Tax Policy
I think the most egregious hypocrisy of the presidential campaign is in the tax policy area.
Candidate Bush ran on a platform of cutting taxes because of a projected surplus. When the projected surplus disappeared, by then President Bush had taxes reduced three times to avoid recession. It seems clear that whatever the situation cutting taxes is the solution. When we had unanticipated expenses because of the 9-11 attack or the Iraq war or the prescription drug benefit these didn't require raising taxes. Its obvious that President Bush simply believes that lower taxes are a public good no matter what the situation. He has, however, not said this. Instead we get doubletalk.
If anything, Senator Kerry is worse. During his nearly two decades as a Senator he never once mentioned the corporate tax rate or the deferral of taxes on income abroad as an issue. Nor did he mention them as an issue when running for the Democratic nomination. Just last week he announced a policy on both of these. He even implied that they would produce 10 million new jobs. Now Senator Kerry realizes full well that these twin initiatives, if implemented, would have only a minimal impact on jobs (and no one can even confidently predict what that would be other than it would be minimal). He also would not have proposed these initiatives during the nomination contest because their complexity, their amibuity, the fuzziness of assigning exeptions to the overall policy would have been impossible to defend during the nomination contest. It seems obvious Kerry does not believe in his own initiatives and is just proposing them to make himself seem like a combination of fiscal conservative and anti off shoring knight.
Thursday, March 18, 2004
Supreme Court Justices
An article in the NY Post at: http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/opedcolumnists/21011.htm
documented the cases of VP Cheny and Justice Scalia who duck hunted together and Justice Ginsberg who lends her name to fundraising activities of the National Organization for Women.
He states that people accuse Scalia of conflict of interest but not Ginsberg. He says that is hypocrisy.
The problem with that claim is that it implies that people are knowingly accusing Scalia but knowingly not accusing Ginsberg. Of course, the fact is that virtually no body knows about the Ginsberg case. It may be that you could claim that the media is deliberately not reporting the Ginsberg case, but I didn't think the NY Post actually makes that claim.
An article in the NY Post at: http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/opedcolumnists/21011.htm
documented the cases of VP Cheny and Justice Scalia who duck hunted together and Justice Ginsberg who lends her name to fundraising activities of the National Organization for Women.
He states that people accuse Scalia of conflict of interest but not Ginsberg. He says that is hypocrisy.
The problem with that claim is that it implies that people are knowingly accusing Scalia but knowingly not accusing Ginsberg. Of course, the fact is that virtually no body knows about the Ginsberg case. It may be that you could claim that the media is deliberately not reporting the Ginsberg case, but I didn't think the NY Post actually makes that claim.
Wednesday, March 17, 2004
More on Campaign Ads
A number of new Bush and Kerry ads are out.
An analysis of them is at: http://slate.msn.com/id/2097241/ (the two analysts are both relatively left of center). As expected they don't like the ads much (they dislike Bushes more). Personally, I also dislike political ads but only because they are less entertaining than product ads. However, I noticed that neither analyst claims that either Bush or Kerry is being hypocritical. Instead they are 'misleading' 'vacuous' or 'lying'.
At this point, it seems the analysts have pretty much conceded that it doesn't matter whether the candidates believe what they said, only that the ads be less disgusting (although they both concede that might make them less effective). Bush and Kerry, both being politicians for a number of years, no doubt realize that effective messages must be kept simple and since politics is not simple, the message will always be somewhat misleading. I also feel that both of them are able to believe contradictory proppositions (e.g., Bush can believe that Kerry's health care proposal will require a dollar for dollar tax increase even though Bush's drug insurance proposal required not a single dollar of tax increase). Thus neither candidate's ads could reasonably be said to be hypocritical.
A number of new Bush and Kerry ads are out.
An analysis of them is at: http://slate.msn.com/id/2097241/ (the two analysts are both relatively left of center). As expected they don't like the ads much (they dislike Bushes more). Personally, I also dislike political ads but only because they are less entertaining than product ads. However, I noticed that neither analyst claims that either Bush or Kerry is being hypocritical. Instead they are 'misleading' 'vacuous' or 'lying'.
At this point, it seems the analysts have pretty much conceded that it doesn't matter whether the candidates believe what they said, only that the ads be less disgusting (although they both concede that might make them less effective). Bush and Kerry, both being politicians for a number of years, no doubt realize that effective messages must be kept simple and since politics is not simple, the message will always be somewhat misleading. I also feel that both of them are able to believe contradictory proppositions (e.g., Bush can believe that Kerry's health care proposal will require a dollar for dollar tax increase even though Bush's drug insurance proposal required not a single dollar of tax increase). Thus neither candidate's ads could reasonably be said to be hypocritical.
Sunday, March 14, 2004
Campaign Ads.
President Bush has placed a campaign add that strongly implies the Recession began when he first took office. This is almost certainly not hypocrisy because even though current impartial analysis indicates that it began in March 2001 (still could be adjusted), Bush almost certainly believes that the recession was underway in Jan 2001. In any event, its hair splitting. Bush also, in a speech (not an ad), said Kerry introduced a bill to cut the CIA's budget by $1.5 billion; that this would have weakened the agency; and, that the cuts were so egregious that no one even in the Democratic party would co sponser this. This is certainly misleading since at the time the CIA was underspending its budget in one area by $1.5 billion over a 5 year period and Kerry's bill would, essentially have simply taken away unspent funds. The reason no one supported it is that another Democrat had a Republican co sponsor to adjust the budget in a different (more flexible and thus more acceptable to the CIA) way. This probably doesn't reach the hypocrisy threshold only because Bush probably wasn't told all the facts by his staff. If, however, I'm wrong and Bush was told the facts, it would count as hypocrisy since Kerry was not 'weakening the CIA' and Bush would have known it.
President Bush has placed a campaign add that strongly implies the Recession began when he first took office. This is almost certainly not hypocrisy because even though current impartial analysis indicates that it began in March 2001 (still could be adjusted), Bush almost certainly believes that the recession was underway in Jan 2001. In any event, its hair splitting. Bush also, in a speech (not an ad), said Kerry introduced a bill to cut the CIA's budget by $1.5 billion; that this would have weakened the agency; and, that the cuts were so egregious that no one even in the Democratic party would co sponser this. This is certainly misleading since at the time the CIA was underspending its budget in one area by $1.5 billion over a 5 year period and Kerry's bill would, essentially have simply taken away unspent funds. The reason no one supported it is that another Democrat had a Republican co sponsor to adjust the budget in a different (more flexible and thus more acceptable to the CIA) way. This probably doesn't reach the hypocrisy threshold only because Bush probably wasn't told all the facts by his staff. If, however, I'm wrong and Bush was told the facts, it would count as hypocrisy since Kerry was not 'weakening the CIA' and Bush would have known it.
Wednesday, March 03, 2004
Hypocrisys to keep watching.
Senator John Edwards dropped out of the running for the Democratic nomination. Senator Edwards had been running on an anti free trade platform. I doubt that Senator Edwards actually believed the non sense he was spouting about NAFTA since the mill jobs he prattled on about were being lost long before NAFTA. I never analyzed his hypocrisy.
Senator Kerry has a more nuanced hypocrisy on trade. He voted for NAFTA and GATT but says the Bush administration didn't take the environmental and labor standards provisions seriously. Actually, President Bush has been less free trade than Clinton (steel tarriffs, sugar quotas, mohair subsidies; personnally I think Bush was wrong on these). No one can produce a single anti NAFTA comment by Senator Kerry during the Clinton administration. The New York Times produced a delightful comment about Senator Kerry which said that the reason Kerry seems to contradict himself and give convoluted answers is because of nuance (I'm not linking to this because the NY Times comment is drivel). However, on the Trade issue, given that Kerry has legitimate economic advisers it must be obvious to him that his position on trade is hypocritical. At last, a fairly obvious example.
Now lets take same sex marriage. President Bush had been against a constitutional amendment but now is for such an amendment but hasn't any suggested language. This is almost certainly hypocrisy since Bush knows that the exact language is vitally important. Senator Kerry voted against the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act because he said then that it was unconstitutional. He claims now to think the Act is constitutional and is against a US Constitutional amendment that uses language similar to the 1996 Act. He was asked about this by a reporter. The answer was so incoherent that it is unclear just what Senator Kerry believes. However, the gay community believes strongly that when Kerry says 'I am against gay marriage' that he really believes, "I am for gay marriage, I just can't say that so instead I'll oppose a constitutional amendment'. That is, the gay community is for Kerry because of his hypocrisy. Cool.
Senator John Edwards dropped out of the running for the Democratic nomination. Senator Edwards had been running on an anti free trade platform. I doubt that Senator Edwards actually believed the non sense he was spouting about NAFTA since the mill jobs he prattled on about were being lost long before NAFTA. I never analyzed his hypocrisy.
Senator Kerry has a more nuanced hypocrisy on trade. He voted for NAFTA and GATT but says the Bush administration didn't take the environmental and labor standards provisions seriously. Actually, President Bush has been less free trade than Clinton (steel tarriffs, sugar quotas, mohair subsidies; personnally I think Bush was wrong on these). No one can produce a single anti NAFTA comment by Senator Kerry during the Clinton administration. The New York Times produced a delightful comment about Senator Kerry which said that the reason Kerry seems to contradict himself and give convoluted answers is because of nuance (I'm not linking to this because the NY Times comment is drivel). However, on the Trade issue, given that Kerry has legitimate economic advisers it must be obvious to him that his position on trade is hypocritical. At last, a fairly obvious example.
Now lets take same sex marriage. President Bush had been against a constitutional amendment but now is for such an amendment but hasn't any suggested language. This is almost certainly hypocrisy since Bush knows that the exact language is vitally important. Senator Kerry voted against the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act because he said then that it was unconstitutional. He claims now to think the Act is constitutional and is against a US Constitutional amendment that uses language similar to the 1996 Act. He was asked about this by a reporter. The answer was so incoherent that it is unclear just what Senator Kerry believes. However, the gay community believes strongly that when Kerry says 'I am against gay marriage' that he really believes, "I am for gay marriage, I just can't say that so instead I'll oppose a constitutional amendment'. That is, the gay community is for Kerry because of his hypocrisy. Cool.
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