In 1992, Queen Elizabeth had a yearlong run of personal woe that she famously likened to an annus horribilis. And horrible it was: two princes’ and ... continue reading]]> Tweet

In 1992, Queen Elizabeth had a yearlong run of personal woe that she famously likened to an annus horribilis. And horrible it was: two princes’ and one princess’s marriages going up in flames; even Windsor Castle catching fire.

We still have seven-plus months before 2013 plays out, but so far so bad for President Obama in this, the first of his last four years in the Oval Office. Which begs the question of who or what’s to blame for this presidency going from the high of a sweeping re-election to the valley of scandal and unshakable controversy – the Benghazi affair that won’t go away, IRS heavy-handing with tax-exempts, Justice Department record-seizing.

What should we chalk it up to?

1) The inevitable fate of second-term presidents (George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, Ronald Reagan, Richard Nixon all hitting rough patches after their re-elections)?

2) Mr. Obama’s lack of preparation – scant leadership experience – for the job?

3) Much ado but nothing, the assumption being a friendly media will build Obama back up once they’re done treating his administration as a chew toy?

4) Bad karma in the personage of Michelle Obama and her bangs – the new hairstyle she broke out just in time for her 49^th birthday a precursor to this spate of political misfortune.

Forget about the bangs (the First Lady already has, reverting to her side-swept look). And the last thing the White House should complain about is critical press coverage. As for a second-term curse, let’s see where this White House stands going into 2016 and its last year.

The concern here is culprit #2 – Obama’s lack of preparation – i.e., no history of running anything, other than running for office.

In early 2008, 60 Minutes correspondent Steve Kroft posed it thus: ”I mean, one of the problems that you have, still, is the question of experience. And you’ve done a lot of remarkable things in your life. But when you sit down and you look at the résumé – there’s no executive experience. And, in fact, correct if I’m wrong, the only thing that you’ve actually run was the Harvard Law Review.”

Obama’s response: ”Well, I’ve run my Senate office. And I’ve run this campaign. One of the interesting things about this experience argument is that it’s often posed as just a function of longevity. You know, ‘I’ve been here longer.’ Well, you know there are a lot of companies that have been around longer than Google . . . but Google’s performing.”

Not that Obama’s stock is as strong as Google’s in this bull market. If anything, post-election Obama has been the political equivalent of Apple, which has fallen nearly 40% since its all-time high last September.

What, then, should Mr. Obama do?

Here’s a thought: forget sequester, think semester.

Starting this fall, President Obama should take a break from the job. Invoke the 25^th Amendment, declare yourself temporarily unavailable to do the job, and let Joe Biden run the country for a few months. Not that the Vice President can’t carry the load– or so he believes. Biden’s told interviewers he spends “four to five hours a day . . . every day” with Obama.

What then to do with the presidential time-out? Go back to Harvard, where Obama received his law degree. That’s not meant as an excuse for the President to hang out at the Institute of Politics or the Kennedy School of Government, thus surrounding himself with people who already see the world the way he does (being surrounded by too many White House enablers may be one of this presidency’s problems). The same goes for a return to the safe harbor of Harvard Law School – the legal education did its job in making Obama an effective orator.

The challenge for Obama isn’t honing his speechmaking skills. It’s learning managerial skills. And for that, the answer lies on the opposite side of the Charles River and the Harvard Business School, which ironically produced the man Obama replaced and the man who sought to replace him (actually, Mitt Romney holds a Harvard J.D./M.B.A.).

A quick look through HBS’ elective curriculum shows courses that could benefit a President struggling with the demands of a taxing executive post.

That would include:

1) Authentic Leadership Development. Among the course’s stated objectives: “To understand why leaders lose their way and the self-awareness needed to avoid derailment . . . To gain clarity about their leadership principles, values, and ethical boundaries, and how they will respond under pressure when severely challenged.”

2) The Role of Government in Market Economies. “The goal of this course is to deepen your insight into and influence on the debate over economic policy. Private-sector managers are better able to position their organizations, both defensively and offensively, if they understand why and how governments act.”

3) Deals. “Topics developed throughout the course include: how negotiators create and claim value through the setup, design, and tactical implementation of agreements; complexities that can arise through agency, asymmetric information, moral hazard, and adverse selection; structural, psychological, and interpersonal barriers that can hinder agreement; and the particular challenges inherent in the roles of advisors as negotiators.”

4) Negotiation. “This course will teach you how to analyze, prepare for, and execute negotiations at a sophisticated level-through actions both at and away from the bargaining table. It will give you the opportunity to enhance your strengths as a negotiator and to shore up your weaknesses.

Finally, since the President might entertain the thought of life in the private sector (an attractive lifestyle, when it’s in California venues like these), HBS offers:

Venture Capital and Private Equity. “The course focuses on the “private equity cycle,” and starts by considering how private equity funds are raised and structured, with attention paid to the differing perspectives and incentives of institutional investors, “gatekeepers,” fund-of-fund managers, and private equity investors.”

Incumbent presidents tend to avoid college campuses unless it’s to deliver a commencement address or rally the youth vote. As for post-presidential visits, those tend to be opening libraries or reflecting on past decisions.

The time-out from gridlocked Washington and time-in at an elite business school – sequester to semester – might be the refresher Mr. Obama needs.

Besides, what better way to get folks to start liking you again than these four scary words: acting President Joe Biden.

Follow Bill Whalen on Twitter: @hooverwhalen

The Hoover Institution’s Conte Initiative on Immigration Reform is the result of numerous conferences, meetings, and conversations during the past year among academics, politicians, and Hoover fellows ... continue reading]]> Tweet

The Hoover Institution’s Conte Initiative on Immigration Reform is the result of numerous conferences, meetings, and conversations during the past year among academics, politicians, and Hoover fellows who are concerned with the structure and outcomes of America’s immigration system.  Chaired by Hoover senior fellow Edward Lazear, the initiative examines legal and illegal immigration. The guiding principle is to identify clear improvements to what most agree is an unfair and inefficient immigration system. Other key participants in this project include Hoover senior fellows Gary Becker and John Cochrane, Hoover director, John Raisian, and University of Chicago Booth School of Business economists Kevin Murphy and Robert Topel.

The “Immigration Reform” channel on Hoover’s Advancing a Free Society blog is an online space that will provide facts and analysis, with the goal of informing the debate on immigration reform as it unfolds across public and legislative spaces. By providing unbiased information to decision makers and other interested parties and by stripping away obfuscation, the Conte Initiative hopes to assist in the creation of an appropriate immigration system for the United States.

Subscribe to the Immigration Reform channel RSS feed here.

Businesses in 103 Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs) representing 20% of the total civilian labor force would be ineligible to hire new ‘W’ guest workers if ... continue reading]]> Tweet

Businesses in 103 Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs) representing 20% of the total civilian labor force would be ineligible to hire new ‘W’ guest workers if the Senate Gang of Eight’s immigration bill (S.744) were passed today. Regulations in the bill prevent businesses from hiring guest workers if the unemployment rate in their MSA is higher than 8.5%, absent special consideration by the commissioner of the soon-to-be-created Bureau of Immigration and Labor Market Research. MSAs with higher than 8.5% unemployment include Los Angeles, Chicago, Detroit, Sacramento, and Las Vegas. Businesses in areas of high unemployment looking to hire guest workers would be out of luck unless they followed government-specified recruiting activities, or if the commissioner declared a shortage in the occupation of interest or chose to make additional positions available.

Nine MSAs with census populations of more than one million people had unemployment rates higher than 8.5% in March 2013. (All unemployment rates displayed are seasonally adjusted.)

Fourteen MSAs in March 2013 with civilian labor forces containing over 200,000 people would need their unemployment rates to drop by more than one percentage point before they would be eligible to hire ‘W’ guest workers. Even if the economy recovers quicker than expected, those fourteen MSAs – representing 12.7 million civilian workers – would have a much longer wait than the rest of the country before they could hire guest workers.

California would be especially hard hit by the restriction. It had eighteen MSAs with unemployment rates above 8.5% in March 2013. Those eighteen MSAs represent a combined civilian labor force of 12.2 million, out of California’s 18.6 million total labor force. In other words, businesses in areas covering 66% of California’s working population would be ineligible to hire guest workers under the new immigration law absent special consideration by the new commissioner.

By including the restriction on MSAs with greater than 8.5% unemployment, the Senate bill would create a brand new interest group that would spend time and resources lobbying the Commissioner of the Bureau of Immigration and Labor Market Research to raise the cap on ‘W’ guest worker visas. Those MSAs ineligible for hiring guest workers represent 31.2 million civilian workers – more than 20% of the total labor force. Restricting the ability of businesses to hire workers who they’ll probably obtain visas for anyway is unnecessary and will add to rent seeking in Washington D.C. And since the evidence that immigrants negatively affect wages of native-born workers is mixed, the arbitrary 8.5% limit seems like more of a burden than a useful measure. Eliminating the 8.5% unemployment rate condition would allow the labor market to function much more efficiently.

Follow Church on Twitter: @tomvchurch

Our inaugural post estimates the economic and budgetary effects of one part of the Senate Gang of Eight’s proposed immigration reform. It shows that increasing ... continue reading]]> Tweet

Our inaugural post estimates the economic and budgetary effects of one part of the Senate Gang of Eight’s proposed immigration reform. It shows that increasing the caps on H-1B visas leads to non-trivial economic and fiscal effects, at least partially offsetting worries over the cost of immigration reform in the next ten years.

Initial estimates put the appropriations cost of the Senate Gang of Eight’s immigration bill (S. 744) at about $17 billion over ten years, leading at least a few politicians to cite cost as a potential reason to oppose its passage. But as Senator Rubio and others have pointed out, that cost does not include the economic benefits and tax revenue that would come from future immigrants. One group in particular, new H-1B visa workers, would add an estimated $456 billion to GDP and $113 billion to federal tax revenue over the next ten years. $244 billion of that increase in GDP would accrue to current US citizens and residents, with the rest going to the new H-1B workers.

Figure 1, General H-1B Visa Cap Under Current Law and Proposed Senate Bill

The Senate Gang of Eight’s immigration plan increases the general cap on H-1B visas to a minimum of 110,000 and a maximum of 180,000, and increases the master’s degree cap from 20,000 to 25,000. Assuming the first year after passage puts the general cap of initial visas at 110,000 and increases every year by increments of 10,000, then the ten year estimated effect of the law is to increase GDP by $424 billion and federal tax revenue by $107 billion.

Figure 2, Estimated Ten Year Economic and Budgetary Impact of Raising H-1B Visa Ca

 H-1B visa holders are well-educated and command high wages. 58% in 2011 held advanced degrees and the mean wage of H-1B visa workers was $78,000. Mean wages were $72,000 for new H-1B recipients and $82,000 for those renewing their visas for continuing employment in 2011. The mean starting wages of new H-1B recipients in fiscal year 2015 are estimated to be over $80,000.

Figure 3, Additional H-1B Workers In Workforce Under Proposed Senate Immigration Bill

The current annual cap on H-1B visas of 65,000 plus 20,000 for advanced degree holders was oversubscribed at the beginning of April in just five days. It seems reasonable that the new cap would increase each year by the 10,000 slots allotted until it hit the 180,000 visa limit. Assuming some attrition and a six-year term, there would quickly be several hundred thousand more individuals in the workforce each year over the next decade under the proposed Senate bill. The first year of implementation would see 50,000 new H-1B workers. The fifth year there would be close to 300,000 individuals working in the United States who wouldn’t have otherwise been allowed in the country. That number would top out around half a million additional workers nine to ten years after the bill became law.

A more complete explanation of all calculations can be found in this paper (PDF) by research fellow Tom Church.

Subscribe to the Immigration Reform channel RSS feed here.

“Paper or plastic?”

Or, if you are shopping in California in the near future: “E. Coli cloth or E. Coli compostable?”

More than 60 cities and counties ... continue reading]]> Tweet

“Paper or plastic?”

Or, if you are shopping in California in the near future: “E. Coli cloth or E. Coli compostable?”

More than 60 cities and counties in California – roughly one-seventh and one-third of the Golden State’s municipal districts and population, respectively – have moved swiftly to ban plastic bags in grocery stores. Meanwhile, two statewide bans are maneuvering their way through the Sacramento legislative process. Despite being much ballyhooed legislation for their environmental and, oddly enough, pro-business merits, a closer examination of the statewide single-use bag bans reveals what these laws actually are superfluous, posturing and potentially, dangerous.

In today’s “Spotlight” are AB 158 (Democratic Assemblyman Marc Levine) and SB 405 (Democratic Senator Alex Padilla), which as amended will: a) ban single-use bags starting on January 1, 2015 for large stores and January 1, 2016 for smaller stores; and b) require that reusable bags made available for purchase meet various requirements as certified by the CalRecycle program administered by the state’s Department of Resources Recycling and Recovery.

Much like the various cities and counties who have instituted their own single-use bag bans, Levine and Padilla cite the environmental effects of making and disposing of the roughly 14 billion plastic bags Californians use annually.  The environmental, and more specifically the pollution, argument is not only emotionally charged, but also plays well in the environmentally progressive Golden State.  However, Sen. Padilla has taken the argument one step further by arguing that his legislation is pro-business as it simplifies business compliance – rather than multiple dozens of different ban policies, businesses will only have to comply with one.

There are two problems with this concept: the need isn’t valid, and the changes, if enacted, have unintended yet terrible consequences.

Based on a CalRecycle Statewide Waste Characterization Study, plastic grocery and merchandise bags account for just 0.3% of California’s total waste stream, which is 7% of the total the Senate Environmental Quality Committee suggests.   While proponents point to a 2009 CalRecycle study that shows just 3% of plastic single-use bags are recycled, that study only reviewed recycling in the official sense – i.e., plastic bags at recycling facilities.  This rate completely ignores self-recycling – i.e., the repeated use of plastic bags for reasons other than carrying groceries or merchandise. Just think about how often you re-use plastic bags after returning from your local grocer?

Proponents claim that banning the bags will prevent plastic litter.  Let’s ignore the fact, briefly, that plastic bag waste is actually very small and focus instead on whether a ban actually reduces plastic bag litter.  Litter studies show that plastic bag bans have minimal to no effect at all on the rate of plastic bag litter.  For instance, a year after San Francisco banned single-use bags, plastic bags comprised of 0.64% of the city’s litter, which statistically represents no change from prior to the ban. Finally, evidence of plastic bag ocean debris is highly mixed and inconsistent.  The Senate committee analysis argues that plastics (of which plastic bags is just one element) compose 60% to 80% of marine debris. However, environmental groups claim that plastic bags comprise of just 3%.

The litter and waste argument is just one part of the pollution problem, proponents claim; they also argue that banning plastic bags will reduce our nation’s dependence on foreign oil.  This is easily dispensed by the fact that the average plastic bag used by an American consumer is made from byproduct from domestic natural gas refinement.  As such, a ban wouldn’t reduce America’s dependence on foreign oil, but would eliminate one method of disposing of potentially hazardous natural gas byproduct.

Perhaps recognizing the environmental argument was flimsy, Sen. Padilla resorted to a different rationale to push his legislation: uniformity. Presently in California, businesses must comply with a piecemeal approach to bans. While at face value this problem makes sense, it actually is vastly overstated.  Megan McArdle’s quip while criticizing a national sales tax (whose proponents give the business compliance simplification argument as well) accurately sums up why the argument isn’t effective: “I mean, sure, hey, there’s all these different rates, but that’s what software is for!”

For large companies like Safeway, the additional marginal cost of this compliance would be minuscule.  For small stores, the likelihood of operating in different municipal zones with different rules is slim – if they do, the plastic bag ban is likely to be the least of their concerns regarding different municipal regulations.  And if Sen. Padilla truly were concerned about business compliance costs, wouldn’t a ban on plastic bag bans be both simpler and more pro-business?

The debate over the ban underscores the idea that legislation that stabs at problems that aren’t really a problem tend to succeed only in creating . . . more problems.  Both AB 158 and SB 405 push for the use of reusable bags, either washable cloth or compostable ones.  Let’s set aside the various regulatory requirements the bill places on the production and sale of such bags – which themselves also largely negate Padilla’s pro-business claims – and focus on the major and potentially dangerous problems these reusable bags create.

In the plainest of words, reusable bags can be disgusting and a public health hazard.

Multiple studies including one that examined reusable bags throughout California and Arizona as well as one that focused just on San Francisco have found extremely unsafe levels of E. coli and other dangerous bacteria living in reusable grocery bags.  For instance, in looking at San Francisco where the ban has been in effect, co-authors Jonathan Klick and Joshua Wright found that reusable bags resulted in a 46% rise in food-borne-illness deaths within San Francisco following the ban’s implementation.

To prevent this dangerous predicament, reusable bag producers recommend that users wash their bags after every use.  But that’s highly unrealistic: the San Francisco study showed that shoppers aren’t in the habit of doing that. And, again, it leads to unintended consequences: additional water consumption and introducing more laundry detergent pollutants to the local ecosystem. In short, the policy fix creates a daunting problem while fixing a non-problem.

Assuming plastic bag consumption does create a valid and noticeable policy problem – a negative social externality – Sacramento does have a more effective and more efficient tool at their disposal: a Pigouvian tax.  Democratic Senator Lois Wolk’s SB 700, which would institute a 5-cent tax per single-use bag with collected funds used for environmental projects, comes very close to a classic Pigouvian tax.  However, to be more effective and again, assuming an actual negative social externality does exist, the California State Legislature should amend SB 700 so that collected tax receipts are only used to clean-up single-use (particularly plastic) bag waste and litter. In its current form, SB 700 is just another tax to fund a pet project that is tangentially related to the perceived negative social externality.

At the end of the day, AB 158 and SB 405 aim to fix problems that are either overstated or invalid and would themselves create serious policy problems that would then require additional legislation.  Legislation for the sake of legislation never solves a policy problem and always creates more headaches – in this case, Sacramento adding more environmental bills to the compost pile.

Check-out the previous “Sacramento Spotlight”: A Cornucopia of Fracking Legislation

Follow Carson Bruno on Twitter: @CarsonJFBruno

In this time of generalized peace, there have been six military campaigns of rescue, waged by the United States.  All had taken place in an ... continue reading]]> Tweet

In this time of generalized peace, there have been six military campaigns of rescue, waged by the United States.  All had taken place in an extended arc of Islamic geography – the first Gulf war of 1990-1991, the Bosnian campaign in 1995, the deliverance of Kosovo four years later, the destruction of the Taliban emirate in Kabul in 2001, the return to Iraq in 2003, and the toppling of Muammar Qaddafi’s despotism in 2011.  The expedition against the Taliban aside, these wars of rescue were all hotly debated and argued over.  There had been no rush to arms, no eagerness to take on imperial burdens abroad.  If this be an American empire, reluctance has been one of its most discernable attributes.  The sword was drawn more out of moral embarrassment than out of hankering for power.

We might have come to the end of that trail.  Admittedly, I write as Syria unravels before our eyes – before the eyes of the steward of American power.  By a mix of omission and commission, we have let Homs and Aleppo be, we have offered “non-lethal” aid in the most lethal of brutal wars.  Our principal alibi was the uncertainty of what would unfold in that country were the despot to fall.  In our commander-in-chief, in his “cosmopolitan” biography, in his lawyerly search for the fine line between just and unjust wars, we found adequate shelter from moral claims and responsibility.  We have been here before, it must be conceded.  Bosnia and Sarajevo were subjected to a veritable genocide, in the early 1990s.  Two of our presidents, George Bush the elder, and Bill Clinton, had done their best to keep Bosnia at bay.  Bill Clinton hid behind the phantom of “Balkan ghosts,” and ancient millennial feuds that no campaign of military  rescue could ameliorate.  But still, after the horror of Srebrenica, the American cavalry turned up.  Richard Holbrooke, that “unquiet American,” took us into that conflict.  Our sense of shame and guilt swayed the matter.  We have been rid of that guilt.  There is no Richard Holbrooke to remind a reluctant president that there are times and places that call for the exercise of American power; indeed Holbrooke himself, before his premature death in 2010, had been sidelined by Mr. Obama, ridiculed in the president’s councils as a throwback to a bygone era.  A new history begins with his stewardship, Mr. Obama believed.   American power, on Obama’s watch, had been committed against Qaddafi.  The tyrant had done the people of Libya an unintended favor: he had broken with the manual of the tyrants by announcing that his armor was on the way to Benghazi to hunt its people down like “rats.”  Mr. Obama did the right thing, but let it be known that the Libyan intervention was a “51-49 thing.”  We didn’t hang around Libya, we accepted no burdens there.  Barack Obama was silent about that campaign of rescue.  Libya would not be the unfolding of an Obama doctrine in foreign lands.

Leaders are both authors and captives of popular sentiments and forces larger than themselves.  The election of 2012 codified American disenchantment with foreign causes and burdens.  The coalition that gave Mr. Obama his mandate would not be stirred by the call of distant fields.  No one came out and announced the death of liberal internationalism, but the impulse that gave it life and power had drained out of the public space.  At the top economic end of that coalition, the progressives had become isolationists.  They had used the disenchantment with the Iraq war as evidence that our touch sullies those we would aid abroad, that the foreign world is destined to be truculent and ungrateful.  The economically disadvantaged made no secret of what they wanted: the redistributive state.  A recent report signals a monumental change in American life: the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, the food stamps assistance, has soared 70 percent since 2008.  Some 28 million people were covered by it in 2008, and now the numbers have soared to 47.8 million.  The costs of the program were $30 billion in 2007, and they have risen to $75 billion in 2012.  Indeed the blocks that delivered Mr. Obama his second mandate – the African-American votes, the Hispanics, and the liberal white professionals  – are all agreed that retrenchment abroad is the way out of our economic maladies and the proper response to a foreign world seething with troubles.  Now and then a nation’s reality diverges from the prose and the imagery that it had spun about itself.  Pity those abroad who still expect rescue by the American cavalry.

Pardon the cynicism, but I wonder if President Obama is really all that upset with the Senate’s inability to pass gun-control legislation this past week.

In ... continue reading]]> Tweet

Pardon the cynicism, but I wonder if President Obama is really all that upset with the Senate’s inability to pass gun-control legislation this past week.

In case you missed it, the Democratic-controlled half of Congress failed to pass seven measures having to do with guns, gun-trafficking and gun-ownership, the most notable being an amendment to expand background checks that fell six votes shy of the mark.

The President wasted no time in showing his disgust, calling the 54-46 outcome “a pretty sad day in Washington” (more, in a moment, on why the majority advantage constituted a legislative defeat). A series of gun-control advocates joined the chorus. New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg labeled the background check vote a“disgrace”. Former Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, in this New York Times op-ed, said she was “furious”.

So why the cynicism?

Three reasons:

1)  The Votes Were Designed to Fail. Keep in mind that this Senate amendment didn’t merely fail – it failed under the rules of the debate. Let me amend that: rules determined by the Democratic majority leadership, with the entire chamber’s approval. Rather than setting the rules so that each gun-related amendment would need only 51 votes to pass, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid instead set the bar at 60 votes. Why? Because, as this analysis explains, it enabled Reid to get votes on the measures without opening the door to further tinkering by gun-rights advocates (for example, allowing concealed-weapon permits to cross state lines). Did Reid think he had 60 votes going into the debate? As a Nevadan surely he can count cards heads. If not, and he knew 60 was out of reach, why not lower the threshold to 51 votes (50, actually, since Vice President was presiding) and dare Republicans to filibuster?

2)  Did the White House Play to Win? If you want to understand how Washington used to work, read Robert Caro’s great biography of Lyndon Johnson. As a Senate Majority Leader, he ruled the chamber with a Texas-sized iron fist – a bully in a Stetson. The style didn’t change when LBJ relocated to the Oval Office (here’s audio of Johnson putting the screws to a couple of reluctant senators on an excise-tax bill).  In all, 55 senators voted for the background check amendment (Reid changed his “no” votepost facto so that he could revisit the matter at a latter date). In order to reach 60, Democrats needed to flip four of their own, plus pick off one reluctant Republican (here’s the entire roll call). Reportedly, three of those Democratic senators, all facing a difficult re-elect, in 2014, in states that preferred Mitt Romney to Obama last fall, were “never in play”.  But did Obama and Reid really try to flip them? Presidents specialize in patronage and punishment – they can promise soft landings (ambassadorships, administration posts) if a member walks the gangplank on a controversial vote; they can make life miserable for party dissidents by cutting off fundraising. As for the Majority Leader, he can exile troublemakers to legislative Siberia. Maybe the red-state Democrats never gave ground. Then again, North Carolina’s Kay Hagan, likewise a Democrat in a difficult 2014 race, was willing to vote yes.

3)  2013 Is Really About 2014. Back in early March, the President had this to say to reporters with regard to the sequester fight: “What I can’t do is force Congress to do the right thing. The American people may have the capacity to do that.” Translation: come 2014, voters will punish Republicans for blocking my agenda. As with gun control, the President has all sorts of progressive ideas – climate change, higher taxes, universal preschool – that are dead on arrival in a Republican House. So how then to pick up the 17 necessary to put Democrats back in control of that chamber? The President can either boost his own numbers(at present, he’s about 15 points lower than where Bill Clinton stood in his second-term midterm), or he can try to further deflate the House GOP’s already dismal standing by portraying Republicans as the party of no. When all but three Republican senators voting against the background check amendment, watch for the White House to play up that stereotype.

Perhaps the President had a heated reaction to the gun vote because he’s had a rough April. Then again, the past week has been rough on a lot of Americans – the tragedies in Boston and Texas, helped in no way by some bad behavior from both political extremes (some on the left shamefully wishing the Boston perpetrators were angry, ant-government white males; some on the right spending too much time obsessing, as they did after the Benghazi attack, over Obama’s use and non-use of the word “terrorism”).

In times such as this, Americans grapple with the twin concepts of loss of life and loss of innocence – just as they did after Newtown, Virginia Tech and other moments that remind us of the good and evil in this modern age.

How sad it would be if events in Washington such as the gun-control vote, cloaked in the shadow of a great tragedy, were instead a cover for something even more shadowy: partisan gain.

Follow Bill Whalen on Twitter: @hooverwhalen

“If you are no longer interested in having an empire, we’ll take it,” I said, speaking recently in Istanbul to a group of U.S. congressmen ... continue reading]]> Tweet

“If you are no longer interested in having an empire, we’ll take it,” I said, speaking recently in Istanbul to a group of U.S. congressmen and women who expressed ample frustration and, in the case of Syria, a clear disinterest in the affairs of the Middle East.

I have been observing with some amusement on recent trips to the United States how diametrically opposed Turkish and American appetites about the Middle East have grown. Since the onset of the Iraq war, and more noticeably with the Obama administration, the American public has come to see our region as a “burden.” In Washington, the route to democracy in Egypt and Libya has dampened the initial excitement about the Arab Spring. Regarding Iraq and Afghanistan, the main U.S. policy goal is “keep out of the headlines.” To American eyes, current Israeli and Palestinian leadership look too capricious to even bother with a peace process and everyone I meet in Washington talks about Syria as “a mess,” suggesting that the best course is to stay out.

Not in Turkey. In fact, throughout the history of the modern Turkish republic, the appetite to delve into the Arab affairs has never been greater. Turkish diplomats and leaders are shuttling back and forth among regional centers and Turkey is deeply embroiled in the politics of Syria and Iraq. Ankara has lifted visa restrictions for most Arab countries, and trade with the Middle East has skyrocketed to roughly a third of Turkish exports today. Turks are in the process of building bridges with Iraqi Kurdistan –once regarded as the archenemy – and the Islamist ruling AK Party in Ankara regards the resurgence of Islamist parties in the post-dictatorship Egypt, Tunisia, and Libya as nothing but a strategic gain for Turkey.

In fact, once destined to enter the European Union, Ankara has diverted much of its focus to the Middle East and is more interested in regional leadership than haranguing for the last seat in an unfriendly – and to Turks, sinking – Europe.

Turkish self-confidence is high these days – perhaps higher than ever in the history of the modern republic founded by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.

Ataturk envisioned a pro-western and strictly secular nation-state that would look towards “contemporary civilizations” –that is, Europe –and turn its back on 500 years of coexistence with Arabs.

Today’s Turkish leaders yearn to rebuild the Ottoman Empire –if not in borders, in terms of economic and political sphere of influence. The country’s most popular television drama is the Magnificent Century, depicting life and intrigue at the height of Ottoman power in the harem of Suleiman the Magnificent, and the show has roughly 150 million viewers in surrounding countries. (A journalist friend told me he has seen Syrian rebels stop fighting in Aleppo on Wednesday nights to tune in to the harem.)

This is a monumental change. The Republican era regarded the Arab world as backward and untrustworthy. The Second Republic – a term I use for the new Turkish body politic with the advent of the pro-Islamist AK Party in 2002—is frustrated with the limitations of the Kemalist nation-state and relishes the idea of pax-Ottomanica.

There is more…Turkey’s foreign minister Ahmet Davutoglu, the chief architect of its neo-Ottoman focus, often describes today’s tremors in the Middle East as the undoing of Sykes-Picot, the secret 1916 accord of Britain and France to carve out Ottoman territory in the Middle East. On a recent trip to Turkey’s troubled Kurdish region, I have heard Davutoglu talk about a period of “restoration” in Turkey and about “closing the parenthesis of a hundred years” that has kept Turks, Kurds and Arabs apart.

Davutoglu’s sentiments were echoed a week later by a public statement on the Kurdish new year by imprisoned Kurdish leader, Abdullah Ocalan, calling on his organization, the PKK, to lay down its arms. This is a far cry from the Marxist-Leninist guerilla struggle for an independent Kurdistan he embarked upon 30 years ago. Much like Turkey’s current leaders, Ocalan envisions the new Turkey reaching beyond Turkey’s current borders and reshaping the Middle East.

Of course, pax-Ottomanica is mostly a political fantasy at the moment. For Turkey to fill the leadership vacuum in the Middle East, decades of economic growth and political integration are required. Arabs now live in nation-states and political identities have become far more layered and complicated than a century ago. Arab states now have independent economic power, and while most envy the Turkish model, they do not long for its hegemony. Still, dreams matter. If it feels like imperial sunset in America, there can be felt in Turkey the pull of old imperial glory.

“Pax Americana” always struck me as a somewhat misleading description of the postwar dispensation that the United States brought to the world, for two reasons. ... continue reading]]> Tweet

“Pax Americana” always struck me as a somewhat misleading description of the postwar dispensation that the United States brought to the world, for two reasons. The first is its implied equivalence with earlier empires. It seems to me that the special fascination, and special benefit to the world, of American internationalism is precisely that it is not imperial. The British were in India for two hundred years; but we are rattled by overseas entanglements that last two hundred months, and even two hundred days. The United States has been a global power, an intrusive global power, but it has not been an empire; which is to say, it has been a new kind of global power, its commercial interests notwithstanding. The taxonomy needs a new term. American activism abroad has often been owed more to ideas than to interests, which is why our foreign policy regularly frightens the “realists” among us, who would in fact prefer that we behave more like a corporation with an army.

The second flaw in the metaphor of “Pax Americana” is that the American dispensation has not always been characterized by pax. We must be clear about this. Often the peace has come after war, and often the war has been a just war, which established more decent political conditions for the peace. This does not mean that we are “the cops of the world”. We have never been anything remotely like that. We intervene fitfully, infrequently, and less than our principles and the welfare of oppressed people demand. But sometimes we do use military force for purposes of democratization and rescue, and this should be a source of American pride. Among the least noticed facts of our era is that almost all of these interventions of democratization and rescue have been undertaken for the sake of Muslims, in southern Europe and the Middle East and Central Asia. We have not been making war on Muslims, we have been making war for Muslims.

In the Obama years, however, we have been content – more precisely, he has been content – to let Muslims languish in dictatorial and even genocidal circumstances, even as he piously proclaims his friendship for Muslim peoples. Rescue has fallen, or been banished, from the inventory of American purposes abroad. “Never again” are now the phoniest words this President utters. The Syrian catastrophe, in which Assad has perpetrated atrocities that dwarf many times over anything that Qaddafi was preparing to perpetrate in Libya, has exposed the heartlessness of Obama’s foreign policy. His contribution to the American record in this new age of ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity is a stronger American stomach, a thicker American skin. We must be, he believes, less easily moved. But of course the reasons for the United States to intervene on behalf of the Syrian opposition have very little to do with emotionalism. There are huge principles and huge interests at stake in the question of Syrian rescue. Heartlessness in this case is not only unsentimental, it is also unintelligent.

Obama’s indifference to the imperative of rescue, to the tradition of rescue, was first revealed in June 2009, when he left the valiant protesters in Iran to their fate; and the rest of the chronicle of passivity is well-known. Libya is not the rule, it is the exception; and no sooner did the Libyan dictator draw his last breath than we were gone and “the light footprint” governed our policy again. (I regard “the light footprint” as one of the causes of Christopher Stevens’ death in Benghazi.) It is important to understand that the war in Iraq is not the preferred model of a policy of rescue. Indeed, in some instances, rescue does not require the deployment of American soldiers at all, because rebels and dissidents are already busy rescuing themselves, and all that they need from us is assistance. It is certainly not “adventurism” or imperialism to help an oppressed society help itself. Moreover, in many of these crises, we would not be the first outside power to intervene, were we to intervene. The Assad butchery, for example, is already being supported by Iran and Russia. The consequence of an American intervention would be only a fairer fight, and the creation of American allies in a viciously contested state in one of the most strategically significant places in the world.

The fact that America has been freakishly insulated – by its geography, by its power – from the savageries of war and atrocity means only that we have a greater responsibility to exercise our historical imaginations in the formulation of our attitudes towards the rest of the world. Americans do not need rescuing, and so we need to imagine what it is like to need rescuing. Instead our president teaches us to be satisfied with the parochialism of our good fortune.

The use of force as an instrument of foreign policy has been an important and salient issue in America’s grappling with its role as the ... continue reading]]> Tweet

The use of force as an instrument of foreign policy has been an important and salient issue in America’s grappling with its role as the world’s sole superpower for more than two decades now. Europe could not muster the resources required for putting an end to the atrocities in the former Yugoslavia and was relieved by the arrival of the US cavalry, but Europeans and others were irritated by George W. Bush’s use of force against another bloody tyrant. And American opinion vacillated from one end of the spectrum to another as Washington had to deal with successive challenges and crises in Somalia, Darfur, North Korea, Iraq and Iran, to name just a few. Was America willing and ready to serve as the global policeman? What were the practical and moral constraints on the use of force? And was it not true that if you had credible deterrence the actual use of force could be avoided?

In this context, the Middle East worlds of the Arabs and of Islam have occupied a special place. These are unstable parts of the world. Their attitudes toward America are ambivalent at best. Societies that are still grappling with the challenges of modernity and the West view America as the epitome of their predicament. It is to use the Ayatollahs’ language, “the great Satan” and therefore the legitimate and prime target for terrorist and other attacks. But it is also the power they want to come to terms with. It was from these lands that the attack on America was launched in 2001 and further attacks are waged and plotted. It is there where Washington’s allies wonder whether the cavalry would be available yet again should they be attacked by domestic or external foes. And it is there where Iran is building a nuclear arsenal and a stockpile of ballistic missiles.

In the Middle East the pros and cons of America’s willingness to use military force are now tested in two arenas. One is the Iranian quest for a nuclear arsenal. President Obama has committed himself to deny Iran that option. He has defined it as a crucial American national security issue. He has led the international community to impose severe (but still not crippling) sanctions on Iran. He has pressured Israel not to launch its own raid on Iran’s nuclear facilities and has alluded to his own potential willingness to use force against Iran. So far Iran has not crossed the nuclear threshold, but it continues to enrich uranium. This state of affairs illustrates the point made earlier. A credible threat to use force is one of the four components required to achieve a peaceful resolution (in addition to negotiations, crippling sanctions and a face saving formula for the Iranian regime). In other words, only a credible threat of a US raid will prevent the Iranians from crossing a line and then forcing the US to either use force or lose its credibility.

The issue in Syria is different. After two years of civil war, more than seventy thousand people killed and a million refugees, it is clear that only a bolder US policy would expedite the regime’s fall. A bold policy does not necessarily mean direct military action. It could mean a no-fly zone and indirect supply of more advanced weapons. Humanitarian and geopolitical considerations converge. A still larger disaster is looming and it is also evident that as time goes by jihadi elements become more prominent in the opposition’s ranks. It is easy to understand Obama’s reluctance. The opposition is ineffective and divided, the weapons required to fight Asad’s armor and Air Force could easily fall into the wrong hands. Syria’s army is much stronger than Saddam’s and Qaddafi’s. But most important is the fear of a long entanglement in another failed state. The shadows of Iraq and Afghanistan are cast over the Syrian issue. A drift toward greater US involvement is visible, but further and bolder decisions will be required. In Syria, as in other arenas, the same paradox is at work, an early decision on a bolder course of action could save a more radical intervention at a later stage. And another point must not be missed, the linkage to other issues in the Middle East and elsewhere. Action in Syria affects Iran and credible deterrence vis a vis Iran affects North Korea. The future course of the Syrian crisis is of immense importance to the rest of the Arab world and for the geopolitics of the Middle East, but it is hardly less important as yet another test to America’s ability to define and execute its global role.

That the tide of American might is retreating from its outposts is unmistakable.  The US military presence in Western Europe, a legacy of the Second ... continue reading]]> Tweet

That the tide of American might is retreating from its outposts is unmistakable.  The US military presence in Western Europe, a legacy of the Second World War, melted away after the collapse of the Soviet empire. In the Middle East, the hegemonic role of the US that emerged as a result of the decline of the old European colonial powers is also disappearing. The Obama regime chose to withdraw from Iraq, despite the sacrifice that American soldiers made to topple the Baathist dictatorship, through its refusal to negotiate an appropriate status agreement. Now it is running to the exits in Afghanistan before any modicum of stability has been achieved. In addition, Washington was conspicuous by its absence in ending the Gaddafi regime in Libya, and it remained willfully ignorant of the post-Gaddafi dangers, as seen in the tragic events in Benghazi.

Clearly, the US is not seeking exposure in the broad swath of geography stretching from Morocco to Central Asia. While America was prepared to mobilize against the Soviet enemy in the Cold War, it has little appetite for the messy business of failed states, Islamist radicalism, and terrorist campaigns. In addition, the declining dependence on Middle East oil simply reduces interest in the area altogether—surely a short-sighted calculation since so many of our allies, Europe and Japan, rely on the Saudi fields. Perhaps this retreat just reflects crude political motives: the Obama campaign wanted to point to the withdrawal in order to support its foreign policy narrative in the 2012 election. In that case, a future administration might reverse the decisions: yet this seems unlikely, not only due to budget constraints, but because strategic leadership once surrendered cannot easily be regained.

Can Europe step into the breach? Much speaks against this unlikely prospect. Europe has been investing at only very low levels in its military; it does not have the hardware to project power effectively.  Nor will its welfare state budgets allow it to do much better in the future. In addition, Germany maintains a profoundly pacifist predisposition that makes any overseas deployments highly controversial and politically costly. Finally, to make matters worse, the EU requires unanimity among its 27 members in matters of foreign policy: hardly a structure designed for bold decision-making.

Yet it would be a mistake to count Europe out.  The dynamic has shifted since the 1990s when the conflagrations in the Balkans, on Europe’s doorstep, required emphatic American leadership. In the meantime, many European countries have contributed to the ISAF forces in Afghanistan, and they would probably not be departing so rapidly had Washington signaled steadfastness in the enterprise. Moreover it was West European powers that took up the cause of Libya, an example of European action without American leadership. The same holds for France’s current involvement in Mali, part of a region where it maintains interests inherited from the colonial era but which is also a potential hinterland for terrorist threats in France itself.  The current debate over support for the Syrian rebels is a further example: England and France are far ahead of the US in calling for support for the anti-Assad forces, and they do so despite resistance from the rest of the EU.

England and France, however, are insufficient as a replacement for American power. A potential game-changer could be the inclusion of Turkey in the security calculus, perhaps through NATO (rather than EU) structures. Yet integrating Turkey as a European power raises plenty of cultural and economic issues—the least of which is Cyprus.

Meanwhile much of Europe, especially Germany, remains susceptible to pressure from Russia. It is not just the legacy of the world wars that makes Germany risk-averse in military matters; it is also the sense of a need to avoid antagonizing Moscow. This is part of the explanation for Germany’s refusal to sign on to the Libya campaign. In the Cold War, the name for this was “finlandization,” one more consequence of the Obama administration’s great retreat.

One last variable in the prospects for the American pivot to turn into the hour of the Europe:  the potential break-up of the Eurozone would introduce unforeseeable elements of instability. The political and economic structures of Europe are under extraordinary stress already, and matters can get worse. A reluctance to engage in the greater region could result, a European isolationism. In the end, it remains difficult to imagine Europe as a reliable force for security in the absence of a strong American voice.

In his epic offering to the glory of Rome, Virgil set the Romans different from the “others:”  Those others “could plead their cases ... continue reading]]> Tweet

In his epic offering to the glory of Rome, Virgil set the Romans different from the “others:”  Those others “could plead their cases better,” he wrote, “chart with their rods the stars, draw from the block of marble features thick with life.”  The Roman arts differed, the Roman had to put his “stamp on the works and ways of peace/to spare the defeated, break the proud in war.”

The American president is not Augustus, our military is not the Roman Legions.  We can let Rome be as precedent, we can settle for more proximate history:  the burden and the power assumed by Pax Britannica, and the baton being passed, within the Anglo-Saxon family, as it were, to Pax Americana.  Nowadays, that “imperial” idea is in retreat, and the custodians of American power are reluctant to accept the burden that comes with maintaining and defending the international order.  Our colleague Charles Hill has written and brooded over this for years: he had been a public servant and a diplomat of a larger and more confident America.  If this is imperial sunset, Hill can chart as precious few others can the American trajectory in recent years.  The inspiration for this, our fifth Caravan expedition, comes from him.

The Caravan’s writers will be rolled out in the next two weeks.  A new essay will be posted every two days.  We start with Charlie Hill and Russell Berman.

– Fouad Ajami

(Photo Credit: The Oath of Horatii, 1784, by Jacques-Louis David (1748-1825), oil on canvas, 330×425 cm/ Getty Images)

“World order after Pax Americana?”  As Virgil would say, ‘Horresco referens:”  Telling it makes me shudder.

A few years ago the wise political columnist Bill Safire ... continue reading]]> Tweet

“World order after Pax Americana?”  As Virgil would say, ‘Horresco referens:”  Telling it makes me shudder.

A few years ago the wise political columnist Bill Safire occasionally would interview Richard Nixon in Hell (there for having imposed wage and price controls). So let’s get the old master of strategy on the “hot line” and ask him about it.

RMN: “Sorry about the crackling noises on the line; I can hear you perfectly well.”

“Rome did not fall so much as it changed.  My current successor in the White House has announced his goal of fundamentally transforming America, and he is doing it brilliantly, with the ‘opposition’ party falling in line.

“World orders do not last forever; most come to an end through a declining vision of wide horizons, increasing focus on the self, and a disinclination for the difficult.  The ‘meaning of life’ itself changes as revealed in that full-page ad in the New York Times (we read it like Pravda down here) depicting the chief ambition of today’s young Americans is ‘to retire earlier than your father did.’ So the country has retirement on the brain and this will continue whether the next presidency is won by Elizabeth Warren or Rand Paul.

“As Pax Americana fades, each pillar of world order will weaken, causing its neighbor to slide as well; not a cascade, but a slow downward spiral of the entire international structure.

“World order requires diplomacy and power to be used in tandem; but following the Europeans, we want diplomacy to work on its own.  Our flawed approach has been exploited by one dictatorial regime after another to play games with our negotiators.  Iran’s nuclear weapons drive is a long-running example, and by now is unstoppable.  This will undermine the nonproliferation treaty, itself a pillar of world order.

“The Arab Spring, begun with youthful hope for a freer, better life, has been commandeered by the old military, Islamist, and political gangs.

“Let me be perfectly clear: the media boys have it all wrong.  The US decision to overthrow Saddam Hussein, far from being the worst foreign policy decision in our history, will be seen in years ahead as one of the most courageously correct presidential acts ever.  Our war in Iraq produced two major consequences: first, it ignited the flames of liberty in the hearts of young Middle Easterners, inducing the 2005 Cedar Revolution in Lebanon, the 2009 Green protests in Iran, and the 2011 Arab Spring itself.   Second, surprising everyone, it lifted the lid of tyrannical suppression to reveal what has become in one place after another a maelstrom of innumerable contending parties, a war of all against all which will have to burn itself out before the original Arab Spring generation – or the next – rises once more.

“Until that happens, which may take decades, the Middle East as a whole will become a ‘sphere of influence’ either under Iran or perhaps an Iran-Turkey-Saudi triumvirate.  In either case, the region will not be part of world order but dangerously adversarial to it.

“Another sphere of influence will take shape in Asia.  China’s long-held objective to control the region’s maritime waters will perforce compel the acquiescence of the other Asian states, as their naval assets together will not match those of the PRC.  The US will make sporadic ‘pivotal’ shows of force on behalf of its friends, but ultimately not persuasively.  Japan and the US will lapse into a sullen rhetorical stance, but accept Asia’s future as Beijing’s sphere.

“Other spheres of influence will emerge.  Russia slowly will consolidate its post-Cold War goal to exercise suzerainty over the Eurasian lands lost by the collapsed Soviet Union; an informal partnership will be created between Beijing’s new empire and Moscow’s.  Russia will be alarmed, but soon bought off by Beijing as the PRC takes the paramount position of influence over Europe, which will shelter under China’s aegis in return for a ‘bailout’ of the entire EU.

“Most of Africa will become an adjunct of the Middle East sphere, as Islamist forces move from the Maghreb into Sub-Saharan territory.  Africa’s ‘southern cone’ will become South Africa’s sub-regional sphere.

“The US will respond to this massive global realignment by seeking to lead a Western Hemisphere sphere but will fail as a result of lingering Latin American resentment over past ‘Yanqui’ interventions.  South America, led by Brazil, will then proceed to play one sphere off another, angling for the highest bidder.

“The US, by now awakened and alarmed, will belatedly try to rebuild its military power but find that ‘mothballed’ assets and skills have atrophied beyond repair.

“The long-established international system having ended, a political theory for the New World Order will emerge.  Chinese intellectuals have been designing this since the opening of this century.  Based on Confucian principles, the international future will be hierarchical.   In place of the doctrine of ‘the equality of states,’ the larger and more powerful regimes, with China at the top, will provide direction to the lesser states.  Mercantilism will be restored, supplanting the open global economy.  Nationalism will regain its old potency to become the ideological equivalent of religion.

“In each region there will arise flash points of confrontation in which the strongest will prevail – as in the South China Sea and the Persian Gulf – after minor displays of resistance.  The Freedom of the Seas will be only a memory.  The major crisis will come over Taiwan, for when absorbed by the PRC the entire Western Pacific will fall under Beijing’s control, Japan included.  The US will be summoned to ‘a moment of truth’ when this prospect is undeniable.  Some in what used to be known as ‘The West’ will demand action, but most will be undismayed, having grown accustomed to this Brave New World.

“So the international state system of the modern age will be replaced by a world of separated and rivalrous spheres of influence.  But it won’t be that simple.  Sometime in the next generation, China will collapse because it cannot continue half panda—the capitalistic economy—and half dragon—the communist party.

“Russia will not be able to manage its neo-Soviet empire as it devours itself in corruption and shrivels in demographic decline.  The Middle East will be cannibalized by Sunni-Shia hatreds.  And Latin America will be engulfed by racial-ethnic revolutions yet to come.  The US will continue obliviously to imitate a Europe already long gone to its grave.

“By the middle of the 21^st century the world will have returned to the Dark Ages.

“Thanks for calling.  I look forward to seeing you soon down here.”

Once upon a time, the nation’s capital was synonymous with a special form of incompetence having nothing to do with politics – a cellar-dwelling baseball ... continue reading]]> Tweet

Once upon a time, the nation’s capital was synonymous with a special form of incompetence having nothing to do with politics – a cellar-dwelling baseball existence best captured by sportswriter Charles Dryden: “Washington – first in war, first in peace, last in the American League”.

That’s no longer the case. The current Washington franchise – that would be the Nationals, nee the Montreal Expos (Washington’s two previous franchises, both named the Senators, fled D.C. for the greener pastures of Minnesota and Texas) – resides in the National League. Moreover, the “Nats” are a consensus choice to make this fall’s World Series.

That said, the Washington Nationals aren’t the only prohibitive favorite found inside the beltway. Residing about 20 minutes from the ballpark is Hillary Clinton, the trendy choice these days to be the Democratic nominee in 2016 and America’s 45th president.

At least, that’s what the polls tell us. One survey shows Mrs. Clinton dominating both Republicans and her fellow Democrats in hypothetical 2016 matchups. Another poll has Florida voters preferring her to native sons Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio.

Add to those numbers: the chattering class’s clamoring for a Hillary run.

Paul Begala, the Democratic consultant who helped engineer Bill Clinton’s win in 1992, “hopes and prays” for a Clinton candidacy. Kathleen Parker, a Washington Postcolumnist, believes it’s nothing less than Hillary’s duty to run: “The calculus comes down to this: She has been working toward this moment essentially all her life, diligently clearing away the brush blocking her path. The zeitgeist is ready for a woman president. Most important, she can win – and few think the country would be worse for it.”

About being a president-in-waiting this early in the selection process: it’s both a blessing and a curse for a Democratic frontrunner. Al Gore led wire to wire in 2000. On the other hand, Mario Cuomo, Gary Hart, Ted Kennedy and Edmund Muskie are examples of early odds-on-favorites who didn’t work out (some decided not to run, others did and flamed out). And there’s Mrs. Clinton’s experience in 2008 – starting out with a big advantage, only to be passed by Barack Obama.

Though it’s a long way to 2016, here are four reasons why Clinton inaugural planning may be premature:

1)  Despite the Conventional Wisdom, She’s Unconventional. Republicans choose their presidential nominee in an orderly fashion: the prize goes to the previous runner-up. It’s true of Mitt Romney, John McCain, Bob Dole, George H.W. Bush and Ronald Reagan. But not so, for Democrats. Since 1972, six of the Democrats’ eight nominees had never sought national office before. Democrats like novelty; they venerate youth. And here, as David Frum points out, Mrs. Clinton has a problem. She’s 14 years older than Obama; neither party has gone with a nominee that much older than his or her predecessor. Turning 69 in 2016, she’ll be 24 years older than was her husband at the time of his acceptance speech in the summer of 1992 – seeking a Democratic nomination won only once, since 1972, by a candidate in his or her 60’s (John Kerry, age 60 in 2004). Presumably tanned, rested and ready by 2016, would Hillary be .  . . too old?

2)  Lean Left, Lean Right, Lean In? Presidential candidates succeed by finding their niche. Barack Obama neatly stepped into the disgruntled progressive void; Bill Clinton cloaked himself in centrism. The Hillary campaign of 2008 struggled as to where and how to position its candidate – as Democratic strategist Bob Shrum noted, making the fatal mistake of coming across, in a change election, as an establishment candidate “whose sell-by-date has passed”. How does Hillary avoid that? Perhaps she embraces “lean in” – the concept of women woefully underrepresented in leadership positions – and runs as the political answer to Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg. But that invites a very complicated discussion about Hillary Clinton as a role model. And that leads us to . . .

3) Buy One, Get One Free – Again? In 2016, as in 2008, the elephant in the room would be Bill Clinton. Does he overshadow his wife’s candidacy, as he did at times in the previous run (you might recall the former president whining about being the victim of racial politics)? Does his income from speaking gigs (here’s an example of how her husband’s finances came into play in 2008) remind voters of the Clintons’ pliant ethics? And there’s the complicated arrangement that is the Clintons’ marriage (which scholars are still trying to decipher).

4) Her Story Meets History. Let’s assume Hillary breezes past a weak Democratic field. As the party’s first woman nominee, she would be looking to achieve another historical first: a non-incumbent Democrat succeeding a Democratic administration. It didn’t work in 2000 and 1920, at the end of two-term Democratic presidencies. It didn’t work in 1968 or 1952 – the end of hybrid Democratic administrations. With the exception of the first Bush administration, the nation has swapped out partisan control of the White House every eight years, going back to 1980. Could Hillary reverse that pattern? That’s a tall order in what could turn in yet another change election.

Bottom line: baseball pennants aren’t won in April; presidential elections aren’t decided three years ahead of their actual vote.

Follow Bill Whalen on Twitter: @hooverwhalen

It’s also applies to a crowded field of 2016 Republican presidential ... continue reading]]> Tweet

Thanks to the NCAA basketball tournament, “March Madness” is now a household phrase.

It’s also applies to a crowded field of 2016 Republican presidential hopefuls. With two differences:

(1) 68 teams compete in the NCAA tourney; the Republican field right now may be larger;

(2) The basketball competition is over in less than a month, whereas the GOP’s winnowing process is a more prolonged mess.

Still, that doesn’t stop us from having a little fun with the idea of a 2016 primary competition, hoops bracket-style.

Here’s my list of 16 competitors, divided into two categories of contenders: eight possible candidates who make their living primarily inside the beltway; eight possible candidates from beyond the beltway.

(Author’s note: unlike the NCAA, I didn’t “seed” the field, ranking candidates from strongest to weakest. In this competition, the first round is all about similar/contrasting styles and good story lines.)

Your 2016 tournament (click to enlarge):

The Sweet Sixteen

Paul Ryan vs. Marco Rubio. We start with two heavyweights – and for a reason: if Ryan seeks the presidency, he presumably has first dibs on Mitt Romney’s campaign network. If Ryan doesn’t run, then the fundraising, policy and field operations are there for Rubio’s (and others’) taking. At the moment, Ryan’s focused on budget reform, not 2016 politicking. He sounds like a man more interested in staying in the House. Rubio’s talking immigration reform (among other issues) – in the process, coming across as more and more presidential.

Because of that, Rubio wins this matchup.

Rick Santorum vs. Newt Gingrich. Both left Congress; neither left the Washington fishbowl. If they run, they run the risk of overlapping as they did in 2012. To the extent Gingrich is campaigning these days, it’s on behalf of California Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom’s goofy Citizenville book (as when Newt bonded with Nancy Pelosi over global warming, cue The Odd Couple theme). I can see Santorum camping out in Iowa again (and at least one top donor wants him to).  Is Gingrich anywhere as determined? Santorum wins this matchup.

Michele Bachmann vs. Rand Paul. The two libertarians see eye to eye on foreign aid and Washington dealmaking. Where they differ: career trajectory. Bachmann ran for president in 2012 and didn’t last past the first week in January. Paul could easily step in, come 2016, where his father left off in 2012 (the son’s already been branded “the rabbit” in the GOP field). Paul wins this matchup.

John Thune vs. Kelly Ayotte. Since it’s not really a tourney without a Cinderella story, here are two longshots. Thune has two pluses: all-American good looks; easy access to Iowa from his home base of South Dakota. As for Ayotte, John McCain and Lindsey Graham’s “third amigo”, she’s the junior senator from New Hampshire. Need we say more? Because Hillary Clinton and gender politics loom on the horizon, the opportunities will continue to arise for Ayotte to step up for the party, as she’s been doing since the last election.  Ayotte wins this matchup.

Ben Carson vs. Sarah Palin. No one ever mistook Palin for a brain surgeon. Until his feisty appearances at the National Prayer Breakfast and CPAC, no one would have mistaken Carson, a neurosurgeon, for Palin. But that’s what he is at the moment: like the self-proclaimed “hockey mom” in 2008, the GOP’s newest plain-talkin’ star. Again, trajectories: Carson is leaving his medical post at Johns Hopkins, thus freeing him up for political dabbling; Palin’s doing prop comedy and pondering her next move. Winner: Carson.

Bobby Jindal vs. Scott Walker. Two governors who, if they run, are certain to offer their states as the Republican ideal. For Walker, it’s doing battle with public-sector unions. Jindal: eliminating his state’s income tax. This is a pick-‘em choice – one where Jindal has a slight advantage: he’s the chairman of the Republicans Governors Association, which gives him free rein to tour the country next year; Walkers’ the RGA vice chair. Winner: Jindal.

Jeb Bush vs. Bob McDonnell.  Two former governors, each with some serious work ahead with regard to skeptical party activists. For Bush, it’s the family name. For McDonnell, its raising taxes while governor of Virginia (though he did restore Scooter Libby’s civil rights). Winner: Bush.

Chris Christie vs. Mike Pence. Why this matchup? Because Pence, the newly elected governor of Indiana (“I’m a Christian, a conservative, a Republican in that order”) would be the anti-Christie in the race, taking social issues straight to Iowa (in 2011, he was the surprise winner of the Values Voter Summit straw poll). Christie is up for re-election this fall. That gives him the better part of two years to figure where and how to make his debut in the elimination derby, while at the same time amassing an enormous war chest that will come in handy if the selection process is more compressed and more nationalized. Winner: Christie.

The Elite Eight:

Rubio vs. Santorum. Electability is the dominant issue. Rubio’s seen as the party’s “new face”; Santorum had to deal with this question – is he too polarizing to win a national contest? – time . . . and . . . again in 2012. Winner: Rubio.

Paul vs. Ayotte. His father’s presidential run didn’t live up to expectations, leaving Paulistas to spin that it was all about the movement, not the campaign. His recent filibuster suggests the son might have a political sophistication the father didn’t. Winner: Paul.

Carson vs. Jindal. Name the last candidate with a record of cutting eliminating taxes. Name the last presidential nominee of either major party never to have held an elected office. While you’re thinking, we’ll move on. Winner: Jindal.

Bush vs. Christie. How many of the old guard (the five previous Bush presidential runs, 1980-2004) will jump on board the Christie bandwagon? Winner Christie.

The Final Four:

Rubio vs. Paul. The last guy to support Paul might his Blue Grass colleague, Senator Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. The two are “frenemies”, at best. Rubio will try to keep one foot in each camp: GOP establishment and disaffected outsiders. They teach surfing in Florida, right? Winner: Rubio.

Jindal vs. Christie. Conservative orthodoxy born on the Bayou takes on the Jersey style of center and right, though it’s not always a friendly greeting from Asbury Park (check out these comments on teachers’ unions). Winner: Christie.

Finalists:

Rubio vs. Christie. We’d love to tell you the winner of this one, but where’s the fun in that? You’ll have to stay tuned until 2016.

One final note: NCAA brackets are about the known – the teams are already chosen; the matchups already set. That’s no so with presidential elections. We’ll have to wait to see how the field takes shape and where the path leads the candidates.

Early favorites? The University of Kentucky was ranked third in pre-season polls; the Wildcats didn’t make the tournament. Rudy Giuliani, Howard Dean, Gary Hart, Hillary Clinton? All frontrunners that didn’t last.

Anyone up for a little bracket-busting in 2016?

Follow Whalen on Twitter: @HooverWhalen

This marks the first in a regular series examining legislation introduced by California lawmakers.

At first glance, minimum wage laws are popular concepts.  A recent Reason-Rupe ... continue reading]]> Tweet

This marks the first in a regular series examining legislation introduced by California lawmakers.

At first glance, minimum wage laws are popular concepts.  A recent Reason-Rupe poll found that 66% of Americans favor President Obama’s proposed 24% increase in the federal minimum wage to $9.00 per hour.  This matches the sentiment found in a recent NBC/Wall Street Journal poll (58% in favor) and a Pew Research Center/USA Today poll (70% in favor).  However, if educated about the effects of such policies, the public’s opinions shift; based on the Reason-Rupe poll (which asked a follow-up question stating one negative unintended consequence of minimum wage laws: employer layoffs), approval of a wage increase dropped to 37%.

In the “Spotlight” is AB 10, authored by Democratic Assemblyman Luis Alejo, which aims to increase California’s $8.00 per hour minimum wage.  The bill has four stages:

1) Increase the minimum wage 3% on January 1, 2014 to $8.25;

2) Increase it by 6% on January 1, 2015 to $8.75;

3) Increase it again by 6% to $9.25 on January 1, 2016, and;

4) Starting on January 1, 2017 (and every January 1^st thereafter), increase the minimum wage by the previous year’s California Consumer Price Index.

AB 10 would allow the California Industrial Welfare Commission to adjust the annual increase more than the California CPI, but would preclude it from decreasing (or increasing) the minimum wage in deflationary years.

Minimum wage laws all have the same intended goal: to reduce poverty. Proponents theorize that minimum wage increases will also boost employee morale thereby increasing business efficiency.  However, despite their initial popularity, such policies continue to fall short.

It isn’t surprising why on the surface such laws are popular. Last fall’s Measure D campaign in San Jose, which raised that city’s minimum wage 25% to $10.00 per hour, used emotional anecdotes to spur support and cast opponents as heartless individuals.  However, while pathos arguments are useful for campaigning, they provide little use in policy analysis.  Instead a logos argument examines the merits of a policy alternative and determines whether it is the best option available.

In order for minimum wage laws to reduce poverty, they must affect those in poverty.  As workers’ data complied by the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics show, the predominant individuals represented in minimum wage jobs are teenagers and more broadly, those under the age of 25.  While workers under the age of 25 only make up one-fifth of the hourly-rate national workforce, they account for over half of the minimum wage workers.  Teenagers make up over 21% of the minimum wage workers while hourly rate workers over the age of 25 make up just 3% of minimum wage workers.

There is, also, no major variation in minimum wage workers between the races.  Only 5% of hourly rate African-American, Hispanic, or white workers are employed at or below the minimum wage (3% for Asian).   Minimum wage workers are, on average, teenagers (typically working their first job) and on average, are not below the poverty line.  As such, minimum wage workers are usually in a temporary economic position.

California, additionally, actually ranks among the bottom of the 50 states in terms of the share of its hourly rate workforce employed at or below the minimum wage (just 1.4% of its 8.8 million hourly rate workers).  Despite this, California has the 7^th highest statutory minimum wage (tied with Massachusetts), outpacing border-state Arizona and competitors like Texas, Florida, and North Carolina.  California’s $8.00 per hour rate also outpaces other progressive states like New York, New Jersey, and Minnesota.

AB 10 falls short in at least two regards:

(1) It would affect less than 2% of the state’s hourly rate working population;

2) As that population, on average, isn’t poor, AB 10 wouldn’t live up to its sales pitch of reducing poverty.

However, minimum wage laws do affect the labor market.  Basic economic theory illustrates that demand curves are downward sloping and supply curves are upward.  This economic relationship means that price floors (which minimum wage laws are) increase labor supply while decreasing demand for labor creating a surplus of labor.

While the basic theory is straightforward, there is debate surrounding the employment effects of minimum wage laws.  Princeton economists David Card and Alan Kreuger suggest that there is no “disemployment” effect, while others such as co-authors David Neumark and William Wascher have shown such effects.  In a more recent study (Jonathan Meer and Jeremy West), “disemployment” effects are shown to occur, but through reduced new hiring as opposed to layoffs.  However, because minimum wage workers are disproportionally younger workers, a majority of minimum wage studies show the “disemployment” effects are focused among the younger generation. Such studies have shown that a 10% increase in minimum wage rates reduces teenage employment by between 1% and 3%. This probably wouldn’t affect the overall state economy, since it’s such a small component of the greater workforce, but it still is a negative unintended consequence of minimum wage laws.

Minimum wage laws supposedly boost employee morale and as such, business effectiveness. However, AB 10’s increases would mean California would have among the highest minimum wage rates in the country.  According to CEO Magazine, California currently holds the title of “worst state for business in America” – a dubious honor the Golden State has held for eight consecutive years.  In addition, a recent California Chamber of Commerce climate survey shows that a whopping 73% of Golden State-multistate business owners consider California a more difficult business terrain than other states.  These business owners view the high cost of doing business in California – regulations, state and local taxes, healthcare costs, labor and housing costs – as the main drivers for California’s poor business climate.  AB 10 would increase one of these costs by 16% in just three years and then increase it again, annually, by an unknown amount. Not only would AB 10 drive up labor costs, it would also instill uncertainty into one of business’s major cost drivers.

Lastly, AB 10 would institute automatic rate increases.  Currently, 10 other states have automatic increases of some sort (typically pegging the rate to an inflation or cost of living formula) – four of which have higher current minimum wage rates than California.  However, the automatic adjustments eliminate one of business’s key cyclical adjustment mechanisms. Inflation allows businesses, particularly in economic hard times, to reduce its labor costs without actually having to cut pay or its workforce.  Yet, when law mandates pegging the minimum wage to inflation, businesses have one fewer adjustment mechanism available, and thus, they have to absorb losses through profit reductions or reduced hiring and/or layoffs.

However, minimum wage laws are not the only policy alternative available for poverty reduction and standard of living enhancement. For a long-term solution, advancing quality educational opportunity and achievement would work to reduce poverty as well as introduce many other positive externalities into California’s economy.

However, education reforms take years to filter into the greater society. For more immediate effects, the creation of a state earned income tax credit (EITC) would help those in poverty and not introduce market distortions.  An EITC is a refundable tax credit for tax filers below a certain income level. In effect, it is a negative income tax allowing those in need of assistance to receive additional income. Oregon and Washington join 21 other states that have their own EITC (in addition to the federal EITC). However, California’s other bordering states, Nevada and Arizona, don’t have such a tax credit. Neither do two of California’s top economic competitors, Texas and Florida.

Despite its apparent disadvantages, AB 10 likely will work its way through both liberal-dominated chambers of the state Legislature.  The question is: does Gov. Jerry Brown sign it into law or seek amendments? On one hand, Brown will feel pressure from Sacramento progressives to ensure that California isn’t eclipsed on this issue as other liberal states (New York, Minnesota, Maryland, and Hawaii) consider rate increases. On the other hand, Brown is up for re-election in 2014 and will have to defend that 50^th-best business climate in the country.

A wise move for Brown would be to substitute a California EITC in place of AB 10. He prides himself as a pragmatist. And, stripped of its emotional baggage, minimum wage increases don’t add up to practical policy choices.

Follow Carson Bruno on Twitter: @CarsonJFBruno

In a year in which Washington will be dominated by loose talk of federal largesse and limitations, congressional Republicans face an image challenge: how best ... continue reading]]> Tweet

In a year in which Washington will be dominated by loose talk of federal largesse and limitations, congressional Republicans face an image challenge: how best to argue the case for budgetary austerity without coming across as . . . well, too austere.

To answer that question, let’s turn to another contact sport – football – and the curious case of Manti Te’o, the former Notre Dame linebacker.

As recently as early January, Te’o was in a most enviable position as far as his professional stock stood. In addition to leading his team to an undefeated regular season and a spot in the national title game, the linebacker had endured an incredible tale of personal woe – the death of his grandmother, followed a day later by the passing of his leukemia-stricken girlfriend. Te’o not only played through his grief, but took his game to a higher level – so high that NFL scouts rated him a top-ten pick in next month’s draft. With the help of Notre Dame’s publicity machine, Te’o was the runner-up for the Heisman Trophy, a rarity for a defensive player.

And then it all came crashing down.

The girlfriend, whom the media had turned into this generation’s George Gipp, never really existed. The “relationship” was in fact an Internet hoax (“catfishing”, it’s called), forcing Te’o to answer a lot of awkward questions about his character and gullibility. Add the personal drama to his underwhelming performances on the field in the championship game and off the field at the draft combine, and Te’o is now projected as a mid-to-late first-round pick at best.

Here’s the tie to the Republicans’ plight in Washington. Te’o could have taken ownership of his image problem – say, doing a Super Bowl ad spoofing the “catfish” debacle. Instead, there was an uncomfortable interview with Katie Couric, followed by some edgy questions at the NFL’s draft combine about the football star’s sexuality. Instead of owning the controversy, the controversy owned the linebacker.

The concept of “ownership” isn’t something new to politics. Sarah Palin and Bob Dole did cameos on “Saturday Night Live” to show they could take a joke (curiously, perhaps tellingly, the two Clinton’s haven’t). More recently, there’s Florida Sen. Marco Rubio and his on-air water break. Rubio could have declared war on the media for turning one gulp of water into a sea of bad press. Instead, he cleverly turned with the skid – literally turning water in wine by selling water bottles online, the proceeds going to his political action committee.

Which leads us to this year’s budget wrangle.

Republicans are justified in feeling they won the sequester battle. President Obama and his administration looked foolish in cooking up hell scenarios of nonexistent pay cutsfor Capitol Hill janitors and pink slips for teachers, to say nothing of breaking the hearts of sixth-graders in Waverly, Iowa, by screwing up their Washington field trip.

Score this round to the GOP.

But that doesn’t mean Republicans are in a position to win the budget war.

First, there’s the question of how Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan will fare in yet another entitlements debate that, historically, has played to the Democrats’ advantage (think: “Mediscare” in the 2012 and 1996 election cycles).

Second, what happens when the painful spending cuts, unseen as the sequestration deadline passed, actually materialize? Will the public side with cut-happy Republicans, or the President and his party who most likely will play their safety-net victim card. Will Republicans stand their ground on budget cuts or start backpedaling – i.e., maintain ownership of fiscal conservatism or abandon the faith?

While at least one poll shows the public embracing the idea of a 5% sequester-like cut (but not so much the defense budget), Republican congressional approval was all of 12% in February, or about one-fourth Obama’s 46%. The good news: Obama’s below 50% for the first time in four months. The bad news: only one in eight voters naturally sides with the House and Senate GOP.

For Republicans, perhaps it’s time to raise the profile of a member of Congress who passionately studies the budget, goes to the trouble of weighing the merits if its endless line items, but gets limited play in most fiscal conversations: Oklahoma Sen. Tom Coburn.

Every fall, Coburn releases a “Wastebook” detailing 100 examples of federal waste, mismanagement and favors for special interests. Add his one-man war on earmark spending, and the physician-turned politician who swears he’ll stick to his term-limits pledge and not seek a third term in 2016 won’t win many popularity contests on Capitol Hill.

Which is what makes Coburn an attractive surrogate: he hates how Congress goes about its business, so does the public. Why not put the man ho has no taste for pork front and center?

This isn’t a new concept as far as Washington is concerned. From 1975-1987, Wisconsin Sen. William Proxmire issued monthly “Golden Fleece Awards” – citations for especially nonsensical federal spending. My favorite: the National Science Foundation spending $84,000 on a study on love, which prompted Proxmire to note:

“I object to this not only because no one – not even the National Science Foundation – can argue that falling in love is a science; not only because I’m sure that even if they spend $84 million or $84 billion they wouldn’t get an answer that anyone would believe. I’m also against it because I don’t want the answer. I believe that 200 million other Americans want to leave some things in life a mystery, and right on top of the things we don’t want to know is why a man falls in love with a woman and vice versa.”

Twenty-five years after the “Golden Fleece’s” retirement, advances in media and technology allow members of Congress to spread the word about wasteful spending in ways that Proxmire’s paper press releases couldn’t and didn’t achieve. There’s nothing stopping Republicans from daily – even hourly – citations of grill sergeants, “robos-quirrels” and cow burps found hidden inside department budgets. Add up the waste, calculate and translate in terms of keeping national parks open and White House tours operational. It’s another way for Republicans to educate Americans as to what taxpayers can live without.

A purist will note that these and other citations of profligate spending won’t balance the federal budget. And they’re right. But that’s not the point. In order to claim the high ground on fiscal policy, the GOP must embrace austerity, not steer away from it. That means steering the public toward recognition that not all spending cuts are cruel or uncalled for.

Follow Bill Whalen on Twitter: @hooverwhalen.