The Limits of Campaign Finance Reform

            I’ve been reading an interesting law review article by Jill E. Fisch entitled “How Do Corporations Play Politics?: The FedEx Story.”  The article, though a little old and missing some new developments, discusses the manners in which a corporation can influence politics and how a lot of the methods do not involve just spending money.  In addition, Fisch makes the argument that contributing money, spending money on PACs, and things of that nature don’t have the huge kind of impact on political outcomes that many people associate with spending large sums of money.  Before I get into what I took away from this article, if you have access to JSTOR or EBSCOHost, and you have the time and desire to read a really long law review article, I’d suggest this one.

            What I took away from this article is that simply tweaking campaign finance rules to put limits on the amount of money that a corporation can spend, is insufficient to address the influence that corporations can have on politics. Fisch uses FedEx as an example of the variety of different things that a corporation can do outside of simply spending money on PACs and campaign contributions. FedEx bought the naming rights for Redskins stadium, allows for Congressman to use their planes for quicker travel, uses the planes for humanitarian work, and other activities to raise their political profile.  In addition to all of that, the president of FedEx regularly appeared before Congress to testify about various issues as well as hire lobbyists and experts to do the same.  A lot of activity that influences policy outcomes doesn’t appear to have anything to do with spending large amounts of money on elections or advertising.  The ability for corporations, both for profit and non-profit, to gather experts, produce policy papers, testify before Congress and other such activities play a large role in policy outcomes, but wouldn’t be affected by campaign finance reform.  Fisch has an example of FedEx campaigning for deregulation of air freight in the 70’s, but only spending around $8500, a sum that I could put together if I really wanted to wipe out my savings.  They got what they wanted anyways, demonstrating that money isn’t necessarily the most important factor. 

            I do want to make something clear, having vast sums of money helps with performing the actions mentioned above.  Having money allows for you to hire lobbyists, experts, and raise your political profile enough to influence politics, but none of these activities would be impacted by campaign finance reform.  Not all of these activities are bad exactly.  I like the idea of the Sierra Club or the ACLU having the funds on hand to hire experts or lobbyists to influence politics.  I’m not sure that I even have an issue with FedEx testifying before Congress with regards to deregulation.  Businesses do have political interests and they should have the ability to act on those interests.  Campaign finance reform could limit contributions to candidates and could limit the amount of money that could be spent on ad campaigns, but probably could not limit the amount of money that is spent on lobbying, or limit the money spent on raising one’s political profile, or limit the access to power that comes from holding vast sums of money.

            Unless we as a society decide that corporations, including organizations like the NAACP or the UMWA, are not persons and do not have any liberty rights, they are always going to play a huge role in politics.  A role that may diminish the impact that regular citizens have on politics.  Even if we were to simply ban money being spent by business on politics, there is nothing stopping them from forming advocacy groups that would allowed to spend money on their behalf.  I write this out of a sense of depression because I do think that money in politics is an issue, but I just don’t see any viable solutions to fix this issue. 

Farm Subsidies

     With all of the talk about deficit reduction, trimming Federal spending, and the evils of socialism one would think that agricultural subsidies would be in the cross-hairs of Republicans and Democrats alike.  Economists are generally opposed to the practice because it distorts markets, inflates the price of land, overwhelmingly go towards agribusiness, and only goes towards certain crops like corn.  (I especially hate subsidies to corn because not only does it receive subsidies to grow; but there are also subsidies for ethanol AND the US government created an automatic market for ethanol by the passing of laws that mandated it's use in Federal vehicles.  All in all, very much an excellent example of a command economy.)
    As a quick aside, if you ever want to find out if someone is libertarian, talk about guns and farm subsidies, if they like the former and hate the latter they are libertarians.  100% accurate.
    Matt Yglesias has a post about Senator Roy Blunt supporting  agricultural subsidies but not food aid to the poor.  Pretty heartless right?  He's in favor of giving government money to businesses but not poor people?  I'm sure he, and any other supporter of the process, will argue that these are really just small time farmers, and the subsidies are necessary to make sure that we have food whenever we might need it.  The problem with this argument is that it's not what farm subsidies do.  Farm subsidies actually aid bigger businesses than they do smaller ones because of the increase in land prices.  There is something to be said about the history of food production and how it would go through a boom and bust cycle in the past, the solution to this is not to simply give out yearly subsidies.  It would be far better to have emergency funds on hand to purchase food on the international market than to simply give farmers money to grow a ton of crops regardless of whether or not the market is there to pay for all of them.  In addition, it makes more sense to subsidize the purchase of food rather than the production because that way people will always be able to buy said food, meaning there will always be a market for what the farmers produce. 
    Farm subsidies are one of those government programs that by and large is unpopular, but due to the nature of Congress we get stuck with them.  Congress is structured in such a way so that it tends to favor rural states more than urban ones.  In addition, Democrats and Republicans from these rural states are both largely in favor of agricultural subsidies because their constituents are.  It's a regional policy more than an ideological one.  What really bothers me about this whole affair is that we're likely to see large reductions in funding to a variety of government services that benefit the poor, the middle class, and urban populations; while seeing gratuitous amounts of money still being paid to unnecessary programs in the Department of Defense and to agribusiness.

Egypt. (Or Why I Would Punch Anderson Cooper in the Head Too.)

    I am sure that all of you out there on the internet are aware of what is going on in Egypt.  A couple of other bloggers have written pieces on this subject that I felt did a good job of explaining many of the issues and a particular point made by Jonathon Bernstein over at "A Plain Blog About Politics" made a good deal of sense over how the media chooses to portray the US's role in this issue.  He states:

American press and political reaction to things like this invariably overstate the American role in whatever is going on. The US of course does have a lot to do with Egypt, and it may or may not be true that American policy can influence events there, but US coverage in these situations almost always overestimates that potential influence. That's even more true about statements, as opposed to actions, by US government officials.

    The rest of his post is really good and I do suggest reading it but one thing I want to make a further point on is how we have treated Obama's handling of this situation.  This is one of those situations where being brutally honest on the matter would be disastrous, even though I think it's probably the best way of handling the situation.  The brutally honest answer is that Obama and his State Department probably think democracy is good and would genuinely like it if people everywhere were free to determine their governments but also have to be sang froid about the situation in that they want someone in power who will most likely aid their foreign goals. 

    Could a democratic Egypt achieve both of those things?  Yes, it could and I think everyone, no matter their political stripes would prefer a free and democratic Egypt that supported our political goals (or any nation for that matter) than a dictatorial Egypt that supported our political goals.  The problem is, there's no guarantee that if Egypt becomes a democracy it will support our foreign policy goals.  Obama and his team have to basically keep their options open and be ready to handle whatever comes out of this, and until something comes out of this, they should keep their cards close to the chest.  Ideally, while Robert Gibbs comes out and hews, hems, and haws; Hillary Clinton and the rest of the State Department are secretly working behind the scenes making connections with all potential winners of this power struggle in Egypt whether it's Mubarak, ElBaradei, the Muslim Brotherhood, or some sort of coalition.  In the meantime I think Obama should come out and say the same things he's been saying, all people yearn to be free and deserve to have their voices heard, violence should not be used, etc. etc.  Publicly announcing a cut in aid that goes to the Egyptian military might be a good symbolic gesture that I have not heard.  Some of these actions appear to already be happening as the Washington Post has reported that there is a shift in US government attitudes towards the Muslim Brotherhood. 

    The main thing I have been noticing with all the reporting I have read on the Egypt situation is the degree to which Republicans are going bat shit insane over this issue.  Whether for or against, and most of it is against the demonstrations.  There is constant comparison to the Iranian Uprising, that the Muslim Brotherhood is a terrorist organization that is the equivalent of Al-Qaeda, that people over there need a "firmer" hand.  One would think that they would be crowing with delight, constantly touting the correctness of the Bush Doctrine in that since Iraq has become a democracy, it's blooming everywhere in the Arab world.  Wasn't that the point?

Military Spending

    *I had written this for an internship and I just thought it was pretty solid so I thought I'd share it. I would include a link but you have to be a subscriber to The New Republic to read it all.  Though if you have access to it I'd suggest reading it.

            Gregg Easterbrook’s article within the November 10^th issue of The New Republic, “Waste Land,” is quite timely considering the current atmosphere of professed austerity.  With the coming plans from Republicans, Democrats, and various commissions detailing how best to tackle the gap between spending and revenues, it is useful that such an article detailing the exorbitant amount of money that goes into defense programs of questionable use was published.  Though it is the case that exorbitant spending on the military diverts funding that could go towards other programs, as well as diverts a great deal of taxpayer money towards programs of suspect merit, it raises an interesting question about cutting government programs during an economic downturn.

            When discussing where to cut back on government largesse, the programs that have received the most attention for curtailing seem to be social programs that are intended to help middle and lower class individuals.  Programs like unemployment insurance, libraries, spending on education, health, and other areas have been targeted for cuts.  Many have argued that cuts in these programs would actually worsen the economic situation without substantially helping the deficit.  Bearing that in mind, why not look to a bloated defense budget that has nine carrier strike forces where the rest of the world has none, where jets meant to fight Soviet fighters are still being developed?  A question that arises while reading this article is what kind of impact defense cuts might have on the economy.  Think about it for a moment: many of these programs are constructed and designed throughout the United States employing various workers from highly skilled engineers to less skilled laborers.  While it may be the case that an aeronautical engineer could get a comparable job in the private sector, it would likely be harder for the assembly line worker making an M1 tank to get a job making cars given the current economic situation.  Is that not the same argument that has been made with regards to other government employees in different fields?  Is military spending, in fact, the last refuge of Keynesian economics, though hardly called such by those who support it?

            Admittedly, Easterbrook does not discuss how such massive spending could be an example of Keynesian economic policy, in part because he himself may be opposed to such policies.  Easterbrook is largely against the wasting of tax-payer money and likely considers the notion that wasteful military spending may have a beneficial economic impact highly dubious.  Many of these programs make no military sense and the largest economic benefit is likely to be felt by the handful of companies, the contractors hired, and top military brass who go on to work for the latter two beneficiaries.  However, there are still people lower on the totem pole who do benefit from these programs.  These are the individual workers on an assembly line, construction workers building the various headquarters for the expanding national security bureaucracy, the staff that will be required to take care of these new facilities, and so on and so forth.  These people will, in turn, be paying for groceries, their rent, and nights out with their families and friends, all of which is supposed to increase demand and improve the economy, whether it is a janitor for a school or a janitor for a Northrop-Grumman plant.  The same argument used to support New Deal style work programs could be employed to defend this military spending, to an extent. 

A final critique of this article is the lack of blame to be cast at the feet of constituents.  Easterbrook doles out much of the blame to military brass, to the companies themselves, and to Congressmen who are always looking for a photo-op next to an F-35.  It is fair to say that a lion’s share of the blame should be shouldered by these groups, but constituents have a role to play in this problem as well.  An area in which this military money is spent has a vested interest in keeping the money coming as it directly benefits them.  Just as towns where bases are located heavily resist the removal of that base, so too will towns where new nuclear powered carriers are being built resist any threat to their funding being cut off.  Though many will decry the deficit and the bloated budget, they will not be as much in favor of it when their own economic well-being is at stake.  These individuals have a large interest in massive military spending alongside those who Easterbrook mentions. 

Republican Deficit Plan

    Republicans in the House have come up with a plan to reduce the deficit somewhat in the near future.  An opinion piece on it, written by the authors of the plan, can be found here.  The plan calls for eliminating the rest of the unspent money from the stimulus, $125 billion and then freezing spending levels to 2006 levels.  The rest of the money is going to come from various cuts to non-defense discretionary spending to add up to $2.5 trillion dollars by 2021.  The usual critique about this plan are as follows:  It does nothing to the defense budget where there is plenty of money to be saved by eliminating Cold War era programs.  It also leaves a great deal of things unspecified, namely what programs would be eliminated.  Is Medicare going to be touched?  (No, it isn't.)  Non-defense discretionary spending encompasses a variety of things that people like, like the FBI, Coast Guard, Pell Grants, Farm Subsidies, and other programs.

    What I dislike most about the nature of these kinds of proposals by Republicans, is that they are highly disingenuous and off-hand in their statements.  Of course you can identify programs to cut, I could cut through the budget and find a bunch of things that would add up to a lot of money eventually.  I could eliminate Medicare, Medicaid, Congress' Healthcare and Pensions, along with Farm Subsidies, any and all tax breaks, and the VA.  I could also have the Fed call in all the debts that the states owe to the Federal government.  Eventually things would start looking great for the deficit.  Key problem though, none of these things would pass.  Want to know why?  There's no political will to change any of these things.  It's easy to point out things that could be cut and say you have a plan.  The reality of the situation though is that all of the expensive programs that really contribute to the deficit, like Defense, Homeland Security, Medicare, and low taxes, have strong political support that will prevent them from being cut.  People point to the lack of needing an F-22 to fight militants in Afghanistan, but the plane has parts built in every state and Congressmen love bringing military money to their district.  Until we stop voting for Congressmen who engage in that kind of behavior, it's not going to be stop.  Besides, we like that kind of stuff too.  It does mean increased employment of typically higher paying jobs. 

    The reason I have my friend Admiral Akbar up top is to highlight a point I want to make to any and all individuals who think the deficit is a problem.  Yes it may be an issue, but right now the most important thing to take care of is the economy and unemployment.  The deficit has nothing to do with either of things being so severe.  Cutting a bunch of programs like the FBI, Pell grants, and aid to the states will eliminate jobs and increase the strain on the rest of the economy.  More unemployed people means lower wages, more strain on social services, and a more sluggish economy.  Any talk of deficit reduction by Republicans is aimed towards eliminating Progressive government, not actually fixing the deficit.  Far more money could be saved by eliminating subsidies to business, tax loopholes, and breaks, and cutting the outrageous spending on defense.  Besides, what happened the last time the budget was balanced?  Bush came in, cut a bunch of taxes, launched a huge wave of spending not only on the wars, but also on social programs like the Medicare Drug Plan.  What leads anyone to believe that it's going to be any different in the future?  Chris Christie is cutting spending left and right in New Jersey all so he can cut taxes too.  That's like me being in debt, cutting out beer, and then also taking a pay cut from my job.  Democrats and Liberals everywhere, any talk of deficit reduction is a trap!

Gold! Nuggets, Big as your Fist!

  There has been a lot of talk recently about going back on the gold standard for American currency.  The state of Georgia has introduced a law that would require all citizens pay their state taxes in gold backed currency.  Add this to the calls by Ron Paul and Glenn Beck to put us back on the gold standard in order to fight off the Federal Reserve from "further destroying wealth."  Glenn Beck has turned into a great spokesperson for buying gold coins against the coming apocalypse. Ron Paul went on the Colbert Report in order to debate the merits of a gold backed currency against the floating currency we presently employ.  The basic argument is that gold is more valuable than paper, and will hold it's value more into the future.  By making our currency free floating, the government can increase or decrease the value of said currency to meet political and economic ends.  These individuals are basically pissed that the Federal Reserve created inflation over a lengthy period of time causing the value of the dollar to decline, something that they argue would not happen if we were on the gold standard still. (As an aside, the current rate of inflation is actually really low.)

    I'm of the opinion that returning to the gold standard is kind of a dumb idea for a variety of reasons.  For one, it would completely derail the modern economy, there is simply not enough gold to properly back the amount of money that we use as a society.  Furthermore, there are still plenty of issues to be had with using gold.  For one thing, the value of gold would not be determined by the United States but more by the mining capabilities of Russian and African mines.  Most of the world's gold comes from those regions and they are the determining factor in it's value.  Yes we do have gold in the United States, but not so much that we will be determining its value.  Secondly, switching to the gold standard would likely diminish our own purchasing power.  The value of the dollar would likely increase greatly, but so would the costs of things, diminishing our ability to consume all of the nice stuff we like.  It would also diminish capital in all likelihood making investing in new businesses and ventures all the more difficult further decreasing our ability to economically expand  at the same levels as our international counterparts.  

    As for the belief that switching to a gold standard will somehow limit the federal governments ability to tamper with the value of money is just flat out fantasy.  Assuming that we go on the gold standard and we still keep the Federal Reserve, which we would still likely do because it stabilizes banks across the country (which is good), there would still be currency manipulation.  The Fed could still buy up gold to drive up the price or flood the market with gold to lower the price.  People in Congress could decide to peg the value of the dollar to a different amount of gold depending on the circumstances.  They could even make the gold less pure, diluting it with copper, making it easier to produce more gold bars to back the currency.  All of the same stuff that we do now with paper currency can be done with gold currency.  

    One of the things about the interview done on the Colbert Report that struck me was how anachronistic this conversation sounds.  This is an argument from the 50's.  We live in an age where the money we use is digital, held on pieces of plastic.  Open your wallet and see how much cash you have on hand.  (This task is directed more towards my contemporaries and less towards older people who still carry around money for no reason.  It makes more sense to keep as much cash as possible earning interest at all times.)  The plastic may not even be necessary any more with the advent of internet shopping, all I need to do to purchase something is to punch a couple of numbers into an interface and suddenly I have bought something physical.  I've taken the intangible and made it concrete.  Does my bank have the physical cash on hand to cover all of my purchases?  Do they ship the physical money to the account of Kroger when I buy groceries?  No, just more number transfers across the internet.  The first one is actually a yes, but I do wonder whether they have the physical cash reserves to cover all of their customers, were they to remove their money simultaneously.  Ron Paul asks the audience if we would prefer a box of gold buried in the ground or a box of twenties.  That's a really stupid question, I'd take that box of twenties and short sell gold for when it collapses after all the rampant speculation.  Why would you bury money?  In addition to that, Paul seems to be saying that a pound of bricks is heavier than a pound of feathers with this example.  $20,000 worth of Gold is the same value as $20,000 worth of paper money.  In twenty years there's no guarantee that gold will still be valuable.  There is a guarantee that the United States will still be going strong and making noise. 

    As a final note, a lot of the talk about gold is tied up with apocalyptic language and the fall of America.  If we switched back to a gold standard and banks held gold reserves to back our currency, I'd still be fucked just as bad as when all my money was digital.  There's now way I'd be able to get that gold from the bank without some serious firepower.  If you're really worried about the apocalypse, buy a farm and a ton of guns and bullets, anyone comes looking to trade with gold just shoot 'em and take the gold.  It's the apocalypse, ain't no rules. 

Technology and How it Affects Communication

    There was an interview last night on the Colbert Report with Sherry Turkle who came on and bemoaned the alienation we are now experiencing as a result of the rise of technology like smart phones, texting and things of that nature.  I felt that this was a remarkably idiotic position to take that really showed her lack of insight into human behavior and communication.  Yes, it is annoying that everyone can text at anytime, regardless of the social situation.  Guess what?  People were inconsiderate assholes long before the advent of Twitter.  The same people who tweet at a funeral, are the same people who would do something inconsiderate like arrive late to a play, chew with their mouth open, and dress casual at a formal event.  Technology does enable inconsiderate behavior and makes it easier to behave callously sometimes.  At the same time, poor behavior has existed for quite some time and technology does not seem to be making it somehow worse than it was in the past, just different from what it used to be.  Turkle talks about children being ignored while their parents text, is this fundamentally different from when parents ignored their children by reading the paper at meals, listening to the radio, or just flat out telling them to shut up?  Technology has changed a variety of behaviors in humans in the fields of science, business, politics, social interaction, why not rudeness?

    Furthermore, Turkle seems to ignore how human interaction takes place very much the same way with or without technology, just slightly different.  She talks about Facebook and how we behave differently on Facebook then we do in the rest of our lives.  OK, I'll give her that.  We also behave differently among friends then we do among distant relatives.  I behave differently at a party where I know most of the people versus when I know none of the people.  Facebook is simply a different social milieu that has its own special kind of behavior, like any other kind of social setting.  If I hold things back or keep to superficial topics at a party where I know very few of the people, does that somehow I am alienated from my fellow human beings?

    Turkle also makes the claim that technology like e-mail, twitter, and texting has altered how we communicate.  While true, I fail to see why this is a big need for concern.  Any advance in communication technology is going to alter how we communicate.  She says that our communication has been stultified due to the shear volume of texts, e-mails and such coming in.  Imagine how terse our communication was in days past when Morse code was used?  Or when messages were memorized to make up for the fact that vast swaths of the population were illiterate?  It is the case that we no longer have the long form styles of communication that were common when people engaged more frequently in epistolary communication, but given the rise of video technology like Skype or Apple's Face-to-Face it may be the case that communication will revert back to being more expansive. Technology has changed a number of things about humans, but in many instances it allows us to pursue the same kinds of behaviors just in new and more exciting ways.