A Hollow Man Without a Plan

Mitt Romney is not a very charismatic leader. He is not an exciting, dynamic speaker. He doesn’t have a strong connection with the dreams and aspirations of ordinary Americans. He isn’t a terribly experienced politician. His career, working as a leveraged-buyout king, has not equipped him with stories or policies attuned to the plight of working Americans. Mitt Romney is not a man of firm principles or of great integrity.

Romney does have several advantages as a presidential candidate. He looks the part. He’s smooth and adaptable. He has an uncanny capacity to simultaneously adopt any and all positions that he finds advantageous and can do so with such calm confidence that the contradictions are all but obscured.

Romney is the ultimate business consultant - pliable and prepared. He has a unshakable smile on his face and a blizzard of numbers at his disposal. Mitt’s mr-fix-it appeal comes, in no small part, from the promise that he is prepared to deal with the twin demons of our age:

• Unemployment is high and has been for the last four years.
• Our budget deficits are vast and unsustainable.

On the unemployment question Romney is quite specific. His 5 point plan will create 12 million jobs in 4 years. On deficit reduction, he is less specific, but promises to “put an end to deficit spending”. Accomplishing these two tasks would be a great and worthy accomplishment. Unfortunately, the plans to do so do not exist, and these claims are largely fraudulent.

When asked for the reasoning behind their 12 million jobs number, the Romney campaign cited one study that said his tax policies would generate 7 million jobs, another that claimed his energy policies would create 3 million jobs, and a third that supported the idea that Romney’s China policy would save 2 million jobs.  

7 + 3 + 2 = 12 million jobs.

The problem with claiming that Romney’s tax plan will create 7 million jobs is that Romney doesn’t really have a tax plan. He has some vague principles that call for lowering rates and eliminating deductions. The study necessarily ignore the effect of eliminating the unspecified deductions. And it has a timeline of 10 years. Not 4.

The energy policy claims are even more slippery. The cited study looked at current energy policy over the next 8 years. Current energy policy is the Obama administration’s policies, not Romney’s. It’s good to hear that it’ll create millions of jobs. But claims that those jobs will be the result of Romney policies are groundless.

And the China policy numbers are pure fiction. The cited study there claims that Chinese copyright and piracy policies have cost American’s 2 million jobs. There is no chance that a Romney administration will cause a an immediate change in Chinese law or that it will have an immediate effect on US employment.


Romney’s job numbers are highly dubious. His deficit reduction plan is worse. Romney calls for full extension of the Bush tax cuts, then another 20% reduction in tax rates, two trillion dollars in additional military spending, and extra $716 billion in Medicare spending.

They promise to cut spending and reduce tax deductions to pay for it all. But Republicans will need to come up with 7 trillion dollars in tax increases and spending cuts to pay for their promises. Of course, they have specified almost nothing about where this $7 trillion is supposed to come from. And even if they find the money, that would just get us back to the astronomical deficits we have now. Any real deficit reduction would have to be on top of that. Somehow.


Romney doesn’t feel your pain. But he wants you to think he has a plan to ease it. He doesn’t.

Binder? I Hardly Know Her

Mitt Romney, as he never tires of telling us, is a business man. He spent his career buying and selling businesses, running them, squeezing them for cash, and getting to understand them from the inside and out. So, when he received a debate question about women in the workforce, that should have been an easy question.

Surely, Mitt Romney has worked with women. Someone who "knows business" like Mitt Romney must know something about the role of women in the workforce. Right?

Apparently not.

When asked about equality for women in the workforce, Romney replied with his born-famous "binders full of women" reply:

CROWLEY: Governor Romney, pay equity for women?

ROMNEY: Thank you. And important topic, and one which I learned a great deal about, particularly as I was serving as governor of my state, because I had the chance to pull together a cabinet and all the applicants seemed to be men.

 ...

I went to a number of women’s groups and said, “Can you help us find folks,” and they brought us whole binders full of women.

Romney didn't know any women he wanted to invite into his cabinet. He wasn't aware of any women who might be suitable to work in his administration. Fortunately, these women's groups were there with their "binders full of women".

Ok. How did you like working with women, Mitt?

Now one of the reasons I was able to get so many good women to be part of that team was ... because I recognized that if you’re going to have women in the workforce that sometimes you need to be more flexible. My chief of staff, for instance, had two kids that were still in school. She said, I can’t be here until 7 or 8 o’clock at night. I need to be able to get home at 5 o’clock so I can be there for making dinner for my kids and being with them when they get home from school. So we said fine. Let’s have a flexible schedule so you can have hours that work for you.

Even when he gets to work with these exotic women, in his own cabinet(!), he still views them primarily as special cases who, unlike men apparently, require flexibility so they can spend time with their kids.

We’re going to have to have employers in the new economy, in the economy I’m going to bring to play, that are going to be so anxious to get good workers they’re going to be anxious to hire women. 

But don't worry! If we elect Mitt Romney things will be going so great that employers will even be willing to hire these troublesome women!


Except, employers are already perfectly willing to hire women. Currently, women comprise 47%* of the workforce. And rising. The fact that, with all his great business experience, Mitt Romney has nothing to say about the reality of working women is surprising. And not encouraging.

What about his policies? Did Romney promote any of these great workplace flexibility rules at all the businesses he owned? How about equal pay? When Romney is the boss is that something he offers? Or not? Is the binder story really all he's got on women in the workforce?

Romney keeps telling us he knows business. But on topics from role of women, to job creation, to the macro-economics of the 21st century Romney always tells and never shows. We're supposed to trust him. But he never tells us why. We have scant evidence that he empathized, understood, learned from or even attempted to improve the lives of all the men and women that worked for him. We have plenty of evidence that he knows how sweep money into his own pocket and that those of his plutocrat partners. Where is the evidence, or even the anecdotes, that show he learned anything about improving the lives of actual working Americans?

If you've been running companies for 25 years you shouldn't need a bunch of Massachusetts women's groups to tell you where to find working women.



* Ol' Mitt sure does have his blind spots when it comes to 47% of Americans.

To Protect the Life and Health of the Mother

We found out Christine was pregnant in the emergency room.

We wanted to have a baby. But our enthusiasm was dampened by the circumstances that brought us there. Christine had been experiencing severe, crippling abdominal pain for days. We were saddened but not surprised by the doctor's news. They thought it was an ectopic pregnancy. The fertilized egg was growing in one of Christine's fallopian tube instead of her uterus. If allowed to continue, the condition was guaranteed to be fatal to both Christine and the embryo.

The doctors recommended an operation to terminate the pregnancy. Immediately. We agreed.

After the operation we learned that the original diagnosis had been incorrect. It was not an ectopic pregnancy. The pain was caused by a substantial ovarian cyst. Christine was still pregnant.

Six months later we were back in the ER. Once again Christine had been experiencing severe pain. At this point she was 27 weeks pregnant - visibly bulging, but a very long way from the ingested-watermelon-look of a full term pregnancy. Once again we got the news that the pregnancy was killing her. She had HELLP syndrome and was hours away from a coma and death. The cure was to end the pregnancy. Immediately. Again.

Our local hospital was not equipped to handle the situation. We both grew up in Lebanon, New Hampshire and our parents were still living there. We asked that Christine be taken Dartmouth Hospital. The doctors were very concerned about her health deteriorating during the two hour ambulance ride. Ultimately, that's where they took her. Shortly after she arrived, our daughter Mattea was born, and Christine recovered.

Mattea weighted 1 lbs. 12 oz. at birth. Initially, she did very well and had no major health issues other than her low birth-weight. At six weeks, in yet another emergency setting, a new set of doctors informed us that Mattea had necrotizing enterocolitis. Her intestines died. Once again we were thrust into decisions involving the life and death of our child. And once again we really had no choice at all. Five days later Mattea died. She was our first-born child and the only daughter we will ever have. We were able to spend only a short amount of time with her. But we fell in love with her with an intensity that I had not anticipated and that the years without her have not diminished.



Following the murder of late-term abortion provider George Tiller, the blogger, Andrew Sullivan published a series of posts telling the stories of Tillers patients and of other women and families that have faced similar situations. I read through the stories of loving families thrust into impossible situations, of pregnancies gone horribly wrong, of children who could never be. What happened to us was tragic but not unique. The ectopic pregnancy was a false alarm. When Christine's HELLP appeared, the way to save Christine was to deliver Mattea. I have no illusions that another outcome was impossible. If the conversation had taken place a few weeks earlier, the baby could not have survived. A few hours later and Christine might not have.

Bringing life into this world is complicated and often dangerous. We don't often discuss it with anyone but our closest confidantes. But for so many families, pregnancy does not go smoothly. Many couples, many women experience infertility, miscarriages, complicated pregnancies, ectopic pregnancies, premature births, pregnancies where the life of the mother is threatened, pregnancies that will not result in a child that can thrive, pregnancies that are the result of rape, incest, coercion, or abuse. It's complicated.

When we talk about pregnancies being terminated, we usually only talk about the unwanted pregnancies. We act as if the inconvenient pregnancies are the whole story. They are not. Biology does not care if you are married or unmarried. It does not care if your baby is wanted or unwanted. Especially in the case of late-term abortions, if you are wondering how anyone could make such a terrible choice, you must remember that sometimes people have no choice.

When these issues are debated in our public spheres and in our august legislatures we need to recognize our limitations. Congress does not have to power to abolish tragedy. It can not legislate right or wrong. It can not save us from biology. They can create laws that compound tragedy with criminal trials and incarceration. It seems inconceivable that legislators would be willing to take tragic circumstances, like we experienced, and call them crimes. But the laws they propose would do precisely that. We have to see life as it really is and not just how we wish it to be.

Romney's $716 Billion Medicare Ad Campaign

Romney and Ryan have a new ad up explaining that they won't keep the cost controls Obama added to Medicare:

The ad complains that changes made in the ACA cut $716 billion dollars from Medicare spending over the next 10 years. This is true. Most of the cost reductions come from two changes to Medicare:

• Medicare Advantage: Medicare Advantage is an option that allows Medicare recipients to purchase private plans instead. The program will continue, but previously we paid 14% for the private plans than we pay for traditional Medicare plans. Under the ACA the playing field is leveled. We pay the same amount for the private and public plans, and save many billions of dollars.

• IPAB: The Independent Payment Advisory board is a an independent body with the mandate of controlling Medicare costs. They are charged with insuring that Medicaid costs don't grow faster than GDP + 1%. Previously, Medicare didn't really have a budget and so health care costs have been growing out of control. The IPAB is there to find inefficiencies and set policies to insure Medicare stays within its budget.

These changes, along with anti-fraud initiatives and other pilot programs, are on track to reduce Medicare spending by $716 billion over the next decade without a reduction in benefits.

Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan have pledged to get rid of these changes. They promise to spend an extra $716 billion on Medicare. 

The Romney and Ryan plans call for a similar mix of private and public plans competing on price. Cost growth is subject the same caps on rates. But their plan doesn't go into effect until 2023 at the earliest. That would mean pissing away the 716 billion dollars with another decade of runaway health care costs. And even then, they don't actually do anything to control health costs. The limited growth rate just applies to the voucher you'll get. The cost of the health plans can continue to rise, unconstrained. Patients will have to make up the difference with their own money.

They plan to convert Medicare to a voucher program. They waste a ton of money in the next decade. Over the long term, costs to taxpayers and consumers continue to rise. And even when it's fully implemented, their plan still costs the government and taxpayers more than the laws they seek to repeal.

Under Romney and Ryan that $716 billion doesn't get us a reformed Medicare system. It doesn't reduce the deficit. It doesn't provide affordable health care to all Americans.

It just allows them to run that ad.

Romney - Ryan

The more I think about it, the more I think Ryan was a smart pick for Romney.

The Ryan pick is not show of strength. Romney's plan seems to have been to to stay vague, complain about Obama and the economy, and coast to victory by keeping himself and his part out of the spotlight. The Ryan pick is an acknowledgement that the plan wasn't going so well.

Ryan brings a lot to the ticket. He's the movement conservatives hero and the favorite wonk of GOP elite. This helps Mitt with a still-suspicious base. Ryan is good looking, good-natured, is not a known culture-warrior, articulate, a loyal partisan, and has a particular talent for presenting radical policies with soothing manner and a straight-face.

Paul Ryan does bring substantial baggage in the form of his sweeping, transformative budget blueprints. There's concern that his extreme positions will scare off moderates and elderly. But, until yesterday, anyone who knew how Paul Ryan was also knew how they were going to vote. The low-information middle has never heard of this guy. This gives both parties to the chance to try and define him.

The big question is will the Ryan Budget become the Romney (or the Ryan-Romney) Budget? Democrats will push for it. They would love to run a choice campaign, know a big target when the see it, are sure to mention Ryan's-plan-to-end-Medicare at every opportunity. Republicans will push for it as well. They've already voted for it twice. Ryan's policy initiatives are what catapulted him to prominence and led the GOP powers that be push for him to be on the ticket.

The person least interested in seeing the Romney-Ryan ticket run on the Ryan plan is probably Mitt Romney. Ultimately, I expect him to (semi-successfully) move away from the Ryan plan. If Romney wanted to run on the details for the Ryan plan (such as they are), Ryan would be an obvious assent. But if Romney wants to run away from the plan, then neutralizing Ryan by drawing him close, is also a smart plan. Ryan won't be an independent voice calling the shots from Congress and nobody will push the plan without him.

The Romney campaign has been maddeningly vague up until now. Every policy issue has been answered with a mish-mash of contradictory talking points and devoid of substance. The Ryan pick might mark a move toward and honest policy discussion. But since both Ryan and Romney have reputations as policy wonks there's a serious risk that they will simply try to ride their repudiations and continue to avoid policy specifics. They can wave in the general direction of their various "plans" while declining to offer anything that could actually be evaluated.

Both liberals and conservatives are clamoring for battle over their policies and visions for the country. The Ryan pick offers the promise of a campaign with renewed focus on policy and legislative proposals. We should all hope, and strive to insure, the rest of the campaign lives up to that promise.

Taking Republicans Seriously: The Ryan Plan

Wisconsin Congressman Paul Ryan is the GOP’s favorite policy wonk. Ryan’s budget blueprint, The Path to Prosperity lays out a comprehensive vision of the future of the federal government.The wide-ranging document addresses everything from tax policy, defense and domestic spending, to entitlement reform.

Most politicians are known for their vacuous rhetoric. Ryan’s plan lays out the GOP agenda in stark numbers and explains how his party intends to govern, how they will balance the budget and their plan for the future. This plan has been put before US House of Representatives and approved, with near-unanimous acclaim, by the Republican majority.

Mitt Romney has joined the chorus of approval calling Ryan’s plan “marvelous”. And so this document represents, not just the guiding vision for the modern Republican Party, but a detailed plan of action.

The plan is not without its detractors. Commenters outside the GOP have suggested that the plan is a sham and that Ryan is a fraud. But given that is budget resolution has been put before and approved by the US Congress, it deserves serious consideration. Is it possible that all these pundits, politicians, and would-be presidents have heaped so much praise on this plan without considering its implications? Would the Republican majority vote to enact this plan into law if it didn’t reflect their values? Of course not.

So, it is worthwhile to examine this document and see what it says about the priorities and governing vision of the Republican party.


The GOP wants to raise your taxes. A lot.

Broaden the tax base to maintain revenue growth at a level consistent with current tax policy and at a share of the economy consistent with historical norms of 18 to 19 percent in the following decades.

Currently, federal revenue comes in at a little under 16% of GDP. Republicans want to increase that to 18% of within the next two years and to 19% over the next decade. These increases would generate an additional $13 trillion over the next decade.

The GOP does not plan to increase taxes across the board. The Ryan plan calls for the AMT to be eliminated and the top tax rate to be reduced to 25%. That means tax cuts for the rich. The increased revenue comes from the elimination of deductions. Regardless of the deductions eliminated, anyone currently paying more than 25% is going to get a substantial tax cut. In order to meet the revenue targets, a large number of Americans are going to be taxed at the 25% rate. Deductions are going to take a big hit. The home mortgage deduction, employer-sponsored health care, child care, earned income tax credits will all be on the block.

In order to meet aggressive revenue goals, and still offer generous tax cuts for the rich, the plan calls for steep tax increases for the poorest and middle-class Americans.

That means you get a big tax increase.


Republicans aren’t interested in controlling the cost of Medicare and Social Security.

the per capita cost of this reformed program for seniors reaching eligibility after 2023 could not exceed nominal GDP growth plus 0.5 percent.

The initial version of the Ryan budget contained a controversial plan to end conventional Medicare and replace it with a voucher program. The 2012 version of the plan modifies that idea, leaving the private plans as an optional addition. It sets the cap in Medicare cost growth at GDP growth + 0.5%. This is the exact same rate of increase President Obama has proposed.

The Ryan plan would not save the government any money relative to the Democratic alternative. It does eliminate Medicare cost controls that are part of current law, raising the likelihood that medical costs for seniors will rise faster than the Medicare payments. This will result in worse coverage and increased cost to patients and seniors.

The plan calls for a study of Social Security, proposes no specific reforms.


The Ryan plan eventually eliminates the entire federal government.

Entitlement and domestic  programs outside Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security would shrivel from the 12.5 percent of G.D.P. it reached in 2011 to 5.75 percent in 2030 to 3.75 percent in 2050, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

The GOP budget cuts funds for Medicaid and turns it over to the states to do more with less. It increases spending on defense and doesn’t cut Medicare or Social Security. The tax increases in the plan are not sufficient to achieve major debt reduction. The debt reduction comes from unspecified cuts in non-entitlement government spending.

These cuts are quite severe. They are so severe that by 2050 the plan calls for non-entitlement spending to be only 3.75% of GDP. That number includes defense spending. Republicans have stated that defense spending must not fall below 4% of GDP. So, under this plan, there won’t be enough money for all the proposed defense spending. And there won’t be any money at all left for anything else. At all.

Implementing and sticking with this plan would turn the federal government into an insurance company with an army. Everything else (FBI, veterans benefits, border patrols, federal prisons, education funding, housing, R&D, every federal department and agency, food inspection, homeland security, parks, energy... etc..) would be rapidly squeezed and, ultimately, eliminated.



The Republicans have been very clear that the Ryan Plan is their plan. If they win the presidency and the majority, this is their agenda. Tax cuts for the wealthy. Big tax increases for everyone else. Medical costs continue to rise. Everything else gets slashed or eliminated.

Will they actually follow through with it? I don’t know.

But, that’s the plan.

Law, Morality, and Terror

President Obama began the year by signing the 2012 Defense Authorization Act. This law may, or may not, depending who you ask, authorize the government to detain US Citizens indefinitely, without trial. The President has approved, via drone missile strike, the execution of US Citizens.

The nature of modern conflicts force us to enter a multitude of grey areas and force us to confront a number of questions.  What authority should the government have to engage enemies abroad or detain adversaries at home? What’s the proper line between law enforcement and war? How do we strike a balance between security and the rights citizens and humanity?

What do we want? What should we want?

It’s a question we all should grapple with. That’s what I’m trying to do here. My goal is to present a basic moral, practical, and legal framework within which policies and actions can be evaluated. In deciding the proper treatment for accused terrorists, suspected militants, or other enemies of the state, I divide them into three basic categories. These categories are differentiated largely by the circumstances under which the targets are operating or process by which they came to be in US custody.

Categories

Criminals

Anyone operating or apprehended on US soil, or in a friendly nation where our law enforcement officials can operate with relative freedom should be treated as a criminal. Regardless of the severity of the accusation, the detainee captured by law enforcement officials should be arrested and tried in criminal court. These individuals should be entitled to all of the rights, privileges, court systems and standards of evidence as anyone else arrested in the United States.


Prisoners of War

An individual, operating outside the US, captured, detained or handed over to the US military, who is thought be engaged of acts of war against the United States or its allies may rightfully be detained as a prisoner of war.

These persons should be treated in accordance with international norms and in a way consistent with our own expectations of how captured US service members are to be treated by other nations.

Only people actively engaged in acts of war, or planning such actions can be rightfully held under this authority. Attempts to kill American soldiers or civilians and similar acts of destruction are adequate qualification. But no amount of preaching, writing, speaking or other non-military act is sufficient.

Prisoners of war should have the opportunity to challenge the circumstances of their detention and to demonstrate that they should not be rightfully held as prisoners of war. They may be held until such time as the relevant conflict has ceased, or they are not longer considered a threat. This may result in an indefinite period of detention.

Prisoners of war may also be charged with crimes, subject to military courts, and thus incarcerated for longer periods of time.


Enemies on the Battlefield

Individuals engaged in acts of war against the US, and not subject to apprehension by military or civilian authorities, may be properly regarded as battlefield enemies. They are legitimate targets and may be targeted and killed by our armed forces.

Implications

The above represents relatively straightforward framework. That may or may not be controversial. It does carry several implications that should be called out.


Citizenship

None of these categorizations are dependant upon citizenship. An accused terrorist arrested at Logan airport with a Yemeni passport gets the same access to the courts as an American citizen. Similarly, holding an American passport affords you no protection if you are holding a rifle on a rooftop in Kandahar or organizing militants in a village in Waziristan.


Transparency and Authority

Much of the controversy around military and terror policies stem from questions of transparency and authority. Even if we grant the powers to detain or kill, who gets to decide when they are applied? What level of transparency do we require? Should our government be required to inform us if they’ve decided they are entitled to kill someone?

I’m taking the basic position that the framework outlined here is a moral framework. Issues of transparency and accountability don’t change the morality of the underlying actions. Torture or an extra-legal assassination doesn’t become moral because it is covered up successfully or rationalized to someone’s satisfaction. The acts are moral or immoral, legal or illegal, whether we find out about them or not.

The flip side of that is that, in a democracy, authority is granted by the people. But it is granted. We should not require military commanders or their civilian leaders to publish a list their targets or their protocols. Ultimately, we have to recognize that, with our elections, we are entrusting imperfect people with tremendous power.

We have to elect people we can trust. We have to trust the people we’ve elected. We have observe and evaluate the outcomes and see if that trust has been violated.