The Republican Party's Mission is Done

About a year ago, I was at the Nixon Library. I had been to the Reagan Library months before and compared to that, the Nixon Library had very few visitors. Something to do with Watergate and resignation.

The docent said that about a quarter of the visitors to the Nixon Library are from China. The Chinese remember Nixon as the president whose visit helped to open up China to the rest of the world; Nixon visited China in the early 1970s and by the end of the 1970s, Deng Xiaoping had become China’s leader. Deng would begin the economic changes that began China’s amazing economic growth and opened it up to the rest of the world.

From the time of Lincoln – their first president – to about WWII, Republicans were focused on a domestic policy of making ours an industrial rather than agricultural economy. After WWII, Republicans were focused on a foreign policy of spreading capitalism to the rest of the world.

Eisenhower’s Marshall Plan helped to rebuild Europe and Japan after WII. Nixon visited China. Reagan stood in Berlin and told Gorbachev “Bring down this wall.” Bush and Cheney invaded Iraq, promising to make it a beacon of democracy and capitalism.

But a curious thing happened.

As Republicans were busily exporting policies for an industrial economy to the rest of the world, that industrial economy was – like the agricultural economy before it – being eclipsed by a new economy.

Trump’s policy seems weird but has an odd kind of logic seen from this perspective. It is quite possible that in his mind, seeing that the industrial economy has been successfully exported around the world (particularly in China), it is now his job to revive the domestic policy of creating an industrial economy here. This shift in focus to foreign countries has caused us to lose the industrial economy that made us great, made us a world power. It is his mission to recreate it.


But of course, the Republicans are where the Democratic Party was at the time of Lincoln: promoting policies for an economy already eclipsed. At the time of Lincoln, the agricultural economy had been eclipsed by the industrial economy At the time of Trump, the industrial economy has been eclipsed by the information economy.

Republican identity is so bound with capitalism (which I would say is a crude synonym for industrial economy), that it is not clear that they can shift to a new identity now that their mission is done. In any case, reviving the past has never seemed a particularly effective way to create the future.

Trump's Most Baffling Policy (Or, yet another chapter in Trump's on-going battle with the future)

We beat the Nazis because we had better manufacturing and research capacity. We invented the atom bomb before they did. We made tanks and planes faster than they could.

Near the end of the war, FDR asked Vannevar Bush to explore how wartime research efforts could be transformed into peace time efforts to create new technologies and jobs and to increase life expectancy. Out of Bush's recommendations, captured in Science, the Endless Frontier, came the National Science Foundation which has steadily grown since, providing funding for the basic research that is life-changing over generations.

Bush had great insight into the importance of research and how it is best conducted. Speaking of basic research that doesn't immediately translate into a new product, he wrote about how medical research could be supported within medical schools and universities.

Apart from teaching, however, the primary obligation of the medical schools and universities is to continue the traditional function of such institutions, namely, to provide the individual worker with an opportunity for free, untrammeled study of nature, in the directions and by the methods suggested by his interests, curiosity, and imagination. The history of medical science teaches clearly the supreme importance of affording the prepared mind complete freedom for the exercise of initiative. 

As the United States acted on recommendations such as Bush's, our country clearly took the lead in the creation of new technology, industries and companies. The National Science Foundation is both reality and symbol of our on-going support for research. Bush saw in research the basis for our economic progress as well: 

Where will these new products come from? How will we find ways to make better products at lower cost? The answer is clear. There must be a stream of new scientific knowledge to turn the wheels of private and public enterprise. There must be plenty of men and women trained in science and technology for upon them depend both the creation of new knowledge and its application to practical purposes.

As it turns out, support for research is non-partisan. Since its creation, leaders of both parties have steadily increased the amounts they've asked for to fund the National Science Foundation. Until now.

Trump is the first president to cut average funding from his predecessor. (Or more precisely, request that the average be lowered during his administration. Presidents make a request and Congress makes the appropriation.) Add to his list of leadership qualities, "Not a fan of scientific progress. Facts? I don't need research for that. I can make those up."

Among the institutions he's trying to erode is this most basic tool for progress. His desire to cut even research funding might be the most baffling of his attempts to retreat from the modern world.

Basic research matters. We rightfully pay attention to the Fed's policy when it comes to setting interest rates because that can change investment and spending. The National Science Foundation doesn't just affect investment but actually is an investment in intellectual capital, which is the basis for new technologies, industries, companies, jobs, and wealth. Research takes longer to work than interest rates, but has a bigger effect. I would argue that a slowdown in research funding results in a slowdown in productivity and wage growth. But of course something with a 20-year lag struggles to get much attention in this world of 20-second attention spans.

The amount we fund the National Science Foundation seems paltry to me. Even at its peak, it never even hit even one-tenth of one percent of GDP and it has averaged 4/100th of one percent of GDP in its lifetime. It seems to me that we could hardly err by making it larger each year. Much larger. But alas, the man who looks at our economy and concludes that the rich are not rich enough and the poor are not poor enough has also decided that we know quite enough already. That hardly seems the case to me. 

How Podcasts Could Reverse the Influence of Talk Radio

During his thirty-year career, Martin Luther produced 544 separate books, pamphlets, or articles, slightly more than one every three weeks. He was responsible for over a fifth of the entire output of pamphlets by German presses in the 1520s, the master of the possibilities that the Gutenberg press had unlocked.

That changed religion in the West. The Protestant Revolution shifted power from church to state.

In 1987 the Reagan Administration repealed the Fairness Doctrine that meant broadcasters were no longer obligated to dedicate programming to public interest or to represent opposing points of view. This was a boon to conservative talk radio. Between 1987 and 1992, the number of talk radio stations in the country rose from 240 to 900, and Rush Limbaugh came along, the master of advocacy reporting.

That changed politics in the US. From 1931 to 1995, Democrats had controlled congress 30 out of 32 sessions. After the rise of talk radio, Democrats controlled the House in only 2 of 12 sessions. The 2018 election made it 3 out of 13.

The 2018 election was the first post-podcast election. It was a blue wave. Obviously there is a lot more going on than podcasts (in the same way that a lot more was going on in politics after 1995 than talk radio) but the long-form of podcasts might do for wonky politics what talk radio did for conservative politics, giving an edge to the folks who take longer than 4 minutes between commercials to make their point.

Change in Deficits From Reagan to Trump

Here is a chart showing the change in deficit from the first year of a president's term to the first year of his successor's term, the difference between what he inherited and what he left. It covers a span of 36 years. A negative number means that the president made the deficit smaller and a positive number means that he made it larger.

Reagan inherited a deficit of $419 billion and left George H. Bush a deficit of $252 billion. The deficit was $167.2 billion smaller by the time George took office, hence the -$167.2 in the graph above for the first bar.

Bush 1 turned the $252 billion he inherited into a $365.8 billion legacy for Clinton, increasing the deficit by $113.8 B.

Clinton turned this deficit into a surplus for his successor, reducing the deficit by half a trillion.

George W. Bush turned that surplus into the biggest deficit in history, a swing of nearly $1.6 trillion.

Obama whittled down the $1.4 trillion deficit he inherited into a still sizable $590 billion.

Trump is projected to increase that $590 billion into nearly $849 billion this year.

3 of the last 4 Republican presidents have increased the size of the deficit and both Democratic presidents have reduced it, suggesting that if you actually care about deficit reduction, you would not vote for Republicans. You can hate big deficits or love Republicans but you can't honestly do both.

Did the Conservatives Win the Last Election?

President Obama on Saturday said his new stimulus bill would deliver the fastest and broadest tax cut ever and would usher in "the most sweeping economic recovery plan in history."

When conservatives win, they aren't eager to pass environmental protection legislation or pull out of wars to appease liberals. Yet when liberals win, the first thing they do is rush to enact the fastest tax cut?

Give Reagan credit. He seems to have made tax cuts a new requirement for any administration - conservative or liberal.

Now if we could just find a president who would make each administration as eager to avoid war as taxes ...

Obama, Kennedy & Voter Fraud

Current polls indicate that Obama will win about two thirds of the electoral votes. Pundits are talking about a landslide. This is not, historically, a landslide. FDR got 99%, Reagan 98% and Nixon 97% in victories. That is a landslide.

This chart shows how, during the last century going back to the 1908 election, the Republicans have won about 51% of the electoral votes, the Democrats about 47% and third-party candidates almost 2%. As you can see, the close elections that twice gave us George W. are really anomalies.

I've included Obama's latest poll numbers in this graph. You can see how it compares with the results over history. (Click on it to make it larger.)



Look at 1960. Although Kennedy won by a comfortable margin of victory in the electoral vote, his margin of victory in the popular vote was only .17% - not even two-tenth of one percent. Historians seem to agree that Kennedy won by voter fraud. Try this thought experiment. What if Nixon had won in 1960, been assassinated in 1963, and Kennedy had served two terms starting in 1969, at age 51? (You can decide whether his second term would have also ended in impeachment (likely for his conduct with an intern rather than breaking and entering into the Watergate apartments). It is hard to think of a better argument against voter fraud than that scenario.

DATA FROM GRAPH from Dave Leip's Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections
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At other blogs
Political Irony - Imaginary Voter Fraud
YouDecide2008 Voting Fraud Fears Grow
AskCherLock An Obama Landslide
Baseball Nooby The Evaporating Obama Landslide

We Paid This Guy Twice What We Paid Clinton and Reagan?

The main stream media reported that the economy has performed pitifully under George W. The S&P 500 is down 11% in this, his first 7.5 years. You would have done better putting your money under a rock in the backyard than you would have done with it in the stock market. Under Bush, only 5.1 million jobs have been created. This in stark contrast to the 23 million created during Clinton’s 8 years. Under Reagan, 16 million were created. (During the elder Bush’s 4 years, only 2.5 million. It is not just the English language that seems to give the Bush men trouble.)

But it does not take much for the numbers to look even worse under this most recent Bush president. For all his talk of a smaller government and the importance of business, the growth of jobs in the private sector is terrible. Under Reagan, the total number of jobs grew by 18%; private sector jobs grew by 20%. Under Clinton, the total number of jobs grew by 25%; private sector jobs grew by 24%. Not only was job creation robust during Reagan and Clinton’s terms, but the growth did not much rely on the expansion of government.

By contrast, Bush’s anemic 6% growth (less than a fourth of what it was under Clinton and a third of what it was under Reagan) drops by half when the growth in government jobs is factored out. Private sector job growth under Bush has been only 3%.

Given how much government work has been privatized, I’m sure that this anemic number would drop even more if I could factor out the jobs technically in the private sector but paid for by government contracts.

Not only has Bush failed to address looming financial shortfalls in entitlement programs as baby boomers begin to retire – reversing the budget surpluses of Clinton’s administration and turning them into record deficits – he has failed to put in place any kind of economic policy that stimulates job creation. His incessant mantra of tax cuts has not just been proven to be no panacea – it scarcely seems to work.

And even sadder, Bush's annual salary has been twice that of Clinton or Reagan. Bush is the first president to make $400,000 a year. In other words, we paid Bush as much as we paid Clinton and Reagan combined.

Politics & the Comedian Conspiracy Theory

Rumor has it that Mitt Romney came across as most Reaganesque in the recent debates, leading the panicked Al Sharpton to say, “those that really believe in God will defeat him.” Meanwhile, Romney said that his favorite book was Battlefield Earth by L. Ron Hubbard. (Sharpton latter retracted his comment, as did Romney, who clarified that Battlefield Earth is merely his favorite novel and that the Bible is actually his favorite book.)

This raises so many questions.

One, does Sharpton blame his own past defeats as a presidential candidate on the fact that he, himself, doesn't "really believe in God?" or on the fact that "God doesn't really believe in Al?"

Two, could it be that Romney has actually read less than Bush? I mean, how else to explain the fact that his favorite book is by a man who actually began to believe that his own science fiction plots were the explanation of life on earth? Has Romney even read other novels? And if Battlefield Earth really was your favorite novel, would you actually tell anyone? Doesn't that show a terrible lapse in judgment? And if your given name was "Mitt," wouldn't you be more inclined to provide the title of a serious and respected novel?

Three, how did Reagan, the man who decided that ketchup could be counted as a vegetable in school lunches, get to be a minor deity in the Republican Party?

Four, are comedians like Jon Stewart, David Letterman, and Jay Leno actually the true force behind the vetting of politicians? Is it time to launch a comedian conspiracy theory that explains the fact that politicians seemingly can't get into the national limelight until they've passed a test proving some minimal level of absurdity?

Five, why couldn't I have just been fascinated by sports, like other guys?