Can Happy Days Be Here Again?

Now that Congress has rejected the terrible Wall Street bailout, we have two options: enact a good bill or do nothing. Either of these options would be better than trying to pass the bill that was rejected by Republicans and even some Democrats.

If we are going to try to do something before the election, here are some provisions that a new bill must include if Republicans are going to support it:

1. The worst provision of the bailout bill was the cap on executive compensation. Many of these executives are already underpaid and they are suffering terribly as their stock options become worthless. One reason why some companies have not performed as well as they should have was that their executives were too distracted trying to make ends meet to focus on their jobs and they were worried about what will happen to them if they become unemployed. They are no doubt chilled by what happened to AIG CEO Martin J Sullivan when he resigned in July after AIG wrote down $20 billion in losses on assets linked to subprime mortgages. He got a measly severance package that only amounted to $47 million, which will be worth even less in 2009 dollars if the economy continues in the direction it’s headed. What incentive are executives going to have to work hard and pull their companies out of debt if we cap their compensation and how are we going to convince some poorly performing executives to resign if we don’t promise them hefty golden parachutes?

2. Even worse, the bailout bill contained no provisions guaranteeing Christmas bonuses for Wall Street workers. Doesn’t anyone in Congress understand how Wall Street works? Telling Wall Street workers that Santa Claus might not come this year would be devastating for our economy, which depends on the infusion of cash it gets each Christmas as investment bankers spend their bonus checks buying condominiums and boats and indulging in lavish meals in luxury restaurants. How can we hope to get out of this economic slump if we do not guarantee the Christmas bonuses that keep our economy going?

3. As Larry Kudlow pointed out the bailout bill went “beyond France into pure socialism” and we all know that socialism (not to mention anything French) is just about the worst thing there is. “If the U.S. government is going to start to own all of our financial institutions,” wrote Kudlow, “all these markets will sink like stones.” So how can the government buy up all of these assets but avoid owning financial institutions? There is a very simple solution. The government could immediately privatize these assets by giving them away to outgoing members of the Bush Administration, who will be losing their jobs in January and forced to fend for themselves in an uncertain economy. That would kill two birds with one stone: America would be saved from socialism and former members of the Bush Administration would be spared the indignity of having to take jobs as lobbyists or beg their friends for seats on corporate boards.

4. If Democrats expect Republicans to vote for any bailout bill, it must include a gag rule that prevents Democrats from saying nasty things about them. According to House Minority Leader John Boehner, Nancy Pelosi’s very mean and partisan speech “poisoned” the debate and “caused a number of members we thought we could get to go south.” Although Barney Frank promised to talk “uncharacteristically nice” to Republicans who decided not to vote for the bill because of Pelosi’s statements, that will not be enough. Republicans are not fools. They need a guarantee in writing that Democrats will not ridicule Republicans in the days leading up to the election and try to blame them for the financial crisis. “Now is not the time to fix the blame," said John McCain, blaming "Senator Obama and his allies in Congress" for infusing "unnecessary partisanship into the process."

5. The bill must include anti-illegal immigrant provisions. As Rep. Tom Tancredo pointed out, this economic crisis is mostly the fault of illegal aliens. Although he didn’t have exact figures on the number of illegal aliens who fraudulently purchased homes, he is certain that illegal aliens are somehow to blame. “We need to ensure that the ‘American Dream’ remains within reach of American families – and that means enacting some long overdue safeguards that prevent illegal aliens and their unscrupulous allies in the financial industry from undermining its integrity,” said Tancredo in a press release. Although he promised to oppose any bill that did not include safeguards forcing illegal aliens to live on the streets (with an exception, of course, for any “wealthy foreign real estate investor or financier of a vacation home”) and then voted for the bill anyway and deleted this press release from his website, I’m sure he won’t make that mistake again. If Democrats expect Tancredo and other Republicans to vote for the next bill, it must include these safeguards and a statement blaming illegal immigrants for our financial woes, written in English only.

6. The bill must include a cut in the capital gains tax. Why? Because Republicans will not vote for any finance bill that does not include a cut in the capital gains tax, which will eventually trickle down and help average Americans.

If a bill does not include all of these provisions then Republicans should vote against it, which brings us to Option 2: doing nothing. Some economists believe that doing nothing could result in another Great Depression, but is that such a bad thing? There is a reason it was called the Great Depression and not, say, the Terrible Depression. According to economist J. Bradford Delong, members of the Hoover Administration, influenced by the theories of Austrian economists like Friedrich von Hayek and Joesph Schumpeter, believed “that in the long run the Great Depression would turn out to have been ‘good medicine’ for the economy.” Unfortunately, Hoover was swept out of office before this theory could be tested and Franklin Roosevelt enacted all kinds of socialistic policies that bedevil us to this day. So perhaps the best thing we could do is do nothing and bring on another Great Depression, but let’s do it right this time. Sure, there would be some temporary pain, and some people might be forced to wait in bread lines and sell apples in the street, but in the long run it would be better for our economy to shake out the weak links. Some Republicans might be reluctant to come out in support of triggering a new Great Depression in an election year so John McCain is going to have to show some leadership, the kind of leadership he showed in scuttling the first bill, to bring Republicans in Congress around. Coming out in favor of a Great Depression would show voters that John McCain really is a new kind of leader and it might just be the Hail Mary pass that wins him the election.

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What Eliot Spitzer Should Say To Save His Career

Eliot Spitzer is no doubt wondering what he can do to save his career now that it has been revealed that he paid a high-class prostitute for sex. When New Jersey governor Jim McGreevey was being sued for sexual harassment by his former male lover, Golan Cipel, whom McGreevey had appointed as his homeland security advisor, the governor asked the gay-rights group the Human Rights Campaign for advice about what he should say. The group, which has always tried to be very helpful to corrupt politicians, recommended that he refer to himself as a "gay-American."

Sadly, there is no well-funded lobbyist group for men who enjoy the services of prostitutes that Eliot Spitzer can turn to -- at least not yet -- but if there were, I am sure they would give Spitzer the same advice the HRC gave McGreevey: he should become the first sitting governor in American history to say the words, "At a point in every person's life, one has to look deeply into the mirror of one's soul and decide one's unique truth in the world, not as we may want to see it or hope to see it, but as it is. And so, my truth is that I am a whoremonger-American."

Many of our founding fathers, men like Benjamin Franklin, for example, were whoremonger-Americans. In more recent times a number of great political men have patronized prostitutes, men like Jerry Springer, Rep. Joe Waggonner, Rep. Allan Howe, Rep. Fred Richmond, Dick Morris and most recently Louisiana Senator David Vitter, and these are just the ones who got caught. Many of these men have been forced to live in shame for who they are and their political careers have been ruined. But is that fair?

In this era of loosening sexual morality is whoremongering really the worst sin? Is it more of a sin than homosexuality? Is it more of a sin than committing adultery for free? According to the 1948 Kinsey report, 70% of American men patronized prostitutes at least once. A 1994 survey by Edward O. Laumann put this figure at 15%. While it is possible that Kinsey's data was abnormally high, it is also possible that Laumann's lower figure may be accounted for by the fact that fewer men have needed to pay for sex in the decades since the 1950s because of changing sexual mores. Now certainly there are many men who still cannot get a woman to sleep with them for free no matter how loose sexual mores become. For men like Eliot Spitzer and David Vitter, it may be impossible to find a woman who is willing to sleep with them unless they pay for it, and in the case of Spitzer, unless he pays a lot. (In fact, the picture that accompanies this post may give a clue as to why Spitzer may have needed to pay for sex.) But isn't it possible that for Spitzer and Vitter, men who have dedicated their lives to upholding virtue and morality, patronizing prostitutes is a way of rejecting the sexual immorality of the present and returning to the traditional mores of the past when there were rules about who successful men could sleep with?

Of course, like most conservatives, I deplore the loosening sexual mores of our time. I would like to return to the 1950s when men who wanted extramarital sex had to pay for it at great personal risk. Indeed, the way our society has defined sexual deviancy down with its acceptance homosexuality, illegitimacy, adultery and premarital sex has made the lives of men like Spitzer and Vitter even more difficult. Gay marriage has weakened their own marriages (a fact that Spitzer, a supporter of gay marriage, may have learned too late) and yet they may be unable or unwilling to cheat on their wives the way men like John McCain, Bill Clinton, Rudy Giuliani, Newt Gingrich and many other politicians have. While these politicians lured decent women into committing adultery, Spitzer and Vitter instead committed adultery with women who were already fallen and they did so at great financial cost and risk to their careers. Whether because of necessity or a deep-seated belief in traditional values, Spitzer and Vitter have rejected the free-sex, anything goes sexual mores of our era and lived by the sexual code of another time, a simpler, better time. Maybe Vitter and Spitzer could not have found women who wanted to sleep with them for free, but the fact is they went ahead and paid for it. Should they be condemned more than men like McCain, Clinton, Giuliani and Gingrich just because they courageously limited their whoremongering to women who had already lost their virtue?

Now some people say that Vitter and Spitzer are hypocrites. Vitter has been a crusader for family values and Spitzer prosecuted prostitution rings with the same zeal that has now been loosed on the prostitution ring he patronized, reportedly even at the time he was breaking up other rings that apparently withheld their services from him. But as I have said before, hypocrisy is not necessarily a bad thing. Ted Haggard recognized that that having meth-fueled sex with a gay prostitute was wrong, which is far superior to having meth-fueled sex with a gay prostitute and thinking it was a good thing. Spitzer and Vitter recognize more than anyone how terrible it is that the loose sexual mores of our time have driven them to seek the succor of prostitutes. They know first-hand what it is like to be the victims of the sexual immorality that is all around us and because of that they have made it their life's work to try to prevent other men from making the same mistakes they have. Shouldn't that count for something?

While I cannot deny the glee I feel that a holier-than-thou Democrat who is supporting Hillary Clinton has been hoist on his own petard, I cannot in good conscience say that Spitzer should resign, while Vitter, whose seat would be filled with a Democrat if he quit, should not. I am not a hypocrite when it comes to hypocrisy.

Instead of resigning, Spitzer should admit that, like many American men, he is a whoremonger-American, and while that may not be a good thing, it is better than the alternative. Why should his career be ruined when many other politicians have survived cheating on their wives only because he paid a professional instead of sullying the reputation of a decent woman? Whoremonger-Americans have rejected the sexual immorality of our era. They want to return to the sexual immorality of the past, which was not quite as bad. Instead of luring good women into becoming adulterers, they only consort with women who are already fallen. They want to return us to an era when men tried to be faithful to their wives and if they couldn't be faithful at least they paid a professional. Whoremonger-Americans like Spitzer and Vitter are victims of a sexual double standard that gives men a pass if they lure moral women into sexual immorality but condemns men who try to stop the spread of sexual immorality by sleeping with prostitutes who have already been morally compromised and paying handsome compensation for it.

I am not saying that Spitzer should be proud of being a whoremonger-American the way Jim McGreevey is proud of spending so many years in the closet in order to avoid risk to his political career, giving his lover a job for which he was unqualified and then finally admitting the truth when he had no other choice. For Spitzer admitting he is a whoremonger-American would be more akin to an Alcoholics Anonymous member saying, "I am an alcoholic." But instead of suffering from the disease of alcoholism, Spitzer is a victim of the sickness that has infected our sexually immoral society. By admitting to being whoremonger-Americans, men like Spitzer would not just be helping themselves but they would be helping America get itself on the 12-step program back to sexual sobriety.

Of course, in a perfect world men would be faithful to their wives and alcoholics wouldn't drink. No one believes that more than whoremonger-Americans like Spitzer and Vitter, who might have been faithful to their wives if they weren't constantly bombarded with sexual imagery from the media. But instead of condemning whoremonger-Americans we should recognize them as heroes who have resisted the temptation of freely available sex and through their own example are returning us to an era when men rarely cheated on their wives and even then only if they could afford it. Spitzer is no saint, but he and Vitter are part of a movement of men who want to turn back the clock to a more virtuous era, a time that may not have been perfect but was better than we have now. Whoremonger-Americans like Spitzer and Vitter are pioneers and like many pioneers they are unfairly being singled out. Men are not all going to be faithful to their wives overnight, but by limiting their adultery to paid professionals, Spitzer, Vitter and other whoremonger-Americans have taken one small step toward that goal and for that they should be congratulated not driven from office.

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Technorati Tags: Jon Swift, Eliot Spitzer, 2008 Election, Republicans, Democrats, Hillary Clinton, David Vitter, Whoremonger-Americans, Politics

RAMs and SHEEP

Douglas Schoen, a former advisor to Bill Clinton and New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, recently wrote a piece for the Washington Post in which he claims that this year's election may be decided by a block of voters he calls "restless and anxious moderates," or RAMs. "Most come from the third of the electorate that identifies itself as independent, but some Democrats and Republicans have also joined this new bloc," Schoen writes. "These voters tend to be practical, non-ideological and unabashedly results-oriented people such as Gary Butler, 60, who lives in Show Low, Ariz. Both parties, he says, 'are way too far apart, and nobody is looking out for the good of the people.'" Pollsters love to come up with fancy new names for this year's swing voters, who usually are not that much different from swing voters in previous elections. They are political sporks, people who can't make up their minds if they are really Republicans or Democrats, liberals or conservatives, whether they are called yuppies, Reagan Democrats, soccer moms, security moms, NASCAR dads or office park dads. Pollsters love these people because they can charge clients in either political party enormous sums of money to explain how to reach them.

But this election is not going to be decided by RAMs or any of these other groups that pollsters and political consultants like to re-invent every election cycle. This election is going to be decided by the same people who decide every election. I call them Scared High-strung Easily-manipulated Egocentric Pinheads or SHEEP. SHEEP are flaky not particularly bright voters who make up their minds at the last minute and vote instinctively for whichever candidate promises them the most and frightens them the least. They are people like Betty Bukowsky, 49, who lives in Dinkytown, Minn., who told me, "There's a Presidential election this year?"

"Will you stop calling my house during dinner time?" another SHEEP told me.

SHEEP are barely paying any attention to the election now, though most have a vague idea that the candidates are "some black guy, the woman Bill cheated on with Monica-something and a really, really old man who was in World War II or Vietnam or something and still hasn't gotten over it." Most of them don't vote in primaries because they aren't quite sure what primaries are. As the summer rolls around, they will start to form concrete opinions about the candidates based on 30-second attack ads and jokes on late-night talk shows. And come November, this group is virtually certain to determine the winner of the presidential race.

SHEEP don't really know what they want. SHEEP may tell gullible pollsters they are looking for substance and straight talk and an end to partisan bickering but in reality they are like high school girls who say they want to date a guy who is smart and sensitive and dependable and really, really cares about them but go to the prom with the first guy on the football team who asks them. The last thing SHEEP want to hear is straight talk, no matter what they tell pollsters. They want a candidate who will tell them exactly what they want to hear and looks good saying it, someone who will protect them from scary things like terrorist attacks or universal health care. They want a candidate who promises to pay attention to people just like them and won't give away things to people who are not like them who don't deserve it because they don't work as hard and nobody should get anything for free.

The political parties don't need to hire expensive consultants to tell them how to reach these people. All they have to do is define their opponent in a way that will provide easy fodder for Jay Leno's joke writers, make good skits on Saturday Night Live and give pundits something to repeat over and over again, and the SHEEP will fall into line. And candidates just need to come up with snappy put-downs of their opponents and vague, feel-good slogans and avoid saying or doing anything that will become a popular YouTube video and get replayed endlessly on cable news stations.

Republicans already know how to reach these voters and most Democrats will probably never learn (except for Bill Clinton who just got lucky). By November the SHEEP will have decided that one of the candidates really icks them out and the other candidate isn't so bad. And SHEEP are never wrong. If the person they voted for turns out not to be so great after all, they will say that the alternative would have been so much worse. "Just imagine how bad things would be if the other guy won," they will say and all the other SHEEP will nod along.

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Technorati Tags: Jon Swift, RAMs, 2008 Election, Republicans, Democrats, Bill Clinton, Politics