The Era of Austerity is Over?

 

President Obama released his proposed 2015 budget this week and in it he declared that the Era of Austerity was over. The accompanying chart begs the question, “what the hell is he talking about?”

2009 was the year of stimulus, Tarp and other emergency spending designed to prevent the end of the world. We were all told that this was a onetime fix and that once rescued, our spending would return to normal levels. These assurances weren’t what I would call lies necessarily, but merely grossly inaccurate promises made with no regard or understanding of how Washington works. Once spending programs get started, they never truly end…never.

So, as the chart illustrates, that temporary onetime increase in spending in 2009 quickly became the new normal baseline for all spending thereafter. Both spending AND revenue have been on a dizzying ascent ever since, belying the claim by some Democrats that we have a revenue rather than a spending problem. My question is a simple one. Can someone show me where this Era of Austerity is on this chart? Aren’t eras generally considered to be relatively long, protracted affairs? Perhaps there was an Era of Austerity that escaped our notice between Tuesday and Friday afternoon during the third week August of 2011? In the over 5 years of this President’s time in office, Federal spending has skyrocketed from 2.95 trillion a year to 3.7 trillion a year, while our total debt was climbing from 10 trillion to 17 trillion. If this is austerity, I wonder what abundance would look like?

Webster’s defines austerity thusly:

A situation in which there is not much money and it is spent only on things which are necessary.

Can anything that Washington has endured over the past 5 and a half years be accurately described as austerity?

Ellen DeGeneres

Ok, sorry for two posts in one day people, but it snowed here in Short Pump, which means that practically everything is shut down…even my gym. I did follow through on this morning’s post and drove into the office and actually got some stuff done. Then Pam emailed me a grocery list and that was that.

So, I did something last night that I seldom do. I actually sat down with my wife and watched 45 minutes or so of the Oscars. I don’t normally watch awards shows, too much self-congratulatory back-slapping for my taste. But, I must admit, every single time the camera was on Ellen DeGeneres, I was laughing. As usual, she was very funny. I missed her opening monologue so I watched it later on and thought it was hysterical. In my opinion, she is more of a throwback comedienne, one who has the ability to be funny without being crude. Everything about her opening monologue was perfect from subject matter to timing, impeccably done. The only line that was the slightest bit mean spirited was her crack about Liza Minnelli, but…look at her…Ellen was right!

So imagine my surprise this morning when I read some dude from the Hollywood press destroying her for her “endless string of tired and wince-inducing moments.” I guess there’s no accounting for taste. Comedy is, after all, subjective. What I think is hilarious (The Three Stooges) you might think is juvenile. What I think is a piercing rapier wit (P.J. O’Rourke) you might think is indecipherable blather. What I might consider whimsically intelligent social commentary (this blog) you might think is sophomoric nonsense. But, honestly, how could anyone say that Ellen’s work last night was “wince-inducing?” Considering that over the past few years viewers have been dragged through a gutter of filth by the likes of Ricky Gervais and Seth McFarlane, I found Ellen’s return to victimless humor a breath of fresh air.

And really…Liza Minnelli really did look like a man.

My Plans For the Day

Nineteen hours ago this very moment, Pam and I were walking across the parking lot after church basking in sunshine, a light breeze and the warmth of 73 glorious degrees. This morning I was awakened by the tingling of sleet against my bedroom window. By the time I climb into bed this evening, I’m told that there will be 6-8 inches of snow on the ground and the temperature will be in the single digits. It is March the 3^rd. If I were a Democratic Party politician I would be tempted to launch into an unhinged climate change diatribe. Although that Democratic politician and I have one thing in common, (neither of us knows the first thing about the science behind climate change), I will resist the urge to confuse causation with correlation and simply say, “Wow, this weather really sucks.”

I had two appointments scheduled this morning in my office which have both canceled. There will be nearly an inch of freezing rain and sleet on the roads by the time the temperature is expected to drop over 15 degrees in less than two hours around mid-morning, producing something called a flash-freeze on road services. This is meteorology-talk for “skating rink.” Then the snow is scheduled to begin.

I find myself on the horns of a dilemma. A reasonable man would look outside and hunker down with a cup of hot cocoa and call it a day. I am a famously unreasonable man. I look out of my window at these hideous conditions and think, “I’ve got to get out of here!” After 30 years of marriage, my wife knows better than to argue with me on this point. She just rolls her eyes and yells, “Well, will you at least run by the grocery store while you’re out, you crazy person!”

My condition is often referred to as cabin fever. But how can you have cabin fever when you’ve only been awake for thirty minutes? No, this isn’t cabin fever; it’s more like stubborn rebellion. Every time I hear officials warning everyone to stay off the roads, or don’t venture out unless you absolutely, positively have to, I think to myself, “Why are these people telling me what to do? Who do they think they are?? I am a free man, and if I want to venture outside, no pin-headed government geek is going to stop me. This is America, for crying out loud! Did Lewis & Clark stay inside when the weather got bad? Did Wilbur & Orville hunker down at the first sight of storm clouds? Did the Donner party let a bunch of weather busy-bodies at the NWS keep them at home..er, no wait.

Anyway, standing at my Palladian window watching the ice pellets sliding down the roof, filling up the gutters, I know what I have to do. At some point very soon, I will take a shower, eat breakfast, then come up with some lame excuse for having to go into the office. Luckily, it’s only 2 miles away. I will back Pam’s car out of the garage and disappear from the neighborhood, (even I’m not stupid enough to take my car!) A couple of hours later I will return from my adventures in vastly improved spirits, secure in the knowledge that I can venture out onto the roads any danged time I want to and nobody from the government is going to stop me.

‘Merica!

Ukraine and Us

The Ukrainian people throw out their authoritarian, Russian backed President in a popular uprising that people throughout the world have almost unanimously praised. Vladimir Putin responds by sending troops into Crimea. Now it appears that the popular revolution is in danger of being usurped by Russian tanks like Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Georgia before them. Of course the big difference between the Ukraine of 2014 and the Prague Spring of 1968 is…the internet. Now, the entire world is watching, in real time without ideologically friendly editors at the New York Times running interference.

Yesterday, President Obama strolled into the White House press room to make a statement. In it he warned Russia that “there will be costs” to any military adventure, that any violation of Ukraine’s territorial integrity (which had already taken place at the hour of his statement), would be “deeply destabilizing” and would represent a “profound interference” into the internal affairs of a sovereign state. As punishment, the President is said to be considering the cancellation of a planned trip to Russia this summer. At least he didn't use the words, "red line."

I’m certainly no diplomat, but if this is the sort of statement you’re going to make…don’t say anything at all. The only possible way our President could have appeared any weaker is if he had burst into tears. Pathetic.

However, for us it’s probably a good thing that our President is so weak. He clearly doesn’t have the stomach for confrontation and frankly we don’t have the money to back him up if he did! But Doug, but Doug, what about those brave protesters? What about them? The fact that they are protesting and demonstrating bravery is immaterial to our national interests. God bless them, but what’s going on in the Ukraine is no more our business than a massive Tea Party anti-government rally on the mall in DC would be any of Russia’s business. Besides, the words of Napoleon seem appropriate here, “Never interfere with your enemy when he is in the process of destroying himself.” How much of their national treasure and world reputation (which Putin just spent 51 billion dollars trying to improve in the winter Olympics) would be squandered over the next 5 years fighting a civil war on the Black Sea? My advice? Stay out of it.

I’m aware that a foreign policy that features non-intervention in other countries isn’t very sexy. I’m also aware that very smart and informed people will consider it isolationists and defeatist. They will accuse us of withdrawing from the world, of shirking our responsibility as the leader of the free world. I do have sympathy for these points. But, sometimes being a leader means minding your own business. Our experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan should have taught us the limits of intervention. The cost of military adventures about which Obama warned Putin is something we should know quite a lot about. Between these two misadventures, our nation has squandered 4 trillion dollars and lost over 6,700 men and women. And when we finally pull out the last battalion from each of these countries, they will still be ungovernable hell-holes.

That’s not leadership…that’s an epic tragedy.

Friday Observations

Here’s some Friday observations for February 28, 2014:

 

1. As a public service, I would like to offer some unsolicited advice to my fellow Christians on the subject of social media debating. Dogma doesn’t win arguments. Dogma doesn’t persuade. A debate tactic that begins and ends with “God said it, I believe it, that settles it” will not convince anyone of anything accept that you are a terrible debater. What does persuade? Intelligence, humor, sound reasoning, soft words, love and gracefulness. I would also throw in an assumption of good faith to the guy or girl on the other side of the issue. However, even when you employ all of these tools, your chances of “winning” a religious debate on Facebook are slim and none. Keep this is mind as you make your case. First, do no harm to the Gospel by tarnishing it with hatefulness. Second, admit it when you just don’t know or when your opponent makes a good point. Finally, remember this about the greatest hitter in the history of baseball, Ted Williams. Williams used to tell young hitters to stop grinding the bat handle into dust. “Instead, hold the bat in your hands as if it were a fragile bird.” In other words…lighten up.
2. Speaking of baseball, spring training has begun. The crack of the bats has always been the first sign that February was about to finally be over with. This year, word comes to me through the ingenious power of the internet that the last time that the Chicago Cubs won the World Series; the Ottoman Empire was still intact.
3. I was reading through Macbeth last night for the 100^th time and ran across a fantastic turn of phrase. When Malcolm is describing the execution of the traitorous Thane of Cawdor, he tells of his confession to treason and his deep repentance, then says this…Nothing in his life became him like the leaving it. Brilliant!
4. Jonah Goldberg makes this observation about homosexuality, “In what amounts to a blinking of the eye in the history of Western Civilization, homosexuality has gone from a diagnosed mental disorder to something to be celebrated…or else.” It’s true. In my lifetime there was a time when I could go, oh I don’t know… ten years at a time without ever hearing about homosexuality. Now, it seems I can’t go ten minutes without hearing or reading about gays or lesbians. With all due respect to Oscar Wilde, homosexuality has morphed from “the love that dare not speak it’s name,” into  the love that won’t shut up! Not that there’s anything wrong with that…

SB1062

Some time ago in New Mexico, a gay couple solicited a photographer to take pictures of their wedding. The photographer refused to accept the business because to do so would have required him to violate the beliefs of his faith that view homosexuality to be a sin, and gay marriage abhorrent. The gay couple sued, charging discrimination. Similar lawsuits have targeted bakers in Oregon for refusing to bake wedding cakes for gay couples on religious grounds. Along comes the Arizona legislature with a remedy to provide legal protection to business owners who choose not to serve customers based upon “sincere” religious conviction. The bill is SB1062, and it has set off a firestorm of debate across the country. What to think?

This issue is so incredibly riddled with land mines, it boggles the imagination. Would a bill designed to protect the Christian businessman from having to violate his deepest religious convictions also protect the Muslim businessman from having to serve a Jew? Suppose the Westboro Baptist crowd were to request that a local baker make them a cake with the words, “God Hates Fags.” If that baker were to refuse, could he be sued successfully? Herein lies the flaw in trying to craft laws to solve problems of the heart.

I am torn by this issue. On the one hand, discrimination isn’t always a bad thing. I do it every day, and I dare say, you do too. I discriminate against McDonalds because I believe their food sucks. Ever since I married my wife 30 years ago, I have discriminated against every other woman I have come in contact with. When choosing the neighborhood I live in, the car I drive and the places I go on vacation, I make a series of discriminating decisions. Each of us, as part of our instinct for survival discriminates. I may choose not to enter a restaurant because of its shabby appearance. Even though the food may be amazing, I make a decision not to eat there, simply because of how it looks on the outside. The fact that I never discover the wonderful food is my problem.

Of course, people are not restaurants. If I as a businessman who serves the public decide to deny service to someone, I better have an extremely good reason, something better than, “I don’t like the way you look.” That is what the equal protection of the law is all about. So, the question then becomes, does deeply held religious conviction qualify as a good enough reason for the law? I guess it ultimately depends on which deeply held convictions you are talking about.

For example, would the baker who denied services to the gay couple also deny services to the twice-divorced heterosexual couple who met through an online dating site while they were both married to someone else? Would a Catholic baker be allowed to deny services to a fellow Catholic who has fallen in love with a Baptist girl and plans on tying the knot in the city park instead of a sanctified church? To further muck up the works, how does the state determine what the word sincere means in this particular law? I have a hard enough time divining sincerity, how on earth will the State be able to determine whether someone is sincere or simply a bigot?

So, once again I find myself totally confused and envious of those who claim that this issue is clear cut. I think about the parable of the Good Samaritan. I don’t recall that he first inquired as to the lifestyle or political beliefs of the man who had been left beaten and robbed at the side of the road. He simply took care of a fellow human being who needed help. Part of me wants to say to that Christian baker, “Dude, demonstrate the love of Jesus to all of your customers and let God sort it all out.”

Maybe my sincere religious convictions aren’t sincere enough.

It's Baaaaack!

It’s back. The Dunnevant house is on a diet.

I had no say in this matter. The women have decreed it, so here it is. There will be much counting, weighing and measuring of things. There will be prodigious amounts of computer research chasing down the caloric content of everything from raisins to rotisserie chicken. There will be Tervis Tumblers full of water all around the house. New low fat snacks will appear in the pantry. The refrigerator will take on a leaner, healthier appearance, with less pudding and more jello, far less cheese and a lot more carrot sticks.

I am not forced to join in the weight loss campaign, although I could stand to drop a few pounds. And while I will eat the same trimmed down meals that they do, I am free to snack. But I will exercise great discretion in doing so, since there’s nothing worse than wolfing down a giant bowl of ice cream in front of a couple of women chewing on celery sticks.

Here’s hoping that there will much less of us to contend with before long!