Tag Archives: second district
On the Federal Budget Battle: Radio Essay for April9, 2011
When I wrote this piece, Budget Armageddon was at hand. The sun has not yet risen a scant 7 hours later, and it appears that budget catastrophe has been avoided. Details are sketchy but it looks like the focus turned more towards financial issues rather than social issues. There is a short continuing resolution that will feature Congressional debate before the Congress votes to approve this compromise. We will have to be patient as this day breaks to gain full insight into the solution. Notwithstanding the facts of the compromise, the content of this essay remains germane.
The year was 1944 and the Allies had landed at Normandy in June and pressed forward through Western Europe seemingly at will for the next six months. Now comes the dead of winter in Belgium’s Ardennes Forest and the Nazis capitalize on an exposed weakness and severely threaten the entire invasion. When offered a Nazi ultimatum to surrender, General Anthony McAuliffe simply answered, “nuts.” Enter General George Patton. Blood and guts George Patton, who spins and whirls and brings his Third Army into the fight to relieve Bastogne and one General McAuliffe. The Allies, of course, go on to defeat Hitler, win the war and secure the peace on the continent for the next 67 years.
Where is one to stand on this Battle of the Budget? Is there anyone coming to rescue us? Is John Boehner the latter day General McAuliffe saying, “Nuts,” to Senator Reed and President Obama? Or is it the specter of the Tea Party caucus putting those words in Mr. Boehner’s mouth. The problem is we really don’t know what is going on in the negotiations.
If one believes the NY Times, the Republicans are moving the end zone by feigning to fight for fiscal cuts to the budget while their real agenda is one of pressing social agenda issues and neutering the EPA on regulating greenhouse gas emissions. The Wall Street Journal seems to accuse the President of setting up this Battle of the Budget for political purposes of his own. It is an “all or nothing” gambit for the President. He has the power, through Executive Order, to make payments to our servicemen, to our seniors and to other important constituencies if he chooses. He does not. He is picking a fight.
But why fight this seemingly innocuous battle? Could it be that the real culprit in this current drama is not the Tea Party but the Democrats? Is it merely a smokescreen to fight on about a budget that was supposed to be wrapped up 7 months ago by a Congress entirely controlled by Democrats with a Democrat in the White House? If all we were talking about was money, 10, 20 or 30 billion dollars that would be one thing. What we are really talking about is the 2012 budget and the courageous piece of work put forward by Representative Paul Ryan of Wisconsin.
Let us be clear. The budget proposal put forth by Paul Ryan, the Republican budget proposal, is just that: a proposal. It is not necessarily a “Path to Prosperity,” as the subtitle implies any more that the Obama stimulus was the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.
The Ryan proposal is just a point of departure. It is fraught with risk and uncertainty. It contains optimistic assumptions that stretch out far into the future. What I admire about the proposal is that someone in Washington is actually looking out beyond the next election cycle. In the case of this silly budget impasse that threatens to shut down the government, we are focusing an inordinate amount of attention on a five month spending plan while the real problems of our time are fertilized by our neglect. The Democrats are trying to paint the Republicans, and the Tea Party, in particular, as cold hearted, insensitive demons bent on starving Grandma. What is true is that we are all going to have to let go of some degree of government largess. We do not need it and we cannot afford it. There are bills to pay today that we cannot manage and the bill compounds with each passing budget year.
I used to fear for the future of our grandchildren and our children. It is time to think about fearing for our own future. It is time to demand accountability from our elected officials in Washington and stop with the meaningless and frivolous rhetoric of politics and begin to think about making American exceptionalism more than just a campaign slogan. We needed someone to say, “nuts.” It looks like we got that. I wonder who played the role of General Patton?
Press on.
Filed under Essay, Uncategorized
On Libya: From Preaching to Meddling (Radio Essay for March 26, 2011)
Like most of you, I am a Baby Boomer. My father and your fathers fought in the Big One, WWII, before we were born and came home to start a family and restore some normalcy to their lives; to reap the benefits of battles hard fought and hard won; to preside over a period of Pax Americana.
The Cold War brought us direct and indirect conflicts: long term deployments and battles without declaration of war. In Korea, the bad guys wore a uniform and fought under a single flag. That was less so in Vietnam but, still, it was a nationalistic struggle. The Cold War-era conflicts were compact and constrained within national borders. In the end, we could negotiate a settlement with our enemies.
Enter the Post- Cold War era and the Persian Gulf War in 1991, ostensibly fought to liberate Kuwait. The 100 Hours War. It featured a large coalition of forces and a negotiated peace. We were led to Afghanistan in a direct line of sight to 9/11 and Iraq by the clear and present danger of weapons of mass destruction. Although absent a declaration of war, Congress approved our intervention in each of these engagements. We are still deeply involved in both conflicts and the toll on human suffering and death, our national treasure, and our relationship with the rest of the world has been immense. Yet, we stood our ground because our national interests were at stake. One can argue to what degree but that is an argument for another day.
Enter us this month into a Libyan conflict. We are told that we are there not for oil, not for US national interest, not for regime change, not to support an endangered ally, but to protect civilian casualties at the hand of a despotic leader whom the West has coddled and tolerated for 42 years. Why now? Why there? These are questions that we have every right to ask and every right to have answered.
I don’t see it. I really don’t. Half of the world lives in fear of lives from their government, rival tribes, warlords and religious factions who are at odds with each other. People in distress do not constitute a national calamity unless they are Americans in distress. When this is the case, we must go to the ends of our resources to protect them. If it is not, then a simple question should serve as a litmus test in whether the United States should commit military forces into an engagement: Is the objective worth the sacrifice of a single American life?
I submit to you that many endeavors are worth such a sacrifice. The storied annals of American history are filled with examples of glorious sacrifice for noble causes. Is it so with this Libyan incursion? Speaking as a man who has worn the uniform of this country, were this mission laid at my feet, I would have great concern over its objectives.
I am not a young man anymore. I am no longer called to fight but my son will be. In a few short months, he will don the uniform of this great country, with all of its mighty traditions and valiant history and do his duty to country. For this, I am very, very proud. But my son, and your sons and daughters, too, are our most precious resources. For me, it is not an even trade, an American life for a Libyan life. The President must preserve American lives abroad.
This is where the President has gone from preachin’ to meddlin.’ We are now fighting our third war. I predict that none of them will end this year or even next year. Our mission will not end in Iraq, the surge in Afghanistan must yield lasting results and the Libyan excursion will grow. Already, we have expanded a no-fly zone into a no-drive zone. Missions will surely creep. We certainly have US forces on the ground in Libya today to guide the airborne missions. We speak of arming and training rebels as if that alone will make them a potent fighting force. It will not. It will take boots on the ground, once again, to attempt that transformation. We have not been successful in training police and self-defense forces in Afghanistan or Iraq, as yet.
So, I ask again, where is the clear and present danger to the United States in the continued reign of Colonel Khadafy? There is no blueprint for a quick and easy solution in Libya, only protracted warfare and a limitless flow of American blood and treasure.
Mr. President, leave my son alone.
Press on.
Filed under Essay, Uncategorized
On Energy: Radio Essay for March 19, 2011
It has been more than one week since the earthquake and subsequent tsunami devastated the Fukoshima Daiichi power plant and plunged Japan and the rest of the world into a nuclear crisis. And it has been about a month since Libyan Colonel Muammar Khadafy determined to beat back civil insurgence with violence. Each incident has taken its toll on a common concern: the fragile state of worldwide energy supply.
On one hand, we have a stable, democratic government coping with a crisis involving the peaceful, though potentially catastrophic, use of nuclear energy for electrical consumption. On the other, we see the effects of oil production and supply running through the fundamentally unstable, despotically run regime of a Middle Eastern potentate. Ironically, the outcomes on a global scale are similar and the so are the lessons to be learned equally similar. Namely, providing power is not without risk and not immune to vulnerability.
No matter what your opinion of energy exploration and energy development may be the thirst for energy remains insatiable. The worldwide DEMAND for energy grows dramatically and threatens to outstrip reasonable supply within our lifetimes. The US is the largest consumer of energy. Our comfortable lifestyle and large industrial base places a heavy burden on global supplies. The full emergence of the so-called emerging economies is upon us. Their growing standards of living and increasing industrial output are sucking up any excess supply of non-renewable energy. The full recovery of the US economy is dependent in no small measure, on the continued supply of affordable oil. And this is not a given.
So what is a country to do? Drill, Baby, Drill? Maybe. Probably. But more is needed. Much more. There is a tendency to pooh-pooh alternative energies as too exotic or too expensive or too dangerous. All of this is in a state of flux around the demand equation. Some are exotic and expensive and dangerous. Taken individually, no one solution will ever close the gap between supply and demand. The truth is this: we need a bit of everything: nuclear, on-shore oil, off-shore oil, oil shale, nuclear fission, nuclear fusion, solar and wind, tidal and hydro. No one energy source offers a panacea. Given time, the natural balance of supply and demand will determine the winners and losers in the marketplace, not government. And government must resist the temptation to pick winners and losers though the arcade game of punitive taxation to drive social behavior. The market will provide. More specifically, the Free Market will provide.
Several nations have begun to express skepticism of the continued production of nuclear energy. German Chancellor Merkel is all-but-sounding the death knell for German nuclear plants 10 years hence. Wisely, Secretary of Energy, Steven Chu, has called for a review of the facts in the Fukoshima disaster but not for a moratorium on new construction. He is right to do so. Despite the impact of the strongest earthquake on record and a tsunami of biblical proportion, the disaster in Fukoshima was avoidable had the backup power been available. That is not extreme science; it is simply risk mitigation.
American power production loses over 50% of its output in transmission, and 1/3 of what is left through energy waste. We have the means today to eliminate the need for foreign oil through improved efficiency in home and commercial construction and residential electronics. Let’s get started on that.
We need a lot of arrows in the quiver on this one. The role of government in this should be to remove obstacles to development; let the market drive solutions; clear the path towards energy independence through the elimination of waste. Without a comprehensive approach to solving our problems, we might as well just kick the can down the road for the next generation to solve.
Press on.
Filed under Essay, Uncategorized
the american century 