think it was possible to target a bill so specifically (and probably it’s not, this one is bound to fail any constitutional review).

Now that I know that, it does changes my own priorities. Instead of working for the man, I’m going to get me an office on K Street and start lobbying for the Muttrox Family and American Way Preservation Act (MFAWPA).

This Act will:

• Appoint Muttrox (me) the Traffic Czar for life. More details in a later post on what that entails.
• Guarantee Muttrox (me) 10% of any savings garnered through Social Security Privatization (I don’t expect to see a dime of that)
• Award Muttrox (me) the first American Knighthood. Sir Muttrox has a nice ring.

Rusmfeld is fighting Congress. No, not about torture. It’s about budgets, and bringing just a hair of rationality to the procurement process.

It’s easy to forget how important this battle is to Rumsfeld. When he was brought on as Secretary fo Defense, his stated goal was to transform the military. He was probably as surprised as everyone else when he had actually had to, you know, run a war and stuff. He has been outspoken for many years about the need for the military branches to have a funding and procurement process that gets them what is needed to accomplish their military mission, not the mission of the arms manufacturers and congressmen. Today’s military is only slowing preparing itself for the post-cold landscape. Considering the amount of our GDP that goes to military expenditures, it is welcome to see Rumsfeld going to war on this front also. Will he be able to buck the “Iron Triangle”? I don’t know, but I give him better odds than anyone else would get. Go Rummy go!

This comment from Jabley on on my first McCain post deserves a full reply:

To his credit, it sounds as if much of the talk centers around “negotiating” not cramming the Bush plan down the country’s throat. It’s pretty much accepted that support for Bush’s plan as initially-conceived is insufficient to win approval; I perceive this effort to be more of an attempt to keep Social Security alive as a political issue rather than an attempt to win Bush’s precise plan. Clearly McCain understands that there will have to be a meaningful middle ground on this issue and I think the “come to the table with us” talk demonstrates as much.

Here’s why I disagree with this line of reasoning.

1) There is no Bush plan. To speak of negotiating is absurd when Bush won’t commit to anything. Any criticism against the Democrats for not having a plan of their own is easily answered with that classic, “You first!”.

2) The elements that we know are in the Bush “plan” are non-negotiable. Bush and his allies may refer to “saving social security” or “just making sure it’s solvent” or “giving people more control”, but these are not what their plan is. Their plan is privatizing the system, plain and simple. Note that Bush and Cheney and others have all recently stated that their ideas will do nothing to address solvency. If that is true (and it certainly is), why exactly do you think they want things to change?

3) Their is no meaningful middle ground. There are either add-on accounts or not, there are either carved out accounts or not, you either address the solvency issue or not, you either leave Social Security as an insurance system or transform into a fancy 401(k), etc.

4) It is not that Bush’s plan as initially conceived has failed to win support. It is that the very elements that are central to his “plan” are unpopular. In every setting, the more people are exposed to his plan, the more they dislike it. The more the true costs are known, the more they dislike it. And it is not the “negotiable” parts of his plan that people dislike, it is the central concepts themseleves. That isn’t going to change, because Bush’s “plan” isn’t going to change in any meaningful way.

“Just let me president. Please, please let me be president.”