DISQUS

Shocker, right?

Two points, me2000: One, despite a consumer's personal opinion of Bush, the president still commands the respect of the office and he still has access to the bully pulpit, from which his message is spread far and wide. Following the attacks of 9/11, he had no problem urging Americans to go shopping for the sake of the economy, but now he claims it "presumptuous" to suggest a little conservation for the same end (I guess he thinks our intelligence has evolved since seven years ago, when we weren't "plenty bright" enough to know that our patriotism is best manifest by trips to Disneyland.) During WWII, FDR called on folks to sacrifice a bit for a legitimate cause, and Bush could easily do the same today. Not a mandate, mind you, just a suggestion that might bring down demand and ease fuel prices. There's no good reason that every shoe shop in Georgetown keeps its doors open with the AC blaring in the middle of July.
Second point, on your suckers: If you've got a world-class product that everyone wants, sell away! No one's stopping you. But if your suckers were a finite resource, largely imported from volatile plutocracies, and we'd fought two wars in the last two decades simply to preserve their low cost, and thousands of people had died in those wars, and on top of all that the suckers contributed to the deterioration of the earth's atmosphere -- then yes, perhaps the mayor at some point should step in to alter your business model, because at that point you're a public nuisance. This need not be a radical move. It could happen gradually, over years. If you were innovative enough, perhaps the more innocuous product would even be tastier. But instead of being innovative, Detroit grew complacent, pumping out those 15 mpg Suburbans as if gas would forever cost $1/gallon. All the while, Congress watched idly by, never providing the nudge that would force production of better engines. (Recall that last December's congressional move to higher fuel economy standards was the first such increase since 1975.) Perhaps such a nudge would have created the world's first fleet of fuel efficient SUVs, saving Detroit and preserving consumer choice. Certainly it's possible. Don't tell me that a nation that got to the moon within a decade couldn't make a 60-mpg Expedition within three.

The point here is that, by Ron Paul's strict rules of international isolationism -- which make him a rare GOP critic of our Iraq occupation -- the United States has no business meddling in the internal affairs of other nations, regardless what they're up to. That he can't bring himself to support even a nonbinding condemnation of Burma's junta -- which would rather have survivors of Cyclone Nargis wallow in starvation and disease than allow foreign aid groups into the country -- is evidence of just how strongly he thinks Washington should look the other way.
Paul supporters would call this stand principled. But in a globalizing world of 6 billion plus, where the lines between domestic and foreign policy have been blurred by trade and national security concerns, one questions the wisdom of remaining silent while Than Shwe and his minions allow thousands of Burmese to die unattended.
This says nothing of our moral obligations as the wealthiest nation on the shrinking planet.

Annie: Point well taken. While health information technology, comparative effectiveness, chronic disease management and preventive care tend to monopolize the health reform debate, nurses will play a central role in any solution and shouldn't be overlooked. The good news is that experts seem to recognize this. In testimony Tuesday, both Thompson and Shalala were quick to point out the importance of nursing, and both called for improvements in training and education programs. (Shalala pushed loan forgiveness, for example, while Thompson promoted greater incentives for nurses to get PhDs so they can turn around and teach new folks.) Whether these items will be prioritized above the others could be an issue, but they do seem to have an audience among policymakers.

To m_leblanc: Point well taken. And I should have mentioned that Social Security beneficiaries, Veterans, and others who may not usually file tax returns might also be eligible for the payment. But they aren't included in the 130 million (nor the $42 million). The IRS is sending them notices as well -- in an entirely separate mailing.
As for the low-income earners: Odds are that if they're earning too little to file taxes this year, then they probably didn't file taxes last year either. And yet the 130 million households were identified by the very fact that they did file tax returns last year. So the only folks who will really benefit are those who filed last year but weren't planning to do so again next month. I don't know how large an audience that is, but I'm guessing it's not terribly significant -- and that there was a better way to target them. (Events like "Super Saturday" sound like a good start).
And back to the low-wage folks for a minute: The government has never found a great way to locate them, whether it be for Medicaid enrollment or an IRS benefit like this one. Maybe rather than sending notices to the highest-income households, the IRS should have sent them instead to exactly everyone else. For anyone with other suggestions, there are plenty of well-meaning administration officials who'd love to have them.

What Kennedy said (his words, not mine) was that there come junctions in history when the age -- and, yes, the experience -- of political leaders becomes an impediment to the change the times demand. Thus his claim that the old, comfortable ideas of Truman had no chance challenging the freshness and hope that JFK brought to the volatile era of the early 60s.
I merely asked whether the same logic shouldn't apply to all policymakers. The argument that elections serve as our manner of term limits is well taken. But presidents, too, are elected, and we've deemed that 10 years is all we should have to endure of their service. Or is that ceiling a breach of Democracy -- a case of government protecting voters from ourselves? There are good arguments to be made on both sides.

To Nikkym: You're story is not rare. Another would-have-been witness at yesterday's hearing, Christy Mylar Smith, said her husband had used his CitiBank card for 10 years without paying late or exceeding his credit limit. But after two late payments in one year (one made just hours late, as the couple was returning from a vacation), the rate jumped from 12.9% to 32.5%--without notification.

Marvin Weatherspoon, mentioned in the article, took out a $12,000 loan for home repair bills in 2000. At the time, the rate on his BoA card was $4.25%. Today, it's nearly 25%. Though he's made the minimum payment each month, he's paid down only $800 of the loan's principal in eight years. (This is a guy who, after working for 28 years at the Chicago Convention Center, makes $17.26 an hour.)

The banks and the Republicans want regulators -- not Congress -- to make the reforms, though historically the Federal Reserve regulation (Reg Z) they're referring to has simply dictated what disclosures card companies must make to customers. As New York Rep. Gary Ackerman (D) asked yesterday: What good is disclosure "if all it does is tell you how many ways the card will screw you?"

Advocates recommend that consumers relate any horror stories to their congress members. Consumers Union has a spot on its Web site to log complaints, as does the Service Employees International Union. Another spot is Consumer Action (www.consumer-action.org), which is the group that brought Christy Mylar Smith to Washington.

Hi Sunset. Thanks for the comments. And the purpose is this: With millions, sometimes billions of dollars in corporate windfalls often riding on the fate of specific legislation -- and with lawmakers in a position to decide the fate of that legislation -- well, you can see how quickly conflicts of interest might arise based on the personal investments of the lawmakers casting the votes. (This is particularly true of party leaders like Pelosi, who, by themselves, can decide if a bill merits floor consideration.) That's not to say that lawmakers are inherently crooked, or even that they should be forced to divest their corporate holdings. But they are inherently human, and therefore suffer all the temptations that the rest of us do, as numerous scandals prove. It's also interesting that we recognize these conflicts of interest in the judiciary branch (ie, judges must recuse themselves when they have investments related to parties appearing in their courtrooms), but not in the legislature. In this sense, the reporter's question yesterday, as I read it, was much less an accusation that Pelosi might vote her wallet then it was a condemnation of a system that would allow her the opportunity to do so. (And you'll have to ask the folks at the Politico if they consider themselves a serious publication. We're a different office over here.)

In response to althippo: The answer is nothing. Without the court's oversight, the program assumes a form that relies on the public trusting the NSA to target only those it says it will. Even White House supporters concede this involves an infringement of Fourth Amendment rights, but in the face of terrorist threats, they say, the trade-off becomes justified. (UVA's Robert Turner told me that "you get a lot of violations," but in the context of the task at hand, they are worth enduring.) The public already accepts airport searches, for example, which target folks without the slightest probable cause or individualized suspicion -- clear violations of the Fourth Amendment. The wiretapping program is something of an extension of that concept.
Not that we'll ever know if there have been abuses or not. As the ACLU discovered this week, because the program is secret, there's no way to tell who's been targeted (And without proof that you've been targeted, the courts have ruled, you lack the legal standing to sue.) As Stanford's Allen Weiner told me this week: "We have no basis for assessing the claims the White House is making about the importance of this authority. It's ultimately an empirical question, and we just don't have the data."