Regular readers may recall that I supported Bush for President as the “least bad” alternative. Certainly his domestic agenda was nothing for a libertarian to crow about, but on most issues his opposition was at least as bad.
Bush is certainly doing what he can these days to put the “bad” in least bad.
One of the areas where this libertarian could confidently point to Bush as better was on tax policy. He cut taxes, and his Democratic opposition was all about raising them. Unfortunately, the Bush administration is now floating tax “reform” that includes limitation of the mortgage deduction, a great way to raise revenue and disrupt the economy by assuring a hard landing from our current mortgage-fuleded credit bubble.
While the usual Democratic lament when faced with the Republican budget agenda has been some combination of “they aren’t spending enough” (the Dems wanted to spend more on the brobdingnagian presription drug benefit) and “they aren’t raising taxes to pay for this”, the Republican spending spree has gotten so far out of control that the normally rock-solid claim that the Dems would spend more is getting harder to make.
And finally, we come to his nomination of crony Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court. Now, the reasons for disappointment in this pick are multiple.
First, Bush blinked on the diversity/affirmative action front. You may recall that his first pick to replace Sandra Day O’Connor was a man, John Roberts, a nice thumb-in-the-eye for the diversity crowd. However, Roberts was shifted over to fill Rehnquist’s seat, and Bush explicitly told his crew to find a woman to replace O’Connor, pandering to the worst kind of identity politics.
And he apparently did so based on his confidence that she would vote to overturn Roe v. Wade, the decision creating a right to abortion in the US. Now, as a matter of Constitution law, Roe is a terrible decision, and should be overturned pronto. However, there is every reason to believe that Bush has sold a seat on the Supreme Court, for a single vote on a single issue, to a woman who will be reliably statist and anti-Constitutional.
Harriet Miers is from Dallas, and the word here is that she is a pretty squishy liberal who found God (conveniently, just about the time that being an evangelical became a real entre into the Dallas power structure, but lets give her the benefit of the doubt on that). There is no reason whatsoever to believe that she won’t join the anti-individual rights wing of the Court, and some pretty good indications that she will. From what I hear from people who have reason to know, she is a very conventional thinker whose strengths have always been political, not intellectual, and who has never shown a shred of political courage in her life.
She is likely to be very much in the mold of Sandra Day O’Connor and David Souter, in other words, with the occasional anti-gay and anti-abortion vote thrown in.
Another opportunity blown. Humbug.
Bush is a long time proponent of racial quotas (eg U of Michigan case) and apparently he wanted to appoint AG Gonzalez (another crony) in part so he could go down in history as the President who appointed the first Hispanic to the SCOTUS. His first term was marked by left wing policies – even the justifications for invading and occupying Iraq were right down Christopher Hitchens’ street. There is no excuse for American conservatives who voted for Bush, especially as a Kerry administration would’ve been checked by a Republican Congress.
Matra
“There is no excuse for American conservatives who voted for Bush, especially as a Kerry administration would’ve been checked by a Republican Congress.”
One word: nonsense.
I’d gladly give up the mortgage deduction and all of the other “tax-code social engineering” nonsense in exchange for a flat tax.
The strange thing is that when asked if they would prefer a flat tax of 20% and keep the mortgage deduction or a flat rate of 17% and give up the deduction most people say the higher rate and “keep my deduction.” (I made up the percentages I didn’t have time to look it up.) Boggles the mind.
I dislike “tax breaks” and “tax deductible” expenditures. It reeks of bureaucrats playing favorites with one thing or another.
Sure, writing this into law *now* of all times would hurt the large number of people with mortgages to pay who benefit from it. I suppose that’s why the stock market does better when Congress is not in session — changing the rules of the game constantly creates uncertainty, which is death to investment and planning ahead for the future.
As a general principle, however, isn’t getting rid of special exemptions in the tax code a good thing? Getting rid of exemptions for the better-off is something even the Democrats will like, after an obligatory round of denouncing “Bushitler” of course.
As for Roe v Wade, well, I don’t quite understand how the same court can see a constitutionally protected right to abortion, yet can’t find the wording in the same document to protect the right to property. One would seem more obvious than the other, IE, the right to keep your own damn property from other private individuals would seem to come first.
It just seems awfully inconsistant. I could understand having both abortion protected and emminent domain limited to strictly public projects, or see neither abortion nor property rights protected by the federal government, but to see one and not the other, especially which particular ones, is rather bizarre.
Whatever …
“Harriet Miers is from Dallas, and the word here is that she is a pretty squishy liberal who found God.” Well, at least American squishy liberals acknowledge a god, unlike British liberals who only find god when they look in the mirror.
That said, my god (so to speak), no more Sandra Day O’Connells! How much more can the American Constitution take?
A SMU-er on the Supreme Court? Well, not the best pick, but clearly better than O’Connor. Texas’ ideological core leans towards libertarianism: Texas liberals and conservatives (American usage) tend to be left-libertarians and right-libertarians once you go a ways under the surface. That tends to hold true at SMU as well. (Though it’s certainly not where folks in Texas go because they’re smart.)
I held my nose and voted for Bush, and for Pete Sessions (local Republican strategic vote, as his opponent had pushed some strongly collectivist legislation — and went down in flames b/c of it). The appalling truth as this ideologue sees it is that I’ll have to do the same thing, because the Democratic response to the Islamofascists (and the team they would build to handle the matter) is so bad that I don’t really have a choice but to vote Republican.
That the Republicans can honestly rub my nose in said fact is more than slightly galling.
As a general principle, however, isn’t getting rid of special exemptions in the tax code a good thing?
Yeah, when its paired with rate cuts. This isn’t getting rid of an exemption, though, it is limiting one, but leaving it on the books, in order to raise revenue. In effect, it makes taxes even more “progressive.” Feh.
Well, not the best pick, but clearly better than O’Connor. Texas’ ideological core leans towards libertarianism
There’s little reason to believe Miers does. Hell, apart from her evangelical beliefs (which can easily turn into a driver for state action), I don’t think she has an ideological core. She said some nice things about the right to keep and bear arms, once, but her history as a practicing attorney and as a public official is as a behind the scenes fixer. Hell, she even rigged the selection process for this Supreme Court seat (she was in charge of vetting candidates, and lo and behold the process she ran recommended her!).
I dunno about you, but a political fixer is not my idea of a good Justice.
Of course not… (Word on the street from John Fund is that Miers was vetted behind her back.) but an uninspired literal reading of matters sounds to me to be a grand improvement over torturous constitutional yoga any day.
Are you sure she’s an evangelical – rather than just a Presbytarian, or a Methodist, say? I’d say proposing an evangelical nominee for the Supreme Court would not be something Bush would do.
OTOH, I find the idea of a political fixer sitting on the Supreme Court horrifying.
There isn’t an official listing of “evangelical” churches, but, yeah, the Valley View Christian Church would make the cut.
HA-ha!
Screwed again by your tiny god!
I notice that Cowboy Bob Dean didn’t once mention the fiasco in Iraq.
Don’t you think that GWBs vanity war and the huge deficits and foreign debt he has incurred to pay for it, at least as bad as the actions that Cowboy Bob weeps about?
… limitation of the mortgage deduction, a great way to raise revenue and disrupt the economy by assuring a hard landing from our current mortgage-fuleded credit bubble.
You do realize that this complaint applies substantially to the ending of any special tax break or deduction, yes? This, incidentally, is why Donald Trump and others really hated the last tax reform in 1987, which eliminated special tax shelters that made it profitable to hold inefficient money-losing real estate (and other ventures) “for tax purposes.” The change in the tax law of course dramatically reduced the value of that real estate, ending that real estate bubble and contributing to the S&L crisis.
Of course, in the long term it’s better for the economy for the tax policy to not encourage money to be invested into money-losing, inefficient property. But in the short term it certainly hurt the real estate market, as expected.
Just another fair-weather libertarian. Don’t touch my special tax breaks and treatment. Just goes to show that once government starts doing something, people become dependent on it, make decisions based on it, and fight tooth and nail to keep that inefficiency that benefits them in place.
The deduction raises the value of homes, so it’s really not clear that it helps out home ownership. Repealing it would help people looking to buy a home and hurt people who already have one. Limiting it to value up to $300,000, as proposed, would of course affect things over that amount.
Scrapping it and reducing the top rate in response would be revenue-neutral for most people and more economically efficient for society.
Nelson, you make me blush calling me a cowboy. I know some real cowboys, and in many ways I can only aspire to be what they are.
Anyhoo, I don’t regard the Iraq war as a fiasco. Its a war, not a bake sale, and its going about as well as wars do, given that we have decided to go about the hard way (no hot pursuit into neighboring safe havens, minimal civilian casualties, etc.)
We are playing an interesting combination of containment and forward defense in the Mideast, and so far its working quite well.
Ask yourself, whose global strategic position has improved as against the other in the last three years, us or the jihadis?
Iraq is win-or-die for them, and they ain’t winning. That means we are. Lots can go wrong, etc., etc., but so far the forces of good are doing alright.
RINO Alert:
“Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers is largely viewed as a staunch Bush supporter and Republican insider, but in the not too distant past she was a financial backer of Al Gore and the Democrats, NewsMax has learned.
“In 1987 Miers gave $1,000 to the primary campaign of Democratic Sen. Lloyd Bentsen, a fellow Texan who also ran with Michael Dukakis on his party’s ticket against Bush’s father in 1988.
“During that presidential campaign, Miers contributed $1,000 to the Albert Gore for President Committee, as well as $1,000 to the Democratic National Committee. Gore lost the Democratic primaries to Dukakis”
(Newsmax.com, October 3, 2005)
The only ‘ism’ the Bush clan believes in is nepotism.
The only ‘ism’ the Bush clan believes in is nepotism.
There are plenty of legitimate reasons to call it nepotism and an excess of loyalty to cronies. However, to be fair, the fact that Miers supported people who ran against his father in political campaigns is, um, hardly one of the most convincing. Taken in the abstract, it would almost seem to argue against it even.
No, what it argues is that the illusion of democratic choice in US politics is overborne by the hiring of ‘enemies’ who can readily be converted into acolytes, and even presented as fit to serve on SCOTUS after a decent interval. But we knew all that already.
The jihadis are a side show, albeit an engaging one just now. For the real action, look East, young dude.
I voted for Bush in 2004 because I knew he would f*ck the
system worse than Kerry. He has perfomed admirally!
Crash the system!
Am I being hopelessly nieve or aren’t Supreme Court justices meant to be picked on their skill as lawyers and their jurisprudential acumen not their political views.
Actually, dunderheid, at that level, they’re supposed to be philosophically qualified. Not doctrinally, but have the ability to think how laws, the people, the constitution, and the government interact. They are to understand the concepts and philosophy of the constitution, not just each statement as a stand alone.
A good judge will enforce any law with technical precision. One sign of the difference on the Supreme Court, they aren’t even called ‘judges’. They’re called ‘justices’.
This idea of candidates not telegraphing a punch on a particular case has been corrupted into keeping their interpretation of the constitution a secret.
These guys control our future more than even presidents. We HAVE to know how they interpret the constitution.
Fair point well put, midwesterner. However i would still argue that there is something wrong when 9 individuals are not only free to interpret a constitution but in effect adapt and adjust it. The focus of my criticism is not the justices themselves but both the constitution itself and the political classes. In an ideal world a judge should be able to look at a law or article of constitution and be able to interpret its meaning without being able to indulge his own personal opinions and inclinations. Now that is nigh on impossible but the legislative and executive should none the less seek to minimise it as much as is humanly possible. If you don’t then you are left with the situation seen in SCOTUS.
Without seeming to be too overly patriotic the american situation highlights one advantage of having an unwritten constitution(if one excludes the hopefully dead EU one). Our supreme court is as fallible as any and as prone to judicial lawmaking as SCOTUS. However to overrule it the executive and legislative branches need merely to enact a law overriding it. We have no sacred but perhaps ossified constitutional articles that are difficult to overrule or amend.
If the people opposed to her want to ensure Mrs Miers appointment doesn’t increase judicial activism then they should stand up and do something about it. It’s very easy for politicians to criticise unelected lawmakers. But as elected lawmakers they have the moral responsibility and duty to make laws or constitutional amendments that prevent Mrs Miers or any other justice present or future doing anything other but interpret those laws.
Hi dunderheid. You bring up some key points that are key to the essential differences between our systems of government. I’m presuming you are from Great Britain so I’ll refer to ‘your’ and ‘our’ systems of government.
Justices are not, under our constitution, free to ‘adapt and adjust it’. The constitution has within itself a very clearly defined mechanism for change. It is deliberately made a very difficult process. One of the key features of our constitution, missing from your’s, is protection from ‘tyranny by the majority’. To change our constitution typically takes 2/3s of both houses of congress and the approval of 3/4s of the ‘several states’ legislatures. Big government proponents have bypassed this protection by putting ‘judicial activists’ on the court. What judicial activism means in simple terms is the usurping of the powers the constitution granted to the legislature and the states. The most extreme case of court stacking was when FDR attempted to expand the size of the supreme court because he didn’t want to wait for his turn to appoint justices. However, with 3 terms and four elections won, he was able to load it with activists anyway.
Talk about he man who would be king, his third and fourth elections are a good example of why things need to be written down clearly. By tradition no president ever served more than two terms starting with Washington. FDR thought himself better than that (and many other things, too) and broke tradition. Using the honest method of amending the constitution, we the people changed it so that won’t happen again.
Judicial activism is nothing more than hijacking the rights designated to others under the constitution.
Another problem that our founders foresaw, that your system does not well address, is that of government becoming an end unto itself. This is what our founders feared the most. They had been held under an unresponsive government that ignored the people. The whole point of our written constitution is to keep an unassailable leash on the government. Almost worked. But under your system, the parliament has the power not only to rewrite your rights, I believe they can even find a way to rewrite the rules by which they are elected. You are extremely vulnerable to a government that paranoically goes to greater and more intrusive extremes to protect itself, not its people. Ours has done this from time to time, the civil war, civil rights activists, etc, and is doing it right now with our ‘patriot act’. One can only hope that truth in labeling will prevail and the usurped parts of our constitution will be returned.
In summary, the Supreme Court is intended to serve as referee, enforcing and applying the principles, rights and rules in the constitution. There isn’t the slightest need for it to be adapted or adjusted by the courts. That is exclusively the province of the legislature and the states working as specified in the article V. It’s just one more case of some people thinking themselves better than the rest of us and therefore entitled to break the rules.
Hope this helps.