Tag Archives: congress

What Annoys Jeff this Week?

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1. A deferred milestone. I thought I was on track to hit the next weight milestone – 200 pounds even, or down 130 – on or about my birthday. Although I’ve started slowly creeping down again, the previous three weeks where I held all things equal has pretty much guaranteed I can’t get there from here unless I develop a pretty nasty stomach bug. It’s disappointing, of course. I was hoping to sit down to my traditional birthday lunch of crabcakes and hushpuppies and proceed to getting back to a “maintenance” level of eating. That feels out of reach. But I’m still damned well planning to have the crab cakes and hushpuppies.

    2. Foreign aid debate. You know what one of the most successful bits of foreign policy of the post World War II era? Yeah, that would be when the United States poured out absolute shiploads of cash, material, and expertise on Europe and rebuilt a shattered continent. It turns out prosperous liberal democracies bound together by deep ties of trade tend not to try to kill each other nearly so often as they did when international diplomacy was a zero-sum game. The weight of American troops and weapons arguably won the war, but it was the Marshall Plan that won the peace. It’s a pity that Americans consistently refuse to remember their own history when we’re talking about relatively paltry sums in the contemporary foreign aid budget. Every scrap of progress we can make by throwing money at the problem is far less expensive than anything that happens when we need to get involved kinetically. 

    3. Walking. Gods, even with the latest in listening technology, walking is just a deadly dull way to spend 30 or 40 minutes every day. Yes, the scenery in the neighborhood is nice. Sometimes I get to see neighbors doing something stupid in full view of the sidewalk. Aside from occasionally getting to interface with the local wildlife, I’m sorry, but there just isn’t much to recommend it. Living at the far end of the dead end street, there are only so many ways to make the path different… and after six months, I’ve trod all those down multiple times each week already. Look, I’ll keep doing it… under protest and purely because the doc says I must… but you’ll never convince me that there isn’t a more interesting or entertaining use to those 30 or 40 minutes of every day that isn’t called off on account of weather. 

    What Annoys Jeff this Week?

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    1. The diminishing list of things I care about. The older I get, the fewer things I seem to give a shit about. As a kid, I guess we all want to be popular. I’ve long since given that up. I used to care about politics. Now? Yeah, the more these greybeards talk, the less I listen. I used to love to travel. Today? Shit. I can’t be bothered to drive across town. The number of things I legitimately care about can probably be listed on one hand – and some days I wouldn’t even need all the fingers. It seems all I really want now is quiet and as little fuss about anything as possible. I’m not sure that’s necessarily a bad thing, but occasionally it feels like I should want to be more engaged. Fortunately, those feelings don’t usually last very long.

    2. Medical science. We like to think we’re so advanced. I mean it’s great that we’ve surpassed herbs and leeches, but for the better part of the last year, the answer to a lot of my medical questions has been “well, we can’t replicate what you experienced and the tests we’ve given you are inconclusive, so keep doing what you’re doing and see me again in six months.” Look, I’m thrilled that there isn’t some kind of flashing neon warning sign popping off after whatever tests they’re doing, but in my more anxiety filled moments, it’s hard not to feel a little bit like a ticking time bomb.

    3. Congress and technology. If there’s anything more useless than a bunch of geriatrics “carefully crafting” legislation about how current and future technology should be used, I have a hard time thinking of what it might be. Ask the average Representative to sign in to TikTok, or any other app of your choice, and I’m quite sure there’s a better than average chance you’ll get a blank stare. I’m not out here saying social media giants are innocent victims here, but I have deep reservations about issues surrounding the future of technology in America being decided by a group whose average age is approaching sixty and who have not demonstrated any particularly deep understanding of the actual issues involved. Then again, I don’t suppose we can really expect Congress to apply any academic rigor to this when they don’t do likewise with any other substantive policy issues.

    What Annoys Jeff this Week?

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    1. Insurance. For the most part I have had very good luck with my health insurance provider. Presently, though, they’re picking a fight over the bill for the 30-day heart monitor I got to enjoy last year. “Not medically necessary,” they say, though the cardiologist who called for it seems to disagree with their assessment. Just now I haven’t been billed for anything yet, so I’m on the sidelines while Phillips, my doctor, and Blue Cross throw shade at each other. I assume at some point they’re going to fling a $9,000 bill at me just to see if maybe I’ll pay it on spec. Being a professional bureaucrat, though, I’m entirely prepared for whatever paper drills may come. Hopefully, though, this doesn’t devolve into a full-blown pain in the ass… but I’m not overly optimistic.

    2. Clothing. I almost never have a reason to do something like put on a dress shirt or, god forbid, a suit, but almost isn’t never. What I’ve discovered this week, while raiding my closet looking for something to wear is that even the suits I held over from my long ago time working in DC no longer fit. In fact most of them have me looking like a kid trying on his father’s clothes. One or two of them might be salvageable, with a tailor who knows their business, but otherwise, I’m going to have to go shopping for clothes… and there’s honestly no variety of shopping I want to do less.

    3. Congress (and the average American). If it weren’t tied directly to my ability to make a living, watching the ongoing fuckery that is the United States Congress would be entertaining as hell. There seems to be no hope of passing a budget. Republicans in the Senate just shot down the most conservative border security bill proposed in my lifetime. Republican leaders in the House of Representatives can’t manage to muster votes from their caucus to do… well… anything at all. It’s certainly the most dysfunctional government I’ve lived through – and it has no real signs of improving any time soon. But, we’ve gotten the government that the American people, in their wisdom, have voted for… which I suppose just goes to prove how deeply stupid the average American is.

    What Annoys Jeff this Week?

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    1. The U.S. House of Representatives. I was really counting on the House of Representatives to completely shit the bed and shut the government down at the end of this week. I mean I don’t want them to close up shop forever, but a week or two furlough over the Thanksgiving holiday would have been some much appreciated time off for which I’d have ended up getting paid for eventually anyway. Alas, the House managed to drop back and punt… and do it without waiting until the last possible moment. It’s not that kind of performance I should find impressive, but given all their recent fuckery, it’s honestly surprising.

    2. Timing. The six weeks between Thanksgiving and New Years are, in my experience, pretty much dead space. Sure, technically there are a fair number of work days in there, but the universal consensus is that the vast number of bureaucrats are focused on other things. Just now, the week before I launch into my five day Thanksgiving weekend, I’m feeling the siren’s call of a near total lack of motivation. Yes, of course I’ll keep plugging away at whatever crosses my desk, but it’s undeniable that my annual holiday lack of motivation has arrived early this year… and it’s only annoying because some of my distinguished colleagues haven’t arrived there yet themselves. I question their timing.

    3. Cold. For most of my adult life I’ve been thermally protected by the extra weight I’ve carried around. With the recent arrival of cold weather combined with some appreciable weight loss, I find that for the first time in memory, I’m constantly cold instead of running just a little bit warm. It’s a predictable side effect, but I’m finding it more unpleasant than I expected.

    It’s what happens when the giants are all dead…

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    The Republican controlled House of Representatives has about five days to prove that they can find their ass with both hands and a flashlight before the government runs out of money. They’re just coming off a three-day weekend so who at least they should be well rested while they do whatever passes for “work” in the halls of the United States Congress.

    I’ve been at this a while. I’ve been through shut downs, furloughs, and an endless amount of legislative fuckery. We’ve been down this road so often that a previous Congress put in place a little section of public law that guarantees government employees back pay for any time spent sitting on the beach during a shutdown. Knowing the back pay is coming doesn’t quite offset not getting a regularly scheduled check, but it does help take the edge off… Not to mention a three or four week shutdown would get me out of a couple projects that are lining up to be a real pain in the ass.

    Make no mistake, a government shutdown is bad. It’s bad for people who work for the government. It’s bad for the army of contractors who won’t be receiving back pay. It’s bad for travelers, people who eat food, or take medication, or want to visit a National Park. Perhaps more importantly, it makes the Congress look like incredibly huge douche nozzles who are incapable of doing one of the very few things the Constitution identifies as part of their job description.

    I don’t have much faith in Kevin McCarthy’s leadership based on his past performance. I have even less faith in the hard right extremist wackjob wing of his party not standing around cheering while the whole thing burns. We are in a problematic era of republican government and I’m increasingly convinced that we’ve gotten precisely the kind of government we collectively deserve. 

    I grew up in an older world of political deal making where compromise was part of what kept the great machine running. Getting half a loaf simply meant the other half was left to go after the next time. The great pols of the 20th century understood that… and the system, with all its faults, worked well enough to do big things – like build an interstate highway system, land men on the moon, and win a long Cold War. 

    It seems the giants of American politics who could manage that kind of heavy lift are all dead and we’ve been left with third stringers who can’t even be bothered to keep the lights on. 

    What Annoys Jeff this Week?

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    1. Decaf. I’ve forsworn a lot of things I enjoy over the last couple of months. I’ve given up my evening gin and tonic. I’ve banished additive salt from every recipe. There’s a dozen or more other small changes I’ve made, even if not exactly happily. Throughout the turbulence, I kept up one simple personal tradition – morning coffee and afternoon tea. I even gave up the milk and sugar there in the name of caloric reduction. Now I’m adding caffeinated coffee and tea to the list of embargoed items. That was a personal decision rather than doctor ordered as I was feeling just a touch too twitchy a few times this week. I’m a man with a tremendous ability to endure ridiculous situations… but I have my limits and it feels like they are quickly approaching if not already appearing somewhere astern.

    2. Kevin McCarthy. If ever there was a man not up to the challenge of being Speaker of the House, it’s the current holder of the chair. I could make this a laundry list of his failings, but what’s the point? The old boy is too busy trying to figure out how to hang on to his speakership than he is to focus on any real legislative efforts. I doubt his conference will even be able to muster the votes to keep Uncle Sam’s lights on after September 30th. The right wing of the party might not care, but it truly makes them look like the rankest of amateurs. The Republican “lead” House would be farcical if they weren’t so damned injurious to the republic.

    3. Mitt Romney. I was proud to vote for Mitt Romney many years ago when he ran as the Republican candidate for president. I was proud of Mitt Romney when he stood up against a grasping former reality TV host who was hell bent on defying the Constitution to stay in office. He’s a throwback to a politician of a different age – what passes in Washington, DC for being a gentleman in an occupation and certainly in a party that doesn’t put any value on that sort of behavior. I hate to see his voice being lost among a party that is increasingly unhinged… but I can absolutely understand why he isn’t looking to spend another six years consorting with the absolute clowns running the show.

    The ceiling and why you shouldn’t hit it running full speed…

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    So, Uncle is set to crash into the debt ceiling as soon as June 1st.

    Major media outlets report that as effectively the first time in our nation’s long and storied history that we default on our lawfully begotten debt. That’s the 100,000 foot view, but what does it really mean aside from the United States sinking even further into laughing stock status among the nations of the world.

    Well, here’s a quick breakdown on some of the ill-starred consequences:

    The federal government must immediately begin living entirely within the bounds of its “cash” revenue stream (i.e., Uncle Sam can only spend what he raises in taxes and other fees). It means spending will be prioritized… somehow. Whether that means meeting its payments to creditors, making payroll for the Armed Forces, or sending out Social Security payments remains to be seen. However it’s divided up, the operating budget will be cut to the bone and some essential services simply will stop. I’m as big a fan as anyone of getting the government down to a responsible level of spending, but this is a catastrophically bad way to try making those cuts. Doing things with no time for thought or the application of academic rigor is an inherently stupid way to run a country.

    The cost of borrowing will increase across the board – that’s bad for Americans looking to finance a new home or a car and it’s even worse when the government gets through a default and starts borrowing again. On the other side of crashing through the debt ceiling is a world where loaning money to the U.S. Government is inherently riskier since it’s shown its willingness to default. The increased rates creditors will demand will be correspondingly high and will ripple out to impact all borrowers. .

    Market unpredictability. The U.S. Government has never defaulted on its bills. Whether that causes a blip or a catastrophic meltdown of the international financial system that’s been in place since the end of World War II is completely unknown. I’m not in any way sure why we’d even consider collectively rolling the dice on that.

    Abject political fuckery. So far, both Republicans and Democrats agree that defaulting would be bad for the country… and both parties are digging in and showing themselves willing to let it happen if their political calculus shows it’ll hurt the “other side” more than it hurts them. Rarely has putting party before country been more blatant… but this is the 2020s and it seems to be the cool thing to do now.

    The real bottom line is this: The “debt ceiling” is an entirely self-inflicted constraint. It’s not a force of nature. With a current debt of $31 Trillion, it’s probably time we do away with the fiction that either party is the one concerned with responsible spending. If we can’t manage to get past that tribal, binary method of framing issues, well, we probably deserve whatever painful, but entirely avoidable consequences are preparing to jump up and bite us collectively in the ass.

    Strange or strong…

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    I used to really geek out for the yearly State of the Union Address. I’d cheer and boo and deliver a running commentary to the television the same way some of you guys will watch the Super Bowl this weekend. Now there’s a better than average chance I’ll be asleep not long after the president delivers the near mandatory, if almost farcical, assessment that “the state of our Union is strong.”

    It’s a subjective assessment. I mean I’m not sitting here expecting Civil War 2 to break out on Thursday, but we hardly feel as unified and well put together as we were, say, in the heyday of the Eisenhower Administration. 

    Now if President Biden walked into the well of the House and proclaimed the Union “stranger” than ever, he’d be on to something. Between the current oddball economic conditions, Russia flailing around in eastern Europe, China doing China stuff, and the modern Know Nothing Party being determined to wreck the institutions of government for shits and grins, strange feels like the more apt description. 

    Wrap everything up in the bow of a 24-hour news cycle that’s obsessed with views, and clicks, and clout and even the smallest fire can give off the illusion of burning out of control. With all that in mind, I’m sure I’ll watch the opening number, but there’s really very little that this president or any other could say to convince me that the state of the Union is far stranger than it is strong. 

    Federal entitlements… 

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    There’s a lot of tongue wagging about Republican efforts to fold, spindle, or mutilate federal entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare. From the opposite side of the aisle, Democrats insist that the programs must be preserved in total or even expanded.

    Having the conversation doesn’t feel unreasonable. In or around 2035, the Social Security trust fund will be exhausted. That will automatically trigger an estimated 24% reduction in benefits as the system will only be able to pay out as much money as it has coming in. 

    If the system is going to be preserved in its current form, the solution is going to have to be some combination of raising the age of eligibility, decreasing benefits, and increasing payroll taxes. Just the hint of an honest discussion on those terms won’t make anyone in Congress the next winner of the most popular person in Washington contest. 

    All of this, of course, is based on assuming we should preserve the system as it’s currently put together. I’m not entirely of the opinion that should be our goal. If my records are right (and they are), I’ve paid just north of $110,000 in Social Security payroll tax since I started working. If Uncle Sam were to give me the choice of accepting his pinky promise of some undefined benefit at an undefined time in the future or to cut me a check for that amount today to invest in the manner of my choice, I’d sign a quit claim on all future social security benefits and never look back.

    Letting it sit in a low-cost index fund until I turn 65 would give me a far better return than anything the future U.S. Congress will want for me. This alternate future looks even rosier if I were allowed to regularly contribute an amount equal to my current social security taxes into that account. Over a span of 20 years that would end up being real money and more importantly, not in any way reliant on the largess of whatever bunch of crackpots and shysters happens to be running Congress in that distant future.

    That won’t be an option, of course. The second President Bush brushed lightly against the idea of privatized accounts way back in 2004 and was roundly shouted down. The U.S. Government simply won’t want to give up direct control of a pot of money as big as Social Security. By the time I’m age eligible – in 2040 if the earliest age to claim isn’t raised – I fully expect Social Security will be yet another one of those government programs I’ve paid for my entire working life from which I won’t be qualified to draw any benefit. 

    The debt ceiling shouldn’t be a suicide pact…

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    The debt ceiling has been an evolving creature since 1917 and started life as something of a thought exercise. In handing over some of their spending power (a Legislative Branch function) to the Treasure (an Executive Branch department), long dead Members of Congress thought that if their future selves had to have their votes counted in order for the U.S. Government to continue taking on large tranches of debt, maybe it would restrain them from profligate borrowing. Some of the more wild-eyed optimists among them, I’m sure, thought that it might even usher in a new day of not constantly spending more money than the federal government takes in.

    For most of the last hundred years, though, raising the debt ceiling became just a normal part of doing business. No serious person ever considered putting the United States Government in a position where it would default on its lawfully begotten debts. That’s changed in the last 20-30 years, of course. I suspect there’s now more than a few Members of Congress who would cheer on a default and smile for the cameras while they watched the resulting economic chaos.

    Republican controlled Congresses have raised the debt ceiling. Democratic controlled Congresses have raised the debt ceiling. Divided Congresses have raised the debt ceiling. Presidents of both parties have presided over these increases while gnashing their teeth about runaway spending.

    Can we please, then, just stop pretending that the debt ceiling is anything more than a bomb we’ve allowed to grow in the heart of the government? With the total federal debt now standing at $31 trillion dollars, let us admit that the debt ceiling is a work of fiction that has don’t nothing to stand between us and racking up unimaginable levels of indebtedness. The only thing it’s really done is create a mechanism by which it’s possible to decimate the global economy if the hands of the incompetents and ideologues now serving in Congress. Better that this failed experiment in limiting federal spending be put on the ash heap of history than allowing it to linger around like some kind of damned suicide pact.