Last week’s National Journal poll of political bloggers asked Left/Right bloggers “Are [Democratic/Republican] leaders doing enough to police congressional ethics enforcement in their ranks?” On the Left, 56% said the Democrats were not doing enough, and 60% of the Right said Republicans were not doing enough. I was among the “no” votes for Republicans, writing that “They have fewer opportunities for corruption now that they’re the minority, but I don’t see any evidence of a fundamental change in self-policing.”
Question 2 asked “Could you see yourself supporting a cap-and-trade bill if it included significant incentives for nuclear energy?” On the Left, 61% said yes. On the Right, I was the only one who said yes. I reasoned, “The last 10 years of real-world climate data have shown that the professional hysterics and their predictions are wrong. However, the last 10 years have also demonstrated the growing dangers of U.S. energy dependence on dictatorships like Venezuela and Saudi Arabia. So it’s possible (but unlikely) that a C&T bill with a strong nuclear energy component might significantly reduce U.S. dependence on dictators’ oil, and therefore be worth supporting for national security reasons.” I do realize the nukes in themselves are not the answer to foreign oil dependence, since only a small percentage of our electricity comes from imported oil. But it’s still possible (albeit very unlikely) that a C&T bill could do a great deal to reduce American dependence on dictator oil.
The October 9 poll (which I didn’t post about at the time) asked, “If major health care legislation clears Congress this year, will it include a public option?” Seventy-two percent of the Left and 57% of the right said it would. I was in the majority: “”If one presumes that the bill will pass, near-unanimous support will be needed from the Dems’ left wing. They will figure out some new euphemism for the government-run program, to attempt to provide plausible deniability for moderate Dems.”
The other question “If unemployment continues to rise, should Congress pass another stimulus package?” Eighty-nine percent of the Left thought so, while 93% of the Right disagreed, including me: “The ‘stimulus’ is like a guy who is nearly broke from credit card debt deciding to cheer himself up by getting a new credit card and running up even more debt.”
Bruce Hayden says:
Agreed to both.
That is a real hard one for me. The whole concept of cap-and-trade is faulty, and it is based on numerous faulty principles. BUT, I do think we need nuclear. But I also don’t like the way that all that energy is being locked up in the West, esp. the Rocky Mtn. west.
I go back and forth here, probably as its chances change. I still don’t see how, even if they change the name, and include opt-out, the moderates survive who vote for it.
The first one was stupid, and another one would be idiotic. I think that the Democrats who pushed the first one are naive enough economically to try it again, but I also think that flushing that much money down the drain so fecklessly is going to make another “stimulus” bill much harder to pass. Furthermore, I think adding almost a trillion dollars of debt with little to show for it, economically, puts them in a bad position to do it again. The money is just not there. They got away with it last time because it was done before all the rest of the spending and attempts at spending hit, and the American people did not yet realize what the newly empowered Democrats were going to do with the deficit and national debt. Now they know, and a lot of moderate Democrats are likely to be very skittish doing it again – even if it had a better chance at working (which I don’t think it does, because, as I noted, it is based on faulty economic principles.)
October 28, 2009, 9:04 pmgeokstr says:
I thought that the “stimulus” was backloaded so that most of it doesn’t even get spent until next year so that there might be a temporary uptick in the economy just in time for the election. It also included pretty much every liberal vote-buying wet dream that would have had to be requested as an earmark if they weren’t included in the “stimulus” bill.
So, if we get a second “stimulus” bill, what the heck would it include? Are there enough airports that serve no one left to fund? Each congresscritter should have half a dozen white elephants named after them already. And how would it be able to help the economy now? It wouldn’t, but it could be larded up with another boatload of dollars to be spent by next summer to “save or create” another 4 or 5 jobs, which would magically morph into a massive reduction in unemployment by the non-Fox media.
October 28, 2009, 9:41 pmrpt says:
The vast majority of physical scientists who disagree with a 2d amendment specialist law professor are “professional hysterics”. What is the basis for your superior judgment? Training, experience, expertise in the subject matter, or is it just ideology? How can you have credibility in this area?
October 28, 2009, 11:43 pm24AheadDotCom says:
1. Bloggers? Who cares.
2. If nuke goes wrong, bye-bye North Dakota! Meanwhile, Google is a funder of this: esolar.com. Maybe funding research into things like that might be the better, saner idea. Also, it might be helpful to highlight the hidden agendas of *all* those involved in this issue and work very hard to avoid being a useful idiot for *anyone*; that’s incredibly difficult for bloggers, who tend to be useful idiots for one side or the other.
3. Instead of a 2nd stim, how about reducing the low-wage/low-production labor pool in the U.S. by enforcing our imm. laws? Calling on politicians to enforce our laws takes a lot of guts, so that’s a bit difficult for some.
4. The tea partiers’ and others’ ranting and tantrums at townhalls had little or no impact on UHC, and I don’t expect them to learn from their mistakes. What you the reader might expect is for sites like this to promote plans like this in an attempt to actually do something. The reader should ask why it’s so incredibly difficult to get any help promoting that plan, even (?) from sites like this.
October 29, 2009, 12:19 amBruce Hayden says:
He doesn’t take grant money to prove that there is substantial man caused global warming?
Besides, David wasn’t discussing whether or not there was man caused global warming, but rather whether Cap and Trade might pass, and if including nuclear would help it pass. I guess because they are “scientists” they must have extra special knowledge about that too.
October 29, 2009, 12:25 amDan Weber says:
Does our new blog software have a way for the community to flag obvious spam like the 2:56am comment?
Not really. Nuclear isn’t problem-free, but all modern designs shut down passively if things go hinky.
October 29, 2009, 11:13 amA. Zarkov says:
Majorities don’t matter on scientific questions. Einstein was told hundreds of scientists opposed his theory, and he responded by saying: “It only takes one if I’m wrong.” Who are these “physical scientists” and how do we know a majority support AGW? Then again a “physical scientist” is not necessarily a climate scientist, or an atmospheric physicist.
One should also be skeptical when advocates won’t disclose their raw data. For example, it took years to get the tree ring data. And no wonder: the trees were cherry picked. See Climiteaudit for the details.
October 29, 2009, 12:23 pmsecond history says:
I favor nuclear power development as long as it is not subsidized by the federal government.
October 29, 2009, 12:36 pmA. Zarkov says:
I agree with you and we are doing just that in my community. Believe or not the SF Bay Area is not monolithic left. But there are problems. Politicans dodge questions. Sometimes they flat out refuse to answer. Recently when a reporter asked Pelosi what in the Constitution give the Congress authority to enact the health care mandate, her only response was “are your serious, are you serious. Here’s another example. An independent reporter interviewed Pete Stark in his office with a video camera rolling. He wouldn’t let Stark get away with evasive answers, and Stark threatened to throw him out the window. Yes Stark threatened violence on camera. The same guy interviewed Pelosi, and she called the police on him because she didn’t like the questions.
Both Pelosi and Stark as well as other Dems have such safe seats they can do virtually anything. The crazies in SF will keep electing Pelosi no matter what she does. Opposing gay marriage is about the only thing that would keep her out of office.
October 29, 2009, 12:46 pm24AheadDotCom says:
Meanwhile, here’s a classic page about an “active shutdown”. (Note: the pictures are apparently accurate, but the motorcycle bit is not.)
October 29, 2009, 1:11 pmyankee says:
I love this kind of comment. It implies that global warming is not a problem without actually saying so. Because the phrase “professional hysterics” is hopelessly vague, his claim can be consistent with any data set, and thus this assertion can never be disproven.
October 29, 2009, 4:10 pmJM Hanes says:
“Could you see yourself supporting a cap-and-trade bill if it included significant incentives for nuclear energy?”
Laying out the argument for nuclear energy does not address the question you were asked.
Do you support selectively penalizing actual energy producers, with carve outs for states with powerful Congressmen, dramatically increasing the cost of energy to businesses and consumers across the board, regulating energy usage at every level, pouring hundreds of billions into any project deemed sufficiently green by bureaucrats, regardless of whether or not there is any basis for projecting potential benefits — as long as nuclear energy gets a piece of the tax payer funded federal pie?
One could also ask if you support sin tax legislation as a tool of behavior modification on the premise that impoverished people will be desperate enough to seek ostensibly preferable alternatives which will hopefully be developed at some future date as a result — as long as it includes a tip of the hat to an existing solution heretofore stopped in its tracks by the NIMBY resistance which generated the sin tax approach in the first place.
Cutting to the chase, can you see yourself supporting bad law if it includes an amendment to your liking?
My favorite provision in the bill passed by the House is the one which halts the sale of homes which have not been retrofitted for energy efficiency. It allows building inspectors virtually unlimited access to any structure, whether existing or under construction, for the purposes of assessing its compliance to green codes yet to be determined by the unelected officials empowered to turn generic Congressional mandates into regulations with legal teeth. Are you willing to reduce the resale value of a majority of American homes to zero, whether or not we ultimately see an uptick in the nuclear generation of power?
October 30, 2009, 12:52 pmJM Hanes says:
Bruce Hayden:
Never underestimate the power of rhetoric. Examples of successful name changes abound. Pork barrel spending was just reincarnated as funding “shovel ready projects” to great, astronomically more expensive, effect. Henry Waxman is busy resurrecting the Fairness Doctrine by other ways and means.
There’s a reason that we see Cardcheck legislation packaged as the “Employee Free Choice Act.” There are very few concepts with the proven traction of “choice” in American politics. States can “choose” to opt-out, citizens can “choose” to keep their current health insurance.
October 30, 2009, 1:30 pmNathanael says:
Wow. I think I will not bother to read any David Kopel posts any more. I don’t know why Volokh bothers to keep him on.
Seriously, anyone who has failed to study science so badly that they don’t understand what’s really going on with global warming (hint: realclimate.org and the IPCC and the Royal Society do know what they’re talking about) — but still feels able to bloviate about it — is not a serious intellectual. It’s a sign of either gross and deliberate ignorance, intellectual dishonesty, or (of course) both; either equates to “not worth reading, ever”.
November 1, 2009, 2:52 pmNathanael says:
“One should also be skeptical when advocates won’t disclose their raw data.”
Yes, such as the climate denialists, who have no raw data…
” For example, it took years to get the tree ring data. And no wonder: the trees were cherry picked. See Climiteaudit for the details.”
Absolutely none of this is true of course. See realclimate.org for the details.
November 1, 2009, 2:53 pmNathanael says:
Block grants to states so that they don’t have to massively cut services just because they had a sudden drop in sales tax revenue due to the recession;
Rebuilding our decrepit railroad network (to European, or if you prefer, Chinese standards);
Major sewer projects (you’d be amazed how many of these are needed and underfunded);
Well, those are things it *could* include which would help a lot. Given the number of Republicans in Congress, it would probably just include stupid cuts in capital gains taxes.
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February 5, 2010, 12:05 am