Despite all the ranting and raving about the Troubled Asset Relief Program, TARP is now expected to cost the federal government only $25 billion, the Congressional Budget Office reported this week. As the Washington Post noted, that’s the equivalent of less than six months of emergency unemployment benefits. According to the CBO report: “Because the financial system stabilized and then improved, the amount of funds used by the TARP was well below the $700 billion initially authorized, and the outcomes of most transactions made through TARP were favorable for the federal government.” So not only did TARP help avert a financial catastrophe, the government is getting most of the money back. Sounds like TARP was a huge success.
Tim Shallenburger, a former House speaker and state treasurer and the GOP gubernatorial candidate in 2002, is returning to state government. Shallenburger is leaving his bank president job in Baxter Springs to become Gov.-elect Sam Brownback’s legislative liaison. His job will be helping get Brownback’s agenda passed — which shouldn’t be too difficult, given the large GOP majorities in the Legislature. He also will help represent legislators’ agendas to Brownback — which could be more challenging, as some conservative lawmakers may want to be more aggressive than Brownback on social issues or tax cuts.
Who said: “Wherever I have gone in this country, I have found Americans”? In a U.S. News online quiz rounding up some of the silliest things said by politicians, the possible answers were Thomas Dewey, Herbert Hoover, Alf Landon and Franklin Roosevelt. And the winner was: Kansas’ own Landon. Among the other quiz questions: whether Sarah Palin actually said, “I can see Russia from my house” and who said, “You cannot go to a 7-Eleven or a Dunkin’ Donuts unless you have a slight Indian accent. I’m not joking.” (Correct answers: No and Joe Say-It-Isn’t-So Biden.)
It was the Bush administration that decided to bail out the banks. Vice President Dick Cheney was among those arguing two years ago that the federal government should help the auto industry. And in 2008 the Bush team successfully pushed for a $168 billion economic stimulus package. Yet “the right-wing collectives fail to apply the socialist label to conservatives Bush and Cheney,” noted Washington Post columnist Colbert King. He concluded: “Averting the collapse of the financial and auto industries — and the U.S. economy — served the country’s best interests. The federal presence in both industries is now being ratcheted down. Bush and Obama were right to act as they did. It’s the singling out and demagoguing of Obama that’s wrong and disgusting.”
By 2-1 majorities, Democrats and independents consider government gridlock to be bad, but Republican registered voters are evenly divided on whether gridlock is good or bad, according to an ABC News/Yahoo News poll. Also, 66 percent of Republicans and Republican-leaning voters want GOP leaders to “stand up” to President Obama, according to a Pew Research Center survey. But overall, 55 percent of Americans surveyed said that Republican leaders in Congress should work with Obama, and 62 percent want Obama to work with GOP leaders.
Many people have pointed to Israel’s airline security as confirmation that the United States has lost its way on the issue. But, as Washington Post columnist Ruth Marcus noted, “the Israeli approach is an alluring mirage that would not withstand transplantation. Israel has two airports and 50 flights a day. It conducts intrusive background checks and questions passengers extensively. The process can take hours.” Her Post colleague Dana Milbank figured the cost of replicating Israel’s screening system at $40 billion more a year. He wrote: “Implementing the Israeli model also would amount to a massive government jobs program — just the sort of junk conservatives said they wouldn’t touch.”
A delegation of business and civic leaders from Wichita visited Louisville, Ky., last month and toured the city’s redeveloped waterfront area. What they may not have learned is how large a role Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., has played in helping redevelop Louisville. McConnell, who recently switched positions to support a two-year GOP ban on spending earmarks, has directed $62.4 million in federal funding to Louisville in the past three years, according to data tallied by the Center for Responsive Politics.
Union leaders, aircraft manufacturers, the Wichita City Council and others have called on President Obama to visit Wichita’s hard-hit aviation-manufacturing industry, to no avail. He’s been a no-show in other Republican states, too. Of the 12 states that Obama has not visited as president, 11 are states he lost to Sen. John McCain in 2008 and five are in the Great Plains — Kansas, Oklahoma, Nebraska, South Dakota and North Dakota. Meanwhile, Obama has paid 12 visits to Ohio and nine each to Pennsylvania and Florida.
House GOP leaders gave incoming freshmen such as Reps.-elect Mike Pompeo, R-Wichita, and Tim Huelskamp, R-Fowler, a 144-page manual on ethics and other matters. Among the advice:
– “Read and reread the U.S. Constitution.”
– “Don’t be afraid to say, ‘No.’”
– “You may not directly or indirectly threaten reprisal against any federal agency officials, or promise favoritism or benefit.”
– “Always assume you’re on camera when you are in the chamber. Even if you are simply looking at your cell phone, you might appear to be asleep.”
– “If you don’t want to see an activity or event reported on the front page of the local newspaper, don’t do it.”
– “Be prepared for two eventual questions every time you cast your vote on the House floor: Did you read the bill, and is it constitutional?”
– “Hire Republicans. . . . A non-Republican is likely to be unhappy working for you.”
In other freshmen orientation business: When the 85 new House members drew lottery numbers to determine the order in which they would pick available offices, Pompeo had the good fortune of drawing No. 2. “He was engulfed in cries of ‘WHOA!!!!!!!!!!’ and at least one high five,” reported the New York Times.
“For the past two years, Mike O’Neal has served as speaker of the Kansas House of Representatives. Now he’ll actually be in charge,” began an article on the website Stateline.org, noting that the recent election made the GOP 16 seats stronger in the Kansas House and wrecked the coalition of Democrats and moderate Republicans that had passed budgets and other items over O’Neal’s objections. With his new “working majority,” O’Neal said he wants to crack down on illegal immigration, further restrict late-term abortion, fight the federal health reform law, approve a voter ID requirement and Gov.-elect Sam Brownback’s proposed “Office of the Repealer,” and look at cutting personal and corporate income taxes. Even if Brownback doesn’t push to repeal the 1 percent sales-tax increase, O’Neal said, he will be a nice change for conservatives after eight years of Democratic governors. “Heavens, they would much rather have Sam Brownback,” O’Neal said. “Will he satisfy every pent-up expectation or demand of the conservatives? No.”
“Bought a goose for Thanksgiving to commemorate President Obama’s 2012 campaign because his goose is cooked.” — Rep. Todd Tiahrt (in photo), R-Goddard, on Twitter
“Rationality is on my side.” — Rep. Forrest Knox, R-Altoona, on his bill to allow concealed-carry of guns in public buildings, including on state university campuses
“Young people. Dormitories. Guns. Bad combination.” — Kansas Board of Regents chairman Gary Sherrer, on Knox’s bill
Defense cuts are not only on the table; they will almost certainly be part of any budget deal. Defense Secretary Robert Gates helpfully opened the door when he highlighted the need for savings, and now defense has become one of the areas of the budget with the strongest potential for a coalition of strange bedfellows, ranging from policymakers on the far left to the far right, all favoring cuts. Defense cuts need not compromise security, which must take precedence over budgetary savings. But savings from ending unnecessary weapons systems and reforming the generous and costly military health care system, Tricare, in which participant costs have not gone up at all for 15 years, clearly need to be addressed. All told, savings in the high tens of billions a year should be a minimum goal, and savings of more than $100 billion each year are in the realm of the possible later this decade. Finally, this is the first time we have engaged in a prolonged war without any tax increases to pay for it. If operations in Iraq and Afghanistan continue, we should consider a war surtax and spending cuts in other areas of the budget to pay for the wars rather than borrowing the funds and adding to the massive national debt. — Maya MacGuineas, president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget
Cutting U.S. defense spending would put the nation and the current global order at grave risk. International stability and American security are threatened by dangerous contingencies that are becoming increasingly likely. Iran’s acquisition of nuclear weapons would be a world-changing event. The persistence of Islamist militant groups in Pakistan threatens stability on the subcontinent and security throughout the West. Militant Islamist sanctuaries are expanding in Somalia, Yemen, and equatorial Africa. Security and stability in Iraq remain fragile. The war in Afghanistan is at its height. This list of current conflicts and threats excludes the kinds of potential future threats for which the U.S. military must also be prepared, including conflict with China, serious challenges to the U.S. satellite constellation, the continued proliferation of long-range missile and nuclear technology, cyber-conflict and many others. There is no basis either in the present global security situation or in trends looking forward to suggest that the requirements for the U.S. military will diminish significantly. Cutting defense, therefore, can be justified only on the grounds that there are greater priorities than safeguarding the nation from visible threats. — Frederick W. Kagan of the American Enterprise Institute and Kimberly Kagan of the Institute for the Study of War
So far President Obama has pardoned four turkeys and no people, though nearly 500 petitions for pardons were received during his first 20½ months in office, bringing the total of pending requests to 1,140. Presidential pardons since 1945 have ranged from Harry Truman’s 1,913 to George H.W. Bush’s 74. In a Washington Post commentary directed at Obama, former U.S. pardon attorney Margaret Colgate Love urged the president to get on with it: “Pardoning people should not be that hard. In fact, it should be one of the happiest of your official duties. It requires no permission or negotiation with the other branches of government. It allows you to put your personal stamp on the justice system and to speak directly to the American people about it. Judicious pardoning has been an important legacy of some of our greatest presidents. . . . The federal prison population of roughly 200,000 includes many who have served decades for nonviolent drug offenses and others who deserve a second look to determine whether midcourse correction would be appropriate. Thousands of ordinary people living productive and law-abiding lives in this country are disqualified from opportunities and benefits because of a conviction record that may be decades old. These are people who have earned the second chance that a pardon represents.”
Former GOP congressman Sherwood Boehlert is imploring his party brethren on Capitol Hill to stop denying the findings of the National Academy of Sciences and 97 percent of the world’s climate scientists and start taking climate change seriously. In a Washington Post commentary, Boehlert concluded: “What is happening to the party of Ronald Reagan? He embraced scientific understanding of the environment and pollution and was proud of his role in helping to phase out ozone-depleting chemicals. That was smart policy and smart politics. Most important, unlike many who profess to be his followers, Reagan didn’t deny the existence of global environmental problems but instead found ways to address them. The National Academy reports concluded that ‘scientific evidence that the Earth is warming is now overwhelming.’ Party affiliation does not change that fact.”
“Earmark” has become a four-letter word in Kansas as well as much of the country. But the state has a lot to lose in a moratorium or ban. According to CQ.com, Kansas ranks 17th among states for earmarks per capita, with $54.81 in 2010 and $60.37 in 2009. Two of the retirements in the delegation will have a major impact: Sen. Sam Brownback’s individual earmarks in 2010 were $119 million; Rep. Todd Tiahrt’s were $63.4 million.
If logic applied to Sarah Palin’s career trajectory, columnist Frank Rich wrote, “this month might have been judged dreadful for her. In an otherwise great year for Republicans she endorsed a ‘Star Wars’ bar gaggle of anomalous and wacky losers . . . . Last week voters in Palin’s home state humiliatingly ‘refudiated’ her protege, Joe Miller, overturning his victory in the GOP Senate primary with a write-in campaign. But logic doesn’t apply to Palin. . . . In an angry time when America’s experts and elites all seem to have failed, her amateurism and liabilities are badges of honor. She has turned fallibility into a formula for success.”
After so many years and false starts, no one could have been surprised by Monday’s news that the U.S. Air Force is delaying the decision on a new generation of air-refueling tankers yet again, this time until early 2011. The real news is that the contract decision already has been tainted by the Air Force’s mistaken transfer of sensitive information to Boeing and EADS about each other’s bids — a mix-up that prompted two staffers’ firings but could fuel a protest by the eventual loser in the bidding war. Faith is fading in the ability of Defense Secretary Robert Gates to handle the process of replacing the current fleet of Boeing KC-135 tankers, which are 50 years old. It now looks like the tanker saga will outlast the time in office of Rep. Todd Tiahrt, R-Goddard, dubbed “Tanker Todd” by President Bush for his zealous advocacy of Boeing and the Wichita jobs that a Boeing win would generate.
Inevitably, the Transportation Security Administration’s new procedures have opened a rich new vein on humor. Some of the jokes, as rounded up by a New York Times blog:
– “Can’t see London, can’t see France, unless we see your underpants.”
– “TSA: If we did our job any better, we’d have to buy you dinner first.”
– “TSA: We are now free to move about your pants.”
– “TSA: Wanna fly? Drop your fly.”
– “TSA: It’s not a grope. It’s a freedom pat.”
– “TSA: We rub you the wrong way, so you can be on your way.”
