Morning Coffee (152)

All work and no play makes me a dull boy. And it makes me a terrible Brewer. It's been, oh...two weeks since I last had a cup of Morning Joe with you all. In that time, a lot has happened. The economy went further into the sheisse bucket. The candidate who ran on hope and change has become the President who peddles fear in order to pass his agenda, and does so better than his predecessor. Our extremely popular Congress semi-rushed to pass a, well, I don't know, $800 billion, $900 billion, or over $1 trillion (actual figure is just semantics) "stimulus" package full of the artist formerly known as Pork, which really stimulates nothing save deforestation in Brazil and the generation of global warmth-inducing Congressional/Presidential CO2 emissions. Oh, I say semi-rushed because, well, it "absolutely needed to be passed," but only after a three-day, holiday weekend. And there is talk about nationalizing some banks.

The sky really is falling.

Yes, I made that.

Let them eat Tax:
Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood recently mentioned in an interview with AP that, "We should look at the vehicular miles program where people are actually clocked on the number of miles that they traveled." In layman's terms, this is a mileage tax. LaHood, who is one of two Republicans in President Obama's Cabinet and a former Congressman from Illinois, thinks that this would be a good way to "fund our infrastructure." It seems that the federal tax on gasoline is no longer providing enough revenue to maintain the highway system. But LaHood doesn't want to raise the federal gasoline tax in a recession. See, we don't to raise current taxes, because that looks bad. But making new ones is alright. Somehow. I don't really understand it.

Obama's press secretary Robin, er, Robert Gibbs says that the Obama Administration is not considering a mileage tax. Of course, they're not considering the "Fairness Doctrine" either...but if it walks like a duck...

Some states, however, are considering a mileage tax, which we've discussed in previous editions of the MC. In Rhode Island, the proposed tax would be one half a cent per mile driven. The tax would be calculated by using the mandatory GPS/clock/Big Brother apparatus that measures the miles you've driven, when you've driven them (peak vs. non-peak) and where you've driven them (highways/secondary roads). You'd then pay this at the gas pump. It'd be pretty transparent, I'm sure. A half a cent doesn't seem like a lot, but it's higher than the quarter of a cent tax proposed in North Carolina.

Using a baseline of 12,000 driven per year, you would pay roughly $60 in mileage taxes in Rhode Island. I'm still not clear on whether or not you'd pay Rhode Island tax for miles driven outside of the state, or if you'd pay taxes in neighboring states for miles driven there, or what. Compare this to the gas tax. If your vehicle were to get 24 miles per gallon, you would pay for approximately 500 gallons of gasoline. In Rhode Island, you pay the 18.6 cent federal gas tax, plus the 30 cent Rhode Island gas tax per gallon. That's 48.6 cents in tax, or roughly $243 per year. Would you rather pay the mileage tax or the gas tax? That's easy. The mileage tax. Unfortunately, you would probably pay both.

I've read a lot about mileage taxes, and I've never seen an instance where someone proposes a mileage tax and simultaneously proposes dropping the gasoline tax. Why would they, since the whole issue is lack of sufficient revenue (or inability to manage a budget, I'm not sure). So, contrary to LaHood's logic, this is technically a tax increase. It worse though. You would pay for the infrastructure to enact this plan, either in your role as a tax/fee-payer or as a consumer. It's also likely that you would pay both federal and state mileage taxes. And if I may indulge in conjecture, you might even have to pay a higher tax is your yearly mileage exceeds a certain threshold, just like you pay a higher tax if you make more money; I'm sure as is the case with most tax codes, this wouldn't be as simple as a flat tax. Your $243 yearly tax just got a little bigger. This, of course, ignores the ethical/philosophical issues of tracking citizens, which we discussed previously.

Census is Among-us:
Gerrymandering is the deliberate modification of electoral districts in order to influence future elections one way or the other by securing numerical advantage, generally for the incumbent. While named after Massachusetts Governor Elbridge Gerry, a notorious practitioner of redistricting, it didn't die with Gerry in 1814. As recently as 2006, the US Supreme Court upheld most of the Texas electoral map engineered by then House Majority Leader Tom DeLay and went so far as to say state legislatures may gerrymander districts at any time, so long as they do not harm ethnic minorities. Take a look at this map of Congressional District 4 in Illinois, or Congressional District 28 in New York, designed, I say again, designed to connect to heavily Democratic cities. Coincidentally, or not, the district has been represented by Democrat Louise Slaughter since 1993. It's also interesting that the number of votes her Republican challengers have received has significantly declined in the past 13 years. Perhaps it's because she does a bang up job. Or perhaps it's because gerrymandering has diluted the Republican block in NY District 28 to the point of being irrelevant.

Sometimes though, the opposing factions agree to redistricting in order to preserve the status quo. In California in 2000, the two parties decided to redraw districts to prevent unpredictable voting by the electorate. The results will astound you. Not one single state or federal legislative office changed party in 2004, this despite the fact that 53 congressional, 20 state senate, and 80 assembly seats were at risk.

We've seen that gerrymandering can be effective, and that gerrymandering has been deemed constitutional by the Supreme Court. That's good, because I'd hate to see politicians violating the constitution. The Court says, basically, that politicians, who have to be voted into power, can rearrange districts whenever they want, rather than just after a census (when they're constitutionally required), in order to stay in power. Call me a cynic, but that sounds like a conflict of interest. Of course, this is the same group of people who arranged a yearly raise, based not on performance or job approval, but one which automatically occurs provided they don't vote against it. As you can see, conflict of interest isn't such a big deal when you make the rules.

And when you're the incumbent, you generally make the rules. This is an issue now because President Obama has recently stated that the White House will take a more active role in the 2010 census, which is the purview of the Commerce Department. As the census helps determine congressional districts, the census is always an issue of contention between the left and the right. Conservatives favor a "door-to-door" approach to the census, while Liberals tend to favor statistical sampling because minorities and homeless are less likely to be counted in the door-to-door approach. The Obama's Administration's desire to have officials in the Commerce Department report directly to the White House doesn't seem like it would result in less gerrymandering. Being the skeptic that I am, it sounds like the possibility for further consolidation of Democratic power in the two chambers of Congress would be increased were Obama or his loyalists take an active part in "guiding" the census process.

I don't want partisan politics to be a part of the census at all, quite frankly. I would prefer it be pure, cold science. But I can understand that that is impossible. However, we can avoid, to some degree, gerrymandering and its imbalancing influence on the electorate's voting power. In Iowa, a nonpartisan Legislative Services Bureau (LSB) determines electoral districts. Political factors cannot be considered in drawing district lines. Districts follow county lines. Why not take the power out of the hands of politicians, who are interested solely in reelection, and make them more accountable to the people? Of course, we can then talk about term limits and the such...

Fundraising, Recession-Style:
Certainly there are those among you who believe that politicians genuinely desire to serve. I would love to believe this, but I think that the prime desire of virtually all persons in power, save the rare George Washington or Cincinnatus, is to remain in power ad infinitum. This is why no serious discussion of mandatory term limits has taken place in Congress since the early days of the Republic. Then, the high Congressional turn-over of the period was not mandated, but was the result of inherent distrust of political power, even among officeholders themselves. Despite this prevailing sentiment, Thomas Jefferson and George Mason saw the potential danger of not mandating term limits in the Constitution. Mason said, "nothing is so essential to the preservation of a Republican government as a periodic rotation." Richard Henry Lee envisioned the lack of limits on tenure as leading to a "most highly and dangerously oligarchic" state. You don't say, George...

James Fennimore Cooper said that, "contact with the affairs of state is one of the most corrupting of the influence to which men are exposed." Eventually rotation of office simply became taking turns and sharing political wealth. Simply put, those in power simply agreed to continue sharing power amongst themselves. This practice was eventually phased out, not by a return to genuine idealistic sentiments of limiting one's own power, but by turning to a professional, ruling class. And in order to stay in power, one had to raise a lot of money. This aspect dominates a politician's life.

I could ramble ad nauseum about term limits, but I wanted to use it as a tie in to discuss the recent fundraising activities of our ruling class. While always present, these fundraising activities grate on me even more in these economic "times of trouble." One would think that there would be less money to be had by politicians looking for cash to run their next big campaign. This isn't the case. For 2008 campaigns, House and Senate candidates have raised $1.4 billion. This is $400 million more than they raised in 2000. A lot of the money raised is tied to fairly swanky activities like a ski resort get together for Democrat Congressman Ed Perlmutter or a "Weekend of Aloha" fundraiser held for Democratic Senator Daniel Inouye of Hawaii. Republicans aren't innocent either, though I think the two aformentioned individuals do enough to illustrate my point.

Also, please remember that fundraising never stops for these people. The finance director for Perlmutter's campaign, Julie DeWoody says, "Almost every member of Congress is fundraising all the time. It's the reality of running for office and how expensive campaigns are." She also said that the ski resort getaway was a way to give "supporters a different way to interact with him and have fun." All you had to do to "interact with him" was donate $2,400. About 20 donors, each of whom raised or gave $5,000, attended Inouye's Hawaii...thing. His fundraising expert, Helen Milby said, "some were lobbyists; some were not." But, he would "never" allow lobbyist contributions to shape his decisions in his day job. Wait, his not so day job, since his day job is to raise money to support his off-duty job representing Hawaiians.

You cannot buy your Senator an expensive meal, but you can attend what is basically a party and donate a bunch of money that is ostensibly used for the sole purpose of keeping that individual in power. Interesting. Inouye "took home" about $100,000 from his weekend fundraiser, which will buy a decent amount of radio, print, or TV advertising. This is money that any challenger will not likely have at his disposal. By merit of being an officeholder, he holds an extreme advantage in terms of capital, and the ability to generate or regenerate said capital.

Remember, most aspects of my ideas of political reform tie together. That being said, the enactment of term limits would, to a large degree, nullify the need for campaign finance reform. Perhaps if we had term limits, politicians would not feel so tied to never-ending fundraising. Then they could work more. However, were we to implement some sort of comprehensive, crippling campaign finance reform, we could, at the very least, return to rotational offices by limiting the amount of money an incumbent can generate, perhaps over his lifetime. Certainly, I will concede that unlimited money does not guarantee reelection, but it does help. What's more, incumbents enjoy other advantages not available to challengers. Regardless, I would prefer that if we cannot have term limits, despite the overwhelming support for such limits by the general population, we at least have the possibility of perpetuity in office based largely on ability and results in executing the duties of of an office rather than the ability to raise cash and glad-hand with lobbyists.

Having said all that, I'm going to go attend a fundraiser for the cause "Getting Uncle Joe Koba's Student Loans Paid Off Before He Dies So He Can Save Money for His Retirement and Help Stimulate the Economy by Buying a New Computer Monitor and Drum Kit." It's a great cause, and you can donate by visiting THIS SITE.

Word of the Day: Nocuous (NOK-yoo-uhs): (adjective): Very hurtful; noxious.

On This Day in History: George Washington was born (1732). Jefferson Davis is inaugurated for a six-year term as President of the Confederate Statees of America (1862). The Confederate President was only allowed to serve one six-year term. Woolworth first opens in Utica, NY (1879). Calvin Coolidge becomes the first President to deliver a radio broadcast from the White House (1924). Germany starts unrestricted submarine warfare (1915). The US hockey team defeats the Soviet Union hockey team at Lake Placid, NY. Called the Miracle on Ice, it is considered to be one of the greatest upsets in sports history, and spawned the "USA!" chant (1980). Aldrich Ames and his wife are charged by the US Justice Department with spying for the Soviet Union (1994).

"Lying through your teeth again, [motherfucking] imbecile. Think about it. You're pounding on a fault line. What will it take to get through you precious? I'm over this, why do you want to throw it away like this? Such a mess. Why would I wanna watch you?" - A Perfect Circle, "The Outsider", Thirteenth Step. A fitting, if slightly modified, line.

Edit: Apparently, I had a fourth grader take diction. Apologies for the spelling/grammar errors.