Republican Representative Mike Pence of Indiana was for defense spending cuts before he was against them — while still remaining a “fiscal conservative.”

From a Politico article in June:

If we are going to put our fiscal house in order, everything has to be on the table. We have to be willing to look at domestic spending, we have to be able to look at entitlements, and we have to look at defense.

But in an interview last week, Pence said this:

HUNT: Everybody seems to be for — most people say they’re for fiscal discipline, but it gets hard when it’s in your district. Let me give you one example for you. You went to the House floor to defend money for a second engine for the Joint Strike Fighter … [which would have] a factory in your district. The Pentagon says it doesn’t want it. The other day a Tea Party group — this is a Tea Party group — said of this project, it’s an example of “opportunistic parasite feeding on the expansion of government.” Tough stuff.

PENCE: Well, sure. And everyone’s entitled to their own opinion, but — and not entitled to their own facts. The reality is, and the Heritage Foundation produced a very important study on this, is that it is believed that when you were talking about a military defense contract that will span decades of time, it is in the interest of taxpayers in the long run to have more than one source, more than one manufacturer of that engine.

The fact that one of those two engines in part is manufactured in Indiana, we certainly welcome. We’re proud of those jobs. But at the end of the day, I really do believe that it was in the interest of our national defense.

Dissenting opinions are healthy and necessary for debate.  Hypocritical dissenting opinions, however, aren’t healthy for anything except to get yourself off.  If you want to be a fiscal conservative, then BE a fiscal conservative.  Don’t be some narcissistic, bloviating, self-rightous, insensitive, pompous, truth-be-damned, hypocritical jackass.

Cuts in defense spending shouldn’t be off the table when asserting the federal budget needs slashing — even when cuts mean sacrifices at home and making tough decisions.  This is the same as if the person I know who complains that Apple celebrates and fosters consumerism and materialism would go buy an iPhone 4 because her friend works there.

A hypocrite is a hypocrite whatever way you try to spin it.  Mike Pence is a hypocrite.

President Obama:

They have not come up with a single, solitary new idea to address the challenges of the American people. They don’t have a single idea that’s different from George Bush’s ideas, not one. Instead, they’re betting on amnesia.

The Massachusetts state legislature today passed a bill that would force its state electoral votes to be awarded to the presidential candidate who receives the most popular votes nationally.  Having done my graduate school thesis project on Electoral College reforms, I had to jump on this.

Forcing the Electoral College to follow the national popular vote effectively renders the Electoral College moot.  The winner of the national popular vote would automatically be the winner of the Electoral College — at which point the Electoral College serves no purpose.  But without a constitutional amendment, the Electoral College has to exist is some bastardized form of a LOST-esque purgatory.

A national popular vote, while seemingly popular, probably wouldn’t change election outcomes much; candidates will still likely campaign the same or similarly to how they do now.  The Democratic candidate still will not campaign in Massachusetts, California, or Illinois, and the Republican candidate will still not campaign in Texas, Georgia, Utah, or Oklahoma.  Who most voters in these states will vote for is all-but determined before the election season even starts.  Instead, both candidates will still campaign in the battleground states of our existing electoral system in an effort to secure as many toss-up votes as possible.  Why?  Because this is where the majority of toss-up votes are.  They’re battleground states for a reason.

If the purpose to switching to a national popular vote is out of anger at the Electoral College, the anger is misplaced.  The thing is, a close election will be a close election no matter how the vote is counted.  Take 2000 as an example.  Of the roughly 105 million votes cast, less than 540,000 votes separated Bush & Gore — roughly 0.0052 of the total.  In 1888, another year the popular-vote winner lost the presidency, out of 11 million votes cast, less than 91,000 votes separated Harrison and Cleveland — roughly 0.008 of the total.

Close elections will remain controversial.  The nightmare scenario with a national popular vote would be a recount of every vote in the nation.  What would the recount threshold be?  0.01?  0.005?

A far more interesting Electoral College reform to explore is a proportional allocation of each state’s electoral votes.

As a review, whichever candidate in a state receives the most popular votes in the state also receives all of that states electoral votes.  If the candidate receives 1 more vote or 1 million more votes, that candidate gets all of the electoral votes.  This process is in effect in every state but Maine and Nebraska (these two states award electoral votes based on which candidate wins each congressional district and two for the winner of the state’s popular vote.  Maine adopted this method in 1972 and has never split its vote; Nebraska adopted this in 1992 and only split its vote once: 2008).

The proportional allocation plan splits a state’s electoral votes according to what percentage of the state’s popular vote the candidate won.  So if a candidate wins 60% of the state’s popular vote, the candidate receives 60% of the state’s electoral votes.

With a proportional allocation plan, no disbanding of the Electoral College would be necessary.  State results are still state results — thus retaining the federalist aspect of presidential elections.  And, switching the Electoral College to proportional allocation wouldn’t require a constitutional amendment; rather, each state would pass a law directing their electoral votes to be proportionally allocated (there isn’t anything in the Constitution on how a state’s electoral votes be allocated; only that they must exist).

More than anything else, though, the best aspect of proportional allocation is the likelihood of increased voter participation.  Suddenly, every vote matters.  Candidates would have to alter their campaign strategies.  California’s 55 electoral votes and Texas’s 34 are up for grabs more so than they are now.  John McCain would have won 20 electoral votes in California and Barack Obama 15 in Texas.  Republicans in decidedly-Democratic states and Democrats in decidedly-Republican states who might not vote in the current system because “their vote doesn’t count” now have more relevance and have more purpose to vote.

And that, is the point.  Increased voter participation is the real issue.  So whether proportional allocation is the method or a national popular vote, if more people vote and vote smartly, everyone wins.

If you’re interested in how reform proposals might have changed past presidential elections, check out my thesis project where you can apply a reform proposal to a past election and see the results both nationally and state-by-state (mouse-over each state for further breakdown of results).

One of the best descriptions of Mitt Romney I’ve read came from The Daily Dish yesterday:

A hologram of a politician defined only by
ambition and great hair.

Ezra Klein this week wrote an insightful post regarding blaming the oil disaster on President Obama.  He writes:

It strains credulity to suggest that presidents will enter office and zero in on failures at tiny regulatory agencies [like the Mineral Management Service]. But their underlings should. And they appoint their underlings. So insofar as Ken Salazar fell down on the job, it’s Obama’s fault in a “buck stops here” sort of way.

But this is also evidence of what a bad idea it is to routinely elect people who make it a point to degrade the capacity of regulatory agencies. If your regulators are going to be effective, the commitment to their effectiveness has to be continuous, not episodic. If every other administration has to come into office and nurse a sabotaged bureaucracy back to health, they’re going to miss some of the problems, and much of the damage will already have been done.

So though Obama deserves to take his lumps on this one, Americans should take the lesson of recent disasters, from the financial crisis to the BP spill to Katrina, and realize that they actually like having good regulators and they get upset when their regulators fail them. Which might mean it’s a good idea to elect people who are interested in making sure regulators don’t stop doing their jobs every couple of years, as opposed to people who think that the best regulation is no regulation, and the second-best regulation is whatever the relevant industry tells them it is.

(Photo: Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

(Via Chart Porn)

There’s a term for people who are against federal-government spending and against the federal government but who gladly accept federal dollars to support their states.  The term is Tea Partiers hypocrites.

The Fourth Branch posted this week about government spending and highlighted two maps.  The whole article is a great read.  Here’s the key info:

The red states in the map below are states which received more than $1.00 in federal money for every $1.00 in taxes paid by residents of that state. Blue states are states which received less than $1.00 in federal money for every $1.00 paid by residents of that state in taxes (information from a 2005 study by the Tax Foundation).

Look at all familiar to you?

From The Fourth Branch:

There is a very strong correlation, then, between a state voting for Republicans and receiving more in federal spending than its residents pay to the federal government in taxes (the rust belt and Texas being notable exceptions). In essence, those in blue states are subsidizing those in red states. Both red and blue states appear to be acting politically in opposition to their economic interests. Blue states are voting for candidates who are likely to continue the policies of red state subsidization while red states are voting for candidates who profess a desire to reduce federal spending (and presumably red state subsidization).

So should those of us in blue states like Connecticut ask the Tea Partiers in Kentucky, Louisiana, Georgia, and, ahem, Alaska to give us our money back?

(Nod: Ezra Klein)

From The White House:

Why do presidents use so many pens to sign legislation? White House Staff Secretary Lisa Brown explains.

AND!!!  Brown confirms my speculation back in December that Obama’s pens are left-handed pens!

(Nod: Nagle)

If you haven’t been to Teabonics yet, you’re truly missing out on some of the funniest pieces of political English-speaking Engrish.  The Teabonics Flickr page compiles some of the more “creative” “Tea Party” signage.  Some signs take two reads to discover the error because of how the mnid wrkos.

I found Teabonics via GOOD.  Their posting included this image:

With the following caption: “And if you wrote that sign, Pelosi is probably smarter than you.”  What’s with the creepy eyes?

Here are some others.  I guess this person gets points for straight letters:

Apparently fear mongering doesn’t come with spelling lessons:

And you cannot spell “dividing” with an ‘e’:

And then there’s this one:

A Flickr user’s comment: “I wonder if this guy keeps his birth certifict with his dplma.”

He’s not just a bill.  No, not only a bill:

See here if you missed the joke.

(Nod: Nagle)

From The Washington Post:

The political odyssey of health care reform in many ways is the story of Ted Kennedy, and as President Obama signed the historic bill into law Tuesday, Kennedy’s gravesite was a place of quiet celebration and poignant reflection.

The late senator’s widow, Victoria Reggie Kennedy, spent hours Sunday at the simple white cross at Arlington National Cemetery marking where her husband was laid to rest only seven months ago. Ted Kennedy’s youngest son, Rep. Patrick J. Kennedy (D-R.I.), visited on Monday morning and left a hand-written note that read: “Dad, the unfinished business is done.”

(Nod: Roger Ebert)

From the White House Flickr stream today:

In case you’re concerned that the president can’t draw a circle, his name contains 11 letters, but he used 20 pens to sign his name, so more than one pen was used for some letters.

Another brilliant cartoon by Tom Toles:

White House photographer Pete Souza captures President Obama applauding the House passage of the health care bill last night:

The Atlantic’s James Fallows on why this moment matters:

For now, the significance of the vote is moving the United States FROM a system in which people can assume they will have health coverage IF they are old enough (Medicare), poor enough (Medicaid), fortunate enough (working for an employer that offers coverage, or able themselves to bear expenses), or in some other way specially positioned (veterans; elected officials)… TOWARD a system in which people can assume they will have health-care coverage. Period.

That is how the entire rest of the developed world operates, as noted yesterday. It is the way the United States operates in most realms other than health coverage. Of course all older people are eligible for Medicare. Of course all drivers must have auto insurance. Of course all children must have a public school they can attend. Etc. Such “of course” rules offer protection for individuals but even more important, they reduce the overall costs to society, compared with one in which extreme risks are uncontained. The simplest proof is, again, Medicare: Does anyone think American life would be better now, on an individual or a collective level, if we were in an environment in which older people might have to beg for treatment as charity cases when they ran out of cash? And in which everyone had to spend the preceding years worried about that fate?

Tom Toles takes on the Texas Crusaders.

Boom.

Marc Thiessen, former speechwriter for President Bush, was on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart last week promoting his new book.  While not much about the book was discussed, the two political opposites had a very good discussion about the role of justice in the war on terror.

One of the points in contention was this McCarthy-esque ad produced by Liz Cheney’s group Keep America Safe:

Here’s Stewart’s and Thiessen’s exchange:

It seems to me that Thiessen, Cheney, et al. are merely interested in stoking the flames of fear in the minds of Americans—much like Joe McCarthy.  One of the things that makes America great is our foundation on the rule of law.  Even in a time of war, adhering to that set of governance is crucial to remaining a free people—it’s what makes us better than the “bad guys.”

A few weeks ago, I commented on a New York Times story discussing the Texas State School Board of Education and how the Christian conservatives on the board are aiming to rewrite American history, painting our Founders as unwavering Christians.  Turns out on Tuesday, Don McLeroy, the staunchly-Christian-conservative board member featured prominently in the Times article, was defeated in his reelection bid.  I’m curious how this will effect the state’s curriculum discussions with McLeroy’s successor having more moderate positions.  Hopefully for the better since the board has national implications.

(Nod: GOOD)

From Funny or Die, President Obama is visited by past presidents trying to convince Obama to fight for the Consumer Financial Protection Agency.  All-star cast and directed by Ron Howard:

Behind the scenes:

A CFPA overview from the LA Times:

The core idea behind the proposal, supporters say, is to pull together consumer oversight powers that are now scattered among various agencies, and to put consumer interests where they should be—much higher on the priority list than they were during the years leading up to the housing and credit bubble and bust.

Along with something else, a consumer protection agency is an area where we lag behind of other Western nations.

Tom Toles:

(Nod: Ezra Klein)