1. More Fallout from the Republican Budget Mess, with Update
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Parks need legislative approval to remain open
by Garry Rayno, unionleader.com, August 25, 2015
CONCORD — State parks could close as leaf-peeping tourists flood the state unless the Joint Legislative Fiscal Committee approves $1.14 million in emergency funding Wednesday.
The state currently operates under a six-month continuing resolution holding state agencies to half of what they spent during the 2015 fiscal year. Gov. Maggie Hassan vetoed the 2016-2017 budget approved by Republican lawmakers; negotiations are stalled over a new spending plan.
Under the continuing resolution, the fiscal committee can approve emergency funding for an agency.
Department of Resources and Economic Development Commissioner Jeffrey Rose asked the committee to approve the emergency funding to keep the park system operating. Otherwise, parks would have to close in the latter half of September, he said.
“Without approval of this request, the Division of Parks and Recreation will have to curtail operations and close parks due to lack of staffing and supplies,” Rose wrote to committee members. “This will affect access to outdoor recreation by the citizens of the state and visitors to the state during the late summer and fall.”
Rose said the issue is not revenue, as the parks are having a fantastic summer season with great weather, high occupancy at campgrounds and good attendance.
Hassan urged the Republicans on the committee to approve the request.
“New Hampshire’s state parks are critical to our travel and tourism industry, economy and high quality of life,” Hassan’s Communications Director William Hinkle said in a statement.
A month ago, the committee balked at approving several Department of Transportation emergency requests for equipment purchase and winter maintenance, saying it was not an emergency.
Last month, the committee turned down or tabled 10 of 40 items including the three for the Department of Transportation.
Committee Chairman Rep. Neal Kurk, R-Weare, said he expects the proceedings to move in the traditional manner Wednesday, noting the committee is now comfortable enough with the continuing resolution after going through the first round of requests.
Lawmakers return to Concord Sept. 16 to act on the bills Hassan vetoed, including the budget package.
The state currently operates under a six-month continuing resolution holding state agencies to half of what they spent during the 2015 fiscal year. Gov. Maggie Hassan vetoed the 2016-2017 budget approved by Republican lawmakers; negotiations are stalled over a new spending plan.
Under the continuing resolution, the fiscal committee can approve emergency funding for an agency.
Department of Resources and Economic Development Commissioner Jeffrey Rose asked the committee to approve the emergency funding to keep the park system operating. Otherwise, parks would have to close in the latter half of September, he said.
“Without approval of this request, the Division of Parks and Recreation will have to curtail operations and close parks due to lack of staffing and supplies,” Rose wrote to committee members. “This will affect access to outdoor recreation by the citizens of the state and visitors to the state during the late summer and fall.”
Rose said the issue is not revenue, as the parks are having a fantastic summer season with great weather, high occupancy at campgrounds and good attendance.
Hassan urged the Republicans on the committee to approve the request.
“New Hampshire’s state parks are critical to our travel and tourism industry, economy and high quality of life,” Hassan’s Communications Director William Hinkle said in a statement.
A month ago, the committee balked at approving several Department of Transportation emergency requests for equipment purchase and winter maintenance, saying it was not an emergency.
Last month, the committee turned down or tabled 10 of 40 items including the three for the Department of Transportation.
Committee Chairman Rep. Neal Kurk, R-Weare, said he expects the proceedings to move in the traditional manner Wednesday, noting the committee is now comfortable enough with the continuing resolution after going through the first round of requests.
Lawmakers return to Concord Sept. 16 to act on the bills Hassan vetoed, including the budget package.
Lawmakers Approve Money For State Parks, Hold Back On Transportation Funding
by Josh Rogers, nhpr.org, August 26, 2015
Without a quick $1.5 million, NH parks would have lacked the money to remain open during foliage season.
Transportation officials, meanwhile, sought $3 million dollars to pay for road construction projects slated for this fall.
Both requests would mean spending beyond the cash appropriated for the six month temporary budget, which prorates spending at last year's level.
Neal Kurk, chairman of the Legislative Fiscal Committee, says spending now on state parks makes sense.
But the case for moving fast on road projects, says Kurk, is less urgent.
“I think some of it had to do with the fact that we are not really clear that they are absolutely essential to be done in the fall, and some of it has to do with the fact that some of us believe that there are consequences to the Governor’s veto of the budget and one of them is that things that normally would have gotten done, will not get done, or will get delayed.”
In a statement, Governor Hassan thanked lawmakers for keeping parks open. But Hassan said she was concerned that decisions to reject funding for transportation were “motivated by politics.”
Hassan vetoed lawmakers $11.3 billion dollar budget in June.
Efforts by both sides to broker a compromise have so far fallen flat.
Lawmakers are slated return to Concord in three weeks to vote on an override of Hassan’s veto.
2. New Polls: Candidates and Pot
New poll shows Trump continues to enjoy a wide lead in N.H.; Sanders pulls ahead
by Ella Nilsen, concordmonitor.com, August 26, 2015
The latest New Hampshire poll shows Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders leading the Democratic field and Republican candidate Donald Trump far ahead of his challengers.
Among 436 Republican candidates surveyed by Public Policy Polling, 35 percent said they support Trump. Ohio Gov. John Kasich and Carly Fiorina trail the billionaire businessman, with 11 percent and 10 percent, respectively.
“This is by far the best we’ve found Donald Trump doing anywhere during his entire surge,” said Public Policy Polling’s president, Dean Debnam. “If anything, he just seems to be getting stronger as the campaign rolls on.”
The rest of the Republican candidates are polling at single digits in New Hampshir: Former Florida governor Jeb Bush and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker each have 7 percent; Dr. Ben Carson with 6 percent; New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and Florida Sen. Marco Rubio all with 4 percent; and Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul with 3 percent.
Candidates outside of the top-10 include former Texas governor Rick Perry with 2 percent; South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, former New York governor George Pataki and former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum with 1 percent; former Virginia governor Jim Gilmore, former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee and Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal polling with fewer than 1 percent, each.
Pollsters at Public Policy Polling said the biggest takeaway about this poll on the Republican side is the steep drop in Walker’s popularity, from 24 percent to 7 percent, which they called “cataclysmic.”
They also found that Bush is “really struggling” in the Granite State, with more voters seeing him unfavorably than those who like him as a candidate.
On the Democratic side, Sanders now leads the state with 42 percent compared to 35 percent for former secretary of state Hillary Clinton, out of 370 likely Democratic voters surveyed.
Pollsters noted that Sanders was ahead with liberal and moderate voters alike, and that 78 percent of Democrats see Sanders favorably, as opposed to 63 percent who see Clinton the same way.
“We still find Hillary Clinton well ahead everywhere else, but it’s clear at this point that there’s a real race in the Granite State,” Debnam said.
Former Virginia senator Jim Webb has 6 percent, former Maryland governor Martin O’Malley has 4 percent, former Rhode Island governor Lincoln Chafee has 2 percent and activist and Harvard professor Lawrence Lessig has 1 percent.
Some Breakdown from the Democratic Poll
by Public Policy Polling Institute, publicpolicypolling.com, August 25, 2015
[To see all various breakdowns from the complete poll, click on the following link:
Poll: Granite Staters don’t want federal government interfering on marijuana law
by Nick Reid, concordmonitor.com, August 26, 2015
New Hampshire voters from a variety of backgrounds overwhelmingly want the federal government to respect state laws on marijuana when they conflict with federal law, according to a new poll.
Seventy-three percent of respondents believe states “should be able to carry out their own marijuana laws without federal interference,” while 15 percent believe the federal government “should arrest and prosecute people who are following state marijuana laws,” according to the poll, which asked 841 local voters eight questions by phone and internet between Aug. 21 and 24.
It was conducted by Public Policy Polling and paid for by Marijuana Majority, a pro-marijuana group that says it “is dedicated to helping people understand that marijuana reform is a mainstream, majority-supported issue.” It conducted a similar poll in Iowa earlier this month, which found about equal results.
Support for the states’ rights to decide for themselves about marijuana was strongest among voters who identified as more liberal; however, 67 percent of Republicans and 63 percent of those who identified as “very conservative” said the federal government shouldn’t interfere. Seventy-seven percent of Democrats and 76 percent of independents agreed.
Iowa Republicans and conservatives were marginally less supportive, but Democrats there were slightly more supportive than Granite Staters.
When viewed by age group, younger voters in New Hampshire were far more likely than their older counterparts to say the federal government should prosecute people who are following state law yet violating federal law. Twenty-four percent of those ages 18 to 29 agreed with that notion, as opposed to 10 percent of those 30 to 45; 17 percent aged 46 to 65; and 15 percent older than 65.
Tom Angell, the chairman of Marijuana Majority, said the poll results should speak to presidential candidates seeking support in early-voting states.
“Candidates who say they would send in the DEA to shut down legal, taxpaying marijuana businesses are effectively announcing that they’re out of the mainstream and out of touch with the voters they need support from in order to get elected. That type of rhetoric is just not going to score any points in 2016,” he said in a statement.
The New Hampshire poll has a margin of error of 3.4 percent.
3. For Republicans--Another Set of Second Class Citizens
On Women’s Equality Day, Republicans Continue To Face Backlash Over Attacks On Planned Parenthood, Women’s Health
by Ajacobs, nhdp.org, August 26, 2015
Concord, N.H. – On Women’s Equality Day, Republicans up and down the ticket are continuing to face backlash in New Hampshire over their out-of-touch attacks on Planned Parenthood and women’s access to quality, affordable health care.
Yesterday, Connecticut Governor Dannel Malloy joined Senator Donna Soucy and Representative Cindy Rosenwald in Concord to stand strong against attacks on women’s health from Republicans like Kelly Ayotte and Chris Sununu.
And today, six Democratic women lawmakers sent an open letter to Granite Staters highlighting the backwards and dangerous agendas of GOP presidential candidates like Marco Rubio, Scott Walker, John Kasich, and Jeb Bush.
See coverage roundup below:
Concord Monitor: Connecticut governor criticizes Executive Council, Republicans on Planned Parenthood vote
Connecticut Gov. Dannel Malloy took aim at the Executive Council on Tuesday, slamming Republican members for voting down a Planned Parenthood contract in a move he called “a slap in the face to women in this state.”
… On Tuesday morning, he stopped by the State House for a press conference with state Sen. Donna Soucy and Rep. Cindy Rosenwald to call on the Executive Council to reconsider its vote.
… Malloy called the vote pandering.
“It’s emblematic of a national war on women the Republican party has been running,” said Malloy, a second-term Democrat. [Full story]
WMUR: Democratic women lawmakers hit Republican candidates on women’s health issues
Six Democratic women lawmakers say Republican presidential candidates are pushing backwards policies on women’s health.
“Like so many of you, we’ve spent the last few weeks feeling like we were trapped in a time machine,” the lawmakers wrote in an “open letter to Granite Staters,” to be released Wednesday by the New Hampshire Democratic Party.
Republican efforts to defund Planned Parenthood is the primary focus of the letter by state Sen. Donna Soucy of Manchester and Reps. Susan Almy of Lebanon, Sue Ford of Easton, Martha Hennessey of Hanover, Cindy Rosenwald of Nashua and Suzanne Smith of Hebron.
The letter notes that U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, who is in the state Wednesday, has said he opposes abortions with no exceptions, although he has said he would back legislation that would include exceptions in cases of rape, incest and when the life of the mother is threatened. It notes that Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker has called choosing between the life of a pregnant woman and her fetus a “false choice,” and Ohio Gov. John Kasich signed into law a bill that banned late-term abortions with no exceptions for cases of rape or incest.
The lawmakers note that former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush said during the Fox News debate earlier this month, “As governor of Florida, I defunded Planned Parenthood.”
“Marco Rubio and his Republican colleagues are simply pushing policies that are not only blasts from the past, but they hurt women and families,” the lawmakers wrote. [Full story]
4. Lack of Oversight
How N.H.'s Homeschoolers Became Virtually Untraceable
by Rick Ganley and Michael Brindley, nhpr.org, August 26, 2015
Homeschooling continues to gain in popularity across the country, and by most accounts, here in the Granite State, as well.
But tracking how many children are being homeschooled in New Hampshire now is easier said than done.
That’s because parents are no longer required to file annual notifications of intent to homeschool.
New Hampshire is one of just six states that only require a one-time notification when homeschooling begins.
5. Joint Fundraising
State Democratic Party, Clinton campaign set up joint fundraising committee
Committee allows donors to write large checks for general election activities
by John DiStaso, wmur.com, August 25, 2015
MANCHESTER, N.H. —Perhaps looking ahead to a possible general election effort, Hillary Clinton’s campaign has teamed with the New Hampshire Democratic Party to set up a joint fundraising committee to allow large donors to contribute to her campaign and to a general election grassroots organizing effort by the party.
The New York Times reported Tuesday that Clinton’s campaign is moving to set up similar fundraising agreements with several state parties and already has arrangement in four states, including New Hampshire.
The arrangement prompted a spokesman for the Republican National Committee to repeat a frequent charge that the Democratic establishment favors Clinton.
“It’s just another sign that the Democrats are trying to hurry along the coronation of Hillary Clinton,” Republican National Committee deputy press secretary Raffi Williams said.
But state party chairman Raymond Buckley said he offered identical arrangements to the campaigns of the other Democratic presidential contenders, proving that there is no favoritism. The state party also announced this week that all five Democrats running for president will attend the party's convention on Sept. 19.
Joint fundraising committees are not unusual during general elections, and are even occasionally set up during party primaries.
“It allows someone to write a singular check and have it allocated,” Buckley said. “Our portion would be segregated into general election activities only. It allows candidates a year out to plan for a more effective grassroots operation during the general election.”
He said the party’s share of the proceeds will be specifically directed to general election field operations. New Hampshire is regarded as a swing state in general elections, although it has votes for Democratic presidential candidates in 2012, 2008, 2004, 1996 and 1992.
“It is very common for state parties to enter into these arrangements,” Buckley said. “We did it with our congressional candidates.
"I don't think it is ever too early to start preparing to win the general election. State parties can sign such a fundraising agreement with each of the candidates and I've told them all I'm willing sign one for them."
According to the Center for Responsive Politics’ OpenSecrets.org, “Participants in the JFC can't take any more money from a donor than they could if the money was given directly, but this vehicle allows a donor to write one very large check.
“Before the 2014 McCutcheon v. FEC decision, the checks donors wrote to JFCs were subject to overall aggregate limits. Following the decision, those limits were removed, opening up the possibility of JFCs that involve many candidates or committees, which can then solicit one donor for a mega-contribution.”
In the 2014 McCutcheon decision, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that there can be no aggregate limit on the amount of money that an individual can contribute to federal candidates and other political committees, meaning that donors can contribute to as many campaign and other political committees as they choose.
The Federal Election Commission says that while the decision removed a pre-existing overall cap on individual contributions, it did not affect limits on individual contributions to specific federal candidate campaigns, political action committees or party committees. Those limits are $2,700 per election for individuals, $5,000 per year for PACs and $10,000 per year for state district and local parties.
The point of joint fundraising committees is to streamline the fundraising process and encourage national donors who would not otherwise do so to contribute to a state party.
The funds contributed are allocated to each participant based on federal limits, allowing the party to receive funds in excess of those allowed to go to the candidate’s campaign.
The agreements allow state parties to have access to national donors who give to candidates. It allows the parties to raise more money than they could normally raise, and then use it to fund field operations for the general election.
The state Republican Party has not set up similar arrangements with any of the presidential candidates, a spokesman said. But last year, U.S. Senate candidate Scott Brown set up joint fundraising committees with the National Republican Senatorial Committee and three other Republican Senate candidates.
6. Trumping Sanity in New Hampshire
Trump upends New Hampshire’s substantive tradition
by Albert R. Hunt, bloombergview.com, August 23, 2015
The shape of the Republican presidential nomination race and the fate of the traditional New Hampshire primary were crystallized by three town hall meetings in the state last week.
Ohio Gov. John Kasich, at the Elks Lodge in Salem, and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, at the Historical Society of Cheshire County in Keene, each had healthy give-and-take sessions with more than 100 voters that lasted more than an hour. These were in the tradition of New Hampshire politics.
In between those forums, Donald Trump packed a Derry auditorium with 20 times as many people for a gathering that more closely resembled an angry revival meeting or professional wrestling match.
For more than a half century, New Hampshire has been a proving ground for vetting and testing presidential hopefuls, forcing them to hone their political and policy knowledge. If the Trump model prevails, it not only could change the fabric of the party but also could spell an end to this substantive, searching type of retail politics.
The town halls of Bush and Kasich, the top two mainstream Republican candidates, weren’t absolute models of thoughtful citizen engagement; there were confrontational moments. Somebody asked Bush whether he’d been on a clandestine C-130 that the questioner alleged had ferried Saudi agents out of the U.S. the day after the Sept. 11 attacks.
Kasich was grilled on Social Security by Jane Lang, with the Alliance for Retired Americans. The demonstrative governor went over and hugged her. Asked later about his answer, she replied: “What answer?”
These two sessions featured pretty good questions and reasonably thoughtful answers on jobs, the environment, Russia, Social Security, abortion and disabilities. That’s the New Hampshire way.
By contrast, the Trump rally was almost content-free. The real estate mogul mixed insults, invective, bravado and bluster. He said that Jeb Bush was “dumb” and that Mitt Romney lost the 2012 presidential contest because “he choked.”
Asked beforehand by a reporter to list specific achievements to back his claim to be a champion of women’s issues, Trump responded: “Nobody will be better on women’s health issues than Donald Trump.” That was it.
When a woman asked one of the few substantive questions at the town hall — whether he would include more policy prescriptions on his website — the Republican front-runner began discoursing on his business acumen and recalled “scooping up the Doral Hotel.”
The crowd, young and old, lapped it up. Ken Brand, a 56- year-old Derry resident who periodically leapt to his feet yelling, “Bring it on, Donald,” loved the message: “He’s going to build that wall to keep Mexicans out and ship those 11 million illegals the hell out of here.”
Trump is setting the agenda, dominating the debate in New Hampshire. As Kasich emerged from an education forum in Londonderry, the first three questions he was asked were about Trump and immigration. Bush had a similar experience in Keene, only with more questions about Trump.
Trump belittles most of his opponents — though he praises Sen. Ted Cruz and the neurosurgeon Ben Carson, and has spared Kasich — but displays special venom toward Bush.
The Bush camp says this will energize their campaign as their candidate fights back by citing all of Trump’s nonconservative positions and telling voters that his anti-immigration initiatives — building a wall on the border that Mexico will pay for, deporting 11 million undocumented immigrants, ending birthright citizenship and remittances to home countries — “are not going to happen.”
If this were an academically scored debate, Bush would win easily on substance. But it’s more like a street brawl, and Trump is on familiar ground.
There still are 170 days before the New Hampshire contest, which often has selected the ultimate nominee or sent a resounding message about the general election. The state’s voters break late and are unpredictable, which is why many politicos here suspect the Trump phenomenon will fade. It didn’t look that way in Derry.
AND NATIONALLY
7. Insecure Workers
The Upsurge in Uncertain Work
by Robert Reich, robertreich.org, August 23, 2015
As Labor Day looms, more Americans than ever don’t know how much they’ll be earning next week or even tomorrow.
This varied group includes independent contractors, temporary workers, the self-employed, part-timers, freelancers, and free agents. Most file 1099s rather than W2s, for tax purposes.
On demand and on call – in the “share” economy, the “gig” economy, or, more prosaically, the “irregular” economy – the result is the same: no predictable earnings or hours.
It’s the biggest change in the American workforce in over a century, and it’s happening at lightening speed. It’s estimated that in five years over 40 percent of the American labor force will have uncertain work; in a decade, most of us.
Increasingly, businesses need only a relatively small pool of “talent” anchored in the enterprise – innovators and strategists responsible for the firm’s unique competitive strength.
Everyone else is becoming fungible, sought only for their reliability and low cost.
Complex algorithms can now determine who’s needed to do what and when, and then measure the quality of what’s produced. Reliability can be measured in experience ratings. Software can seamlessly handle all transactions – contracts, billing, payments, taxes.
All this allows businesses to be highly nimble – immediately responsive to changes in consumer preferences, overall demand, and technologies.
While shifting all the risks of such changes to workers.
Whether we’re software programmers, journalists, Uber drivers, stenographers, child care workers, TaskRabbits, beauticians, plumbers, Airbnb’rs, adjunct professors, or contract nurses – increasingly, we’re on our own.
And what we’re paid, here and now, depends on what we’re worth here and now – in a spot-auction market that’s rapidly substituting for the old labor market where people held jobs that paid regular salaries and wages.
Even giant corporations are devolving into spot-auction networks. Amazon’s algorithms evaluate and pay workers for exactly what they contribute.
Apple directly employs fewer than 10 percent of the 1 million workers who design, make and sell iMacs and iPhones.
This giant risk-shift doesn’t necessarily mean lower pay. Contract workers typically make around $18 an hour, comparable to what they earned as “employees.”
Uber and other ride-share drivers earn around $25 per hour, more than double what the typical taxi driver takes home.
The problem is workers don’t know when they’ll earn it. A downturn in demand, or sudden change in consumer needs, or a personal injury or sickness, can make it impossible to pay the bills.
So they have to take whatever they can get, now: ride-shares in mornings and evenings, temp jobs on weekdays, freelance projects on weekends, Mechanical Turk or TaskRabbit tasks in between.
Which partly explains why Americans are putting in such long work hours – longer than in any other advanced economy.
And why we’re so stressed. According to polls, almost a quarter of American workers worry they won’t be earning enough in the future. That’s up from 15 percent a decade ago.
Irregular hours can also take a mental toll. Studies show people who do irregular work for a decade suffer an average cognitive decline of 6.5 years relative people with regular hours.
Such uncertainty can be hard on families, too. Children of parents working unpredictable schedules or outside standard daytime working hours are likely to have lower cognitive skills and more behavioral problems, according to new research.
For all these reasons, the upsurge in uncertain work makes the old economic measures – unemployment and income – look far better than Americans actually feel.
It also renders irrelevant many labor protections such as the minimum wage, worker safety, family and medical leave, and overtime – because there’s no clear “employer.”
And for the same reason eliminates employer-financed insurance – Social Security, workers compensation, unemployment benefits, and employer-provided health insurance under the Affordable Care Act.
What to do? Courts are overflowing with lawsuits over whether companies have misclassified “employees” as “independent contractors,” resulting in a profusion of criteria and definitions.
We should aim instead for simplicity: Whatever party – contractor, client, customer, agent, or intermediary – pays more than half of someone’s income, or provides more than half their working hours, should be responsible for all the labor protections and insurance an employee is entitled to.
Presumably that party will share those costs and risks with its own clients, customers, owners, and investors. Which is the real point – to take these risks off the backs of individuals and spread them as widely as possible.
In addition, to restore some certainty to peoples’ lives, we’ll need to move away from unemployment insurance and toward income insurance.
Say, for example, your monthly income dips more than 50 percent below the average monthly income you’ve received from all the jobs you’ve taken over the preceding five years. Under one form of income insurance, you’d automatically receive half the difference for up to a year.
But that’s not all. Ultimately, we’ll need a guaranteed minimum basic income. But I’ll save this for another column.
8. Is Wingnut the New Normal?
The Fire This Time?
by Ed Kilgore, thedemocraticstrategist.org, August 21, 2015
There's a fascinating debate going on in punditland and in the political science community over the craziness breaking out in every direction in the GOP presidential nominating contest. The conventional wisdom remains that it's all a mirage, and that eventually sane "adult" voices in the GOP will resume command and the restless grassroots elements supporting various extremist candidates will fall into docile place, just as they always do. In other words: nothing to see here folks, move along.
But it ought to set off some alarms when AEI's Norm Ornstein says he doesn't think this is all political business as usual, as I discussed at Washington Monthly today:
Us old folks remember a time when AEI's Norman Ornstein was the very voice of The Conventional Wisdom. So his new column at The Atlantic ought to come as a particularly significant warning about this election cycle and the particular level of conservative freakout we are dealing with:
Almost all the commentary from the political-pundit class has insisted that history will repeat itself. That the Trump phenomenon is just like the Herman Cain phenomenon four years ago, or many others before it; that early enthusiasm for a candidate, like the early surge of support for Rudy Giuliani in 2008, is no predictor of long-term success; and that the usual winnowing-out process for candidates will be repeated this time, if on a slightly different timetable, given 17 GOP candidates.Of course, they may be entirely right. Or not entirely; after all, the stories and commentaries over the past two months saying Trump has peaked, Trumpmania is over, this horrific comment or that is the death knell for Trump, have been embarrassingly wrong. But Trump's staying power notwithstanding, there are strong reasons to respect history and resist the urge to believe that everything is different now.
Still, I am more skeptical of the usual historical skepticism than I have been in a long time. A part of my skepticism flows from my decades inside the belly of the congressional beast. I have seen the Republican Party go from being a center-right party, with a solid minority of true centrists, to a right-right party, with a dwindling share of center-rightists, to a right-radical party, with no centrists in the House and a handful in the Senate. There is a party center that two decades ago would have been considered the bedrock right, and a new right that is off the old charts. And I have seen a GOP Congress in which the establishment, itself very conservative, has lost the battle to co-opt the Tea Party radicals, and itself has been largely co-opted or, at minimum, cowed by them.
As the congressional party has transformed, so has the activist component of the party outside Washington. In state legislatures, state party apparatuses, and state party platforms, there are regular statements or positions that make the most extreme lawmakers in Washington seem mild.
Perhaps he's thinking of the widespread subscription to the lunacy of Agenda 21 conspiracy theories, or there's something even more alarming crawling around out there. But I digress...
Egged on by talk radio, cable news, right-wing blogs, and social media, the activist voters who make up the primary and caucus electorates have become angrier and angrier, not just at the Kenyan Socialist president but also at their own leaders. Promised that Obamacare would be repealed, the government would be radically reduced, immigration would be halted, and illegals punished, they see themselves as euchred and scorned by politicians of all stripes, especially on their own side of the aisle.So the forces favoring a big-time right-wing insurgency, says Ornstein, are already at the kind of levels that produced conservative uprisings in the GOP in 1964, 1976 (Reagan's primary challenge to incumbent president Ford), 1980 and 1994. But wait: it could be worse than those:
[I]s anything really different this time? I think so. First, because of the amplification of rage against the machine by social media, and the fact that Barack Obama has grown stronger and more assertive in his second term while Republican congressional leaders have become more impotent. The unhappiness with the establishment and the desire to stiff them is much stronger. Second, the views of rank-and-file Republicans on defining issues like immigration have become more consistently extreme--a majority now agree with virtually every element of Trump's program, including expelling all illegal immigrants.
There's more from Ornstein, but you get the idea. For years right-wing insurgent energy has flamed up and died down in a cycle that keeps getting more dangerous. This time the fire may be out of control.
9. Deficits and Growth
Bumpy deficits, smoother ride: The historical evolution of budget deficits and growth rate
by Jared Bernstein and Richard Kogan, vox.com, August 18, 2015
When it comes to fiscal policy and especially budget deficits, your basic DC policymaker walks around thinking, "Deficits bad, surpluses good." Virtually every Republican currently running for president — and more than a few congressional Democrats — have endorsed amending the Constitution to force Congress to balance the budget each year.
Even those who recognize that there are rare times when it makes sense for the government to temporarily spend more than it takes in tend only to defend deficits as a necessary evil.
We think this is wrong. Budget deficits, properly managed, are not only not evil — they’re downright good. The long historical record shows that their use has led to smoother and stronger growth.
In essence, they’ve worked like shock absorbers, smoothing out bumps along the growth path. To eschew their use, as so many policymakers espouse, would mean growth that was both more volatile and somewhat slower.
Thanks to a new, long time series of historical data, we’re able to show you what we mean. Consider two time periods, which we’ll call BD (before deficits) and AD (after deficits; meaning after deficits started to be more commonly employed in their shock-absorber role). In this analysis, BD runs from 1870 to 1929 and AD from 1950 to 2015 (see data note).
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The BD period is a deficit hawk’s dream. The deficit-to-GDP ratio flatlines in the figure through boom and bust alike, averaging a slight surplus (!) of 0.4 percent over the period. Over the AD period, deficits average -2.2 percent of GDP.
Importantly, deficits are also a lot jumpier in the latter versus the former period. The standard deviation — a measure of dispersion around the average — is 0.5 percent BD and many times that much, 2.4 percent, in the AD period.
So deficits were both a lot larger and a lot more varied in the latter period.
What about growth? Real per-person income growth is faster in the AD period, though not too much: 2.0 percent annually versus 1.8 percent in the BD period. Still, this extra growth adds up over time: With AD growth rates, the economy doubles every 35 years, but with the slower BD growth rates, it takes an additional four years to double.
And just eyeballing the figures, you can see how much jumpier income growth was in the earlier BD period; recessions were far more frequent and far more severe. The standard deviation of income growth was 5.0 percent in the BD period and less than half that — 2.3 percent — in the AD period.
In other words, the shock absorber of deficit spending is one reason the growth ride has been smoother post-1950, and very likely has contributed to faster overall growth, as well, since it is easier to maintain speed on smoother pavement.
How does it work? What we’re calling "bumps in the road" are contractions in private sector economic activity, caused by one sort of shock or another, like the bursting of a housing bubble or the sharp disruption of a key input, like oil. To offset these shocks, the government borrows from the future to spend more today, which is just what the economy needs during bad times, when ordinary citizens are losing income (and jobs) and investors have few useful opportunities anyway. When the private sector is back up and running at full strength, that’s the time for deficits to fall or turn to surplus.
To be sure, using deficits as shock absorbers is by no means the sole explanation for the smoother and stronger growth in the AD period. Another candidate is increased globalization, since the increased flows of goods and capital helps avoid volatile supply disruptions. The Federal Reserve also has gotten better at macro-management over time.
Of course, the fact that deficits can be good if wisely managed does not mean that deficits are always wisely managed. For instance, it’s problematic to see rising ratios of debt to GDP in strong economies. As Keynes himself said, "The boom, not the slump, is the right time for austerity…"
Unfortunately, a glance at fiscal policy around the globe suggests we are in the midst of relearning this lessons. Greece is the poster child, but most European countries that went the austerity route following the Great Recession are still mired in slow growth and high unemployment. (Real GDP in the eurozone has been growing around 1 percent annually, and unemployment is 11 percent.) In other words, there are a lot of hapless passengers in other countries getting an awfully slow and bumpy ride.
Data note: It’s important to leave large wars out of the picture, as they create unusual fiscal dynamics, so the BD period starts after the Civil War and leaves out 1918-'19, and the AD period starts after World War II. But the data goes all the way back to 1792, and different endpoints yield similar results.
The growth measures are real economic growth per person. Accounting for population growth deals with the fact that the population has grown faster or more slowly during different periods in history. Economic growth is measured over calendar years, deficits over fiscal years.
FINALLY
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