PHUTATORIUS
We've had two votes in the House on the stimulus now, and not one GOP rep has broken rank to support the bill. Cue rhetoric from the Democrats about obstructionism and partisan politicking in a time of crisis. That rhetoric has its appeal, but can we really blame the Republicans? The writing was on the wall, after all: this bill was going to pass.
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If your vote isn't actually going to have an effect on the outcome, it's not unreasonable (I don't think) to vote your self-interest, and Realpolitik says GOP representatives should vote no. That way, if the stimulus fails to stimulate, the GOP can sing the "We Told You So" song. If it provides the expected modest boost to the economy, the House Republicans can hammer home what they'd have done to make it better. And even if the stimulus proves to be a Just What We Needed Cure-All — and the percentages point against this possibility — it won't be the worst thing in the world to have opposed it. The electorate doesn't always preoccupy itself with who was on the wrong side of a question that proves to be one-sided in retrospect: consider the case of isolationist Republicans who wanted no part of World War II.
(And given this electorate, which self-sorting and crafty gerrymandering has calcified into party-identifiable districts, it's typically the case that an in-party primary battle poses more of a threat to a rep's reelection prospects than the November vote. This gives a Republican every incentive to look more Republican, if he wants to hold his seat. So they embrace the tax-cut ideology, even if "we all [ought to be] Keynesians now.")
It's no coincidence that the GOPers were so stridently opposed to the stimulus bill in the House, and that they held the line so staunchly — whereas Senate Republicans worked within the system, labored to improve the bill, proposed amendments, and mustered three moderate GOP ayes to reach the 60 votes required of a deficit spending measure. The Republicans can only be obstructionist up to the point of actual obstruction. The party couldn't gamble on the bill not passing — and in the end, they didn't. I see that it's fashionable these days for the right-wing bloggers to excoriate Senators Collins, Snowe, and Specter: but of course it's these three Senators who have empowered the party ideologues to carp and criticize without actually having to answer for their opinions. The far better play here for Republicans is to take a dive and appear to go down fighting.
It would be interesting to know how our esteemed Congressmen would vote if we created a situation in which they couldn't know the ideological composition of the two houses and had no clue in advance where any of their colleagues stood on the legislation — say, if we locked each of them up in a storage facility cubicle (climate-controlled, of course) with nothing inside but a flashlight and a copy of the bill. Blinded as to self-interest, these 535 could well be in a position to vote their consciences, for once.
How do you suppose it would shake out? Would these GOPers still be convinced that we're better positioned to inject cash into the economy in the short term by giving it to people who are terrified of losing their jobs, their homes, their health insurance right now? Do they truly believe it's a better investment in the economy if the stimulus money is ultimately spent on Big Mouth Billy Bass, Tickle Me Elmo, and other novelty baubles, rather than on roads, high-speed rail, broadband, medical records digitization, weatherization, and other infrastructure? I'm guessing they wouldn't, but that's all water under the corroded bridge. House Republicans voted no on Friday because they could. So hooray for them — and hooray for the three Senate "traitors" who enabled them to do it.
Showing posts with label the stimulus. Show all posts
Showing posts with label the stimulus. Show all posts
Sunday, February 15, 2009
Hope over Fear?
MITHRIDATES
Bradley Schiller expresses his worries in the Wall Street Journal about Obama's fear-mongering. He's right in that the over-the-top rhetoric can't be good for confidence, but where was the WSJ over the last eight years of real fear-mongering, when Bush told us we were in for catastrophic attacks unless we passed every single one of his measures and continued to mock American justice by holding people in perpetuity without trial?
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And it's pretty rich to single out Obama for calling this the worst crisis since the Great Depression without noting that people of all stripes in both political parties have been saying that for quite some time. Moreover, some of Schiller's points are just nonsensical. Yeah, there were far more bank failures in the Depression, but banks are much bigger now (or has the WSJ not noticed the consolidation in the financial industry it's been championing for years?). There are fewer bank failures now, but those that do happen are devastating. It takes a facile and petty mind to compare the failure of say, Jimmy's Corner Bank in 1931 to the collapse of Lehman Brothers in 2008.
But the entire argument is nuts. He writes "as [Obama] tells it, today's economy is the worst since the Great Depression." And then he goes on to note how he thinks the Great Depression was worse. Well, it was worse. That's why this is the worst economy since the Great Depression, and not the worst economy ever.
Schiller almost actually tries to counter Obama's claim by suggesting that the 1982 recession might be as bad as this one, but he uses very selective statistics. He compares peak unemployment from the 1982 recession to current unemployment figures, even though we don't know if we've bottomed out yet in this one. But this crisis features massive bank failures as well (Schiller fails to mention that this didn't happen in 1982). In 1982 the entire financial system wasn't at risk. It seems to me that this recession is much worse than the 1982 crisis, and Schiller's really grasping at straws if his argument is that Obama shouldn't say this is the worst since the Depression because the 1982 recession might, by some metrics, be just as bad. The current situation might be closer to 1982 than 1932 — that's fair to postulate — but that wouldn't refute Obama's claim.
To say that Obama's claim was way out of line, you'd have to provide very convincing proof — far more convincing than the trite argument Schiller makes here — that 1982 was worse. Or, show somewhere in your article a quote where Obama says this is as bad as the Great Depression. As is often the case with journalists on the left and right, the headlines and paraphrases usually exaggerate the statements of the politician. See headlines about John McCain, Sarah Palin, and Barack Obama on the Great Depression.
But Schiller does have a valid point in there. One worth making. It's not so noticeable amid WSJ's hypocrisy about fear-mongering, his selective statistics about 1982, his willful ignorance about the fact that most people are saying the same thing, and his embarrassing misunderstanding of the word "since." So I'll restate my own modified version of it here:
Talking about impending financial disaster will not boost confidence in a way that's needed to get people spending and lending again (nor, of course, will burying our heads in the sand and pretending nothing's wrong). Getting quick passage of a controversial bill with huge ramifications by threatening disaster is something we all hoped we were finished with, as well as loading up said bill with partisan policy and then calling the other body "obstructionist" for opposing it.
Now that the bill has passed, can we get back to Hope? Now that the bill has passed, can we get back to working with the John McCains of the world again?
Bradley Schiller expresses his worries in the Wall Street Journal about Obama's fear-mongering. He's right in that the over-the-top rhetoric can't be good for confidence, but where was the WSJ over the last eight years of real fear-mongering, when Bush told us we were in for catastrophic attacks unless we passed every single one of his measures and continued to mock American justice by holding people in perpetuity without trial?
More...
And it's pretty rich to single out Obama for calling this the worst crisis since the Great Depression without noting that people of all stripes in both political parties have been saying that for quite some time. Moreover, some of Schiller's points are just nonsensical. Yeah, there were far more bank failures in the Depression, but banks are much bigger now (or has the WSJ not noticed the consolidation in the financial industry it's been championing for years?). There are fewer bank failures now, but those that do happen are devastating. It takes a facile and petty mind to compare the failure of say, Jimmy's Corner Bank in 1931 to the collapse of Lehman Brothers in 2008.
But the entire argument is nuts. He writes "as [Obama] tells it, today's economy is the worst since the Great Depression." And then he goes on to note how he thinks the Great Depression was worse. Well, it was worse. That's why this is the worst economy since the Great Depression, and not the worst economy ever.
Schiller almost actually tries to counter Obama's claim by suggesting that the 1982 recession might be as bad as this one, but he uses very selective statistics. He compares peak unemployment from the 1982 recession to current unemployment figures, even though we don't know if we've bottomed out yet in this one. But this crisis features massive bank failures as well (Schiller fails to mention that this didn't happen in 1982). In 1982 the entire financial system wasn't at risk. It seems to me that this recession is much worse than the 1982 crisis, and Schiller's really grasping at straws if his argument is that Obama shouldn't say this is the worst since the Depression because the 1982 recession might, by some metrics, be just as bad. The current situation might be closer to 1982 than 1932 — that's fair to postulate — but that wouldn't refute Obama's claim.
To say that Obama's claim was way out of line, you'd have to provide very convincing proof — far more convincing than the trite argument Schiller makes here — that 1982 was worse. Or, show somewhere in your article a quote where Obama says this is as bad as the Great Depression. As is often the case with journalists on the left and right, the headlines and paraphrases usually exaggerate the statements of the politician. See headlines about John McCain, Sarah Palin, and Barack Obama on the Great Depression.
But Schiller does have a valid point in there. One worth making. It's not so noticeable amid WSJ's hypocrisy about fear-mongering, his selective statistics about 1982, his willful ignorance about the fact that most people are saying the same thing, and his embarrassing misunderstanding of the word "since." So I'll restate my own modified version of it here:
Talking about impending financial disaster will not boost confidence in a way that's needed to get people spending and lending again (nor, of course, will burying our heads in the sand and pretending nothing's wrong). Getting quick passage of a controversial bill with huge ramifications by threatening disaster is something we all hoped we were finished with, as well as loading up said bill with partisan policy and then calling the other body "obstructionist" for opposing it.
Now that the bill has passed, can we get back to Hope? Now that the bill has passed, can we get back to working with the John McCains of the world again?
Saturday, February 14, 2009
Trains
MITHRIDATES
I love trains. But our trains suck. There are plenty of reasons for this, but the fact is undeniable. If you've ever ridden on a TGV in France or a bullet train in Japan and then come back to the US of A and taken a "high-speed" Acela from Boston to New York, you can't help but think that we could better.
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In 1981, France introduced a train with an operating speed of 168mph. The top speed of the Acela is only 150mph, which it reaches on only a small stretch, and averages 86mph, well below the the high-speed trains in Japan(125mph), South Korea(125mph), Germany(153mph), and France(173mph). If the Acela averaged 125mph, one could do Boston to Washington in 4 hours and 45 minutes and Boston to New York in around 2 hours.
So it's with great pleasure that this train lover anticipates the new investment in train travel that is part of the new "stimulus" package. High-speed and inner-city rail was slated for $300 million in the House bill and $2.25 billion in the Senate bill. So how did the Democrats compromise? By giving high-speed rail $8 billion in the final bill! Meanwhile, Amtrak got $1.3 billion in the final bill compared with $800 million in the house and senate bills.
It's not exactly clear where, when, and how this money will be spent, but some of it seems likely to go towards California's project for a 220mph rail link from San Francisco to Los Angeles, something towards which Californians have already pledged $10 billion of their own money they don't have. Bill Kristol may be right to mock Harry Reid for wanting some money to go to a 300mph line from LA to Vegas, but the California rail link seems like it's going to happen — and soon.
So if you're a Kristol type who doesn't mind subsidies for cars and planes — but hates them for trains — this image of Mike Dukakis in a tank helmet ought to cheer you up. Laugh at it while you read his well-reasoned defense of investment in high-speed rail. It's a good explanation of what to expect, what fantasies won't happen, and why it's necessary.
Some highlights:
That's right. For all those who rail against government subsidies, the question has never been about whether to subsidize or not. We already subsidize by the tens of billions. It's just a matter of what we subsidize and what subsidies are most effective for a clean, safe, efficient, and fast transportation network.
The point is we're a long way off from replacing cross-country flights with cross-country trains, but for travel under 300 miles or so, it doesn't make any sense to fly. Unless, of course, you live in a country that subsidizes its airlines and starves its trains to the point that rail isn't an option . . .
But read the rest of the interview. Even if you're not sold yet, it's a good place to start the debate.
I love trains. But our trains suck. There are plenty of reasons for this, but the fact is undeniable. If you've ever ridden on a TGV in France or a bullet train in Japan and then come back to the US of A and taken a "high-speed" Acela from Boston to New York, you can't help but think that we could better.
More...
In 1981, France introduced a train with an operating speed of 168mph. The top speed of the Acela is only 150mph, which it reaches on only a small stretch, and averages 86mph, well below the the high-speed trains in Japan(125mph), South Korea(125mph), Germany(153mph), and France(173mph). If the Acela averaged 125mph, one could do Boston to Washington in 4 hours and 45 minutes and Boston to New York in around 2 hours.
So it's with great pleasure that this train lover anticipates the new investment in train travel that is part of the new "stimulus" package. High-speed and inner-city rail was slated for $300 million in the House bill and $2.25 billion in the Senate bill. So how did the Democrats compromise? By giving high-speed rail $8 billion in the final bill! Meanwhile, Amtrak got $1.3 billion in the final bill compared with $800 million in the house and senate bills.
It's not exactly clear where, when, and how this money will be spent, but some of it seems likely to go towards California's project for a 220mph rail link from San Francisco to Los Angeles, something towards which Californians have already pledged $10 billion of their own money they don't have. Bill Kristol may be right to mock Harry Reid for wanting some money to go to a 300mph line from LA to Vegas, but the California rail link seems like it's going to happen — and soon.
So if you're a Kristol type who doesn't mind subsidies for cars and planes — but hates them for trains — this image of Mike Dukakis in a tank helmet ought to cheer you up. Laugh at it while you read his well-reasoned defense of investment in high-speed rail. It's a good explanation of what to expect, what fantasies won't happen, and why it's necessary.
Some highlights:
There's worry that the states just aren't ready to move on stuff. They haven't done the planning and the engineering they need to jump into major projects when the funding is there. We have a major construction-management problem in this country. In Massachusetts, the governor wants to build a four-mile light-rail extension using existing right of way [tracks and property that are already in place], and it's going to take six years to complete. How can that be? Chinese and Irish immigrants were laying four miles of track a day on the transcontinental railroad, and that was in the 1860s.Yeah, how can that be? It's a question that vexes us train supporters so much. France did it a generation ago. We built railroads across this continent before anyone else in the world knew what a train was. Have we made no progress in 200 years? What the #$%^?
It's also about government spending priorities. It's absurd to say we don't have money to expand rail. For what we spend in Iraq in a week or maybe 10 days, we could fund Amtrak's ongoing operations as well as make major investments. We spend about $30 billion a year on highways and about $15-to-$16 billion on airports and airline subsidies. We're talking about 6 percent or 7 percent of that for a national rail-passenger system. You're essentially talking about a few billion dollars a year over the course of the next 10 years for a system that we should have had years ago.
That's right. For all those who rail against government subsidies, the question has never been about whether to subsidize or not. We already subsidize by the tens of billions. It's just a matter of what we subsidize and what subsidies are most effective for a clean, safe, efficient, and fast transportation network.
If you want to build a European-style 200-mph high-speed system—the kind that California is now committed to—that requires exclusive rights of way. And it probably argues for electrification. That's an expensive proposition. We can use our existing rights of way to reach speeds of between 110 and 125 mph. In some cases you'd want to lay tracks alongside what is there so that passenger and freight trains can stay out of each other's way, but most of what you'd need is already in place.Well, this bums me out. I want the 200mph kind. But the man is saying we can get 125mph for much cheaper. That's already a huge improvement. And the hope for people like me is that the California project proves the concept and the rest of the country demands more.
There's a 10-state plan to connect downtown Chicago to every other major Midwest city within 400 miles using trains that travel between 110 and 115 mph. The whole thing would cost around $7 billion, and the basic proposal calls for using existing right of way. That $7 billion is half of what it will cost to move forward with the planned expansion of O'Hare airport. Every third flight out of that airport is less than 350 miles. So if you build a regional rail system in the Midwest, you're also helping with congestion at O'Hare and opening slots for longer flights.
The point is we're a long way off from replacing cross-country flights with cross-country trains, but for travel under 300 miles or so, it doesn't make any sense to fly. Unless, of course, you live in a country that subsidizes its airlines and starves its trains to the point that rail isn't an option . . .
I've heard that argument a lot [that we're more spread out than Europe]. But from the Mississippi River east, we actually look a lot like Europe. There's similar population density and distance between cities. That's why the Southeastern states want high-speed service extended from Washington, D.C., down to Richmond, Raleigh, Charlotte and Atlanta. They know it can work. It's true that in the area west of the Mississippi to California, with some exceptions, these kinds of corridors don't exist.The man's right on. It may not make sense to develop the network from Tulsa to Tucson, but the East is dense enough for trains to work — if given the chance. Let's face it, door to door the train is almost as fast as a plane to get from Boston to NYC. If that trip were shorter by an hour, and air travel weren't over-subsidized compared with trains, it would be a no-brainer. The same is true for Birmingham to Atlanta, DC to Philly, Jacksonville to Charlotte, and a hundred other routes. We're almost at the critical mass necessary to make train travel work in the US. Here's hoping this portion of the "stimulus" puts us over the top . . .
But read the rest of the interview. Even if you're not sold yet, it's a good place to start the debate.
Monday, February 09, 2009
New Funding for NIH!
PHUTATORIUS
While conservatives continue to root through the stimulus bill in search of causes for outrage (can't they just watch MTV?), and while we're on the subject of funded research, it's worth noting that the Senate version of the bill proposes $6.5 billion in research grants through the National Institutes of Health.
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This is huge. NIH funding had petered out over the last decade, just when the potential economic and public health gains of having a vibrant, dynamic biotech industry were becoming more pronounced.
It's not wholly unreasonable to argue that someone other than the government could be funding scientific research, if the payoffs are so tangible and considerable. The thing is, many of the big breakthroughs come in basic, not applied, research, and they're a long time in coming. Companies aren't going to take on the expense of big, basic research labs. Universities will — and do. And as a result, we have biotechnology, we have Google — we have the dynamic that transformed our economy from the backdated manufacturing model of the late '70s to the thriving tech-savvy machine that powered us through the '90s and early Oughts (before bankers killed it dead).
On a list of What Makes America Great, funded research has to make the Top Five. I know that doesn't sit well with conservative orthodoxy: not only are we talking about government spending, but it goes to "university elites" who work on projects that may not promise an obvious, immediate payoff. But government grants are exactly the sort of "investment" that pays off in spades. And in the short term, with every single NIH grant creating or supporting seven jobs, and while hundreds of researchers sit on the sidelines with worthy projects delayed by nothing but lack of funding, a grants boost ought to be a no-brainer.
It's so easy to come down hard on Congress for its failings. Let's give a big cheer to the Senate for getting something right.
While conservatives continue to root through the stimulus bill in search of causes for outrage (can't they just watch MTV?), and while we're on the subject of funded research, it's worth noting that the Senate version of the bill proposes $6.5 billion in research grants through the National Institutes of Health.
More...
This is huge. NIH funding had petered out over the last decade, just when the potential economic and public health gains of having a vibrant, dynamic biotech industry were becoming more pronounced.
It's not wholly unreasonable to argue that someone other than the government could be funding scientific research, if the payoffs are so tangible and considerable. The thing is, many of the big breakthroughs come in basic, not applied, research, and they're a long time in coming. Companies aren't going to take on the expense of big, basic research labs. Universities will — and do. And as a result, we have biotechnology, we have Google — we have the dynamic that transformed our economy from the backdated manufacturing model of the late '70s to the thriving tech-savvy machine that powered us through the '90s and early Oughts (before bankers killed it dead).
On a list of What Makes America Great, funded research has to make the Top Five. I know that doesn't sit well with conservative orthodoxy: not only are we talking about government spending, but it goes to "university elites" who work on projects that may not promise an obvious, immediate payoff. But government grants are exactly the sort of "investment" that pays off in spades. And in the short term, with every single NIH grant creating or supporting seven jobs, and while hundreds of researchers sit on the sidelines with worthy projects delayed by nothing but lack of funding, a grants boost ought to be a no-brainer.
It's so easy to come down hard on Congress for its failings. Let's give a big cheer to the Senate for getting something right.
Friday, January 30, 2009
They're Going To Screw Up the Stimulus, Aren't They?
PHUTATORIUS
I'm going to throw a crazy idea out here right now, and I'd like you all to tell me if it sticks:
No one knows what must be done to save this economy, and the most dangerous people out there right now are the "opinion leaders" who believe that they do.
More...
The conventional wisdom is that there needs to be an economic stimulus plan. This seems generally not a subject of serious controversy: Robert Reich tells us that "almost every economist will tell you the stimulus has to be massive." As with everything, there are skeptics out there, but rather than render myself completely paralyzed by epistemology, I'll buy into this premise.
But after walking hand-in-hand this first mile down the Road to Recovery — stimulus: oh yes, absolutely! — we confront the question:
What sort of stimulus?
and suddenly the consensus is dissolved, and everyone parts ways. We scatter all over the opinion landscape, and we start throwing rocks at one another — because this is what we do.
We need big, fat tax cuts right now, the Republicans are shouting, so that our businesses can snap out of their shock and get back to work.
No — it's about spending, respond the Democrats. The government has to channel the money into much-needed long-term investment.
Well, which is it? Is it both? Is it neither? Some combination of the two? If so, what's the magic recipe? How much in tax cuts? How much in spending? Nobody seems to agree, and all our livelihoods are hanging in the balance.
I wish I could say I trust one or the other party to do the right thing, but the circumstances pretty strongly suggest that I shouldn't. Why should we believe that the Republicans are thinking this through and arriving at their opinions on the merits, rather than on ideological orthodoxy and the principle of partisan opposition? It's just too convenient that their answer to this extraordinary question is the same as it is to every other question: more tax cuts, and what money the government does spend should go to defense contractors. And the GOP's sealed-up party-line vote in the House says more about opposition discipline in the caucus than it does about the merits of the bill. I'm suspicious that the Elephants in the Room voted as they did simply to serve notice to the President that they won't be pushovers.
As for the Democrats, they started with a number — an empty bucket, and they've been asked to fill it up, to the tune of $800+ billion. They've been decidedly uncreative with their recommendations, and one wonders if they're just recycling the party priorities that sat languishing during the Contract with America and Bush Administration years. Suddenly and somehow they've gone and rebranded the economic stimulus package — a term that suggests a jolt of adrenaline to the swooning patient — as a "recovery and reinvestment" plan. I don't feel like the Dems are keeping their eyes on the prize.
I'm not averse to tax cuts, and I generally think reinvestment — in research, infrastructure, defense — is a good idea. Far better than taxing the crap out of us and throwing the money into entitlement program holes. But this is an emergency bill. It's important, and I'd feel a lot better if (1) the folks on both sides weren't so confident that they have all the answers, and (2) the answers they're selling weren't so suspiciously consistent with party orthodoxy.
Partisan push-and-pull is all well and good, but what we need in the end is a bill that reflects each party's best ideas, not some watered-down compromise that gives every ideologue something to brag about to his/her constituency.
I'm going to throw a crazy idea out here right now, and I'd like you all to tell me if it sticks:
No one knows what must be done to save this economy, and the most dangerous people out there right now are the "opinion leaders" who believe that they do.
More...
The conventional wisdom is that there needs to be an economic stimulus plan. This seems generally not a subject of serious controversy: Robert Reich tells us that "almost every economist will tell you the stimulus has to be massive." As with everything, there are skeptics out there, but rather than render myself completely paralyzed by epistemology, I'll buy into this premise.
But after walking hand-in-hand this first mile down the Road to Recovery — stimulus: oh yes, absolutely! — we confront the question:
What sort of stimulus?
and suddenly the consensus is dissolved, and everyone parts ways. We scatter all over the opinion landscape, and we start throwing rocks at one another — because this is what we do.
We need big, fat tax cuts right now, the Republicans are shouting, so that our businesses can snap out of their shock and get back to work.
No — it's about spending, respond the Democrats. The government has to channel the money into much-needed long-term investment.
Well, which is it? Is it both? Is it neither? Some combination of the two? If so, what's the magic recipe? How much in tax cuts? How much in spending? Nobody seems to agree, and all our livelihoods are hanging in the balance.
I wish I could say I trust one or the other party to do the right thing, but the circumstances pretty strongly suggest that I shouldn't. Why should we believe that the Republicans are thinking this through and arriving at their opinions on the merits, rather than on ideological orthodoxy and the principle of partisan opposition? It's just too convenient that their answer to this extraordinary question is the same as it is to every other question: more tax cuts, and what money the government does spend should go to defense contractors. And the GOP's sealed-up party-line vote in the House says more about opposition discipline in the caucus than it does about the merits of the bill. I'm suspicious that the Elephants in the Room voted as they did simply to serve notice to the President that they won't be pushovers.
As for the Democrats, they started with a number — an empty bucket, and they've been asked to fill it up, to the tune of $800+ billion. They've been decidedly uncreative with their recommendations, and one wonders if they're just recycling the party priorities that sat languishing during the Contract with America and Bush Administration years. Suddenly and somehow they've gone and rebranded the economic stimulus package — a term that suggests a jolt of adrenaline to the swooning patient — as a "recovery and reinvestment" plan. I don't feel like the Dems are keeping their eyes on the prize.
I'm not averse to tax cuts, and I generally think reinvestment — in research, infrastructure, defense — is a good idea. Far better than taxing the crap out of us and throwing the money into entitlement program holes. But this is an emergency bill. It's important, and I'd feel a lot better if (1) the folks on both sides weren't so confident that they have all the answers, and (2) the answers they're selling weren't so suspiciously consistent with party orthodoxy.
Partisan push-and-pull is all well and good, but what we need in the end is a bill that reflects each party's best ideas, not some watered-down compromise that gives every ideologue something to brag about to his/her constituency.
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