The View from Right Field

The Diversity We Are Missing Today

In of his new book, Three Days at Camp David: How a Secret Meeting in 1971 Transformed the Global Economy, Jeffrey Garton writes about the meetings at Camp David on August 13 to 15, 1971, when Richard Nixon and small group of advisers¹ broke the link between gold and the US dollar (i.e., “closing the gold window”), instituted wage-and-price controls, and more.²  In describing the meeting Mr. Garton emphasizes there was a real diversity among those present.  It was not, course, a diversity of race or sex.  They were all white men.  (It was, after all, 1971.)  But there was a diversity of viewpoints.  Coming into the meeting, some opposed wage-and-price controls (President Nixon had always opposed them because of his experience in the Office of Price Administration in 1942); some were okay with them.  Some thought we needed to close the gold window immediately; others wanted to do the rest of the program and then wait and see.  The investment tax credit, which had recently been repealed, was to be reinstated.  The key was that a number of people with different viewpoints met, talked, and in a weekend came up with a set of policies to change the world economic system.³

Communist. Fascist. Racist. What’s Next?

From what I read in the newspaper and hear on the radio, apparently I am a racist because I am not in favor of changing the name of Lake Shore Drive to Jean Baptiste Point DuSable Drive.¹  The fact that “Lake Shore Drive” is a classic Chicago street name, known pretty much around the world, right up there with “State Street, that great street,” and “Michigan Drive, the Magnificent Mile,” doesn’t matter.  Jean Baptiste Point DuSable was a Black Haitian and not wanting to name Lake Shore Drive after him is racist.²  It’s sort of like Humpty Dumpty:

“‘When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean – neither more nor less.’
‘The question is,’ said Alice, ‘whether you can make words mean so many different things.’
‘The question is,’ said Humpty Dumpty, ‘which is to be master – that's all.’”

Writing Constitutions – And Judging Those Who Write Them

This week’s Economist has a review of Linda Colley’s new book on the history of written constitutions, The Gun, the Ship and the Pen.  The book covers the writing of constitutions from the middle of the eighteenth century to the present.  According to the review:

“Above all, Ms Colley argues, the need for innovative, written constitutionalism was driven by the evolving nature of war. … Governments’ need for ever-more manpower to fight these wars – and ever-growing tax revenues to pay for them – led to crises at home that could only be tackled by the concession of new rights and promises of wider political participation. … 

Bringing Us Together: We Have to Do It Ourselves

In his Inaugural Address, Joe Biden talked about how he wanted to bring us together:

“My whole soul is in this.  Bringing America together, uniting our people, uniting our nation. And I ask every American to join me in this cause. …

And so today at this time in this place, let's start afresh, all of us.  Let's begin to listen to one another again, hear one another, see one another.  Show respect to one another.”

I hope he can do it.  He seems like a nice guy (I talked about this before, so I won’t repeat myself).  What I would say, though, is while I hope President Biden can help to bring us together, it’s not something he can do himself.  It’s something we have to do ourselves.

How Will Their Great-Grandchildren Look at Today’s Woke Leaders?

One of the favorite activities of the woke seems to be looking back in history and re-judging our leaders of the past based on the standards today.  George Washington and Thomas Jefferson owned slaves; their statues have to come down.  Abraham Lincoln didn’t treat Native Americans right, not to mention all of the racist things he said; schools need to be renamed.  Ulysses S. Grant owned a slave¹; his statue must come down.  And so on.  It is never a matter of looking at the total of what these people did or looking at what they did in light of the times in which they lived.  Or even looking to see if they helped push the direction of history a little bit in the right direction.  If they didn’t fully live up to our standards today, their statue comes down; the school is renamed. 

The Washington 180 – Part Two: Special Counsel

A week and a half ago I wrote about what I called “The Washington 180.”  In that post, I talked about the issuance of nationwide injunctions by federal district courts and how Democrats and Republicans felt about them – and how their opinions might change once Joe Biden is inaugurated.  Democrats who thought it was great when federal district courts issued nationwide injunctions to stop things the Trump administration was trying to do might not like it so much if a federal district court issues a nationwide injunction against something the Biden administration is trying to do.  On the other hand, Republicans who thought it was horrible when nationwide injunctions were issued by federal district courts against Trump administration actions might think it’s great if they are issued against the Biden administration.

Here is another Washington 180 that will be coming: special counsels.  Democrats loved special counsels when Robert Mueller was investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election and Russia-Trump collusion.  Democrats thought special counsels were a necessary check.  They warned Republicans – and President Trump – not to interfere with the Mueller investigation.  Republicans didn’t agree, to say the least.

The Washington 180 – Once Again

With Joe Biden being elected President and the Republicans very possibly keeping a majority in the Senate,¹ we may have another “Washington 180” coming up next year. 

After the Republicans took the House in 2010, Barack Obama couldn’t get Congress to pass his agenda.  When Congress wouldn’t pass the laws he wanted, President Obama turned to what he called his “pen and phone.”²  Sometimes, departments and agencies followed the Administrative Procedure Act and adopted formal regulations.  Other times, they just issued new interpretations of laws or prior regulations.  Or they sent so-called “Dear Colleagues” letters to state and local governments setting out new rules, with an implied threat to cut off federal funding if they didn’t follow the new rules or standards.

Brett Kavanaugh: Thoughts on a Story That May Never End

While Brett Kavanaugh has been confirmed as a justice on the Supreme Court, one assumes the controversy over his nomination will go on for a long time (forever-?), so it is probably not too late for me to make a few comments.

First, there is the question of whether we must automatically “Believe Women,” as a full-page ad said in The Wall Street Journal (and probably lots of other papers).¹  With respect to this question, Megan McArdle’s column in The Washington Post on Susan Collins’s vote on now-Justice Kavanaugh’s confirmation, talked about some things I hadn’t thought of before:

“Women know, in a visceral way that men never can, what it is like to live your life in consciousness of a single, inescapable fact: that virtually every man you meet is capable of physically overpowering you and taking what you won’t give them freely. We also know that if some man attacks us, it is likely to be in a private place, with no witnesses, and that the physical evidence will often be little different from the aftermath of consensual sex.

Larry Summers Drives from Chicago to Oregon and Discovers a Strange New Country: America

Lawrence Summers, former President of Harvard University (and currently a professor there), as well as Treasury Secretary under Bill Clinton and director of Barack Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers, wrote in Tuesday’s Washington Post¹ about a trip he took to a place he had apparently never been before: America.  Instead of flying over the people he helped govern in both the Clinton and Obama administrations, Dr. Summers and his wife took a two-week road trip from Chicago to Portland, Oregon.  And he found a country, and people, who were different from the economic models he helped write or from what he saw “looking down from a plane”.

Here are some excerpts from his column, with my comments in italics:

“Again and again, we encountered signs warning us to check our gas because it would be 50 miles to the next station.  [And you could get to that station about as fast as you could drive across Manhattan in rush hour.]  I’m sure there were moments when we were 250 miles from any place where I could have purchased an iPhone charger.  Often there was no cellphone service to be had, either.”  [Oh my gosh, not able to buy an iPhone charger – or get cellphone reception.  Civilization is at end.]

Here’s One Tax Break for the Rich that Democrats Really Like

When Barack Obama was president, his default position on taxes was that the “rich” should pay more.  According to President Obama, the rich needed to pay their fair share.  He never said what percentage or amount equaled their fair share, but it was always more than they were paying at the time.  And definitely more than the Republicans thought was right.  Because the Republicans are all about tax cuts for the rich.

Well, with the new tax plan Donald Trump has presented, it looks like we have finally found both (i) a group of rich people that Democrats don’t think should pay more and (ii) a tax break for the rich that Democrats want to keep.  The rich that Democrats don’t think should pay more are, of course, those who live in their states and the tax break Democrats want to keep is the deduction for state and local taxes.