Congressional Earmarks: A Personal Conflict of Interest

Congressman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) runs his local district office down the hall from where he runs his businesses worth hundreds of millions of dollars. According to the New York Times, his “dual careers” evince a “meshing of public and private interests rarely seen in government.”[1] While advocating for business in Congress, he split his holding company into separate multibillion-dollar businesses, started an insurance company, and retained a financial interest in his automobile-alarm business. At least some of his actions in government have made him richer.[2] Most notably, he secured Congressional earmarks for road widening and other public works projects that runs his local district office down the hall from where he runs  that he owns in his district. For example, earmarks that he arranged made possible the widening of a busy road in front of a medical plaza that he bought for $10.3 million. To be sure, his constituents applaud the easing of traffic, but what if the money would otherwise have been spent to relieve more severe congestion elsewhere? Even if no worse instances existed, that the congressman’s constituents benefitted from the street-widening does not mean that his action was ethical.

The full essay is at Institutional Conflicts of Interest, available in print and as an ebook at Amazon.

1. Eric Lichtblau, “Helping His District, andHimself,” New York Times, August 15, 2011.

2. Ibid.

Diplomatic Pressure and Human Rights: The Case of Assad in Syria

It is perhaps telling that the world was more or less content, as of 2011, to rely on diplomatic pressure in the idyllic hope that it is sufficient to remove a tyrant from power, even if a tyrant were unleasing the weapons of war, including chemical weapons, on his own people I have Bashar Assad of Syria.

LA Times (2011)

The full essay is at "Diplomatic Pressure and Human Rights."

The London Riots of 2011: Protesting Police Power

Over three nights of rioting in London after the police shooting of a 29-year-old father of four, over 450 people had been arrested and 44 police officers injured. The rioting began on August 6, 2011 when a peaceful march in protest of the police use of lethal force turned violent. According to the Huffington Post, “Hooded and masked youths threw bottles and petrol bombs at police and buildings and vehicles, setting a building, a bus and cars alight.” The source of the violence seems clear, at least with respect to its beginning. Rather than being fueled by greed at that point, anger at a possible abuse of power by the local police seems to have been the motive. To be sure, rioting spread to include the looting of stores by kids and opportunistic adult thieves, but to claim that greed itself was the driving force instigating the riots is to miss the purpose of the initial march and give the London police a pass.

The full essay is at "The London Riots of 2011."

What Is a Member-State?

It is easy to get locked into a certain way of viewing something, even if the perspective, it turns out, has more to do with one’s epoch than the thing itself, including how it came about and was designed. I contend that one of the main category mistakes is that wherein one Union is treated as equivalent to a state in another Union. It is astounding when citizens of the former acquiesce in the likening of “apples and oranges” at their own expense—in this case, citizens of the United States unwittingly treating their Union as though it were simply France with a very big backyard rather than a Union commensurate with the European Union (in which France is a state). The affable “going along” is caused in part by a willful indifference that relegates any study of the origins and history of the United States. I submit that a proper comparison between the U.S. and E.U. takes both after their respective first fifty years—hence most Americans are ill-equipped to refute the asseverations of European friends that the U.S. itself is somehow equivalent to a state in their own Union.

The complete essay is at Essays on Two Federal Empires.

Charismatic Leadership: A Reply

I am particularly taken by the following passage from Edith Luc’s essay on charismatic leadership: “(I)t is risky, almost utopist to wait on manifestations of a charismatic leader believed to be of unique and exceptional nature, and able to mobilize everybody at the same time.”[1] I am reminded of the emphasis that American corporations place on the CEO position and the U.S. Government places on the U.S. President. The focus on one person, rather than a council, presumes that certain individuals are so unique and exceptional that perhaps even human nature itself is surmounted. In other words, the theory behind charismatic leadership may imply such extraordinary differences within human nature that some people are essentially super-human, and thus subject to hero-worship.

The full essay is at "Charismatic Leadership: A Reply."

1. Edith Luc, “Charismatic Leadership: Between Fact and Fiction”

Charismatic Leadership: Between Fact and Fiction

A Guest Post by Edith Luc, Ph.D.

A remark I often hear about leadership is that true leaders are inevitably charismatic. I am often bewildered such remarks, because they insinuate two misconceptions: first of all, that leadership is limited to extraordinary people, and that the group leader is entirely responsible for mobilizing his/her group around a common vision.

The full essay is at "Charismatic Leadership."

The Debt-Ceiling Disaster Flick, Hollywood-Style

During the last two weeks of July 2011, the American media was focused on the debt-ceiling negotiations. In the midst of a summer with plenty of natural distractions, an increasing number of Americans were cluing in to find their federal government at a stalemate as the clock ticked to a possible economic catastrophe said to begin on 12:01am on August 3, 2011. The U.S. Treasury department had estimated that it would run out of ways to make up for the lack of additional borrowing authority on August 2^nd.  To the media, that meant a clock ticking down to 12 midnight. In actuality, tax revenues were up so the actual date was said to be around August 10^th. In any case, the U.S. would not implode at precisely 12:01am on August 3^rd by any account, yet that made better drama, which in turn increased viewership.

The full essay is at "The Debt-Ceiling."

A Self-Inflicted Compromise on the Debt-Ceiling in the U.S.

On August 1, 2011, the Republican and Democratic Congressional leaders and the Democratic President came to an agreement--a compromise of sorts--on raising the debt-ceiling and spending. According to the deal, cuts of roughly $920 billion over ten years would be followed either by adopting a twelve-member Congressional committee's recommendations (including possible cuts and revenue increases) or watching another round of automatic across-the-board spending cuts. Structurally, this arrangement is unbalanced with respect to the nature of compromise between the two parties. In short, it proffers a relatively easy out for the Republicans.

The full essay is at "A Self-Inflicted Compromise."

On the Entitlement to Exceptionalism

John Blake of CNN asks, “Have you ‘walked the aisle’ to ‘pray the prayer?’ Did you ever ‘name and claim’ something and, after getting it, announce, ‘I’m highly blessed and favored?’ . . . If this is you, some Christian pastors and scholars have some bad news: You may not know what you’re talking about. They say that many contemporary Christians have become pious parrots onstantly repeating Christian phrases that they don’t understand or distort.”[1] Unfortunately, the epistemological brain-freeze extends beyond religion onto business, thanks to marketers. 

The full essay is at "Entitlement to Exceptionalism."

1. John Blake, “Do You Speak Christian?” CNN, July 31, 2011. 

Compromise in Congress Impeded by Empire-Scale Federalism

While it may take much effort and skill to compromise on disparate budget numbers, whether to have a public health-insurance option for the poor or sick, and whether to add regulations for the biggest banks, these compromises are actually rather narrow relative to the political-ideological spectrum. Broadening out the poles could include adding revenue considerations to the differences on spending, replacing private health insurance companies with an expanded Medicaid/Medicare program, and breaking up the $1 trillion plus banks. It could also include a balanced budget amendment complementing drastic spending cuts, having the state governments decide whether Medicaid and Medicare continue as state rather than federal programs (and how), and deregulating the financial sector further. Were public officials to enlarge the domain subject to compromise, compromise itself would be more allusive even as more positions would be represented.

The complete essay is at Essays on Two Federal Empires.

In Defense of the Tea Party

In the wake of the U.S. House’s “Tea Party” caucus in the Republican caucus on July 28, 2011, which effectively delayed the Speaker’s bill for raising the debt ceiling, it might be useful to row against the current for a moment if only to present a defense of the Tea Party’s agenda. To be sure, problems exist in it, but a defense can be made. I submit that the media has not been particularly accurate, or fair, concerning the movement or its involvement in the U.S. Government.

The full essay is at "In Defense of the Tea Party."

Bad Psychology and Political Violence: A Toxic Cocktail

Before the assassination attempt on Rep. Gabrielle Giffords in early 2011, it had been quite some time since there had been a major assassination attempt on American soil. The attempt on President Reagan had been almost thirty years earlier. During the intervening time, the naive view that American politics had outgrown such barbaric acts of political violence could grow and thrive. Then in July 2011, the world witnessed an anti-Muslim European go on a shooting spree in a delusional sense of being at war. In his mind, there was an actual war and his acts were justified. In fact, he viewed himself after the fact as a savior. Undoubtedly, there was no internal check in his mind for how far his sense of political reality could get from the “facts on the ground.”

The full essay is at "Bad Psychology and Political Violence."

Presiding over a Debt Precipice: President Obama of the U.S.

In the context of a rapidly approaching deadline on increasing the ceiling on U.S. Government debt, Barak Obama found himself rebuffing pressure from anti-tax “Tea Party” Republicans in the U.S. House while needing enough non-partisan credibility for his warning of an impending economic catastrophe to be believed by the citizenry and Congress. That is to say, Obama’s failure to stand back as the Democrats and Republicans in Congress duked it out on spending cuts and tax increases mitigated his stature or credibility as Presider in Chief. An editorial in the New York Times refers to this role of the president as "the utimate guardian of the constitutional order."[1] To preside is to be oriented to the viability of the whole. This means stepping in when the system itself is at risk. Partisan involvement compromises the ability to function in a failsafe capacity, as the "ultimate guardian."

The full essay is at "Presiding over a Debt Precipice."

1, Eric A. Posner and Adrian Vermeule, "Obama Should Raise the Debt Ceiling on His Own," New York Times (July 22, 2011). 

Risking Default of the U.S. Government: Other Priorities

In mid July 2011, as several of the American states were in the midst of a heat-wave, the showdown on the debt-ceiling was becoming hot in Washington, D.C. The “heat index” on default was steadily rising with no end in sight. The refusal of republican representatives in the U.S. House to automatically increase the debt-ceiling had prompted unprecedented attention on what had been treated hitherto as a “housekeeping matter” of the U.S. Government. The attention can be referred to as a “fiscal moment.” Whereas a “constitutional moment” is one in which a citizenry’s attention is momentarily galvanized on a particular constitutional question, a “fiscal moment” is a window wherein heightened popular attention of the citizenry enables a societal recognition of what had been vaguely understood and recognized as a long-standing fiscal tendency or pattern.

The full essay is at "Risking Default: The U.S. Government."

Jamie Dimon of JPMorganChase Exploits an Institutional Conflict of Interest

U.S. Treasury Secretary, Tim Geithner, said on July 18, 2011 that he was not concerned about dire warnings from Jamie Dimon, CEO of JP Morgan Chase, a bank that was too big to fail and thus evinced systemic risk. Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Chase, said the government regulations may have been suffocating the economic recovery. While it was nice of Jamie Dimon to be so civic-minded as to want to protect the recovery, his real objective was likely to increase his bank’s profitability through relaxed financial regulations in the U.S. If so, his ulterior motive was not in line with the economy overall, much less with society and the common good.

The full essay is at Institutional Conflicts of Interest, available in print and as an ebook at Amazon.