Sparring with Republicans
I had a great conversation with some committed Republicans the other night. (A nice change of pace - I never run across Republicans in my daily routine, other than my students.) Some empirical questions were left hanging; now that I've sobered up I can find the data to support my claims.
1. Jimmy Carter may or may not have been one of the 5 worst presidents in American history. But the chief economic problem during his term before 1979 was high inflation, not low growth. Here's the data:
(average growth in post-war period = about 3%).
2. The Community Reinvestment Act was not the cause of the subprime mortgage crisis. Robert Gordon notes that the CRA was enacted in 1977 and expanded in the 1990s, but the big boom in CRA lending ended in 2001 and Bush reduced CRA requirements in 2004. Also, the CRA applies to banks, but most of the subprime lending was carried out by mortgage companies or other divisions of bank holding companies not fully covered by CRA. Janet Yellen (president of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco) says CRA was not responsible. That's not to say that Democrats in Congress who pushed Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to increase subprime lending, and the Bush Administration which did the same, do not share some of the blame. But CRA is not the problem.
3. The government of El Salvador was far more guilty of human rights abuses then the FMLN. This is documented in the Report of the United Nations Commission on the Truth for El Salvador (1993):
The Truth Commission (and the Salvadorans who came forward to testify) confirmed what human rights organizations in and outside El Salvador had reported for a decade: that the Salvadoran armed forces and death squads bore principal responsibility for the murder, disappearance and torture of Salvadoran civilians. A full eighty-five percent of the cases denounced to the Truth Commission involved state agents, paramilitary groups, or death squads allied with official forces. Five percent of the cases were attributed to the FMLN.
Specifically regarding some of the most spectacular acts by the government, the report says:
Two senior military officers covered up the December 1980 murders of four US churchwomen. Then-head of the National Guard, Colonel Carlos Eugenio Vides Casanova, and Army Lieutenant Colonel Oscar Edgardo Casanova Vejar, commander of the military garrison in Zacatecoluca, knew that members of the National Guard, under orders from superiors, had abducted and murdered four US churchwomen in December 1980. The two officers participated in a cover-up that blocked the judicial investigation. Then-Minister of Defense General José Guillermo García made no serious effort to carry out an investigation. (In May 1984, a Salvadoran jury convicted five low-ranking National Guardsmen of the churchwomen’s murders.)
More than 500 civilians were "deliberately and systematically" executed by units of the Army’s Atlacatl Battalion in El Mozote, Morazán and surrounding villages in December 1981. Exhumations carried out by foreign forensic anthropologists in one parish house alone yielded the remains of 143 people, of which 131 were children whose average age was six. Ballistics experts determined that at least twenty-four different rifles were used, indicating that a large number of soldiers took part in the killing. The vast majority of bullet casings found (184 out of 245) had discernible markings indicating that they had been manufactured in the United States.
Death squads operating out of the intelligence section of the National Guard carried out the 1981 murders of the president of the land reform institute Rodolfo Viera and two US labor advisers. Ex-National Guard Major Roberto D’Aubuisson organized and ordered the assassination of Archbishop Oscar Arnulfo Romero in 1980.
4. The claim was that the Soviet Union took over 14 countries during the 1970s. I'm using all my mental powers to come up with the list of 14; I can only think of a maximum of 12. Regardless of whether it is fair to say that the Soviet Union "took over" these governments (I think it is not), the majority of these takeovers or revolutions occurred in the Nixon or Ford Administration, not the Carter Administration:
Ethiopia (1974)
Cambodia (1975)
Laos (1975)
Mozambique (1975)
Angola (1975)
Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Comoros - all in 1975, but I don't know (or care) which had Marxist governments
Vietnam (1976)
Iran (1979)
Nicaragua (1979)
Afghanistan (1979)
(Soviets stationed troops in Mongolia and Mongolia joined Comecon in 1960s)
5. Near as I can tell, neither McCain nor Obama has laid out a concrete set of proposals to address the funding problems of Social Security. A simple scoresheet is here. Both candidates promise to maintain benefits at the current level. Obama proposes taxing households making $250,000+ to increase revenues into the system. McCain proposes giving people the option of putting some of their tax payments in personal accounts in exchange for a reduction in benefits, but this wouldn't have an effect on solvency (benefit payments would fall, but so would tax revenues to pay for them).
The Democrats traditionally have not been front and center on any effort to "reform" Social Security. They are perfectly capable of demagoging the issue. However, our last Democratic president, before he left office, had a concrete proposal that included:
- continuing to run budget surpluses, putting a portion of them in the Social Security trust fund
- investing 20% of new Social Security revenues in the stock market.
6. Here is the Obama-Biden plan for dealing with Iran. The carrot-and-stick passage:
Diplomacy: Obama supports tough, direct presidential diplomacy with Iran without preconditions. Now is the time to pressure Iran directly to change their troubling behavior. Obama and Biden would offer the Iranian regime a choice. If Iran abandons its nuclear program and support for terrorism, we will offer incentives like membership in the World Trade Organization, economic investments, and a move toward normal diplomatic relations. If Iran continues its troubling behavior, we will step up our economic pressure and political isolation. Seeking this kind of comprehensive settlement with Iran is our best way to make progress.
And here's McCain's:
The United Nations Security Council Should Impose Progressively Tougher Political And Economic Sanctions. Should the Security Council continue to delay, the U.S. must lead like-minded countries in imposing multilateral sanctions outside the UN framework.... Applying Sanctions To Restrict Iran's Ability To Import Refined Petroleum Products... Encourage Those In The Region And Our European Partners To Impose Targeted Sanctions... Impose Financial Sanctions On The Central Bank Of Iran, Which Aids In Iran's Terrorism And Weapons Proliferation... Apply The Full Force Of Law To Prevent Business Dealings With Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps... Launch A Worldwide Divestment Campaign.
(oh, and from an earlier speech: see above).
Obama's more clear about the carrots, less about the sticks. McCain's all over the sticks, doesn't mention any carrots. Frankly, given the consequences of "bomb bomb bombing" Iran, I think we ought to give carrots a chance.
1. Jimmy Carter may or may not have been one of the 5 worst presidents in American history. But the chief economic problem during his term before 1979 was high inflation, not low growth. Here's the data:
(average growth in post-war period = about 3%).
2. The Community Reinvestment Act was not the cause of the subprime mortgage crisis. Robert Gordon notes that the CRA was enacted in 1977 and expanded in the 1990s, but the big boom in CRA lending ended in 2001 and Bush reduced CRA requirements in 2004. Also, the CRA applies to banks, but most of the subprime lending was carried out by mortgage companies or other divisions of bank holding companies not fully covered by CRA. Janet Yellen (president of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco) says CRA was not responsible. That's not to say that Democrats in Congress who pushed Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to increase subprime lending, and the Bush Administration which did the same, do not share some of the blame. But CRA is not the problem.
3. The government of El Salvador was far more guilty of human rights abuses then the FMLN. This is documented in the Report of the United Nations Commission on the Truth for El Salvador (1993):
The Truth Commission (and the Salvadorans who came forward to testify) confirmed what human rights organizations in and outside El Salvador had reported for a decade: that the Salvadoran armed forces and death squads bore principal responsibility for the murder, disappearance and torture of Salvadoran civilians. A full eighty-five percent of the cases denounced to the Truth Commission involved state agents, paramilitary groups, or death squads allied with official forces. Five percent of the cases were attributed to the FMLN.
Specifically regarding some of the most spectacular acts by the government, the report says:
Two senior military officers covered up the December 1980 murders of four US churchwomen. Then-head of the National Guard, Colonel Carlos Eugenio Vides Casanova, and Army Lieutenant Colonel Oscar Edgardo Casanova Vejar, commander of the military garrison in Zacatecoluca, knew that members of the National Guard, under orders from superiors, had abducted and murdered four US churchwomen in December 1980. The two officers participated in a cover-up that blocked the judicial investigation. Then-Minister of Defense General José Guillermo García made no serious effort to carry out an investigation. (In May 1984, a Salvadoran jury convicted five low-ranking National Guardsmen of the churchwomen’s murders.)
More than 500 civilians were "deliberately and systematically" executed by units of the Army’s Atlacatl Battalion in El Mozote, Morazán and surrounding villages in December 1981. Exhumations carried out by foreign forensic anthropologists in one parish house alone yielded the remains of 143 people, of which 131 were children whose average age was six. Ballistics experts determined that at least twenty-four different rifles were used, indicating that a large number of soldiers took part in the killing. The vast majority of bullet casings found (184 out of 245) had discernible markings indicating that they had been manufactured in the United States.
Death squads operating out of the intelligence section of the National Guard carried out the 1981 murders of the president of the land reform institute Rodolfo Viera and two US labor advisers. Ex-National Guard Major Roberto D’Aubuisson organized and ordered the assassination of Archbishop Oscar Arnulfo Romero in 1980.
4. The claim was that the Soviet Union took over 14 countries during the 1970s. I'm using all my mental powers to come up with the list of 14; I can only think of a maximum of 12. Regardless of whether it is fair to say that the Soviet Union "took over" these governments (I think it is not), the majority of these takeovers or revolutions occurred in the Nixon or Ford Administration, not the Carter Administration:
Ethiopia (1974)
Cambodia (1975)
Laos (1975)
Mozambique (1975)
Angola (1975)
Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Comoros - all in 1975, but I don't know (or care) which had Marxist governments
Vietnam (1976)
Iran (1979)
Nicaragua (1979)
Afghanistan (1979)
(Soviets stationed troops in Mongolia and Mongolia joined Comecon in 1960s)
5. Near as I can tell, neither McCain nor Obama has laid out a concrete set of proposals to address the funding problems of Social Security. A simple scoresheet is here. Both candidates promise to maintain benefits at the current level. Obama proposes taxing households making $250,000+ to increase revenues into the system. McCain proposes giving people the option of putting some of their tax payments in personal accounts in exchange for a reduction in benefits, but this wouldn't have an effect on solvency (benefit payments would fall, but so would tax revenues to pay for them).
The Democrats traditionally have not been front and center on any effort to "reform" Social Security. They are perfectly capable of demagoging the issue. However, our last Democratic president, before he left office, had a concrete proposal that included:
- continuing to run budget surpluses, putting a portion of them in the Social Security trust fund
- investing 20% of new Social Security revenues in the stock market.
6. Here is the Obama-Biden plan for dealing with Iran. The carrot-and-stick passage:
Diplomacy: Obama supports tough, direct presidential diplomacy with Iran without preconditions. Now is the time to pressure Iran directly to change their troubling behavior. Obama and Biden would offer the Iranian regime a choice. If Iran abandons its nuclear program and support for terrorism, we will offer incentives like membership in the World Trade Organization, economic investments, and a move toward normal diplomatic relations. If Iran continues its troubling behavior, we will step up our economic pressure and political isolation. Seeking this kind of comprehensive settlement with Iran is our best way to make progress.
And here's McCain's:
The United Nations Security Council Should Impose Progressively Tougher Political And Economic Sanctions. Should the Security Council continue to delay, the U.S. must lead like-minded countries in imposing multilateral sanctions outside the UN framework.... Applying Sanctions To Restrict Iran's Ability To Import Refined Petroleum Products... Encourage Those In The Region And Our European Partners To Impose Targeted Sanctions... Impose Financial Sanctions On The Central Bank Of Iran, Which Aids In Iran's Terrorism And Weapons Proliferation... Apply The Full Force Of Law To Prevent Business Dealings With Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps... Launch A Worldwide Divestment Campaign.
(oh, and from an earlier speech: see above).
Obama's more clear about the carrots, less about the sticks. McCain's all over the sticks, doesn't mention any carrots. Frankly, given the consequences of "bomb bomb bombing" Iran, I think we ought to give carrots a chance.
posted by Maynard at 2:00 PM
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