Taking Note

Public Says Tax the Rich, Regulate the Banks, and End the Filibuster

There is clearly a lot of dissatisfaction in the country today. Much of it is traceable to the state of the economy. But it has clearly been exacerbated by the dysfunctional political process in Washington. And it’s equally clear that conservatives have had considerable success turning that dissatisfaction to their political advantage despite their own culpability in that dysfunction.

Dissatisfaction with the economy and the political process, however, is not the same thing as an embrace of conservative policies. Indeed, the public remains enamored of a wide range of progressive policies, as polling data regularly document. Consider these findings from the latest New York Times/CBS News poll. In that poll the public was asked whether the 2001 tax cuts for those making $250,000 or more should be allowed to expire, explicitly pointing out that that would raise taxes on that group of people. The public deemed it a good idea to eliminate these Bush-era tax cuts for the rich by a 2-1 ratio (62-31).

In the same poll, the public was asked whether we should increase regulations on banks to help prevent future financial crises or not increase regulations because that would discourage private investors. The public endorsed increasing bank regulation by 56-36.

Iraq and its Region

I had a piece at World Politics Review yesterday that looked at where things stand on Iraq’s reintegration back into the region. The regional context is often cited in pro forma fashion, and I think this issue is often overlooked when thinking about Iraq’s long-term future and also how Iraq fits into the United States’ broader regional strategy following the upcoming withdrawal (and yes, I think the withdrawal as outlined in the U.S.-Iraq Security Agreement is a good thing and a binding obligation- more on that later).

The Messy Business of Transparency

President Obama’s latest plan for health reform brought a flurry of commentary in the last two days; including divergent views on whether his commitment to "transparency" is helping or hurting the process.

Yesterday, the Los Angeles Times blamed the current “healthcare backlash” on Obama’s insistence that the messy business of hashing out health reform be done in Congress, not behind closed doors in the Oval Office. In the L.A. Times’ view, there’s been too much transparency:

The President’s Proposal-Everything Depends On...

You might be wondering why I haven’t written about the President’s HealthCare bill. The reason is that I have very little to say. This, I realize, is unusual. But the truth is that the president’s proposal is very similar to the Senate bill—which is not a surprise.

Nevertheless, I am very glad to see the proposal. I was worried that the White House had put reform on the back burner.

Will it pass? As always, I’m trying to be optimistic. But I think that everything depends on whether the White House decides to twist arms.

The president will have to persuade House liberals that this is a good first step—and that we can worry about improving the plan over the next three years. I would still like to see a public option, and I hope that, in the end, the federal government will wind up overseeing the state-based exchanges. But the legislation doesn’t goes into effect until 2014; that gives us more than enough time to improve on it. The President also will need to keep an eye on Senate moderates. I would favor sending Joe Lieberman on a special mission to South Korea. A relative who is stationed there tells me that the demilitarized zone is particularly bleak this time of year.

Extraterritorial Jurisdiction and the Takedown of the Prince of Marbella

During the 1920s, the United States experienced a rash of “interstate” bank heists, in which stickup men with automobiles would rob a bank in one state before fleeing to another. Because holding up a bank was not a federal crime until 1934, the local authorities in Kansas, say, were not authorized to pursue a suspect who crossed state lines into Missouri. Nearly a century later, sophisticated international criminals enjoy a similar advantage.  International law is generally weak, and Interpol, which has no arresting power, is little more than a clearing house for warrants which individual nations may elect not to enforce. As Moisés Naím, editor of Foreign Policy, has observed, sovereignty is a great advantage for criminals, terrorists, and other bad actors -- and a conspicuous disadvantage for law enforcement. 

But since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, new statutes have enhanced the power of “extraterritorial jurisdiction,” enabling aggressive law enforcement agencies to investigate and try suspects for crimes committed outside the United States.

Public Says It’s Time to Repeal Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell

In President Barack Obama’s State of the Union Address, he called for ending the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy and allowing gay men and women to serve openly in our armed forces. That change would be welcomed by the American public judging from recent polling data.

Here are illustrative data from a just-released Quinnipiac University poll. In that poll the public, by a strong 57-36 margin, said the federal law prohibiting openly gay men and women from serving in the military should be repealed.

Moreover, by more than a 2-to-1 ratio—66 percent to 31 percent—the public agrees that not allowing openly gay men and women to serve in the military is discriminatory.

Does Health Insurance Save Lives? Maybe That’s the Wrong Question

Do the uninsured die because they don’t have access to medical care—or because more than three-quarter of the uninsured are poor?  In part 1 of this post, I explained that we know that poverty is a killer. It destroys mind and body, slowly but surely. In the U.S. the poor die seven years earlier than the rich. And most of the uninsured are poor. 

I also explained that lack of access to medical care is not a major factor in determining who dies prematurely. Social circumstances, personal behaviors, and environment account for 60% of early deaths, and each is closely tied to socio-economic status.

Most Americans assume that good health care is the key to longevity. But in 2002 the Kaiser Family Foundation published a study that poses a radical question, “Does having health insurance improve your health?“ It might sound like a foolish query. One wants to say “Of course!”

Rule of Law, Patriotism, and Making the Argument for Civilian Terror Trials

One much-reviled political tactic famously employed by President George W. Bush and his surrogates was to play offense against critics by implying that the very act of questioning administration policy was somehow unpatriotic. I never thought I'd say this, but as the Republican hysteria over the prospect of trying terrorists in federal courts intensifies and weak-kneed Democrats show real signs of folding on what history may judge to be a make-or-break issue for the Obama administration, the president and his advisers need to take a page from the Bush play-book, go on the offensive, and call the increasingly craven rhetoric of Dick Cheney, Lindsey Graham and others what it is: a politically-driven, deeply unpatriotic suggestion that the American system of federal justice spelled out in Article III of the Constitution is simply not up to the task. 

Rather than focus on the rank hypocrisy of conservatives who cheered the Bush administration's handling of the Richard Reid case in 2001 but decry the Obama administration's decision to Mirandize Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab on Christmas Day, let's focus instead on the sheer cynicism of the attacks currently being aimed at Eric Holder's justice department. 

Images of War and Warriors

Of all the films so far about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan or their impact, The Hurt Locker, directed by Kathryn Bigelow,has emerged as the stand-out. It has been nominated for nine Oscars, including best picture. On its website, there is a listing of multiple major prizes to date in every category. Roger Ebert, Newsweek, and the Washington Post named it one of the ten best films of the decade. What is striking about all the acclaim is that the movie, which cost $11 million to make, is still apparently short of $30 million in world wide revenues. Avatar, by contrast, has swept past $2 billion in ticket sales. The Hurt Locker is a superb movie that very few people have seen.

The critical success of The Hurt Locker is foremost about craft. A. O. Scott in the New York Times wrote: “The movie is a viscerally exciting, adrenaline-soaked tour de force of suspense and surprise, full of explosions and hectic scenes of combat, but it blows a hole in the condescending assumption that such effects are just empty spectacle or mindless noise.” The mesmerizing central character, played by Jeremy Renner, is Sergeant First Class William James, team leader of a U.S. Army explosive ordnance unit in Baghdad, whose awesome coolness and skill reflect an emotional hole at his core that only fear and danger can fill. If The Hurt Locker really is destined to be an iconic movie about war, the deeper meaning of the film is what it reveals about the way Americans feel about today’s warriors, wherever they are sent. Iraq itself as a place, and the war as an issue, are bit players.

Public Backs Regulation of Big Banks

Between health care, the State of the Union, and the budget, Obama’s proposals for financial regulatory reform, including tough new moves to reduce risk-taking by our country’s largest banks, haven’t gotten all the attention they should. But these proposals are highly significant as policy and are likely to be debated in Congress quite soon. They are also likely to tap into a wellspring of public support for this kind of tough approach.

For example, in a late January CNN poll, 64 percent of the public said it was extremely or very important for the president and Congress to deal with “regulation on big banks” this year.

In the same poll, respondents were asked whether they favored or opposed new government regulations to “limit the size and activities of the country’s largest banks.” By a wide 62-35 margin, the public said they favored such regulations.