Category: Politics and Government

Updated Federal Budget Distribution – 2019

Here’s the latest pie charts of how the federal government spends its money. Again, there’s discretionary spending — spending from appropriation bills and the full budget which includes spending for things like Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid which vary depending on the number of recipients and how much each recipient is being paid. This doesn’t mean the non-discretionary components couldn’t be changed — there’s been discussion of means testing Social Security payments and Medicare eligibility — but these changes are generally considered politically untenable (would you vote for the guy who just reduced your SS cheque because you happened to have a pension or money saved in a retirement account?).

Here’s the full budget breakout, updated for 2019

And discretionary budget

Understanding the law

It irks me how many government officials fail to understand the law (or, at least, make statements that are legally absurd). Today, Devin Nunes says he will sue CNN for defamation. Why? Because CNN reported that a lawyer for Lev Parnas said Parnas knows something about some meetings Nunes scheduled with former Ukrainian prosecutors (and Parnas is willing to testify before Congress).

What’s the requirement for a defamation case? (1) False statement and (2) malicious intent. If Nunes said he intended to sue Parnas, that would be reasonable — still have to prove that the statement was false and uttered with malicious intent, but at least Parnas could have made a maliciously false statement. But a defamation suit against CNN would be an assertion that CNN made up a conversation with Parnas’ lawyers and did so maliciously to harm Nunes.

I’m certain Nunes statement was dramatization — and a way to avoid answering when asked if he did have involvement with the whole Ukraine fiasco. But someone who is responsible for writing laws shouldn’t demonstrate such ignorance of those laws.

The Fifth and Executive Privilege

Intellectually, I know that invoking one’s Fifth Amendment right is not an admission of guilt. But, any time I hear someone taking the 5th, my subconscious assumption is either that they’re guilty of whatever is being asked or the answer brings up some other admission of guilt. Because, seriously, why refuse to answer if the content of the answer is exculpatory and doesn’t implicate someone important to me?

In the same way, I intellectually know that my subconscious brain went somewhere not legally valid when Dr. Fiona Hill refused to answer a question citing executive privilege. The line of questioning was basically “you’ve been high up on the Russia desk for some time, so you’ve been on a lot of these phone calls with foreign heads of state”, “yes”, “is the content of this (the declassified 25 July phone call with Zelensky) call unusual”, PRIVILEGE! Which only makes me think that demanding personal favors that run counter to national interest (or having favors that run counter to the national interest demanded of him) isn’t unusual.

November Debate

I like the point about putting more effort into turning the 50% of non-voters into voters … between single-issue voters who will never vote for a Democrat & the 30 or whatever percent that seriously think the Trump presidency is perfect, it’s not like there’s a lot of people to be swayed there. The huge pool of people who don’t vote? Offer free childcare & transportation. Get them engaged with some piece of the platform.

 

“The fragility of his ego stood in the way of national security” … Harris’ assessment of Trump’s interactions with N. Korea is a good quote, and not just about this particular issue.

I want nothing …

So, if I go jack, say, a Lambo … and when the cops show up say I’m heading out to return it … that’s OK?! Because chatting with an Ambassador and telling them he doesn’t want anything from the Ukraine after knowing the whistle-blower complaint is headed to the House isn’t exactly a great defense. Similarly, saying the money got released after the complaint … not exonerating.

Direct Representation

I always wanted to run for federal office on the platform of direct representation — more a technology than a platform. Develop a system that allows constituents to log in and vote for any legislation — basically like proxy voting for shareholders. I’d deliver summary and full text content of anything in advance of the vote, and I’d cast my vote as dictated by my constituents. And constituents could see the vote totals for each piece of legislation to prove that I am voting based on real input. Obviously, this platform suffers an immense privilege problem — it’s great for a demographic with free time to read through legislation and convenient Internet access. It also suffers a civic disengagement problem — does anyone actually want to read through the text of everything that’s coming up in my committees and to floor votes? It’s quite possible that I’d be voting against the National Law Enforcement Museum Commemorative Coin Act (H.R. 1865) because five people bothered to lodge an opinion … and only to troll the entire idea behind direct representation. And none of that considers the threat of malicious actors.

Once there is a platform available for one legislator, expending it to others in the same chamber is trivial. Adding the other chamber or state legislatures is an undertaking from a content-development standpoint (what *is* on schedule for the Oregon Senate today?), but the underlying development effort is the same. Somewhat like the National Popular Vote compact is an end-run around formalizing the eradication of the Electoral College, this would be an end-run around indirect representation.

But I’ve thought, of late, that starting at the Federal level is misguided — if for no other reason than the incredible amount of money it takes to run a campaign for federal office. But also because getting the six million or so Ohio voters set up for direct representation by their state Senator would be a logistical nightmare. It seems better to begin implementation at the local level — run for school board or a Township Trustee position where you are concerned about a few thousand voters. Use local offices as small proof-of-concept experiments. Maybe it doesn’t work out — maybe no one cares enough to check what’s being discussed and vote for their position. Maybe running and supporting the platform is too expensive or time consuming. Hell, maybe no one is interested enough in direct representation for a direct representation candidate to win in the first place.

Local Politics

I’ve had a few reminders recently that civic engagement is more than focus on national politics. Bonus: local Trustees, School Board members … even state Reps and Senators … hear from far fewer people (e.g. I get personal responses from these folks and a form “thanks for your opinion” messages back from my federal officials).

Ohioans can find their state Rep and Senator at https://www.legislature.ohio.gov/legislators/district-maps

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I am writing to express my vehement objection to GA133 HB-164

I appreciate the desire to allow students to express religious beliefs in their school-work. Allowing a student to select the Torah for their book report is one thing, but this legislation seems to have the unintended consequence of allowing religious-based beliefs to inform “correct” answers. While it is factual to say “scientists believe X, and some people do not concur due to religious beliefs”, and it is useful to teach our children this truth, how can a science class be taught when scientific answers are discounted? And what constitutes a valid religious belief? Something like 18 USC ยง 1093 is so vague that we’ll find a new “religion” that strongly believes that division by zero equals five. Or that vowels are an abomination which must be struck from the language.

Even restricting “religious expression” to religions with a large, arbitrary number members creates issues. The proposed legislation will put schools in the difficult position of either telling students their purported religious beliefs do not “count” or allowing offensive and subversive content to be expressed. Where I attended school, some individuals ran for school board on the platform of pushing religious issues — primarily allowing high school students to read a prayer as part of the morning announcements. These individuals assumed this meant we would all hear a Christian prayer each morning. While I was certain there were some high school students eager to read the expected content, I was equally certain there would be some high school students eager to read a Druid/Buddhist/Scientologist prayer in the morning. At which point the school administration either needed to prohibit those students from reading unwanted content (and the risk of litigation such a prohibition entailed), telling kids that they’re not actually Raelian and thus need to wear a shirt to school (and how exactly do you prove or disprove one’s affiliation with a religion?!), or allowing the expression of religious beliefs by anyone who wanted to purport a religious belief. I was quite confident that the Board members who were pushing to allow a morning prayer would be horrified to have their kids listening to Satanic invocations. Were there enough students ready to read a ‘mainstream’ prayer that the school could just claim the time was all booked up? This legislation seems to suffer the same problem — except without the possibility that all of the “religious expression slots” will be taken by the “right” type of expression. The new Board members withdrew their proposal after I questioned how it would actually work, and I hope you will vote against this bill should it come to the floor.

(Not) Another Brick In The Wall

I find myself in the ironic position of being disappointed that a federal judge says Trump’s national non-emergency to redirect military funding to his wall is illegal. Not because I want him to built a massive monument to his racism and narcissism — I’d just as soon not have my tax money wasted on an ineffective reaction to an actual problem. But because I see the judicial precedent this would set — Bernie Sanders’ first day in office involves not ceremonial signing of legislation but rather the issuance of several national emergency declarations. Unhealthy conscripts hinder troop readiness, so there’s the Medicare for All national emergency. Uneducated conscripts hinder troop readiness, so there’s the tuition-free state University national emergency. The military has published studies about how climate change impacts troop readiness, but also our reliance on foreign energy sources (fuel for military vehicles) and foreign manufacturing (who is making the electronic components in military equipment, networks, communication devices, etc) … there’s the New Green Deal national emergency and the domestic manufacturing national emergency. Look at Egypt, Greece, etc — underemployment is a national emergency unto itself. And suddenly the near 700 billion dollar military budget is redirected to Sanders’ platform.

Mutually Assured Destruction

During the arms race — NATO/WARSAW tension, there was a concept of mutually assured destruction. You may have lots of nuclear warheads, but so do I. So no one can use any of them because we’ll wipe out the entire planet. I’ve been thinking about that in terms of climate change … you chose to do something, you’re going to destroy us all. But … there’s no single collective ‘you’ and no single collective action like, say, the Soviet or American government deciding to launch. And, in the nuclear assured destruction case, the destruction was well understood and immediate. We didn’t deal particularly well with the earlier, easier to comprehend, case of mutually assured destruction. We just kept dumping money into arms and then negotiating to retire out-of-date (and sometimes old-to-the-point-of-getting-dangerous) weapons. How in the world do we hope to force mass short-term changes to ward off hypothetical long-term damages.