Category Archives: Fiscal Freedom

The 40th president refused to speak out even when Paul Volcker's austerity measures threatened his presidency. In the end, both were rewarded.

(Original Caption) Washington, D. C.: President Reagan meets with Paul Volcker, Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board in the Oval Office in 1981. (Getty Images)

It is fitting that the nation should note with respect and appreciation the manifold achievements of Paul A. Volcker. Volcker, who died last Sunday at age 92, is most well known, and most highly praised, for smiting the burgeoning inflation that threatened the countrys economic future back in the late 1970s and early 1980s, when he served as Federal Reserve chairman.

It was a signal achievement. But his monetary policies, designed to wring inflation out of the economy by fostering high interest rates, also thrust the nation into a vortex of economic anguish. Two recessions can be directly attributed to Volckers policies, the second of which generated the highest unemployment rate since the Great Depression. Thousands of companies went out of business, and millions of Americans lost their jobs. As The Wall Street Journal put it in an editorial, Volcker had an inner strength of character that helped him persevere through the bad times.

But there was another American back then who demonstrated similar strength of characterwith much more on the line than Volcker had. That was Ronald Reagan, who inherited the inflation monster upon taking office as president in January 1981 and who uttered nary a peep of protest as Volcker put the country through a wringer that could have crushed his presidency.

It is difficult, from this remove of nearly four decades, to imagine just how dangerous and scary those times were. During the week of Reagans inauguration, Time hit newsstands with a cover that pictured a crumbing dollar sign and the headline: Reagans Biggest Challenge: Mending the Economy. Newsweek blared that week: The Economy in Crisis.

The scourge of inflation had yielded an ominous new economic phenomenon called stagflationsimultaneous high inflation and stagnant or negative economic growth. The countrys gross domestic product had declined by 0.04 percent the previous year. Unemployment stood at 7.4 percent, with economists predicting even higher rates as Volckers monetary austerity rolled on. Inflation was approaching an unheard-of rate of 12 percent. Meanwhile, Volcker had the prime interest rate at a commerce-crunching 21 percent.

What the Great Depression was to the 1930s, said the prominent economist Walter Heller, the Great Inflation is to the 1980s.

It was amid this miasma of trouble and trauma that Reagan took the presidential oath of office and told his fellow citizens that their problems werent going away anytime soon. But they will go away he added, because we as Americans have the capacity now, as we have had in the past, to do whatever needs to be done to preserve this last and greatest bastion of freedom.

Reagans answer to the crisis was to curtail federal spending (which he was never particularly successful at doing) and to cut marginal individual tax rates (which he got through Congress within eight months of taking office). His fiscal formula, novel and controversial at the time, fell under the rubric of supply-side economics, the notion that the economy was being stifled by high tax rates that suppressed economic initiative and verve. High marginal ratesthose imposed on the last dollar earnedwere sapping Americans zest for saving, working, and investing, argued the supply siders. Slash those rates, they suggested, and the economy would come roaring back.

The problem was that the imperatives of legislative compromise required that he delay the effective dates of three successive tax cuts, while the first years reductions were cut in half. Thus if Reagans tax regimen was to work at all (and skeptics were howling that it never would), it wouldnt take effect for at least a year and a half. Meanwhile, Volckers powerful monetary machinery kept delivering what The New York Times called a kind of shock therapy that crushed economic activity.

By November 1982, as voters prepared to go to the polls for that years midterm elections, unemployment had risen to 10.8 percent. The country was headed for a 1.44 percent decline in GDP in 1982. When Republicans implored Americans to stay the course, Democrats retorted that it was more like stay the curse. Republicans, who had retaken the Senate in 1980 for the first time in 26 years, lost a single Senate seat that year. But they also yielded 26 House seats to Democrats. It was a political defeat for Reagans party, but not as large a blow as it could have been or as many had predicted.

Thats probably because both the Volcker austerity measures and Reagans tax reductions were beginning to show results. Inflation fell below 4 percent in 1983, which stifled many of the most strident anti-Volcker voices in the land. America under Reagans leadership also rebounded from the 1982 recession with a 7.9 percent surge in GDP. Subsequent years brought growth rates of 5.58 percent, 4.18 percent, 2.9 percent, 4.48 percent, and 3.8 percent. And those growth rates were achieved with minimal inflation throughout the remainder of the 1980s and beyond.

This dual success is a testament to the intertwined monetary and fiscal policies of Volcker and Reaganand to the respect and regard each of these leaders harbored for the other. Not everyone, even today, appreciates how well this all worked. The New York Times obituary of Volcker doesnt mention Reagans public silence as Volckers austerity measures threatened his presidency. It does suggest that Volckers early crunch policies probably contributed to President Jimmy Carters 1980 defeat, without noting that the inflationary surge necessitating Volckers actions commenced on Carters watch (though it should be noted that some of the root causes predated Carters presidency).

The Times also recounted an anecdote from Volckers memoir in which White House chief of staff James Baker, with Reagan present, warned against any interest rate increases leading up to Reagans 1984 reelection bid. Baker says he doesnt remember the incident, though there is no reason to question Volckers memory. No doubt the president, having gone through the crucible of the 1982 recession and emerged with a surging economy, feared that Fed concerns about an overheating economy could lead to such a faulty policy. Volcker writes in his memoir that he had no intention of raising rates in the first place and never did.

But the key point is Reagans avoidance of any actions, public or private, designed to curtail Volckers austerity measures when they posed their greatest threat to his fledgling presidency. Perhaps Reagan had full confidence that the combination of Volckers monetary policies and his own fiscal initiatives would work in the end. Perhaps he simply understood the necessity of such harsh measures in the face of the greatest inflationary threat in the countrys history. Perhaps he just felt that he shouldnt meddle in the Feds business.

Whatever the reason, Reagans actions, or non-actions, represented a noteworthy element of leadershipthe leadership of silence.

Robert W. Merry, longtime Washington journalist and publishing executive, is the author most recently ofPresident McKinley: Architect of the American Century.

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Paul Volcker: The Man Who Helped Reagan Save the Economy - The American Conservative

It strikes me that the best criticism of the order is that the executive branch is expanding the reach of Title VI, and has been since the Bush II administration, without either Congressional action or at least a formal rulemaking process that would allow public objections during the notice-and-comment period and also litigation against whatever winds up being published in the Federal Register. As someone who was strongly critical of the Obama administration for governing through executive order and informal guidance, I'd need some persuading as to why the same criticisms don't apply here.

As for measured substantive criticism, David Schraub in The Atlantic provides a useful and thoughtful summary of criticism from the left. Here are some of the prominent criticisms, and my response.

(1) While there is nothing inherently wrong with the Trump executive order, Schraub suggests that Jews and others rightly don't trust the Trump administration regarding antisemitism, and therefore don't trust the administration to properly and fairly enforce the order on college campuses. Whatever one thinks of Trump and his administrationand I have knowledgeable Jewish friends who think everything from 'the Trump administration is institutionally antisemitic' to 'the Trump administration is the most philo-semitic in history'it's not the "Trump administration" that enforces Title VI, it's the Department of Education Office for Civil Rights. There's no reason to think that the civil servants at OCR have gone Trumpian. Ken Marcus, the political appointee who runs OCR, has made a career out of fighting antisemitism; it's ridiculous to think that Ken deserves Jews' mistrust.

(2) Shraub references the "more legitimately controversial aspect of the Executive Order: its misappropriation of the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism for use in assigning civil liability." Schraub fails to make it clear that this definition is only to be used as possible evidence of discriminatory intent when otherwise potentially illegal discrimination is going on. No one is going to be civilly liable for saying something that violates IHRA by itself. True, aggressive bureaucrats can blur this distinction under hostile environment law, and ignore relevant First Amendment constraints. But that's a problem with hostile environment law and aggressive bureaucrats, not in using the IHRA definition as one factor in assessing discriminatory intent. I'm all for constraining hostile environment law with strong First Amendment protections, but I'm not in favor of the position that hostile environment law should be applied vigorously to protect other minority groups, but not Jews.

(3) Finally, Schraub suggests that the Trump administration has proven itself all-too-willing to crack down on speech on campus related to the Middle East it doesn't like. In particular he objects that the Trump administration has violated freedom of speech and academic freedom by starting to monitor academic balance in Middle East Studies programs that receive federal funds. I certainly agree, as a general matter, that the federal government has no business monitoring academic programs for balance. But the particular funding program at issue provides funding for Mideast studies to promote knowledge of the Middle East to serve U.S. foreign policy objectives. As a result of this mandate, the relevant funding law requires universities to pledge that their programs will be balanced. In other words, monitoring balance is not some bizarre or aggressive anti-academic freedom initiative, but just enforcing the lawa law, admittedly, that previous administrations failed to enforce. But aren't we having an impeachment right now in part over the notion that the executive branch is supposed to follow Congressional mandates with regard to appropriations? Universities should not accept money with such strings, especially when the money is not, as it is not in the Mideast Studies funding context, remotely crucial to their fiscal stability. But if they do accept federal money with such strings, they, and critics like Schraub, can hardly object that their academic freedom is being denied.

UPDATE: How might the IHRA definition of antisemitism be used as evidence of discriminatory intent? Imagine a university administrator who refuses to give a room reservation to a black student group. He claims that it was just a bureaucratic error, not discrimination. But he sent a note with the denial with a tagline "white lives matter." It's not illegal to say "white lives matter." But it can surely be evidence of discriminatory intent in that context. Similarly, Hillel, the Jewish student organization is denied a room reservation. Same scenario, but the tag line is "Zionists are Nazis." It's not illegal to say that. But it can surely be used as evidence that the Hillel room reservation denial was motivated by discriminatory sentiment against Jews, and it would be almost facetious in that context to say that the tagline was merely evidence of hostility to Israel and its supporters and not evidence of discriminatory animus toward Jews.

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Assessing Some Criticisms of the Trump Administration's Executive Order on Antisemitism - Reason

OpinionBusiness confidence should recover, but Brexit will inflict damage and increase the price of living

Friday, 13th December 2019, 9:12 am

'There is an uncomfortably high risk of another Brexit cliff-edge'

Samuel Tombs, Chief UK Economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics

The Conservatives large majority will give the economy some much-needed breathing space over the next six months. Business confidence should recover, now that a no-deal Brexit isnt a risk in January 2020 and the outlook for domestic policy over the next five years is relatively clear. Many firms will be able to invest, knowing that corporation tax likely wont rise, wages wont increase rapidly and Labours socialist agenda will not be implemented soon. Consumers confidence also might recoverthough a majority of people didnt vote Conservativeand the recovery in sterling to $1.35 will help to keep CPI inflation below the 2 per cent target next year, supporting real incomes.

i's opinion newsletter: talking points from today

Nonetheless, Brexit is a losing game for the economy and now it is only a question of when and how much additional pain will be inflicted. In theory, the Conservatives large majority gives PM Johnson useful flexibility during the all-important trade talks with the EU next year.

A large majority makes it easier for him to make the Commons accept either an extension of the transition period or to accede to some rule-taking in order to facilitate a semi-decent trade deal. The group of 28 hardline Eurosceptic MPs who voted against Theresa Mays Withdrawal Agreement, in a bid to achieve a no-deal Brexitwho all have held onto their seatswill not be able to restrain Boris Johnson.

However, the Conservatives manifesto clearly states that the transition period will not be extended beyond December 2020. The Withdrawal Agreement also states that any extension request must be approved by the end of June, when the UK government probably still will have unrealistic expectations for the trade deal. In all probability, then, the UK will be facing the uncomfortably high risk of another Brexit cliff-edge in December 2020, dampening the economy again in the second half of next year.

The Conservatives large majority also eases pressure on them to loosen fiscal policy substantially next year. The likelihood that the next general election will not be held for another five years encourages the Chancellor to run a tight ship early on, before attempting to turbocharge the economy in the run-up to the next poll.

In the short-term, then, relief that the first Brexit hurdle has been safely surmounted should help quarter-on-quarter GDP growth to pick up to a 0.4 per cent rate in Q1 and Q2 2020, exceeding this years average 0.2 per cent pace. A window of opportunity for the MPC to raise Bank Rate might emerge in the summer, provided the global economy has perked up by then too. But with the threat of a hard Brexit in 2021 looming large, the economy will struggle to get out of second gear.

'More global free trade and market-oriented policy'

Kevin Albertson, Professor of Economics, Manchester Metropolitan University

Boris Johnsons clear majority gives him the freedom to act, if he chooses, to address the economic problems faced by the UK and by the world today. But it is not clear he fully understands what these problems are.

The world economy is slowing down, economic concentration means the fruits of economic growth are shared by fewer and fewer people, and what passes for economic growth is buoyed up by debt and ecological deficit more than by sustainable economic activity. These problems are not new, of course they have been bubbling under the surface for the last four decades.

They leave Johnson, like all world leaders, in a conundrum. There are only enough good jobs in the world for about one third of the adult population, but it is by no means clear, and perhaps not possible, to boost economic activity sufficiently to create all the extra employment needed under the current economic system.

It hardly needs to be said that leaving the EU is unlikely to address these issues.

The general thrust of the Conservative Partys agenda looks likely to continue down the route of global free trade and market-oriented policy. This has, since the 1970s, hampered the UKs efforts to adapt to a world economy which has reached economic and ecological constraints.

Its also likely that Johnson will be unlucky enough to be in office when the world economy moves into an economic slump over the next few years. This will not be his fault, but the economic tools in which he appears likely to place his and the nations trust are not adequate to cope with such a situation.

Republished from the Conversation. Read the original post here

'The rising cost of living is unlikely to be matched by public spending'

Hanna Szymborska, Lecturer in Economics, The Open University

The large Conservative gains are surprising because much of the dissatisfaction with the economy, which led to Brexit, was fuelled by the Conservatives austerity agenda. They oversaw rising inequality, deteriorating public services, sluggish real wage growth, and faltering investment levels over the past nine years particularly in the areas that have turned blue.

Because the Conservative Party manifesto did not offer any radical policies to boost the UK economy, it is hard to see how Boris Johnsons government will help turn things around. In the short term, the near-certain prospect of a 2020 Brexit may bring a period of long-awaited certainty, reinforcing the markets optimism by strengthening the position of the pound against other major currencies and restoring some confidence in consumer spending. But these initial feelings of stability may be short lived.

The transition period is bound to bring a fresh wave of uncertainty in the years to come as the UK begins to separate its legislative system from the EU. This is likely to discourage demand and drive investment away from the UK, which would put a further strain on the economy that already suffers from low productivity.

In the long run (depending on what kind of Brexit is concluded) the prospect of low demand, possible trade restrictions, and the potential loss of cheap migrant labour from the EU is likely to have a negative impact on firms and on consumers if prices rise. In this context, the Conservative manifesto promises for boosting public spending may be difficult to do and too modest to make up for the increase in the cost of living, which is likely to ensue in this situation.

Republished from the Conversation. Read the original post here

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What the general election result means for the UK economy, according to three economists: how it will affect jobs, Brexit and growth - inews

Mr. Speaker, I was elected to this House in 2004 at the ripe old age of 25. In many ways I grew up in this chamber. Some may say I havent yet grown up. I was barely out of university. Newly married with our first child on the way. Since then Ive had five beautiful children and my first born is now 14hes all arms and legs and I think hes going to be taller than me very soon, Mr. Speaker.

Ive logged many hours flying back and forth from Regina and Ottawa and all across this wonderful country. And along side my friends in the Conservative caucus weve accomplished a lot on both the government and opposition side of the benches. And most importantly weve kept our party united and strong. Which is why today I felt it was appropriate to speak to any friends and colleagues in the House of Commons about one of the most difficult decisions I have ever made. I just informed my colleagues in the Conservative caucus that I will be resigning as the leader of the Conservative party of Canada. And I will be asking the Conservative Party National Council to immediately begin the process of organizing a leadership election.As our party embarks on this exciting opportunity of electing a new Conservative leader and Canadas next prime minister I intend to stay on as leader of the party and the official opposition. Serving as leader of the party that I love so much has been the opportunity and challenge of a lifetime.

READ:Andrew Scheer is stepping down as Conservative Party leader

This was not a decision I came to lightly. This was a decision I came to after many long, hard conversations with friends and family over the past two months since the election campaign. This has been an incredible challenge for our family to keep up with the pace that is required to lead a caucus and a party into a general election. My wife Jill has been absolutely heroic. But in order to chart the course ahead, this party, this movement needs someone who can give 100 per cent to the efforts. And after some conversations with my kids, my loved ones, I felt it was time to put my family first.

Our Conservative team is always stronger when we are united. When fiscal Conservative, Red Tories, social conservatives, libertarians, Quebec nationalists, Conservative in rural Canada and urban Canada, in the east and west come together great things happen. We elect strong Conservative governments that deliver lower taxes, smaller government, more freedom and stronger human rights.

The party that we have all built together is far too important for one individual. Our party is not a cult of personality. Its not shaped by whoevers name is on the masthead, but by the hundreds of thousands of Conservatives who pound in lawn signs, sit on their riding associations and donate a few dollars every month.

And as our party beings to embark on this exciting opportunity, electing a new leader, my only ask to my fellow Conservatives is this: lets stay united. Lets stay focused on our one shared goal and our one shared priority, to deliver a strong Conservative government who can unite our country and make life better for all Canadians. For the oil worker out of a job, for the senior choosing between heating and eating and for Canadas position on the world stage.

I believe in this party, I believe in our movement, I believe that we will be a government after the next election. I got involved as a teen because I love this party. I ran because I love this party and I ran for leader because I wanted to help this party. I will continue to serve my Conservative caucus. I will continue to serve the great people in the fantastic riding of Regina-QuAppelle. Im proud of what weve accomplished in my time as leader. We knocked the Liberals down to a minority, we increased seats all over this country.

Whoever the hundreds of thousands of Conservatives across the country choose to lead our party into the next election, that person will have my 100 per cent support. And my message to the Prime Minister and the Liberals in the House is this: during this leadership election there will be no free rides in the House of Commons. Weve already hit the ground running. We had a 1000 per cent batting average for a brief period of time on Tuesday evening, we might see if we can increase that batting average. But we are going to continue to be here every single day. To represent our constituents, perform our duties as parliamentarians to put Canadians and Canada first. I want to thank you Mr. Speaker for indulging me in this statement. I want to thank my colleagues in the Conservative Party.

Merci beaucoup.

Ce fut lhonneur de ma vie professionnelle detre le chef du Parti conservateur. Je remercie tous mes collegues de leur appui et de leur confiance au cours des trois dernieres annees. Jai pris cette decision, car elle est la meilleure pour notre parti.

Ive made this decision because its the best thing for our party. Our party needs someone who can give everything theyve got. Ive always been honest with my colleagues, Ive always been honest with everybody. I know that the road ahead, the stress that would put on my family. I cant give them that 100 per cent assurance. I know the next person will and I know I can speak on behalf of my team that the next leader of this party will have support required from these benches to make sure were successful in the next election.

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Andrew Scheers resignation speech in the House of Commons - Maclean's

When Georgias now-infamous 6-week abortion ban passed earlier this year, the law stood in stark contrast with the states devastatingly high maternal mortality rate (the 48th worst in the country) and Georgias decision not to expand Medicaid to ensure more people get health coverage.

But a clearer bellwether for this ban came three full years prior, when the state chose to fund fake abortion clinics, called crisis pregnancy centers. State Sen. t x crafted Senate Bill 308 to establish the Positive Alternatives for Pregnancy and Parenting Grant Program. Republicans voted unanimously for the bill, and the program went into effect in 2017. According to data the Georgia Department of Public Health (DPH) provided to VICE, 16 of these clinics have or will receive at least $6.7 million in funds before June 2020.

Crisis pregnancy centers (CPCs) are nonprofits that are typically religiously affiliated and claim to provide free, legitimate medical services but actually use deceptive language on their websites and in their advertisements to get pregnant people considering abortion to walk through their doors. Once there, staff members and volunteers who typically lack medical training give the client faith-based misinformation about abortion, dissuade them from terminating their pregnancy, or tell them they have more time to think about it.

CPCs all over the state, both in rural and urban areas, are benefiting from taxpayer funds. According to documents obtained from DPH, the top three beneficiaries are Pregnancy Aid Clinic and A Beacon of Hope in the metro Atlanta area and Caring Solutions of Central Georgia in Macon, Georgiathey have received a total of $892,256, $878,433, and $767,500 respectively since 2017.

Unterman said she wrote SB 308 so that pregnant people could make "better decisions" (she sponsored the abortion ban in the state senate to ensure babies are saved and given the opportunity to have a fruitful, meaningful life), but many of her Democratic counterparts beg to differ, including state Rep. Renitta Shannon, whos been open about her own abortion.

If a woman knows she does not want to carry a pregnancy, and you are doing things to delay her being able to get the abortion that she knows she wants, thats very dangerous, Shannon told VICE. Youre running out the clock on her, and its never a good situation when women are forced into birthing.

Shannon asserted that the role CPCs play in delaying abortions until they can no longer get the procedure in the state (20 weeks in most cases) is contributing to Georgias maternal mortality rate. In Georgia, Black women are 2.3 times more likely than white women to die due to childbirth-related causes.

Knowledge of the myriad reproductive oppressions faced by Black women in Georgia and the harm that fake abortion clinics may cause spurred Shannon to write a bill in 2019 to repeal the Positive Alternatives program, House Bill 188. Shannon and her co-sponsors are representative of whos been spearheading the movement for reproductive health, rights, and justice in the state for decades: Black women. Four of HB 188s six sponsorsShannon, State Rep. Park Cannon, Rep. Jasmine Clark, and Rep. Pam Stephensonare Black. These women are determined to get the bill a hearing in the state legislature during its 2020 session.

Cannon, who was a part of the movement that fought to kill SB 308 in 2016, pointed to the Positive Alternatives programs one-page annual reports from fiscal years 2017, 2018, and 2019 as a sign of the states lack of transparency in revealing how grants are being spent.

When it comes to reproductive health, Republicans are not looking to compromise. Instead, theyre looking to push their own extremist agenda, said Cannon, who's also a doula. We know this because when SB 308 was being passed, we had women of lower economic means at the table, we had women of color at the table, but they were ignored.

Republicans not only ignored the lived experiences of those and other women, but also the findings of public health professionals.

Andrea Swartzendruber, a public health professor at the University of Georgia, began looking into CPCs during the SB 308 legislative battle and has been researching them ever since. She led the creation of the Crisis Pregnancy Center Map, which logs all CPCs in the country. There are currently 2,537 locations on the map, including 91 in Georgia alone. Finding a fake abortion clinic in Georgia is much easier than accessing an actual one; as of 2017, only 26 facilities provide abortion in the state.

Along with creating a map of CPCs, Swartzendruber and her co-investigators found that these facilities pose potential risks to individuals, to families, and to public health and that they often market their services to young people, people of color, and low-income peoplethose who are already disproportionately impacted by adverse sexual and reproductive health outcomes. Her team has a paper under review that examines the association between states support for CPCs, the number of CPCs in a state, and states restrictions on abortions.

Our data thus far suggests that having a greater number of crisis pregnancy centers by state in 2018 predicted introduction of legislation in the first half of 2019 that would have banned all or most abortions, Swartzendruber said.

Swartzendruber has also found that local, state, and federal government support for CPCs is on the rise. More states than ever are adopting grant programs like Positive Alternatives and more public schools are contracting with CPCs to provide abstinence-only sex ed programming to students. Title X, a federal family planning program, has undergone major rule changes under President Trump and now allows funds to be awarded to fake abortion clinics. Theyre even gaining legal protections, as evidenced by the Supreme Court case, NIFLA v. Becerra, that affirmed the First Amendment right of CPCs by striking down a California law regulating the facilities.

Clark first learned about CPCs when one of her constituents, appalled by her childs school system allowing CPCs to teach sex education, approached her about sponsoring a bill that would require public schools to provide medically accurate sex education. Clark ended up sponsoring that bill for the 2019-2020 legislative cycle in addition to becoming a co-sponsor for the bill to repeal CPC funding after a meeting with Shannon at the state capitol.

I did not hesitate to sign onto HB 188 because I firmly believe that you give people their options, and you let them decide, but what you dont do is mislead them down a specific path that you would prefer for them to go. If thats what youre going to do, I dont think the state should be funding your mission, Clark told VICE.

At the start of the 2019 legislative session, Cannon says that Democrats were told by Republican leadership that no bills related to abortion would receive a hearing. Yet, only a few weeks after the session began, Republicans held hearings for the 6-week abortion ban, which was signed into law by Gov. Brian Kemp on May 7 despite heavy opposition from Democratic legislators and grassroots Black women-led organizations such as SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective and Feminist Womens Health Center. Those groups are plaintiffs in a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union challenging the bill's constitutionality and they also filed a successful request for an injunction to stop the abortion ban from taking effect on January 1, 2020.

Energy that couldve gone toward advocating for CPCs to be defunded instead had to be funneled into fighting the abortion ban this year. Despite Republican majorities in both chambers, the bills sponsors are prepared to go to bat for HB 188 once the legislative session begins in January, with hopes that Georgians who believe in reproductive freedom are ready, too.

Georgians have said over and over again that we need to expand Medicaid, we know we have a maternal mortality crisis, we know we have a crisis of specialists in Georgia for reproductive healthcare, so they need to be demanding that their tax dollars be used to actually go towards those issues rather than fake clinics, Shannon said.

The bill's sponsors are also gearing up for a "peoples hearing" that will take place on Facebook early next year to increase awareness about the legislation and to enable oft-ignored constituents to have a voice in the process.

Many of the younger legislators in metro Atlanta, Democratic legislators, have been very intentional about holding peoples hearings, Cannon said. Peoples hearings are not a novel concept in America, but in the state of Georgia, they seem to be something quite new. What were finding is that were able to bring people in of all identities, orientations, levels of ability, and comfortability with public speaking and hear them out by hosting peoples hearings.

For the Black women lawmakers seeking to end state funding for fake abortion clinics, this fight is both personal and political. They say theyre prioritizing HB 188 to help end reproductive injustices in their own lives and in their communities.

As a doula, I work with pregnant women who are always asking me for resources on how to get another ultrasound just to double check that everything is developing correctly with their fetus, and unfortunately, when they Google free ultrasounds, crisis pregnancy centers show up, Cannon said. I really hope that with this legislation, we will be able to give more of an explanation to all women that just because youre looking for something free does not mean that you have to be misled.

This story, part of a series on reproductive injustices in Georgia, was supported by Press On's Freedomways Reporting Project fellowship.

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This article originally appeared on VICE US.

Read more here:

Georgia Is Funneling Millions of Dollars to Fake Abortion Clinics - VICE

OTTAWA How Andrew Scheer announced his resignation as leader of the Conservative party in the House of Commons on Dec. 12, 2019:

Mr. Speaker, I was elected to this House in 2004, at the ripe old age of 25. In many ways, I grew up in this chamber, but some might say I have not yet grown up. I was barely out of university, newly married and with our first child on the way. Since then, I have had five beautiful children. My first-born is now 14. He is all arms and legs. I think he is going to be taller than me very soon.

I have logged many hours flying back and forth from Regina to Ottawa and all across this wonderful country. Alongside my friends in the Conservative caucus, we have accomplished a lot on both the government and opposition sides of the benches. Most importantly, we have kept our party united and strong.

That is why I felt it was appropriate to speak to my friends and colleagues today in the House of Commons about one of the most difficult decisions I have ever made. I have just informed my colleagues in the Conservative caucus that I will be resigning as the leader of the Conservative Party of Canada.

I will be asking the Conservative party national council to immediately begin the process of organizing a leadership election. As our party embarks on this exciting opportunity of electing a new Conservative leader and Canada's next prime minister, I intend to stay on as leader of the party and the official opposition.

Serving as the leader of the party that I love so much has been the opportunity and challenge of a lifetime. This was not a decision I came to lightly. It was one I came to after many long, hard conversations with friends and family over the past two months since the election campaign.

It has been an incredible challenge for our family to keep up with the pace that is required to lead a caucus and a party into a general election, and my wife Jill has been absolutely heroic. However, in order to chart the course ahead, this party and this movement need someone who can give 100 per cent to the effort. After some conversations with my kids and loved ones, I felt it was time to put my family first.

Our Conservative team is always stronger when we are united. When fiscal conservatives, Red Tories, social conservatives, libertarians, Quebec nationalists and Conservatives in rural and urban Canada in the east and west come together, great things happen. We elect strong Conservative governments that deliver lower taxes, smaller governments, more freedom and stronger human rights. The party we have all built together is far more important for one individual.

Our party is not a cult of personality. It is not shaped by whoever's name is on the masthead, but by the hundreds of thousands of Conservatives who pound in lawn signs, sit on their riding associations and donate a few dollars every month.

As our party begins to embark on this exciting opportunity of electing a new leader, my only ask to my fellow Conservatives is this: Let us stay united. Let us stay focused on our one shared goal and one shared priority, which is to deliver a strong Conservative government that can unite our country and make life better for all Canadians, for the oilworker out of a job, for the senior who is choosing between heating and eating and for Canada's position on the world stage.

I believe in this party, I believe in our movement and I believe that we will be a government after the election. I became involved as a teen because I love this party. I ran because I love this party, and I ran for leader because I wanted to help this party.

I will continue to serve my Conservative caucus, and I will continue to serve the great people in the fantastic riding of Regina-Qu'Appelle.

I am proud of what we have accomplished during my time as leader. We kept our party united and strong, we knocked the Liberals down to a minority and we increased seats all over this country. Whoever the hundreds of thousands of Conservatives across the country choose to lead our party into the next election will have my 100 per cent support.

My message to the prime minister and the Liberals in this House is this: During this leadership election there will be no free rides in the House of Commons. We have already hit the ground running. We had a 1,000 per cent batting average for a brief period of time on Tuesday evening. We might see if we can increase that batting average. However, we are going to continue to be here every single day to represent our constituents, perform our duties as parliamentarians and to put Canadians and Canada first.

I want to thank you, Mr. Speaker, for indulging me in this statement. I want to thank my colleagues in the Conservative party.

Merci beaucoup.

Ce fut l'honneur de ma vie professionnelle d'etre le chef du Parti conservateur. Je remercie tous mes collegues de leur appui et de leur confiance au cours des trois dernieres annees. J'ai pris cette decision, car elle est la meilleure pour notre parti.

I have made this decision because it is the best thing for our party. Our party needs someone who can give everything they have. I have always been honest with my colleagues, I have always been honest with everybody, and I know that the road ahead and the stress that would put on my family would mean I could not give them that 100 per cent assurance. I know the next person will and I know I can speak on behalf of all our team that the next leader of this party will have the support required from these benches to make sure we are successful in the next election.

More:

Verbatim: Andrew Scheer's resignation announcement in the House of Commons - Powell River Peak

Race to the bottom

The last week of November was a good week for the governments economic team. Not because they did anything good but because someone else was even worse. And that takes some doing.

During that week, the economic team had the limelight of incompetence gloriously stolen from them by the governments legal team which failed to put together a basic summary and notification for the appointment of the COAS despite having several chances to get it right.

Staying true to PTI tradition, the legal team subsequently held a press conference to try and spin this embarrassing failure as a victory. It ended up looking like a celebration of their own incompetence. To make matters comically worse, the same team that couldnt draft a summary will now attempt to draft a bill on the same matter. Some jokes write themselves.

The economic team tried to use the temporary breathing space gifted to them by the legal team to once again try and push the narrative that the economy is improving despite the reality being to the contrary. Their claims of improvement have centred around two indicators: foreign investment and current account deficit. Their silence on other more fundamentally important economic indicators has been telling. More on that in a bit but, first, a couple of humble submissions regarding the two indicators the government cant stop tweeting about.

The increase in foreign investment the government is celebrating has primarily been driven by speculative international investors who have invested in the governments short-term securities, more commonly known as Treasury Bills or T-Bills. These investors are attracted by the State Banks high policy rate, a whopping 13.25 percent right now. They are parking their money in Pakistans T-Bills for a few months to earn a quick, handsome interest at the governments expense, and then whisking that money away.

None of these investments is contributing to the creation of jobs, income or production. Pakistan is simply being used as a parking lot to make a quick buck. And the people of Pakistan are paying for it. While foreign speculative investors benefit from the high policy rate, our economy is suffering because of it. The double-digit policy rate has contributed to a sharp economic slowdown while failing to achieve its primary objective of curbing inflation.

The governments second main claim regarding a decrease in the current account deficit also possesses an ugly underbelly. This decrease has largely been a result of a reduction in imports, and not of any substantive increase in exports. Even this reduction in imports is not of the good kind. Economic activity overall and production in particular have steadily declined over the past 15 months. Large-scale manufacturing (LSM) output contracted for the sixth month in a row in September without any signs of improvement.

Depressed levels of production have caused a decrease in the import of raw materials, machinery and components used for production. This has been the primary driver of the reduction in the current account deficit. As an example, low demand for automotives resulted in a 27 percent decline in the import of CKD/SKD kits, used in the production of cars, motorcycles and heavy vehicles, in the first quarter of the current fiscal year. Overall car sales have plunged 44 percent in the first five months of this fiscal year. Other industries have witnessed a similar trend. Factories are either shutting down or cutting back. This should be a cause of concern rather than celebration for the government.

Now lets turn to the economic indicators the government doesnt talk much about. During November, inflation rose to 12.7 percent, the highest level in nine years. Food inflation was even higher at 19.3 percent in rural areas and 16.6 percent in urban areas. You wont see the prime minister tweeting about that. This debilitating inflation is a direct consequence of the governments policies mainly devaluation and the increases in energy costs. Recently, the government increased the power tariff once again, this time by 26 paisas per unit.

Matters are similarly bleak on the growth front. In this governments first fiscal year, GDP growth slowed to 3.29 percent, the worst in nine years. Things are only expected to get worse this year. The Asian Development Bank (ADB) is projecting Pakistans GDP growth rate to be 2.8 percent in the current fiscal year, which would be the lowest in a decade. Unsurprisingly, the government is struggling on the revenue front as well. Tax revenue shortfall in the current fiscal year has already reached 211 billion rupees. It is also worth highlighting that the State Banks foreign exchange reserves are actually lower now ($9.1 billion on November 29) than when the current government assumed office in August 2018 ($9.9 billion).

The national economy is sinking deeper and deeper into stagflation a combination of low growth, high inflation and rising unemployment. An increasing number of people are being pushed below the poverty line. On the ground in markets, factories and offices there is a strong sense of economic despair. Businesses closures and production cutbacks are resulting in joblessness and brain drain as our best and brightest look for employment abroad due to shrinking opportunities at home.

There is a sense of resignation that this government has nothing left to give on the economic front, and a general acceptance of the fact that the government is incapable of managing the economy. The governments denial of its own economic failures has only further strengthened this sentiment. One sentence from the finance adviser last month exposed how out of touch this government is with the ground realities. His claim about tomatoes being available for sale for 17 rupees per kilo ranks right up there with the PTIs greatest hits such as the 55 rupee per kilometre helicopter ride. It would be funny if it werent so terribly sad.

Incompetence and failure has been a trademark of this government. Dreadful mismanagement of the economy is only one of this governments many failures. Lack of leadership on the lockdown in Kashmir, CPEC delays, crop failures, railway incidents, BRT delays, suppression of media freedom, deterioration of law and order, paralysis in parliament the list is endless. Blunders and mistakes have become the new normal. Ministers, advisers and special assistants are fiercely competing for the title of the Worst Cabinet Member. The sooner the people of Pakistan are saved from this race to the bottom, the better.

The writer is assistantsecretary general of the PML-N and a member of the PML-Ns Economic Advisory Council.

Email: [emailprotected]

Twitter: @BilalAKayani

The last week of November was a good week for the governments economic team. Not because they did anything good but because someone else was even worse. And that takes some doing.

During that week, the economic team had the limelight of incompetence gloriously stolen from them by the governments legal team which failed to put together a basic summary and notification for the appointment of the COAS despite having several chances to get it right.

Staying true to PTI tradition, the legal team subsequently held a press conference to try and spin this embarrassing failure as a victory. It ended up looking like a celebration of their own incompetence. To make matters comically worse, the same team that couldnt draft a summary will now attempt to draft a bill on the same matter. Some jokes write themselves.

The economic team tried to use the temporary breathing space gifted to them by the legal team to once again try and push the narrative that the economy is improving despite the reality being to the contrary. Their claims of improvement have centred around two indicators: foreign investment and current account deficit. Their silence on other more fundamentally important economic indicators has been telling. More on that in a bit but, first, a couple of humble submissions regarding the two indicators the government cant stop tweeting about.

The increase in foreign investment the government is celebrating has primarily been driven by speculative international investors who have invested in the governments short-term securities, more commonly known as Treasury Bills or T-Bills. These investors are attracted by the State Banks high policy rate, a whopping 13.25 percent right now. They are parking their money in Pakistans T-Bills for a few months to earn a quick, handsome interest at the governments expense, and then whisking that money away.

None of these investments is contributing to the creation of jobs, income or production. Pakistan is simply being used as a parking lot to make a quick buck. And the people of Pakistan are paying for it. While foreign speculative investors benefit from the high policy rate, our economy is suffering because of it. The double-digit policy rate has contributed to a sharp economic slowdown while failing to achieve its primary objective of curbing inflation.

The governments second main claim regarding a decrease in the current account deficit also possesses an ugly underbelly. This decrease has largely been a result of a reduction in imports, and not of any substantive increase in exports. Even this reduction in imports is not of the good kind. Economic activity overall and production in particular have steadily declined over the past 15 months. Large-scale manufacturing (LSM) output contracted for the sixth month in a row in September without any signs of improvement.

Depressed levels of production have caused a decrease in the import of raw materials, machinery and components used for production. This has been the primary driver of the reduction in the current account deficit. As an example, low demand for automotives resulted in a 27 percent decline in the import of CKD/SKD kits, used in the production of cars, motorcycles and heavy vehicles, in the first quarter of the current fiscal year. Overall car sales have plunged 44 percent in the first five months of this fiscal year. Other industries have witnessed a similar trend. Factories are either shutting down or cutting back. This should be a cause of concern rather than celebration for the government.

Now lets turn to the economic indicators the government doesnt talk much about. During November, inflation rose to 12.7 percent, the highest level in nine years. Food inflation was even higher at 19.3 percent in rural areas and 16.6 percent in urban areas. You wont see the prime minister tweeting about that. This debilitating inflation is a direct consequence of the governments policies mainly devaluation and the increases in energy costs. Recently, the government increased the power tariff once again, this time by 26 paisas per unit.

Matters are similarly bleak on the growth front. In this governments first fiscal year, GDP growth slowed to 3.29 percent, the worst in nine years. Things are only expected to get worse this year. The Asian Development Bank (ADB) is projecting Pakistans GDP growth rate to be 2.8 percent in the current fiscal year, which would be the lowest in a decade. Unsurprisingly, the government is struggling on the revenue front as well. Tax revenue shortfall in the current fiscal year has already reached 211 billion rupees. It is also worth highlighting that the State Banks foreign exchange reserves are actually lower now ($9.1 billion on November 29) than when the current government assumed office in August 2018 ($9.9 billion).

The national economy is sinking deeper and deeper into stagflation a combination of low growth, high inflation and rising unemployment. An increasing number of people are being pushed below the poverty line. On the ground in markets, factories and offices there is a strong sense of economic despair. Businesses closures and production cutbacks are resulting in joblessness and brain drain as our best and brightest look for employment abroad due to shrinking opportunities at home.

There is a sense of resignation that this government has nothing left to give on the economic front, and a general acceptance of the fact that the government is incapable of managing the economy. The governments denial of its own economic failures has only further strengthened this sentiment. One sentence from the finance adviser last month exposed how out of touch this government is with the ground realities. His claim about tomatoes being available for sale for 17 rupees per kilo ranks right up there with the PTIs greatest hits such as the 55 rupee per kilometre helicopter ride. It would be funny if it werent so terribly sad.

Incompetence and failure has been a trademark of this government. Dreadful mismanagement of the economy is only one of this governments many failures. Lack of leadership on the lockdown in Kashmir, CPEC delays, crop failures, railway incidents, BRT delays, suppression of media freedom, deterioration of law and order, paralysis in parliament the list is endless. Blunders and mistakes have become the new normal. Ministers, advisers and special assistants are fiercely competing for the title of the Worst Cabinet Member. The sooner the people of Pakistan are saved from this race to the bottom, the better.

The writer is assistantsecretary general of the PML-N and a member of the PML-Ns Economic Advisory Council.

Email: [emailprotected]

Twitter: @BilalAKayani

See the original post here:

Race to the bottom - The News International

GREENWICH The Representative Town Meeting has long fashioned itself as a place beyond partisanship where the focus is only on the business of the town. But a contentious municipal election, which reflected the stark partisan divide throughout the country, raised questions about whether Greenwichs legislature, something of a throwback to a more genteel time, can hold out todays harsher political realities.

Candidates for the 230-person body do not run as members of political parties; their affiliations are not listed on the ballot. But this election and the one preceding it saw groups of candidates running on unofficial slates marked by shared beliefs and views.

The 2017 municipal election witnessed the rise of activist groups that formed after the 2016 election of President Donald Trump. That year, many members of those groups, Indivisible Greenwich and March On Greenwich, ran for and won spots on the RTM.

This year, a counter-movement arose, making an issue of the Indivisible-March On presence in town in a campaign that paved the way for those with opposing viewpoints to join the meeting, said Laura Gladstone, a founder of Fiscal Freedom for Connecticut and a new RTM member from District 2.

I think the fact that many of those members of radical left-wing national organizations, and those who aligned themselves with them, didnt get back on the RTM or were very low vote-getters may have been an indirect result in this election, Gladstone said. The feedback we got from people at the polls is that the residents of Greenwich were focused on fiscal responsibility and the local needs of our town, not national politics.

When asked what in her view defined a radical left-wing national organization, Gladstone said she was merely reporting on what she saw on their websites. She said the organizations were not focused on local issues in Greenwich but rather have come into our town and have national money and national platforms that espouse radical left-wing ideas.

Gladstone did not name either Indivisible or March On, but those have been frequent targets of discussion over the past two years, including the recent campaigns.

Kimberly Salib, an RTM member from District 11 who was re-elected last week, also said she believed the election may have been a push back against some of the members of left-wing organizations who were running for political office, including the RTM.

At the end of the day, the residents of Greenwich chose fiscal responsibility and remained focused that this was a local election focused on the local needs of our town, Salib said. The clean sweep on the RTM was also a vote for unity and to bring the RTM back to the congenial, friendly nonpartisan body it was meant to be.

Like Gladstone, Salib did not specifically name any organizations. Neither identified specific votes or debates during the RTMs most recent term that they felt were overly partisan, either.

But to others in town, it is Gladstone and many Republicans who have been pushing partisanship on the RTM, by campaigning for certain candidates and including support for them with the Republican slate in the recent elections. There were multiple reports of deliberate campaigning for certain RTM candidates by Republicans under the theme of fiscal conservatism through mailings sent to voters and material passed out at polling places.

Some of those mailers had the imprint of Fiscal Freedom for Connecticut on them.

Lorelai OHagan Strange, who lost her re-election bid in District 2, said Gladstone and other RTM candidates waged a misinformation campaign in collaboration with other RTM and local candidates that affected the outcome of the elections. District 2 was a particularly competitive district with 22 candidates running for 14 seats.

Fiscal Freedom for Connecticut has been ranking RTM members online based on voting records on such issues as lowering the towns mill rate, putting a sunset clause on the towns plastic bag ban, opposing a new northwest Fire Station, supporting the ban on fracking waste, which the group opposed, and a sense-of-the-meeting resolution against highway tolls, which the group supported.

Strange called the rankings fully bogus and devoid of meaning because they only looked at a few of the votes from the countless ones taken over two years and used methodology designed to benefit those putting the rankings together. She said new members running for RTM from Fiscal Freedom for Connecticut connected with existing RTM members and used those rankings to form candidate slates, particularly in District 2, that were designed to unseat current members like her.

Joanna Swomley, co-founder of Indivisible Greenwich, said it also happened in District 10, where she successfully ran for re-election. Swomley called the mission of Fiscal Freedom for Connecticut extremely far-right and said they were not mainstream Republicans.

The Fiscal Freedom slates hold an anti-regulation, anti-tax, anti-spending ideology that, in my view, is the antithesis of fiscally responsible, she said, calling them a group of ideologues and questioning their views against spending to fix schools that are crumbling and against reducing plastics and banning fracking waste.

Swomley was first elected to the RTM in 2017. She rejected any claim that Indivisible is meant to be a political party of any kind and instead said partisan problems were coming from groups like Fiscal Freedom.

The influx will make it far, far worse, Swomley said. At the polls this November, I heard for the first time RTM candidates actively campaigning as Republicans. I heard several repeatedly tell voters in District 10, We are the Republican RTM candidates. They are the Democrats. You dont want them.

She pointed to emails sent by Board of Estimate and Taxation member William Drake that called for people to vote for fiscally responsible RTM members and put forth a list of candidates in all of the 12 RTM districts.

So now we have slates of candidates identifying and running expressly as partisan Republicans for the RTM, Swomley said. That is a new low for Greenwich. Republican BET candidates were out in force on Election Day with the same message, one sent a list out by email containing certain right-leaning Republicans, and some Democrats who vote the same way. One was at my district greeting voters for hours and going over RTM candidates. The Republican Party is all over the RTM. That cannot be said for the Democrats.

However, Gladstone did not agree with the idea that classifying people as fiscally conservative is, in fact, a partisan designation.

As fiscal conservatives, we are focused solely on the local financial needs of Greenwich residents and not focused on national politics, Gladstone said. Our sole focus is about improving the lives of the residents of Greenwich, which is nonpartisan. We want to preserve and improve the quality of our towns schools, facilities and critical services; encourage prudent borrowing policies to maintain our AAA rating, meaning no long-term borrowing, and provide a cost-effective local government to keep our mill rate low.

Swomley and Indivisible co-founder Nerlyn Pierson, who unsuccessfully ran for the RTM late in the election as a write-in candidate, rejected the idea that Indivisible Greenwich is a left-wing anything.

Regrettably, just as with national politics, some in town scapegoat, fabricate and then perpetuate fringe conspiracy theories so they have a boogeyman to rally against rather than confront the real issues, they said in a joint statement.

RTM Moderator Tom Byrne has long publicly rejected the idea of a partisan RTM as being against the spirit of the legislative body.

I define partisanship as a blind adherence to the policies of a particular faction or party with a corresponding unwillingness to consider alternative views, Byrne said. I strongly believe that the history of the RTM has largely been free of such partisanship, specifically because individuals were elected without being affiliated with, or receiving assistance from, any organized group.

He said he felt that political philosophies like fiscal conservatism would wax and wane over the years on the RTM due to the persuasiveness of arguments made during debate on the body. But he noted there can be an effect by election slates and while he is not critical of the idea, he does have concerns.

We saw incumbents who are universally acknowledged to be excellent, productive RTM members lose out because they were not part of an organized slate, Byrne said.

Ultimately, Byrne said under no circumstances did he envision the RTM becoming a partisan body in which candidates would run with a party label or hold closed door caucuses before votes.

It is my hope that successful members of a slate will not abandon their willingness to listen to all sides of a debate and make a decision based on their common sense and good judgment and instead simply do the bidding of a slate organizer, he said.

kborsuk@greenwichtime.com

Original post:

Is Greenwich's nonpartisan RTM a thing of the past? - CT Insider

I am suspending my race for the presidency, Mark Sanford, who you might have not known was running, announced Wednesday because impeachment has made my goal of making the debt, deficit and spending issue a part of this presidential debate impossible right now.

To which one might respond: Whats impeachment got to do with it?

Quid pro quo or no, President Trumps Republican Party, in marked contrast to the scrappy GOP opposition under President Barack Obama, has not as a matter of policy or even rhetoric cared one whit about limiting federal debt, deficits or spending.

The debt clock crossed over the $23 trillion threshold on Halloween with nary a Republican peep. Remember how GOP backbenchers used to threaten government shutdowns if increases in the national borrowing limit werent tethered to spending cuts? Now they just join forces with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and waive the debt ceiling away.

Trillion-dollar budget deficits were a rallying cry at Tea Party protests during Obamas first term. Now those streets are empty as the annual gap between expenditure and revenue has stretched back up to $984 billion in this just-completed fiscal year, thanks largely to an 8 percent spending increase against a 4 percent boost in tax revenue.

Ten years ago, then-President-elect Obama warned about Social Security and Medicare, What we have done is kicked this can down the road. We are now at the end of the road and are not in a position to kick it any further.

The big difference now, aside from the additional decade of actuarial degradation, is that no politician even talks about it anymore. From 1997 to 2013, every State of the Union Address included at least some verbiage about fixing long-term entitlements. None have since.

The economists over at the Congressional Budget Office and Government Accountability Office are still cranking out budgetary death porn, such as: Projected federal spending will increase more rapidly than revenue. Absent action to address this imbalance, the federal government faces an unsustainable growth in debt.

But it is unclear whether there is any market for such gloom. Whats needed here is simply a national conversation on whether or not we believe in math, Sanford says, and he isnt wrong. Yet he and other Republican debt and deficit hawks now find themselves utterly marginalized from their partys profligate mainstream.

It is both easy and necessary to blame some of the public disinterest on Republican shamelessness. For instance, when Mick Mulvaney was still a member of the fiscally rectitudinous House Freedom Caucus in March 2015, he wrote that there is no honest way to justify not paying for spending, no matter how often my fellow Republicans try. By 2018, as arguably the most powerful member of Trumps cabinet, Mulvaney had changed his tune to: We need to have new deficits.

But at least he once knew better. Sen. Bernie Sanders, in whose policy image Democrats have spent the last four years remaking themselves, has been wrong his whole career about government spending and economic intervention. And yet Bernies magical thinking about math has become the rage even in academia, where Modern Monetary Theory has essentially handed Democrats a blank checkbook.

And oh Lordy, are they scribbling in the zeroes.

The ballyhooed Medicare for All plan from Sen. Elizabeth Warren would cost $20 trillion in new government spending by her own estimates, which means you can safely double it.

Sen. Kamala Harris wants $2 trillion just for historically black colleges and universities. A trillion here, a trillion there pretty soon it adds up to real money!

Then again, maybe all these politicos know something we hawks are reluctant to admit. Namely, that you win elections by promising voters what they want to hear. Trump routed the GOP field four years ago while mocking the green-eyeshade likes of Paul Ryan. Bernies democratic socialism resonated way more with millennials than the insincere class warfare of Goldman Sachs lecturer Hillary Clinton did.

Whats more, after nearly a full decade of low interest rates, low inflation and a steadily growing economy, the horror stories that deficit hawks like to tell have lost their ability to spook. Money is cheap until the moment its not; in the meantime, why not go shopping?

Having one major party at least rhetorically committed to fiscal sanity, with the other at least sporadically impelled to acknowledge math, looks in retrospect like a golden era. With both parties now unmoored, be very afraid of what happens when the music stops.

Matt Welch is editor-at-large of Reason. Twitter: @MattWelch

See the rest here:

GOP and Democrats have completely given up on the national debt - New York Post

In response to Federico Sturzeneggers Oct. 31 article for AQ, a reader writes:

While the Oct. 27 election results in Argentina werent surprising Alberto Fernndez defeated incumbent Mauricio Macri, whose four years in office left a veritable economic and social scorched earth former Central Bank president Federico Sturzeneggers analysis of Macris tenure was rather surprising. For starters, his statements on freedom of the press and the independence of the justice system are not supported by actual events. Opposition media owners were persecuted and imprisoned under false pretenses, as recent reports have shown, and the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Independence of Judges and Lawyers requested information regarding serious allegations about the executives meddling in the justice system.

Sturzenegger does get it partially right on two counts. First, Macris presidency is a failure in economic terms. Second, that failure cannot be blamed on the previous government or on bad luck, but entirely due to policies implemented by his government. However, the rest of Sturzeneggers statements on the economythe focus of my letterare troubling.

The writer takes for granted that the mainstream economics view is the only point of view, and that inflation is a result of the fiscal deficit. But with Argentinas economy functioning well below full capacity (currently below 60%), there is clearly room for more demand without it being inflationary. Why, then, did yearly inflation more than double?

We can start by looking at the floating exchange rate championed by Sturzenegger, a highly problematic policy in a country like Argentina where foreign exchange shortages are a recurring problem. Price formation in Argentina is closely linked to fluctuations in the exchange rate and when it increases, so do prices. Furthermore, the government linked key prices to the dollar, including electricity, gas, fuel and transport. The elimination of export taxes on primary products, a mechanism used to decouple domestic prices from world prices, also meant basic foodstuffs (wheat, maize, beef, dairy products) were now linked directly to world prices, leading to increases in lockstep with the exchange rate.

Add to that a broad deregulation of capital flows resulting in a lot more foreign exchange flowing out of the country than into it. Regulations were also changed to allow exporters to keep their revenue in foreign currency abroad instead of changing to pesos locally, further aggravating the dollar shortage and pressuring the exchange rate upward, with the expected impact on the price level.

Therefore, the Macri administrations inability to control inflation was due to the combination of floating exchange rate policy, deregulation and the dollarization of key prices, not the fiscal deficit. This, of course, means that the policies implemented by the central bank to try to control inflation were not only not attacking the root problem but making it worse.

The second major problem, alluded-to only in passing by Sturzenegger, is the massive debt accumulation by the Macri administration. Sturzenegger states that the government had financed itself with short-term dollar debt, which was easily available until early 2018. That statement contains a substantial conceptual confusion: Government spending is in pesos and the government has no need to borrow in foreign currency for expenditures in the national currency.

This confusion led the Macri administration to double Argentinas public debt, in fact financing record levels of capital flight, debt service and the trade deficit (that turned to a surplus in 2018 thanks to a substantial economic recession). The current debt levels and service schedule are a veritable financial time bomb for the next government that will be difficult to deactivate.

The conceptual and theoretical confusions of the Macri administrations neoliberal economists highlight the importance of real-world economics as opposed to mainstream academic textbook models. Sturzeneggers fascination with general equilibrium models and self-adjusting external balances through floating exchange rates may work in the mainstream textbooks, but not in a periphery country like Argentina.

-Alan B. Cibils,Universidad Nacional de General Sarmiento, November 12.

Read the original post:

Letter to the Editor: An Appraisal of Macri - Americas Quarterly