Republican self-destruction, Part 2

Posted by Shyam Moondra

On Friday, under the leadership of Speaker John Boehner, the House passed the Continuing Resolution (CR) bill that will fund the government through November but, at the same time, de-fund Obamacare. The vote was largely on party lines. The Senate Majority Leader, Harry Reid, said that this CR bill is "dead, dead" in the Senate. President Barack Obama has said that even if the Senate miraculously passes this bill, he will veto it. So the question is why would House Republicans push this bill, knowing full well that it could never become the law, and unnecessarily risk a possible government shutdown in ten days. Also, the House Republicans are refusing to increase the debt ceiling unless Obama agrees to additional spending cuts, setting the stage for the government to default on its debt. Last time, when Republicans tried this approach in 2011, the government debt got downgraded from AAA to AA+. Now we are on the verge of another downgrade from AA+ to AA, which will dramatically increase the interest payments due on national debt, and thus sharply increase the budget deficit. It is clear that the House Republicans have no strategy beyond passing the CR bill or refusing to increase the debt ceiling; they have not really thought through the consequences of their actions or figured out the endgame.

The Republican approach is so wrong at so many different levels:

• First, they want to reduce the budget deficit, but their actions would actually put upward pressure on interest rates and thus lead to higher deficit because of increased interest payments on debt. 

• Second, de-funding a program, which was approved by the Congress, signed into law by the president, and subsequently upheld by the USSC, is not the proper way to get rid of that program. If they really think that Obamacare is a bad idea, then the correct way to get rid off it is to offer amendments or an alternative health care proposal, get it passed in the House and Senate, and have the president sign it. That's how democracy works. You cannot threaten to shut down the government (which means military personnel fighting in Afghanistan will not get their paychecks and elderly people will be denied their monthly Social Security checks) unless you get what you want. Republicans cannot use blackmail as a tool to achieve their political goals. If this blackmail worked, could Republicans use it again to de-fund other programs such as Medicaid, Medicare, or any other program that they didn't like? What we will have then is not democracy but chaos.

• Third, the Congressional Republicans have an approval rating of only 12% compared with Obama's 45%; so the question is why would Republicans threaten to shut down the government and end up paying a huge price at the ballot box? Last time, when Republicans played this game in 2011, they failed to win the presidency and lost seats in House and Senate in the 2012 election - so why would Republicans play the same game and hope to achieve a different outcome in the 2014 election? The chances are that they will actually lose the control of the House in 2014.

• Fourth, in 2011, Republicans' threat to shut down government crashed the stock markets and reduced business confidence, which led to corporations putting their capital expansion plans on hold. These ramifications led to reduced job prospects and slower economic growth. If Republicans shut down government this time, the people, with their decimated 401(K) and IRA accounts, will again blame the Republicans for their losses.

On the question of increasing the debt ceiling, Obama is right in saying that Congress passed the spending appropriation bills and they alone are responsible for making sure that the United States does not become a dead beat on its debt. The Congress must pass a clean bill increasing the debt ceiling so the government does not default on its debt and become a laughing stock around the world. However, in the long-term, reducing budget deficit and debt is of paramount importance to preserve and enhance our prosperity for the future generations. Therefore, Democrats and Republicans must urgently work together to address the dislocations caused by unwise across-the-board cuts under sequestration and hammer out a balanced plan that would increase revenues via tax reforms and also cut spending through meaningful reforms of the entitlement programs. The voters desperately want the Congress and Obama to work together and reach a compromise on the issues of budget deficit and national debt.

Putin is dead wrong to question America's "exceptionalism"

Posted by Shyam Moondra 

Last week, President Barack Obama gave a press conference and also a televised speech to the nation on the Syrian crisis in which he explained why he thought the United States of America is exceptional. Obama said, “we have a core set of values that are enshrined in our Constitution, in our body of law, in our democratic practices, in our belief in free speech and equality, that, though imperfect, are exceptional…I see no contradiction between believing that America has a continued extraordinary role in leading the world towards peace and prosperity and recognizing that leadership is incumbent, depends on, our ability to create partnerships because we can’t solve these problems alone.” Last Wednesday, Russia's President Vladimir Putin penned an Op-Ed piece on The New York Times' website, which was highly critical of the U.S. foreign policy and it questioned Obama's claim of American "exceptionalism." Ironically, what is exceptional about all this is that a prominent American newspaper afforded Putin a platform for criticizing America, reflecting the cornerstone of our democratic principles – the freedom of press. In Russia, the critics of Putin either end up in jail on trumped-up charges or they mysteriously disappear or are found dead.

The article by Putin rankled many government officials. Speaker of the House, John Boehner, said that he felt "insulted." The Chairman of Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Robert Menendez, said that he felt like vomiting. Former Speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich, called Putin a "dictator" and a "thug." The remark by Putin that particularly incensed many in the U.S. was: "It is extremely dangerous to encourage people to see themselves as exceptional, whatever the motivation……we are all different, but when we ask for the Lord's blessings, we must not forget that God created us equal." It's interesting to note that those words came from the same man who recently approved an anti-gay law in Russia. While it's true that people are created equal, their capacity for greatness is determined by the environment in which they live. In Russia, the people lack basic human rights, there is no free press, the judiciary is a manipulative tool of the government, and government officials are corrupted to the hilt (Putin is rumored to have stashed away billions of dollars in secret bank accounts in western countries, even while he claims to be a "humble public servant" earning a meager $187,000 a year as President of Russia).

Below is a list of facts that do support Obama’s statement on why he thought America is exceptional:

• In the U.S., the basic human rights, including the right to pursue happiness, is ingrained in the constitution. In authoritative countries, such as Russia, the rights are preserved for the top elite in the government. The people in countries that are governed coercively can never achieve their full potential. The U.S. democratic institutions derive power from the consent of the people. Our core belief is best exemplified by President Ronald Reagan, who once said, "freedom is not the sole prerogative of a chosen few – it's the universal right of all God's children."

• The U.S. leadership was indispensable in fighting World Wars I and II. Americans sacrificed their lives in helping others to stand up against tyrants such as Adolph Hitler and against nationalist Serbians who engaged in ethnic cleansing by killing innocent Muslim minorities. On the other hand, Russia stood by tyrants in Serbia, Iraq, Syria, and elsewhere.

• The U.S. is the strongest country in the world not because it has homogeneous population but because of its diversity that makes the whole stronger than the piece parts. Today, minorities such as African Americans, Hispanics, Asians, Native Americans, and Pacific Islanders account for about 36% of the total population.

• Americans are the most hardworking people among the industrialized nations. The 40-hour week, adopted after the Great Depression, has stuck through decades. This is over 15% more than the average weekly hours for European countries. It is estimated that an average German worker puts in 394 hours less than an American worker per year.

• The U.S. is the greatest economic and military power in the world. The U.S. economy produces almost one-fourth of the world's wealth.

• The U.S. has produced 270 Nobel Laureates, which is the highest in the world (comparing with only 14 for Russia).

• In 1961, President John F. Kennedy challenged NASA to land a man on the moon before the end of decade (i.e., 1970). On July 20, 1969, Apollo 11 astronaut Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon and uttered the words, "That's one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind." America is indeed a can-do country.

• NASA's breathtaking Voyager program, the longest continuously operating spacecraft in deep space that began in 1977 to explore the outer planets in our solar system, is one of the most significant technological achievements in the annals of the history of science. Recently, Voyager 1 entered the interstellar space after streaking through space for 35 years.

• The half of the world's 100 most reputable universities are located in the U.S. The U.S. universities are most favored by the foreign students for their higher studies. The U.S. scientists and engineers account for more than half of all patents issued in the last five years.

• The Internet, one of the world's greatest inventions ever, was first conceived in the labs of MIT in Boston, Massachusetts during the early 1960's.

• American social media technologies such as Facebook and Twitter helped spark the Arab Spring that brought democracy in Tunisia, Libya, and Egypt – the countries that were previously ruled by brutal dictators for decades.

• The U.S., as the largest contributor, pays almost 22% of the total budget of the United Nations Organization, even though Americans account for only about 4% of the total world population.

• The U.S. is the most generous country in the world, with an annual foreign aid budget of over $56 billion. We are almost always the biggest donor in case of natural disasters or humanitarian catastrophe created by conflicts around the world.

• Silicon Valley and other parts of the U.S. are full of immigrants who produced breathtaking technologies that continually change the ways we live and work, and these immigrants enriched themselves beyond their wildest dreams. A good example of such an immigrant is Google's co-founder and billionaire, Sergey Brin, who was born in Russia. His family emigrated to the U.S. in 1979 to escape Jewish persecution in their home country.

• American athletes ranked number one in terms of the total medal count at the last Summer Olympics held in London in 2012 (104 medals) and at the last Winter Olympics held in Vancouver, Canada in 2010 (37 medals).

• Hollywood movies, that personify Americanism, are loved by the people around the world. The movies produced by any other country don't even come close in terms of popularity enjoyed by the Hollywood movies. The annual Oscar award show is viewed by more than one billion people in over 200 countries.

• The U.S. brands rank among the most popular in the world. Names such as Apple, McDonald's, KFC, Coca-Cola, Google, Facebook, Twitter, Disney, Starbucks, FedEx, Avon, Microsoft, Intel, Cisco, Wal-Mart, Amazon, eBay, Gillette, Kraft, Kellogg's, Colgate, Nike, Pepsi, Visa, Boeing, Caterpillar, Yahoo, Johnson & Johnson, General Electric, and many more are everywhere around the globe. These American brands demonstrate the ingenuity of American entrepreneurship.

Does all of the above make America "exceptional"? You bet it does. Putin overshot his rhetoric in trying to shoot down America but in the process he brought focus on what’s terribly wrong with Russia.