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Dr. Judith Curry Joins Tiny Stable Of GOP Climate Witnesses

By Brad Johnson on Nov 16, 2010 at 9:05 pm

Dr. Judith Curry, a climate scientist at the Georgia Institute of Technology, is about to join a rarefied club — Republican witnesses on climate science. During the past twenty years of Congressional hearings on global warming — by far the hottest decades on record — the Republican Party has called upon a small cadre time and again to question the scientific consensus on the threat of greenhouse pollution to the global climate.

Even though the scientific community first began warning policymakers that the exponential increase in burning fossil fuels could dangerously destabilize the planet in the 1960s, the fossil-fuel industry has successfully blocked action by creating a false atmosphere of doubt and uncertainty. A primary method is the employment of “expert” witnesses, most of whom are not climate scientists, to make false arguments against the scientific consensus.

Tomorrow at 10:30 AM, the House science committee will hold one of its last hearings under Democratic control, “A Rational Discussion of Climate Change: the Science, the Evidence, the Response.” Two of the witnesses for the Republican minority are old hands at the denier game: Dr. Patrick Michaels, who has been a Republican climate witness since 1989, and Dr. Dick Lindzen, a Republican climate witness since 1991.

The newcomer is Dr. Judith Curry, a climate scientist who specializes in hurricane dynamics, and is now a climate policy blogger and commercial hurricane forecaster. In recent years, Curry has criticized her fellow climate scientists for not engaging with ideological critics, while making increasingly unsupportable arguments about the science.

The “expert” denial of the climate threat in the halls of Congress relies on a remarkably small bullpen, called to action repeatedly — seven climate scientists with limited influence on their field and eleven others:


THE EXPERTS OF DOUBT

Not Climate Scientists Climate Scientists
Sallie Baliunas: 3/13/02, 9/17/96. Baliunas is an astrophysicist. Her testimony cites Michaels, Christy, Soon, and Lindzen.

John Coleman: 4/7/09. Coleman is a reporter. His testimony cites McIntyre, Pielke Sr, Michaels, and Soon.

Michael Crichton: 9/28/05. Crichton was a science fiction author. He cited McIntyre.

Will Happer: 5/20/10, 2/25/09. Happer is a nuclear physicist.

Myron Ebell 4/22/09 (video), 12/19/07. Ebell is a Competitive Enterprise Institute political operative.

Stephen McIntyre: 7/27/06 (video). McIntyre is a mining executive. He cites the Wegman Report, which is based on his own work.

Chris Monckton: 5/6/10 (video). Monckton is a political operative. He cites Happer and Lindzen. His testimony has been rebutted by a team of climate scientists.

Iain Murray: 10/29/09 (video). Murray is a political commentator. His testimony cites Pielke Jr.

Roger Pielke Jr*: 5/16/07, 1/30/07 (video), 7/20/06, 3/13/02. Roger Pielke Jr. is a political scientist who studies the economic impacts of climate disasters. Pielke Jr does not dispute the existence of man-made global warming, but criticizes climate scientists and policymakers.

Willie Soon: 7/29/03. Soon is an astrophysicist.

John Christy: 2/25/09, 7/27/06 (video), 5/13/03, 5/2/01, 5/17/00, 7/10/97. Christy is a climate scientist who works on satellite temperature measurements. Christy’s testimony cites Roger Pielke Sr. and his years of work with Spencer. In legal testimony, he has admitted that global warming is manmade and that rapid, disruptive climate change is possible.

William M. Gray: 9/28/05. Gray is a hurricane forecaster now with the Marshall Institute.

David Legates: 7/29/03, 3/13/02. Legates is a climate geographer.

Dick Lindzen 5/2/01, 7/10/97, 1991 (Senate), 10/8/91. Lindzen is a climate scientist who studies atmospheric dynamics. Lindzen’s claims of an extremely low climate sensitivity to increases in greenhouse gases, similar to his U.S. testimony, has been rebutted.

Pat Michaels: 2/12/09, 7/25/02, 10/6/99 7/29/98, 11/6/97, 6/26/97, 1993, 5/28/92 (mock hearing), 1989. Michaels is a climate scientist who is now a policy expert for the Koch-founded Cato Institute.

Roger Pielke Sr: 6/26/08, 7/25/02. Pielke Sr. is a climate scientist who works on mesoscale meteorology and climate variability.

Fred Singer: 7/18/00, 5/28/92 (mock hearing). Singer is a climate scientist associated with several tobacco and fossil-industry think tanks.

Roy Spencer: 7/22/08 (video), 3/19/07. Spencer is a climate scientist who works on satellite temperature measurements. His testimony cites Lindzen.
*Roger Pielke Jr. has informed the Wonk Room that at least one of the times he testified was at the invitation of the Democrats.

The two decades that have been polluted by these experts of doubt have been by far the hottest on record, containing 18 of the 20 hottest years on record. The past decade is similarly the hottest on record, with 9 of the 10 hottest years on record. As predicted, storms, droughts, wildfires, and floods have been growing more extreme, ice from the Alps to the Arctic has melted away, sea levels have been rising, while the rate of greenhouse pollution has significantly increased.

Update

Subcommittee Chairman Brian Baird tells Politico why he is holding this hearing:

We are the Committee on Science and Technology, not the Committee on Superstition and Political Pandering. This is a chance to go back and look at the basics, to start with the physics and the science of it all and work our way up.

Health

HHS Loosens Regulations To Allow More Plans To Keep ‘Grandfather’ Status

By Igor Volsky on Nov 16, 2010 at 8:20 pm

Yesterday, the Department of Health and Human services updated its so-called grandfather rules that exempt health insurance plans in existence before March 23, 2010 — the day the Affordable Care Act became law — from many of the new regulations, benefits standards and consumer protections that new plans now have to abide by. The goal is to allow consumers to keep their existing plan, while also denying insurers and employers the ability to avoid the rules by dramatically cutting benefits, raising co-pays, or lowering employer contributions.

Under the original regulation only self-funded plans could “change third-party administrators without necessarily losing their grandfathered plan status.” Yesterday’s update, “allows all group health plans to switch insurance companies and shop for the same coverage at a lower cost while maintaining their grandfathered status, so long as the structure of the coverage doesn’t violate one of the other rules for maintaining grandfathered plan status”:

The Departments received many comments on the provision in the original grandfather rule stating that a group health plan would relinquish grandfather status if it changed issuers or policies. This change was made in response to those comments for the following reasons:

1. There are circumstances where a group health plan may need to make administrative changes that don’t affect the benefits or costs of a plan.

2. Comments expressed concern that the original provision could have the inadvertent effect of interfering with health care cost containment.

The new, looser rules will help a relatively small number of employers hang on to their grandfather protections longer, even if it won’t please Republicans (who tried to repeal these regulations back in September). But of course, eventually, most plans will lose their so-called ‘grandfather protections.’ And that’s a good thing. The whole point of grandfather rules is to serve as a bridge to gradually moving everyone into plans that have the kind of consumer protections and benefit standards that Americans say they want. By 2014 almost all plans will be in full compliance and we’ll hopefully have a health care system in which all plans are required to meet a basic floor of standards.

Politics

In Racially-Tinged Rant, Limbaugh Calls Obama A ‘Delinquent’ Whose ‘Presidency Is Graffiti’ On History

By Guest Blogger on Nov 16, 2010 at 7:30 pm

Venomous shock jock Rush Limbaugh described President Obama as a “juvenile delinquent” in a rant on his radio show yesterday, and then posted the full transcript, which he titled “Obama’s Administration is Graffiti on the Walls of American History,” accompanied by a picture of “Obama graffiti” defacing Mount Rushmore. Andrew Sullivan highlights Limbaugh’s racially-tinged comments:

This guy is an utter wrecking ball all by himself on the world stage to the point now of getting embarrassing. This presidency of Obama’s, it doesn’t take much to irritate the left. Try this: “Barack Obama’s presidency is graffiti on the walls of American history.” That’s what his administration is. No more than graffiti on the walls of American history. We have a juvenile delinquent for a president who has ruined so much public and private property, not even his gang is making much of an effort here to protect him. It’s an utter disaster.

This is the image that appeared on Limbaugh’s website:

This is hardly the first time Limbaugh has equated African-Americans with “delinquent” “gang” members. Last year he stated that “the NFL all too often looks like a game between the Bloods and the Crips without any weapons. There, I said it.” Limbaugh also has a long history of poisoning the airwaves with racial diatribes about Obama and other black politicians:

– Earlier this week, Limbaugh proposed a new House Democratic leadership position for African-American Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-SC): “Driving Miss Nancy,” referring to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA). Driving Miss Daisy is a film about an African-American chauffeur.

– In September 2009, Limbaugh argued, “We need segregated buses. … This is Obama’s America.”

– In March 2009, Limbaugh said Obama “has a chip on his shoulder, and his wife does too, and they are some angry people.”

– In August 2008, Limbaugh claimed Americans were afraid to “criticize the little black man-child.”

– In May 2008, Limbaugh said Obama was “an affirmative action candidate.”

– In April 2007, Limbaugh played a song for his radio audience called “Barack the Magic Negro.”

– In January 2007, Limbaugh referred to Obama as a “halfrican American.”

While Limbaugh claims that “it doesn’t take much to irritate the left,” most Americans, regardless of their political affiliation, can identify Limbaugh’s racial pollution.

– Riley Waggaman

Economy

Iowa Attorney General: Robo-Signing Is Not ‘A Technical Issue,’ It’s ‘An Affront To State Courts’

By Pat Garofalo on Nov 16, 2010 at 7:25 pm

Since the revelations regarding the robo-signers — bank employees who were approving foreclosures without verifying basic information — first broke, the banks have attempted to frame the issue as one of simple paperwork mistakes like misspelled names, and not flagrant disregard for due process and property rights. Both Bank of America and Wells Fargo tried to sweep the robo-signers under the rug, quickly refiling foreclosure paperwork and not owning up to improper foreclosures.

In response to the robo-signing scandal, all 50 state Attorneys General launched a coordinated investigation into the banks’ practices. During a Senate Banking Committee hearing today, Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller — who is leading the AG’s effort — said the AGs don’t agree with the banks that this is a technical issue that boils down to paperwork errors, but is an “affront to state courts”:

First of all, let me say, very clearly, we don’t view that as a technical issue. It’s an issue that is an affront to state courts. Signing an oath to produce a judgment of foreclosure in a court is a very very serious matter.

Watch it:

Miller also chided the banks for not getting their mortgage modifications programs up and running in a timely fashion, calling them “ad hoc.” “That just hasn’t come together,” he said.

Today, the Congressional Oversight Panel for TARP — which was previously headed by Harvard Law Professor Elizabeth Warren and is now led by former Sen. Ted Kaufman (D-DE) — released a report saying that if the banks portrayal of the robo-singing situation is right, then “concerns about mortgage documentation irregularities may prove overblown.” But, it added, “the worst-case scenario is considerably grimmer”:

In this view, which has been articulated by academics and homeowner advocates, the “robo-signing” of affidavits served to cover up the fact that loan servicers cannot demonstrate the facts required to conduct a lawful foreclosure. In essence, banks may be unable to prove that they own the mortgage loans they claim to own…If documentation problems prove to be pervasive and, more importantly, throw into doubt the ownership of not only foreclosed properties but also pooled mortgages, the consequences could be severe.

This gets to the very heart of the matter. The banks want to submit new paperwork and quickly move on, but as Yves Smith wrote, “by definition, a replacement of a robo signed affidavit is an admission the earlier submission was improper, hence a fraud on the court.”

And that fraud can lead to a huge amount of systemic risk within the financial system, as it calls into question the validity of loads of mortgage securities. As the Oversight Panel noted, “to put in perspective the potential problem, one investor action alone could seek to force Bank of America to repurchase and absorb partial losses on up to $47 billion in troubled loans due to alleged misrepresentations of loan quality.” If a bunch of banks need to swallow losses like that, the financial system is in for a bumpy ride.

Security

No Surprise: Kyl Plays Hard To Get On New START, Time To Move On And Vote

By Max Bergmann on Nov 16, 2010 at 6:40 pm

Anyone who thought Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ) would just throw up his hands and yell – yes, I support START! – was always living in dream land. Yet, upon Kyl’s release of a timid statement that says he doesn’t think a vote can get done in the lame duck session, reporters have scrambled to pen stories claiming that START is now unlikely to happen. But Kyl’s statement — which still refuses to take a position on the treaty, but typically calls for more delays — actually makes Kyl less relevant. It’s not about deal making with Kyl anymore, it is about the willingness of the White House and Senator Harry Reid (D-NV) to force a vote on START. Reid, not Kyl, controls the Senate calendar, after all.

Throughout the START process, Kyl has been a force for delay and obstruction. Last summer, Kyl was whining immensely that the Senate Foreign Relations Committee (SFRC) was rushing the process and that a committee vote should not happen until after the August recess. After the SFRC delayed, Kyl spoke to Reuters who paraphrased Kyl:

It could be difficult to satisfy his [Kyl's] demands before November and thus the vote on New START might need to take place during the lame duck session if the Senate wants to vote on the treaty this year.

After Sen. Kerry (D-MA) delayed the SFRC vote, I wrote at the time disapprovingly:

Delaying the vote, may have made sure that Senator Kerry and the Administration couldn’t be accused of “rushing” the process, but in the end it probably only strengthened Kyl’s hand and got him closer to his goal of blocking the treaty this year. In the end, the only way the treaty probably gets passed this year is if the Obama administration and the Senate leadership call Kyl out and force a vote.

But Kyl kept moving the goal posts. In September, after the SFRC did hold its vote, Kyl and Senate Republicans argued that having a vote before the election was impossible because it would politicize the process and that a vote should happen after the election. Time Magazine quoted an anonymous Senate Republican Aide who said:

This notion that [ratification] is going to happen before November is completely absurd… It reeks of politics.

Predictably, now that the election has passed, Kyl and Republicans say there isn’t enough time in the Senate calendar. Well, there would be plenty of time in the Senate calendar if Senate Republicans agreed to not needlessly stall the process. But Kyl’s statement essentially threatens to do exactly that –- to attempt to run out the clock on the Senate session and force Reid to forgo bringing up the treaty. He threatened the same thing last summer.

But the ball is no longer in Kyl’s court. The question is now will Reid and the White House give up and say there isn’t enough time for START or will they make the time and force a vote.

Perhaps, if a vote is forced, Kyl will lead a mass Republican boycott, in which pro-START Senators vote no out of party loyalty. That is a risk. But if Kyl is actually willing to vote no on the treaty in the lame duck, than he is in all likelihood not going to push for ratification in the new Senate, making the treaty all but dead anyway. Forcing a vote is also less risky than starting the ratification process from scratch and leaving the treaty in the hands of the next Senate. So essentially, what Kyl says or doesn’t say in the next few weeks shouldn’t change the calculus on whether or not to hold a vote.

Politics

Key House Republican Vows To Block Middle Class Tax Cuts If Rich Aren’t Given Their Fair Share

By Alex Seitz-Wald on Nov 16, 2010 at 6:30 pm

One of the key votes that will take place during the lame duck congressional session that began yesterday is what to do with the Bush tax cuts. President Obama and congressional Democrats want to extend the cuts for just middle class families, noting that extending the cuts for the richest two percent of Americans will add $830 billion to deficit over the next ten years. Republicans demand an extension of all the cuts, but have so far failed to put forward any convincing (or truthful) arguments explaining why giving the wealthiest Americans another tax break is the best use of almost a trillion dollars while the nation faces painful cuts to valuable government programs.

Today, a compromise emerged, which would split the issue into two votes — one for extending the tax cuts for the middle class, and another for the rich.

But as soon as the potential deal was floated by White House allies, a leading Republicans shot it down. Rep. Dave Camp (R-MI), who plays a key role in GOP tax policy as the ranking member on the House Ways and Means Committee, which handles taxes, “said the GOP will block any proposal that extends tax cuts for the middle class for a longer period than those for the wealthy.” If Democrats insist on a longer period for the middle class cuts, “I think this issue will end up getting kicked into next year,” Camp said:

In a speech to the Tax Council, a business group, Mr. Camp called that plan “a terrible idea and a total nonstarter. We would be foolish to fall for it,” he said.

Appearing on Fox News host Sean Hannity’s radio show today, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) struck a similar tone, saying, “There’s only one thing that’s acceptable and that’s to not raise taxes on anyone.” “We’re not going to go along with…splitting it into two different sets of Americans”:

As New York Times columnist Frank Rich pointed out Sunday, “It’s the very top earners, not your garden variety, entrepreneurial multimillionaires, who will be by far the biggest beneficiaries” of an extension on the cuts for rich. Thankfully, congressional Republicans have signaled they will not rest until those “very top earners” get their cut — even it means going home without a vote and letting the tax bill go up for middle class families come January 1.

Yglesias

Endgame

By Matthew Yglesias on Nov 16, 2010 at 6:15 pm

Waiting a long long time:

— The Shaw urban renewal plan.

— Ex-offenders and the labor market.

— Hair Cuttery has an absolute ban on hiring ex-cons.

— I have no problem with giving the Fed and inflation-only mandate; the problem is they’ve been undershooting their inflation target not that they’ve been paying too much attention to it.

— The ideas deficit.

— Stiff headwinds.

— Lurking behind Portugal, Greece, and Ireland is Spain, which is too big to rescue.

— People should talk more about the Italian growth disaster; that’s one or two good years out of the past 15.

In honor of the Beatles/iTunes deal, here from the Backbeat soundtrack are some dudes pretending to be the Beatles covering the Marvelettes’ “Hey Mr Postman”.

Health

New Book Confirms Grassley Was Not Interested In Compromising On Health Reform

By Igor Volsky on Nov 16, 2010 at 5:55 pm

The Plum Line’s Greg Sargent pulls out the following quote from Richard Wolffe’s new book, which suggests that the Republicans — namely Senate Finance Committee Ranking Member and ‘gang of six’ attendee Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) — were never serious about compromising with Democrats on health care reform. The following conversations occurred during the summer of 2009, possibly days before Grassley went home to Iowa and claimed that health reform contained death panels:

Just before [Grassley] returned to Iowa, he met with DeParle for another strategy session.

“If we do everything and resolve all the policy issues the way you want, with no public plan, do you think you’ll be able to support the bill?”

Grassley looked away. “I don’t know.”

Grassley went to the Oval Office for a similar conversation with the president and his fellow Republican and Democratic negotiators. He asked Obama to say publicly that he would sign a bill without a public option of a government-run plan. Grassley believed this would be a reasonable, minimal demonstration of Obama’s desire for a bipartisan deal. But the president declined to confront his own party base so explicitly. Obama asked Grassley the same question DeParle had posed: With every concession he wanted, could he support the bill?

“Probably not.”

“Why not?” asked an exasperated Obama.

“Because I’d have to have a number of Republicans,” said Grassley. “I’m not going to be the third of three Republicans. I’ve defined a bipartisan bill as broad-based support.”

Indeed, Grassley had said in June and then again in July that reform “ought to be from 80 people in the center of the Senate, I would think.”

Throughout the summer of 2009, he went to such great lengths to discredit and misrepresent health reform that many progressive advocates began to have doubts about his commitment to the effort. Here on the Wonk Room, I started something called ‘Grassley Watch‘ a tongue-in-cheek feature dedicated to tracking Grassley’s distortions. We compiled a document of Grassley’s most flamboyant attacks, hinting at the very thing that Wolffe is now reporting: rather than finding common ground with Democrats, Grassley was doing everything he could to obstruct and undermine consensus.

Below is a sampling of his greatest hits:

- Claims He Won’t Vote For ‘Imperfect’ Health Care Bill: “Now is the time to do this right or not do it.”…”We need to slow down and do a little less,” Mr. Grassley told another town-hall gathering in Pocahontas, Iowa, Monday afternoon. “We need to fix what’s broken and leave alone what’s working well.” In an interview, he vowed not to vote for an “imperfect bill” that includes a public option or gives the government too much control over end-of-life issues. [WSJ, 8/25/2009]

- Government Will Pull Plug On Grandma: “There is some fear because in the House bill, there is counseling for end-of-life, And from that standpoint, you have every right to fear….We should not have a government program that determines if you’re going to pull the plug on grandma.” [8/12/2009]

- Sends Fundraiser To Defeat ObamaCare: “I’m sure you’ve been following this issue closely. If the legislation sponsored by Speaker Nancy Pelosi in the House of Representatives and Chairman Ted Kennedy in the Senate is passed it would be a pathway to a government takeover of the health care system. lt would turn over control of your health care decisions to a federal bureaucrat … and take it away from you and your personal physician. It would mean government rationing in the name of cost controls. [Letter, 8/09/2009]

- Uses Kennedy’s Brain Tumor To Spread Fear Of Rationing: “I’ve been told that the brain tumor that Sen. Kennedy has — because he’s 77 years old — would not be treated the way it’s treated in the United States. In other words, he would not get the care he gets here because of his age.” [8/5/2009]

- Reform Will Place Bureaucrats In Charge: “PTL BluDogs Keep barkin Pelosie bill is Govt takeovr of healthCare Breaks Obama promise”keep what u hv” Puts Wash Burocrats in chrg MUSTSTOP.” [@ChurckGrassley, 7/24/2009]

- Proud To Obstruct Health Reform: “I take pride with being an obstructionist,” he said, if that means scuttling a public option that could lead to a single-payer system. [7/6/2009]

- Bipartisanship Means ‘No Public Option’: Asked “what needs to be in” a health care reform bill “for it to be bipartisan,” Grassley declared, “We need to make sure that there’s no public option.” [6/24/2009]

- Nonsensically Attacking Obama: “Pres Obama while u sightseeing in Paris u said ‘time to delvr on health care’ When you are “hammer” u think everything is NAIL I’m no NAIL.” [@ChuckGrassley, 6/7/2009]

At some point during that summer, Grassley also abandoned his past support for the individual health insurance mandate. During his re-election bid, Grassley claimed that he changed his mind about requiring Americans to buy health insurance in April or May of 2009, but that’s just not true. In August of 2009, Grassley was asked, “how does this bipartisan group that you`re a member of get to more health insurance coverage if you don`t mandate that employers provide coverage.” He replied, “through an individual mandate and that`s individual responsibility and even Republicans believe in individual responsibility.” Here he is expressing that very belief in June of 2009 on Fox News Sunday.

Security

Defense Secretary Robert Gates: ‘When It Comes To The Deficit, The Department Of Defense Is Not The Problem’

By Zaid Jilani on Nov 16, 2010 at 5:30 pm

As ThinkProgress and The Progress Report have documented, there is a growing coalition of both Tea Party-backed conservatives and stalwart progressives who are coming together to demand cuts to the bloated defense budget. This coalition was given further momentum last week, when the co-chairs of President Obama’s Deficit Reduction Commission released a report that calls for $100 billion in defense cuts.

This morning, Defense Secretary Robert Gates pushed back against this movement for defense cuts. Speaking at the Wall Street Journal CEO Council, Gates revealed that he had told the co-chairs of the deficit commission that it would be “catastrophic” to cut defense spending by 10 percent. He told attendees today that cutting defense spending requires a “scalpel, not a meat axe,” and concluded, “When it comes to the deficit, the Department of Defense is not the problem“:

President Barack Obama’s deficit commission last week recommended significant cuts in military spending as part of its formula for drying up red ink in the federal budget. Tuesday, Defense Secretary Robert Gates punched back. “When it comes to the deficit, the Department of Defense is not the problem,” Mr. Gates told attendees at the Wall Street Journal CEO Council here.

Mr. Gates says he met with deficit panel chairs Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson and delivered the message that a proposal to cut military spending by 10% “would be catastrophic,” given security threats the U.S. faces and save only $55 billion. That would make only a minor dent in a deficit that’s over $1 trillion a year, he suggested. Defense savings, he said, require “a scalpel, not a meat axe.”

Mr. Gates says he’s getting good cooperation from military leaders in an effort to cut $100 billion from military overhead, but he said he wants to reinvest that money in increasing the military’s fighting capability — what Mr. Gates called the “tooth side.”

U.S. defense spending dwarfs over one hundred countries’ GDPs, and 2009 spending is over $500 billion more than what China reportedly budgets, the world’s next highest military spender. And it is simply untrue that the Department of Defense is not a major factor in the budget deficit. Defense spending has accounted 65 percent of the discretionary spending increase since 2001, making it a key factor in the growth of the U.S. budget deficit since then.

To really understand exactly how much spending the Department of Defense consumes, all one has to do is look at the amount of discretionary spending that goes to the military compared to other sectors. The non-partisan National Priorities Project put together the following graph, showing how discretionary spending for FY2010 is doled out. The Pentagon’s budget consumes 58 percent of this spending, dwarfing all other sectors:

Last spring, Gates gave a speech at the Eisenhower Library about the need for a more efficient and streamlined Pentagon budget. He warned that creating such a budget would take “political will and willingness…to make hard choices — choices that will displease powerful people both inside the Pentagon and out.” It is up to Gates to admit that reining in the Pentagon budget must be part of any serious effort to reduce the deficit, and to stand up to those “powerful people.”

Yglesias

The Generalized System of Preferences

By Matthew Yglesias on Nov 16, 2010 at 5:29 pm

Far and away the most persuasive critique of the most recent round of proposed trade deals is that these agreements actually have relatively little to do with trade. Instead since all kinds of business regulations “affect” trade, you’ve got a lot of stuff about intellectual property rules, capital flows, privatization of government services, etc. It’s possible to make a case for these things, but you certainly can’t take the general “case for free trade” and then apply it across the board.

The issues surrounding the Generalized System of Preferences scheme really are classic trade matters. This is a program to allow (some) goods from (some) developing countries to enter the United States without the imposition of special “we don’t like foreign-made stuff” sales taxes. As Sallie James explains:

The program has benefits: some producers in some poor countries are able to sell more than they otherwise would in the U.S. market, and U.S. consumers benefit to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars a year because of the tariff exemptions.

But the GSP still represents managed trade, and poorly managed at that. The program is designed so certain goods in which poorer countries tend to have a comparative advantage — textiles, for example — are excluded from the program, mainly because of the influence of the U.S. textile lobby. There are limits on how much of a particular product a beneficiary country can export duty-free, which means that truly efficient and competitve exporters are shut out. The very existence of the program has proved a stumbling block to (superior, if not first-best) multilateral trade liberalization, because GSP beneficiary countries don’t want reductions in general tariffs to erode their preferential access.

America’s habit of charging tariffs on imported textiles is particularly egregious. Clothing represents a larger share of consumption for poor people than for the rich. Consequently, I think most people understand that if I were to propose a special sales tax on clothing it would be an unusually regressive tax measure. By levying the special tales tax exclusively on foreign-made clothing we don’t eliminate the negative impact on poor Americans. We do, however, shift around who benefits. By taxing only foreign-made clothing, government revenue (which at least finances many programs that are important to poor people) declines and instead many of the benefits are captured by the owners and managers of US-based textile firms. To make things even worse, politically powerful well-heeled people have generally managed to make it the case that luxury goods are taxed more lightly than things ordinary folks buy.

Long story short, dropping tariffs on imported textiles is one of the easiest and most effective things we could do to help poor Americans while also improving the prospects for economic growth in the third world.

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