President Reagan

STOP THE PRESSES!!!!!!!!!!!!

Get me re-write. This is real man-bites-dog stuff.

Douglas calls for tax hikes?  Rush Limbaugh praises Obama? Boston fans root for the Yankees?

Maybe more amazing than that. And it all happened right here in little old Vermont, in the State Capitol.

On Wednesday afternoon, in a small room on the second floor of the Statehouse, Ernie Shand, who is a Democratic House member from Windsor, but who at the moment was speaking simply as a veteran volunteer firefighter and one-time deputy fire chief, sat in front the House Judiciary committee and told its members that….(Everybody sitting down? Or at least holding on to a fixed object? What follows can be shocking)…he and people like him did not need any special privileges.

He said the provision in a bill that exempts people like him from the law was not needed. He said that if the law let him and other firemen off the hook, they would be more likely to make a mistake, and to get away with it.

“Somebody else is going to pay for my mistake,” he said.

What is this guy? Un-American? In this country, you take whatever anyone will give you and yours. If his philosophy spreads, the livelihoods of several thousand lobbyists could be endangered, perhaps sinking the entire economic/political/social structure.

Maybe we don’t need to stop the presses. Maybe we need to call the authorities. Is there some successor to the House Un-American Activities Committee? Shand’s attitude is downright subversive.

Specifically, what Shand objected to was a provision in H.147 (discussed here on April 14 in the post entitled Doing What We Wanta) that would ban use of hand-held cell phones or two-way radio microphones by drivers. The bill exempts police officers and firefighters.

Shand, who said he has done his share of high-speed fire truck driving while clutching a two-way radio microphone in his hand (and occasionally dropping it), didn’t see why it should. Firefighters, he said in a short interview after his statement to the committee, “are required to obey all the laws of the state of Vermont,” and could obey this one. Hands-free equipment for fire truck communications system is available.

Forget for a moment who has the better of the argument. What’s important here is that somebody actually told a legislative committee not to treat his folks better than anyone else.

Granted, there’s no money involved here. It isn’t as though Shand were a hedge fund manager asking Congress to repeal a tax break specifically designed for his industry, testimony that would shake the very foundations of the Republic. But Shand did dissent from tribal loyalty. Firefighters act rather like a tribe, with an “ethnic” pride that includes confidence that a “real firefighter” can zoom down the road at 80-miles-per-hour and talk through a hand-held mike at the same time. Shand was saying, in effect, ‘maybe we need to follow the same rules everybody else follows.’

In modern America, this is simply not done.

Relax, everybody. The system is safe. The Committee kept the exemption in the bill, though it did add a provision directing the  Vermont League of Cities and Towns, the Firefighters Association, and the Department of Public
Safety to report by July 1. 2011, on “progress toward utilization of hands-free communications technology.”

With that amendment, the bill passed by a vote of 104-40. It now goes to the Senate, where its prospects seem uncertain if not dim.

Both in comments below that all can read and in private communications to your humble agent, some readers objected to the assertion in Wednesday’s post (Protest Left and Right)that conservatives were once “tolerably good at governing.” Some critics demanded examples.

Fair enough. Exhibit A:  Ronald Reagan.

The year Reagan was elected, 1980, it was hard to get through more than a few weeks without reading a newspaper column or magazine article wondering whether the country has become “ungovernable.” Along came Reagan and governed it. He got his proposals through Congress. He worked out agreements with major allies (and, later, with the Soviet Union).

A lot of people didn’t think those proposals were productive or enlightened. Maybe they were right. But whether or not his policies were wise, he was at least tolerably (and probably better than that) “good at governing.”

So, come to think of it, was George H.W. Bush. He was a bit clumsy on domestic policy. But after Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990, Bush acted ably. With the help of two very capable appointees, Secretary of State Jim Baker and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Colin Powell, Bush put together an extraordinary international coalition to fight the Gulf War.

On the national level, conservative governing skills in more recent years have been…well, let’s say hard to find. Some liberals are certain they know why: George W. Bush is a dope.

No, he isn’t. So the decline in the quality of conservative governing requires a more complex analysis.

Too complex for this exercise, but here’s a thought.  One difference between Reagan and his successors is that they take everything he said and they say literally. He didn’t. It isn’t that Reagan was insincere. But he had been an actor. He knew that some dialogue and some scenes were mostly used to move the plot along.  It was not necessary to parse the details of every line.

So while he sometimes spoke like an extremist, he rarely governed like one. He made deals, even with partisan and ideological foes such as Speaker Tip O’Neill. If he made a deal, he kept his part of the bargain. He forced through a big tax cut in 1981, but accepted a big tax increase a year later,” the largest peacetime tax increase in American history,” according to conservative economist Bruce Fein. Reagan wasn’t happy about accepting it; or at least he claimed not to be happy about accepting it. But accept it he did.

To Newt Gingrich, Karl Rove, young conservative Congressmen like Eric Cantor, and many conservative commentators, negotiating with liberals and making deals is downright immoral. Like real ideologues, they take everything they say quite literally. With that attitude, it’s hard to govern

Some conservatives have also been tolerably good governors of their states.  Dirk Kempthorne of Idaho (later Bush’s Interior Secretary) was widely praised in his state, as is John M. Huntsman of Utah today.

What about Jim Douglas? For most of his career, he’s been considered less conservative than all those Republicans mentioned above, more in the centrist Republican tradition of governors such as George Pataki of New York and Arnold Schwarzenegger of California. He also has a reputation for competence. The state government has gotten its job done, kept its high credit rating, and avoided scandal.

But now we learn that, supposedly to save money, the Douglas Administrations wants to cut jobs that don’t cost the state money because they’re paid for by the federal government, or, as reported Thursday by Peter Hirschfeld of the Vermont Press Bureau , by a fund established by the owners of the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant.

And Shay Totten of Seven Days revealed that the Education Department had to forego $450,000 in federal school nutrition money because the state’s Child and Adult Care Food Program was understaffed.

These could be signs of governmental incompetence. On the other hand, they could be deliberate decisions based on ideology. In that case, Douglas might be more conservative than most Vermonters have thought.

And finally, apologies to Fox News Channel for calling it Fox News Network. And thanks for Fox anchor Megyn Kelly for proving the assertion in yesterday’s post that the channel had dropped any pretense that it was engaged in straight news coverage. Speaking of the conservative “tea party” demonstrations of April 15, Kelly said Fox was the only news outlet that “gave it any publicity or P.R.”

News coverage is not P.R.

Pete Seeger

Liberals and conservatives both held tax day demonstrations in Montpelier yesterday, leaving observers to wonder which of them was more ineffectual.

At first, glance, the liberals would seem to have “won” this negative distinction hands down. Their demonstration was smaller. Only about 35 or so members and supporters of Save Our State showed up at the State Street tax office at 10 am to display their “SOS-EZ” forms indicating they were willing to pay more taxes to stave off deep cuts to social programs.

The conservatives drew 200 to 250 to the front lawn of the Capitol at noon,  and  though it wasn’t clear how many were supporters and how many were just curious, that was still a surprisingly good turnout for a conservative cause in a liberal town.

Mere crowd comparison, though,  might be misleading. The SOSers were organized via a short, low-budget, email and telephone effort which aimed at attracting only enough demonstrators to fill a small space (and look crowded on television).

The conservative event was part of a nationwide anti-tax “tea party” demonstration organized with contributions from several large corporations, promotion by talk radio stations and the active support of Fox News Network, which dropped whatever pretense remained of its “we report, you decide” slogan to beat the drums for the event.

Small in numbers, the liberals knew enough to be concise and focused. They had one message – a small tax increase is better than big budget cuts. They sent the message and they were gone within half an hour.

The conservatives, on the other hand, went on for almost two hours, with speakers (some in Montpelier, some remote from other “Tea Party” sites) opining about  immigration, Social Security, foreign policy, and “the abusive monetary policy of the Federal Reserve,” not otherwise explained. They did keep coming back to the tax issue, but they seemed a bit confused about what was going on. One speaker after another associated President Barack Obama with higher taxes. He just got Congress to cut taxes

Confusion also seemed to reign when it came to political assessment, with one speaker after another insisting that their anti-government, anti-tax, anti-Obama outlook was the opinion of what several of them called “the silent majority.” All the polls, though, show that not only is Obama popular, but so are his economic policies. Even taxes don’t seem to be held in all that much distaste. The latest Gallup Poll indicated that “48% of Americans (said) the amount of federal income taxes they pay is ‘about right,’ with 46% saying ‘too high’ — one of the most positive assessments Gallup has measured since 1956,” in the words of Taegan Goddard’s Political Wire.

And when T. J. Michaels, the talk show host of  Barre radio station WSNO, shouted “shame on” Senators Patrick Leahy and Bernie Sanders and U.S. Rep. Peter Welch, it sounded as though Michaels was convinced all three office-holders were out of touch with Vermonters and ripe for defeat.

They are, of course, about as close to unbeatable as office-holders can be.

It wasn’t that no one made sense at the protest. One supporter held aloft a sign reading, “The trouble with socialism is eventually you run out of other peoples money.”

Quite possibly true, though perhaps no truer than that one trouble with capitalism is that you never run out of other people’s money, at least not if you’re a big bank.

Still, the lack of focus and of political reality raises again the possibility that conservatives are just no good at demonstrations. They’re good at political fund-raising, strategizing, marketing and (until lately) winning. Not that long ago, they were also tolerably good at governing. But they’ve never seemed comfortable demonstrating. Fringe leftists are comfortable demonstrating, even when they’re making fools of themselves. Fringe right-wingers are not, though this discomfort does not appear to be caused by any greater awareness that they are making fools of themselves.

As with protest demonstrations, so it is with protest songs — the left is good at them; the right is not. Pete Seeger has made his political blunders (naiveté about Joe Stalin was not a minor error) but, by gum, he can play the banjo, sing, and get folks to sing along with him. Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, and Arlo Guthrie have talent, or perhaps genius. So does Bruce Springsteen.

But you should have heard that music playing at the Montpelier event yesterday. No, scratch that; be grateful you missed it. At least as heard on You-Tube, the quasi-official nationwide “Tea Party” theme by Lloyd Marcus wasn’t much better.

Only Merle Haggard’s “Okie from Muskogee,” and “Fightin’ Side of Me” rank as great conservative protest music. But they were a long time ago, and their conservatism was more cultural than political. If Haggard was a political conservative then, he isn’t any more. He endorse Hillary Clinton, and then Obama, last year.

The real problem with the Montpelier “Tea Party” though was not the music; it was the words, and their near-total lack of political coherence. Simply consider that speaker after speaker warned of “inflation.”

During the biggest economic downturn since the Great Depression? The very day the government announced that inflation had declined by more than at any time in 54 years? Deflation is the threat. Right now, worrying about inflation is not real.

It isn’t that there’s no argument to be made against Obama’s policies. There are always arguments to be made against policy. But arguments not grounded in reality are not arguments; they are performances. Both of yesterday’s demonstrations were performances, of course; that’s what demonstrations are. But only one of them contained an argument. Anyone can disagree with that argument, but that’s because anyone can comprehend it. The performance in front of the Statehouse was incomprehensible.

In general, this is not a healthy situation. Without coherent opposition, a party and a political faction don’t have to think. Intellectual ossification then looms. No one should doubt that this can happen to the Democrats and to liberalism. It happened before, circa 1967. Recovery took awhile.

Vermonters are somewhat insulated from this danger because the only conservative here with any political influence, Gov. Douglas, is not of the “Tea Party” mentality. He says only nice things about the President, does not succumb to conspiracy theories, and understands that government is necessary.

He does, it is true, want to cut taxes, or at least not raise them.

So he says, anyway. Whether his policies would actually turn out that way requires more examination

Sometime today the House of Representatives is scheduled to vote on H147, sponsored by Rep. Maxine Jo Grad, a Moretown Democrat, and 15 others.

It’s a multi-purpose bill. One provision prohibits young drivers who have a junior license from driving between 1AM and 5 AM (with some exceptions). Another forbids them from using cell phones while driving at any hour.

So much for the teenagers. This bill also regulates what adults can do while driving. They could continue to continue to use cell phones, but only if they were “hands-free.” No more pulling the phone out of its case and putting it up to your ear, one hand off the steering wheel for as long as the call lasts.

Finally, the bill would “provide for primary enforcement of the safety belt law.”

Jefferson

That means a cop could pull you over for nothing more than the suspicion that you’re not wearing your seat belt. Right now, you can get a ticket for not being buckled up, but only if you get pulled over for speeding or some other infraction.

That last part is especially controversial. But even the rest of the bill has aroused a fair amount of opposition. The opposition doesn’t seem to be organized, but perhaps it doesn’t have to be. To many Vermonters, there is something repugnant about…well, about having the government tell them what they may and may not do. We’ve all seen that bumper sticker: “I’m a Vermonta. I do what I Wanta.”

Already, the state tells some people to do what they do not wanta. Motorcyclists have to wear helmets. Plus goggles, unless their bike is equipped with a wind shield. Many do not wanta. They think the law limits their freedom. “Let Those  Who Ride Decide” is the motto of one anti-helmet-law web site.

And these days, driving is not the only activity in which government seems prepared to stop Vermonters from doing what they “wanta.” There are also bills in the Legislature (though they probably aren’t going anywhere) to increase the tax on snack foods (H392) and on soda (H149). (All bills available here)

Nor is there much doubt that the point of these bills isn’t just to raise revenue; it’s also to change behavior. The snack food tax bill disparagingly calls the foods its targeting “high calorie foods with low nutritional value.” The “food police,” who have banned trans-fats in New York City and required restaurants in some cities to post the calorie content of all menu items, are on the attack. Beware the “Nanny State.”

But beware oversimplifying, too. Sometimes the state has the right to intervene. That doesn’t always mean that it should intervene. But one of the real threats to freedom in this country and this state is the tendency some folks have to dilute the meaning of liberty by claiming every personal  proclivity as a “right,” as though the Constitution guaranteed us all the power to do whatever we choose whenever and wherever we choose.

It doesn’t. Even if you are a Vermonta, you can’t do what you wanta if what you wanta do is zoom along the highway at 90 miles per hour. Not, at least, without risking (and deserving) a fine expensive enough to keep from doing it again. That will enable the rest of us to travel the roads as we wanta, which is safely.

HR147 violates no individual’s rights. That’s because no individual has the right to drive a car while talking on the phone or not wearing a seat belt. And why is that? That’s because no individual has the right to drive a car at all. Otherwise we wouldn’t need drivers licenses and automobile registration. No one needs a license to express himself, vote, or be secure in his home against unreasonable search and seizure. Those are rights. Driving on the public highway is a privilege granted by the state that created the highway system, maintains it, and monitors it for everyone’s safety. It has the right and responsibility to establish reasonable regulations for those who use that system.

Civil libertarians like to quote Thomas Jefferson’s famous observation that, “the legitimate powers of government extend to such acts as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.”

But the libertarians often ignore the flip side of the quote. Jefferson was pointing out that what people believe does not directly affect others. How they behave does, so their behavior properly brings into play “the legitimate powers of government.”

A driver distracted by talking on the cell phone may break your leg if he plows into your car.  According to the National Safety Council “drivers talking on a cell phone are four times as likely to have an accident as drivers who are not.”

If that driver causes an accident, she will pick your pocket no matter where you are. Society in one form or another, through taxes or insurance premiums, pays roughly 74 percent of the cost of auto crashes, according to the National Safety Council. By Jefferson’s standard, then, government is on solid ground when it bans cell phone gabbing by drivers.

And because the state may establish almost any regulation for driving on the public roads, it may make it a “primary offense” to drive without wearing a seat belt. The tougher the law, the more it will be obeyed. There’s little doubt that if more drivers (and passengers) “clickit,” fewer of them will be seriously injured, and those injuries cost all of us money.

But perhaps this is a case where government should think twice before asserting its power, legitimate though that power may be. Allowing police to issue tickets to drivers solely for not wearing seatbelts invites police intrusiveness. Without peering into a car window, there is no way a police officer can know whether the driver is buckled up.

Or how about this scenario: Two neighbors or two spouses have a spat. One drives away. The other smolders at home, and then, knowing that the object of his/her temporary ire usually doesn’t fasten his/her belt, calls the cops. “There’s a gray Toyota heading west on Route 2, and the driver’s not wearing his seat belt.”

Okay, it’s not even close to those stories about Soviet kids being trained to report parental talk about the glories of private ownership.

It’s close enough.

In Vermont, the motorcycle helmet requirement seems here to stay. There is a bill to make the helmets optional for adults, but the bill doesn’t seem likely to pass. This will keep motorcycle head injuries from rising, which in and of itself is no doubt a good thing.

But does it save the rest of us any money? The anti-helmet motorcyclists have a point when they argue that government need not protect adult riders from their own foolishness. By the Jeffersonian standard noted above, the legitimate case for requiring protective headgear is that it saves the public money by reducing the frequency of serious head injuries that will get treated by the medical system whether the injured rider wants to be treated or not.

It might not be very much money, though. There aren’t that many motorcyclists, and some would wear a helmet anyway. Distributing the costs of those injuries through the millions who pay taxes and health insurance premiums might end up costing the average person only a few pennies.

Does that justify the law? Or do the lawmakers who passed it really just want to meddle in peoples private lives? Well, that’s one of those matters folks can argue about. Reasonable people may disagree. It’s why we have politics, elections, debates in the legislature. Debate away.

Oh, dear, we haven’t gotten to the sodas and soft drinks yet, not to mention the talk, emerging after actress Natasha Richardson’s ski slope death in Canada last month, that skiers be required to wear helmets. But the rule of thumb of the web site cognoscenti is that when one of these postings gets beyond 1,200 or 1,300 words or so, the average reader begins to nod off. The little indicator down in the left-hand corner tells us this baby is now 1,370 words long.

But it’s an interesting discussion,  and those bills are still in the hopper. Tell you what. Let’s make a date for snack foods and soda one day next week. I’ll buy.