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Some things in the military never change.  This issue of "no pay" harks back to the Revolutionary War.

Yesterday's Message to the DOD Workforce on Potential Government Shutdown by Deputy Secretary of Defense William J. Lynn III:

“The department remains hopeful that a government shutdown will be averted. The President has made it clear that he does not want a government shutdown, and the administration is working to find a solution with which all sides can agree. However, prudent management requires that we plan for an orderly shutdown should Congress be unable to pass a funding bill before our current funding expires on April 8.

"The President and the secretary know that the uncertainty of the current situation puts federal employees in a difficult position, and are very much aware that a shutdown would impose hardships on our military and civilian personnel as well as our military families. As we approach the expiration of the current continuing resolution, we will provide you with updated information as soon as it becomes available. For now, I want to provide you with information on how the potential shutdown - should it occur - will impact our military and civilian personnel.

Department of Defense (DoD) Operations During a Shutdown

“Operations and activities that are essential to safety, protection of human life, and protection of our national security, are ‘excepted’ from shutting down. The DoD will continue to conduct activities in support of our national security, including operations in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Japan; Libya-related support operations; and other operations and activities essential to the security of our nation. The department must also continue to provide for the safety of human life and protection of property.

“Other excepted activities will include inpatient and essential outpatient care in DoD medical treatment facilities; emergency dental care; non-appropriated funds activities such as mess halls and child care activities; certain legal activities to support ongoing litigation and legal assistance for deployed DoD personnel; contracting and logistics operations that are in support of excepted activities; certain education and training activities to include the DoD education activity schools; and financial management activities necessary to ensure the control and accountability of funds.

“In the absence of appropriations, non-excepted activities that have not already been fully funded will need to be shut down in an orderly fashion. In accordance with existing laws and regulations, I will issue more detailed guidance to the department regarding specific activities that are considered excepted or non-excepted. However, the secretary and I understand that the military departments and defense agencies and individual commanders must tailor this guidance to many different situations around the world. Therefore, should there be a government shutdown, DoD personnel will be informed through their chain of command about how a shutdown may affect them personally.

Duty Status

“Military personnel are not subject to furlough and will report for duty as normal during the shutdown. Reserve component personnel should refer to the DoD Contingency Guidance document and to their chain of command for more specific information.

“Civilian personnel deemed to be performing excepted activities will continue to work during the period of a shutdown.

“If there is a government shutdown beginning on Saturday, April 9, all DoD personnel should still report to work on their next scheduled duty day, beginning at their normal duty hours to receive additional instructions.

“Civilians will be briefed by their supervisors by Friday, April 8, as to whether their work and responsibilities fall into excepted or non-excepted status, as defined by applicable laws and regulations. Excepted status categories are outlined in the DoD Contingency Guidance document, which is being distributed through the chain of command. If their work and responsibilities are non-excepted, or if they are not needed to carry out excepted work and responsibilities, employees will be furloughed in a non-pay status. Furloughed employees may not telework or volunteer to work.

“Generally, contractors performing work on contracts funded prior to a shutdown, whether supporting excepted activities or not, may continue working and will be paid out of the obligated funds, subject to further direction from the contracting officer. New contracts, or increases in funding of existing contracts, needed to support excepted activities may be entered into during the period of a shutdown, but payments under such contracts cannot be made until Congress provides additional funding. Contract personnel should also report to work on Monday, April 11, to be briefed on their status.

Military, Civilian, and Retiree Pay

“If the government shuts down due to the absence of funding, the DoD will have no funds to pay military members or civilian employees for the days during which the government is shut down. However, both military and civilian personnel will receive pay for the period worked prior to the shutdown. Military personnel, and civilians occupying excepted status positions and required to work, are entitled to be paid for work performed during the shutdown, and will be paid retroactively once the department receives additional funding. Congress would have to provide authority in order for the department to retroactively pay non-excepted employees for the furloughed period.

“Military retirees and annuitants are not paid from annually appropriated funds, and therefore their benefits should continue without interruption.

Additional Resources

“The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) has created a document to address some of the questions that I know must be on your mind. The document can be accessed at http://www.opm.gov/furlough2011 . OPM will provide additional pertinent information for federal employees as the week progresses.

“The department’s leadership will do our very best to provide clear information about the status of events as the week progresses. Additional information regarding military and DoD civilian pay, leave, and other DoD policies applicable to a potential shutdown will be posted on the department’s main website as soon as it becomes available.

“Thanks to the hard work and dedication of all of you, the Department of Defense provides critical services to the American public. Your contributions touch people’s lives in so many significant ways, and I want you to know how deeply I appreciate your dedication and your expertise. Our decisions concerning which functions are excepted or not excepted are based on government-wide legal, regulatory, and policy guidance as well as our best judgment on how to reconcile our national security requirements with the limitations imposed by a government shutdown. The fact that certain functions are not excepted or that certain personnel may be subject to furlough should not be taken as a statement that the secretary or I or the department do not value those functions or employees. Thank you for your continued service to the department and the nation.”

Art. 1, Sec. 8. of the US Constitution: Congress “shall have Power to lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States.”

Does this clause mean that the US Government can legislate in any way that benefits the Union? According to Thomas Woods, the general welfare clause “was a restriction on the power of the federal government: it had to exercise the powers delegated to it with an eye to the welfare of the country as a whole, not to the particular advantage of one state or section.”[i] That is to say, the Congress could provide for the general welfare of the United States only within its delimited powers listed in the US Constitution.

According to Thomas Jefferson, to interpret “general welfare” as granting the federal government an independent power to “do any act they please, which might be for the good of the Union, would render all the preceding and subsequent enumerations of power completely useless.”[ii] In other words, why did the constitutional convention delegates bother to list the powers if the Congress could do anything it wanted? James Madison in the 1830s: “(I)t exceeds the possibility of belief” that those who believed in limited government “should have silently permitted the introduction of words or phrases in a sense rendering fruitless the restrictions & definitions elaborated by them.”[iii] In Federalist #41:, Madison writes, “For what purpose could the enumeration of patriculars be inserted, if these and all others were meant to be included in the preceding general power?” He also observed that “(i)f Congress can employ money indefinitely to the general welfare, and are the sole and supreme judges of the general welfare, … everything … would be thrown under the power of Congress.”[iv] Therefore, in 1800, he concluded that “(i)n its fair and consistent meaning, [the general welfare clause] cannot enlarge the enumerated powers vested in Congress.”[v] We could generalize to say that any reference–directly or by implication–in the US Constitution to the powers of the Congress must be taken to refer to its enumerated powers or the document must be rendered as nonsensical. The problem thus arises when an enumerated power is stretched beyond its meaning even in a contemporary context. That is to say, we need not be limited to original intent (i.e., of the convention delegates) to find that the US Constitution limits the power of Congress.


Click to add a question or comment (and to view them) on the interaction of the general welfare clause and the enumerated powers on federalism in American constitutional law.

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[i] Woods, Jr., Thomas E. Nullification: How to Resist Federal Tyranny in the 21st Century (Washington, DC: Regnery, 2010), 25.

[ii] Thomas Jefferson, “Opinion Against the Constitutionality of a National Bank,” in The American Republic: Primary Sources, ed. Bruce Frohmen (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2002), 501.

[iii] Raoul Berger, Federalism: The Founders’ Design (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1987), 105.

[iv] Adrienne Koch, Jefferson and Madison: The Great Collaboration (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1950), 129.

[v] James Madison, Virginia Report of 1800, exerpted in Document 5.

Considering the gravity of the risk in Wall Street banks being too big to fail, the financial reform bill passed by the US Senate in 2010 may have been influenced too much by the financial interests. It can thus serve as a good case study for how a republic can be subject to too much influence from the moneyed interests. It could be asked, moreover, whether there is an inevitable trajectory that a polity undergoes from being a republic to becoming a plutocracy (ruled by the wealthy).

Executives and political action committees from Wall Street banks, hedge funds, insurance companies and related financial sectors showered Congressional candidates with more than $1.7 billion in the last decade, with much of it going to the financial committees that oversee the industry’s operations. In the 2010 election cycle before the financial reform bill passed the Senate, members of the financial committees far outpaced those of other committees in fund-raising parties by holding 845 events. The 14 freshmen who serve on the House Financial Services Committee raised 56 percent more in campaign contributions than other freshmen. And most freshmen on the panel, the analysis found, are now in competitive re-election fights. In return, the financial sector has enjoyed virtually front-door access and what critics say is often favorable treatment from many lawmakers. But that relationship, advantageous to both sides for many years, is now being tested in ways rarely seen, as the nation’s major financial firms seek to call in their political chits to stem regulatory changes they believe will hurt their business.

Even after the passage of the Senate’s bill, the financial industry was confident that a provision that would force banks to spin off their derivatives businesses would be stripped out, but in the final rush to pass the bill, that did not happen. The opposition came not just from the financial industry. The chairman of the Federal Reserve and other senior banking regulators opposed the provision, and top Obama administration officials said they would continue to push for it to be removed. Such officials could include Larry Summers, who along with Alan Greenspan and Robert Rubin pushed for derivatives to be left unregulated in the late 1990s while Summers and Rubin were in the Clinton Administration.

Not missing a beat, Wall Street lobbyists  began an 11th-hour effort to remove it just as House and Senate conferees were preparing to meet to reconcile their two bills. Lobbyists said they were already considering the possible makeup of the conference panel to focus on office visits and potential fund-raising.  Rep. Barney Franks, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, signaled on May 25th that the prohibition on banks trading in deriviates using their own funds could be dropped. “I don’t see the need for a separate rule regarding derivatives because the restriction on banks engaging in proprietary activities would apply to derivatives as well as everything else,” Mr. Frank said according to The Wall Street Journal (May 22, 2010, p. A6).  However, if this were the case, why would Sen. Dodd, the White House, and the banks be so set against removing the derivative langauge?  Is redundancy really that big of a deal?  Something is rotten here; I can smell it. With Sen. Dodd retiring, I wouldn’t be surprise if he made a deal with Wall Street concerning his financial future–it being so odd how he has mellowed so much on reform. Not surprisingly, the Chamber of Commerce had already spent more than $3 million to lobby against parts of the bill, including the derivative provision, and as the Senate was passing its bill the Chamber was planning to keep fighting for a loosening of the regulatory restrictions — first in the House-Senate conference, then in the implementation phase after final passage of a bill, and “if all else fails,” in court. With all these avenues, it is no wonder that the money of Wall Street banks has such ease in Washington.

There are so many points along the line of a bill becoming a law that a provision with teeth can be targeted by well-funded parties with a vested interest against it, it would appear that no change can happen in the US that is not in an industry’s interest.  Because wealthy firms have presumably done ok under the status quo, it is not clear why they would have an interest is supporting systemic change even if systemic risk warrants it. In the case of financial reform,the financial houses have a rather obvious conflict of interest. Furthermore, the behavior of the big bankers in September of 2008 suggests that they do not view rescuing a financial system in crisis as their job.  There is no reason to suppose that the legislation that they support would be geared to repairing the system when it is in crisis. The real problem is apt to manifest on the crest of the next bubble, as the industry had already gotten much of what it wanted even with the derivatives language in the Senate bill.
According to The New York Times, “Despite the outcry from lobbyists and warnings from conservative Republicans that the legislation will choke economic growth, bankers and many analysts think that the bill approved by the Senate … will reduce Wall Street’s profits but leave its size and power largely intact. Industry officials are also hopeful that several of the most punitive provisions can be softened before it is signed into law.”  This is dangerous because so many bankers, including those at Goldman Sachs, have been in denial as to how they should behave.  According to The Wall Street Journal (May 26, 2010, p. A1), Bank of America, Deutsche Bank, and Citigroup have continued their practices of “window-dressing”: temporarily shedding debt just before reporting their finances to the public. This suggests that “the banks are carrying more risk most of the time than their investors or customers can easily see.”   As of 2010, this activity had actually increased since 2008, “when the financial crisis brought actions like these under greater scrutiny.”  For ten quarters ending March 2010, the three banks lowered their net borrowings in the repo market by an average of 41% at the end of the quarters (as compared with during them). This represents a significant misstatement, which the banks’ auditors should have highlighted. The Wall Street Journal reported in April 2010 that 18 large banks, as a group, had routinely reduced their short-term borrowings in this way.

So it appears that Wall Street went on in its old ways even after the crisis, and there was relief that financial reform would not rock the boat. According to The New York Times, “If you talk to anyone privately, there’s a sigh of relief,” said one veteran investment banker who insisted on anonymity because of the delicacy of the issue. “It’ll crimp the profit pool initially by 15 or 20 percent and increase oversight and compliance costs, but there’s no breakup of any institution or onerous new taxes.” In other words, incrementalism rather than systemic change.  Washington, in other words, had been bought–even the “real change” agent himself, Barak Obama.  Mr. Obama is not unaware of the powerful friends he will need in 2012. He received just under a million dollars from Goldman Sachs for his 2008 campaign.  How difficult it is to let go of power, and say that one term will be enough, even better, for that is what seems to be necessary for one to fight against the entrenched culprits of the status quo.  In actuality, Andrew Jackson showed in 1832 that standing up to a large bank (in his case, the Second Bank of the US) can actually be consistent with winning reelection.  But absent such faith in the people to come through, saying to hell with reelection seems to be necessary for a president to be an authentic agent of real change.  If anything called for such change, it was the financial crisis of 2008. Yet as the House and Senate compared notes on their respective bills, Wall Street was actually relieved.  That really says something.  The culprits have an effective veto on what safeguards will be put in place to keep the banks from risking the world economy again. The wolves have to accede to the design of the new chicken coop. To my fellow Americans, I say: this is our system.

Even though the financial crisis far outweighed any health-care crisis, the financial reform is far more incremental–though both are within that rubric. “The health care bill is going to transform the structure of health care exponentially more than this legislation on financial regulation is going to change Wall Street,” said Roger C. Altman, the chairman of Evercore Partners and deputy Treasury secretary in the Clinton administration. “It’s not even close.”  It could be that the added incrementalism in the health-care legislation was in the interest of the health insurance companies and hospitals, whereas less was in the interest of Wall Street.

Of course, it could be that regardless of the regulation, financial bubbles are bound to come and go, and the sheer scale of financial deals today requires large banks. Donald B. Marron, the former chief executive of PaineWebber, avers, “Despite these new rules, Wall Street will continue to provide the same important business services because the same needs are still there — creating liquidity; financing governments, corporations and individuals; and providing financial advice and products.” So perhaps the financial leverage of Wall Street in Washington doesn’t keep us from achieving a solution because the financial markets and their players are going along a trajectory that is being defined by the progression of the financial market.  Consider, for example, the pressure on banks from globalization to amass more and more capital for bigger and bigger deals.  In other words, the “too big to fail” phenonomon could be a necessary part of an increasingly globalized financial market.  Of course, this could point to the need for greater international financial regulation.  But with Europe enbroiled with a debt crisis of its own and China wearily watching its own housing bubble, there were at the time of the passage of the Senate’s bill more financial bush-fires in the world than firemen.  The problem is that the fire chiefs are too often paid off (and intimidated) by the profiteering arsonists, so we are left woefully unprotected even if the veneer of regulatory reform has the looks of an effective profilactic.

Sources:  http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/23/us/politics/23lobby.html?scp=2&sq=financial%20lobbying&st=cse ; http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/24/business/24reform.html?hp ; WSJ (May 26, 2010).

THEREALAMERICANTANKERS.COM

Dear Supporter,

Great news! We were just informed that Boeing has been selected to build the U.S. Air Force’s next generation of aerial refueling tankers. Thanks in part to your vocal support, the Boeing NewGen Tanker will provide unrivaled aerial-refueling capabilities to American servicemen and women for decades to come, while employing more than 50,000 U.S. workers in meaningful jobs across the country.

Before we can start building planes, the Air Force must first meet with the competitors in the coming days to explain the selection.

While we wait for this to occur, please visit www.RealAmericanTankers.com as soon as possible to tell your elected officials that you support the Air Force’s selection of the Boeing NewGen Tanker. We’re confident that the Air Force chose the best aircraft. With more than 60 years of experience providing aerial-refueling tankers to America’s military, Boeing is ready to start building the NewGen Tanker NOW.

The Air Force’s selection of Boeing is a victory for the U.S. aerospace industry. It is a victory for American workers and our recovering economy. And, perhaps most important, it is a victory for the men and women of our armed forces. We’ll keep you informed as we learn more in the coming days.

Until then, thanks for your continued support!

Sincerely, Sean McCormack, http://www.therealamericantankers.com/


CONGRESSMAN ADAM SMITH

News from U.S. Rep. Adam Smith (WA-09)
Ranking Member, House Armed Services Committee

For Immediate Release: Thursday, February 24, 2011
Contact: Shana Chandler, 202-225-6901

Smith’s Statement on KC-X Source Selection Announcement

Washington - Today, Congressman Adam Smith (WA-09), Ranking Member of the House Armed Services Committee, issued the following statement in response to the announcement that the Department of Defense has selected a provider for the KC-X Aerial Refueling Tanker:

“I am pleased that the Air Force has selected Boeing’s proposal to replace the aging fleet of aerial refueling tankers. After numerous delays, today’s announcement moves us closer to meeting the Air Force’s top acquisition priority.

“In a time when our nation is recovering from an economic crisis, today’s announcement by the Department of Defense is a huge boost to Washington State. A Washington State-made tanker will support more than 11,000 jobs in state and 50,000 jobs across the country.

“I know that the men and women at the Boeing Company will provide the warfighter with a high quality product to meet their mission requirements and I look forward to working with the Air Force as we move forward.”


CONGRESSMAN DAVE REICHERT

David Reichert

Contact: Charles McCray III (202) 225-7761

Reichert Statement on the Air Force Tanker Announcement
Mercer Island, WA, Feb 24 -

Congressman Dave Reichert (WA-08) released this statement in reaction to the Air Force’s announcement to award Boeing with a contract to build the next generation of refueling tanker for American Armed Forces:

“This is great news, and I’m very happy for the Boeing company, its employees, and the entire state of Washington,” Reichert said. “The Department of Defense reevaluated their original decision, this time considering the serious security implications involved, and rightly settled on Boeing – a company with decades of industrial knowledge, established infrastructure, and an army of skilled engineers that are capable of producing the best refueling tanker for our Armed Forces.

“I take my oath to protect and defend our Constitution seriously, and one of the most effective ways I can uphold that pledge is to ensure that our men and women in uniform, serving around the world, have the best tools possible to complete their mission. With this decision, we not only gain a source of much-needed job creation in the region, but we also reassure our troops that we are committed to serving them, just as they have committed to serving for us.”


GOVERNOR CHRIS GREGOIRE

Gov. Gregoire’s statement on U.S. Air Force decision to award tanker contract to Boeing

OLYMPIA – Gov. Chris Gregoire today issued the following statement on the selection of The Boeing Company to build the next refueling tanker for the U.S. Air Force:

“What a great day for The Boeing Company, and for the 11,000 aerospace workers in Washington state alone that will play a role in assembling the NewGen tanker. Following an open, transparent process, the Department of Defense realized what I’ve been saying all along – and that is that Boeing has designed the safest, most cost-effective tanker to serve both our military and our taxpayers well.

“I commend The Boeing Company for its determination and tremendous work to land this contract. This was an arduous process, and Boeing deserves our praise for its commitment to its workforce, as well as the men and women that serve in the U.S. Air Force.

“I also thank my fellow governors that joined with me as I launched the U.S. Tanker Coalition, as well as our state’s Congressional delegation. We’ve spent the last year advocating on behalf of Boeing – ensuring our federal and military leaders understood the advantages of an American-made tanker, made by the best manufacturer of airplanes in the world. Our military, our national security, our economy and the 50,000 workers nationwide who are impacted by this decision are better off following this announcement – and for that, we should all be proud.”

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MILITARY AFFAIRS FORUM

Military Affairs Committee
Tacoma-Pierce County Chamber

Date & Time: WEDNESDAY, Feb. 23, 7:30 – 9:00 a.m.
Place:  La Quinta Inn, 1425 E. 27th St., Tacoma 98421
Price: $20.00 pre-paid by Feb. 18, noon
$25.00 pre-paid after Feb. 18
$30.00 walk-ins/at the door
Information: Monique Shields, (253) 627.2175
RSVP: DUE 12 noon, Feb. 18 (Friday)
Register here.

Congressional Update from Congressman Adam Smith, Ranking Member of the House Armed Services Committee.

Event Speaker: Congressman Adam Smith

The Committee retains jurisdiction of all subjects listed in clause 1(c) of rule X of the Rules of the House of Representatives and retains exclusive jurisdiction for: defense policy generally, ongoing military operations, the organization and reform of the Department of Defense and Department of Energy, counter-drug programs, acquisition and industrial base policy, technology transfer and export controls, joint interoperability, the Cooperative Threat Reduction program, Department of Energy nonproliferation programs and detainee affairs and policy.

ANNOUNCEMENTS:
The 833 Transportation Battalion
March 9, 7:30 9:00 a.m., La Quinta, Register Here.
Speaker:  LTC John Redinger, Commander, 833d Transportation Battalion
The 833d Trans Bn. is part of the Surface Deployment & Distribution Command (SDDC) and provides surface deployment/redeployment, distribution and water terminal operations to directly support and sustain the Warfighter in the Pacific Northwest Area of Responsibility and on order deploys in support of SDDC missions worldwide.

Chamber on Facebook

You can now find an official Tacoma-Pierce County Chamber Facebook page on the popular networking site used by over half a billion people.

In December, 2009, Abdullah II, King of the state of Jordon,dismissed the prime minister and replaced him with a palace aide and loyalist, dissolved Parliament and postponed legislative elections for a year.   For all the defects of a representative democratic system, it is far superior to autocratic rule, especially by one.   It is natural for people to resist preemption. “The nature of humans is they want democracy,” said Ali Dalain, an independent member of the Parliament that was dissolved. “One person cannot solve all problems and cannot make everyone happy, so people must share in determining their fate.”   These quotes are revealing from the standpoint of human nature and political theory.    In reading “one person cannot solve all problems,” I thought of the imperial US presidency—not only at the expense of the governments of the republics within the US, but also of the Congress.   The health-care insurance reform legislation, for example, is said to be Obama’s, even though he is in the executive rather than the legislative branch (having only a veto, which can be overridden, in the latter).   It would seem to me that the Speaker of the US House and the Majority Leader of the US Senate ought to have their own agendas—that the Congress should not simply be led by the president’s agenda.   Foreign policy is perhaps the one area where the Congress ought to defer—but only in terms of agreeing to consider what the president has negotiated abroad.  Had the UN climate talks in Copenhagen produced a treaty in December, 2009, the US President would have asked the US Senate to consider it.  Were the Senate to routinely ignore the President’s negotiations, it would be very difficult for the US to negotiate internationally.   In terms of foreign policy, however, one person does not hold a monopoly of wisdom or truth.  So in general, we could take a lesson from Jordon, even as we pride ourselves on our having a representative democracy rather than a monarchy.  I think perhaps we discount too readily the vestages of one-person rule in the US.  A unified long term vision is nice, but stepping back to see and enunciate it is different than deciding what it shall be and imposing it. 

In terms of the American presidency, there may even be a bit of hero or idol worship that has held on from ancient king-worship, as if eons of practice etched it in the human genome.  It is evinced not just when a president is sworn in, but also when he gives the State of the Union address—should I capitalize this?   Honor in the office, it is said, but the president is just a man.   The media obsesses on his every move, including what he is doing on vacation.  This obession gives us the illusion that we know the person.  Who is that behind the curtain anyway?   Do we really know, as we watch the screen? 

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/23/world/middleeast/23amman.html?ref=world

Watching the O’Reilly Factor on the evening of Obama’s health-care “summit,” I was struck by an exchange by Bill O’Reilly and Laura Ingrahams.   Bill stated that Barak Obama had done an adequate job in moderating the discussion.  Laura replied, “He is not a moderator; he is the President of the United States. He has a majority in both houses (of Congress).”  Later in the program, Bill admitted that “moderating is not enough in the long-run because the country wants leadership.”

I believe that Laura’s statement evinces the main problem concerning modern presidents, who want the credibility needed to effectively moderate meetings involving partisans while at the same time the presidents remaining partisans themselves.  To be simplistic, this is a case of wanting both to have the cake and eat it too.  You can’t have both, and in fact the desire (and attempts) to do so are suggestive of a sort of character that might not be sufficiently respect-worthy to preside.  If the US President stands for the US as a whole, the office is oriented to staying above the frey unless the very viability of the Union is at issue.  This is not to be partisan.  In fact, it allows the President to preside over contending parties.  Perhaps Barak Obama would have been able to forge a compromise at his health-care summit had he been neutral concerning Democratic and Republican proposals.  That is to say, he might have been able to have enough sway with Republicans to police the meeting (i.e., of grandstanding speeches) and get both sides to give on particular things.  As it was, any such suggestions were dismissed as motivated by an ulterior motive rooted in the Democratic position.

In terms of Bill’s comment regarding leadership, the sort of leadership that the Union needs (even if we don’t realize it and want less) is that which places the good of the Union first regarding means as well as ends.  For instance, we need the sort of leadership that says “this problem needs to be solved this year.”  We already have partisan leadership from the Congressional (party) leadership.  The Majority and Minority Leaders in the US House and Senate are situated to give us the partisan leadership.  To load both types of leadership on the US President is to get the partisan sort rather than the presiding sort…hence we lose the latter when we could have both.

Take the State of the Union address.  It is supposed to be on the state of the US as a Union.  Yet it has degenerated into a partisan speech.  Justice Antonin Scalia once said he no longer goes to the annual speech because the justices “sit there like bumps on a log” in an otherwise highly partisan atmosphere.  After the 2010 speech, which contained partisan language critical of the court’s decision on corporate political contributions, Justice Roberts said that the justices might not attend the address in the future.

As a model to get back to, we might look back to George Washington, whose prior achievements and sageity of age gave him the stature with which to preside.  Hamilton and Jefferson and their allies in the Congressional leadership were able to take up the mantel of partisan leadership, with the President oriented to presiding over the new system of government and the Union itself.

So, yes, we do want leaderships—meaning partisan and systemic.  The former sort contaminates the latter.  It is for the latter that I believe the US Presidency was invented.  The Electoral College, for instance, was geared to buffering the popular demand for partisan leadership from infecting the presiding-officer role of the Presidency because the electors were to be once-removed from the passions of the people.  In subjecting the office to direct popular election, we have unwittingly lost the check safeguarding the presiding role.  Hence it is no accident that we have had some modern presidents who have been relatively unaccomplished (and younger) prior to their assuming the office.  Barak Obama does not have the prior accomplishments (and age-experience, or wisdom) by which he could be respected as a presider with sufficient credibility to get both parties to compromise in a meeting.  To be sure, he has the energy of relative youth to be zealously partisan, but this condition cuts him off from being able to effectively preside, or moderate, which in turn is particularly valuable when contending parties prefer to do battle than solve a problem that is in the Union’s interest to be solved.

I do wonder: who are the accomplished men and women of such stature that they could effectively preside?  Is a long election campaign the best way to find and test them?  Test them for what?  Does effectivelyness in vote-getting have anything to do with effectiveness in presiding?  This is not to say that accomplished stature would not attract votes.  Perhaps zealousness in vote-getting is a tacit admission that there is a dearth of stature that would naturally attract votes.  How much campaigning did George Washington have to do?  Very little, I would bet.  By virtue of his accomplished stature and self-discipline when it came to partisanship, he was able to effectively preside over the Constitutional Convention of 1786.  Lest this be viewed as a minor function relative to him pushing to get his way in every debate, consider that could be counted a minor miracle that the convention did not blow up or end in a stalemate.  There being a presider with stature, the convention could withstand the infighting.  In fact, Washington was such an effective presider that he could luxuriate on the final day with a request of his own…that the electorate of a US House seat be 20,000 rather than 30,ooo so the body would be that much more democratic (i.e., the representative being that much closer to the people…that much more knowable on an in-person basis).  The problem is that weighing in on virtually every debate has become the modus operendi of every US President, so their influence on each debate (and especially in presiding) has wanned.  Perhaps the occupants represent our culture of gimme, gimme, gimme, NOW! 

Perhaps we are not looking in the right places for accomplished stature that has the internal fortitude to resist such temptation.  Perhaps our means of selecting a President is oriented to the wrong type of person for the job.  In other words, if the job was designed one way and we expect it to operate contrariwise, this could explain why we witness so many presidents fail.  So I was not very surprised in watching two hours of the health-care “summit” that it was basically political theatre.  I was not surprised that Barak Obama had trouble in moderating the discussion towards achieving an agreement.  I was not surprised that the Republicans instinctively distrusted his moderator role.  In such a climate, Barak’s presiding was doomed to failure.  It really is not his fault, I don’t think, because we have virutally remade his office into something that is ill-suited to how it was designed.  Imagine trying to use your car to drive across a river.  Unless you are James Bond 007, your car probably wasn’t designed to travel through water.  To ignore its design and make it do it anyway shows a real lack of smarts and character.  I suspect that this is how the rest of the world sees us, yet we don’t see it in ourselves.  Ultimately, this is the problem.

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/35790685/ns/politics/

In a NYT article, the results of a focus group of independent American voters are described. These voters did not hate politicians. They simply saw both parties, along with the media and big business, as symptoms of a larger societal ailment. The dominant theme of the focus group’s discussion, in which jobs and taxes came up only in passing, was the larger breakdown of civil society — the disappearance of common courtesy, the relentless stream of data from digital devices, the proliferation of lawsuits and the insidious influence of media on their children. For instance, a man complained about drivers who had grown increasingly hostile and inconsiderate on the roads, which drew nods of assent all around. The members of the focus group believed that politicians in Washington conduct themselves just as childishly and with the same lack of accountability as kids throwing chicken casserole in a school lunchroom.

While the results of this focus group may explain why Bill Clinton and George W. Bush both suffered party losses in their mid-term elections, what is left unexplained is why 98% of members of Congress are re-elected on average.  However, the results can explain why so many U.S. Presidents become unpopular during their term.  The obvious answer is that governing involves making choices that inevitably piss off one side, and these sides add up.  Yet there may be a deeper reason: the Presidents may not understand the nature of the office. Modern presidents win elections by promising to reform Washington, to make it more ennobling and more responsive to Americans overwhelmed by the speed of change. But once they are elected, they find themselves sucked into the capital’s partisan culture, caught up in familiar debates while the people who supported them struggle with a growing sense of chaos. For example, Bill Clinton’s rhetorical emphasis on personal responsibility resonated with many independent voters. However, once in office, Clinton immediately found himself pulled into polarizing debates (gays in the military, “Hillarycare,” and so on). The same thing ultimately happened to George W. Bush, who promised a return to civility and core values and ended up running a White House in which every issue, from wars to welfare, was heavily politicized. We can contrast these examples with the understanding of  earlier Presidents who understood their office as standing for the nation and protecting its system of governance, rather than as being primarily oriented to partisanship while governing. Washington, for example, had both Thomas Jefferson and James Hamilton in his cabinet.  The President presided, acting in what he thought to be the best interests of the United States and their general government. Being partisan in office undercuts the presiding role, and thus the credibility of the President.  The results of the focus group indicate that Americans want a President who resists the temptation to engage in partisan fighting in order to stand for things on which most of us agree, such as that American society should be more civil. The modern presidency is simply too cluttered—too busy on the little things at the expense of looking out for the viability of the common good.  Joe Hagin, George W. Bush’s deputy chief of staff, observed there “was much less time [under the second Bush] to catch your breath during the day.” A constant juggling of issues—from wars to the aftermath of hurricane Katrina, often all at the same time, exhausted the White House staff. “There’s only so much bandwidth in the organization,” Hagin avers.  He further asks, “Can any single person fully meet the demands of the 21st century presidency?”  Doris Goodwin claims the growth in the number of things expected of the president has expanded expodentially since WWII. “The President’s inner circle can become stretched by the constant number of things labeled ‘crises’ that land on his desk.” Surely, the Presidency was not designed to micromanage every issue that hits the political radar screen. The proliferation of news sources has increased the pressure on the President to weigh in on more things.  President Obama delivered 57 speeches in October, 2010, alone; he had seven speechwriters at the time. Hagin notes that in the case of George W’s Presidency, struggles “over education and agriculture that had mired [his] first year in office were replaced with just one big expectation: to keep America safe.” Although occasioned by an attack and resulting in an expansion of bureaucracy in national security, this prioritizing to keeping America safe dovetails, I contend, with the nature of the office. Hagin advocates a power-shift from the White House staff to the cabinet agencies, but this would sidestep the possibility that we have been trying to fit the oval office into a square peg.  That is, the modern Presidency may well be thought of in ways contrary to how the office was designed, and thus in ways ill-suited to its nature.  The key may well be to get back to the meaning of “to preside.”  Literally, this means to sit before or in front of (from the Latin). In effect, we have cluttered it at its own expense. On June 2 in the constitutional convention, Ben Franklin referred to the proposed office as sitting “in peaceful Council … merely to preside over our civil concerns, and [to] see that our laws are duly executed.” (Madison, Notes, p. 55) Governeur Morris stated on July 19 that the President should be “a firm guardian of the people and of the public interest.” (Madison, Notes, p. 324) The office of the U.S. President is thus geared to looking over the viability of the whole, leaving the partisanship and legislating to the legislative branch. Partisanship, which is to say, taking sides on virtually every controversy that is taken up by the Congress, detracts from the credibility that the President would need to preside over the whole (as well as to see that the laws passed are executed with due process). Presiding here means standing before. It implies acting in the long-term interests of the whole rather than being partisan and oriented to every issue that comes up on the media’s radar screens.  Looking to the viability of the American economy and the US Government, a President would utilize the veto only when legislation could be expected to destroy the United States. This would involve resisting the slippery slope wherein every Congressional debate invokes the very survival of the union.

In short, a President acting in line with the office would have his or her eye on the big picture rather than getting into arguments with the leaders of the other party over every policy that is being debated in Congress. By doing less, such a President will have done more because what he or she will have done would be more in sync with the office of President. Having resisted immediate political or ideological gain from partisanship, such a President would have more credibility throughout his or her term of office.

Sources:
Daniel Stone, “Hail to the Chiefs,” Newsweek, November 22, 2010, pp. 30-33.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/07/us/politics/07bai.html
James Madison, Notes in the Federal Convention of 1787. New York: Norton, 1987.

While it may indeed take much effort and skill to compromise on disparate budget numbers or whether to have a public health-insurance option, these compromises are rather narrow.  Yet they are the stuff of members of Congress.  I don’t believe that they relish making them; it can be quite difficult to for the elected representatives and Senators to explain their votes for bills that differ from the stated positions. The problem, I contend, is that our politicians are not thinking big enough when it comes to compromising.  In fact, were they to enlarge the domain in which they compromise, they could keep closer to their stated positions.  This sounds counter-intuitive, so I’ll provide an example.

Take Rep. Barney Frank, who with Sen. Chris Dodd headed the work on the health-insurance law of 2010.  Frank would undoubtedly have preferred a pubic option, yet he believed he had to drop it because of the power of the extant private health-insurance companies. Now take virtually any Republican representative in the U.S. House. The republican position was to oppose the expansion in medicaid, which will subsidize health-insurance for those Americans unable to purchase it on their own.  Neither Frank nor any of his republican colleagues are happy with the resulting law. Had they all taken a bigger-picture view, they would have realized that they both could have seen their respective pristine positions in action.  Specifically, had Frank looked at his home state of Massachusetts, he could have realized that leaving health-care policy with the state governments (with the federal government no longer resisting state action, and perhaps even encouraging it) could have resulted in some instances of universal coverage and others more market-driven.  Indeed, perhaps a state such as Oregon would have gone single-payer while Texas relies more on private enterprise. Perhaps Frank and the republicans in the House could have agreed on a minimum federal standard—effectively saying what being an American entitles one to in terms of health-care—while leaving it up to the several states to tailor their own health-systems to their respective political climates.

I contend, moreover, that federalism can provide a means by which many of the disagreements between the two major parties can be resolved.  Artificially funneling these differences into U.S. government law has the effect of stultifying the political process on the federal level.  Ultimately, our elected officials (and ourselves) would need to accept a certain degree of tolerance, for there would indeed be states which enact domestic laws with which you and I disagree.  The United States, being on the scale of an empire with its fifty republics, is inherently diverse, just as other empires have been.  England and Egypt were hardly of the same culture and yet they were both provinces in the Roman Empire.  So too are Vermont and Oklahoma quite different culturally.  To expect that “one size fits all” in the United States, or back in the Roman Empire (or the British Empire, or that of the Mongols or Persians), is to clog our political plumbing, which in turn puts pressure on the system until it implodes or explodes.  Part of the solution is looking for candidates who think outside the box (or pipe).

According to Wendell Potter, a former health-insurance company lobbyist, “the new law props up the employer-based system that insurers and large corporations benefit from so greatly. It also guarantees that private insurers will get billions of dollars in new revenue.”  It is no accident that Obama’s health-insurance law works out this way. Potter points out that Republicans will back off from repealing the mandate, but will push for other changes. The reason is that the mandate is in the health-insurers’ interest whereas some other features of the law are not. Private insurance companies would like to keep the mandate that will guarantee them more customers.  At the same time, the insurers would like to go back to refusing to cover kids with preexisting conditions, canceling policyholders’ coverage when they get sick, and setting annual and lifetime limits on how much the insurers have to pay for medical care. Also, the insurance companies do not like having to spend eighty percent of their revenue from premiums on medical care, and the insurers would like to get more from the US government for private medicare plans.

Potter makes the point that it is not in the Republicans’ interest to take out the mandate; they will put on a show—acting against the mandate while being unsuccessful—while working behind the scenes to take out planks deemed unprofitable by the insurance companies. In fact, the Republicans could actually strengthen the mandate because the insurance companies want to increase the penalties for not becoming one of their customers. Interestingly, even if the courts throw out the mandate, the entire law must be deemed unconstitutional.  This caveat was undoubtedly drafted by industry lobbyists so they would not be constrained by the law without the benefit of the guaranteed expanded customer base.

Potter’s major point is that the Republicans will go with the interests of big business in a stealth manner (similar to the stealth lobbying done by the insurance lobbyists). The insurance lobbyists have already used surragates to fearmonger “death panels” to kill any reform that might hurt the bottom line. So we can now suspect that Sarah Palin’s Facebook post in August, 2009, accusing the Obama administration of creating “death panels” as part of health-care reform was not an accident even if it has been reported in Newsweek as an “offhand remark.” According to Newsweek, that remark was “as inaccurate as it was incendiary.” Furthermore, in what we can now surmise stemmed from the power of the industry with a vested interest, the remarked “helped incite weeks of embarrassing town-hall meetings for Democrats, which in turn nearly brought down” health-care reform (Newsweek, p. 58). The real power behind this roadblock was that of the health-insurance companys’ lobby. The combination of the industry with such a vested interest having the ability to sway the public and exact leverage over members of Congress and the President (witness Obama’s change on a mandate and the public option) ought to worry those people who believe in having a republic as the form of government and love liberty. Devious subterranean private corporate power is undoing our republic without us knowing it, but this is how the lobbyists such at Potter have designed their strategies. We are not supposed to see it.

Sources: Wendell Potter, “Repeal and Replace?” Newsweek, November 15, 2010, pp. 42-43; Jay Newton-Small, “What Does She Want?” Newsweek, December 20, 2010, pp. 38-47

Mark Meckler, a co-founder of Tea Party Patriots, read the lame-duck session of the Congress at the end of 2010 as an exercise of presumptuous. According to Meckler, "For them to legislate when they've collectively lost their mandate just shows the arrogance of the ruling elite. I can't imagine being repudiated in the way they were and then coming back and saying 'Now that we've been repudiated, let's go pass some legislation. . . . I'm surprised by how blatant it was." Meckler was undoubtedly reflecting a view of human nature with respect to the urge to power that was expressed by Anti-federalist opponents of the U.S. Constitution as it was being ratified in the several states.  Brutus, for example, writes, “This principle, which seems so evidently founded in the reason and nature of things, is confirmed by universal experience. Those who have governed, have been found in all ages ever active to enlarge their powers and abridge the public liberty.” (Brutus, Letter 2, 2.9.25).  Brutus continues, "power, lodged in the hands of rulers to be used at discretion, is almost always exercised to the oppression of the people, and the aggrandizement of themselves; yet most men think if it was lodged in their hands they would not employ it in this manner." (Brutus, Letter 4, 2.9.54). In other words, there is not only a tendency in human nature to overextend political discretion; there is a built-in presumption whereby the drive is blind to itself. Presumption may be hardwired in human nature, such that we unknowingly walk on stilts made of empty straws.

With regard to Merkler's remarks, it might be countered that the 2009-2010 Congress was not beholden to the election of 2010--that the repudiation applied to the next Congress. That is to say, an election is not retroactive. Furthermore, it is not likely that the Democrats would agree that their party was totally repudiated.  It could be argued, for instance, that the moderate or conservative Democrats lost while the liberal Democrats such as Barney Franks and Dennis Kucinich survived. Nancy Pelosi was handily re-elected. Was she to view her votes in the lame duck session as inherently presumptuous? In other words, the foray of the Democratic Party onto Republican turf was pushed back--the Republicans taking back more of the Red states. To be sure, the Democratic Party certainly did not gain ground. At the same time, the resulting party may well be more coherent and thus on message. Meckler was referring not only to the Democrats, but also to the Republicans who "caved" to them. "The Republicans, frankly, have been a disaster," he noted. Even so, according to the NYT, "Tea Party pressure prevailed in blocking the Senate from passing a $1.2 trillion spending bill." However, such influence had to be limited; the 2011-2012 Congress would include a Democrat majority in the Senate (and a Democrat President). 

In short, while Meckler is undoubtedly correct that elected representatives are beholden to their constituents ultimately only by the threat of being voted out, he overstates the repudiation "message" of the 2010 midterm election. In general, so many factors go into elections that it is difficult to gleem one message from the outcome--especially if there are many races. Even if all politics is not local, there are sui generis factors in any race; voters vote for a variety of reasons, even in one race. Superimposing one as a mandate may well be artifice.  Even so, Meckler can be forgiven for responding on the basis of the view of human nature espoused by the Anti-federalists, for hard constraints are undoubtedly necessary to hold people holding power to account. In a republic (or a republic of republics), the possibility of being voted out of office is the stick that even the most powerful representatives must heed.

The Anti-federalist Brutus wrote back in 1788, "Perhaps no restraints are more forcible, than such as arise from responsibility to some superior power.--Hence it is that the true policy of a republican government is, to frame it in such manner, that all persons who are concerned in the government, are made accountable to some superior for their conduct in office.--This responsibility should ultimately rest with the People." (Brutus, Letter 16, 2.9.197, p. 187) Therefore, the mandate of repudiation is that of no longer being in office, yet even here the reasons for one's defeat are not always evident. The will of the people may well be a misnomer; they may be many.

Sources: Kate Zernike, "As New Congress Begins, Actions of G.O.P. Leaders Anger Tea Party Activists," The New York Times, January 2, 2011, p. 13.
Brutus quotes: Herbert J. Storing, ed., The Anti-Federalist, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985.

Before the assassination attempt on Representative Gabrielle Giffords in early 2011, it had been quite some time since there had been a major assassination attempt on American soil.  The attempt on President Reagan had been almost thirty years earlier.  During this time, I suspect that many Americans had developed the naive view that American politics (or at least the security protection) had developed sufficiently to make the barbaric acts of political violence obsolete, or at least impractical. We may also have had the view that U.S. House Representatives are not of the stature such as of U.S. Senators and the President, and thus would not be the targets of assassination. So I believe shock was the natural reaction that many Americans had upon hearing the news of Gabrielle Giffords.  Most people may have assumed that the shooter had been ginned up on Tea Party rhetoric and was carrying the political tactic to its logical conclusion. To be sure, the debate over health-care had been heated, but I believe the violence reflects something deeper, and therefore on-going, in any society.  To put the matter bluntly, "there are some real whackos out there."  If you have ever been to a public political speech or event, I would be surprised if you didn't notice a few people who seemed unseasonably animated or perhaps simply odd--their oddity being brought out by the political nature of the event, irrespective of the speaker. I am not referring to simply voicing a different point of view, or even expressing some emotion, which could be reasonably expected given the political context. So I am not pointing simply to people exercising their first amendment right of free speech--a right that cannot insist on conformity of opinion. Rather, what I am getting at is the inordinate expression of emotion, which doesn't seem to fit with what one would make sense in coming from the political context. It is only natural in observing a person evincing odd behavior to suspect something else in play--something idiosyncratic to the person's psychological condition. The interaction of certain emotional problems with politics might be in play for certain people, and it could contribute to our understanding of the phenomenon of assassination. Indeed, the dynamic might be a fruitful area of research for scholars of political psychology.

Lest I not be misunderstood, I'll use another example. If you have ever taken a subway, or perhaps a bus, in a large city, you may well have witnessed a person making strange facial expressions (or making odd comments) that seem to come out of nowhere.  That is, no source for the person's behavior can be identified, so we tend to assume the person is crazy. Although perhaps less extreme, the same dynamic could be in play for some people when they interact in a political context; the source of their odd behavior cannot be accounted for by the immediate context--in fact, the behavior seems out of place, and thus sourced in something sui generis in the person, which has an interaction effect with politics. If I am correct, then psychologists may be able to identify conditions that could manifest as assasins. 

Of course, I could simply be observing that society contains people who are not of the familiar norm. Perhaps going to a political rally or speech proffers a chance to see just what our society looks like, beyond one's circle of friends, co-workers and family.  Coming out of our homes and work environments, away from our friends and family, we find that there exist people in the broader society who are "different" from us. That is to say, we realize that not everyone is like us psychologically. Of course, this doesn't mean they are crazy. "Different" must be distinguished from "emotionally disturbed." Even so, it must be admitted, I think, that there are disturbed people who react in a political situation much as an alcoholic might in being at a party. Most people at a party chat and laugh, dance and eat, but then there is the person who loses control and behaves in a way not accounted for by the context.

In the public square, it is as though a few people decide it is ok to unleash their rantings (i.e., psychological anxiety) publically. It may be the existence of such people that makes entering politics so scary to many people who would otherwise enter out of a deontological sense of public duty. Being in a public role, such as an elected office, opens one up to having to deal with people who treat the public square as an extension of their houses, where they might yell at the news or otherwise carry on in private to relieve themselves of an underlying anxiety. In short, the political realm can bring people out of the woodwork whom the rest of us would not suppose are even in our society.  Presuming a license inherent in politics to manifest their inner psychology publically, they may be giving us an indication of what they are capable of in that domain--namely, violence as an expression of their underlying psychology. Booth, for example, may have shot Lincoln not from any deep-rooted sense of retribution for the war; instead, this rationale could simply be window-dressing...an excuse...for what was really a psychological condition that found a particular expression.  
In the case of the assassination attempt on Rep. Giffords, the suspect is by several accounts a troubled man. The New York Times describes the suspect in court as being "wide-eyed." At the defense table, "his eyes darted back and forth and his mouth curled up at one point into a quick smile." He had been kicked out of college after having been disruptive in several classes. Being a public official opens one up to being the target of whatever pathology is going on in such a person.  I think the problem is much deeper...and permanent...than simply blaming the Tea Party. Perhaps one policy implication is that counseling ought to be made available for more Americans regardless of income.  We ought to know by now that we are all affected aversely from other's unresolved issues. Perhaps part of the requirement for practicing as a counselor or psychologist could be a certain number of "pro bono" patients who have been flagged as potentially dangerous.  Just a few days before the violence against the congresswoman, I heard a local report of a black high school student on a bus who yelled at and threatened a caucasion man because the latter had joined in a conversation in which "nigga" was used.  Apparently the use of that word is limited by race upon pain of getting hit or worse.  The bus driver reportedly did nothing in spite of the kid's on-going shouting and threats (and racism). Perhaps it was not poltically correct so the behavior was ignored even as the other passengers must have been disturbed.  My reaction on hearing this story was that the student's high school should be notified, and that he should have to receive therapy, for something more deep-rooted than simply a word was troubling him (the word itself was apparently used in a friendly tone). 

In conclusion, public displays, in short, can be taken as expressions of something psychological in nature that, in the last analysis, really doesn't have anything to do with the politics of the moment. We, as a society, need not accept the presupposition that the political domain is a viable excuse for people to display their dirty laundry in public--that the domain is predisposed for intimacies to be displayed. Furthermore, we need to question the right of untreated mental illness to manifest in society, as though there were a right to be sick, where there is risk to others. In the case of the local bus, the driver should not have allowed the emotionally troubled high school student to go on shouting and threatening; the student did not have the right to continue disturbing the other passengers. The driver should have warned the student and followed up by calling the police if necessary. Simply presuming a right to "go off" on a bus might be politically correct, but I contend that it is misplaced and erroneous. I do not believe the student was mentally ill; rather, it sounds like he was a troubled youth. Either way, if psychologists are not required to treat malcontents in society pro bono as part of the licence to practice, society will continue to experience incidents such as political assasinations and shootings in schools. We have been turning a blind eye to the psychologically dangerous in society, preferring to presume that shoots are isolated cases--viewing political assasinations as reactions to particular policies or platforms and school shootings as particular students being angry at particular school officials.  If we are not careful, our narrow perspective could be reckoned as pathological!

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/11/us/11giffords.html?_r=1&hp

U.S. Senator Patty Murray (D-WA) released the following statement after she was announced as the new Chairman of the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee. Senator Murray, who has been a member of the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee since 1995, is a widely recognized and outspoken advocate for America’s veterans.

Senator Murray has also worked to expand access to care for Washington state veterans by saving three state VA facilities (incl. American Lake) from closure and by pressuring the VA to open community based health care clinics.

This is a great honor, but an even bigger responsibility. As Chairman of the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee, I have a tremendous duty to the 22 million veterans across the country who have stepped up to serve our nation and who deserve the highest quality care, benefits, and treatment in return.

I am humbled by this Chairmanship not only because of the great veterans I’ll serve, but also because of the man whose shoes I’ll be working to fill. Senator Akaka has been, and always will be, a champion for his fellow veterans. I know that in the coming years he will continue to be a leader on this Committee, someone who I will rely on heavily, and someone who’ll never stop fighting for the veterans of his home state and our nation.

I plan to work each day to ensure that the VA is working for our veterans, not against them. Our service members should never have to come home from fighting a war only to fight to get the benefits and care that they deserve.

I know the VA has some of the most dedicated employees in the world and provides tremendous services to many of our veterans. But I also know there are a great many challenges to be met. Today, too many veterans are waiting far too long to get the benefits they’ve earned. Too many veterans are struggling to get access to mental health care, worker training, and other resources to help them transition from the battlefield to the civilian world. And still, far too many veterans are sleeping on the streets after serving their country. These are among the many issues I plan to take an active and aggressive approach to helping find solutions for.

It has been one of the great privileges of my Senate career to fight for veterans like my father - a World War II veteran, or the Vietnam veterans I met interning at the VA in college, or the countless Iraq and Afghanistan veterans who I have spoken to about returning home with the visible and invisible wounds of war.

These men and women, and all American veterans, will always be who I fight for, who I listen to first, and who I answer to. Their needs, their struggles, and their stories will be the ones I bring to the VA to help deliver change and meet the many challenges we face.

The contest for the top Democratic job on the A-list committee came down to Smith and Rep. Loretta Sanchez, D-Calif., but the seven-term Washington Democrat ultimately won.
 
“I appreciate the support and vote of confidence from my colleagues on the Steering and Policy Committee,” Smith said in an e-mailed statement Wednesday night. “After a thorough and lengthy vetting process, which allowed all members of the Steering and Policy Committee to fully understand the positions, policies, and experience of all three candidates, it is an honor to receive the nomination to serve as ranking member on the House Armed Services Committee.”
 
House Intelligence Chairman Silvestre Reyes, D-Texas, had also vied for the Armed Services job.
 
Smith now serves as the chairman of the Armed Services Air and Land Subcommittee, which oversees Army and Air Force programs and is arguably the most powerful of the panel’s seven subcommittees. He previously served as chairman of the Terrorism and Unconventional Threats Subcommittee.
 
Smith today (serving now as the Chair, Air and Land Forces Subcommittee) commented on the 2011 National Defense Authorization Bill:
 
“This legislation supports the men and women of our Armed Forces by ensuring that they have the resources they need. It places our policies and priorities exactly where they belong – on our troops and their families.
 
“The bill authorizes a 1.4 % pay raise for our troops, strengthens military health care and family support programs, and authorizes numerous other programs that will assist military families. It builds on the Committee’s efforts to support our military personnel and ensures that our military is properly resourced to meet the threats we face today, as well as those of the future.
 
“In addition to accomplishing these goals, this legislation contains vital provisions that will improve the Department of Defense acquisition system to ensure that the Pentagon spends taxpayer dollars in the most efficient and effective manner.
 
“As the Chairman of the Air and Land Forces Subcommittee, I am pleased to see this legislation authorizes funding for the procurement and research development programs to ensure that our soldiers and airmen have the equipment and resources they need to carry out their missions. This includes funding for programs such as Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) Vehicles, equipment for the National Guard and Reserve, Intelligence Surveillance and Reconnaissance Systems, as well as other vital equipment and systems used by the Army and Air Force.
 
“This bill is vitally important to our national security and I am proud of the support that it provides to our troops and their efforts to keep us safe. I believe it strikes the right balance between fighting the conflicts of today, while preparing our forces for the conflicts of the future.”

In a statement issued yesterday, President Barack Obama urged the Senate to act swiftly so he can sign the repeal of the so-called “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” law this year, citing the Defense Department’s report as proof that the nation “can transition to a new policy in a responsible manner.”

Here is the full text of the president’s statement:

As Commander in Chief, I have pledged to repeal the “don’t ask, don’t tell” law because it weakens our national security, diminishes our military readiness, and violates fundamental American principles of fairness and equality by preventing patriotic Americans who are gay from serving openly in our armed forces. At the same time, as Commander in Chief, I am committed to ensuring that we understand the implications of this transition, and maintain good order and discipline within our military ranks. That is why I directed the Department of Defense earlier this year to begin preparing for a transition to a new policy.

Today’s report confirms that a strong majority of our military men and women and their families -- more than two thirds -- are prepared to serve alongside Americans who are openly gay and lesbian. This report also confirms that, by every measure -- from unit cohesion to recruitment and retention to family readiness -- we can transition to a new policy in a responsible manner that ensures our military strength and national security. And for the first time since this law was enacted 17 years ago today, both the Secretary of Defense and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff have publicly endorsed ending this policy.

With our nation at war and so many Americans serving on the front lines, our troops and their families deserve the certainty that can only come when an act of Congress ends this discriminatory policy once and for all. The House of Representatives has already passed the necessary legislation. Today I call on the Senate to act as soon as possible so I can sign this repeal into law this year and ensure that Americans who are willing to risk their lives for their country are treated fairly and equally. Our troops represent the virtues of selfless sacrifice and love of country that have enabled our freedoms. I am absolutely confident that they will adapt to this change and remain the best led, best trained, best equipped fighting force the world has ever known.

Here is the press conference by the SecDef and others.

Q&A was part of Cong. Dicks' presentation at the Military Affairs Forum. More photos here.

Today, Cong. Norm Dicks (D-WA), shared his expertise and perspectives with the attendees at the Chamber's Military Affairs Forum.

Serving as Chairman, House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee and Vice-Chair of the Interior Appropriations Subcommittee, Dicks is next in line for the Chairmanship of the House Appropriations Committee. His partnership with others in the Washington Congressional delegation, especially with Cong. Adam Smith as Chair of the HASC's Air Land Subcommittee, serves our region's defense installations well.

Among his comments, Cong. Dicks referenced the potential for a new aviation brigade at JBLM. "Although a decision has not been made, it is receiving serious consideration at the highest levels," he said. 

Among several issues, Cong. Dicks spotlighted his collaboration with Cong. Adam Smith and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates about on-base schools, the needed attention to I-5 congestion around JBLM and the successful retention of on-base housing at JBLM-McChord Field.  Still ahead, he referenced the need for the KC-X tanker and Fairchild AFB as a first or leading installation for those aircraft.

The Association of the United States Army recognized Reps. Norm Dicks, D-Wash., and Rodney Freylinghuysen, R-N.J., at its Outstanding Legislator award presentation on Capitol Hill last week.

Dicks, Chairman of the House Appropriations Defense Subcommittee, said in accepting the award, “We are committed to helping the troops” and that the committee has and “needs to operate on a bipartisan basis. I pledge to you that I will keep that going.” He cited the work of his fellow recipient and Reps. Jerry Lewis, R-Calif., and “Bill” Young, R-Fla., both former full committee chairmen, in working together on legislation to improve the lives of soldiers, their families and retirees.

Soldiers in all components “are doing incredible work” and “sometimes we don’t realize that.” He added, “We cannot do enough” to help wounded warriors.

AUSA President Gen. Gordon R. Sullivan, USA, Ret., said, “These two congressmen, as well or better than anyone in this business, understand what the military is up against and understand its impact on the nation.”

Sullivan thanked Dicks for being “an advocate for a strong national defense to include military end strength increases.” Sullivan also cited Dicks' assistance in raising the death gratuity, helping enact the Post 9/11 GI Bill and in health care.

Cong. Dicks will be a speaker at the next Military Affairs Forum on August 18. You may register for that event here.

MILITARY AFFAIRS FORUM

CONFIRM: CONG. DICKS WILL ATTEND THIS MEETING.
Event Speaker: Congressman Norm Dicks

Congressional Update from Congressman Norm Dicks, Chairman of the House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee

The House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee has jursidiction of the
Departments of Army, Navy (including Marine Corps), Air Force, Office of Secretary of Defense, and Defense Agencies including activities related to military personnel; operation and maintenance; procurement; research and development; and the Military Health System. Also includes intelligence activities such as the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the Central Intelligence Agency.

(Jurisdiction excludes Department of Defense-related accounts and programs under the Subcommittee on Military Construction and Veterans Affairs and the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Army ((Civil Works)).)

In addition to prepared remarks, Cong. Dicks will respond in a Q& A session.

Date & Time: WEDNESDAY, August 18, 7:30 – 9:00 a.m.
Place: Hotel Murano, 1320 Broadway, Tacoma 98402
Price: $20.00 pre-paid on or before August 13, noon
$25.00 pre-paid after August 14-17
$30.00 walk-ins/at the door
Information: Monique Shields, (253) 627.2175
RSVP: DUE 12 noon, August 13 (Friday) 
Register: Online Link

If you have reserved for others, please share this confirmation with them.
Cong. Dicks will depart promptly AFTER this meeting to attend the funeral service for Sen. Ted Stevens.

Once, the military sector was said to represent a third of the economic activity in Pierce County. But it’s grown by one-third, 13,000 soldiers since that 2003 study.

No wonder that the Chamber’s delegation devotes a significant portion of its time during the annual Washington-to-Washington, D.C. trip. One special aspect of the Chamber’s defense agenda is the appointment and briefing within the Pentagon.

While previous years have made their marks in addressing critical community-installations needs, 2010 set a new benchmark. The Chamber’s delegation was hosted and briefed by Dr. Craig College, Deputy Assistant Chief of Staff for Installation Management, Office of the Assistant Chief of Staff for Installation Management. He was the right man at the right time.

New to the issue table, after having been out of the spotlight, is the need to replace JBLM’s aging wastewater treatment plant. “CH2M HILL’s wastewater engineers were pleased to work with JBLM public works staff in the assessment of their wastewater treatment plant and will continue to support our military as it looks for opportunities to improve infrastructure and better serve soldiers and their families,” said Kathy Hanna, Vice President, CH2M HILL.

Dr. College promised a quick follow-up to the need to replace that plant and suggested the Army should conduct a Utility Privatizitation study to determine the best course. “There are several reasons why this should be pursued—one is of the aging infrastructure, one is capacity and another is the nitrate/nutrient release that could proliferate into 'dead zones.' I encourage them to combine efforts with Pierce County to address the water quality in Puget Sound. And I encourage them to maybe consider partnering with the county as it is essential that the Army or Department of Defense move in the direction that is going to have the maximum benefit protection,” said Pierce County Councilmember Terry Lee.

Of course, the delegation again broached the need for replacement of the aging elementary school facilities on JBLM, owned primarily by the Department of Education, but serviced by the Clover Park School District. Jason Whalen, a council member from the City of Lakewood and attorney with the law firm of Eisenhower & Carlson, PLLC, was pleased with the opportunity to discuss the issue with officials at the Pentagon and with our congressional delegation. "I very much enjoyed the opportunity to continue the discussion of this important issue to our community. I left the meetings, confident that we had been heard. Following our trip, officials from the Office of Economic Adjustment visited JBLM to review the facilities at issue with JBLM, City and School District officials and staff. We are encouraged by the progress made to date," Whalen said.

The Chamber continued to pursue a final resolution of community impacts on the northern Clear Zone at JBLM-McChord Field. After contributions to purchase properties of willing sellers from funds provided by Pierce County, Washington State, Tacoma as matches to Lakewood, Dept. of Defense and Dept. of Air Force dollars, the joint basing action continues to cloud ownership responsibilities. Dr. College promised a renewed dialogue between the Army and Air Force to insure ownership resolution.

The dessert in the ala carte of issues was Lois Bernstein, Senior Vice President for Community Services, MultiCare Health System, who complimented Madigan Army Health Systems for its proactive community role.

This wasn’t just a single shot from the delegation. These issues were carried through in similar meetings with Cong. Norm Dicks, Chairman of the House Defense Appropriations Committee, Cong. Adam Smith who sits on the Committee on Armed Services, Subcommittee on Land and Air Forces, other members of Washington’s Congressional delegation and the Office of Economic Adjustment of the Dept. of Defense.

As in D.C. during the Chamber’s trip, the Chamber will continue its advocacy here on behalf of our local military installations and the branches of the armed services which share our community.

Written By Gary Brackett