Thursday Roundup

Tough news for the President: North Korea officially announces it's a nuclear power, and estimates for the cost of Bush's prescription drug benefit are almost twice as high as Bush had initially claimed. I wonder if Bush will face any questions about either issue when he faces a hand picked crowd in Raleigh, NC today? (The Raleigh News and Observer notes that, "The audience rewarded the president with 38 rounds of applause before he left the room about 12:30 p.m.").

On the subject of Raleigh, the N&O had this interesting political piece on Republican City Council Member and mayoral candidate, Mike Regan. Regan moved to Raleigh in 1995, during a boom period for the city, when Money Magazine dubbed the burg the best place to live in the country. Now, Regan says, "It's known as a worse place to do business and a better place for gangs and gays and lesbians." And if you come across a gay and lesbian gang, well, forget about it.

Seriously, though, it would seem that Regan hasn't read The Rise of the Creative Class, in which it's noted that successful cities are young, dynamic, rich in idea-driven jobs, and tolerant, and that those kinds of places appeal to many gays and lesbians (suggesting that we're on the right track). Raleigh has struggled over the past few years relative to the go-go 90s, but to attribute this to gangs and gays, and not to the troubles of tech businesses (in which Raleigh is rich) is foolishness. Tech powerhouses across the country (including the suburbs of DC) have tanked over the past few years, and the fact that Raleigh's population has continued to boom while area downtowns have blossomed shows that, if anything, Raleigh is stronger than many expected. I don't know that Regan is willing to listen to reason, however. Consider this exchange, from the story:

Some, including council member James West, have argued that the programs Regan has opposed keep children off the street.

"Children don't need programs," Regan said. "What kids need is the Lord," he said.

Kids don't really need medicine, either. Just the lord. They don't need education, either. Just the lord. Or police protection. If everyone's got the lord, no problems, right? As long as it's the same lord.

Honestly, I don't expect Regan to have a chance in the election, but I won't say I'm not the least bit nervous, either. I've often claimed that Raleigh is one of the blue islands in a red state, along with the rest of the Triangle, Charlotte, parts of the Piedmont, and the coast (the economic engines of the state, you'll note), but in last November's election, Wake County (which contains the city) was the only one of the three Triangle counties to go for Bush. And while our Governor is a two-term Democrat, and our Senators are old-school Republicans (meaning more fiscally conservative than scary evangelical), this is still the state that sent Jesse Helms to office again and again, and which harbored abortion bomber Eric Rudolph, treating him as a hero. In short, I feel that Raleigh is split between a growing cosmopolitanism and the chic middle-class fundamentalism that energizes Bush's base. Regan's defeat would offer some needed reassurance that my hometown is the light in the south I claim it is.

In other city news, the Bush budget (and continued city growth) have conspired to push transit issues to the forefront of discussions in Raleigh, DC, and across the east cost. The biggest story is, no doubt, the reduction in Amtrak's budget allocation from over a billion bucks to zero. Amtrak (aka the Blue-State Express) has always struggled to generate funding, and it may be that Bush's budget railroading is a gambit to get lawmakers to talk seriously about altering the way in which passenger rail is run. I'd feel ok about that (as a believer in public transportation, I like to see it run well, so as to deflect the constant criticism such projects receive), if I didn't know Bush was so awful about appreciating the value of public goods. Given Bush's penchant for "ownership," he might be amenable to hearing about rail privatization, but such an undertaking would require hardcore policy work to avoid disaster, and we all know how Bush is about reading. The real fear is that Bush thinks passenger rail is another sissy blue-state thing that people in the northeast and in Europe like, and which has no place in red-blooded, SUV driving America. This could, then, be the beginning of four years of northeastern liberals getting royally screwed, because screwing us costs the Republicans no votes. That doesn't seem like a healthy way to govern to me.

For more interesting news on DC transport, check here and here, and for news on (pretty much blue) Raleigh getting screwed by red rural NC, check here. And for an interesting story on Raleigh mass-transit, check here. I think it's interesting that doubts about ridership are slowing funding for Raleigh's transit program, while Metro is crumbling under an unanticipated crush of riders. I think it behooves Raleigh to plan well ahead, as people aren't going to stop moving to the south.

Finally, Howard Kurtz jumps on Baltimore mayor Martin O'Malley for comparing Bush's budget cuts to 9/11. While it may not be astute in today's political climate to make such a comparison, I don't think there's anything wrong with what O'Malley said. For starters, the mayor was really comparing the effects of the acts, not the acts themselves, and I think that's a useful rhetorical device. His point, that budget cuts will strike at programs that sustain cities, is a fair one. In all honesty, health, safety, and education programs in our nation's cities save lives. Lots of them. Should the people those programs help be deprived of that aid, some of them would die. But those deaths would be spread over place and time, and so they won't get the attention that 9/11 did. Which is why its necessary to use a rhetorical device. Others do it all the time. "Smoking kills enough people every year to fill the city of Boston," or some such thing. Yes, it would be very evil to massacre Boston. The point is to try to show real costs in a dramatic way so people understand the seriousness of the issue you're discussing. Totally fair.

I'm off to see Christo in New York this weekend. See you all Monday.

I am ashamed of my President and my country.

This piece is long, but I recommend reading it from beginning to end. As news story after news story has appeared bringing to light our conduct in "security" operations, my disgust with the administration, with the complacency of the American people, and with what has become of this America has grown and smoldered. Seeing the harsh truths set out in one place like this is enough to make me want to leave and not come back. I don't identify with a nation whose leadership does these things, and whose people fail to call that leadership to account. You're making your bed America, and one day you'll have to sleep in it. God willing, I'll be bunking somewhere else.

Bush: Writing Checks His Butt Can't Cash

So, the Bush budget battle is all set to begin, as the President sent a $2.57 trillion budget plan to Congress today. The story line the administration is selling is that it's a grand, responsible bit of fiscal planning, and I don't doubt for a minute that, when Democrats try to fight spending cuts in health and education programs, the administration will ridicule them as standing in the way of efforts to balance the budget. Never mind that those cuts, which will harm lower income families above all, are being made to right a budget reddened by over $3 trillion in tax cuts, most of which went to the wealthy. And never mind that the budget plan, which depends upon healthy economic growth to cut the annual deficit to $230 billion by 2009, does not take into account spending on military activity in Iraq or Afghanistan, administration efforts to make previous tax cuts permanent, or transition costs for Bush's Social Security plan (which, Cheney speculated this Sunday, could easily reach into the multiple trillions of dollars). In short, Bush's belt tightening effort is little more than window dressing.

I don't believe we're heading for a major fiscal crisis. What I do know, however, is this: such massive government borrowing is going to push up the cost of debt at a time where investors have lots of other attractive investment options abroad. This means that interest rates are going to be higher across the board, which is going to be a drag on the economy for the next 20 years. I don't like Bush for a lot of reasons, but one huge one is that he's dampened the economic outlook for the US during the two decades when I'm supposed to be at my earning peak. Thanks a lot, asshole.

I suppose I'm just grumpy today. My Wolfpack can't buy a basketball victory, and I was pulling for the hapless Eagles last night. I'm tired of the Patriots, who must be the world's least entertaining dynasty, and I'm tired of New England fans who were a fun oddity in defeat, but have proved to be omnipresent in their overbearing ebulliance in victory. Yes, we all know you're on top of the sports world. Now please go to hell. And for some reason it felt illiberal to pull for the Eagles, and I'm not sure why. It should be the good Democrat's thing to do. While the northeast keeps pushing the party left so we can't ever elect anyone, Philly is the great working-class Democratic stronghold of the big swing state that did go blue. Shouldn't we love these guys? So Rick Santorum is from Pennsylvania. No state is perfect.

Speaking of Democratic politics. The news is full of Edwards speculation, based largely on a speech he gave last week in New Hampshire. This is fine by me, in the sense that I'd love him to run again, but annoying, in the sense that premature Edwards speculation in the last election cycle failed to net him the nomination. It seems he is going to play it somewhat cool these next few months, as his wife treats her cancer and he teaches at UNC, but then I imagine he'll get back on the horse, reminding America who he is at every opportunity. Advice to Edwards: beat Bush over the head for his budget, which totally screws the poor to further enrich the rich, but also woo moderates by complementing that message with the fact that Bush is screwing everybody by running such big deficits. Rich or poor, Bush's red ink is going to cost you money.

Reporting from Washington, this is Ryan Avent.