This column originally appeared in the Williston Observer on February 19, 2009.
The Problem With the Truth
When Vermont Senator Patrick Leahy starts talking about truth-telling, people start to get squirmy. It's odd - truth-telling should be a goal for all of us, but especially for public servants, for our elected representatives.
Leahy has a plan to create a Truth Commission, to place in the sunlight the most controversial acts of the Bush Administration. There are several goals in such exposure. First, exposure gives us a chance to take a sober look at what happened and decide for ourselves if it was all necessary.
Second, exposure shows us places where our system of checks and balances might have failed, and show where the underpinnings of that system might need to be reinforced.
Lastly, exposure shows the rest of the world that we can admit our mistakes and rise above them.
But when President Barack Obama was asked about the establishment of a Truth Commission, his response was, as described by the Associated Press, "lukewarm."
I understand Obama's reticence. He wants to place laser-like focus on the economy right now, putting policies in place to create and maintain jobs, to ensure that struggling homeowners stay in their homes, to get credit flowing. These are all critically important, and he's loathe to support any distraction from those goals.
"My view is also that nobody's above the law," Obama said last week, "and if there are clear instances of wrongdoing, that people should be prosecuted just like any ordinary citizen... but my general orientation is to say let's get it right moving forward."
I'm in general agreement with the president's conclusion here, that we need to move forward. However, I agree more with his statement that no one is above the law and people should be held accountable for wrongdoing.
Basically, there are three schools of thought on the whole issue. One was voiced by former Bush aide Mark Thiessen, who said that such a commission would expose the facts about American interrogation techniques, exposure that would be "terribly dangerous."
Those kinds of remarks make me incredulous. Are you honestly saying that violations of American law, international law, and basic human rights should not be exposed because al Qaeda would then know what we did? This creates an institutional loophole for abuses of power. Cloak the abuses in "national security" and the abuses become uncheckable.
The second school of thought says that we must prosecute everyone from the people who performed torture and should have refused to, all the way up to the person who explicitly or tacitly authorized the torture itself.
Beyond the feeling that justice needs to be served, constitutional scholar Jonathan Turley points out that we have treaty obligations in place in regards to investigating allegations of torture. Turley supports prosecutions, but is incredulous himself over Obama's lack of support for even a Truth Commission.
"I have great respect for [Obama]," Turley said, "but you cannot say that no one is above the law and block the investigation of the war crimes by your predecessor. It is a position without principle."
Despite my sense of justice, though, I cannot imagine actual trials having the effect that Leahy's Truth Commission would have. Those who would be prosecuted would undoubtedly by the lowest-level worker bees who are actually the least culpable. The prosecution of someone at the level of a department secretary, or even higher, would drag on for years, tangled in so much red tape and black redaction that we might never get the answers we need.
That leaves us with the third school, Leahy's school. Forget about prosecution - let's just get it out there. Tell the truth about wire tapping, about political hiring and firing in the Justice Department, about bad intelligence. Tell the truth about torture.
According to Mary Robinson, President of the International Commission of Jurists, our actions are being used as justification by other nations: "We were getting evidence of practices of torture, et cetera... Somehow the laws had changed, the situation had changed, and when we countered that, they would say, well look what's happening in the United States... Our concern was that countries that were champions of upholding the rule of law had compromised those standards in the name of countering terrorism."
We should never have compromised those standards. It seems pretty clear that we did. The perpetrators should be punished, but that just may not be practical. At the very least, we should learn the truth, so that we can keep it from happening again.
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Thursday, February 5, 2009
Legislating our way to prosperity?
This column originally appeared in the Williston Observer on February 5, 2009.
Legislating our way to prosperity?
Just two weeks into the job, President Barack Obama is hitting something of a stride, despite the best efforts of some.
The mouthpiece of the Republican opposition, Rush Limbaugh, has already indicated that "I want him to fail," the "him" being Obama. His "damn the torpedoes" philosophy would rather see the economy in ruin than see Obama succeed.
Not every Republican finds kinship with Limbaugh's divisive opinions. One notable challenger is Republican stalwart Bill Bennett, who said that Limbaugh's "locution" was not what the nation needed.
However, challenging Limbaugh seems to be for brave-of-heart only. Republican Representative Phil Gingrey of Georgia made a public apology to Limbaugh after saying that he should "back off" the rhetoric.
As Bennett notes, such obstructionism is not helpful, especially as Obama and his team face the train wreck that is the American and global economies.
I definitely do not want Obama to fail. I want to keep my job and want to see my friends, family, and neighbors keep their jobs. The real question is, will the administration's current plans succeed in doing just that.
Of course, the President does not make law - he can only make coherent and thoughtful suggestions, and then sit back and watch the Congress mangle the plan into a chaotic mess, with bits of pork, poison pills, and totally unrelated measures added here and there.
The first version crafted by House Democrats was put before the full House and with the input of House Republicans, pared down in places and expanded in others. Of course, that input into the process didn't convince a single House Republican to vote for the $819 billion package. But with a sizable Democratic majority, the bill could stand to have no Republican support, and even a handful of Democratic detractors, and still pass.
The House's plan is now in front of the Senate, where it will get a much closer look. In the Senate, the Republicans have a considerable measure of power. This is good for the nation, because as I've written before, it does none of us any good to have bad bills railroaded through, even if there is majority agreement with them.
The sober second look the Senate will take (and, indeed, was designed to take) will end up being something Democrats and Republicans equally like and hate, a sure sign it is a good bill.
The end result must stimulate the economy. It must spend money on things to put people to work, now and in the future; on things that will entice or force banks to begin lending again; on things that will make a real difference.
As of this writing, the bill has a higher price tag than the original House version: $900 billion. The bill is divided into two parts: spending increases and tax cuts.
Welcome to the wonderfully confusing and seemingly paradoxical world of macroeconomics: while spending more, we need to take in less.
The strategy of tax cuts is to give consumers and businesses more money in their pockets, and then hope neither group sits on the new-found funds. If people are out there buying things, orders for new things will increase. If businesses have more orders, they will increase inventory, inventory that will have to produced by people. Hiring more people will lead to more people working, with more money to spend, and so on.
The strategy of increased spending is more direct - the government funds projects that require businesses and employees to complete, and more projects means more productive workers. Of course, more workers means more income tax, hopefully enough to balance out the tax cuts and some of that extra spending.
Case in point: the Census Bureau's plans to open shop in Williston, a possible boon for many of our recently-laid off.
It's the adage "You've got to spend money to make money" writ large.
The outlay of $900 billion scares me in its scope, but the consequences of doing nothing scare me even more. If the president has his way, the bill will be finalized and passed within a couple of weeks. The Congress has time to craft a final bill worthy of passage, worthy of signature. I hope that their sense of what's right, and not a Limbaugh-esque sense of spite, takes over and we get a bill that will help us claw our way out of this crisis.
Legislating our way to prosperity?
Just two weeks into the job, President Barack Obama is hitting something of a stride, despite the best efforts of some.
The mouthpiece of the Republican opposition, Rush Limbaugh, has already indicated that "I want him to fail," the "him" being Obama. His "damn the torpedoes" philosophy would rather see the economy in ruin than see Obama succeed.
Not every Republican finds kinship with Limbaugh's divisive opinions. One notable challenger is Republican stalwart Bill Bennett, who said that Limbaugh's "locution" was not what the nation needed.
However, challenging Limbaugh seems to be for brave-of-heart only. Republican Representative Phil Gingrey of Georgia made a public apology to Limbaugh after saying that he should "back off" the rhetoric.
As Bennett notes, such obstructionism is not helpful, especially as Obama and his team face the train wreck that is the American and global economies.
I definitely do not want Obama to fail. I want to keep my job and want to see my friends, family, and neighbors keep their jobs. The real question is, will the administration's current plans succeed in doing just that.
Of course, the President does not make law - he can only make coherent and thoughtful suggestions, and then sit back and watch the Congress mangle the plan into a chaotic mess, with bits of pork, poison pills, and totally unrelated measures added here and there.
The first version crafted by House Democrats was put before the full House and with the input of House Republicans, pared down in places and expanded in others. Of course, that input into the process didn't convince a single House Republican to vote for the $819 billion package. But with a sizable Democratic majority, the bill could stand to have no Republican support, and even a handful of Democratic detractors, and still pass.
The House's plan is now in front of the Senate, where it will get a much closer look. In the Senate, the Republicans have a considerable measure of power. This is good for the nation, because as I've written before, it does none of us any good to have bad bills railroaded through, even if there is majority agreement with them.
The sober second look the Senate will take (and, indeed, was designed to take) will end up being something Democrats and Republicans equally like and hate, a sure sign it is a good bill.
The end result must stimulate the economy. It must spend money on things to put people to work, now and in the future; on things that will entice or force banks to begin lending again; on things that will make a real difference.
As of this writing, the bill has a higher price tag than the original House version: $900 billion. The bill is divided into two parts: spending increases and tax cuts.
Welcome to the wonderfully confusing and seemingly paradoxical world of macroeconomics: while spending more, we need to take in less.
The strategy of tax cuts is to give consumers and businesses more money in their pockets, and then hope neither group sits on the new-found funds. If people are out there buying things, orders for new things will increase. If businesses have more orders, they will increase inventory, inventory that will have to produced by people. Hiring more people will lead to more people working, with more money to spend, and so on.
The strategy of increased spending is more direct - the government funds projects that require businesses and employees to complete, and more projects means more productive workers. Of course, more workers means more income tax, hopefully enough to balance out the tax cuts and some of that extra spending.
Case in point: the Census Bureau's plans to open shop in Williston, a possible boon for many of our recently-laid off.
It's the adage "You've got to spend money to make money" writ large.
The outlay of $900 billion scares me in its scope, but the consequences of doing nothing scare me even more. If the president has his way, the bill will be finalized and passed within a couple of weeks. The Congress has time to craft a final bill worthy of passage, worthy of signature. I hope that their sense of what's right, and not a Limbaugh-esque sense of spite, takes over and we get a bill that will help us claw our way out of this crisis.
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