Obama's Fault Or Not?

Matt Taibbi's polemic article about the selection of economic advisors and the general economic policy that has come about has spawned a large debate in the blogosphere. The core of the attacks against Taibi are not the factual charges which seem to be largely a distraction. Instead the substantive critique is that the executive branch advisors arent the problem and that removing them and replacing them with the most progressive ones you could find wouldnt change a thing. This critique is based on the legislature central view of policy. Essentially these critics of Taibi are saying that until lieberman, nelson, bayh are gone there simply cant be better, more progressive policy.

Chief among the substantive critics is Ezra Klein.

Simple as it may be, it manages to be false both conceptually and specifically. The financial system made Michael Froman rich, and Rubin, too, but neither is working on financial regulation. You can argue that Larry Summers skimmed a few million off the top, but he's spent a lot of time in academia and government for someone so concerned with money. But Orszag? Furman? Geithner? Christina Romer? They may represent intellectual capture, but that's not the same thing as what Taibbi is implying.

Worse than being unfair, though, it actively misses the point. What unites not only Obama's economic team, but his whole White House, is not its emphasis on rich people. It's the emphasis on people accustomed to dealing with Congress. You've got a former Treasury secretary, CBO director, DCCC chairman, chief of staff to the Senate majority leader, chief of staff to the chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, chief of staff to the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, and on it goes. It's rather difficult to say what these people do and don't believe, as their whole world is finding 218 in the House and 60 in the Senate, and every word, action and policy brief is squarely aimed at that goal.

That leaves two questions worth asking about them: First, are they more or less liberal than the 218th most liberal congressman and the 60th most liberal senator? Second, are they good at their jobs? That is to say, are they good at bringing 218 congressmen and 60 senators into line behind reasonably good policy?

Ezra's critique is picked up by Yglesias. Klein's point is clear. Policy and law is made by congress. Until Congress is more progressive more progressive legislation will not pass. The blame heaped upon Obama is misplaced according to Klein.

To some extent though Klein and Taibbi are talking past each other. Taibbi is blasting Obama because the people he chooses represent the type of policy that will not only be portrayed as feasible but also as desirable. These people tell Obama not only what the most likely alternative is but also what the best and worst alternatives are. Any negotiation begins with these in mind. Formulating a strategy for negotiation with congress involves formulating an opening position based on the most desirable outcome and the most likely. By picking the people he does the President is helping to decide where he starts and where he wants to go. That doesnt involve congress at all.

Most people criticizing Obama take the route Taibi does. He starts from the wrong position with the wrong end goal in mind. That would be Obama's fault. But what about Klein's assertion that policy will only be as good as Lieberman et al will allow?

This is true. As long as the massive procedural hurdles of the senate remain in place those people matter. a lot. The criticism of obama has been that he doesnt play the game with these people properly. their arent any sticks. Ezra would say that the sticks dont exist except maybe for lieberman who has a nice chairmanship that might get accidentally dead. shame if that were to happen. Obama has tended to try very hard to work with and massage congress people. he seems to be very nice to them, just as he is nice to the bankers. he urges them to make credit freer. thats nice. Obama could certainly be harsher and more demanding in his rhetoric or proposals. that risks a greater loss but also greater gain.

Ultimately Obama is only in control of how he chooses to try and coerce/convince nelson, bayh, and crew to go along with his policies. SO far he hasnt really called them out or really attacked their intransigence. He probably doesnt believe that this will work. The point is that he does not try. Its not that he hasnt succeeded, failing would suck but the biggest problem is that we havent tried according to most people unhappy with the president. Ezra is right that congress is ultimately in control of what gets passed but Taibbi is also correct that Obama's strategy doesnt seem to be the most effective.

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Getting Out of Afghanistan and The Defense Problem

With our President prepared to send 40,000 more soldiers into Afghanistan a serious discussion has arisen about the future of our commitment there. I have written before about the time and material required for nation building. Back then i was much more willing to devote what was needed to the long struggle of fixing Afghanistan. The nature of the mission has changed and so has my support for sending more resources, more men and women, to that country. Unfortunately the United States has a real problem with our orientation towards the military.

Matt Yglesias posted today on the personnel expenditures for the US armed forces. By his estimates it came to about $300 Billion. The fact that people related expenses make up about 50% of the money that the United States spends on defense has implications related not only to the idea of balancing the budget but our foriegn policy itself. Has Yglesias notes

In policy terms, Arkedis makes the point that this means you can’t make any really large reductions in the defense budget purely by going after the interests of the contractors who make weapons systems. The soldiers themselves are the military’s most important weapons, and also the most expensive ones. And the only way to reduce these costs is to either have fewer soldiers, or else to over time accept a lower quality of recruits. And that in turn would mean giving them either fewer missions, less ambitious missions, or some combination of the two.

This is worth thinking about not only in terms of Afghanistan, but also in broader strategic terms. Over time as technology advances and wages and health care costs rise, most organizations seek to do their work in a less labor-intensive manner. But the rise of counterinsurgency doctrine in the military implies a shift in the direction of a more labor-intensive strategic concept. There are some good reasons for this turn, but it has a lot of underdiscussed and underdebated budgetary implications.

The cost of supporting the soldiers in the military is going to be higher as the congress appropriates more money for mental health services and greater veterans benefits. President Obama has discussed increasing the size of the military. From all appearances our military spending is going to increase in the future and not decrease. A shift to counter insurgency wars would guarantee the increase.

The United States seems to have locked itself into a position where we depend on our military strength. Much our power seems to revolve around the strength of our military and our ability to provide a defense guarantee to our allies. This is a powerful if inflexible tool. This means that our allies are free to defy us and our interests without a real fear that we will pull back our defense umbrella on anything but the most essential of issues. Our military has assumed a position of paramount importance.

At the same time some in the senate, such as Evan Bayh, have become deficit obsessed. They are pushing for a commission that would reduce the structural deficit. What this ultimately is is a means of gutting any liberal agenda and gutting social security and Medicare. There is no chance that at this point in time with a shift towards counter insurgency, increased commitment to Afghanistan, the central importance of American military power, and the structure of military expenses that the Congress would touch defense expenditures.

President Obama's decision to escalate in Afghanistan rather than wind down the adventure means that the chances for eliminating the deficit with anything other than cuts in the social safety net are far fetched. It increases the role of the military and foreign adventure in American society. Given the economic problems that we currently suffer from it makes much more sense to pull back from foriegn adventures to fix our domestic problems. This is not what we are doing.

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Secret Intellectual Property Treaty is Very Bad

You probably are not aware of the intellectual property treaty being negotiated in Seoul South Korea. Its called the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement. The reason that you may not have heard of it is that its supposed to be secret. Why? National Security concerns of course. Thats right, a treaty that affects millions is being negotiated in secret apparently without the input of views that might be hostile to the draconian enforcement of copyright law.

Im not an IP lawyer nor a computer science expert but there are a number of issues that bother me about this. A few of the leaked provisions,

1. Baseline obligations inspired by Article 41 of the TRIPs which focuses on the enforcement of intellectual property.

2. A requirement to establish third-party liability for copyright infringement.

3. Restrictions on limitations to 3rd party liability (ie. limited safe harbour rules for ISPs). For example, in order for ISPs to qualify for a safe harbour, they would be required establish policies to deter unauthorized storage and transmission of IP infringing content. Provisions are modeled under the U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement, namely Article 18.10.30. They include policies to terminate subscribers in appropriate circumstances. Notice-and-takedown, which is not currently the law in Canada nor a requirement under WIPO, would also be an ACTA requirement.

4. Anti-circumvention legislation that establishes a WIPO+ model by adopting both the WIPO Internet Treaties and the language currently found in U.S. free trade agreements that go beyond the WIPO treaty requirements. For example, the U.S.-South Korea free trade agreement specifies the permitted exceptions to anti-circumvention rules. These follow the DMCA model (reverse engineering, computer testing, privacy, etc.) and do not include a fair use/fair dealing exception. Moreover, the free trade agreement clauses also include a requirement to ban the distribution of circumvention devices. The current draft does not include any obligation to ensure interoperability of DRM.

5. Rights Management provisions, also modeled on U.S. free trade treaty language.

The general response among consumer protection and fair use supporters has been very critical. The main concerns are the adoption of a three strikes and your out policy recently adopted in france. The core of the policy is a law that requires ISPs to disconnect whole households if one member is accused -- without evidence or trial -- of three copyright infringements. Accused. You and your whole family may lose the Internet with out substantive review.

Let's reflect on what this means: First, the US government appears to be pushing for Three Strikes to be part of the new global IP enforcement regime which ACTA is intended to create – despite the fact that it has been categorically rejected by the European Parliament and by national policymakers in several ACTA negotiating countries, and has never been proposed by US legislators.

Second, US negotiators are seeking policies that will harm the US technology industry and citizens across the globe. Three Strikes/ Graduated Response is the top priority of the entertainment industry. The content industry has sought this since the European office of the Motion Picture Association began touting Three Strikes as ISP "best practice" in 2005. Indeed, the MPAA and the RIAA expressly asked for ACTA to include obligations on ISPs to adopt Three Strikes policies in their 2008 submissions to the USTR. The USTR apparently listened and agreed, disregarding the concerns raised by both the US's major technology and telecom companies and industry associations (who dwarf the US entertainment industry), and public interest groups and libraries.

How does this fit with the oft-repeated statement of the USTR that ACTA will not change US law, which justified the decision to negotiate ACTA as an Executive Agreement outside of regular US Congressional oversight measures? That remains to be seen.

In addition, there is a removal of the ISP's immunity from liability for the alleged copyright violations that occur over their pipelines if they fail to follow through on the disconnects. Meaning that your not going to get much a chance because the isps wont want to risk the litigation, especially since the potential damages might be more than the value of U.S. GDP.

What has been leaked is the MPAA and RIAA dream bill that stands in contradiction to current U.S. and E.U. law. Under the leaked regeme the ISPs would also have to adopt the notice and take down approach that is used to censor legitimate fair use on sites like you tube and flickr. The shepard fairey poster of obama with hope under it would have to be taken down from wherever it was posted online as the AP would surely allege that it is an infringer.

One of the huge issues here is that the secrecy makes it impossible to lobby or even know exactly what the bill contains. The reason for this secrecy,

According to IDG, the leaked European Commission memo also states that the US Internet chapter is "sensitive due to the different points of view regarding the internet chapter both within the Administration, with Congress and among stakeholders (content providers on one side, supporters of Internet freedom on the other)."

Cmon Obama, end the secrecy. If the doomsday reports of the treaty's contents arent true the public should know. if they are true they should know this too. These represent major changes in U.S. law and the public isnt getting any input here as this is being negotiated under an executive agreement signed by president obama. There isnt a more important issue in IP and copy right.

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