A "fourth political theory?" Persuasive propaganda... for simpletons.

I'll reiterate some familiar themes in the 2nd half of today's missive, raising the spectre of the "Greatest Generation," and re-introducing my one-page bill that might restore some faith in honest government.  But first...

... let's expose one of the worst memes being spread by the oligarchs' propaganda machine. It starts with an "of course" assumption that's an insidiously vile lie.

 == What's old is new ==

Shills on today's U.S. right -- the same folk who brought us "the Fourth Turning" and "Deep State" -- are now throwing roses at the feet of Alexander Dugin, a bona fide monster, sometimes called "Putin's Brain." I do recommend getting to know him! Because  studying this fellow's technique will teach you a lot about the low art of agitprop, including a clever trick; promote an untruth by assuming it as a given. 

Dugin - and his many followers on today's were-right - claim to advance a “fourth political theory” beyond three they say ruled the 20th Century -- liberalism, communism and fascism. All three failed, they assert, hoping you'll nod your head and perk your ears, ready for a fresh alternative. A New Hope.

In fact, their Fourth Way is the same "Decline of the West" bull-puckey pushed for a century by every right-wing pseudosmart jerk from Oswald Spengler to Alan Bloom to David Gelernter to... this Dugin character, who promotes as "new" a style of governance as old as dust. Extolled as "time-tested traditionalism," it dominated 99% of past human cultures, failing every "test" of decency, fairness, or actual outcomes. 

The Fourth political theory is Feudalism. And it never went away, across vast swathes of the globe. Arguably, fascism and communism were variations: self-chosen elites crushing all opposition by force, under the figleaf banner of some religion or ideology.

It is gangsterism by those with money and swords, the theocrats and lords who stole everything from our ancestors while repressing science and fair competition. Only after Adam Smith denounced its horrific record of bad governance, and the American Revolution restarted the Periclean experiment, did we learn how thoroughly loathsome and discredited feudalism is. Our modernist, flat-fair-open system has accomplished more than any other... than all others, combined.

Yet, the urge to re-establish feudalism simmers and roils in the loins of every second rater who inherited daddy's silver spoon.  And they hire gifted svengalis to spin tales to undermine our confidence in flat-fair-open-scientific-rational and pragmatic enlightenment. These would-be oligarchs and lords and theocrats and kings need to be stopped, cold, the way 250 years of our ancestors stopped them. They are enemies of all human hope and any possibility that our grandchildren may inherit the stars.

When I was in Russia last month, I told an audience... "Your parents were wrong about a lot of things... but not about EVERY thing." Marx saw clearly what Adam Smith saw... and Pericles... that human nature propels the powerful and owners and kings and priests and oligarchs to use their advantages to cheat. Marx believed there was no way out but utter class war, that is, after the means of production were completed.

Heck, it may yet come to that. (On his 200th anniversary, Karl Marx is being bought and read more than any time since the 1980s). But Adam Smith saw another possibility: that dynamic competition and freedom and flat-reciprocal accountability might be solutions, less easily corrupted than class war. The radical revolutionaries of 1789, 1917 and 1949 went with the "Marxist" notion, because his incantations provided excuse for them to become the next wave of feudal cheaters! 

The U.S. moderate-progressive revolution tried Smith's approach... and it has worked better than anything since Periclean Athens. Than every other thing. Combined.

“Fourth path? My shiny metal…. Oh, you lying feudalist monsters.

== Drain the "swamp" with professional swamp drainers. ==

There are currently more than 70 federal inspectors general, one serving as ‘watchdog’ in nearly every national agency, though some positions are currently vacant. George Washington’s inspector general, Baron Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben is memorialized in a statue in Lafayette Square across from the White House. (See the hilarious Danny Kaye movie “The Inspector General.)

NPR reports: "Perhaps the most important principle for every inspector general is ensuring our independence from the agencies we oversee, so that we can be effective watchdogs over them," Justice Department inspector general Michael Horowitz said. ‘It was Horowitz's office that investigated (former high FBI official) McCabe. He's also been involved in some other high-profile probes at the department, including former FBI Director James Comey's handling of the Hillary Clinton email investigation and whether or not the Justice Department improperly obtained a warrant to surveil Trump campaign adviser Carter Page. Horowitz said he could not comment on any of the ongoing investigations.’  Busy guy.  So is the Inspector General at Scott Pruitt’s EPA.

"Peter Tyler of the Project On Government Oversight argues that the duties of inspectors general are more important than ever, and they "do really good work, but the question is, does anybody listen?"

This article barely scratches the surface. The IG system is a blessing that has vastly more potential for good than is currently utilized. Indeed, the present system is inherently endangered by conflict of interest, with the IG in each agency having to hold accountable the person he or she works for. 

I’ve long proposed a simple solution that could be legislated on just one piece of paper, in a few paragraphs, transferring all departmental Inspectors General and their staffs to serve under a new official, the Inspector General of the United States, or IGUS. With cabinet-level rank and free to attend cabinet meetings, IGUS would nevertheless be independently appointed, serving outside presidential control.

See my writeup on IGUS. If this happened, public trust in government would rise. It’s not the only such measure that’s called for - (I propose others) - but it's possibly the simplest and easiest to implement on a near horizon.  

And see where I incorporated this proposal in THE FACT ACT.

== Selling influence ==

Alas, under the present regime, “swamp” creatures don’t even try to hide the vampirism. For example, interim director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Mick Mulvaney bragged to banking industry executives and lobbyists last month that they should increase their campaign donations to influence lawmakers, revealing that when he was in Congress he would "meet only with lobbyists who contributed to his campaign.”

Our representatives don’t view themselves as our representatives — they view themselves as representing the interests of their funders. And it’s not the first time one of them has let that truth slip out. Republican Rep. Chris Collins of New York, for example, revealed his donors told him to get the tax bill passed “or don’t ever call me again.”

What? You shrug that this is just another daily assault upon the republic... a new normal? Well, don’t get outrage fatigue! Sure, the America has been losing this phase of the recurring American Civil War. But we may be on the cusp of our Gettysburg, this November, when the Confederacy of Dunces gets pushed back by a resurgent Union. 

Instead of shrugging, join groups who can take a little cash and maybe a tad of your time, and multiply it thousands fold. For example, contribute $5 to Lawrence Lessig’s campaign to get money out of politics.

Or pick some "ostrich republican" who suckles fox-rationalizations in order to stay loyal to the madness, but who is basically a good soul. Choose one and cling!  Be tenacious, pulling his or her head out of the sand of denial.  Normal rules of courtesy do not apply, when nation, civilization, humanity and planet hang in the balance.  I - one by one - we peel away just 5 million residually sane American conservatives, the Confederacy will lose this round of our civil war.

Use their own slogan!  The "MAGA" crowd supposedly reveres the "great" time of the 1950s. But our parents in the Greatest Generation would slap every Fox-cultist. The folks who survived the Depression, crushed Hitler, contained communism, went to the moon, ended Jim Crow, built the greatest economy in history... and whose favorite (adored) living person was Franklin... Delano...Roosevelt.

== Can you spell "Itoldyouso"? ==

Find one other pundit who predicted this, in every detail. 

“Russia now claims the US missile strike on Syria largely failed — and that they've captured U.S. missile technology.

== The Bald-Faced, Actual Difference in Outcomes ==

Finally someone able to see, and point that to the fact that a stereotype has no clothes.

“Get this: Since 1977, the three presidential administrations that have overseen the deficit increases are the three Republican ones. President Trump’s tax cut is virtually assured to make him the fourth of four. And the three administrations that have overseen deficit reductions are the three Democratic ones, including a small decline under Barack Obama. If you want to know whether a post-1976 president increased or reduced the deficit, the only thing you need to know is his party.” - From The Democrats are the Party of Fiscal Responsibility, in the New York Times.

David Leonhardt gets it right without actually using my clear explication that it is the Second Derivative of Debt – the rate of change of the rate of change – that shows the effects of an administration’s policies and the attitude of the party.  The popularized version is “gas pedal? Or brake?”

Republicans always hammer down on the former, democrats on the latter.  That’s always.  I mean always.  I mean abso-freaking-lutely every single time and always, always, always and always.

  

Suggestion 7: Free The Inspectors General!

Last time, we pondered the importance of the “fourth branch of government” -- the U.S. Civil Service, proposing that the new Obama Administration ought to visibly reach out to the millions of skilled men and women who were so beleaguered, thwarted and bullied during the Bush years.  A series of concrete steps were offered, and I concluded by recommending establishment of a new and important post, the office of Inspector General of the United States... or IGUS.  Now, I’d like to go into that notion, in some detail. (Part of a 12/08 series of “unusual suggestions for America and the Obama Administration.”)

Far from creating another vast new bureaucracy, this proposal would mostly utilize  payroll slots that already exist, today.  Every major department or agency has an internal Inspector General (IG), charged with examining operations and issuing warnings -- when it comes to minor infractions -- or else stepping in more vigorously, when things get out of hand.

The problem? Nearly all of these inspectors owe their jobs and paychecks to the very same secretaries and directors who head the agencies they are charged to scrutinize. Often, they are old pals, ensuring partiality and conflict of interest. In other cases, the IGs are just biding their time, maneuvering toward promotions that have nothing to do with a career in accountability.

Even when an Inspector General does his or her job with devotion and skill, there is no guarantee of being heeded, or even safety from retribution.  Under the Bush Administration, vigorous examiners were actively intimidated, or stripped of resources to do their jobs. Or put into a cloud of ambiguity. It is a dismal record and one that demonstrates the desperate need for reform.

Accountability Systematically Stymied

Picking from a myriad examples, take the recently revealed story of investigators at the Securities and Exchange Commission.  According to a December 2008 report in the New York Times -- “The latest black eye for the commission came when it was disclosed that inspectors and agency lawyers had missed a series of warning signs at Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities. If it had checked out the warnings, the commission might well have discovered years ago that the firm was concealing its losses by using billions of dollars from some investors to pay others. The firm was the subject of several inquiries over the years, including one last year that was closed by the agency's New York office after it had received a referral of potentially significant problems from the Boston office.

“Similarly, the commission's chairman, Christopher Cox, assured investors nine months ago that all was well at Bear Stearns, which collapsed three days later.  Between those two events, David Kotz, the commission's new inspector general, has documented several major botched investigations. He has told lawmakers of one case in which the commission's enforcement chief improperly tipped off a private lawyer about an insider-trading inquiry.”

“...The enforcement division has been hamstrung by budget cuts and changes adopted by the SEC that make it harder to impose penalties on corporations, even when there has been egregious wrongdoing, Arthur Levitt Jr., the SEC chairman from 1993 to 2001, told the U.S. Congress in October. The result has been "a demoralizing of the enforcement staff," Levitt said.

Yes, we hope to soon be entering a new era.  Nevertheless, even if the Obama Administration returns to a policy of good and diligent government, will it be doing the nation a service by ignoring the systemic and systematic flaws that enabled the Bush Cabal to wreak such havoc upon our mechanisms of accountability?  By far the most patriotic and beneficial thing for the new team to do, while they are still in the full flush of their initial idealism, would be to change the system in simple ways that ensure this will never happen again.


Autonomy, dedication and accountability

Wouldn’t it make sense to appoint, train, and pay our inspectors through a channel that is completely separate from each department's political chain of command? Indeed, a system that is detached and safe from pressure by the legislative, executive and judicial branches?

Picture a uniformed service, with its own elite career path like the Coast Guard, or NOAA, or the Public Health Service, charged with protecting the legal and ethical health of government.  Under a relatively simple law, the inspectors and auditors would transfer to serve under the authority of the Inspector General of the United States.

Note: the Public Health Service is led by a real general - the Surgeon General of the United States.  By all accounts, these uniformed agencies are especially well-run.  Their dedicated staff perform with unusual elan, low turnover and punctilious attention to military-style rectitude. It is a tried and true method for instilling higher-than-normal standards of training and conduct.

IGUS would command a corps of trusted inspectors and observers, some of them with security clearance at the highest level and empowered to go anywhere and to see anything.  Trained to parse carefully the minefield of legal and ethical error, this corps would have to do much more than simply watch for outright legality.  They would also be advisors who best-understand the balance that every institution must strike differently, between short-term confidentiality and long-term transparency.
  
What better way to assure the American people that the government is still theirs, to own and control, even if some matters must remain discreet or secret from the public view?   One might imagine special rules requiring inspectors to stay mum when it comes to legal policy decisions that fall rightly in the political sphere, but giving them a range of options when they uncover violations of basic ethics and/or the law.  For example, an IG could not rebuke executive officials for their closed-door musings, but should speak up, confidentially, when a plan seems likely to break a law.

In recent years, the Executive Branch freely used “emergency” over-rides of many laws, especially those concerning competitive bidding for government contracts, granting hundred of billions in deals to close friends of administration officials, e.g. for reconstruction projects in Iraq.  It turned out that there was no recourse, no way to stop this dodge of the law, even when the “emergency” stretched six or more years. IGUS could offer a way to assure the public that the “E-word” will not be similarly abused in the future, by offering a check to this peremptory power.  One might even picture the Inspectorate as a way to provide basic rights to people who are being held under urgent "special circumstances" -- ensuring that those rare exceptions aren't abused or over-used. And, above all, that all exceptions are temporary.

IGUS could be appointed by a commission consisting of all past presidents and retired justices of the US Supreme Court, plus other nationally respected sages, with advice and consent of Congress.

Politically, this could be a move that has powerful resonance. The very act of establishing such a General Inspectorate would so clearly be neutral, offering no visible long-term advantage to the Democratic Party, that this law would (ironically) likely benefit the Democrats. Indeed how could the GOP dare oppose it?  Also, consider how this would allow fierce investigation of past crimes without sullying the image of a new Administration that wants to be seen as above petty vengeance.

Who needs a special prosecutor when every agency already contains all the elements for full investigation?  

With a simple change in the organizational chart, we might create an ideal force for accountability, a professional service that serves the people and the republic and the cause of honest government.

-------


Addenda: (1) A politically-oriented blog that I often highly recommend is written by my friend, investor Russ Daggatt.  It is well worth a visit, any time.  But his most recent entry is especially cogent, referring to Michael Kinsley’s recent call for an increase in the gasoline tax, compensated by reducing Americans’ payroll(FICA) tax. Oh... and (2) this appears to be my 500th posting.... argh...

Continue to Suggestion #8: Micro-Suggestions about the economic crisis

Disparities of taxation and wealth? Time to choose between ideology and civilization

The never-ending tide of troglodytic microcephaly from Republican candidates has the older, mainstream conservative intelligencia wringing its hands in near-despair. What kind of Twilight Zone do we live in, when GOP icon Alan Greenspan gives his highest presidential rating to Bill Clinton and by-far lowest rating ever to George W. Bush?

A veritable flood of former Republican standard bearers, like Paul Craig Roberts (the “father of Reaganomics”) have deserted, along with large swathes of the professional caste, from intelligence and military officers to scientists. Heck, rumors have it that the state of Arizona draws half its power from coils placed around the spinning in Barry Goldwater's grave.

Now, Bush family friend and renowned economic forecaster John Mauldin has weighed in.

"Far too many in both parties tell a frustrated America what it wants to hear, rather than the economic reality. The Republicans have some of the worst offenders."

John goes on with a riff about Mike Huckabee's "Fair Tax". Here's an excerpt:

"Fair Tax proponents want a 23% sales tax to replace every type of government tax. No more income, corporate, social security, or Medicare taxes. And everyone gets a $5,000 or so "prebate" which covers the taxes up to the poverty level. What could be simpler or more fair?

"First of all, the 23% they talk about is really 30%. Under the proposal, if an item sells for $100, then $23 of that would go to the government (said to be tax-inclusive). That means the item really costs $77 and the tax is an additional $23 or about 30% (said to be the tax-exclusive rate). Add an average 7% for state sales tax and we are now up to 37%. But wait, it gets worse.”

Bruce Bartlett writes this week in the Wall Street Journal: "A 2000 estimate by Congress's Joint Committee on Taxation found the tax inclusive rate would have to be 36% and the tax-exclusive rate would be 57%. In 2005, the U.S. Treasury Department calculated that a tax exclusive rate of 34% would be needed just to replace the income tax, leaving the payroll tax in place. But if evasion were high then the rate might have to rise to 49%. If the Fair Tax were only able to cover the limited sales tax base of a typical state, then a rate of 64% would be required (89% with high evasion)."

Mauldin: "Further, this is a tax hike on the middle class. If you make less than $15,000 you win. If you make more than $200,000 you win, because you actually save more and spend less of your income. This is a nice populist proposal which sounds good but is economically challenged. It only works on someone who has not read about the problems. Let me give you two links if you want to read more. One is to Bartlett's article and the other is to the people at Fact Check.org.

"The call by Huckabee and others to deport 12,000,000 illegal immigrants is simply economic suicide. It would create a depression (not just a minor recession) in short order. Let's reduce productivity by 10 15%. Let's reduce consumer spending by 7-8%. Shut down hundreds of thousands of businesses who could not get workers they need. Who will pick the crops? Or do any of a hundred jobs that Americans don't want to do? It would drive up labor costs and create inflation. It would be a disaster of Biblical proportions. Now, I am all for controlling the border. I want to know who is coming in. But we have to deal with reality, and the reality is that we need those workers who are here. The economy simply will not function without them."


HOW IS ALL THIS RELEVANT?

Why am I quoting all this from John Mauldin? Because it is vital for us to remember that not all of our conservative neighbors have gone stark, jibbering mad. Some are merely in a deep state of denial. Able to criticize bits and pieces of what has happened to their movement - as John does, above - though without (alas) allowing themselves to see the big picture. How the neocons, who hijacked conservatism, have relentlessly and deliberately reversed nearly every prudent principle that it used to stand for.

(In fact, I agree with John that IRS rules should be slashed and simplified. The problem is that every interest group lays down a ferocious veto, whenever their favorite offsets are under threat. There IS a solution! It is called "No Losers"... in which the tax code is slimmed by computer algorithm, seeking the minimum number of rules, under special, pre-set boundary conditions that follow a simple rule. For the 100 most common or representative tax profiles, the simplification algorithm makes no change in NET tax paid.

(Thus, everybody winds up paying the same, even if their favorite deduction goes away. It sounds magical, but, believe it or not, this really can be done! At very low expense, this experiment could at least present a proposed reform under which nobody’s ox is gored and the number of rules shrinks. Well, tax accountants would hate it. But that's for another time.)

In fairness, let's hear John out when he criticizes one of the catechisms of the left... that the rich aren't paying their fair share, since the Bush tax cuts. "They want to "tax the rich" and make more for middle class tax cuts. Sounds nice, but let's look at the facts. The bottom half of taxpayers only pay 3% of the total income taxes collected, which is 1% less than before the Bush tax cuts. 44% of the US population, or 122 million people, pays no income tax at all.

"The richest 1% of the country pay 39% of all taxes ($365,000 income and up), which is 3% more than before the Bush tax cuts, under the Clinton tax policy. The top 5% ($145,000) pay 60% of all taxes (up 5% from 1999); and the top 25%, with income over $62,000, pays paid 86% of all taxes. It seems to me that the rich are paying their fair share. Every category is paying more now than under Clinton, except the bottom 75%."

This notion that the rich are paying more nowadays - even after receiving fantastic tax cutes (during time of war) - sounds odd...

...and it turns out that it is. I hate to say it, but John is being just a bit disingenuous here. The middle class is paying less tax and the rich are paying more... because of a vast swing in actual wealth -- including income-generating property -- from the middle to the top.

This flow has accelerated so fast that the super-rich are, indeed, paying more net taxes, despite their low tax rates.


TIME TO CHOOSE... BETWEEN IDEOLOGY AND CIVILIZATION

Another way to put this would be to ask “How much tax is paid on the top 1% (by accumulated dollar value) of wealth, rather than the top 1% (by population) of wealth owners. That tax has inarguably gone down. Way down. Resulting in yet further wealth transfer in that same direction, so that more percentage points of overall wealth are owned by that top 1% of owners.

Thus, John manages to make a truly terrifying vicious spiral -- threatening a new age of feudal style aristocratism -- sound benign. He should know better.

In other words, the very same facts that he uses to deflect criticism of the Bush Tax Cuts actually show just how far those cuts have skewed the system in favor of those who are raking it in. Without comparing these stats of gross tax payments to the growing disparity in actual wealth, they are deeply misleading. In fact, if you seek the one common thread, among every Republican candidate’s tax proposals, it is this. All of them seek ways to accelerate further transfer of wealth percentage shares into the hands of the top 1% of individual owners.

Yes, some of the dems’ suggested means of reversing this trend are questionable, in their own right. I am far less interested in solutions that are confiscatory than those aimed at regulating and counterbalancing activities that are - in themselves - criminally stupid, market-warping acts of collusion by a narrow clade of golf buddies. Simply prevent outrageous thievery and re-introduce market forces at the top! That ought to solve the problem. Certainly defenders of idealised markets tell us so!

For example, try breaking up interlocking directorates (Republican Teddy Roosevelt could have told you that!) Or adjusting the rules of compensation for CEOs, directors, etc, so that their rewards come largely from ten-year company stock options! That would reshape the playing field so that managers’ best interests coincided with society’s. Oh, and those who run a company into the ground would not flutter away with 8-figure buyouts. The market for managerial talent would remain flat and fair. It would just remove the incentive for 10,000 golf buddies to conspire together to rob us all.

(Does nobody ever examine the fundamental premise-assumption underlying these godawful CEO compensation deals? The capitalist premise is that such vast payouts should attract brilliant people from other fields, until competition drives the pay levels back down!

(In effect, the golf buddies are telling us that they are mutant-level talents, like top basketball stars, worth any price, so the rules of supply/demand will never apply to them! Funny thing though. Their system to decide all this is a classic circle-jerk.)

We need to ponder whether it actually "defends market capitalism" when these wealth flows so severely alter our social structure that they threaten to entrench a quasi-feudal aristocracy. Don't forget who Adam Smith called the true and worst enemies of markets! In his day, socialism and bureaucratic regulation were FAR from the top enemies of market enterprise! Indeed, throughout human history, market enterprise had one major enemy. Conspiratorial oligarchy.

Those who style themselves as defenders of liberty and markets need to step back. They need to remember that the masters of Guided Allocation of Resources (GAR) are enemies of freedom, of every kind. We don’t need their clique to guide us. Or any clique. What we need is our Enlightenment back.


=== More political misc ====

See a bitter, but illuminating, ex-insider’s view of what’s become of TV news by veteran reporter/producer John Hockenberry, in MIT Technology Review. Especially depressing is the part where he tells of tryig to interview members of the bin Laden family, only to be thwarted from above.

Have I been crazy to suggest that there’s a lot more going on in the R’oil Desert Kingdom than the Bush Administration wants us to learn? You really, really need to read “Confessions Of A Terrorist,” which exposes one of the biggest smoking guns ever. Or at least, since scores of potential material witnesses, from the home country of most of the 9/11 hijackers, were whisked out of the US on luxury charters, without ever being questioned, on the same day that Americans were forbidden to fly.

Following up this article, I’d be interested if anybody has read Gerald Posner’s Why America Slept (Random House), is a lean, lucid retelling of how the CIA, FBI and U.S. leaders missed a decade's worth of clues and opportunities that if heeded, Posner argues, might have forestalled the 9/11 terrorist attacks. My interest is very narrow and specific, whether Posner mentions anything about FBI agents or others being re-assigned away from counter-terror duties, during the first eight months of the Bush Administration, in order to go skeleton hunting for dirt about the Clintons. So far, my sources on this are anecdotal, not statistical. If the numbers were as high as I suspect, it could be the biggest scandal of this entire, sordid period.

Finally, here are a few more points to add at the addendum following my main article: Ostrich Papers: How It Will Take All Decent Americans to Restore Decency to America...

* What if, in the middle of a declared state of dire emergency and an ongoing war -- one that was using up all American ground forces and devastating the budget -- a Democratic President (say, FDR) were to regularly walk away from his job and take more days off than any other in history? Even exceeding the earlier record set by Ronald Reagan? And setting this milestone with a whole year left before his term ran out? Would you Have let Bill Clinton get away with hurling our forces into harm’s way, then turning away to kick back with cronies for weeks at a stretch, on their new, mega-ranches?

Over the past few months, two of the most high-profile inspectors general in government have faced public firing squads. As the Washington Post on its front page on Friday, Stuart Bowen, the inspector general tasked with investigating Iraq reconstruction, now faces an investigation himself. Several government agencies are examining charges that his office was involved in massive mismanagement and waste, the very sins he had been tasked with uncovering in Iraq. Most puzzlingly, over twenty-five of his employees earned more than General David Petraeus did last year. This article in the New Republic is naturally tilted-against the Bush Administration. But then, so are the facts.

Who was speaking about inspectors general two years ago? See my article: Free the Inspectors General. Amazing that such a simple and blatantly sensible suggestion gets no notice, alas.

--See more on the Economy: Past, Present and Future

David Brin
http://www.davidbrin.com

Looking Ahead... far ahead... and inward...

Apparently there has been strong public response to the recent free-publication of “Singularities and Nightmares: Extreme Views of Optimism and Pessimism About the Human Future” on the Lifeboat Foundation site (Now also available on my website.)

"In order to give you pleasant dreams tonight, let me offer a few possibilities about the days that lie ahead -- changes that may occur within the next twenty of so years, roughly a single human generation. Possibilities that are taken seriously by some of today's best minds. Potential transformations of human life on Earth, and, perhaps, even what it means to be human...."

A rave on InstaPundit.com has caused many sites to link to the article. My favorite so far is at http://www.blog.speculist.com/

Spread word?

=====     =====     =====

Oh, along similar lines, have a look at an item in today’s news. “Gov't watchdogs under attack from bosses” --

”WASHINGTON(AP) - The inspectors general entrusted to unearth waste, fraud and abuse in federal agencies are increasingly under attack, as top government officials they scrutinize try to erode the watchdogs' independence and authority. During 2006, several inspectors general felt the wrath of government bosses or their supporters in Congress after investigations cited agencies for poor performance, excessive spending or wasted money.”

Another predictive hit? I have been railing for at least five years, trying to draw attention to a flaw in our civilization’s systems of accountability. An inherent defect in the apparatus for keeping the US government relatively clean and honest. In the post-Watergate reform era, inspectors general were established in every major agency, charged with protecting the public’s interest and ensuring that the law is obeyed. But these IGs were left dependent on -- and often beholden to -- the very same top officials that they are supposed to inspect!

Perhaps this problem was not critical amid the normal (and sometimes astonishingly below-normal) levels of corruption seen in some recent administrations. But amid one that is ripe and redolent with a the stench of kleptocracy, a disease that is akin to gangrene seems to be eating away at every public organ. Including, especially, the immune system that is supposed to protect us.

Read the article... then have another look at my suggestion for how to solve the problem. With a law that could fit on a single page, we might establish the office of Inspector General of the United States (IGUS, remove and safeguard every IG from oppression by the agencies they are supposed to inspect, and establish one more vigorous tool for a free, open and accountable democracy.

See: Free the Inspectors General

Now Lets Move on to Laws! - Part one: The Inspector General of the United States

In the first three of these post-election explorations, I was bold enough to suggest a few valuable measures that the House of Representatives might take in coming months, even if they are blocked from passing laws by presidential vetoes.

Some of these measures are win-win-win propositions, letting Democrats be seen taking the high road, while achieving much good for the republic, while additionally helping to drive a corrupt GOP deeper into the wilderness. Where - one hopes - they might commence a regime of fasting and meditation, in order to re-commune with a better brand of conservatism.


Now I’d like to turn to more ambitious agenda items -- actual bills worth turning into laws. Some will strike the public as so needed and fair that the GOP won’t dare interfere.

But first, in fairness, let us start by looking at what the Democratic Senate and House leaders already say they want. One of my best- respected interlocutors, Marty Krasney, supplied some summaries:

Speaker Pelosi’s legislative priorities for a Democratic House:
Increase the minimum wage (within first 24 hours)
Overhaul House lobbying rules (I have already mentioned this)
Enact recommendations of 9/11 Commission
Cut student loan interest rates
Lower Medicare drug costs
Broaden stem-cell research
Reform education funding
Pass labor reform legislation (Employee Free Choice Act)

Over a longer time frame, Democrats have floated numerous policy proposals in some key areas:
Budget/Taxes
Trade
Finance
Energy
Environment
Health Care
Workforce/Education
Telecommunications
Agriculture
National Security/Defense
Judiciary

I won’t examine all of these in detail, but take just one of these categories: Budget/Taxes: For example, Democrats pledge they will “seek” return to balanced budgets. Well, almost. And, these days, almost sure is a big improvement!

Details: More oversight and hearings; return to “pay as you go” budget enforcement rules; Comprehensive tax reform/simplification unlikely; Continuation of middle-income tax cuts (set to expire in 2010); alternative minimum tax reform; extension of some business-friendly provisions (e.g., research and development credit).

Also: may repeal/let expire other tax cuts geared toward wealthier tax payers (e.g., lower rates on capital gains and dividends) to pay for other priorities. Plus some targeted increase in domestic spending (e.g., health care, environment, education). An so on...

(A few comments. Raising fleet fuel efficiency standards would appear to be such a no-brainer that dozens of GOP Congressfolk are already crowding aboard the band wagon. (Indeed, no act of betrayal so clearly shows where Bush & co. loyalties actually lie, than their longstanding obstruction of this simple move toward energy independence.)

(Likewise, genuine funding for sustainable energy research will be most welcome. Along with an asserted effort to fund adequate science to finally settle the question of global climate change and (if justified) let us all dismiss the credibility of those shill-deniers.

(On a more amusing note, Dems will probably leave in place the fluke in the tax code that lets the Inheritance Tax go to zero in 2010 and then back to older rates thereafter. Making 2010 the year that elderly moguls hide from their heirs.


----- All Right, It’s My Turn ----

Clearly, the “policy wonks” have been very busy while they were in exile. You can bet they return filled with enthusiasm and with an almost-puritan work ethic! (The trait that probably makes GOP Congressional folk shudder most.)

Still, might there be room on the reformers’ plate for a few more good ideas? Over the next few days, I’ll offer some (including one or two that were mentioned here before).


My Top Proposal... Create the office of Inspector General of the United States...

... or IGUS, who will head a uniformed agency akin to the Public Health Service, charged with protecting the legal and ethical health of government.

No, I am not asking for yet another new bureaucracy! Ninety percent of this service exists today. Every major department or agency already has an internal Inspector General, charged with examining operations and giving warnings - when it comes to minor infractions - or else stepping in when things get out of hand.

The problem? Nearly all of these officials owe their jobs and paychecks to the very same secretaries and directors who head the agencies they must inspect! In some cases, they were old pals, ensuring partiality and conflict of interest.

Only now picture this. What if we made a very simple change, by appointing and assigning and paying all of the inspectors through a civil service unit completely separated from each department’s political chain of command? Indeed, separate from the legislative, executive and judicial branches?

A uniformed service, with its own elite career path like the Coast Guard and NOAA and the Public Health Service... so that the word “general” has real meaning, encouraging higher-than-normal traditions and standards of conduct.

Under this simple law (possibly it could fit on one page), IGUS will command a corps of trusted observers, cleared to go anywhere and see anything. And thereby assure the American people that the government is still theirs, to own and control. IGUS might be appointed by a commission consisting of all past presidents and retired justices of the US Supreme Court, plus other sages, with advice and consent of Congress.

One might imagine special rules requiring inspectors to stay mum when it comes to legal policy decisions that fall rightly in the political sphere, but giving them a range of options when they uncover violations of basic ethics and/or the law. These needn’t all entail immediate revelation or disciplinary action! One might even picture the Inspectorate as a way to provide basic rights to people who are being held under urgent “special circumstances” -- ensuring that those rare exceptions aren’t abused or over-used. And above all, that they are temporary.

Ponder this; the very act of establishing such a General Inspectorate would so clearly be neutral, offering no visible long term advantage to the Democratic Party, that this law would have immediate political effects, triggering so much public approval that (ironically) the Democrats who push this would certainly benefit!

Indeed - (and this will be important, in overcoming a Bush veto) - it is hard to imagine how the GOP (and President Bus) could dare to oppose it.

Consider: there are those who want us to immediately emulate the loony era of Ken Starr, loosing bloody-minded attack dogs across the land in order to ferret out vastly worse and more numerous dastards than ever were seen in the Clinton Era. Part of me wants this, too. But...

...but, in fact, who needs a special prosecutor? We need to uncover truth while MINIMIZING the appearance of petty, immature vengefulness. What better way than to remove impediments that have prevented "the system" from working, all by itself?

When every agency already contains the pieces that we’d need -- all of the right parts in order to create an ideal force for accountability -- how about simply lining those parts up, so that they slip into gear?

Let us first unleash a professional service that serves the people and the republic and the cause of honest government.


==Next time: A series of capsule suggestions.

or see my Suggestions to a New Congress