It’s the season for debating the effects of a historic increase in government spending on the economy.

The proposal on the table from Obama, is to increase government spending by about $775 billion over the next two years. About $300 billion of this would come as tax cuts of various kinds, and the rest as handouts to state and local governments and pork-barrel spending.

Why are we doing all this? Well, to make the economy better, of course. But precisely what does it mean to “make the economy better”?

I told you yesterday that, although the global economy and the global financial system face deep, systemic imbalances that have nothing whatsoever to do with the business cycle, the perception by policymakers and ordinary people is very different. The common view is that our biggest problem is an economic recession. And even more specifically, an increase in unemployment that results from reductions in industrial output, or GDP.

As I said, the whole situation is being oversimplified as a need to change two widely-reported statistics. The objective of the largest proposed increase in government spending for decades is not to do anything long-term positive for the the economy. Rather, it’s to increase reported GDP and to reduce reported unemployment.

So in this context, let’s try to understand the claims that are being made by advocates of increased spending. (I’ll leave for another time the issues of increased national indebtedness, misallocated resources, and increased government control over the economy, since the neo-Keynesians have already told us that we should sweep those effects under the carpet for now.)

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The Associated Press today posted a story that is so utterly pointless for its very existence that it boggles the mind. Apparently, some loser Iraqi that used to be a somebody under Saddam Hussein’s viciously murderous government has issued a “tape” whereupon he says that Israel would never have been so bold to have hit Gaza they way it has if Saddam were still in power.

Of course, the very first question that comes to mind is… WHO CARES what some has been cutthroat has to say about Saddam “just hangin’ around” Hussein? The man is dead, D-E-D dead!

I mean, why the heck is this news? It would be like publishing a story in this week’s New York Times about some guy that is saying that all this Obama stuff wouldn’t be happening if Jefferson Davis was still in power. Yes, it would be just as newsworthy as that!

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Vowing to lead a conservative resurgence and political realignment like none before, landslide loser Ken Blackwell is among the top contenders vying for the Chairmanship of the Republican National Committee. For whatever reason – political celebrity or perhaps his near-perennial candidacy – Blackwell’s record has, by and large, remained unexamined. That ends now.

Before he wasted his entire media budget in his failed bid for Governor – resulting in an embarrassing 24 point loss – but after he supported Jimmy Carter for President in 1976, Ken Blackwell, a Senior Fellow for Family Empowerment at the socially conservative Family Research Council, held shares in Barr Pharmaceuticals, one of the largest American-based producers of the Plan B drug, or “Morning-After Pill,” designed to prevent unwanted pregnancies. The FRC, who promises to keep the Obama administration in check on matters related to abortion, maintains that the controversial drug presents a “clear and present danger” to women’s health, though this “grave threat” was evidently of little concern to Blackwell when building his multimillion dollar portfolio. In addition to his substantial holdings with Barr, Blackwell held shares of the Nevada-based International Game Technology Corporation (ITG). ITG is the leading producer of slot machines and coincidentally was an ardent advocate for their legalization in Ohio, a constitutional amendment Blackwell ostensibly opposed. How Blackwell, who opposes both abortion and the legal expansions of gambling, reconciles his conscience and pocketbook is a talent known only to life-long politicians. His confusing investments can only be explained as such: Blackwell is a poor manager, further evidenced by his latest campaign, or these raging hypocrisies, an all-too frequent charge levied against Republicans, are of no concern to the would-be Chairman. Either way, I’m thoroughly dissatisfied with his crippling inability to maintain consistency, in theory and practice.

If we’re to argue, as many would seemingly prefer, that an undying loyalty to conservative ideology is paramount to leading the RNC, why then would any self-respecting conservative support Ken Blackwell? On Monday’s candidate forum sponsored by Grover Norquist’s Americans for Tax Reform, Blackwell offered this duplicitous gem, saying, “Our candidates have either run a campaign like Jimmy Carter and then govern like Jimmy Carter or they’ve campaigned like Ronald Reagan and they govern like Jimmy Carter.” But to quote Jim Geraghty, “Let he who has never voted for Carter cast the first stone.” According to the Columbus Dispatch, Blackwell’s aversion to all things Carter is evidently post-1976: Crossing party-lines, Blackwell supported peanut farmer-extraordinaire Jimmy Carter.

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So Joe Biden has now second-guessed Barack Obama on his choice for vice president, his campaign commercials, and his decision not to check with Senator Feinstein before selecting Leon Panetta to head the CIA:

Vice President-elect Joe Biden — offering one last defense of the institution he’s inhabited for three decades — conceded the Obama transition team made a “mistake” in not consulting the Senate before tapping Leon Panetta to head the CIA.

“I’m still a Senate man and I always think this way,” he told reporters in the Capitol. “I think it’s always good to talk to the requisite members of Congress…”

“I think it was just a mistake,” Biden said of the transition team’s failure to check in with Feinstein and outgoing Chairman Jay Rockefeller (D-W. Va.), who was also miffed.

Biden is famous for speaking his mind when he’d be better off staying quiet. A Senator can get away with that; for a Vice President, it’s harder.

It has to be annoying for Obama to see Biden questioning his judgment and that of his staff so prominently. It almost comes across as if Biden is trying to show up the rest of the Obama team: ‘If you’d just listen to me, Barack, we wouldn’t be making these mistakes.’

Exit question: can Obama demote Biden any further from the levers of power?

To paraphrase Forrest Gump, Inexperienced is as inexperienced does. At least that is what comes to my mind when hearing that Barack Obama has picked the inoffensive, completely inexperienced and unqualified Leon Panetta to be the new director of the CIA. Really. Leon Panetta? The onetime director of the Office of Management and Budget Panetta, that Leon Panetta? This old Clinton partisan has absolutely no experience whatsoever with intelligence gathering or the administration of the same. None. Zip. Nadda.

Now, if George W. Bush had picked such an inexperienced man for any government position much less one at cabinet level, the media would have crucified him — in fact, it did if you recount the Harriet Meyers for SCOTUS debacle. So, in “Obama’s intel picks short on direct experience” does the Associated Press scoff at the pick? Do they lambast Obama for picking such a completely unqualified man for CIA in a day when we are besieged on all sides by enemies from whom our ability to gather intelligence is a major weapon of protection? Do they decry this pick of a man with not even the tiniest amount of experience for one of the most delicate and important positions of the day?

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President-elect Obama, stung by criticism from California Democrat Senator Dianne Feinstein and West Virginia Democrat Senator John Rockefeller backed away from the reported appointment of Leon Panetta to head the CIA:

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), who this week begins her tenure as the first female head of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said she was not consulted on the choice and indicated she might oppose it.

“I was not informed about the selection of Leon Panetta to be the CIA director,” Feinstein said. “My position has consistently been that I believe the agency is best served by having an intelligence professional in charge at this time.”

A senior aide to Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.), the outgoing chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said the senator “would have concerns” about a Panetta nomination.

Rockefeller “thinks very highly of Panetta,” the aide said. “But he’s puzzled by the selection. He has concerns because he has always believed that the director of CIA needs to be someone with significant operational intelligence experience and someone outside the political realm.”

Panetta is a former California congressman and chief of staff to President Clinton.

The nomination was not officially announced to the news media, but rather leaked by anonymous sources.

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Headline: “Obama Vows No Earmarks on Stimulus”

Fine Print:

“We are going to ban all earmarks — the process by which individual members insert pet projects without review…”

It’s much easier to ban earmarks if you change the definition. According to the Office of Management and Budget, an earmark is spending where “the congressional direction… circumvents the merit-based or competitive allocation process, or specifies the location or recipient.” That’s the prevailing definition. But by Obama’s rules, the stimulus package can contain thousands of these projects, and still not have any ‘earmarks.’

And Obama has also promised budget reform, saying:

“We’re going to have to stop talking about budget reform,” Obama said after a meeting with his economic team. “We’re going to have to embrace it. It’s an absolute necessity…”

The president-elect also stated that he will look to rein in the federal budget by, among other things, forcing the government to “make tough choices and break bad habits.”

And what’s the context this time? It’s Obama’s somber prediction that we must accept $1 trillion deficits ‘for years to come.’ We sure have come a long way from the promise of net spending cuts!

I know that all Obamises come with an expiration date, but now it’s becoming clear that they need to be parsed for meaning right when they’re made!

The anti-Palin newspaper Anchorage Daily News, part of the liberal McClatchy chain of newspapers, is always eager to rush into print with any story which has the potential to be embarrassing to Governor Sarah Palin. D*mn the truth, full speed ahead! Now it has been caught being party to yet another lie, and a number of other news outlets are ADN’s partners in crime.

All that was required for ADN to jump off of this particular cliff was an unsubstantiated charge made by some of Sarah Palin’s political enemies. ADN published this story January 4:

A Mat-Su drug investigator and the union representing Alaska State Troopers are alleging political meddling in the Sherry Johnston drug case, including a delay in serving the search warrant because of the November election

Despite what even ADN admits were “vigorous denials” by Alaska’s Public Safety Commissioner and the director of the Alaska State Troopers that the case was handled in anything other than the customary manner, ADN printed the story anyway.

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UPDATE: My good friend and colleague Pejman Yousefzadeh’s response, straightforward and thoughtful as always, can be seen here.

If you want to see Bush Derangement Syndrome on full display, toss a room full of lefty “strategists,” academics, and party apparatchiks a question like “What’s the best, and the worst, that can be said about the presidency of George W. Bush?” All you have to do after that is step back and watch the show — and, in the case of Arena moderator and Politico senior editor Fred Barbash, let the article write itself.

Conservatives and liberals alike certainly gave Barbash plenty to work with in their responses today; as he wrote this afternoon:

The presidency of George W. Bush is receiving bleak assessments across the political spectrum in its closing weeks, with praise from many Republican commentators tempered by their own deep disappointment.

On the positive side, Republicans and some Democrats, in comments posted in Politico’s Arena forum,
primarily cite Bush’s response to the terrorist attacks of 9/11, the absence of additional attacks on U.S. soil, Bush’s appointments to the Supreme Court and Federal assistance to combat the scourge of HIV-AIDS.

But the overall analyses of contributors to Arena described an administration undermined by systemic weaknesses—of communication, fiscal management, and general competence—that ultimately produced repeated failures, compounded by an inability to change in the face of them.

For my part, I tried to be both fair and honest in my response. You can see (and evaluate) it yourself below the fold.

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The New Republic’s Michael Crowley (yeah, I’m surprised they’re still publishing too after the Baghdad Diarist half-truths and coverups of 2007, but I suppose shoddy journalism takes all kinds these days) tries to skewer current RNC chairman (and current candidate for chair) Mike Duncan over a comment made at yesterday’s RNC Chair debate.

Writes Crowley:

Quote of the Day

RNC Chairman Mike Duncan on rebuilding his party.

“We have to do it in the Facebook, with the Twittering, the different technology that young people are using today.”

Harness the the tubes! Watch out, Change.org.

–Michael Crowley

Now, I agree that Duncan’s quote wasn’t the most profound or the most coherent; however, Crowley might want to make sure he at least gets the url of the website he’s incorporating into his slam against Duncan, you know, correct.

Obama’s site - the site of the fictional “office of the president-elect” the delusionally grand Barack Obama made up from thin air - is Change.gov, not Change.org, which is a hippie social networking site dedicated to Changing The World in 140 Characters or Less. Nice try, though.

President-elect Obama predicts “trillion-dollar deficits for years to come.”

“We’re already looking at a trillion-dollar budget deficit or close to a trillion-dollar budget deficit, and that potentially we’ve got trillion-dollar deficits for years to come, even with the economic recovery that we are working on at this point,” Obama said.

The federal deficit was about $455 billion for fiscal year that ended on Sept. 30, 2008.

If the Democrats keep the deficits to a trillion-dollars a year that will at least slow the rate at which the Democrats increase the national debt.

First, America as a whole:

Poll: Half say Burris should be blocked from Sen. seat

WASHINGTON — A majority of Americans say Roland Burris should be blocked from taking a U.S. Senate seat and Illinois should hold a special election to fill the vacancy he was appointed to fill, according to a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll.

[snip]

Interest in the dispute is high — six in 10 are following it closely — and support for Burris is scant. By nearly 2-1, 51% to 27%, those surveyed say the Senate should block him from taking his seat. A similar majority, 52%, say Illinois should hold a special election as soon as possible to fill the office.

Mind you, this doesn’t let Reid off of the hook: after all, the American people aren’t really all that interested in Burris’ skin color “electability,” which is of course the primary worry here for the Democrats. Hey, I’m not saying anything that a sitting Democratic Congressman hasn’t, already. Go complain to him.

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Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s letter of appointment for Senator Roland Burris (D-IL) to be sworn in today in the Senate was rejected by Secretary of the Senate Nancy Erickson for violating a Senate rule requiring a signature of the Governor and Secretary of State.  Illinois Secretary of State, Jesse White, refuses to sign the official certification of Burris’s appointment to the Senate and Burris is exploring his legal rights to force the Secretary of State to sign the documenet.  It is unclear as to what Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid will do if Burris shows up with his paperwork in order.

Senator Roland Burris Banned from Senate Floor

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I argued during the general election campaign that the single most scandalously under-covered story of the campaign was Barack Obama’s thorough immersion in machine politics in Chicago. And I confidently predicted, on November 3, that Obama, if elected, would continue to be haunted in office by those and other ties to his Chicago past. But even I didn’t imagine that the continuing saga of Chicago political corruption and Obama’s role as a willing tool of machine politicians would explode so quickly that the Governor of Illinois would be arrested for trying to sell Obama’s Senate seat just five weeks after Election Day. Now, we have Bill Richardson withdrawing from his appointment as Obama’s Secretary of Commerce due to a federal grand jury investigation of pay-to-play practices in his administration in New Mexico. Of course, while the exact nature and timing of the Blagojevich and Richardson scandals came as a surprise, it was inevitable that the foul odor of political corruption - and not just from Chicago - was going to settle over Democrat-controlled Washington. It would have been shocking if it didn’t. Anyone who believed that the election of Obama would mean even the slightest bit of “new politics” was a fool of the highest order; Obama’s constant harping on that theme, given his longstanding willingness to avoid rocking the boat in Chicago and DC, was simply a cynical fraud. And more than that - because the ascendancy of the Democrats and the outbreak of corruption is simply a sign that the Democrats are acting like Democrats.

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Just got this in email. The leadership of the CRNC is coming out for Blackwell.

Tell ya what, I’ll give you my frank and candid thoughts later today on the subject. It’s sure to piss off everybody to one degree or another.

Members of the Republican National Committee:

After two difficult election cycles our party is at a crossroads. We have obligations to our ideals and our constituents to evaluate our strengths and weakness, successes and failures, and set ourselves on a path of renewal and revitalization. We must take this opportunity to elect a leader with a bold vision and the strength to carry it through. We need a leader that will stop allowing the Republican Party to surrender to the other party on campus and online. It is our opinion and the opinion of a large part of our organization that, of the many qualified candidates for RNC Chairman, the candidate best suited to take on these new challenges is Ken Blackwell.

Ken understands the importance of increasing our outreach to young and first time voters who will be making formative choices in the next few elections that will shape their voting habits for the rest of their lives. We cannot afford to continue to ignore an entire generation of voters. Ken also understands that we must increase our capabilities online if we’re going to inform and persuade voters effectively and remain competitive with Internet and email fundraising.

We believe that Ken Blackwell has the convictions to make him a great spokesman for our party and that he will drive us forward towards successes in elections at all levels of government. That belief is further strengthened after watching his performance in the debate yesterday. As the leaders of tomorrow’s Republican Party we respectfully ask that you consider supporting Ken and cast a vote for the next generation of Republicans.

Charlie Smith, National Chairman
Blake Harris, National Co-Chairman
Dan Carlson, National Secretary
Esther Clark, National Treasurer
Tom Jardon, Southern Vice-Chairman

Justin Zatkoff, Michigan College Republican Chairman
Taylor Hall, South Carolina College Republican Chairman
Lance Kennedy, Texas College Republican Chairman
Chandler Harris, Alabama College Republican Chairman
Ed Cox, Utah College Republican Chairman
Jeremy Hagen, Missouri College Republican Chairman
Rudy Perciful, Louisiana College Republican Chairman
Terence Grado, New Jersey College Republican Chairman
Matt Wharton, Arizona College Republican Chairman
Meagan Szydlowski, Illinois College Republican Chairman
Erica Castelo, Colorado College Republican Chairman
Richard Walters, Mississippi College Republican Chairman
Reece Hrizuk, Oregon College Republican Chairman
Brand Kroeger, District of Columbia College Republican Chairman

Well, THAT did not last long, did it?
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Waiting for the punchline, I suppose. Well, here it is. I am no longer the new guy. Let me be the first to introduce our newest front-page contributor at RedState:

Warner Todd Huston!!!

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He almost needs no introduction, since he has been offering outstanding work, and lots of it, for some time now here in our fair land. We’re very proud and honored to welcome Warner aboard.

Follow me for important further information…..

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Promoted from the diaries by Erick. This is an excellent example of local activism coverage at RedState. I highly encourage you to join the RedState Army and let’s organize on more stuff like this. We have 172 people in Illinois signed up so far. Let’s add to them and I’ll send a reminder about this as the time draws closer.

I’m sure you’ve always heard that all politics are local.  Well, the only thing more local than township politics is the small town council.  If you want to make a difference at the local level, the township caucuses are the place to start.

In Illinois, all townships outside Cook County (Chicago) with a population of less than 5000 will use a caucus method for choosing candidates by default (it can be a primary if the local party chooses to use one, but this requires some special actions by the local party chairmen).  Townships with a population of more than 5000 that are within the borders of a city will normally have a primary instead.  The VAST majority of townships in Illinois do not get this exception and will use a caucus.  The date for the township caucuses is fixed by law.  This year the date is January 13th.  The time and place is left to the local party officials to decide.

If you live in Illinois outside Cook county, call your local Republican party to find out the location and time for the caucus.  Be sure to attend and ask questions.  Pick people who have some idea of how to manage an organization and pick people who tend towards fiscal conservatism.  If there are no Republican candidates, volunteer to fill the slot (empty ballot slots really irritate me).  These are the people who control a good chunk of your property tax bill, so even if you never think about township officials, they DO matter to your financial condition.

President-elect Barack Obama is trying to bribe Republicans with $300 billion in tax cuts as part of a much larger economic stimulus proposal. Will the GOP take the bait?

As hard as it might be for Republicans to walk away from a large tax cut, they shouldn’t be fooled by Obama’s big-spending approach. The president-elect wants to spend hundreds of billions of dollars on unemployment insurance, Medicaid eligibility, infrastructure projects, and even bailouts for states such as California, New York and New Jersey.

Government spending will not spur long-term economic growth or reduce the economic pain felt by Americans. History offers us a good guide. Take a look at the chart below to see the effect of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s spending spree during the Great Depression. Unemployment remained above 20% despite the New Deal programs that liberals so fondly embrace today.

It took World War II to pull America out of the Great Depression, not the New Deal.

Here’s the link to C-Span 2, which is covering the Senate floor starting at 12 PM. I will be happy to put up something embeddable, just as soon as I find one, or have it pointed out to me.

We don’t yet know if there’s going to be an physical Wallace at the Schoolhouse Door moment for Reid yet, so this may be anticlimactic. Then again, it may not be.

[UPDATE]: Anticlimactic. Burris has already been turned away. Guess they didn’t want to set up a special restroom for Roland Burris…

Ken Blackwell has just released his conservative resurgence plan.

There are a few things to note:

1. His plan is explicitly about returning the GOP to the conservative grassroots, which I agree is where it needs to be.

2. His plan includes a sizable technology plan to put the grassroots in charge of the party.

3. Like a true “states rights” guy, his plan involves significantly divesting the RNC apparatus inside the beltway of power and sending it out to the states.

I’m a bit concerned by the last point because I suspect some of the components he’d want to decentralize need to be, unfortunately, left in DC, but it is quite a solid plan.

Ken Blackwell will also have up his answers to RedState in a bit. I had intended to write about this earlier, but my internet has gone out and I’ve had to string together my cell phone to my laptop to get a connection. I’ll have more shortly.

But go check out his plan. I suspect you’ll like it.