Was Buying the Slaves a Feasible Alternative

The topic is a bit dated, but it is germane to a conversation into which I have inserted myself.*  Back in 2007, Congressman Ron Paul stated his belief "that Abraham Lincoln should never have started the civil war, instead ending slavery by having the federal government purchase all of the slaves and set them free."  As evidence in favor of the potential efficacy of such a policy, he cites the example of the British government buying and liberating slaves in the British Empire.  Unfortunately for Paul, the numbers don't add up.  The British government spent £20 million to free 40,000 slaves, or £500 per slave.  At the time of the Civil War, there were approximately 4 million slaves in the United States.  If the United States sought to compensate slave owners at the same price as the British, it would have cost the federal government $9,699,321.047 at a time when GDP was only $4,345,000,000.  In other words, if the United States had pursued this policy, it would have taken more than two years of devoting the entire economic output of the United States at the time to pay for it.  If the United States were to pay market value for the slaves, the cost would still run to about $6.5 billion.  Simply put, the money wasn't there.


There were also key differences between Britain and the United States which would have rendered such a solution politically untenable.  Though legal in the British Empire, slavery was already illegal in Britain, proper.  Because the colonies did not have direct representation in Parliament, this meant there was a much smaller faction within Parliament with an inherent interest in preserving slavery.  This stands in stark contrast to the American situation, where half of the states were slave states, and the other half were free states.  As a result, the South had the capability to block any legislative attempt at abolition.


Of course, all of this is irrelevant, because Lincoln never had any opportunity to pursue this policy as president. Seven of the eleven Confederate states seceded before he was inaugurated, and the South started the Civil War by attacking Fort Sumter while Lincoln was still looking to bring the Confederate States back into the Union peacefully.  And this is why Paul goes from being off-base to being odious when he says, "No, [Lincoln] shouldn't have gone to war.  He did this just to enhance and get rid of the original intent of the republic."  In Paul's telling, Lincoln must have fought a war he didn't he start to preserve the Union he had sworn to defend in order to overthrow the same Constitutional order because he failed to embrace an abolition policy he never had a chance to enact, never mind to implement, which had no chance of either passing Congress and would not have worked anyway.


*And to a topic which I inserted into the conversation.

The Death of Fusionism?

My cousin Mark has posted a link to an article by Nikolai Wenzel arguing that conservatism is inherently hostile to liberty and that it is therefore necessarily incompatible with libertarianism.  As someone who has grown up with and been formed politically and philosophically by the alliance of conservatives and libertarians, I find the argument baffling.  Almost equally baffling is his understanding of conservatism or lack thereof, is what he describes as conservatism- "a philosophy that asserts a particular knowledge of human nature, specifically the individual's place in society, and the importance of virtue- and seeks to impose that vision through government"-which sums up any political philosophy, libertarianism included.

While Wenzel is correct that there are many different strains of conservatism, that does not mean that there are no underlying principles that undergird conservative thought.  Before getting to Wenzel's critique, some exposition of what conservatism is is necessary  In the introduction to his seminal book, The Conservative Mind, Russel Kirk laid out six tenets that are common to most threads of conservative thought.  They are as follows:

1.  Belief in a transcendent order, or body of natural law, which rules society as well as conscience.  Political problems, at bottom, are religious and moral problems.  A narrow rationality, what Coleridge called the Understanding, cannot of itself satisfy human needs.  "Every Tory is a realist," says Keith Feiling:  "he knows that there are great forces in heaven and earth that man's philosophy cannot plumb or fathom."  True politics is the art of apprehending and applying the Justice which ought to prevail in a community of souls.
2.  Affection for the proliferating variety and mystery of the human experience, as opposed to the narrowing uniformity, egalitarianism, and utilitarian aims of most radical systems; conservatives resist what Robert Graves called "Logicalism" in society.  This prejudice has been called "the conservatism of enjoyment"- a sense that life is worth living, according to Walter Bagehot "the proper source of an animated conservatism."
3.  Conviction that civilized society requires orders and classes, as against the notion of a "classless society."  With reason, conservatives have often been called "the party of order."  If natural distinctions are effaced among men, oligarchs fill the vacuum.  Ultimate equality in the judgment of God, and before the courts of law, are acknowledged by conservatives; but equality of condition, they think, means equality in servitude and boredom.
4.  Persuasion that freedom and property are closely linked:  separate private property from private possession, and Leviathan becomes master of all.  Economic levelling, they maintain, is not economic progress.
5.  Faith in prescription and and distrust of "sophisters, calculators, and economists" who would reconstruct society upon abstract designs.  Custom, convention, and old prescription are checks both upon man's anarchic impulse and upon the innovator's lust for power.
6.  Recognition that change may not be salutary reform:  hasty innovation may be a devouring conflagration, rather than a torch of progress.  Society must alter, for prudent change is the means of social preservation; but a statesman must take Providence into his calculations, and a statesman's chief virtue, according to Plato and Burke, is Prudence.

Of these six tenets, two, three, and four are compatible with a libertarian philosophy, and tenets five and six can coexist with libertarian thought in societies where there is a tradition of ordered liberty.  Tenet one is orthogonal to libertarian thinking.  None are necessarily hostile to a libertarian philosophy.  However, conservatism presents are deeper understanding of human nature and human relationships than does Wenzel's libertarianism.

After failing to define conservatism in any useful sense, Wenzel gets off to a bad start in his critique of conservatism by saying that "Conservatism is preoccupied with aggregates such as "community," "moral ecology," "society," or "the nation"; what is more, conservatism is willing to sacrifice individual rights on a communitarian altar."  This is a moderately outrageous statement, particularly given that Wenzel has not yet and never does define either liberty or declare what constitutes an individual right.  But why, according to Wenzel, is this supposed preoccupation of conservatism a problem?  According to Wenzel, "The groups to which individuals adhere- families, clubs, churches, 'society,' or 'country'- do not really exist or enjoy agency."  This is because "individuals (and only individuals) act."  On one level, this is so true as to be a truism (you'll get no endorsement of Rousseau's general will from me), but on another level it is preposterous.  His definition of agency is completely arbitrary.  I could just as easily say that I am not writing this post because it is really a series of different organ systems, organs, tissues, cells, and, ultimately, genes interacting with one another and the surrounding environment to produce this effect, and that I therefore do not exist or enjoy agency except as an abstraction.  Groups do not fail to enjoy agency just because the action of a group is dependent upon the actions of individuals within the group.  Rather, the agency of the individuals within the group gives the group the ability to exercise that agency.

But it gets more interesting still because the agency able to be exercised by an individual depends upon the agency of groups.  The ability of an individual to exercise agency at all is dependent upon, first of all, the agency of his parents.  The agency of the parents is affected by the community in which the parents live, whose agency is affected by surrounding societal groups, the nation, and surrounding nations.  Wenzel does acknowledge the importance of associations, but he throws up his hands when considering the problem of solving disputes within the group:  "But what constitutes a 'community'?  Fifty-one percent of its members?  Fifty-one percent of its voters?  Perhaps a two-thirds-super-majority or a unanimity of voters?  Or all members?  Or, perhaps, the small percentage that manages to capture the political process or the right commission?"  The conservative response is that there is no single answer.  Each group exists in different circumstances, and each group should find a way to resolve conflicts that most effectively secures what it understands to be the good, learning from its mistakes over time and adapting to new conditions.  This can be a messy process:  We call it politics.

Wenzel goes on to assert that "neglect of methodological individualism leads to a violation of rights, as the acting individual loses status as an end."  This is nonsense on stilts.  Whether a philosophy of methodological individualism, as defined by Wenzel, is nurtured or neglected has nothing to do with whether individual rights are violated.  Indeed, under a Nietzschean view of the world, methodological individualism encourages the violation of individual rights as it is only individuals who stand in the way of obtaining or keeping power.  Belief in the natural rights of man listed in the Declaration of Independence and a system of negative liberties are surer safeguards of individual rights than belief in methodological individualism.

Still, Wenzel is right to be concerned that "aggregates offer a convenient excuse to impose private ends through public means."  Strangely, he turns his fire on conservatives here, as though conservatives haven't been opposed to things like welfare, Medicare, Obamacare, cap and trade, affirmative action, the ethanol mandate, and excessive government regulation, to name a few.  But be that as it may, where Wenzel starts to fall here is that he assumes too clear a line between what is private and what is public and also fails to recognize that there are differing degrees of public, never mind that what may appear to be a purely private matter may have consequences to others severe enough to justify public action.  Given recent research that has come to light, pornography may be such an issue, but Wenzel would have us proscribe such discussions in the public arena because "conservatism wants more government to fix social ills."  This is really where Wenzel's argument goes off the rails.

From here on out, the conservatism Wenzel describes is nothing like conservatism as it actually is, and the libertarianism he advocates bears a striking resemblance to the conservatism he claims to be rejecting.  He argues, "conservatism rests on a claim of privileged access to truth, whether through revelation or some sort of 'practical reason' to derive rules of personal and interpersonal conduct- which really seems to boil down to a reverse engineering to justify personal preferences."  On the other hand, libertarianism trusts institutions that help generate and transmit knowledge, as we recognize our limitations and eschew our limited reason in favor of reason nestled in tradition."  That sounds an awful lot like the fifth tenet to me.

Where the difference between Wenzel, who admits "there are plainly benefits to conservative values," and the social conservatives lies is in their understanding of what they're doing.  To the social conservative, social conservatism is about defending those traditions and institutions that have allowed American society to flourish.  In order to accomplish this, they act on the governmental level to undo the damage done by the state.  Wenzel would rather have the civil society deal with social ills.  The problem is that the state has undermined the institutions that have allowed civil society to flourish.  It has assumed the role of father as things like welfare and abortion on demand have given men the excuse to leave the women they impregnate on their own to deal with the consequences.  It has taken over much of the role performed by churches and charities.  Allowing no-fault divorce has undermined the institution of the family by turning the marital relationship from a relationship of love and self-sacrifice into one of self-satisfaction and so undermined the very civil society Wenzel would like to see promote virtuous living.  The goal of social conservatives is first to prevent the state doing further damage to the institutions that make civil society possible and, if possible, repair some of the damage already done.  Their fear is that if the state continues to undermine the family, churches and the like, Leviathan will be master of all as liberty dies because people look to the state first for their security.  Liberty is an essential right, but it does not exist in a vacuum.  Our tradition of liberty rests on a whole host of institutions and associations that must be preserved if liberty is to survive.

Re: Ron Paul's Electability

My cousin, Mark, has posted this item concerning the electability of Congressman Ron Paul.  He believes him to be the most electable candidate in the Republican field despite the fact that Paul has won neither a caucus nor a primary.  Unfortunately for him, his case is little more than wishful thinking.

"Ron Paul has the most energized base of any candidate." 


Perhaps.  But it has only gotten him 11% of the popular vote thus far.  Paul's base may be energized, giving him a relatively high floor, but he has shown no ability to use this floor to raise his ceiling.


"He is attracting young people disatisfied [sic] with the disaster that is Obama."

The young consistently have the lowest turnout rate in the country, while the ones who are most likely to vote are senior citizens.  It is difficult to see how he can bring in enough new young voters to offset the elderly voters who will vote against him because he thinks Medicare is unconstitutional.  How many votes will he lose when it becomes widely known that he believes "Just think of what happened after 9/11. Immediately before there was any assessment there was glee in the administration because now we can invade Iraq."  How many people will dismiss him as a crank when they find out that he said 

There’s been a coup, have you heard? It’s the CIA coup. The CIA runs everything, they run the military. They’re the ones who are over there lobbing missiles and bombs on countries. … And of course the CIA is every bit as secretive as the Federal Reserve. … And yet think of the harm they have done since they were established [after] World War II. They are a government unto themselves. They’re in businesses, in drug businesses, they take out dictators … We need to take out the CIA.

Will Ron Paul really be able to attract new voters with this story being played and replayed for six months when his best defense is that he didn't write those horrible things, he just allowed his name to be attached to them and made millions of dollars off of them?  Once these things and more are given constant attention, what will it matter that Paul currently leads Obama by two points in the daily tracking poll?

"Finally, even with the Republican Party and the Media misrepresenting his policy positions on a daily basis he is still gaining ground.  He [sic] message of  individual liberty, limited government, sound money, and a pro-American foreign policy is resonating with an ever growing number of Americans."

Paul has largely bounced between 6 and  15 percent in the polls.  He currently sits at just over 11 percent in the Real Clear Politics average.  His numbers may tick up slightly when either Gingrich or Santorum drops out (most likely Gingrich), but most of the supporters of the one will switch to the other as the last viable non-Romney candidate.  He has won all of eight* delegates, less than one percent of the total required to win the nomination.  The environment for him has been relatively positive, as the vast majority of the negative advertising has been directed at Romney, Gingrich, and Santorum.  Were Paul to become a serious obstacle to any of the other candidates, it would suddenly become much more difficult for him to avoid the sort of negative attention that sank Gingrich in Florida and hampered Santorum in Arizona and Michgan (where he only came close to winning because of crossover support from Democrats interested in keeping things going).

As for his (the?) message, describing it as one of individual liberty, limited government, sound money, and pro-American foreign policy is to say that Paul's message is thoroughly consistent with Republican principles and could also be applied to the messages of the other Republican candidates.**

When it's all said and done, Ron Paul has some good things to say (and some not-so-good), but he's been in the fever swamps too long to be a viable presidential candidate.

*If you don't count the non-binding caucuses.

**I'm leaving aside the details of the individual candidates' messages.  My point is merely that their campaigns portray their policy proposals as being consistent with these ideals.

Great Moments in Political Misdirection

I'm not inclined to take Ahmadinejad's public predictions about U.S. foreign policy too seriously, but if the United States does end up launching attacks on (presumably) Iran and Syria and does so in cooperation with Israel, it would have to represent the biggest, most successful attempt at foreign policy misdirection in United States history.  It's no secret that President Obama has been openly and ham-fistedly disdainful of Prime Minister Netanyahu and that he has been scrambling to show that he regards Israel as a good friend and ally of the United States and not as merely an obstacle to American interests in the Middle East.  Again, I highly doubt Ahmadinejad's prediction will prove correct, but if it does, my estimation of President Obama's shrewdness and political ability will go through the roof.

Still, a question remains.  Why is Ahmadinejad making this prediction when there is no overt sign the United States will take action?  There is certainly the prospect of an Israeli surprise attack, and the Iranian government regards Israel as the Little Satan to the American Great Satan.  So, by this logic, if Israel attacks Iran, it is doing so as an agent of the United States.  As a point of fact, this line of logic doesn't hold (at most, the United States would be neutral on the subject, not hindering it as it went forward), but it is how the Iranian government views the U.S.-Isreali relationship (Walt and Mearsheimer(sp?), call your office).

Another possible reason for Ahmadinejad to make this prediction (and the one which seems most likely to me) is that Ahmadinejad is calling President Obama's bluff, effectively daring him to attack.  The article ends with Ahmadinejad saying "The logic that they can persuade us to negotiate through sanctions is just a failure."  He is declaring that not only will Iran not buckle under newly imposed sanctions, but that the United States knows this and is preparing to take military action as a result.  If the attack does happen, the prediction costs Ahmadinejad nothing.  If it doesn't happen, it allows him to declare that President Obama blinked and that he lacks the strength of will to prevent Iran achieving its nuclear objectives.

Of course, all of this is predicated on Ahmadinejad being believable in his assertions, so the effect will probably be negligible.  Those who are inclined to believe him (i.e. his supporters) will believe him and be encouraged if the attack doesn't come.  Those who are inclined to disbelieve him (i.e. just about everyone else) will be inclined to ignore him, and if an attack doesn't come, it will only mean that Ahmadinejad was engaging in more of his usual bluster.

Invitation to Fraud

How will the government contain costs and limit fraud when anyone with some basic computer equipment can make his own Medicare card?

Money quote:

You want to know what a Medicare identification card is like? It is a little larger than the standard size for credit cards and driver’s licenses. (Of course. Couldn’t have the federal government make a card that will fit in a stack with all the other cards you use.) It has no magnetic strip. It is plain vanilla text and fonts—no security features whatsoever. It could be counterfeited by a sixth-grader with a scanner. It is made out of flimsy paper that would barely qualify for a really cheap business card.

Hat-tip: The Corner

How Does This Help?

Jonah Goldberg explains how the federal government has responded to the economic crisis by flushing money down the toilet.

Recall the White House mantra of “never let a crisis go to waste.” Though the economic implosion had specific causes stemming from the financial and housing markets and how they were regulated, President Obama insisted that the items on his campaign wish list — overhauling health care, imposing carbon cap-and-trade, and reforming education — would be the real solutions to the crisis.

“The fact is, our economy did not fall into decline overnight,” Obama told Congress in February. And only by “investing” in policies formulated years before “toxic asset” became household words could America get out of the crisis.

As a result, we’re now stuck with some of the most absurdly counterproductive legislation imaginable. The national debt is growing faster than the GDP. According to the Congressional Budget Office, within ten years Uncle Sam’s publicly held debt will double to 82 percent of GDP. The CBO predicts that by 2038, our debt will be 200 percent of GDP. Debt siphons off growth for the simple reason that dollars go to paying it off rather than investing in something productive.

Meanwhile, thanks to ongoing trade deficits and relentless borrowing, America’s financial status is deteriorating rapidly. The Commerce Department reported Friday that the value of foreign assets owned by Americans is $19.89 trillion, while the value of American assets owned by foreigners is $23.36 trillion. In other words, we are a “net debtor” to the tune of $3.47 trillion. That represents a 62 percent increase over 2007. Foreigners, most significantly China, own nearly 50 percent of our government’s public debt.

So while the Obama administration frets over the largely phony idea that we are dangerously dependent on foreign oil (Canada sends us about as much oil as the entire Persian Gulf region, and Mexico not much less), we are increasingly threatened by dependence on foreign bondholders who could wreak havoc on the dollar and our interest rates far more easily than OPEC could cut off our oil.

And what are we doing in response? For starters, the House passed carbon cap-and-trade legislation that essentially adds an onerous and inefficient energy tax on everyone, outsources jobs to carbon-profligate India and China, and raises tariffs in an attempt to stem the inevitable bleeding of jobs and manufacturing (the last time we raised tariffs in the midst of a bad recession, we got the Depression). Rather than have America invest in new oil and gas jobs (among the highest-paying of any industry), House Speaker Nancy Pelosi insists that one-time gigs weatherizing Granny’s attic and replacing light bulbs are preferable.

Funny how the "solutions" to our economic crisis were just the policies Obama campaigned on long before our financial system began to implode.

A Reason to Applaud a Teachers' Union

They killed a smoking ban.

The Satirists Predicament

You think you've written the perfect reductio ad absurdum, and lo, it turns out to be not that absurd after all.

Witness.

A gathering of 20 Nobel Prize winners, calling itself the St James's Palace Nobel Laureate Symposium, has released a memorandum stating that 'Global climate change represents a threat of similar proportions' to that of thermonuclear armageddon at the height of the Cold War.

The qualitative difference between the two threats is perhaps nowhere better expressed, however inadvertently, than by the convener of the symposium himself, Professor Hans Joachim Schellnhuber. Where once we had 'the Cold War notion of mutually-assured destruction,' he told the Times, 'Today we have mutually-assured increases in greenhouse gases.'

OK. But while debates around climate change are still qualified by the words 'might', 'could' and 'predicted', it's probably fair to say that the average person in the street may view the comparison of carbon emissions with things that can vapourise a major city in seconds as unhelpfully alarmist and perhaps just a little bit silly.

Hat Tip: The Corner

Rhetoric vs. Reality

This is a must-read on the disconnect between Obama's rhetoric and his national security policies.  The difference between Obama and Bush so far?  Bush's rhetoric lined up with what he actually did.

So, How's That Stimulus Working?

Not so well, according to John Lott, at least by the standard of the pre-stimulus predictions

How did the predictions stack up? While the unemployment rate was at 8.1 percent in February, it had risen to 8.9 percent by April. By May 11, Christine Romer was calling 9.5 percent unemployment by the end of the year “pretty realistic.” Business economists and forecasters surveyed by The Wall Street Journal had increased their estimates to 9.7 percent. Thus, what Romer was predicting would be the worst-case
scenario if the stimulus was not quickly enacted is occurring with the stimulus plan in place.

And,

Economists have consistently been expecting the economy to begin showing positive growth in the second half of this year. But the stimulus appears to have dampened the recovery that economists were expecting.

Take the expected growth in the third quarter (from July to September) this year. In January, the forecasters surveyed by the Wall Street Journal were expecting GDP during that period to rise by 1.2 percent at an annual rate. By May, the expected growth had been cut in half to 0.6 percent. The pattern is similar for both the second and fourth quarters this year. Paul Evans, the editor of the Journal of Money, Credit, and Banking and an economics professor at Ohio State University, agrees with this and tells FOX News: “Most likely the economic recovery would have been more rapid at this point without [the stimulus package].”

And,

Other forecasts have shown a similar pattern. By the end of last week, the U.S. manufacturing output is now expected to plummet by 12 percent this year. In February, the drop was expected to be 8 percent. The decline in the housing market failed to slow down after the stimulus package. The mortgage delinquency and foreclosure rates in the U.S. just experienced their biggest quarterly increases since records started in 1972. Both numbers are also at their highest recorded levels. The S&P/Case-Shiller U.S. National Home Price Index posted a 19.1% drop from a year earlier, the biggest single quarterly decline for the reading’s 21-year history. In January, forecasters expected about 770,000 new homes being built this year. By May, only 580,000 new homes were expected for 2009.

Over the same four months, economists have also become more pessimistic about housing starts next year: The number of expected new housing starts for next year declined from 980,000 to 820,000. Again, what recovery was originally expected later this year and next year has actually declined after the stimulus.

Now, correlation does not imply causality. In this case, the fact that things are worse than expected even before the stimulus was passed, does not prove the stimulus isn't working, but while things could have been worse than this without the stimulus, this is an extremely weak argument in its defense. After all, I could say with at least equal plausibility that eliminating the capital gains tax; cutting personal and corporate income taxes; lifting restrictions on energy exploration; oil refinery and nuclear power plant construction; and promoting a strong dollar would have an even greater positive impact on the economy.

Of course, defenders of the stimulus might also cite the fact that very little of the stimulus money has actually been spent, but that quickly becomes an argument in favor of tax cuts and deregulation. After all, in order for the government to put money into the economy, it has to take it out of the economy first- whether through taxes, the sale of bonds, or devaluing the money already in the economy by printing more of it- and then it has to, you know, spend it. On the other hand, cutting taxes allows money that is already in the economy to be spent, and deregulation and opens up new areas for investment or allows businesses to operate more efficiently by reducing the cost of doing business.

I guess you could stick to the whole "jobs saved or created" mantra, with the emphasis on saved, but as Jim Geraghty points out, it "can't be declared horsepuckey until national employment falls below 9.67 million jobs."

Can You Say "Conflict of Interest"?

GM will continue to lobby the United States government, despite (because of?) the fact that the government is now GM's largest shareholder.  Of course, this makes explicit what was already implicit:  Will the government pursue policies that are in the best interest of the country if they have a negative impact on GM?  Will GM seek to return to profitability by becoming more competitive in the free (ish?) market, or will they advance policies which are bad for the market, knowing that they can always rely on the government, whose policies they are advocating, to continue to funnel them money even as their product continues to lose money?  In short, I smell a rat.

Even if I Find It Politically Disadvantageous

Here's hoping Sen. Robert Byrd makes a quick and full recovery and can soon return to his duties.

What Do You Say to This?

I Bush had done this, it would have been a front-page story.

Hat tip:  The Corner

Symbolism Matters

Which is why the President of the United States bows to no one.

Barack Obama Bows To Saudi King Abdullah

Apparently, our current president is unaware of this and has thus presented himself as being subservient to the king of Saudi Arabia.

Hat tips: The Corner, The American Thinker

What's Wrong Here?

There's something not quite right with the beginning of this story:

LOS ANGELES — Cops have filed felony charges against an armed, crazed stalker who authorities say drove cross-country to break onto the "Dancing With the Stars" set to meet Olympian Shawn Johnson - who he hoped would father his children.

It's Only Funny Because It's True

What European Tribes Think About One Another.

Let 'Em Die

If John McCain had said this five months ago, he might be president today.

Hat tip: Drudge

There's No Situation So Bad the Government Can't Make It Worse

See the Australian wildfires.

Hat tip:  The Corner

My Very Quick Take on the Stimulus

Pork and fury signifying nothing.

While President Obama's rhetoric could easily be described as Hope and fury signifying nothing.

Fisking Obama

So President Obama has decided to take out in op-ed in the Washington Post to make the case for the pork stimulus bill making its way through the Senate. The problem is that he's not really saying anything of substance that hasn't been said before by other advocates of the bill. In other words, Mr. Obama is relying on the fact that he's the one making the case to make it persuasive.* Unfortunately for him, the fact that he says it doesn't make it so.

President Obama begins by saying

By now, it's clear to everyone that we have inherited an economic crisis as deep and dire as any since the days of the Great Depression. Millions of jobs that Americans relied on just a year ago are gone; millions more of the nest eggs families worked so hard to build have vanished. People everywhere are worried about what tomorrow will bring.

While it is certainly possible that we are in the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, it won't be possible to draw that conclusion for some time, and this is by no means a universal view. Things are bad, and will likely get worse, but the magnitude of the crisis is ultimately determined by what happens, not what might happen. Right now, there is a severe market correction going on as the effects of deleveraging an overleveraged market are felt, and there will undoubtedly be a lot of pain involved, but a lot of pain does not automatically equate to the greatest financial crisis since the Great Depression. Secondly, you do not actually lose money when your investment declines unless you sell the investment before it has regained its original value. The value of my pension fund has declined over the last year, but the losses will only be real if I sell it before the value goes back up. What matters with things like pension funds is not the value month-to-month or even year-to-year, but the value when you cash it in. While it's possible that millions of people had their funds invested entirely in firms like Lehman Brothers and Circuit City, most people's investments are run through things like pension funds, IRAs and 401(k)s. Their value has certainly taken a hit, but I find it hard to believe that millions of families have lost their entire nest eggs.

The President continues:

What Americans expect from Washington is action that matches the urgency they feel in their daily lives -- action that's swift, bold and wise enough for us to climb out of this crisis.

This is so vague as to be meaningless. It reduces to "Americans want Washington to do something that works and do it quickly." This is practically begging the question, "What works?" Should Washington inject itself further into economy than it has already? Should it step back and allow the market to correct? Some combination of the two, and if so, what combination will be most effective? Is any action needed on top of the TARP bill and all of the actions taken by the Federal Reserve? Would it be better for the government to just let things go, to let the market kill off the bad banks and allow banks that did things right to pick up the pieces? Should the government nationalize the banks? How? Purchase toxic assets? At what price? Of Mr. Obama's three criteria of swift, bold and wise, two of them are at odds. Swiftness requires that the analysis and reflection necessary to determine the lieklihood of the efficacy of any action be set aside, meaning that any wisdom inherent in the action taken will result purely by chance. Similarly, ensuring the wisdom of a particular policy requires eschewing swiftness. Cutting tax rates avoids much of this in that it trusts the wisdom of how to spend the money the government is no longer confiscating to the wisdom of the market, but it still requires the government to assess what its budgetary response will be. Will it keep spending at the same level, running the risk of increasing our already mammoth deficit? Will it cut spending and run the risk of alienating consituencies and further degrading the ability of the government to fulfill its duties?

Back to the President:

Because each day we wait to begin the work of turning our economy around, more people lose their jobs, their savings and their homes. And if nothing is done, this recession might linger for years. Our economy will lose 5 million more jobs. Unemployment will approach double digits. Our nation will sink deeper into a crisis that, at some point, we may not be able to reverse.

Mr. Obama certainly seems to have a short memory. Weren't things like the TARP, the Fed cutting interest rates to near zero, the Fed expanding its balance sheet, nevermind the stimulus package from last Spring, supposed to be efforts to either forestall a recession/depression/economic collapse? Do those count for nothing? Have the effects of these policies been fully felt in the economy as a whole? Do we have to start all over again? Is the market failing to correct, or are there signs things are turning around?

This recession might linger for years if nothing is done, but then again it might not. It might come to an end if we pass the stimulus bill, but the stimulus bill could also do nothing or even make things worse. We might lose five million more jobs, but we might not. Unemployment may or may not come near to double digits. Has it been reasonably that the stimulus will do anything to help this situation? Is there any evidence whatsoever that "[o]ur nation will sink deeper into a crisis that, at some point, we may not be able to reverse"? I suppose it's possible, but to assert it without any supporting evidence is little more than naked fear-mongering.

Man, this could take a while.

That's why I feel such a sense of urgency about the recovery plan before Congress. With it, we will create or save more than 3 million jobs over the next two years, provide immediate tax relief to 95 percent of American workers, ignite spending by businesses and consumers alike, and take steps to strengthen our country for years to come.

This thought occurred to me when Mr. Obama first made this assertion, but Jim Geraghty expressed it publicly before I did. As long as unemployment stays under 97-98%, hasn't the stimulus done its job? Now, it can be reasonably asserted that Mr. Obama is saying that only two million more jobs will be lost if the stimulus bill is enacted within his desired time frame, and I'll give the President the benefit of the doubt on this one, but he's still not actually making an argument that his stimulus plan will do this: He's merely asserting it. Similarly, there is no evidence that the sort of tax relief Mr. Obama is promoting will have the effect on spending he seems to predict. The last two times we tried using tax rebates to stimulate economic growth (2001 and 2008), it didn't do squat. Unless tax rates are reduced, the effect of the tax relief will be similar to what it was in 2001 and 2008, if not less because people are starting to save more as credit becomes harder to obtain.

Now the President begins to shift gears:

This plan is more than a prescription for short-term spending -- it's a strategy for America's long-term growth and opportunity in areas such as renewable energy, health care and education. And it's a strategy that will be implemented with unprecedented transparency and accountability, so Americans know where their tax dollars are going and how they are being spent.

So, this is no longer about pulling the economy out of its present travail, but about laying the foundation for future growth. These are important areas of public policy, and crafting good policies that will encourage economic growth and adequately address these issues will take much research, analysis, reflection, deliberation, debate, and consultation. These are not issues to be forced through ostensibly attempting to alleviate a harrowing short-term crisis. As to his promise of transparency, I'll believe it when I see it.

The President continues:

In recent days, there have been misguided criticisms of this plan that echo the failed theories that helped lead us into this crisis -- the notion that tax cuts alone will solve all our problems; that we can meet our enormous tests with half-steps and piecemeal measures; that we can ignore fundamental challenges such as energy independence and the high cost of health care and still expect our economy and our country to thrive.

Has anyone seriously suggested "that tax cuts alone will solve all our problems"? Has anyone seriously asserted "that we can ignore fundamental challenges such as energy independence and the high cost of health care and still expect our economy and our country to thrive"? This is a straw man argument, and poor one at that. Energy dependence and the cost of health care are not driving our current economic problems (though high energy costs exposed the underlying weakness in the economy), and it is therefore not essential to address them in this bill. There is time to address these issues after the crisis abates, especially now that energy prices have fallen back to Earth.**

As for his assertion "that we can meet our enormous tests with half-steps and piecemeal measures", this amounts to a rejection of compromise. Mr. Obama is bound and determined to spend as much money as he can in an attempt to end the recession and wholly restructure fundamental sectors of the American economy. To this end, he will accept no compromise because to do so would result in a half-step. And he will accept nothing which turns the stimulus into a series of piecemeal measures. Given the sorts of things proposed in the stimulus as it it currently stands, I can only assume that the President hasn't actually read this bill, because it is nothing if not a series of piecemeal measures.

I reject these theories, and so did the American people when they went to the polls in November and voted resoundingly for change. They know that we have tried it those ways for too long. And because we have, our health-care costs still rise faster than inflation. Our dependence on foreign oil still threatens our economy and our security. Our children still study in schools that put them at a disadvantage. We've seen the tragic consequences when our bridges crumble and our levees fail.

Part of the reason Washington produces half-steps and piecemeal measures is that different factions have different ideas of how things should be done. In order to get things done, compromise has to be made which reduce the ideological purity of legislation. Even within one party, different people have different ideas as to the best way to attain a goal or series of goals. Furthermore, fundamental differences on how best to deal with issues like energy dependence, education, and health care prevents anything substantial being accomplished because there is no clear view of how best to move forward that substantially crosses party lines. The notion that partisan differences are rooted merely in petty power struggles and thus ought merely be cast aside for the common good is risible. While power plays an essential role in politics, principles play a more important role in determining what sorts of policy a politician and a party will support or oppose. Republicans didn't vote unanimously against the stimulus bill in the House of Representatives out of petulance or a desire to spite the President. They voted against it because they thought it a bad bill. If President Obama wants to rise above the petty partisanship that seems so commonplace in Washington (and there is certainly a lot of pettiness in politics), he can start by recognizing that Republicans are making their objections in good faith and avoid publicly trying to bully them (and wavering Democrats, for that matter) into voting for a bill they believe will be detrimental to the welfare of the country.

Every day, our economy gets sicker -- and the time for a remedy that puts Americans back to work, jump-starts our economy and invests in lasting growth is now.

Assuming the economy needs some sort of "remedy" from Washington at this point, it is not enough Mr. Obama merely to assert that his is the correct remedy for what ails the economy. There is no argument justifying why Mr. Obama believes his proposed remedy is efficacious, nor evidence presented to make his claim. At best, he is resorting to an appeal to his own authority.

Now is the time to protect health insurance for the more than 8 million Americans at risk of losing their coverage and to computerize the health-care records of every American within five years, saving billions of dollars and countless lives in the process.

Now is the time to save billions by making 2 million homes and 75 percent of federal buildings more energy-efficient, and to double our capacity to generate alternative sources of energy within three years.

Now is the time to give our children every advantage they need to compete by upgrading 10,000 schools with state-of-the-art classrooms, libraries and labs; by training our teachers in math and science; and by bringing the dream of a college education within reach for millions of Americans.

And now is the time to create the jobs that remake America for the 21st century by rebuilding aging roads, bridges and levees; designing a smart electrical grid; and connecting every corner of the country to the information superhighway.

At what cost? With what degree of efficacy? With what degree of efficiency? With what benefit? These are long-term projects, and to throw them in with the stimulus bill without a proper analysis of how best to go about implementing them is to guarantee poor solutions with little benefit, especially as wasteful expenditures suck money out of the economy, restraining long-term growth while providing sub-par services. The issues the President outlines need to be addressed, but there is a time and place to do so. But this is not it.

These are the actions Americans expect us to take without delay. They're patient enough to know that our economic recovery will be measured in years, not months. But they have no patience for the same old partisan gridlock that stands in the way of action while our economy continues to slide.

So we have a choice to make. We can once again let Washington's bad habits stand in the way of progress. Or we can pull together and say that in America, our destiny isn't written for us but by us. We can place good ideas ahead of old ideological battles, and a sense of purpose above the same narrow partisanship. We can act boldly to turn crisis into opportunity and, together, write the next great chapter in our history and meet the test of our time.

If the economic recovery is going to take years, why is it essential that we act immediately? What's a few weeks or even a few months in process that will play out over the course of several years? Is it not better to take more time and make sure you get the policy right than to rush a bad bill and possibly nip a nascent recovery in the bud?

Finally, the Mr. Obama is deceiving either himself or us when he sets good ideas in opposition to ideological battles. Ideological battles occur precisely when there is a disagreement over whether an idea is good or not. The call to rise above narrow partisanship assumes that Republicans (and arguably Democrats) are putting the interest of the party above the interest of the nation, but if the political battle playing out along largely partisan lines is fundamentally ideological, the issue is not what's best for one party or another, but what is truly best for the country. Before the stimulus bill is passed, this question has to be hashed out, and we have more than enough time for the debate to unfold.

*I'm willing to concede that the constraints of the op-ed format limit his ability to make a case that is both broad and goes beyond simple assertions unsupported by facts.

**Though I do find it ironic that the President who harps so much on energy independence has used his power to block further domestic oil production in the United States.

Hat tip: Planet Gore