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I Get a Kick Out of . . . Coats

A Guest Post by the Spouse

I get no kick from sports cars.  

Riding at all in a car that’s too small, well,  

Neither do I much like boats.  

But I get a kick out of … COATS.  

 

With apologies to Mr. Porter, it has recently crossed my mind that during my lifetime I have coveted neither diamonds nor fancy cars, but have always loved coats (well, and dinnerware — dishes and glassware and cutlery — but that’s for another day).  

My first “necessary” coat was in graduate school. It was Chicago, after all, and one needs a warm coat in Chicago, but warmth was only a secondary consideration. In the late 60’s, surplus army/navy stores were all the rage (at least for poor graduate students), and I desperately “needed” a Navy pea coat. It was a navy blue (duh), double-breasted, heavy wool jacket with broad lapels and large buttons with a navy anchor etched into them. You can buy one today at L.L. Bean for $279. Mine cost around $15. I also had to have the pants to go with. They were navy blue (duh), heavy wool trousers with wide bell bottoms and, instead of a zipper fly, the classic rectangular array of navy buttons. The pants probably cost $10. It was a smashing outfit, if I do say so myself. I must have had a hat, but who cared about hats?!? 

I married, moved to New York, and got a job as a secretary at a publishing house on 59th Street off Lexington Avenue. My husband was in graduate school and I was a secretary. We were lucky to make the rent. My coat at the time was a navy blue (duh), nondescript cloth coat (think Pat Nixon) – longer than the pea coat, but lined and warm enough. I had that coat for a long time…long enough that the polyester lining started to fray. New coat? No way. New lining? Okay. And so it lasted until the cloth itself started to fray.  

Sometime during those years I also acquired a beautiful springtime coat. I bought it in a thrift shop in San Rafael, California, when visiting my sister. Long, flowing, sky-blue (duh) light wool, with no buttons, zippers or belts. Very stylish.  

Back in New York and on my way to work every day I would come up the stairs of the Lexington Ave. subway to be met by the windows at Bloomingdale’s (“like no other store in the world,” they said). I was making $135/week, so Bloomingdale’s was not exactly within my budget.  

But, of course, I wanted a new coat from Bloomingdale’s. 

When my husband started a paying job and the rent was no longer at issue, it was time for me to get a new coat…at Bloomingdale’s. This was perhaps the most generous gift my husband ever gave me: a long black wool coat with the most luxurious gray fox collar ever to be had on earth. The coat cost $200! It was mine, and I looked smashing in it, if I do say so myself. The hat was a $9 black beret. That Christmas I got black leather gloves. I never loved any other coat as much as I loved that coat. 

But I had always really in my heart of hearts wanted a fur coat – a mink coat – not a mink jacket — a mink coat. My husband thought me shallow for wanting such a status symbol, but I couldn’t help it. So, when, after six years of graduate school and another six as a post-doctoral fellow, I finally got a paying job as an assistant professor, I went hunting for a mink coat with my husband’s reluctant acceptance of my deep superficiality. What I learned is that there are mink coats and mink coats. There are mink coats that cost $1000 and there are mink coats that cost $15,000, and the latter are, in fact, nicer than the former. During my search, I became secretly disappointed that I was not going to be able to buy one of those really gorgeous mink coats, but I bought one that I could afford, and thought it wonderful. It was, indeed, a lovely, classic brown coat (matched my hair) with shoulder pads (stylish at the time), and I looked smashing in it, if I do say so myself. 

Mink coats were not for everyday going to work, so I moved on to other coats: one was down-filled with a beautiful fox collar, and when down-filled coats went (briefly) out of style, a blond wool one with the most gorgeous fox collar ever to be had on earth, and yes, I looked smashing in them, if I do say so myself.  

After some years, fur became de trop and shoulder pads went out of style, so I had the mink coat re-styled. Since its restyling some twenty years ago, I think I’ve worn it once.  

Somewhere along the way, my enthusiasm for coats faded. Maybe it was the disappointment in the restyling of my mink, or perhaps it was after the moths decimated my sky-blue spring coat and my blond wool one, too. As I became more matronly, my desire for pizzazz seemed to be replaced by a need for functional comfort. My go-to coat became an all-weather coat from Land’s End with a hood. Boring, but functional. 

But then…two years ago my daughter found – yes, found! – the most amazing jacket. It’s designed for a man, but uni-gender is all the rage, and who cares anyway? Salt and pepper wool with features — wonderful features: a zippered pocket on its front, a zip-in lining with a zippered front giving it a kind of internal vest. She wanted it for herself, but it’s slightly too big for her, and my lovely child has ceded it to me. I do look smashing in it, if I do say so myself. Now if I could only find some black bell bottoms… 

 

 

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Corporate Incentives (or Are They Giveaways?)–concluded

A common complaint about corporate incentives is that the corporations often don’t live up to their end of the deal. Sometimes these complaints are misplaced since it is often the politicians who overstate what a company has promised. Foxconn did not promise to create 13,000 jobs, but the Wisconsin governor gave the impression that 13,000 jobs would be created. The company should not be faulted if that number is not reached. As to the true promises of the corporation, however, they should be made as explicit as possible and with deadlines. The agreement should say, “We, the corporation, will put this amount of capital into the project by such and such date. We, the corporation, will hire this number of people for these kinds of jobs at defined starting salaries by such and such a date.” And so on. If the corporation does not fulfill these promises, then penalties spelled out in the agreement should be automatically imposed. The company should have to pay the governments certain sums or tax abatements should end. If the government commits itself to actions, then the corporation should also commit.

The negotiating governments, however, often seem to be reluctant to play hardball. A good negotiator must be willing to walk away. The corporation can easily do this if it knows that other localities are willing to offer incentives. If New York is not offering enough, Amazon can rightly think, “Let’s see what St. Louis has to offer.” Amazon has many places it could go, but if New York thinks Amazon is demanding too much, it can’t simply say we will negotiate with someone else. If Amazon walks away from the discussions, another company is not waiting outside the door to talk with New York. When one party can easily quit the negotiations, and the other cannot, the bargaining positions are not equal, and in this game, the corporation holds the upper hand.

Several states sought Foxconn. The company could play one locality against the other to create a bidding war. If Arkansas is competing against Wisconsin, Arkansas will probably not withdraw until it must offer too much. Wisconsin will have to offer what Arkansas will not, and if that was too much for Arkansas, it is likely to have been too much for Wisconsin. And since the corporation is not in competition with other companies, it does not have to increase its bid. This unequal field means that it will be normal for governments to make risky offers.

In assessing the deal, however, we should not just focus on one total dollar amount as if it were all going to the corporation. Money that is spent on infrastructure that will aid the larger community should be seen differently from simple tax abatements or credits or outright grants to the corporation. The widening of roads; the upgrading of subways; the additions of buses are not just giveaways to the corporation if many will use the new or improved facilities.

And we should also realize that some of the laments are not about corporate giveaways. More than a few New Yorkers bemoan the Amazon move for what it will do to housing costs around the new headquarters and for the strains it will add to an already overburdened transportation system. Of course, if Amazon came without governmental incentives, these increased pressures on housing and subways would still exist. The complaints are not really about the incentives; the complainers don’t want Amazon to come at all.

New York already has affordable housing and transportation issues. An Amazon move may intensify them, but it will not create them. They are difficulties that ought to be addressed with or without the move. Corporate incentives are not the real villain here.

Corporate incentives granted by localities to attract corporations highlight the fact that we do not have a national economy. We may talk about gross domestic product numbers or look at the national unemployment data. We may give our presidents credit or blame for how the economy is doing, but we don’t have a national economic policy. If we did, states and localities would not compete against each other to get corporations. With a true national economic policy, Amazon would have decided what location made the most sense for its new headquarters, and no locality would have offered it incentives. From the nation’s perspective, the same number of jobs would have been created at the same salaries without any governmental incentives.

At least with Amazon incentives, the country has new jobs, but often incentives are offered to lure a factory from one part of the country to another. These do not create employment for the nation. A company employs, say, 100 people in Wisconsin at a prevailing wage of $45,000. Texas comes along and says, ‘Move to the Lone Star State. Our prevailing wage is only $35,000, and we will give you some tax incentives.’ If the plant moves, Texas politicians may claim that they have created 100 new jobs, but is the country as a whole better off? The same number of people are working, but wages in the country will have dropped by a million dollars. Corporate profits will be up while the overall tax revenues in the country will have dropped. But Texas will, no doubt, proclaim a win and announce the arrival of 100 “new jobs.”

A final concern. If an American factory moves from Wisconsin to Texas, overall wages will have dropped, but the increased corporate profits are likely to stay in the country. In deciding whether the Wisconsin-Foxconn deal is a good one, how should we weigh that corporate profits will flow out of the country?

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Reflections on Corporate Incentives (or Are They Giveaways

 

A nonpartisan agency analyzed the Foxconn proposal and concluded that if the 13,000 new jobs were actually created, Wisconsin would break even after twenty-five years. Even if that growth target were not met and it takes decades longer for the cheeseheads to break even, state officials contend that what Foxconn has been promised is still a good deal for the state because the nonpartisan analysis does not include the 22,000 indirect jobs the factory will generate. The thought is that jobs will be created outside the Foxconn plant because the factory will buy from suppliers within the state and the new workers will spend money locally on consumer items like food and entertainment, and that will generate new jobs.

The notion of breaking even in a quarter century, however, ought to raise questions. Will the factory as planned continue to exist that long? How many factories built twenty-five ago are operating in the form in which they were constructed? Have many required large infusions of capital to alter the plants as the manufacturing world changed? Will Wisconsin have to give more incentives for the capital to be spent so the factory will still operate in the 2040s? Even more to the point, in the fast-moving technology world, what are the odds that a factory built to build flat screen TVs will exist in twenty-five years? What percentage of the factories building televisions in 1993 are still operating?

Amazon may be investing more in human and less in physical capital than Foxconn, but similar questions may also apply to the Long Island City deal. Amazon did not even exist twenty-five years ago. How sure can we be that it will be there in something like its present form twenty-five years hence?

In any event, while economists may calculate whether corporate incentives are a good deal for a locality, we should be skeptical about such projections because they contain many estimates and much guess work. As the famous philosopher said, “It’s not easy to make predictions, especially about the future.” We can’t truly know whether a package of corporate incentives makes sense until many years from now.

Many of the criticisms of the corporate incentives seem misplaced. What are usually taken to be government giveaways often include tax abatements. Thus, instead of paying an eight percent income or sales tax as others must, for example, the deal may be that the corporation will pay only four percent for, say, twenty years. If it is guesstimated that without the abatement the company would have paid $2 billion in taxes during that time, reports will say that the government has given the corporation $1billion in tax incentives. And the cry will go out, as it has in New York, that the money could be better spent on roads, public transportation, police, and housing.

This logic, however, ignores that the government has not shelled out $1billion that could have been spent elsewhere. Instead, it is money that the government does not get, and the complaints ignore that the government will receive $1billion it might not otherwise have received if the company had not come. The government is ahead if the corporation would not have come without the abatement. On the other hand, if the corporation would have come without the tax incentive, then the government has lesser revenue than it otherwise would have.

And that is the truly important question: Would the corporation have made the same location decision without the incentives? Cynics, or realists, say corporations first decide what move is best for them and then, without revealing their decision, go to the already-picked localities and ask them for relocation incentives.

Don’t blame the company for such chicanery. It exists to make money, but, of course, if the company would have made the move without incentives, then the government has wasted resources. Some commentators suggest that Amazon would have made the decisions it did without incentives to move to the Washington, D.C., and New York City areas. They note that the head of Amazon, Jeff Bezos, has a home in Washington and that Amazon would like to be near the nation’s capital. They also point out the inevitability of New York for an Amazon headquarters because that city is the nation’s financial center and has been increasingly attracting people with high tech backgrounds.

I take this certitude of what Amazon would have done without incentives with a grain of salt (which I am sure that I could buy on Amazon). With hindsight, many decisions look obvious. Surely, even if he has a home in Washington, Jeff Bezos, who is perhaps the richest person in the world, could afford acceptable accommodations just about anywhere. Corporations around the country and world raise money from Wall Street without physically being in New York. If Amazon had picked Miami, Minneapolis, or Missoula, commentators would have found reasons why the choice was obvious. (Except if it had been Indianapolis.) Unless corporate documents get leaked showing that the Washington and New York locations were picked before incentives were offered, we simply don’t know whether Amazon would have made the commitments without the governmental offerings.

(Concluded January 21)

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Reflections on Corporate Incentives (or Are They Giveaways)

 

After much fanfare, Amazon announced that it would place its second headquarters in suburban Washington, D.C., and in the Long Island City neighborhood of New York City. There is a nomenclature problem here. (An aside: I pronounce “nomenclature” with the accent on the first syllable pronounced GNOME. The spouse pronounces it with the accent on the second syllable pronounced MEN. I had not heard anybody else pronounce it her way, and I was convinced that she was wrong—for the first time ever, I might add. But then I heard a Britisher say it as she does. In spite of what you might think of Americans who adopt British pronunciations, let me assure you that the spouse is normally not pretentious.) Can there be multiple headquarters? An organism has but one head. Doesn’t a corporate entity have but one headquarters? And if it can have a second headquarters, can it be in two places?

Amazon, in announcing that headquarters 2A or 2B would be in Long Island City, did an amazing thing. It brought my governor and my mayor together in relative amity. It might seem that Andrew Cuomo and Bill de Blasio, Democrats from New York City with supposed liberal-to-progressive politics, would be natural allies, but both men have huge egos that they work hard to protect, and both are ethically challenged. Perhaps as a result, they seem to despise each other. However, they were together to announce, and take credit for, Amazon’s coming to Queens. Each beamed; each took a metaphorical victory lap. Neither sniped at the other. Seldom have two men looked more content and prouder of themselves.

The smiles, however, soon became forced. Perhaps the two pols expected universal praise for landing 25,000 new jobs at a reported median salary of $150,000. It turns out, though, to get something from Amazon, you must give something to Amazon. Many said that the city and state had given too much. The criticisms spanned the political and ideological spectrum, from the for-no-good-reason-that-I-can-see media darling and demon Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC achieved a surprise primary win in a Democratic district that assured her election to the House, but that was obtained with fewer than sixteen thousand votes; since she just taken her seat, she has yet to accomplish anything else) to the often mean and looney and wrong Wall Street Journal editorial board.

News reports indicate that New York, through tax abatements, infrastructure spending, and grants, will spend upwards of $3 billion to get Amazon. The briefly happy Cuomo and de Blasio couple maintain that this sum is a good investment because it will generate $9 of wealth for the region for every dollar spent. Others, however, said, “Pshaw,” and talked about phony math, contending that Amazon would have come to the New York area even without such largesse. The critics pointed out that Google and Facebook have been expanding their New York workforces and footprints without such subsidies.

I have been somewhat surprised at all the criticism. New York regularly gives tax abatements and other goodies to businesses, especially to the real estate industry. No single package of government incentives has been as big as what has been offered to Amazon, but surely the aggregate offered to the real estate moguls of New York City, including to Donald Trump before he was president, has been huge. Even so, while the practice of giving such incentives has drawn sharp criticism, the longstanding real estate incentives game has not drawn the ire that has spewed forth about the Long Island City development.

The criticisms also tend to ignore that New York is not alone in the let’s-entice-a-corporation-to-our-locality business. Moreover, the New York incentives are not necessarily out of line with what other governments have given to corporations. In fact, reports state that US cities and states spend up to $90 billion each year in tax breaks and grants to corporations. Not long ago, for example, Wisconsin was in the spotlight when President Trump and then Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, with much fanfare, announced that Foxconn, a Taiwanese multinational corporation, was going to build a factory to make flat screen TVs in southern Wisconsin, bringing, perhaps, 13,000 new jobs to the Badger State. The president and governor downplayed that Foxconn really promised to hire only 3,000 workers, at an average salary of $53,000 over the following four years. The corporation merely said that there was a “potential” to create 13,000 jobs in the future. The politicians tried even harder to avoid mentioning that Wisconsin was giving almost $3 billion in incentives to Foxconn through income tax credits and sales tax breaks.

Wisconsin committed to $3 billion in incentives to get Foxconn to agree to bring a new factory into the state, a factory that would employ 3,000 at an average wage of $53,000, with a possibility that 13,000 jobs would someday be created at some vague future date. If Wisconsin made a good deal in luring Foxconn, then New York must have made an even better one since for the same amount of financial incentives Amazon says that it will produce more jobs with much higher pay in New York. But did the Badger State make a good deal?

(continued January 16)

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Snippets

Years ago, I knew someone who kept an autographed picture of Rudy Giuliani on his desk. I wonder if he still does. I wonder if anyone does.

 

The sign said that it was the city’s “only outdoor rooftop skating rink.” I saw a place to rent skates but no one to answer my myriad questions. For example: If a rink is on the “roof,” but the rink is not outdoors, isn’t there a roof on the rink and, therefore, it is not an outdoor rink? And shouldn’t there be a comma between “outdoor” and “rooftop”? And so many more.

 

My sources have told me that President Donald Trump courageously stood up to the Russian in his oft-discussed meeting with Vladimir Putin—Trump would absolutely, positively not have borscht for lunch, or at any other time.

 

“Why would Donald Trump, who prides himself on his good taste, fall in love with Donald Trump?” Edward Sorel, Mary Astor’s Purple Diary: The Great American Sex Scandal of 1936.

 

I try to be good because I believe that if I go to hell, I will be trapped on a stalled elevator with a banjo player.

 

Anne, a public defender, and I were chatting as she drove us to a lunch with other public defenders. After a while, I asked what her husband did, and she replied, “Construction,” but after a brief pause, she said that he had been a teacher and the head football coach at a local high school. Two years ago, she continued, he was in a traffic accident, and a friend, not wearing a seatbelt, was thrown out of the truck and killed. She said that her husband could not concentrate on his work and quit, but then she told me more. Her husband was charged with drunken driving and vehicular homicide. His brother, who had also been in the car, refused to testify at her husband’s trial and was jailed for contempt. Her husband was convicted and was out on bail while the case was being appealed. Probably because he was a school teacher and football coach, the book had been thrown at him. He got a ten-year sentence. I asked Anne if she had children. She said no, but they tried a few years ago when Anne had two miscarriages. Anne looked at me, smiled, and said that she and her husband had concluded that now was not a good time to try again.

 

“A man may live like a fool for a year, and become wise in a day.” John Williams, Augustus.

 

When you see bikers with the big arms and leather vests on one of those three-wheelers, do you think, “Cool,” or are you a little sad?

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The Anti-American Fox News Commentator

Steve Hilton was on Fox News last Sunday. I watched for a bit. I find that watching anyone on Fox tends to tell me what others on that network are saying (independent minds seem to be rare there) and what other conservatives, in and out of government, are also saying. A little Fox-watching does double and triple duty. But I found it hard to gauge the worth of Hilton’s  ideas because he couched them in rhetoric that was ignorant and disturbing.

Hilton contended that those who were opposing actions by the president were “anti-democratic.” He went on to contend that Trump’s trade proposals, border security including a wall, and Trump’s foreign policies had been “explicitly” chosen by America and Americans in the last presidential election. He went on to suggest that those who opposed such policies were trying to subvert the rule of law.

It is safe to say that Americans did vote for these positions. But it is also safe to say Americans voted against them. Our presidential elections are not unanimous. However, it is not right to say that America voted for them. Trump was duly elected and is our president, but he was not democratically elected unless we are changing the meaning of “democratic.” In a democracy, the most votes win. Trump did not get a majority of the electorate. He did not even get the most votes. He was duly elected because we do not have democratic presidential elections, and since a democratic process did not choose him, it can’t be anti-democratic to oppose his policies. If Hilton is really serious about democracy, perhaps he should have concluded that it is democratic to side with the majority of the voters who did not vote for the president.

Even the minority of Americans who voted for Trump probably did not vote “explicitly” for all his policies. For example, some probably voted for him because of a promise to cut corporate tax rates but did not support his trade policies. Many may have voted for him because of a promise to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act with something better but did not care about a Mexican-financed border wall. And so on.

It is also hard to say that an American explicitly voted for his policies when Trump’s promises shift. Hilton did not mention that if “America” voted for a wall, it also can be said that it voted for a wall paid for by Mexico. Did America vote for a “beautiful concrete” barrier, or also something less substantial and much like what had previously been erected and met with derision from Trump?

But even if Trump had gotten the support of a majority, it is demagogic to suggest that those opposing him are somehow against the rule of law. We do not live in a country where citizens are required to march in line behind the president. Our rule of law gives Americans the right to speak out and, [gasp,] oppose the president. Americans have done that from the time of George Washington until today. Even though Obama got voting majorities, many on Fox and other conservatives opposed and blocked his policies. Part of the reason this can be considered a free country is that we are not required to support a duly-elected president’s policies. As long as we use lawful methods, we have the right to try to defeat or prevent a president’s policies.

Hilton’s comments also ignore that while the president is not democratically elected, Representatives and Senators are. Unlike the president, a Representative and a Senator must get the most votes to be elected, and in our system, no one in Congress owes their first fealty to the president. They aren’t selected by the president, but by their constituents, and those constituents may have “explicitly” voted for a Senator or a Representative because there were promises to oppose presidential policies. These congresspeople, we could say, would be acting anti-democratically if they did not follow through on their pledges. (As I have written before, while each Senator is democratically elected, the Senate as a whole is not a democratic body. The people are not truly represented in the Senate; states are, and a distinct minority of the American people choose the majority in the Senate. (See https://ameliasdad.blog/?s=%22We%2C+the+People%22.) While Hilton seemed to be suggesting that opposition to presidential policies, or at least the policies of this president, was anti-American, that suggestion itself is anti-American.

And, of course, it seems more than a bit ludicrous to label as anti-democratic opposition to presidential policies when those policies often flip-flop. As Hilton adamantly maintained that Americans in the 2016 election supported the immediate removal of troops from Syria as Trump had announced but a few days earlier, Trump appointee (and the person who before Trump came along vied for the position as the scariest person in government) John Bolton was announcing that Trump’s unconditional position was not really the administration’s position. Then to make the president’s position even fuzzier, Trump asserted that he had never said that he was going to order an immediate removal of American troops from Syria. (As Warner Wolf, the sports reporter, used to say, “Let’s go to the videotape.”)

This all made me wonder about Hilton’s position. If I opposed Trump’s earlier position for the immediate removal of troops, was I being anti-democratic because Trump’s had pledged that withdrawal during his successful campaign? If America had explicitly chosen the immediate troops-out position, was Trump being anti-democratic by then announcing a different policy? If I were supporting the rule of law by supporting Trump’s first position, was I now un-American by opposing his new position?  And what should I conclude about Trump changing his positions?

I am not suggesting that Trump’s policies should be opposed because he was not democratically elected. Our president is never democratically elected. I am suggesting, however, that his policies should not be supported simply because he was elected under our strange electoral system and that opposing his policies is not anti-democratic or against the rule of law. To voice one’s opinion in support or in opposition and to act lawfully on that opinion is American.

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It’s a Christmas Movie?

In the important breaking news department, a recent poll found that a quarter of American adults consider “Die Hard,” starring Bruce Willis as New York City cop John McClane and released in 1988, a Christmas movie; 62 percent said that it was not, and a wishy-washy 13 percent did not take a stand.

That anyone considers it a Christmas movie seems remarkable; “Christmas movie” and “body count” rarely appear in the same sentence, but apparently they can when it comes to “Die Hard.” McClane arrives in Los Angeles at the Christmas season to see his estranged wife. Right off, this premise indicates that it is not a true Christmas film because, of course, no real Christmas movie should be set in LA.

McClane goes to his wife’s office where a Christmas party is underway. Bad guys, led by Alan Rickman in his first movie role, take over the party and the entire skyscraper office building. McClane, who just happens to be away from the party action when the bad guys make their move, is now the only good guy capable of saving the situation. And—spoiler alert—after much hide-and-seek in the skyscraper, many remarkable escapes from danger, much ingenuity, and violence galore, he does.

A Christmas visit is part of the premise, but not much Christmasy stuff happens. Good cheer is largely absent although McClane, Scrooge-like, learns to value what he had not valued enough before, in this case his wife, played by Bonnie Bedalia, with a great 1980s hairdo. The movie ends on a faux Christmas note. As the credits roll, we hear the remarkably-voiced Vaughn Monroe sing, “Oh, the weather outside is frightful, but oh, you’re so delightful.” A winter song, but not a Christmas one, and the song’s refrain is more than a little ironic in the Los Angeles setting: “Let it snow. Let it snow. Let it snow.”

But I do have a soft spot for “Die Hard” that has existed from my first viewing. Something was upsetting me at work, and I went for a walk. It was a hot day, which also says something about whether “Die Hard” is a Christmas movie. It was released in July,1988. I saw a theater offering coolness and the film, and I paid the admission fee that, no doubt, would seem laughably small today. I gave in to the movie and left in much better spirits. A New York Times critic summed up what I felt: “Die Hard is exceedingly stupid, but escapist fun.” It was perfect fare to get me out of my funk, and I have remembered the movie fondly ever since.

I also remember the movie because Aleksandr Godunov played one of the bad guys, and seeing him in “Die Hard” reminded me of the memorable time that I first saw him. It was one of my infrequent visits to the ballet. The Bolshoi was at Lincoln Center in 1979. This was still the Cold War era, and Bolshoi visits were memorable. Of course, I had heard of the Bolshoi, but I knew nothing about the performers and not much about ballet in general. The spouse and I were at the performance of “Romeo and Juliet” when Godunov, in the role of Tybalt, made his entrance. I could not take my eyes off him. The spouse could not take her eyes off him. Every move, every entrance was a thrill. Call it what you will–“charisma,” “presence,” “it.” Aleksandr Godunov had it. I wondered if it were just the spouse and I who had that reaction, but the New York Times review showed that even a major ballet critic was mesmerized. No one less than Anna Kisellgoff wrote, “Charging around like an enraged bull, Mr. Godunov was magnificent. His mane of blond hair settled into a Veronica Lake style, but with a face attached to a permanent sneer and with a navel just short of peering out of a black tunic, Mr. Godunov radiated excitement every second he was onstage.” And this performance became even more planted in my mind when headlines announced a few days later that Godunov had defected from the Soviet Union. A newer generation may not understand the newsworthiness or even understand what was meant by a “defection”, but, well, they can look it up. And if you ever watch “Die Hard,” don’t just admire the banter between Rickman and Willis, watch Godunov move.

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Unsolicited Advice for House Democrats (concluded)

Of course, President Trump and the Democrats do not agree on the border wall. As I write, the federal government is partially shut down because of this issue. If the stalemate does get resolved without a Democratic commitment to Trump’s vision of a border barrier, the House Democrats should address the issue. They need to emphasize that a wall is not an end initself, or at least it should not be. Instead it is a means to better border security. Democrats should be stressing that they believe in good border security, and that the Republican screed that Democrats believe in open borders is, to put it politely, bunkum. Democrats need to make clear that they oppose the wall because it is not a good way to get better border security.

This is yet another area where House Democrats should hold hearings. Make evident the shortcomings of the wall. The cost, of course, should be stressed as well as the likelihood of cost overruns.  Any connections between the members of the construction industry who hanker for a piece of the wall-building action and the Republican Party should be highlighted. The wall’s impact on wildlife, streams, ranching, hunting, and fishing should be explored. Eminent domain, often reviled by conservatives and libertarians, will have to be used to get the private lands needed for the wall. Have those costs gone into the projected budget for the wall? How long will the court proceedings take? How many “jack-booted thugs” will be necessary to remove ranchers and homeowners from their lands?

A wall has intuitive appeal for increasing border security, and hearings should show that such simplistic thinking is wrong. Knowledgeable people should testify about the limited effectiveness of a wall. Witnesses experienced in border security should be presenting ideas that lead to better border security—methods that are cheaper, more efficacious, less harmful to the environment, less invasive of property rights, and more humane.

The hearings should produce a bill for better border security that the House can pass untethered, once again, from other issues. Perhaps the Senate Republicans will kill the proposals, but even so, the House passage of sensible border security measures helps the country by presenting competing ideas to the public, instead of a myopic focus on the wall. It should be good for the Democrats by giving a concrete (pun intended) proposal showing that Democrats care about border security but are also mindful of wasteful costs and other harms. And Democrats should also remember that a sizeable number of Republicans have not supported the wall. Maybe a coalition across the aisle can be fashioned to improve the country. Another novel idea.

And perhaps Democrats could start to tackle with solid, non-political hearings issues that politicians reflexively want to avoid but should be aired for the country’s sake. For example, how many know that the number of IRS auditors is now 9,5110, down a third from 2010 and that the rate of IRS audits has dropped 42 percent? These numbers are not surprising because the IRS budget has fallen by $2 billion. Politicians don’t want to go on record in favor of more audits, more IRS enforcement, but someone should be pointing out that corporations and the tax-cheating rich are the prime beneficiaries of lesser IRS enforcement. The government collects less money than it ought to, and the tax burden on the less wealthy increases. Serious, nonpartisan House hearings could try to explain these and many other realities to the country—realities that have gotten lost in the morass of political backstabbing.

Posted on by rjonakait

Unsolicited Advice for House Democrats (continued)

I am not so naïve to think that because Trump mouthed words in favor of infrastructure spending, that infrastructure proposals coming out of a Democratic House are likely to become laws. Even if they don’t get passed, however, hearings about areas of possible infrastructure improvement might further the education of both Congress and the country so that someday we can make progress on these issues. But my despair about the unlikelihood of passage is not total. After all, recently Trump signed laws passed by Congress with bipartisan support aimed at attacking our opioid crisis, an area, as with infrastructure, where Trump had made promises. And again with bipartisan support, Congress passed and the President signed criminal justice reform legislation.

My more cynical or, I believe realistic, side may believe that the opioid laws got enacted only because they do not require much federal spending (and my prophetic side says that the laws will have limited effect because not enough money is being allocated for addiction treatment.) And the criminal justice package, although receiving a fair amount of hype, was in reality only a modest reform, but still these laws did get enacted.

I won’t be shocked if increased infrastructure spending is resisted by Republicans who say that the federal deficit is too high, who will again care about this issue when faced with Democratic initiative. If so, the Democrats will have been handed a political tool. They can explain again the real effects of the Republican tax cuts; how that legislation primarily helped the rich and corporations; and how it is now being used to prevent programs that help the country. The hypocrisy of Trump and the Republicans on deficits might become more apparent.

While infrastructure bills may be good politically, the most important reason for them, however, is that an improved infrastructure would be good for the country. Country before politics. What a quaint idea.

Improving infrastructure will cost money, but a law legalizing the status of Dreamers will not. President Trump’s administration rescinded the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals policy, but he said that the rescission came because Obama’s executive actions creating DACA were unconstitutional. Trump maintained that legislation should be enacted for the non-citizens who were brought here as children. He stated that he wanted to “work out something” for the Dreamers. “We don’t want to hurt those kids. We love the Dreamers.” Democrats, take note.

Some prominent Republicans have supported legislation for the Dreamers, but it has not passed. Part of the reason is that Trump has often bundled it with his desire for a border wall. House Democrats should hold hearings that will create sympathy for Dreamers and show that legalizing their status is good for the economy. Maybe they can then pass a Dreamers act untethered from the wall and other initiatives.  The Senate Republicans may again attach a border wall funding bill to this, but their willingness to play politics with the issue should be apparent if facing a Dreamers act stripped clean of anything else. Bring sympathetic Dreamers from Florida, Texas, Arizona, Ohio and elsewhere and let Republicans explain why border wall funding or some other issue should prevent such desirable Americans being removed from legal limbo. This would be good politics, but the most important reason to do this is that resolving this issue is good for the country. Moreover, the president has claimed that he favors a resolution. Work it!

(Concluded January 7)

Posted on by rjonakait

Unsolicited Advice for House Democrats

Democrats have the majority in the House of Representatives. They can use this power for investigations of Donald Trump, but these should not be their principal focus, for such hearings will appear to many as acts of revenge or vindictiveness that are primarily aimed at pleasing the Democratic Party’s base. They might be the Democratic equivalent of all those endless and fruitless Benghazi hearings and not much different from demagogic Trump rallies. Investigations and hearings should serve and be seen to serve some broad national purpose, not just as spectacles to rile up or satisfy partisans.

This does not mean that all Trump investigations are unwarranted. We should know whether the president, his family, or those around him have economic and social interests that could be affecting our country’s policies. Could our relationships with Saudi Arabia be colored because of financial links between that country and the president or his family? Does the expansion of certain economic opportunity areas benefit the Kushner family? Is the relaxation of auto fuel standards driven by connections between the oil industry and the administration? Unfortunately, there are many such possible topics for exploration by sober investigations and hearings, and they should be done.

The House Democrats should not, however, enter the new Congress focused on articles of impeachment of Trump. Perhaps information will come to light that would justify the removal of the president, but under the present circumstances the Senate would not convict the president. Much has been made of recent guilty pleas and arrangements with prosecutors that suggest Donald Trump broke campaign finance laws, but even so, those violations by themselves will not bring a conviction in the Senate, for surely violations of campaign finance laws are legion and others are not removed for them. And the campaign finance problems really sound as if the Democrats are going after Trump for lying about sex. Sound familiar?

The Democrats should wait for Mueller to complete his investigation and only then consider strategies. Articles of impeachment may seem satisfying to certain partisans, but if there is no realistic chance of conviction in the Senate, impeachment will only further inflame and divide the country, and probably do the almost impossible: make Trump into a sympathetic figure.

A House impeachment without a solid chance of removal by the Senate would be grandstanding, and Democrats should avoid grandstanding. Instead, they should try to legislate and govern. The House should concentrate on passing good, cogent, well-researched legislation. Okay, okay, I know that that is a radical notion. Congress, whose constitutional purpose is to pass legislation, no longer seems to be much concerned with legislating. More often, a congressional party’s primary goal is to score political points. However, Democrats should realize that legislation that would help the country can be both good for the country and good for politics.

Objections will come that working on substantive legislation is a waste of effort because nothing that the Democrats propose will stand a chance of passage. The Republican-controlled Senate will simply kill any House initiative. But not so fast. What if House Democrats concentrated on legislative measures that President Trump has promised to support. We forget that there are important areas of apparent agreement between the rivals.

On what issues do Democrats agree with Trump? President Trump campaigned on increased infrastructure spending. As with many of his promises, he was not consistent in what he pledged–500 billion dollars, a trillion dollars, 1.5 trillion dollars. Nevertheless, more infrastructure spending was promised. He loudly and proudly pledged that he would “build the next generation of roads, bridges, railways, tunnels, sea ports and airports that our country deserves.”

Democrats agree with that, and the House should pass an infrastructure bill for the needs most obvious to many Americans: roads, bridges, tunnels, and the like—the stuff that Donald Trump said that he was going to improve. Such a law would produce many benefits: It would show actual governing; it would improve the everyday lives of many, it would further commerce and, therefore, the economy. This is a no-brainer–is there anyone who does not think we need such infrastructure improvement?

The House, however, should not stop at the traditional hard-hat areas. Our power grid was largely built fifty or more years ago, and many have said that it is not adequate for the twenty-first century—indeed that it poses national security risks. I don’t know if that is true, but I am willing to bet that many (most?) in Congress don’t know either.

Legislative hearings can serve purposes other than trying to score political points. They can collect information about problems and can suggest workable ideas that can be turned into legislation that would ameliorate the problems. Good hearings about our aging power grid might accomplish such things. At a minimum, the hearings could help educate Congress and the country and have the added political bonus of showing that the Democrats are truly interested in governing and helping the country. From the information and proposals garnered from such hearings, the House should pass a bill that would improve our power grid.

(continued January 4)