Line of the State of the State
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From McQueary
This year, Madigan announced that Gov. Rod Blagojevich wished to be invited ? to which a comedian on the Republican side of the aisle shouted, “Roll call!”
2005
David Axelrod Like
You know except for the talent and judgment thing.
Leave it to a bunch of brainiacs to launch a company with a name like Urquhart Media, pronounced “Err-kit.”
Rhymes with … nothing.
The behind-the-scenes team of Dan Proft, Brian Timpone, Jeff Davis and Bill Pascoe formed a public affairs and consulting company they hope to grow into a David Axelrod-esque firm for Republicans. One of their specialties will be crisis communication, and they’ve certainly got experience there.
Two words: Alan Keyes.
Proft and Pascoe met while steering ? or shall I say rearing ? the self-destructive Keyes campaign.
The company is named after character Francis Urquhart, the loathsome but likable character in an early 1990s BBC series “House of Cards.”
“He’s a classic political figure,” Proft said.
No word if Axelrod has filed a defamation suit. I hear Proft likes to sue people. How is that John Kerry suit going by the way?
Pascoe is the king of bad press releases and oppo research that was nearly as bizarre as Keyes himself.
“Alan Keyes does not need a prime time slot at the Republican National Convention to get his message across,” Pascoe said. “Barack Obama needed to be pumped up by Democrats in Illinois and nationally because he is just so much hot air.”
To which State Democrats just have to respond with
SCOREBOARD!
Pascoe seems to be distancing himself from Keyes scorched earth strategy, but the problem is that is Pascoe’s strategy too.
Actually, the Illinois Democrats ought to fund them. Both Pascoe and Proft believe going to the right to win a primary is the way go and it’s working great so far in both New Jersey, where Pascoe managed Bret Schundler and worked with Doug Forrester and in Illinois where Proft has suggested that Senate Minotity Leader Frank Watson isn’t conservative enough in the Illinois Leader.
“a total process guy” “We’re not experts”
Okay, that’s a media campaign right there against the Governor. Tusk was quoted in relation to Hynes cancelling the contract for vaccine as saying Hynes is “a total process guy”
To which, Hynes responded appropriately:
Hynes responded in an interview printed Thursday in the Springfield State Journal-Register: “To admit you’re not very good at the process means you’re not very good at governing … Governing is not his strong suit.”
In democracy, the process is also the result and in this case, the result desired was admirable–to provide adequate flu vaccine to the citizens of Illinois.
However, another part of the process is ensuring that when there is a question of whether the vaccine can be provided in time, that the taxpayers aren’t being taken to the cleaner.
It’s a simple point and one that should be covered in the discussions–what is the downside and how do we protect against a worst case scenario?
Clearly that didn’t happen.
But lots of things aren’t happening. In dealing with Caremark over how much is being spent in relation to state employees and prescription drugs, the Blagojevich administration is backing the provider in Caremark’s bid to keep its prices secret from the public.
What’s unusual in this case is that Caremark, which has given $4,500 to Blagojevich’s campaign fund, argues that even its prices are trade secrets. The state’s administrative department says it has reviewed the company’s position and agrees.
“While I understand and appreciate your concern … we believe the information is legally exempt from disclosure,” Michael Rumman, director of the state Department of Central Management Services, wrote to the lawmakers on Jan. 4.
Department spokesman Willy Medina said the state is taking bids on a new contract and will include a requirement that the pricing information be released to the public.
Blagojevich spokeswoman Abby Ottenhoff said the governor has no opinion on the issue beyond hoping that a judge follows the “spirit of the law” when deciding whether the information can be disclosed.
“We’re not experts in intellectual property law,” Ottenhoff said.
But they are experts on changing the way business is done. And this is unusual, but not in the way one typically thinks of it not being business as usual.
It’s one thing to keep costs of each prescription hidden, but not identifying what one is charging to customers is ridiculous and it creates a significant problem for oversight as the Lege members are pointing out.
Changing the way business is done means making the process more open, not protecting state contractors.
So Iraqis Deserve Elections–How about Guatemalans?
Jerry Weller, or El Geraldo as others have put it, was part of the Purple Finger Caucuse the other evening.
Yep, the same El Geraldo who married the daughter of one Rios Montt, former dictator and serial human rights violator in Guatemala. That daughter is a chief political ally of the General’s as well, not just a pretty little thing in the corner.
If El Geraldo is so concerned with human rights and democracy can we expect a member of the Western Hemisphere Subcommittee of the International Affairs Committee to take a strong stand on Rios Montt’s extradition to Spain? After all, the rule of law is vital to democracy and Rios Montt is accused of a rather serious crime. in that case as well as in others.
Maybe Jeff can tell us how El Geraldo can both celebrate his solidarity with Iraqis when he got married at a lavish affair where his now father-in-law particpated despite his father-in-laws efforts to deny the right to vote to Guatemalans?
Doesn’t that seem a bit hypocritical? And doesn’t it suggest that Weller is less concerned about freedom and more about scoring political points?
Article on the DNC Chair Race
It’s being reported that Dean has the public endorsements he needs tow in the race and Simon Rosenberg officially withdrew. Ryan Lizza at the New Republic writes a great article that summarizes the race. (have to be a subscriber)
The strange thing is that the three candidates I was okay with were the three finalists. I’m not convinced Dean is the best solution simply because of the baggage he carries as Howard Dean. My biggest concern was that the State Chairs would extract too much and not seek to reform their own parties which is desperately needed because the desperate need is to build a farm team up from the bottom that is strong and less centered on incumbency in DC–a necessarily safe seat leaning view.
Dean may now be in the position of Gingrich who fought Bob Michel’s tendency towards compromise and getting what you can out of DC into full partisan warfare that brought the Republicans the Majority in both Houses.
Dean is in a position to build a true opposition party that isn’t worried about nibbling at the edges of legilslation, but providing a clear coherent attack on the ruling party’s agenda and thus an agenda to win, not just avoid losing more.
Gingrich was often seen as too ideological and too far right by many of the establishment Republicans during the late 1980s and early 1990s. But he won and he won not by compromise or moving to the middle, but by selling the ideas he liked that worked in the middle. By crafting a clear and coherent message on which to build his movement, he was able to define it in the middle even if overall he wasn’t. He took those ideas that were to the center of the public—term limits and balanced budgets and sold those while playing to his base on other issues. Gingrich then went too far and was stopped, but even then, his party still controls Congress. The parallels to the corruption in the Democratic Party in the 1990s with the lingering effects of Jim Wright and Rosty are very close to the problems we see developing around DeLay.
Dean, by laying claim to reform, can do the same now, though he needs to be able to convince the Washington players to go along.
Putting the Bush Administration’s Plans into Plain English
Fortunately for the Bush Administration, most Americans, including his opponents, have the attention spans of gnats. If this wasn’t the case, a little bit of work and there’d be a lot of screaming about social security privatization.
For those wanting to catch up, read Yglesias on the three distinct phases
The Clawback issue is dealt with by Krugman. Twice
Atrios continues to cover this issue from a technical perspective well, and links to DeLong who suggests the economists at the Council of Economic Advisors are
hacks and that if they were right, it’d be a good time to move out of stocks.
I was going to copy some of my lecture notes from a class I’ve taught in the past on the American Welfare State (such that it is) to explain the basics of social security, but Atrios does it fine here. It’s clear and I can’t improve upon it–especially since my notes are just that.
There is a problem with the Social Security system, but there is no crisis. The problem can be fixed in two ways. One is to reduce benefits and the other is to increase taxes. Trying to sell half ass non-plan as a free lunch is silly. It is in fact a lowering of benefits. Bush tries to sell it as an increase in the chance you’ll do better and strictly speaking that is true, but when one gets a higher chance at risk with the same cost, that’s a loss of value and effectively that is what this plan delivers by forcing you to utilize the same percentage of your income while increasing the risk. Make no mistake about this, on the face of this, this is a cut in benefits.
A Couple Things About Social Security
The most disturbing argument to date I heard on Diane Rehm the other day from David Keene of the American Conservative Union. Keene tried to argue that the money in the trust fund was a problem in paying back itself.
Now, this is a significant issue of confusion for most people. The money in the trust fund simply holds the money that is over and above what is being paid out now, but is the safest investment you can make. Make no mistake about it, most of the current expenditures in SS come from current payees into the system. The extra is then invested in government bonds.
Keene suggested that money couldn’t be paid back without deep affect on the federal budget–but that is grossly stupid to say unless one expects the federal government to default on its debt.
Federal bonds are sold to finance federal debt. Bond holders can be the guy down the street or foreign investors who take the bond as a safe investment because no one expects the US Government to default on its debt or devalue its currency so greatly that dollars become worthless. The dollar is now like gold was in years past.
So the extra money in the system is invested in bonds. To recover that money the federal government has to either pay back bonds without reissuing new ones or just issue new ones.
If they federal government cannot pay back bonds or issue new ones for social security, the country would be defaulting on its public debt which would have catastrophic implications for the global economy.
It does mean that when those bonds begin to be used for social security that if they can’t be retired–as a huge deficit has ensured is likely to be the case, then other borrowers must be found. Right now that isn’t a problem and other than having to adjust the rate paid to bondholders to loan the US money, it shouldn’t be a problem in the future.
Keene completely misunderstands or misrepresented this basic idea of how the government pays its debt. If the President is indeed suggesting that debt is not good as Keene did, that would be impeachable. Those who suggest the Trust Fund is illusory are proposing something that is unimaginable to the US economy.
Keene is economically incompetent or purposefully misleading people. Dionne let’s him off the hook too easily in the bit.
Many Reasons to Oppose Social Security Privatization
Atrios has a couple good posts for those who gloss over at the discussion of actuarial predictions, but I’ll introduce a different reason.
The many economic problems created by social security privatization aren’t nearly as bad as the likely political problem created by social security privatization. No system of private accounts can guarantee the same level of support for beneficiaries as the current system can. At best, such a system will be uneven, as is the basis of any system with increased risk. But what happens when retirees find that they don’t have enough to pay bills?
Two things to think about here.
1) Who votes?
Answer: Old people
2) Who else votes?
Answer: Middle aged people who really don’t want their elderly parents moving in.
So what does any government elected from the two groups above do?
Answer: Make them happy.
So when a bunch of bad decisions are made by private account holders or the government depending on the mechanism and there isn’t enough to support seniors how seniors were supported previously, the logic of political action is that the government will move to make benefits similar to those before and hence, blow a hole in the budget again and regulate the investment mechanisms being used then more.
So if you want the government more involved in the stock markets and how they operate beyond fixing information assymetries, push a privatization plan and wait to become more like France.
Mike Kelleher Headed to Georgia
No, not Atlanta, but T?bilisi. He’ll be working for the National Democratic Institute (NDI) for International Affairs. He’ll be training civic leaders in the institutions and processes of democracy.
NDI has done a great job in Eastern Europe and someone like Mike will be a great fit. Robin Carnahan, now Missouri’s Secretary of State, was involved in NDI. In addition, it was a critical voice during the recent elections in the Ukraine.
Best of luck to the Kellehers.