Tea Party spillage

Doug has a great comment on the church-state separation issue. Go to his comment in the last blog entry for the explanation, but here is his summary:

The First Amendment embodies the simple, just idea that each of us should be free to exercise his or her religious views without expecting that the government will endorse or promote those views and without fearing that the government will endorse or promote the religious views of others. By keeping government and religion separate, the establishment clause serves to protect the freedom of all to exercise their religion.

Amen, I say.

Tea Party redux

A recent column about the Tea Party movement got lots of comments, most critical. The essence of my column was that the “Tea Party” is more a protest against the status quo than a unified movement. That is important because I fear that politicians courting the Tea Party will take its support as a mandate, when there is not enough consensus within the group to discern a mandate.

Two of the more intelligent responses challenged my assertions.

One:

You are right in that they are a disparate group on many peripheral issues. They are, however, firmly united in patriotism and pride in country. They universally have a distaste for: (1) an elitism that seems to believe they don’t know what is best for themselves (2) what they consider to be  arrogance on the part of the media establishment and Congress (3) the unkept word of a president who promised openness, but whose party created the all encompassing health reform bill behind closed doors (4) financial policies that are contrary to the way they run their homes and businesses (5) the deafness of a Congress that cannot or will not hear what they are trying to say on most pocketbook issues, and (6) a government that seems to think that it is entitled to any tax it chooses on their wealth.

Two:

As an active Tea Party participant, I can tell you there are at least two common beliefs which are prominent throughout tea party organizations. At the core of the Tea Party movement is confidence in the U.S. Constitution and the beliefs of the Founding Fathers. We see our elected officials ignoring their oaths to “Protect and Defend” the constitution. Instead they expand governmental authority beyond the limits established by the constitution. They distort and pervert the very fundamental principals our country was founded on. A glaring example is the separation of church and state. Our founding fathers understood the formation of our great nation could not have occurred without divine influence. They never intended the radical interpretation that has lead to banishing God from public places and our schools.

The second common trait prevalent thru-out the tea party organization is a strong Conservative thinking. It is a belief in personal freedoms given us by our creator, not given to us by any government. Therefore, we believe government does not have the right to take those freedoms away. Our government abuses it’s authority in its endeavors to expand its size and increase its financial burdens on Americans.

You are correct when you say “there is a growing frustration with the nation’s status quo”. No administration has misled voters with promises for change and then totally ignored those promises more than the current administration. But Tea Party activists are not just dissatisfied with the current administration. They are disenchanted with both political parties as well.

I hope to comment soon on these and other responses.

Request for climate-change posts

I am confused about the climate change debate, and most readers have greater aptitude in science than I do. So this is a sincere request for input.

All of the debates I have heard about global warming involve the data. Are historical measures accurate? Are computer models complete enough to accurately forecast trends? UAH’s Christy has attained considerable notoriety by challenging the data. “Climate-gate” suggested there were efforts to manipulate the data to buttress claims of anthropogenic (man-made) warming.

My confusion has to do with the relevance of the data. Obviously, many factors affect climate. No matter how significant human-caused greenhouse emissions are, natural factors could still cause a downward trend in temperatures. The issue is therefore, I would think, not whether there is an upward trend in temperatures, but whether human activities affect the temperature that would exist absent those activities.

That is not an issue that we can resolve with data, unless we understand every factor that impacts atmospheric temperature. We don’t.

So we have to look at what knowledge we have. We know, I thought, that carbon dioxide allows passage of sunlight. We know that some solar radiation, when it hits the Earth’s surface, converts to infrared radiation. We know that carbon dioxide tends to block the escape of the infrared heat energy from the atmosphere.  We know that human activity increases the amount of carbon dioxide, relative to the amount that would exist without human activity.

Given that knowledge, haven’t we proved the existence of anthropogenic climate change, regardless of the data?

Obama pushing a thread

An economist once told me it works a lot better to pull a thread than push one. His point was that demand, not supply, is the trigger for economic activity.

President Obama’s job-creation proposal — which involves tax credits for businesses that hire employees — strikes me as an effort to push the thread. No rational employer will hire employees unless demand exists for its product. If a tax credit convinces employers to ignore the economic realities, it’s a bad thing. My suspicion is that it is time to step back from stimulus efforts altogether. If, despite national debt issues, we are to continue efforts to stimulate the economy, we should be looking at it from the demand side.

How to do that? One-time increases in unemployment benefits make the most sense, because almost none of that money ends up in savings and it helps those who need it most.

The problem with a tax credit for job creation, aside from its potential to distort rational views of demand, is that it would undo some of the benefits if the economy rebounds. An economic rebound — that is, an accelerated increase in demand that corresponds with renewed consumer confidence — would create jobs with or without tax credits. The main significance of the tax credit, therefore, would be to compromise efforts to reduce national debt.

Obama is in a tough political situation, but I wish he would hold fast. Much of the stimulus money has yet to work through the system, and the economy is showing obvious — if not dramatic — signs of improvement. (Note the 5.7 percent annualized GDP growth in the 4th quarter.) Now is not the time to increase our debt with fixes that may not be necessary.

Obama’s zinger

President Obama’s State of the Union speech had lots of high points — including the fact that he can pronounce “nuclear” and does not grin every time someone claps — but I thought one of his best points was this one on global warming:

I know that there are those who disagree with the overwhelming scientific evidence on climate change.

But here’s the thing. Even if you doubt the evidence, providing incentives for energy efficiency and clean energy are the right thing to do for our future, because the nation that leads the clean-energy economy will be the nation that leads the global economy, and America must be that nation.

If the United States wants to increase exports, it needs to understand the market. Like it or not, foreign markets are demanding products that reduce energy consumption and greenhouse emissions. If we are to fund research and incentivize innovation, we should do so with an understanding of the markets we want to supply.