Are College Students Brainwashed Liberals?

In the clip below, a college professor offers his accounts of what is wrong with America.

http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=VxHfYNTrnic

Well, I'd say this.

Young people and college students are always more liberal. It'll soften as they become employees and taxpayers.

Ultimately, it's not necessarily wrong for them to believe in publicly funded education, tuition, retirement insurance, and health care. In fact, public education, social security, and medicare are not only incredibly popular, but an integral component of first world society. No industrialized nation lacks these ... and America has the least extravagant of all.

If young people believe in these causes, that's fine. It's a free country and they have a right to vote for what they want. They just have to be willing to support them in taxes. That's been America's problem for a hundred years. We want the programs and strong govt - we just refuse to fund it. It's basic math. Social security, medicare, and higher ed are the key examples. People need to understand. Remember "Keep your govt hands off my Medicare"?

Of course, this prof is a bit jaded and equally biased. He puts the blame on public schools and claims the kids have never heard of Thomas Malthus, Adam Smith, and Frederick Hayak. Well, those are only one economic theory. Did he ask the kids about John Keynes or Robert Samuelson or Joseph Stiglitz? No. And guess what? The kids haven't heard of Keynes or Marx or Hobbes or Locke or Mao either. It's not that they only get biased liberal economic theory. They get no economic theory. It's not in most state standards. And who knows if it should be.

Do you recall knowing about Hayak and Malthus in high school? Did you discuss Hobbesian theory or utilitarianism? Guess what. My kids are learning about Malthus and Smith right now. But it's satirical criticism of their theories as seen in Dickens' Hard Times. At the same time I asked my kids about Marx and Hegel the other day, and they hadn't heard of them. They had no knowledge of socialist or classical liberal thinkers.

And, of course, I don't necessarily blame kids for their views on tuition and health care ... or even down payments. Think about what they've been experiencing as they come of age. Many probably have real life experience struggling with private health care. And tuition. Geez. The average college grad now begins life with $26000 in debt. $26K! Can you imagine coming out at 22 with that on your shoulders. And then needing 20% for down payments. And skyrocketing health care? Or no health care?

It's a different world out there. And it's pretty scary times for young people. I don't blame them for a lot of this. And it's not unusual for young people to have more faith in the government. They still have that sincere belief that the govt is supposed to be the guy in the white hat when they are struggling.

Just another point of view.

Scarborough Tells It Like It Is

Whenever people wonder how I can claim to be a conservative - or how I could vote for the GOP - I could simply point to someone like Joe Scarborough. The amicable, pragmatic, and wise host of the show Morning Joe is precisely the type of moderate conservative that I support - and he represents the GOP I used to believe in. If Joe Scarborough were running for office in my district, I'd campaign for him, and if he were running for President, I'd feel great about the future. Joe Scarborough is quite simply a pragmatic and rational conservative who puts the American people above politics. He did it in Congress, and he continues to promote that view as a commentator. And he's got moxie to go with his political insight. Here's a little of that Joe Scarborough snap:

"Michele Bachmann's first answer was, I wish the federal government had defaulted. Had defaulted! A week after Americans lost--some of them perhaps lost half of their pensions. Lost half of their 401ks. When trillions of dollars went down the drain with Americans suffering, she said that and got applause, and if anybody thinks that guys like my dad are going to be voting that way...they are out of their mind and they are too stupid not only to prognosticate, they are too stupid to run Slurpee machines in Des Moines...Michele Bachmann is a joke. She is a joke. Her answer is a joke. Her candidacy is a joke...Iowa, if you let her win, you prove your irrelevance once again."

Tell it like it is, Joe.

T-Bills and the "Full Faith and Credit" of the USA

Wow!

How about that market play yesterday and today?

Isn't it fascinating that yesterday, amidst all the hysteria, investors sought refuge in T-Bills ... still ... even when returns went slightly negative for a short time?

Do you think that will convince radical pundits, extreme think tanks, and truly naive congressman to never, ever, ever f*%# around with the "full faith and credit" of the United States government again?

I would certainly hope so - but I doubt it.

Austan Goolsbee and the Truth about Taxes

In news today, Austan Goolsbee, one of President Obama's top economic advisors, is leaving his job at the White House to return to his position as an economist at the University of Chicago. Goolsbee is probably best known for his "White Board" speeches in which he sketched out economic policy of tax cuts - criticizing the GOP plan for continued tax cuts - in a short videotaped speech. Here's a look:

Sadly, far too many Americans are naive to even the simple truths of this two-minute video. And if that sort of thinking continues, the US economy will continue to be mired in the backwaters of ideologically produced debt and deficits.

The Elmo Vendetta

In Today's Denver Post, columnist David Harsanyi defends the GOP's recent attempts and long-standing desire to withdraw federal funding from NPR/PBS because though he believes, "NPR is under-appreciated ... what practical argument is left in the defense of federal funding for entertainment or journalism in an era of nearly unlimited choices?" While I appreciate his perspective on the government's role in providing entertainment and information through NPR, I feel he overlooks one important aspect of the medium, and that is (generally) commercial-free programming.

As a parent, I am careful about exposing my children to excessive marketing, and that is why my children (ages five and eight) have only watched PBS children's programming. As they mature, and we consider allowing more access to networks and computer entertainment, I am often shocked by the excessive marketing. Additionally, with PBS there is no chance that my children will be exposed to commercials for adult entertainment - shows like CSI and Two and Half Men or horror and action movies.

Certainly, he could argue that I don't have to use any audio-visual entertainment with my children and, thus, could avoid the problem. However, by arguing that NPR funding isn't necessary because of the ample offerings of the private sector, he ignores the goal of providing information and entertainment outside of a corporate agenda that is not often in the best interest of my family.

Granted, the counter-argument is that people simply avoid corporate bias in exchange for ideological bias. Yet, that hardly seems to be the case with Arthur, Sesame Street, and Clifford. Thus, I feel there is legitimate rationale for funding commercial-free educational programming, especially because, as you note, the budgetary "saving" is arbitrary and not the reason behind the push to de-fund NPR.

While this certainly won't change any minds, I feel my perspective is worth considering,

Workers of the World, Unite

The unrest in Wisconsin - legislative conflicts that have led Democrats to literally flee the state - is troubling for the apparent impasse it presents in an ideological battle about the rights of workers, especially public employees. There is such contempt for government right now that the average voter is not very sympathetic to the collective bargaining rights of workers - if they work for the government. The biggest problem in this Wisconsin budget battle is that the state workers have done nothing to lead to the deficit problems. Like much of our government budget issues, Wisconsin is in the hole almost entirely because of lost revenue, not expanded pay and benefits. This is a troubling and divisive issue well articulated this week by Ezra Klein in the Washington Post.

The Democrats and the state workers are willing to negotiate the benefits issues - as they should. Even if state workers are making less than the public sector - and they are - no one should be exempt from contributing to pension and benefits programs. And if it were that simple the Democrats would be back and voting. Yet, this attack on the rights of workers to collectively bargain is simply unacceptable. There has been an erosion of wages and consumer power among the middle class - including state workers - for more than two decades now. And it is accelerating.

No economic recovery is going happen in the American economy unless workers needs are reasonably addressed by employers and situations. The whole thing reminds me of the cold, heartless action of Josiah Bounderby in Dickens Hard Times when dealing with Stephen Blackpool and the organizing of "The Hands"in the factories. Despite Bounderby's portrayal of the workers as lazy bumpkins who seek to avoid work while dining on turtle soup and venison stew with their gold spoons, the average American - the average person - is always and forever looking for an honest day's wages for an honest day's work.

And that cannot be compromised.

Responsible Republicans

Great piece by Jacob Weisberg in Slate today about the loss of responsible government among Republicans. It was last prominent in the early days of the Reagan presidency and last practiced by the responsible Bush presidency - that was the first one.

Responsible conservatism is so important in our democratic republic, and it is a shame that the moderate voices of the GOP have been so crowded out. Hopefully, the Lindsay Graham's and the Judd Gregg's become the new leaders of the party.

Hopefully.

Center Right or Center Left?

Like many Americans, I don't consider myself ideological, and in survey after survey, I often end up right where I'd expect - moderate. That's why I'm a "recovering Republican" and a "disappointed Democrat." I'm part of the trend in Colorado, especially in the sixth district, of unaffiliated, independent voters. Colorado (and I), in that regards, are about as purple as can be. Though while the GOP likes to declare emphatically that America is a conservative country - or center right - to be more specific - and while some polls show the country moving slightly to the right, there is an ambiguity to that desire for ideological dominance. As EJ Dionne points out:

It’s important to note that there is a debate over what these ideological labels actually mean to voters. And polls that give respondents the chance of calling themselves “progressive” produce a substantially larger number on the left end of the spectrum, since many who won’t pick the “liberal” label do call themselves “progressive.” A study earlier this year by the Center for American Progress found that when progressive and libertarian were offered as additional options, the country was split almost exactly in half between left and right.

That discrepancy is key to the debate - and one that will never truly be addressed by what George H.W. Bush calls "the cables." [???] The reality is that whatever the parties want to say about the leanings of the country, the voters are choosing Democrats lately because the GOP just seems to have nothing to offer. This is more well articulated by David Brooks, but I get the gist of it.

Realistically, voters seek out what is real and valid in their lives. They support what works and they abandon what doesn't. That's pretty much the way it should be.

Actual Conservative Health Care Reform

Knowing that something happening is going to be better than nothing happening, I'll settle for some version of the Baucus health reform plan, though I'm not completely in favor of it. I'll side with heart surgeon and former senator Bill Frist on that. Ultimately, something as logical as the Healthy Americans Act isn't going to happen, and many provisions in the legislation - like preventing the insurance companies from dropping my family when they get sick - are good ideas. Beyond that, it's a good idea to provide a marketplace where Cigna or Kaiser or United have to offer a plan at a price - as opposed to charging me and my employer five times as much as they do for the same plan to a company across the street.

However, there are other ideas. And they don't have to come from the Democrats. I truly wish the GOP would actually start listening to the smart conservatives in their party and actually use some of the intelligent - not ideological - Republicans and conservatives to present an actual plan for health care reform. Not an idea or a theory or a ideology or a tweak. But an actual plan.

Like this one from conservative Harvard economist Martin Feldstein:

The simplest solution would be for the government to issue a health-care credit card to every family along with the insurance voucher. The credit card would allow the family to charge any medical expenses below the deductible limit, or 15 percent of adjusted gross income. (With its information on card holders, the government is in a good position to be repaid or garnish wages if necessary.) No one would be required to use such a credit card. Individuals could pay cash at the time of care, could use a personal credit card or could arrange credit directly from the provider. But the government-issued credit card would be a back-up to reassure patients and providers that they would always be able to pay.

The combination of the 15 percent of income cap on out-of-pocket health spending and the credit card would solve the three basic problems of America's health-care system. Today's 45 million uninsured would all have coverage. The risk of bankruptcy triggered by large medical bills would be eliminated. And the structure of insurance would no longer be the source of rising health-care costs. All of this would happen without involving the government in the delivery or rationing of health care. It would not increase the national debt or require a rise in tax rates. Now isn't that a better way?

That is market reform that would work, and it would actually accomplish the goal of many conservatives which is to encourage people to understand what their health care actually costs because they are paying for it - not $5 premiums for a high quality plan picked up by the wealthier companies and people in the country.

It's a thought. Any Republicans out there smart enough to run with this?

Brooks Gets Conservatism Right

There are few people in political commentary who get it as right, and say it as well, as David Brooks of the New York Times. Though he is often chastised by the neo-conservative-right-wing-noise machine who have called him a closet liberal or "conservative-light," Brooks, instead, represents that calm, rational, and rather engaging voice of conservatism that I regularly call for. He is, in many ways, the last hope we have after the loss of William Buckley and William Safire, though many, including Brooks, would argue he doesn't have quite their monolithic voice in the conservative crowd. Regardless, he is always a pleasure to read, and his insight is well represented in his piece today, introducing two views of the future, represented by Mr. Bentham and Mr. Hume.

I’ve introduced you to my friends Mr. Bentham and Mr. Hume because they represent the choices we face on issue after issue. This country is about to have a big debate on the role of government. The polarizers on cable TV think it’s going to be a debate between socialism and free-market purism. But it’s really going to be a debate about how to promote innovation.

The people on Mr. Bentham’s side believe that government can get actively involved in organizing innovation. (I’ve taken his proposals from the Waxman-Markey energy bill and the Baucus health care bill.)

The people on Mr. Hume’s side believe government should actively tilt the playing field to promote social goods and set off decentralized networks of reform, but they don’t think government knows enough to intimately organize dynamic innovation.

So let’s have the debate. But before we do, let’s understand that Mr. Bentham is going to win. The lobbyists love Bentham’s intricacies and his stacks of spending proposals, which they need in order to advance their agendas. If you want to pass anything through Congress, Bentham’s your man.


Brooks is just so damn smart that his allusions are often lost on many. But he is drawing from classic enlightenment history with astute nods to Jeremy Bentham and David Hume. It is these historical allusions that make his commentary so rich, but it is also what leads neo-conservatives to criticize him. For the reality is Limbaugh and Hannity and Beck and O'Reilly don't really understand Brooks or his allusions, and by association don't really understand conservatism.


David Brooks calls himself a Burkean conservative, and it is a definition and a pragmatic ideology I support. Sadly, most in the Republican Party don't really - and here's the irony because they use this charge so much - don't really understand their history. They don't understand the nature of their ideology and how to apply it to a changing world. Instead they rely on soundbites that simply become a rant about "low taxes" and "limited government." Yet, they don't understand how to take those ideas and actually "govern." Brooks, to his credit, tries to explain how the GOP needs to move beyond the "government is the enemy" idea of the Buckley and Reagan eras. For, while Reagan was absolutely right about marginal tax rates when they were 80%, his argument doesn't apply when they are 36%. Neo-conservatives don't get that, and they have never been able to reconcile their ideas with the social conservatives and the Religious Right. It makes for a mess of a message and a mess of a party.

One man who knows this - though sadly forgot it for about six months when his party needed him most - is John McCain. McCain had built an entire - and rather impressive - career on similar Burkean philosophy. This was effectively profiled in The Atlantic. Sadly, I think, few conservatives read that, and the noise machine couldn't understand it, so they dissed that type of thinking.

But there is hope. Brooks makes that clear. But you have to read it and you have to "get" it for that hope to have any chance.

Yes, we can. [sic]

Conservative Decline

The drumbeat continues of the GOP's conservatism marching toward the grave. Of course, that is hyperbole, though they've definitely lost their way when the conservative voices are turning on the GOP. They will still vote that way, as they don't want to be in the Libertarian Party, and the The Libertarian Party doesn't want them. Though some may become Obama Republicans. One notable voice - an older version who echoes some of what Brooks and Parker have been saying - is Richard Posner, whose new book decries the GOP's naive understanding of capitalism. I really enjoyed the insight in his latest blog post:

The following comments, I found particularly insightful:

By the end of the Clinton administration, I was content to celebrate the triumph of conservatism as I understood it, and had no desire for other than incremental changes in the economic and social structure of the United States. I saw no need for the estate tax to be abolished, marginal personal-income tax rates further reduced, the government shrunk, pragmatism in constitutional law jettisoned in favor of "originalism," the rights of gun owners enlarged, our military posture strengthened, the rise of homosexual rights resisted, or the role of religion in the public sphere expanded. All these became causes embraced by the new conservatism that crested with the reelection of Bush in 2004.

My theme is the intellectual decline of conservatism, and it is notable that the policies of the new conservatism are powered largely by emotion and religion and have for the most part weak intellectual groundings. That the policies are weak in conception, have largely failed in execution, and are political flops is therefore unsurprising. The major blows to conservatism, culminating in the election and programs of Obama, have been fourfold: the failure of military force to achieve U.S. foreign policy objectives; the inanity of trying to substitute will for intellect, as in the denial of global warming, the use of religious criteria in the selection of public officials, the neglect of management and expertise in government; a continued preoccupation with abortion; and fiscal incontinence in the form of massive budget deficits, the Medicare drug plan, excessive foreign borrowing, and asset-price inflation.

By the fall of 2008, the face of the Republican Party had become Sarah Palin and Joe the Plumber. Conservative intellectuals had no party.

I hope for some pragmatic discussion by people in the GOP, but first they must turn down Hannity/Limbaugh/O'Reilly, and start reading instead.

Why Doesn't the GOP Get It?

Will someone please tell my why the Republican Party continues to believe they lost control of Congress and the Presidency because they weren't conservative enough? The Gallup poll shows the party was losing significance in nearly every demographic group. The most significant place were the GOP lost votes - especially here in Colorado - is among moderate independents. And, the moderate independents switched their support because, in the words of Dan Haley of the Denver Post, the GOP has "become the party of crazy." There is no evidence of the GOP losing support because they had turned their back on conservative ideals. Granted, they did expand government under Bush. But they also stuck with all the same mantras of cutting taxes, neo-con pursuit of a hegemonic agenda in response to 9/11, "family values" which translated to anti-gay and rigidly Christian and pro-life and anti-regulation of business. The American voters saw them as corrupt in terms of their conservative values. But they also saw them as clueless on health care and the problems created by the Iraq War. Clearly, all the polls and research shows they GOP lost no significant votes among the conservatives and reactionaries. They lost among the people who thought they were too right-wing "crazy" and insensitive, or clueless, to the concerns of ordinary working Americans.

Progressive Conservative

In one of my posts about pragmatic, effective government, I referred to myself as a "fiscal conservative," and a reader posted a criticism implying that I couldn't possibly understand what conservatism means if I talked about "effective use of government." Yet, this week one of my favorite conservative op-ed columnists David Brooks argued exactly the same position as he pointed out the sadness of a lost campaign by John McCain. I couldn't agree more with Brooks' notion of "Burkean conservatism," a description I have used numerous times recently in discussions with conservatives on blogs. Burke insightfully noted, "the revenue of the state is the state," clearly accepting that government has certain responsibilities which must be funded effectively. A conservatism in the vein of Hamilton or Lincoln or TR is precisely what has made the United States the great nation it is. Obviously, Ronald Reagan was a man of conservative principles, but he also oversaw one of the government's largest expansions, and he raised taxes numerous times when it was the rational approach.

However, John McCain's rigid adherence to a conservatism that was failing to meet the needs of electorate has, instead, driven the moderate, unaffiliated voters to a man whose philosophy and voting record appears to be truly liberal. I will note, however, that I believe Obama to be a far more pragmatic politician than a "government-agenda-driven liberal." There is much in his demeanor and his record that implies he will govern in the Reagan mode of negotiating
and conceding the opposing view while making decisions he truly believes to be in the best interest of all Americans. One of these will be a health care system that is overseen, but not administered, by the government. Another is a economic policy driven by Volcker- and Rubin-esque practicality, not simple ideology.

As an unaffiliated voter who regularly splits his votes between the two parties, I'm firmly in support of Brooks' "progressive conservatism," and I truly hope it becomes the New Deal of the 21st century. When asked about my philosophy, I often note I am fiscally conservative but socially conscious. Ultimately, I simply feel I am pragmatic, and I hope the next Congress and the next President are as well.