Nov
14
2024

Not To Be Confused With …

[Amazon Link]
(paid link)

Kevin D. Williamson's post-election analysis is headlined The Agony of the Semi-Switcheroo.

Muppet News Flash: Kamala Harris, who doesn’t win competitive elections, didn’t win a competitive election.

I don’t make my living advising political campaigns or parties, but the Democrats probably should have taken my advice—going all the way back to 2023!—to dump Kamala Harris after dumping Joe Biden and run a fresh slate. I don’t hate to say, “I told you so.” The full switcheroo might have got the job done—the semi-switcheroo did not. Harris shouldn’t have been campaigning for president of the United States—she should be settling in as president of the University of California, having cleared the way for somebody who wasn’t going to end up having to concede to the unholy love child of Augusto Pinochet and Liberace.

Democrats are, naturally, getting ready to make things a lot worse for themselves.

One of the problems with being a grievance party for minority interests is that minorities are a minority. If your vision of politics is that what is most important about us is our demographic characteristics—race, sex, education level, etc.—and you understand political life as, essentially, a zero-sum competition between rival groups, then you should probably think at least a little bit about the math, just in case people start to take you seriously. There are more non-Hispanic whites in the United States than every other group put together—about 60 percent of the population. There are a lot more Americans without a college degree than Americans who have one. And, while women make up a small majority of voters, there aren’t that many young, white, liberal, college-educated, unmarried suburban female professionals out there. Progressives should learn to count: Fewer than 1 in 3 American women would identify herself as a “feminist” when asked by National Geographic/Ipsos pollsters. The women who believe that abortion should be legal under any circumstance are a minority among women. Doubling down on minority positions is how you become a minority party—and stay one.

I suppose in theory, I should be pulling for Democrats to regain some semblance of sanity, because Our Two-Party System Requires Two Healthy Parties.

But in practice, I have to admit that two parties trying to outdo each other on batshit insanity also has some appeal as sheer entertainment value. As always, Pun Salad is guided by the wisdom of Elvis: try to be amused.

Also of note:

  • Welcome to the jungle. George F. Will is not a huge fan of government schools, but he notes: The world’s richest person is about to receive a free public education.

    Being aggrieved is his pursuit of happiness, so 2020’s sore loser is 2024’s sore winner. Hence his announcement that his administration’s adult supervision will not come from Mike Pompeo (West Point, four-term congressman, CIA director, secretary of state) or Nikki Haley (two-term governor, U.N. ambassador). Both have been excommunicated from the Church of Trump for unspecified (but easily imagined) deviationism.

    Donald Trump, whose election owed much to inflation, ran promising to increase living costs. His favorite word is (“freedom”? “justice”? don’t be silly) “tariff,” and the point of tariffs is to increase prices of domestically produced goods by depressing competition from foreign goods. (A truism: Protectionist nations blockade their own ports.)

    Elon Musk’s reward for services rendered to Trump’s campaign will be leadership of a commission to slice waste from and infuse efficiency into government. The world’s richest man is about to get a free public education. He will learn this truism: Life is not one damn thing after another; it is the same damn thing over and over.

    I don't know if Nikki Haley was ardently hoping for a position in the adminstration. Either way, I think they did her a favor by not giving her a ticket to this Titanic sequel.

  • Makes sense. Which is why it won't happen. Like George Will, Eric Boehm has done the simple arithmetic, and concludes the new sheriffs in town have placed handcuffs on themselves: Musk and Ramaswamy Must Take on Entitlements To Succeed at Cutting Government.

    Possibly the biggest pile of waste in the federal government is the amount of "improper payments" made every year by the Medicare and Medicaid programs. In 2023, for example, those mistakes cost taxpayers more than $100 billion.

    This is worth noting for two reasons in the wake of the news that President-elect Donald Trump has asked Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy to head up a new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). Despite the name, the DOGE looks to be more of an unofficial advisory board that will work with the White House's Office of Budget and Management (OMB), and Trump says it will help "drive out the massive waste and fraud which exists throughout" the government's $6 trillion budget.

    First, it's not as if there is some secret knowledge to be uncovered by the DOGE when it comes to fixing the rampant inefficiencies of the federal government. Those Medicare and Medicaid overpayments are documented annually, for example. The Government Accountability Office and various inspectors general file regular reports. The Congressional Budget Office maintains a list of things that could be cut to reduce the deficit. Various members of Congress—most prominently, Sen. Rand Paul (R–Ky.)—periodically publish lists of silly, wasteful, or dubious government spending.

    What's lacking, in short, is not ideas but the political will to act on them.

    How hard could it possibly be to cut (in the GAO estimate linked above) $236 billion in "improper payments"? I wonder if we will find out?

  • Another doubting Thomas. Except his name is Jacob. Mr. Sullum is also dubious that we're going to enter a rosy world of fiscal sanity: Trump Has No Discernible Interest in Fiscal Responsibility: The President-Elect's Record and Campaign Positions Belie Elon Musk's Talk of Spending Cuts.

    Elon Musk, President-elect Donald Trump's bounciest adviser, thinks he can identify "at least" $2 trillion in federal budget cuts. Although critics derided the billionaire entrepreneur's suggestion as improbably ambitious, that assessment hinges on political assumptions rather than a cleareyed understanding of what could be accomplished if Trump were serious about restoring fiscal discipline.

    Unfortunately, there is little reason to think he is. Trump's record during his first term and his positions during his 2024 campaign suggest he will continue the federal government's longstanding pattern of unrestrained borrowing even as the imbalance between revenue and spending becomes increasingly dire.

    Cutting $2 trillion from the federal budget, which totaled $6.8 trillion in fiscal year 2024, would return us to the level of spending recorded just five years ago, which gives you a sense of how quickly things have gone from bad to worse. The Congressional Budget Office projects that the annual deficit, currently $1.6 trillion (5.6% of GDP), will reach $2.6 trillion (6.1% of GDP) by 2034.

    Again, you want to ask how hard could it possibly be to ratchet back to the pre-pandemic spending level? Well, we'll find out.

  • Sorry, UNH. I have a suggested budget cut. The University Near Here calls attention to Uncle Stupid's business-as-usual spending: New Project Turns to Nature for Climate Resilience.

    Extreme weather events caused by climate change pose risks to everyone, but low-income and marginalized communities that lack the resources to improve living conditions suffer disproportionately. A new $6 million project led by the University of New Hampshire will create a three-state partnership to design and apply Nature-based Solutions (NBS) — strategies that mimic or enhance natural ecosystem processes — for climate resilience. Manchester will be the site of one of the projects’ hubs for designing and implementing NBS.

    Called Equitable Nature-based Climate Solutions (ENACTS), the project will focus on three common types of NBS — tree programs, public parks and stormwater control — in medium-sized cities with vulnerable populations who suffer from climate-related flooding and heat island problems.

    I can't help but wince at what that $6 million will buy:

    In Manchester, one of ENACTS’ three distinct “living hubs,” researchers will train local community ambassadors, working closely with them to recruit participants for meetings at which they will help to inform and shape the design and implementation of socially equitable NBS for their communities. Other ENACTS hubs are in Rhode Island and Kentucky.

    So: grant recipients will train "ambassadors".

    Who will help recruit "participants".

    And they will participate in "meetings".

    And they will "help".

    To do what? "Inform and shape".

    Inform and shape what? "Design and implentation" of those "Nature based solutions".

    Which will be "socially equitable".

    And yes, it is a huge boondoggle, designed to keep people busy, and also paid.

Recently on the book blog: