My New Blog

Sternly Worded Letters was conceived in the cauldron of the Clinton/Obama wars. I don't regret anything I've written here in the last ten months, but I've come to see things a bit differently. For a fuller explanation, read the "About" section of my new blog, Partisan Dawn.

(http://partisandawn.wordpress.com/)

See you there!

The Joke That Is The Juddster

Obama has hit a rough patch lately, but he’s got to be relieved that his cabinet didn’t get saddled with this hypocrite:

"The practical implications of this is bankruptcy for the United States," Gregg said of the Obama’s administration’s recently released budget blueprint. "There’s no other way around it. If we maintain the proposals that are in this budget over the ten-year period that this budget covers, this country will go bankrupt. People will not buy our debt, our dollar will become devalued. It is a very severe situation."

Gregg, known as one of the keenest fiscal minds on Capitol Hill, also told CNN Chief National Correspondent John King that he thought it was "almost unconscionable" for the White House to continue with its planned course on fiscal matters with unprecedented actual and projected budget deficits in the coming years. (Emphasis added.)

I guess Bush and the Juddster were using Monopoly money when they sent trillions down the toilet to pay for their tax cuts and wars. Where do Republicans get balls big enough to comment on anybody else’s budget? And what sane person would speak of Judd Gregg’s "keen fiscal mind"?


In Washington, any Republican politician without a southern accent who hangs around town long enough is presumed to be sensible, if not an outright genius. But the truth is that they all peddle the same economic snake oil.

Leadership Time

Obama dropped the ball on the stimulus, allowing his obsession with bipartisanship to make the bill weaker than it should have been. He rebounded with a bold budget proposal, telling the country that he intended to fix health care and energy policy. This weekend, he’s facing the third test of his young presidency.


While it’s necessary for Congress to do something about the AIG bonuses, and while politicians need to respond to the anger of their constituents, things have gotten way out of hand. More bonus scandals are going to surface, and each one can’t be Armageddon. Like it or not, Wall Street firms will be buying up the toxic waste they created. That’s Geithner’s plan, and it’s too late to find a new one. (He has no staff.) There’s talk that Treasury might be rolling out the details on Monday, and they need to. Meanwhile, Obama needs to call off the dogs in Congress.


The bonuses are chump change, and not all Wall Street employees are villains. If legislators want to get outraged, let them consider this: Goldman Sachs got a double bailout. Is there anything they can do about it?

Mistakes Were Made, Bonuses Were Paid

Edward Liddy:

Mistakes were made at AIG, and on a scale that few could have imagined possible. The most egregious of those began in 1987, when the company strayed from its core insurance competencies to launch a credit-default-swaps portfolio, which eventually became subject to massive collateral calls that created a liquidity crisis for AIG. Its missteps have exacted a high price, not only for the company and its employees but for the American taxpayer, the federal government's finances and the global economy. These missteps brought AIG to the brink of collapse and to the government for help.

AIG is greatest employer in the world. Not only is it impossible to get fired--you can get rich by sticking it to The Man!

AIG: Catharsis Day

Congressional Democrats in the Pelosi-Reid era are defined by their failures, so it's hardly surprising that they got swindled by the sharpies at AIG. As for the Administration, Tim Geithner deserves to be scorned by Republicans for signing off on the bonuses. (David Axelrod’s defense–that the poor kid had a lot on his plate, so leave him alone–is embarrassing.) But folks--we really do need to move on. The fragile, horrendous economy is--believe it or not!--on a bit of a roll right now, and it’s essential that government officials stay on top of things. (Republicans don't count.)


I generally despise all the grandstanding displayed by our elected representatives at committee hearings. Most legislators have no real interest in anything and regard their five minutes on C-SPAN as little more than an opportunity to rehearse their campaign sound bites. But today I say to our brave tribunes on the Potomac–Don't hold back! Now is not the time to grow a collective brain and get yourselves lost in the bonus weeds. Sure, it would be nice if taxpayers didn't get shafted by Wall Street again, but let's face it--if the high-priced legal talent at AIG can’t outwit a pack of panic-stricken Congressmen, they ought to be disbarred. (Maybe Andrew Cuomo in New York will manage to squeeze the crooks for a few token shekels down the road.)


Today, the Liliputians of the Capitol need to do what they do best–bloviate and get outraged. Come on, guys and gals! Show us your righteous indignation! Shout yourselves hoarse!


Your country needs you!

Simple Question, Simple Answer

If the government tries to stop the thieving blackmailers at AIG from getting their bonuses, taxpayers may end up losing money due to expensive litigation. Would it still be worth it?


Yes. Now get started, Mr. Geithner.

Dow Up 240! (Carpe Diem, Mr. President)

Wall Street traders have no credibility on economic issues–they predicted a Clinton Depression in 1993, missed the Bush Recession in 2007, and think the economy will collapse if the rich pay a penny more in taxes–but fluctuations in the Dow are politically important.


If the stock market is going to crater a thousand points because traders are afraid Obama’s health care proposals might cost them money, so be it. We can’t make policy based on short-sighted greed. But if the market is tanking because the Obama Administration is perceived to be dragging its feet on fixing the banks or as being hostile to private enterprise, then a change is in order.


On that score, Obama’s appearance at the Business Roundtable this evening was excellent. Probably the best I’ve ever seen him. He didn’t back down on his budget priorities, firmly tying his initiatives to the overall health of the economy. And he exuded confidence.


Democrats are always going to be suspect when it comes to economic growth. That’s how the corporate media rolls. Anything Obama can do to jump-start the stock market will keep some of the jackals off his back and strengthen his hand for the rest of his agenda.


We might just get through this mess.

Dow Up 380!

CNBC's Larry Kudlow is a supply-side wingnut, but I share his economic optimism. (More on that in a future post).

Last week, on Larry's 7:00 pm show, a savant named "Dougie Kass" called the bottom on the S & P. He made a lot of sense, and tonight he said we were on the verge of a "generational opportunity" in stocks.

Let's see what happens the rest of the week.

Government At Its Worst

No, I’m not talking about "earmarks." I don’t give a shit about those. I’m talking about this:

And, to the embarrassment of Obama — who promised during last year's campaign to force Congress to curb its pork-barrel ways — the bill contains 7,991 pet projects totaling $5.5 billion, according to calculations by the GOP staff of the House Appropriations Committee. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., Obama's opponent in the presidential campaign, called the measure "a swollen, wasteful, egregious example of out-of-control spending" and again criticized Obama for pledging to sign the measure despite his earlier promises on such spending. (Emphasis added.)

Five and a half billion fucking dollars? Are you kidding me? That’s what McCain and the Media are having a cow about? AIG and Citigroup will piss away more than that before breakfast this morning. At least the pork barrel chump change will bring something to the streets of America.


One of Obama’s finest moments in the debates last fall came when he pointed out to Johnny Mac the pitifully tiny role that "earmarks" played in the grand scheme of things. I guess it didn't sink in. We seem doomed to argue endlessly over minutiae. The tiny minds of our legislators aren't comfortable with much else.


Will the government ever get serious? To quote Lee Iacocca: Where have all the leaders gone?

Mission: Impossible

The funniest political essay I have ever read is something called "The Husbandman," published by H.L. Mencken in 1924. Here’s an excerpt:

….Let the farmer, so far as I am concerned, be damned forevermore. To Hell with him, and bad luck to him. He is a tedious fraud and ignoramus, a cheap rogue and hypocrite, the eternal Jack of the human pack. He deserves all that he ever suffers under our economic system, and more. Any city man, not insane, who sheds tears for him is shedding tears of the crocodile.

No more grasping, selfish and dishonest mammal, indeed, is known to students of the Anthropoidea. When the going is good for him he robs the rest of us up to the extreme limit of our endurance; when the going is bad be comes bawling for help out of the public till. Has anyone ever heard of a farmer making any sacrifice of his own interests, however slight, to the common good? Has anyone ever heard of a farmer practising or advocating any political idea that was not absolutely self-seeking–that was not, in fact, deliberately designed to loot the rest of us to his gain? Greenbackism, free silver, the government guarantee of prices, bonuses, all the complex fiscal imbecilities of the cow State John Baptists–these are the contributions of the virtuous husbandmen to American political theory. There has never been a time, in good seasons or bad, when his hands were not itching for more; there has never been a time when he was not ready to support any charlatan, however grotesque, who promised to get it for him. Only one issue ever fetches him, and that is the issue of his own profit. He must be promised something definite and valuable, to be paid to him alone, or he is off after some other mountebank. He simply cannot imagine himself as a citizen of a commonwealth, in duty bound to give as well as take; he can imagine himself only as getting all and giving nothing.

I fondly recall this hilarious screed every year at budget-making time, when Kent Conrad and his Midwestern Mafia begin demanding a "Great Plains - Sized" slice of the federal pie. As a taxpayer from the East, I long ago resigned myself to getting the shaft on the issue of agricultural subsidies. Senator Conrad never has any trouble absconding with poor Chuck Schumers’s lunch money. If President Obama ever forces the sainted "family farmers" to take a significant monetary haircut, I will drive to South Dakota and chisel his skinny mug on a soft rock as close to Mount Rushmore as I can get.


(Note: By no means am I endorsing Mr. Mencken’s intemperate insults--at least not all of them. I just think they’re funny.)

Barack and The Fat Man

First principles, Clarice. Simplicity. Read Marcus Aurelius. Of each particular thing ask: what is it in itself? What is its nature? –Hannibal Lecter

So the Republican hand-wringers want Rush Limbaugh to pipe down. Apparently, all the white noise of his recent bloviating has obscured the party’s message.

Stuff and Nonsense! I'm not sure Limbaugh even believes his own bullshit, but he knows full well the iron rules of what passes muster as an Acceptable Republican Idea, to wit:

Government is always incompetent.

Taxes may never be raised.

"Spending" must always opposed in the abstract, yet rarely defined in reality. (Military spending has no upper limit.)

Market solutions are always best, unless they upset our supporters.

Only corporations and wealthy individuals can spur economic growth.

Budget deficits, no matter how large, will be reduced by cutting taxes.

When in doubt, deregulate.

If Republican politicians violate these rules, their party will cease to exist. They will become Democrats. Limbaugh got a bad rap on his "hoping-for-failure" comment, but in stark political terms, he was correct--the Republican Party cannot afford to allow government solutions to succeed. Bill Kristol knew it. Karl Rove knew it. Rush Limbaugh knows it.


Anybody who watched Jon Kyl and Paul Ryan on FOX News Sunday yesterday saw that Republicans have no new ideas. That’s why they keep Newt Gingrich around. He has lots of bullet points, but does anybody really understand what the hell he’s talking about? Have any of his wacky schemes ever been tried? Newt’s chief value to the GOP is as a fund raiser and a supplier of rhetoric. Substantively, he’s a bit player.


Republicans can still win elections, but the Democrats don’t have to worry about countering any bold new ideas. They just have to govern successfully. (That’s all!)