Why Kerry isn't talking about Foreign Policy. link
April 12 Stuck in my head: Supreme Beings of Leisure, "Under the Gun", from the Animatrix soundtrack.
I don't understand why I seem to be the only one on the web who gets this. The situation in Iraq is so volatile, changing from week to week, that any proposal made today might be irrelevant tomorrow. This Campaing Desk item states the obvious; thus, my need to wax on this issue is gone.
It's unclear how the national or local press will interpret today's hearing. In general, I think jurors, in this case the public, are sympathetic to the witness during interrigation, but I don't really know. Largely, I think her job was simply "Don't screw up", which she didn't.
The proper question to ask here, I think, is this: if reports of suspicious activity in the summer of 2001 were "frustratingly vague", then why was their no upper level effort to find more detail? Yes, there were plenty of bureaucratic barriers in place, but it really doesn't look like anyone even tried to make a stir on this issue.
There are several really important memes that I think are going to be overlooked. I'll do the short version talking points first:
The recommendations of the Hart-Rudman commission were completely and utterly ignored by the administration, in favor of long-term foreign policy concerns related to Russia, China, missle defenes, state-sponsored terrorism, and other Cold War relics. (Gorelick)
National Security bureaucrats should know that the FBI and the CIA can't talk. There are other channels the FBI could have used to raise concerns relating to suspicious activity in the summer of 2001. (Kerrey)
We are just fanning the flames by shooting rockets into mosques. (Kerrey)
Bush didn't respond to the Cole, while Clinton did respond to the embassy bombings in an equivalent amount of time. The idea that you would not engage in "Proportional Response", and instead do nothing while spending months developing some long term plans, is ... misguided (Thompson).
The FBI, generally speaking, was/is not equipped to deal properly with terrorism. (Everybody)
The August 6th PDB needs to be released. (Everybody)
I think the best thing that could happen would be the declassification of the August 6th memo. The panel has called for this again and again, and hopefully the press will badger the White House until it caves. Again.
I'll do the long version breakdown of what I thought of the testimony later.
Bush wants accountability in job retraining programs.
Since there's no new money, the only way to squeeze money is to "bureaucratic red tape", assuming such red tape already exists.
Reducing government redundancy is certainly a noble goal, and something that universally plays well with voters, which is why I will say again and again that Kerry needs to find specific government programs he wants to cut or consolidate.
But the real red herring is in these three paragraph-lets:
Bush proposed changes to federal worker training programs in order to double the number of workers receiving job training. By eliminating bureaucratic red tape, Bush would consolidate four major training and employment grant programs totaling $4 billion into a single grant for state governors.
This would generate $300 million for new job training under the Workforce Investment Act of 1998, or WIA, by reining in the costs and duplicate services of existing programs.
Bush's goal is to raise from 206,000 to 412,000 the number of Americans who receive full skills training each year as part of Labor Department programs established under the WIA.
A couple of talking points here:
If the $4 billion figure is correct, then our government is woefully inefficient. That works out to $19,000 worth of spending per trainee annually. By comparison, the University of Virginia -- one of the top 5 public universities in the country, which has to subsidize food and housing for most of its undergrads -- spends $15,000 per student. Doubling the number of trainees would reduce the spending number to $9,500 per student.
If the new money squeezed out of the job training is devoted entirely to tuition assistance, with 0% overhead, this results in $1456.31 of new money per new worker. That's less than the national average cost of a year's tuition at a community college, $1,765, not to mention books and any other associated fees. Considering that at least some money must go to bureaucrats who dole out the grants to states, it's more likely that the amount of money per new student is probably closer to $1200.
Tution at community colleges, like all education, is rising at a rate faster than inflation.
So either this program will have to grow at a rate faster than inflation, or it won't succeed in its stated goals.
The bottom line is that there is no way to increase the number of trained workers by 200,000 with only $300 million.
Weekly News Roundup, March 29 - April 2 link
April 2
The line that Bush has been flip-flopping is starting to stick.
Job numbers; we now have 30 days during which Bush will be able to talk about how much his tax cuts have helped increase employment by 300,000. Employment statistics will always be demagogued by whichever side they favor, and downplayed by the side that they damage. But this is only good news for Bush.
There are 7 more months between now and re-election. If hiring continues at the pace it did in March, Bush will be close to a net change of zero jobs (thanks to an increase in government employees by 700,000), though this still leaves an increase in unemployment due to population growth. It's unclear whether or not this will happen though.
"Take out the Trash Day"
White House opposes bill on Fannie Mae. Because Fannie and Freddie, the two quasi-businesses/quasi-government organizations responsible for a huge portion of the mortgage insurance in the country.
The have expanded to insure over 70% of the mortgage business in the country (for more on this, take a look at the Washington Monthly article "There Goes the Neighborhood"). Given the current state of the economy, with more household debt than any time in history, a collapse of Fannie and Freddie would likely cause a whole lot of collapse. The White House opposes the bill because Congress wants to keep regulatory authority. Holding up legislation on this issue because you want more power is utterly insane.
Officials to Quit Sick Nuke Worker Program. This is the $74M program to compensate employees at nuclear reactors who have gotten sick, where only one $15,000 paycheck has gone out.
The White House has now alienated Letterman. How many pop culture figures will be left supporting Bush?
Zero?
Last
updated by Nicholas Beaudrot on 07:39 13 February 2005
