While Senator Lieberman's support for insurance companies is well known, he has generally voted with Democrats on health care during his career. His recent announcements that he will filibuster health care and support Republican candidates in 2010 are out of character, even for him.

 

My hunch is that Lieberman's actions in the health care debate are an attempt to marshal political capital for the upcoming debate on Afghanistan. Lieberman will hold his line on health care until the Obama Administration and senior Democratic senators give him assurances that they will support increases in funding and troop levels. All he will need to save face is some minor cost-cutting measure that will enable him to claim that the proposed health care legislation is deficit neutral.

 

 

I am still trying to get my arms around the basic argument the Bush Administration advocates are making. Suppose we stipulate to the point that some actionable intelligence resulted from torture and saved American lives. Are these advocates really claiming that this argument would be a valid defense for past war criminals from Japan or Germany? If I follow the argument, it suggests that war criminals from World War II should be given posthumous pardons if they could demonstrate that torturing US soldiers yielded actionable intelligence and saved German or Japanese lives.

 

Am I missing the point?

 

 

 

 

Claims that capping CEO pay is grandstanding ignore the economics of Wall Street. CEO pay has raised the bar for compensation at all levels of management. It is true enough to say that CEO pay, whatever it is, represents a rounding error on $700 billion. But if you add to CEO pay the distorted salaries and bonuses of all senior and middle-level executives, the dollar sums become significant. 


Bob Herbert wrote back in January, 2007:

According to the center’s director, Andrew Sum, the top five Wall Street firms (Bear Stearns, Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch and Morgan Stanley) were expected to award an estimated $36 billion to $44 billion worth of bonuses to their 173,000 employees, an average of between $208,000 and $254,000, “with the bulk of the gains accruing to the top 1,000 or so highest-paid managers.” "Working Harder for the Man", January 8, 2007.


This is only 5 firms in one year. We are proposing white-knight capital for hundreds of banks and financial institutions, perhaps more than a thousand. Critics of executive compensation clauses suggest that management compensation has been set accurately and fairly by supply and demand in the market. But this compensation is part of why we have this credit problem. True, home prices were inflated in value. Just as true, the financial sector's value in our economy was inflated. We should not take as a given the size of the financial sector or the compensation of the sector's participants. It is reductive to focus on CEO compensation. If you oppose capping CEO pay, then address your argument to the overall issue of compensation and the size of management teams in the financial sector.

Claims that the bailout is socialism give socialism a bad name. This bailout does not even aspire to aid any sector other than the financial sector. Consider how Washington aided automakers in World War II by involving the industry in munitions development. This was closer to socialism. That is, it was a bailout that created jobs and needed supplies for the country. Socialism in our present crisis might take the form of loans where the terms are much more forgiving if funds are directed toward domestic energy development, infrastructure improvements, or mortgage assistance. I am not proposing this. I am simply saying that if a Republican administration wants to propose a socialist remedy to the credit crisis, let's only call it socialism if the intended beneficiaries include a larger pool of people than employees of banks and brokerages. More importantly, we should not tie our hands and avoid ambitious programs for fear of being labelled a New Deal Democrat. If we have reached the point where massive government intervention is our only viable instrument, we should not wait for another depression to revivify the economy.

This is not a rhetorical question. I have only scratched the surface and found a number of articles by prominent conservatives opposing the FISA bill. Given the difficulties that Republicans are facing in Senate and House races this November, the FISA bill offers an opportunity for some to distance themselves from the Bush Administration on an issue that runs contrary to traditionally conservative principles. I would expect some mavericks, maybe 15% of the Republican caucus, but party discipline seems to rule.

Some conservative anti-FISA links:

Daniel Larison
http://www.amconmag.com/larison/2008/07/03/wouldnt-be-and-isnt-prudent/

Julian Sanchez
http://www.spectator.org/dsp_article.asp?art_id=12947

Megan McArdle concurs with Sanchez
http://meganmcardle.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/06/by_request_fisa_bill.php

Timothy Lee
http://arstechnica.com/articles/culture/fisa-compromise.ars

Ron Paul
http://www.house.gov/paul/congrec/congrec2008/cr062008h.htm