100 Hours

PrePost news! Sometime yesterday, my hit counter reached 20,000! Hooray! Now on with the show.

It is all over the TV. There is a new Congress in town, and they have laid out their battle plan for the first hundred hours.

Yawn. Excuse me for not being very impressed. I mean it is great that the power is more balanced and all - but the House is only half (or less) of the story. The Senate has to pass the 100 hour agenda, and then Mr. "hey I just discovered I can veto stuff" has to not veto it.

Whatever the President vetoes is pretty much dead in the water, the new majority is not 2/3 strong. So yea, go on and pass that minimum wage hike - but unless it is tied to some other sort of tax break for those who would consider having to live on a mere $250,000 a year living in poverty it will not pass. An that stem cell thing? Think Bush will not veto that? Yea right.

The "pay as you go" agenda item will also fail. Why? Because what it says is that the government should tax enough to cover all spending. From a normal consumer point of view, this seems reasonable. After all - how do YOU plan your spending? Probably based on your income right? Well the government's income is taxes.

To spend more, then the government needs more income. If the government spends less, then some of that income source can be lost. So if the government decides it needs to increase spending for say National Parks - then they would either have to lower spending somewhere else OR ask for more income. But no deficit spending.

Of course we all know what this is targeted at. Way before I started my blog I laid out how to stop the war in Iraq in its tracks (or for that matter from even starting in the first place). Force the Republicans to pay for their war up front. That would have prevented the war from starting.
Oh yea, the war in Iraq was all important and shit. Fight them over there so we do not have to fight them here. And that bullshit.

However, what if the Republicans had to give up all their tax cuts and even RAISE TAXES to pay for the war? How important would it be then? And because the rich have more to loose should America collapse the war ought to be more important to them right? So what is another 10% or even 20% personal income tax increase?

Look at it this way. Say someone holds a gun to your head and demands your wallet. Do you give them the wallet or argue? So if you REALLY BELIEVE that the terrorist threat is that real, do you argue about how much it is going to cost you to make that threat go away or pay up and be happy to get away with your life?

So what is it? Are there any Republicans reading this? If so which do you want, a war over there so you do not have one here - or your tax cuts? Can't have both this war is costing 8 - 10 billion a month. Pick one. If you pick your tax cuts then you must also support cutting out of Iraq. If you think it is important to stay, then you must also think paying for it is important.

I think that making Bush pay for the entire war in Iraq up front in cash without borrowing any of it by RAISING taxes would have prevented troops from going into Iraq. It is not THAT important to be there that the rich should give up their tax cuts.

But as those who took economics classes know - when then government goes into debt it is not like when you or I go into debt. The government uses debt as an economic tool. Deficit spending can stimulate a stagnant economy. Stuff that is not planned can happen, prompting emergency spending. And so on. Getting rid of all deficit spending is not really possible - at best it can just be managed.

Now do not get me wrong. I wish all the best for the first 100 hours agenda. But I am not going to get too excited about it - as I expect most of it to flop.

It all supports my theory from yesterday. The Democrats will force the Republicans to block measures popular with the left and the center, but not at all popular with the Republican base. The House will be able to say "Democrats took the lead and passed all these wonderful things, but Bush vetoed it and Republicans blocked it". Or something like that.

And in 2008 they can take more Republican seats in the Senate and House - while running Hillary or Obama for President. This will probably place another Republican in the White House. And when the new President can not fix any of the Bush mess, the Democrats win even more seats in the 2010 election. Then they are set up to take it all in 2012. And then of course they will royally fuck everything up, as the party with no opposition always does.

The only thing that can screw this up is the Democrats winning the White House in 08. Then THEY will be expected to fix the mess. If they do it will be a miracle. More than likely they will not be able to fix the mess - which will set the Republicans up for huge gains in the 2010 mid term elections.

Good luck to the new Congress in the first 100 hours. A lot of what you guys have on the plate would be a good change, but I am not holding my breath. Most of it stands little chance of going anywhere.