The Blogg

A great acerbic song about the realization that despite the high ideals of the rock & roll generation, they ended up pretty much the same as their parents. But sadly so true today.

I don’t mean to imply that the new boss is at all like the old, but the government has not exactly been running smoothly for the last several months. I did not expect miracles, but I really thought that the country was sick of the extreme partisanship of the previous eight years and that Obama’s inclusiveness would lead us closer to a situation where lawmakers actually did what was best for the country. He has certainly made some improvements, such as appointing people to scientific and regulatory positions based on qualifications rather ideology, but the ridiculous number of nominees with issues paying their taxes is shameful. In the meantime, Congress is as divided as it ever has been.

Obama is not primarily to blame for this. Our fine senators and congressmen from all states and parties bear most of the responsibility. But ultimately, Obama is the one who said he could fix things. His presidency is still quite young, but so far things have not been going well.

I was not a great fan of bailout legislation when it was a Bush idea, and I am not convinced it works well as an Obama idea either. If we are propping up companies because they are too big and interconnected to fail, then why are we not forcing them to use the time bought with our tax dollars to call in the loans they have made, pay off the loans they have taken, and sell off business units to the highest bidder until a financially stable core remains? But forget about the substance of the bill; what really bothers me is how it was passed. There was almost no time for discussion, only a few Democratic party leaders even had a chance to read the full draft, and the law that passed was full of all sorts of non-emergency spending.

If you want to stimulate the economy, that’s great. It is not clear how effective the WPA really was, but I believe in purposeful spending. There are all sorts of things that the government genuinely needs to do in the somewhat near future that are going to have significant costs. Specifically, I am thinking of all of the bridges across the country that have been found “structurally deficient”. In part the movement to replace them is unfounded hysteria based on the recent tragedy, but there are real needs. If you want to reform health care, that’s good too. I want that, but there should be a real discussion about it. Changes in energy policy? I’m right there with you, but again not shoved into a thousand-page spending bill and rammed through the legislature.

Although I do not think it was a good bill, I have the utmost respect for Arlen Specter and his vote for it. He did what he thought was best for the nation rather than what was best for his party, and is now vilified for it. What we need is 97 more Specters in the Senate, from both of the major parties. I fear that Specter and I are headed straight for another issue on which we sharply disagree. I have not changed my opinion of the absurdly-named “Employee Free Choice Act” from when I wrote about it last year, but it seems both Obama and Specter are supporters of it.

I just watched Obama on The Tonight Show, on which he had all the right answers. I am by no means sorry that I voted for him, and continue to believe that he is the best of the candidates who had a legitimate shot at the presidency, but as they say, the honeymoon is over. Just like The Who discovered, however, I imagine I will have forgotten my disappointment by the next time someone comes along with the hope of a better government.

Populist anger aside, I do not see how or why the government should be allowed to invalidate contracts between American International Group and its employees. As ridiculous as it is, the company is not absolved from its obligations. What I do not understand, however, is how the executives of that company can not be voluntarily declining their bonuses or donating them back to the government.

I realize that the term “bonus” is a bit of a misnomer and that the people being given these payments built their lives planning for that compensation. (I do not know the details of these contracts, but the only situation I can imagine where a payment written into a contract would be a “bonus” is if it is dependent on performance, and surely no such targets would have been met in this last fiscal year.) It may very well be that these employees will be unable to pay the mortgages on their $5 million estates without these payments, but there are plenty of other people downsizing their lives in much more significant ways.

One would think that some sort of loyalty to the company would lead someone to give up their own compensation when the entire organization is in such dire straits. If not that, would not a sense of pride prevent someone from accepting a bonus when they know that it has not been earned? (I am sure there are some bonus-earning AIG employees who really did do their job well, but obviously the vast majority have been abject failures.) To accept this money requires some serious cojones.