The Ryan Doctrine of Preemption

Before I get to the subject at hand . . . I find it bad form to critique a compliment, so let me just add something. Titus noted that my not buying into "Algorian climate theory" was simply 180 degrees in the opposite direction. The "right wing" Gore if you will, with no real science to back my position. As if I was simply "against" because Gore et al were "for." This is not true. And I don't believe he purposely misled, just doesn't remember. I sent an enormous email in the pre blog threads, including pie graphs; quoting various paleoclimatologists; meteorologists of note - including the gentleman whom invented hurricane forecasting. I noted that 97% of Co2 in the atmosphere was due to water evaporation; quoted statistics from mount Pinatubo; included the various other ice ages (seven all together if memory serves) etc, etc. So this was not some Limbaugh induced, partisan rant that I was fortunate enough to fall on the correct side of in hindsight. Quite the contrary. I did my homework. I looked at the science, even quoted it. Looked at whom was pushing it, whether they might have another agenda. Looked at the economic impact of something like the Kyoto Protocols, and I concluded this entire movement was no different than the 19th century wagon wheeled snake oil salesman. I was right, but it wasn't partisan luck. And given it was YOU whom I was emailing and yelling those statistics at, I had to stop and note this.

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Now.

I typically allow someone to make a post before I issue a rebuttal, but not this time. I received a 12 page absolute bitch fest of a text from Jambo last night, ranting about how I only regard New Deal as a "bunch of big government", I keep "spouting the same sh*t", etc. intimating I haven't researched it, I just see the words "New Deal", & chalk it up as liberal tripe and move on. And, worst of all, that my anti-New Deal argument was "beneath me." So let me just be frank ... I am royally P-I-S-S-E-D.

First of all, lets review what started this beef. I listed my "top 5" presidents via our (impending in my case) presidential report cards, and FDR wasn't among them. That caused a shocked post from Jambo which essentially said that because of WWII alone FDR should be in my top 5. I explained to him in a following post that I couldn't divorce New Deal from FDR, thus he doesn't make it, and that conversation continued via text tonight. In these he gave me a glimpse into his response he is said to be "formulating." I will address them one by one:

1.) And I quote (from my phone): "His domestic policies STILL have measurable and specific positive results today. It is not his fault that subsequent administrations have taken from the general fund and left us with this sh*t burger ..."

You might, and I stress might, have a point if it weren't for one fact. It wasn't "subsequent administrations" that spent social security monies on federal tabs other than social security benefits -that started under FDR. He put the program in place. He built it with this inherent flaw (that it was not mandated to be in a "lock box"); and it was he that showed subsequent administrations how to take advantage of that flaw. As stated by Social Security Historian Larry DeWitt: [T]here has never been any change in the way the Social Security program is financed or the way that Social Security payroll taxes are used by the federal government. All LBJ did in 1968 was to make Social Security taxes and spending part of a "unified budget." As DeWitt notes, "This was an accounting issue and has no affect on the actual operations of the [Social Security] Trust Fund itself." FDR never "set it aside", he never intended it not be able to be touched, never intended to restrict himself or any other CIC from spending it as they saw fit. In other words, subsequent administrations didn't turn into a "sh*t burger", it was cooked as one.

In addition, Missouri senator Bennett Champ Clark introduced the "Clark Amendment" during debate over the program. It provided that employers be given the option that instead of enrolling in employees in Social Security, they be allowed to enroll them into an approved private program. The US Senate approved the amendment 51-35. However, Roosevelt used the parliamentary device, the House-Senate conference committee, to strip the amendment out (against the will of the Senate proper), and submit to him the Social Security Bill as a wholly managed function of the government. No question about it, FDR was the father of this thing, steering it pristinely through the congress. Since its passing 70+ years ago the average return on private pension plans, which the Clark Amendment would of provided for, has been just above 8%. Social Security, less than 2%. How's that "FDR is a brilliant businessman" line you once gave me working out for you right now?

Furthermore, at its implementation in 1937 it was publicly known that it retarded employment numbers. It mandated that employers not only withhold social security tax from the employee, but also match the amount, all of it sent to the Treasury. That's a tax Jambo. That matching fund requirement was a tax, during the era of the Great Depression. It undoubtedly contributed to the sharp 1938 Recession. FDR admitted as much when asked about its'' tendency to create unemployment: "I guess you're right on the economics, but those taxes were never a a problem of economics. They are politics all the way through ... with those taxes in there, no damn politician can ever scrap my program." Let me ask you. Does he sound more concerned with putting people back to work, or "his" program (read: legacy)?

2.) "Nothing about TVA, Hoover [Dam], Grand Coolie, or any of the 40,000 bridges and CCC projects created a "dependency" on government that we see today. Otherwise Eisenhower would have been crippled with a bunch of Welfare demanding sh*t heads. For Beck or Ryan to dismiss all the domestic good done as 'big government' and blow it off as waste is revisionist at best and ignorant at worst and is beneath both of you ..."

First, I think at this point I owe you a resounding F*ck you. Pull the quote wher I stated that. Go ahead, do it. I never contended that people were not employed under the WPA. They did get government jobs. And I never said we were saddled with EVERY program introduced under FDR, still. What I contended was that FDR set the TEMPLATE for government, big government, as the answer to economic and social crisis. He "normalized" government reaction to crisis in a way that made possible the discussion on the Great Depression. He made possible the discussion Obama is having on health care. HE set the trajectory. If ever there was a demarcation line as to where the federal government changed, became an intercessor in private economics, it was New Deal. And while we're at it, it didn't work. But I'll get to that at the bottom of the page.

3.) "I am not defending New Deal. I am not saying FDR was right. But history shows us that infrastructure he created in the WPA, and BLM, and other projects won us the war as much as Lend Lease and other Arsenal of Democracy Acts since 37' you erroneously dismiss ."

This part is almost too easy. Lets talk revisionism, shall we?

Lets say that Obama's $881 billion economic stimulus plan he signed into law last year included monies for a "green" power plant in a remote location (come to think of it, it probably did). A location like New Mexico or Oak Ridge Tennessee. Sound familiar? And a few years from now that plant supplied energy to a top secret plant under operation by the Pentagon. And in that plant they invented a hi tech predator drone, we'll call it "The Al Qeda Crippler", and it was shown to be effective in tests ... we'll call it the "Trinity Test." And subsequent to this it pin pointed and killed Bin Laden, because it has "Jihadi DNA sensor technology." And after wiping out the rest of Al Qeada it moved onto HAMAS, Hezbollah, and so on and so on, until the war on terror was over ... forever. And one scraggly, ripped shirt, using a crutch Jihadist limped out onto the deck of a ship, lets call it the Missouri, and signed an unconditional surrender.

Now with all that, 60 years from now, when my grandson is arguing with some Obama apologists, should my heir concede the argument that Obama's Economic Stimulus was a success?

Jambo, you see my point by now I hope. These programs were introduced to combat the Great Depression, not the Imperial Japanese Army, and sure as hell not with the intention of providing power to thew Manhattan Project! To take what is by definition a side effect, or unintended consequence, and hold that up as evidence that New Deal, or FDR were a success is QUINTESSENTIAL REVISIONISM. These programs FAILED at their stated goal - to beat back the Great Depression and high unemployment numbers. These programs later served to aide us indirectly in war time production and invention (after all, they would have done the Manhattan Project in locations where there was electricity already if they had to, lets be honest), AFTER THE FACT. For you to claim FDR's programs a "success" is text book definition revisionist history. He never intended them as national security programs. They were set up, packaged, and sold as economic stimulus, you know it, I know it, and the war making was a happy post-construction side effect.

Finally let me address where this started to bring it full circle: the Presidential Report Card, and my top 5. I can't believe this just occurred to me tonight, but nearly EVERY New Deal argument/post involving Titus and yourself has had the qualifier employed by the 2 of you: "I'm not defending New Deal ...", then you go on to list a program or 2, or particular aspects that didn't "fail" on their own, or in the future. Well in examining a Commander-In-Chief for the Presidential Report Card is not reasonable for me to review his signature domestic (multi piece) legislation? Examine it as to whether is is defensible as an over all success or not as intended - as opposed to breaking it down into individual smaller scale successes or future side effects? I mean it IS the sum of its parts, is it not? With your (and I reference you both, as you have both noted this qualifier to me) notation of New Deal as not one you are willing to defend historically, am I not to take that as a concession to my contention that it is indefensible as a success on its whole? You 2 seem to be stuck in this quasi-land where you won't defend New Deal a success, but neither are you prepared to describe it as failure. Well, it WAS one or the other. I would argue that with no future (revisionist) benefits, no qualifiers on if the people at WPA were happy to have a job, up or down, if you can't "defend it" as doing what its creators intended, then it failed.

Jambo even stated in one of his texts that "in this instance" foreign policy outweighs domestic. Meaning that due to FDR being at the helm during WWII I should ignore whether or not FDR's domestic agenda achieved its' stated goals. Excuse me? I am to ignore how our country, our president, responded to the Great Depression in a Presidential Report Card?

I am left with notations that confess that New Deal can not, or will not be defended as a "success" in its' stated goals. I am told that in this very special case that ignoring 50% of a man's legacy is "ok" when compiling a presidential report card (would that suffice if Reagan won the Cold war yet continued Carter's domestic malaise?). At this point I can only conclude that any reluctance to say the word "failure" out loud in reference to New Deal is a result of a nostalgic, emotional or otherwise irrational reasoning ... and as such, has no place in our Presidential Report Card.