Category Archives: Government & Politics

Federal, State, and Local Government… Taxes, Social Programs, and International Affairs.

Looking on the bright side…

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You know what’s fun about Sequestration? Nothing. That’s what’s fun about sequestration. Now if you’d have asked a slightly different question, the answer would be slightly different. If you asked what’s vaguely entertaining about sequestration, I could legitimately say it’s entertaining to listen to people talk about what they think they know when it’s very obvious that nobody actually knows anything at all… and that whatever plans are put in place can instantly be made pointless should Congress do so much as sneeze. Since it appears to be a given that this thing is going to happen to one degree or another, the only thing left to do is sit back and watch the universe come unglued. Maybe we should make some kind of furlough day drinking game out of it. I haven’t decided yet.

It’s no surprise that as far as I’m concerned both sides are right and both sides are wrong. God knows there’s plenty of fat to cut from government spending, but across the board cuts don’t bother to differentiate it from the muscle and tends to result in cutting “good” government and “bad” government equally. In case anyone is wondering, indiscriminate budget cuts are rarely the hallmark of good decision making. Maybe it’s good politics, but it’s really shitty governance and even more appalling public policy. I’d love to say this is the last time I’m going to rant about this, but the truth is I can’t even promise it’s the last time this week that it’s going to agitate me enough to take up space here.

A cabin in the wilderness, a few solar panels, a couple rifles, and a no trespassing sign sounds better every single day.

Redefining irony…

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Most mornings I’m greeted at the office with more than a handful of emails. Usually they’re run of the mill mass notifications that come in overnight, but just occasionally they’re something a little more than that. Like this morning, when the two messages at the top of my inbox were one providing more information on the impending furlough of federal employees and the other inviting me to take an employee satisfaction survey. It’s hard to find a better definition of irony than landing those two topics next to one another.

Let me be real honest here for a minute… no matter how much I may like my job, the people I work with, or how well the building is heated and cooled, when you tell me you’ll be cutting my pay by 20% for the remainder of the year, my employee satisfaction plummets into negative numbers. No amount of ample parking, health fairs, and access to a gym is going to compensate for that. Sorry. There’s being a team player, and then there’s getting screwed with your pants on… and I’ve been around long enough to know the difference when I see it.

In a republic, one makes his displeasure known by registering an opinion with their elected “leaders,” and yes I use that term loosely. Having expressed by disgust to the head of the executive branch, the legislative branch leadership team, and to my own elected representatives, all that’s really left is to register my profound discontent here in my very own marketplace of ideas. Honestly, stoking the fire here is probably more productive than anything I’ve bothered to send to our political masters anyway. At least here, I know someone is going to actually going to get around to reading what ends up on the page… and as a special bonus, I won’t get a form letter in response.

State of the Dis-Union…

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There’s a formula to the State of the Union Address. After thanking the Speaker and the Vice President and maybe saying a few other passing remarks, President Obama is going to be “please to tell you that the state of the Union is strong.” It’s a powerful turn of phrase that’s been uttered in one form or another at every State of the Union Address that I remember hearing in the last 34 years… Which is exactly the problem.

Anyone with a set of eyes in their head can see that the state of the Union is not strong. There are two Americas with an ever-widening chasm between them. It’s not a division between black and white, or north and south, or even of wealth and poverty. It’s a division between right and wrong, of good people caught up in visceral disagreement about the fundamentals of what it means to be a part of this American experience. We’re divided by partisanship and by politics and by the very idea of what we expectSeal government to be and to do. It’s an existential question about the role we collectively expect government to play in shaping our lives and our actions. And everyone thinks their version of right is the only version of right. Our Union is not strong.

There is nowhere in time or space that I would rather be than America in the 21st century. Our generation is the one that can stand in the gap. The one that stands poised on the edge of something better or something far worse. The future doesn’t just happen because someone hands it to us well formed and happy. It has to be forged by real people doing the hard work of governing, of business, of and education. Those ideas don’t fight nicely into five second sound bites, though.

I’d give real money if the president showed up before Congress in a few hours and said simply, “My fellow Americans, the state of our Union is troubled.” But I’m not holding my breath.

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Saved this space (for no apparent reason)…

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We had a “surprise” town hall meeting at work today and I was saving this space for some sharp and scathing commentary on what I assumed would be breaking the official silence on sequestration, fiscal uncertainty, and the impending budget cuts to our little slice of paradise here at the top of the Bay. Instead we got the typical once a quarter, “you’re doing great work” speech and a few other pearls of wisdom. In the absence of crippling financial news, I find that I don’t really have anything to say.

Waiting to find out what the world will look like a month from now every time someone calls a meeting is a tough way to live… especially in a place that loves meetings as much as we do. So yeah, this space stayed blank for no apparent reason today… but there other shoe is out there somewhere. It’s lurking, and waiting. Waiting to fall out of the sky to pummel some poor dumb group of unsuspecting employees that had the misfortune of thinking that going to work for their Uncle seemed like a good idea at the time. Boy are they gonna be surprised.

I’m glad that for today at least it wasn’t me… but since every silver lining has a dark cloud around it, it’s pretty much left me with nothing interesting to say tonight.

Spectacle…

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I philosophically disagree with nearly every one of the president’s major policy initiatives. I strongly supported his opponent during the election and I will continue to speak my mind here and to my elected representatives voicing that opposition. I think for a few minutes today we can all stop the rhetoric and look at what a remarkable moment an inauguration really is. When a president isn’t reelected, it represents a peaceful transfer of power, from one person to another, and often from one party as another. For all the acrimony in our inauguration-270x270politics, the fact that we can still manage it without tanks in the streets probably speaks more to the wisdom of the Framers than it does to our own clearly limited amount of national self control.

Even second term inaugurations are something special – an elected leader, a man we imbue with seemingly absolute power – comes before the people, and swears to uphold and defend the Constitution. We can debate how well or poorly he manages to do that over the next four years, but for today, we should simply agree what a remarkable feature of republican government that really is. Our leaders don’t swear to do a good job, or be popular, but to defend the very idea of self government. That’s heady stuff… but it’s our job as the body politic to hold them accountable for it.

Most of us never swear an oath to support and defend the constitution (though a few of us do), but it’s an inherent responsibility in or collective role as citizens of the republic. So, today, let’s enjoy the spectacle that is the inauguration of an American president. And tomorrow let’s get on with the hard work of being actual participants in the process.

The view from my fighting position…

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I’ve been blogging here at jeffreytharp.com for almost three years now. For all my other ranting and raving, the single most searched for and commented on posts were consistently focused on the 2011 Army hiring freeze. Some version of “hiring freeze” has been in the top spot for searches that bring people to the blog. Now, I love web traffic as much as any blogger, but honestly, I hoped that was a topical area that I’d be able to leave dead and buried. The hiring freeze that trapped me two years ago is long gone, but it’s been replaced by a newer, broader, and seemingly more permanent version. That doesn’t bode well for the average person working the line in an organization that has always sung the praises of personal mobility as a means to progress to reaching bigger and better opportunities.

In a world where a one-half-of-one-percent raise is a political football, the future does not look like a particularly bright, shiny place. Throw in what looks like a cross between budgetary indecision and panic at the most senior levels of leadership, the knowledge that the worse of the cuts aren’t yet here, and that there’s now open talk of across-the-board furloughs and reductions in force for the first time in a generation, and well, you’ve got yourself a workforce that shows up every day wondering when the other shoe is going to hurtle out of the sky like a dying communications satellite.

Even if the budget situation is resolved without what feels like almost inevitable bloodletting, it’s already taken its toll. Not backfilling empty positions, piling more work on those who remain, holding salaries flat as the price of everything else increases, and repeatedly telling everyone that the worst is yet to come isn’t a recipe for getting the most out of a workforce. In this one case, my hat’s off to management for trying their best to moderate the worst of the outside forces that impact all of us… but when your fates all hang on the ability of politicians to get things done in a smart and timely manner, well, you can understand my not being particularly optimistic about what the future holds.

That’s my view from my fighting position, anyway. So let’s all cross out fingers and hope that someone proves me wrong.

Misfire one and two…

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Like most of the things I do when driven by good intentions, I should fes up to two misfires in the last 24 hours. The first, a blog post that went live on a Friday night around 8:30 based on the assumption that everyone would be paying attention to other things, proved to be my single most viewed post since March 2011. The next time I try sliding something past you people, I’ll show up at 3:30 on a Wednesday morning.

The second misfire came this morning, with my plan to drop in on the first big local gun show of the year. I’ve got a list of items I’m looking to pick up… some functional, some esoteric, and others, as the saying goes, just because I can (at least for the time being). That was my thinking anyway. Since my experience with gun shows has been almost exclusively in states that once rebelled against the Union, I was decidedly unprepared for the strict scrutiny, litany of nausea inducing rules, and sheer tonnage of regulations that the state of Maryland applies to it’s subjects who wish to exercise their rights enshrined in the Second Amendment.

The bottom line is that I opted out of the circus that I’m sure descended on the state fairgrounds this morning. For the time being there remain more efficient and still legal ways of doing business. I have no interest in becoming a felon, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to subject myself to the whims of the state legislature and of our most mighty and exalted lord governor unless I absolutely can’t avoid it.

Be counted… Be a patriot…

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I’m the son of a cop. That means I was raised in a house where a gun was a daily fact of life. It was as much a part of my old man’s job description as his badge and did far more than that metal shield ever did to make sure he got to come home at the end of his shift. Growing up, I’d have thought something was wrong if they had been locked in fancy safes, or hidden on high shelves, if the triggers were locked, or the ammunition was stored on the other side of the house. I was taught proper safety, use, and maintenance of a firearm long before one was ever put into my hand. At my father’s knee I learned that a gun was a tool, nothing more, nothing less.

In my 34 years, I’ve shot paper targets and bottles, clay pigeons and real ones, groundhogs, squirrels, and an assortment of other (tasty) animals. In that time, I’ve never, not once, nra_logodrawn another human being into my sights. Every responsible gun owner knows that you never point a weapon at anything you’re not fully prepared to annihilate. People who do are criminals, but it’s going to be the responsible firearms owners who are called to account for the deranged actions of a handfull in this nation of 300+ million.

The Second Amendment of the United States Constitution tells me that I have the right (read that again… the Right) to keep and bear arms. It doesn’t say I have the right to keep a single barrel shotgun for duck season and a bolt action rifle for deer season. It doesn’t say I have only the right to hang a relic over the mantle for some ambiance. I have the right to keep and bear arms. I’ve read the Constitution and Bill of Rights just to make sure and still my president and my vice president and the governors of my beloved home state of Maryland and his counterpart in New York tell me that it’s a right that can be taken away by an act of Congress or the signing of a single name on an Executive Order. I dare say it’s not going to be that simple. A free people aren’t likely to be so easily disarmed.

For the first time in a decade, a few minutes ago I renewed by membership in the National Rifle Association. I know they’re not everyone’s favorite organization, even among gun owners. But friends, I urge you, if you value your Second Amendment freedoms, join the NRA, join Ducks Unlimited, join your local sportsmen’s club, visit your local shooting range to meet like minded individuals, and for God’s sake get involved and let your elected leaders (such as they are) know that you know your rights and demand that they be preserved. Whatever you do, don’t simply lay down. Don’t roll over. Don’t let your guard falter for even one moment, because that’s all it’s going to take before honest, responsible, law abiding gun owners will wake up wondering what happened and where their country has gone… and on that day all is lost.

Stand up. Be counted. Be a patriot.

Politics as usual…

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First, let me say up front and for the record that the actions of this small excuse for a man are absolutely abhorrent to every right thinking person. I had hoped that we could collectively take at least 24 hours before turning tragedy into something political. Looking around Facebook, Twitter, and the major news sites that clearly was overly optimistic. Instead of focusing on the demented actions of a single coward, many in the amateur and professional electronic media this afternoon rushed to the “guns are bad” banner.

Plenty of smart people, many of my friends included, believe that to be the case. I think they’re wrong, but today still isn’t the moment for that debate. I’ll only leave you today with a single thought: No gun law in existence here or anywhere else on the planet can prevent bad men from performing evil deeds. I’m sure to be roundly criticized for saying it, but the root of our problems isn’t an inanimate object, whether that object is a gun, or a knife, or lead pipe. Deal with the underlying causes, and the profoundly unfortunate effects will largely go away.

Though he was writing specifically about the history and use of rifles, a quote from Jeff Cooper‘s The Art of the Rifle seems particularly relevant to the inevitable discussion of what happens when people and firearms intersect. On days like today, I’m reminded that “The rifle itself has no moral stature, since it has no will of its own. Naturally, it may be used by evil men for evil purposes, but there are more good men than evil, and while the latter cannot be persuaded to the path of righteousness by propaganda, they can certainly be corrected by good men with rifles.”

The abyss…

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With 24 days left for POTUS and the collective membership United States Congress to start acting like statesmen instead of maladjusted teenagers, it seems like as good a time as any to ponder what falling off the edge of the fiscal cliff might actually look like. Spending would continue to increase more or less unchecked. Taxes would increase across the board. The national credit rating would plummet. The defense budget would get gutted right along with a host of domestic programs that up until now were considered too important to do without. Those are some of the big ticket, first order effects. I’m not sure I even want to speculate about what the 3rd and 4th order effects would entail. I’m not confident that any economist in the country legitimately knows what the end result of fiscal cliff diving would be. Most seem to agree, though, that it would result in a situation that is less than good.

Thoughtful people can honestly disagree about good policy and the right course of action, but intuitively I can’t believe that higher taxes are the solution. Because I’m OCD about certain things, I have a spreadsheet that keeps track of my income, taxes, and other deductions going back a decade. Without getting into detail, trust me when I tell you that Caesar is getting his fair share from me. The Imperial Governor of Maryland is getting his pound of flesh too, even though he insists that I’m rich and should be happy to pay even more. St. Mary’s County, the City of Memphis, and Shelby County are all still getting a nice healthy check every year. Every time I turn around, it seems some taxing authority is digging their hand just a little deeper into my pocket… and if I don’t smile and thank them for it, I’m labeled a racist, a bad citizen, greedy, or heartless. Occasionally, I’ve been called all of them at once.

Like it or not, believe it or not, it’s going to be people like me (and most of you reading this), who end up paying the bill because our elected leaders want to play chicken with a trillion dollar economy. No matter what they tell you now, it’s our taxes – local, state, and federal –are going to go up. We’re the ones who are going to lose our jobs, some for the second and third time in a decade. We’re the ones who should be most outraged by the personal damage being inflicted on us and the inestimable damage being inflicted on the country… but hey, it’s Christmas time, and we wouldn’t want to let a calamity of historic proportions get in the way of our national shopping spree.

If we get to the 1st of the year and don’t see fewer dollars in our paychecks, if we don’t see massive cuts to important programs, if we don’t see an economy tipped back into the abyss, I’ll happily apologize and publicly eat my words right here in my own house. I’m just a guy sitting here paying attention and I hope beyond hope that I’m reading the tealeaves wrong… but I don’t think I am. And I think the worst is yet to come.