Gregg Easterbrook

Maybe Washington can start paying invoices with $3 bills — because the “dramatic” agreement to “reduce the national debt” is as phony as a three dollar bill.

Weeks of nearly round-the-clock negotiations among the White House, House and Senate have led to an “historic” debt deal that consists almost entirely of fluff, doublespeak and empty promises.

The politicians involved get to claim victory, and presumably will be rewarded with votes and campaign donations from the special-interest groups that, pretty much across the board, were spared any pain. Young people of the United States once again are hammered. If the deal becomes law, the national debt will rise again dramatically, while there’s no guarantee any cut will materialize — and the bill for this recklessness will be passed along to those under age 30.

Consider:

* The closest thing to a tangible “saving” in the agreement is $1 trillion in caps on discretionary programs, spread over 10 years. The new national-debt ceiling allows borrowing to rise by $2.4 trillion, with a plan to pay back less than half that amount over 10 years.

Get it? A huge surge in spending now is called a “spending cut,” while actual cuts don’t take effect for up to a decade. And that’s setting aside that inflation means the present value of money spent today sharply exceeds the value of smaller cuts many years in the future.

* In December 2010, the White House and Congress agreed to $930 billion in fresh deficit spending, as the fourth stimulus plan enacted since the 2008 recession. When special-interest groups say they want a “second stimulus,” remember, we’ve already had four. So $930 billion in extra borrowing right away is followed by a plan for about the same amount in savings years in the future. This is what Democrats and Republicans alike today are calling “fiscal discipline” or “draconian cuts.” If you emptied your bank account today but declared you would become careful about money 10 years in the future, people would laugh at you.

* By projecting the only tangible savings — which aren’t even specified, but are merely caps — into the future, the plan allows Congress to cancel them. In 2012 or any future year, Congress will say, “We can’t have caps this year because of the [INSERT ANY WORD CHOSEN AT RANDOM] crisis. We are postponing action till next year.” Rinse and repeat.

* The deal raises the federal borrowing ceiling by $2.4 trillion. This means Congress will immediately spend another $2.4 trillion. That basic point is being overlooked.

You’ve got a debt ceiling on your credit card. The ceiling is there for emergencies, and all responsible borrowers work to stay below their credit ceilings. Experience with the national debt ceiling, by contrast, shows that every dollar of available debt is always spent. Announced in doublespeak as a “savings” plan, this deal guarantees the national debt will rise another $2.4 trillion. The moment the deal becomes law, members of Congress from both parties will see an added $2.4 trillion in the cookie jar and begin raiding.

* A new “joint bipartisan committee” will be charged with identifying another $1.5 trillion in cuts. Doing nothing today, while appointing a committee that will make the tough decisions later, is one of Washington’s worst traditions of pure phoniness.

The president, Speaker of the House and Senate Majority Leader just negotiated nearly round-the-clock for weeks and they couldn’t even agree to cut programs that are transparent boondoggles. So bring in the special committee! This is total abdication of leadership by the president and both political parties.

* Will the bipartisan committee have the stones to impose cuts? Since January 2007, Congress has already been operating under Paygo rules, which specify no more deficit spending — unless waivers are issued. Waivers are always issued! The national debt has increased by $6.6 trillion since Paygo “discipline” was “imposed.” Likely outcome: the bipartisan committee holds somber meetings and recommends cuts, then Congress issues waivers, citing the [INSERT ANY WORD CHOSEN AT RANDOM] crisis.

It’s been a mere nine months since the last bipartisan deficit commission issued its recommendation, and those findings have been totally ignored by the White House and Congress. In a postmodern touch of humor, the last bipartisan deficit commission titled its findings “The Moment of Truth.”

* Won’t the proposed balanced-budget amendment fix the problem? Assuming such an amendment passed Congress, it must be ratified by three-fourths of the states. There’s no chance of this — because the states love deficit spending! Nearly 40 percent of state and local government spending is financed by the federal government — Washington borrows, then ships money to the states. If a federal balanced budget amendment went into effect, the states would have to fund themselves, rather than rely on Washington for free cash (all the while denouncing “the big spenders” in D.C.).

Calling for a balanced-budget amendment is classic political delaying tactics, since even a successful amendment would require many years to ratify. Nothing stops Congress from balancing the budget right now.

* Congress continues to drive the nation deeper into debt when there are many problems but no national emergency, and before the Baby Boomer retire. Extra borrowing sure hasn’t fixed the economy. Japan’s example shows that undisciplined borrowing slows economic recovery by causing business to think the nation is going downhill, and thus to hoard cash rather than invest. That’s precisely what is being observed in the United States right now.

* The worst aspect of the phony-as-a-$3-bill national debt deal is that the middle-aged men and women who run Washington are acting irresponsibly, then passing the problem along to their children. What kind of adult harms the future of his or her own offspring?

In 2003, the United States invaded Iraq citing two justifications: to depose Saddam Hussein and to destroy Iraq’s banned weapons program. Within a year, Hussein and his accomplices were imprisoned, and it had been discovered there was no Iraqi banned weapons program. Having achieved its goals, why didn’t the United States leave? Seven years later, this question haunts the U.S. occupation of Iraq.

In 2001, the United States invaded Afghanistan, citing two justifications: to find Osama bin Laden, and break up al Qaeda. Bin Laden is now dead, and al Qaeda broken.

So why doesn’t the United States leave?

By autumn, American forces will have spent a full decade in Afghanistan — conducting patrols, bombing the heinous, bombing the innocent. The United States has roughly 100,000 soldiers and air crew in Afghanistan, almost as many as the peak force in Iraq. The U.S. presence in Afghanistan constrains the Taliban, and the Taliban are an awful group. But the Taliban are a central Asian problem afflicting Afghanistan and Pakistan — their existence does not in any way threaten the United States’ national interest.

Having fulfilled its goals in Afghanistan, why doesn’t the United States leave?

Max Boot, a Council on Foreign Relations fellow, writes in the Wall Street Journal that, “Since 9-11, al-Qaeda has never had more than a few dozen fighters inside Afghanistan at any given time.” Boot is a hardliner — he supports the Afghanistan war, and is author of the 2003 book Savage Wars of Peace, a spirited defense of superpower engagement in low-level conflicts. Boot also thinks there are terrorist groups other than al Qaeda in Afghanistan.

But with bin-Laden dead, how could “a few dozen fighters” and miscellaneous criminal bands justify keeping 100,000 American military personnel, plus 40,000 NATO military personal, in Afghanistan? Justify the continuing violation of Afghan sovereignty? The United States has never declared war on Afghanistan — we just attacked.

Most important, how can the United States justify continuing to kill civilians in Afghanistan? U.S. and NATO forces may not intend to kill Afghan civilians. To the dead, it’s all the same.

After the al Qaeda attack on the United States, the United States counterattack on Afghanistan could be rationalized as self defense. With bin Laden dead, that rationale fades away. To think that any country that harbors scattered bands of bad people should be invaded and methodically bombed by the United States is madness.

So with bin Laden gone — why don’t we leave Afghanistan?

When Barack Obama became president, the United States had about 70,000 soldiers and air crew in Afghanistan. Obama promised the Afghanistan “surge,” which raised the force level, would end in summer 2011. So even before bin Laden was killed, U.S. forces were expected to begin leaving Afghanistan around now. Instead, the White House and Defense Department are saying combat forces will remain in Afghanistan perhaps until 2014.

That would be 14 years of occupation — thousands of Americans dead, tens of thousands of Afghans dead — in order to accomplish what? In order to demonstrate U.S. muscle flexing, and to postpone the moment when Western forces leave Afghanistan in worse condition than they found it. With bin Laden dead, the time has come to end American military adventurism in Afghanistan — can U.S. forces on the ground there even describe what they are now fighting for? — and begin Afghan reconstruction.

What follows are a few notes on the bin Laden raid, which your columnist thinks was moral and which I defended here on the BBC:

Those “stealth helicopters.” Radar evasion — which is debatable for a helicopter — had little, if anything, to do with their use. Two Black Hawks with stealth features, trailed by two Chinooks, flew toward bin Laden’s compound. The Chinook, a 1960s design, has no stealthy features: on radar screens, it looks like a flying barn. So the presence of the Chinooks would have betrayed the stealth helicopters to radar operators.

The reason for the “stealth” helicopters is that they make less noise than standard rotary aircraft, aiding the element of surprise. No helicopter is quiet: the Pakistani press reported people in Abbottabad left their houses to see what all the helicopter noise was. “Stealth” helicopters are merely loud, rather than ear-splitting. Also the stealth Black Hawk has infrared shielding, in case Pakistani forces fired heat-seeking missiles, which didn’t happen.

Why didn’t the Pakistani military respond to a 40-minute raid near its capital? One reason is that the Pak military is not exactly a well-oiled machine: the Russian fleet approaching Tsushima Strait in 1905 is the right analogy. This is something to think about when pondering that Pakistan’s army must protect atomic bombs. Another reason is that Pakistan’s defense net points east, toward India. The raiders approached from the west, from Afghanistan.

It also may be that the United States was “spoofing” Pakistani radars and communications: causing the raiding helicopters to disappear electronically, without “jamming” (producing static and systems failures), which would announce something unusual was happening. Don’t be surprised if it turns out one or more U.S. electronic warfare aircrafts were in Pakistani airspace that night, spoofing Islamabad’s national security net. And don’t be surprised if it turns out that U.S. ground-attack aircraft, including this heavily armed plane, specialized to fire on advancing soldiers, were above Pakistan in case the raid went south.

Why wasn’t the V-22 used? The Pentagon has spent at least $30 billion on the V-22 tilt-rotor, which is newer and more advanced than the Black Hawk helicopter. The V-22 was designed for a mission profile like the bin Laden raid — fly a long distance through hostile airspace at twice the speed of a helicopter, land and take off like a helicopter, fly back at twice helicopter speed. Yet the V-22 wasn’t used. Though operational since 2007, the V-22 has never been employed near hostile forces in Iraq or Afghanistan.

This aircraft had a poor safety record in testing, and has been cited by Defense Secretary Robert Gates as an example of procurement waste. If it wasn’t right for the bin Laden raid, the V-22 will never be right. Either the lack of V-22 use was inter-service rivalry of the silliest kind (Navy SEALS staged the mission, the V-22 is operated by the Marines and the Air Force) or the V-22 is a very expensive dud that needs to be canceled before any more taxpayer money is wasted.

Photos, top to bottom: Farmer Jalaluddin, 70, carries harvested vegetables past the compound where U.S. Navy SEAL commandos reportedly killed al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad May 5, 2011. Pakistan, in apparent reference to old rival India, said on Thursday any country that tried to raid its territory in the way U.S. forces did to kill Osama bin Laden would face consequences from its military. REUTERS/Akhtar Soomro; Part of a damaged helicopter is seen lying near the compound after U.S. Navy SEAL commandos killed al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad, May 2, 2011. REUTERS/Stringer

President Barack Obama wants to increase taxes on the wealthy, and surely is correct that this must be part of any serious plan to control the national debt. Consider the case of a wealthy couple who made $1.7 million in 2010, yet paid only 26.2 percent in federal income taxes — though the top rate supposedly is 35 percent, and the president says that figure should rise to 39.6 percent. The well-off couple in question is Barack and Michelle Obama, whose tax returns, just released, show they paid substantially less than the president says others should pay.

If Obama is in earnest about wanting increased taxes on the wealthy, then he should send the United States Treasury $182,998. That’s the difference between his Form 1040 Line 60 (“This is your total tax”) and what he would have owed at the higher rate (plus limits on itemized deductions) he himself advocates.

So why doesn’t he tax himself more? The Form 1040, after all, only stipulates the minimum tax an American must pay. More is always welcome. Obama should write a check to the United States Treasury for $182,998.

Wealthy people who say the rich should pay higher taxes — Bill Gates and Warren Buffett have joined Obama in declaring this — are free to tax themselves. If you believe the top rate should rise to 39.6 percent (Obama) or 50 percent (Buffett), then calculate the difference and send a check for that amount to the Treasury. Of course no one individual doing this, even a billionaire, would have much impact on the deficit. But if rich people who say they believe in higher taxes were willing to practice what they preach, this would prove their sincerity, making legislation on the point more likely.

“The most fortunate among us can afford to pay a little more,” President Obama said last week about debt and taxes. So why didn’t he? The president is covered by his own definition of “fortunate,” since his proposal calls for higher taxes on individuals earning more than $200,000 or couples earning more than $250,000.

Compared to the tax returns of the rich generally, the president and First Lady look good. They gave $245,000 to charity in 2010, or 14 percent of their income — admirable generosity, and a better number than posted by most recent presidents and vice-presidents.

Figures from the Internal Revenue Service show that in 2008, the most recent year for which statistics are available, the wealthy paid only about 17 percent of their income in federal taxes — less than the president’s 26 percent in 2010, and much less than the official top rate of 35 percent for the bulk of a well-off filer’s income.

That the wealthy as a group are paying 17 percent of their income as federal income taxes, down from 26 percent from the wealthy as a group in 1992, is a result of the tax cuts enacted under George W. Bush in 2001 and 2003, and extended under Obama last year.

The slashing of taxes for the wealthy is well-known — but Bush’s cut reduced taxes for typical people, too. The lower part of the rate structure is now so low that in 2008, 45 percent of American households paid no federal income taxes at all, according to the Tax Policy Center. Americans as a whole paid an average of just 9.2 percent of their income as federal income taxes.

Both figures are postwar lows. The Tea Party claim that federal taxes are rising is, simply, factually untrue.

Falling taxes for average people have played as much a role in the ballooning federal debt as have falling taxes for the rich. In turn, soaking the rich cannot, alone, tame the national-debt monster.

Calculations based on IRS figures suggest — only rough estimates are possible, as tax laws can change economic behavior — that raising the amount of income actually paid as taxes by the rich from the current 17 percent to 26 percent, what the Obamas paid, would bring in about $200 billion a year in fresh federal revenues. Increasing the figure to about 30 percent (likely actual result of the tax changes Obama advocates) would raise the new-revenue total to about $300 billion annually.

Such amounts would ease the deficit, but hardly represent a cure — government red ink is projected to hit $1.6 trillion this fiscal year. There simply isn’t a long-term deficit solution based only on taxing the rich. Social Security benefit cuts, and more taxes on the middle class, will be needed too.

Sustained 5-to-6 percent GDP growth would solve the deficit problem painlessly, by raising revenue without tax increases or Social Security cuts. While such growth, roughly double the current number, is possible, it seems unlikely.

Though tax increases alone cannot put the country’s fiscal house in order, the president should set a better example on his own tax returns.

That $245,000 the Obamas gave to charity, for example — deducting it on their Schedule A reduced their federal tax bill by roughly $85,000, and cut their Illinois state tax bill too. But you’re not required to deduct charitable giving, or to claim any tax favor. Deductions and tax credits are options. If you think the government deserves more of your income, don’t claim them.

Obama said last year that itemized deductions for the wealthy should be phased out — then on his own tax return, claimed a huge itemized deduction. Until those who advocate higher taxes for the well-off practice what they preach, the national debt situation may only get worse.

The budget compromise that averted a federal government shutdown nearly foundered upon the rocks of Republican riders, one of which would have stripped the Environmental Protection Agency of authority to regulate greenhouse gases. Speaking as someone who favors greenhouse restrictions, I wish the Republican rider — dropped just before the clock struck midnight — had succeeded.

The EPA is trying to restrict greenhouse gases using a 41-year-old statute intended for another purpose. Republicans are right to object to this.

Of course, most Republicans don’t want any greenhouse gas regulation at all — though greenhouse regulation is now justified by a strong body of science, including by statements from George W. Bush’s Climate Change Science Program. Greenhouse regulation probably will not cost anywhere near as much as current estimates. All previous programs to control air emissions have proven significantly cheaper than expected. Republicans are correct, though, that the EPA is going about this in the wrong way.

Only a global warming program enacted by Congress will have political validity. A backdoor attempt — federal bureaucrats using strained interpretations of old laws, leading to solutions imposed by judges — will be illegitimate in the eyes of voters. Americans are sick of bureaucrats and judges trying to dictate policy. Laws passed by Congress, on the other hand, clearly are legitimate politically. You may not like any particular law passed by Congress — but that’s where the Constitution vests the power in our system.

Thus Congress must speak on greenhouse gases. Backdoor bureaucratic attempts will only discredit climate change action.

Here’s the fast-forward version of the current EPA controversy:

The Clean Air Act of 1970 regulates pollutants that cause smog and acid rain. The Act has been a spectacular success: smog and acid rain have declined rapidly, without harm to the economy. Indeed, the economy has mainly boomed since smog and acid rain rules became stricter; an improving natural environment may be a cause of economic growth. The Clean Air Act has strong political legitimacy, because Congress clearly spelled out the specific compounds that were to be restricted.

Congress has never enacted any regulation of carbon dioxide, the primary greenhouse gas. Frustrated, advocates proposed that the Clean Air Act be used. It contains a clause saying the EPA may impose rules on gases not named in the statute, if they are found to “endanger public health or welfare.”

Do greenhouse gases threaten “public health or welfare?” Saying they threaten public health is quite a stretch — there is no evidence of this in the United States, though it might be happening in equatorial nations. Perhaps they threaten public “welfare,” since that term is amorphous. But considering the general welfare of the United States has steadily improved during the postwar period, even as greenhouse gas accumulation has risen, this one vague word seems hardly sufficient to hang a broad regulatory authority on.

In 2003 the EPA, under Bush, declared that the health-or-welfare clause of the Clean Air Act did not apply to greenhouse gases. Massachusetts sued, and in 2006 the Supreme Court said this. Totally obvious what the decision means, right? Like many recent Supreme Court opinions, the justices’ decision could scarcely be understood by monks standing on their heads in a monastery.

Many politicians and pundits, to quote former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, said the Supreme Court “ordered the EPA to impose greenhouse gas regulations.” The decision did not. Rather, the court found the EPA was wrong to assert that it could not regulate greenhouse gases. Get the maddening double negative? The Supremes weren’t definitive on whether the EPA has authority: rather, they told the EPA to go back to the drawing board and articulate a “reasonable basis” for deciding one way or the other.

When Barack Obama, who favors greenhouse rules, was elected, senators John Kerry and Joe Lieberman put together a Senate bill. It failed, and that’s good — the Kerry-Lieberman global warming bill was a nightmarish mélange of top-down controls, special exemptions and giveaways to campaign donors. (Here’s the 987-page “discussion draft”). Knowing the bill was goin’ nowhere even when Democrats controlled the House, Obama’s EPA reversed Bush’s EPA and declared that the Clean Air Act can be used to regulate greenhouse gases.

That brings us to the present. Two weeks ago, the Republican-controlled House voted to amend the Clean Air Act, to clarify that it does not apply to greenhouse gases. The Democratic-controlled Senate would not match. Then the Tea Party took the issue to the budget showdown, without success. Now it’s settled? Hardly. There’s no guarantee the EPA’s pro-regulatory finding will amuse the Supreme Court any more than its anti-regulatory finding did. Additional litigation seems assured.

This tussle has brought out absurd degrees of exaggeration from theologians of both extremes. The Wall Street Journal editorial page, representing the Church of the Perpetual Denunciation, declared that having no regulation of greenhouse gases would trigger “growth and job creation”. Wait, there was already no regulation of greenhouse gases during the recession!

Paul Krugman, representing the New Jersey Synod of the Latter-Day Limousine Liberals, ridiculed the mere suggestion that steady improvement of public health during the era of greenhouse accumulation shows greenhouse gases don’t harm public health. Wait, that makes sense! It’s 2011, must the left still shout down its critics rather than engage their arguments?

Bottom line: all three branches of the federal system (legislative, executive and judicial) have spent eight years arguing about the meaning of a single sentence in an statute. And we’re still not sure what the sentence means.

Solution: ditch the EPA’s backdoor regulatory attempt, then enact legislation to reduce greenhouse gases. Such legislation would have political legitimacy; could be simple and practical; and can be conservative!

In 1992, Martin Feldstein, who had been Ronald Reagan’s chief economist, proposed that greenhouse gases be reduced via a carbon tax. In 2007, Gregory Mankiw, who had been George W. Bush’s chief economist, proposed the same. Rather than impose some super-complex regulatory scheme with decisions made in Washington, a carbon tax would allow individuals and businesses to make their own decisions about carbon dioxide reduction — while creating a profit incentive to invent low-cost control technology. That’s why conservative economists like the idea.

The national-debt monster is looming: why not combat it with a tax on air pollution? That’s preferable to higher taxes on income or corporate profits. Taxing income and profit only discourages labor and capital, both of which are good. Taxing pollution would discourage pollution — while helping balance the books.

So Tea Party, I hope you succeed in stripping the EPA of Clean Air Act-based authority regarding global warming. Then enact the reform the country needs: a carbon tax, to reduce the deficit and protect the climate.

U.S. forces are fighting three costly, inconclusive wars; unemployment is 8.8 percent and the president’s new budget proposal would double the national debt in a mere 10 years. What a great moment for Barack Obama to declare for reelection.

Obama enters the 2012 race as the clear favorite. His poll numbers are weak but his public respect is solid; his money position is outstanding; even people like me, who think runaway federal borrowing is an error of historic proportions, admire the president. I can see myself pulling the lever for him in 2012, as I did in 2008.

Set aside zip code analysis and Electoral College positioning — what two leading indicators should give Obama pause? The decline of incumbency and the rise of third-party spoilers.

Presidential incumbency brings many advantages, not least of which is command of the nation’s attention. White House incumbents standing for reelection are 21-7 in American annals.

But recent trends matter most, and recently, incumbents have been on a mere 3-3 streak. Ronald Reagan (1984), Bill Clinton (1996) and George W. Bush (2004) were reelected. But Gerald Ford (1976), Jimmy Carter (1980) and George H. W. Bush (1992) were defeated when standing for reelection with all the powers and advantages of incumbency. Once, Americans almost always voted to retain an incumbent chief executive. Not anymore. Lately voters have been ornery.

Now factor in spoiler candidates who run for reasons of ego, knowing they can’t win. Carter lost because a third-party vanity candidate, John Anderson, siphoned off liberal voters. The elder Bush lost because a third-party vanity candidate, Ross Perot, siphoned off conservative voters. Plus, in 2000, a third-party vanity candidate, Ralph Nader, threw the election to the younger Bush, away from Al Gore, who prevailed in the popular vote.

That’s three of the last seven presidential elections swung by third-party candidates who were in the race mainly as acts of self-flattery. We live, after all, in an era in which personal promotion often trumps substance.

Right now a three-way 2012 race seems unlikely. But it’s only April 2011. In April 2007, no one was taking a certain junior senator from Illinois seriously as a presidential aspirant.

Suppose Michael Bloomberg — who was a Democrat, and then a Republican, and now is an extremely wealthy Independent — ran a vanity third-party campaign for the White House. He could gain traction as a protest vote for disenchanted Obama supporters. Mr. President, I’d appoint Bloomberg to something important ASAP if I were you.

And what of the likely opposition field? In alphabetical order:

Michele Bachmann. If this nut job gets anywhere near the Oval Office, there will be a mass migration to Canada. Democratic campaign strategists are rooting for Bachmann — she gets the Republican nomination, and the Obama reelection becomes a walkover.

Haley Barbour. A flaming hypocrite, Barbour denounces government spending yet lavishly wastes taxpayer funds on himself.

Newt Gingrich. A blazing-torch-visible-from-orbit hypocrite, it’s hard to believe even one Republican woman will vote for Gingrich, and women are increasingly important to the GOP. Not clear why any man would vote for him, either.

Mike Huckabee. A charming guy with potentially broad appeal. His current job as a cable commentator offers a lot more longevity than being a candidate.

Jon Huntsman Jr. Nobody’s heard of him. He’s an engaging public speaker who makes a fresh impression with a fascinating personal story. Sound like anyone we know four years ago?

Sarah Palin. Her grasp of public affairs is better than pundits acknowledge. But what is her substantive achievement? Palin quit on her first term as Alaska governor. Couldn’t take the pressure of even a single term running a state with one-quarter of one percent of the country’s population. Has tremendous potential for a meltdown.

Tim Pawlenty. No big negatives, which is deceptively important. Not clear what he stands for beyond his own career.

Mitt Romney. Bowled a gutter ball in the 2008 Republican nomination race, but Reagan lost the Republican nomination in 1976 then won on his second attempt. Has uncanny ability to seem phony even when he’s telling the truth.

Rick Santorum. There’s no minimum to the number of votes Santorum could draw.

The wild card:

Michael Bloomberg running as a Republican. This would require significant bridge-building with a party he theatrically resigned from. Paired with a social-conservative running mate, Bloomberg as a Republican might knock Obama from the White House.

Where’s the market opportunity in the contemporary American political marketplace? There is no prominent Roe-supporting, experienced, centrist Republican who’s gone after teachers’ unions and government-worker pensions. There will be if Bloomberg returns to the GOP.

Photo: A screen capture image from a video announcement of U.S. President Barack Obama’s 2012 re-election campaign that was launched on April 4, 2011. Obama, a Democrat who won a sweeping victory over Republican Senator John McCain in 2008 with a message of change, said in a low-key email to supporters that he was filing papers to start his re-election bid in a formal way. REUTERS/http://www.barackobama.com/

Once again, Western bombs are falling on the sand-blown weapons testing range that is north Africa, the Middle East and the landscape of the old Great Game. The area stretching roughly from Morocco to Afghanistan west to east, and Syria to the Persian Gulf north to south — let’s call this region Deathistan — long has been contested. But in the last century, the region has been treated as a plaything by Western capitals.

The United States and United Kingdom, which boast of enlightenment, cause harm when they please in the Deathistan region. Less than a generation ago it amused the United States to encourage Saddam Hussein to slaughter Iranians; then conditions changed, so the United States started killing in Iraq. Right now the United States and NATO are taking lives in Libya and Afghanistan. In these places, U.S. and other Western armed forces in the main behave with high ethics. But their missions are to slay and destroy, and here’s the bottom line: Western meddling in north Africa, the Arab world and the Great Game territories has not worked.

Israel exists: that is the West’s principal achievement in the region, though for a comparatively small number of people. Cheap oil flows. Moscow quit Afghanistan. Otherwise, the last century of attempts by the United States and European powers to manipulate the Deathistan region rarely has come to good.

We’ve sure blown a lot of stuff up. When innocents were killed inside the United States on 9-11, America claimed, with justification, a right of outrage. When innocents are killed by Western action elsewhere — hundreds of thousands have died in Iraq and Afghanistan in the U.S. retaliation for the 3,000 dead of 2001 — the West washes its hands, or issues a press release.

Muammar Gaddafi is an awful dictator. But no one in the Washington or London establishments seemed to care about that even a short time ago. Libyan oil money was moving freely; in 2009, Gaddafi was presented to the world by the New York Times as an op-ed columnist, as a “leader” and sage. Now the West is bombing Libya, without debate in Congress or European parliaments — and over the objections of Turkey, which understands much of the region better than does the West. Though aimed at Gaddafi’s arms, some of the bombs are killing civilians: others, killing military conscripts who have little choice about their fates.

Maybe the bombing will stop Gaddafi from repressing his country. Maybe it will just smash some stuff and usher in a different type of repression — this being the Western pattern of interactions with the region.

Despite extensive Western involvement in Deathistan, most nations there remain backward and authoritarian. Maybe that’s in part because of Western meddling, including periodic fits of use of force.

Much of the modern form of the region was created by Western fiat. Borders of Iraq, Iran and many Gulf states were drawn in London; British troops occupied Iran during World War II; the United States deposed a democratically elected government in Iran in 1953, then tried to control Iran in the 1970s; then armed Iraq against Iran in the 1980s; now regularly shakes its fist at Tehran; Britain and France attacked Egypt in 1956; the United States armed Islamic rebels in Afghanistan in the 1980s and now fights Islamic rebels there. I don’t mean this paragraph as a history of the region, merely a brief reminder of the extent of Western involvement.

The fact that Europe and the United States shaped the Deathistan region does not give them a right to do as they please there. Of course the West should advocate change. But there’s a vast difference between siding with democracy and sending in attack jets.

Choose any nation roughly the geographic size of Iraq (say, Spain) or roughly the population of Libya (say, Sicily). If the United States had staged all-out attacks on Spain twice in the last 20 years, or bombed Sicily twice in the last 25 years, how advanced or happy might these nations be? That’s what the United States has done to Iraq and Libya.

Suppose really something bad were happening in America. Suppose George W. Bush refused to leave office: was barricaded in the White House, and attempting to cancel civil liberties. Now suppose Libya or Iraq possessed supercarrier strike groups, and responded to the bad news from the United States by launching missiles at military bases near Washington and dropping bombs along the East Coast. Not only would America be furious — this wouldn’t work! Things would not get better in America; they’d get worse.

Yet the West expects such tactics to work in north Africa, the Middle East and the old Great Game areas. I will skip the complication that use of force may be morally wrong: is there one single soul in Washington who still cares about morality in use of force? It is enough that the bottom line is that U.S. meddling usually fails.

If the United States and European Union stopped trying to manipulate the Deathistan region, and stopped dropping bombs there, the nations of this area might stay backward and repressive. Or, might improve. We’ll never find out until such time as the West simply leaves these nations alone, and lets them reform themselves.

Photo, top to bottom: People look at a U.S Air Force F-15E fighter jet after it crashed near the eastern city of Benghazi March 22, 2011. The fighter jet crashed in Libya overnight after apparent mechanical failure but its crew were safe, a spokesman for the U.S. military Africa Command said on Tuesday. REUTERS/Suhaib Salem; A protester sits in a makeshift shelter on a street during an anti-Gaddafi demonstration in Benghazi March 22, 2011. REUTERS/Suhaib Salem

With another federal spending controversy brewing on Capitol Hill, recall that in his 2010 State of the Union Address, President Barack Obama said, “We’ve already identified $20 billion in savings for next year.” Now it’s next year — so what happened to the $20 billion in savings? Let’s follow the bouncing budget cut.

The “$20 billion” promise was not the sort of empty verbiage that dominates the federal spending debate. How many times have you heard a politician thunder about cutting spending but not cite even one specific reduction he or she supports? A year ago, the Office of Management and Budget laid out Obama’s proposed cuts in specific detail.

Some highlights: End production of the C-17 cargo plane, $2.5 billion saved. End federal funding for local hospital construction, $338 million saved. End the Save America’s Treasures program, $30 million saved. (The new book “Triumph of the City” by Edward Glaeser of Harvard argues that programs such as this actively backfire by slowing urban rebirth.)

Cut the Homeland Security Activities budget of the Environmental Protection Agency — the EPA fights terrorism? — by $35 million. Cut $1.5 billion in tax favors to Big Oil. Eliminate numerous overlapping education-grant initiatives. Cut $20 million from the critical, crucial, vital Right-Size Component Personnel Travel program. A litany of specific federal spending or tax-favor reductions were proposed in 2010 by the White House. The total saved came to $23 billion, more than the president promised.

Here’s what happened: nothing.

The spending cuts the president requested in 2010 were part of his fiscal 2011 budget proposal — and Congress never voted on the FY11 budget. Since October, the country has been operating on “continuing resolution,” meaning the budget of fiscal 2010 is frozen in place:  including billions of dollars in spending that even a liberal Democratic White House considers improvident.

Congress failed to enact an FY11 budget because of the childish sandbox fight between Republicans and Democrats over who would be blamed for what. The effect of Congress’s failure to fulfill its duty is to ensure that even clearly undentified wasteful spending continues. Welcome to Washington!

Last week, Congress approved a continuing resolution that keeps government in operation till mid-March. Included in the bill was about $2 billion in spending cuts for 2011 — less than 10 percent of what President Obama backed, and more to the point, a barely detectable 0.05 percent of all federal spending for this year. Nevertheless, Senator Dianne Feinstein of California called the cut “huge.” For politicians  whose mindset is giveaway, giveaway, giveaway, a 0.05 percent reduction is strict discipline.

The Senate is considering a continuing resolution that would carry the country through the end of the fiscal year. Democrats have proposed an additional $11 billion in cuts, which Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois calls “the limit” of possible cuts. Durbin’s “limit” — $2 billion already cut, $11 billion more reduced — would be considerably less than what President Obama said in 2010 he wanted to cut. And this “limit” cut would still represent just one-third of 1 percent of 2011 federal spending.

Many of the reductions in spending and tax favors that President Obama requested in 2010 are now in the White House’s proposed fiscal 2012 budget. So that critical, crucial Grants to Manufacturers of Worsted Wool program may finally go out of existence — assuming Congress ever deigns to enact an FY12 budget. Congress might even finally eliminate an Army Corps of Engineers allocation hilariously called the Low-Priority Construction Projects Program. Deleting the program — “Mr. Chairman, my agency desperately needs more funding for low-priority projects” — would save $214 million in a year. If, that is, Congress ever enacts a budget.

The lesson of the phantom $20 billion budget cut is that anybody can blow hot air about big spending reductions in the future: all that can be believed is cuts in the current year.

Last month, President Obama announced a plan to reduce the deficit by $2.2 trillion over the next decade. But hardly any cuts take effect now; the bulk of the president’s proposed reductions would not begin until 2016, when a second-term Obama would be preparing to leave office. Tea Party types, for their part, call for extensive future spending cuts — but want to exempt defense and Social Security. Unless defense and Social Security are on the table, as the recent bipartisan debt-reduction commission concluded, no significant fiscal reform are possible.

Saying the country will spend without restraint now but switch to strict fiscal discipline in the future is like saying, “I can quit smoking anytime I want.” In 2010, the White House asked for $20 billion in spending cuts, and Congress would not make the cuts. Until Congress makes right-now, this-year cuts, the national debt situation will keep getting worse.

Photos; Top: Shadows are cast on the White House in the early morning in Washington, February 4, 2009. REUTERS/Larry Downing, Bottom: Marine One (top) carrying U.S. President Barack Obama approaches the South Lawn as he returns to the White House from Camp David in Washington, February 8, 2009. REUTERS/Jim Young

Raymond Davis, an American who shot and killed two men in Lahore, Pakistan, under disputed circumstances, has just been revealed to be a CIA contractor. What a mess. And it’s a mess that makes me reflect on when I lived in Lahore, in the late 1980s.

Lahore is the cultural capital of Pakistan, home to writers, artists and intellectuals. Variously ruled in recent centuries by the Mughals, the Sikhs and the British during the Raj, Lahore is the great ancient city of the Punjab. There is magnificent old architecture, crazed and crowded marketplaces, sprawling slums. A sense of intrigue is part of the city’s lore, as one would feel in Marrakesh or Kathmandu.

Driving in the old-city areas of Lahore is unlike anything experienced in the West. Roads are bumper-to-bumper, drivers flagrantly disobey traffic laws — roaring the wrong way down a one-way street is practically normal. Davis said his car was wedged in by traffic, a common problem in the city, when he was approached by two men with guns. Having driven in the old-city areas of Lahore, I am sure that being in a wedged-in car and approached by armed men — roving thieves plague Pakistan, and there is nothing equivalent to the reliability of 911 — would be frightening. Whether Davis was justified in opening fire is something the courts must determine.

The revelation that Davis was working for the CIA has roiled Pakistan and embarrassed the United States, because Davis entered Pakistan on a diplomatic passport. Officially, such passports are only for diplomats and their dependents. On a practical basis, the United States and many other nations — surely, at some point, including Pakistan — grant diplomatic covers to intelligence agents. But when a bogus diplomatic status is exposed, this shames the nation involved. The United States looks extra-bad because after the shooting, American officials including President Barack Obama insisted Davis actually was a diplomat, a member of the administrative staff of the U.S. embassy in Islamabad.

Whether diplomatic immunity applies to Davis is a matter of keen debate. Often, intelligent agents caught in situations such as this are quietly spirited out of the country as the host government agrees to look the other way. Because the Davis case has stirred such controversy in Pakistan — was it really robbery, why did Davis fire so many times, what about the U.S. staff car that struck and killed a bystander while speeding toward Davis? — slipping him out of Pakistan would cause general outrage.

The case is controversial not only owing to Davis himself, but to the substantial CIA presence in Pakistan. American operatives are seeking al Qaeda figures on another nation’s soil, and are directing missile strikes on another nation’s soil. The Pakistani government is more-or-less cooperating with the United States against al Qaeda, but needed the presence of CIA operatives to remain, officially at least, a secret. Now that this is out in the open, Washington has placed the Pakistani government in an awkward position.

Imagine if Barack Obama signed a memo allowing agents of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence directorate to operate on U.S, soil, including to fire missiles at houses where ISI believed terrorists were meeting, even if innocent bystanders are killed. Americans would be livid if Pakistani intelligence agents were given reign to act inside the United States. Yet that’s the agreement Pakistan has made regarding CIA operatives. Even if that agreement is in the interest of Pakistan, no one should be surprised that Pakistanis are livid.

The ISI almost surely knew Davis was in the CIA. This may simply have been disclosed, behind the scenes, when Davis arrived in Pakistan. If not, within U.S. embassy or consular environments, it just isn’t that hard to figure out which ones are the CIA people under diplomatic cover. They tend to behave differently than diplomats (often working at night, sleeping during the day), have different equipment in their offices, even drive distinctive types of cars. The local Lahore police who responded to the shooting wouldn’t have known who Davis was. But Pakistani intelligence had to know, and likely told Pakistani civilian authorities early on following the shooting whom they were really dealing with — as well as whether Davis’s account is credible.

You don’t have to be a spy novelist to wonder if Davis was lured into a trap by any of several bad actors, realized he was in an ambush and shot his way out. Or perhaps it will turn out that what really happened was a street robbery, the thieves choosing a man who surprised them by being well armed and who fired wildly because he was scared. The CIA being the CIA and Pakistan being Pakistan, the odds are there is more to this case than has yet emerged. For a thousand years, Lahore has been a city of intrigue. Adjust for modern touches such as the Glock and the GPS receiver, and Davis fits perfectly with Lahore’s tradition.

Photos; Top: Extended family members of Pakistanis who were killed hold an image of Raymond Davis, a U.S diplomat, and pictures of the men who were killed as they demand the hanging of Davis during a protest rally in Lahore February 2, 2011. REUTERS/Mohsin Raza

Bottom: A supporter of the political party Tehreek-e-Insaf takes part in a protest against Raymond Davis (pictured in the background) in Lahore February 3, 2011. REUTERS/Faisal Mahmood

In all respects save employment numbers, the United States economy is back to normal. Real growth in 2010 was 2.9 percent — not spectacular, but any developed nation would take that figure. The adjusted U.S. GDP just rose back above its prior peak of late 2007 — meaning U.S. economic output has never been higher than right now. Sales numbers are good across most industries, corporations are sitting on ample cash, banking and equity liquidity is fine, no primary resource is scarce and the index of Standard & Poor’s 500 earnings per share is at an all-time high.

That’s a healthy economy — except for unemployment. Job numbers have improved somewhat but are nothing to write home about. Even considering that hiring usually trails a recovery by several months, unemployment numbers are spooky. President Barack Obama just implored the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to “hire and invest”.

Let me propose an uncomfortable notion. Namely: two mainly unrelated phenomena happened at once, the recession and a job contraction. Though the former triggered the latter, they actually had little to do with each other. The job contraction would have happened regardless.

That’s why the end of the recession — and federal stimulus spending — hasn’t cured the jobs problem. And until we accept that the surge in unemployment is mostly something that would have happened even if the autumn 2008 financial-markets meltdown never occurred, we’ll continue to be puzzled about why jobs have not bounced back though growth has.

Workplace productivity has improved markedly in the last generation, and it’s led to the point where far fewer people are needed for many kinds of output. Twenty-five years ago, about 150 hours were required to manufacture an automobile. Today the average is down to about 80 hours, and it’s still declining. The car produced today is of much higher quality than the car produced then, meaning used cars last longer and don’t require replacement as often. The net is a huge decline in automotive assembly employment, while cars, as products, are the best they have ever been.

This isn’t just happening in Michigan and Indiana. The decline in auto manufacturing jobs in Stuttgart — the Detroit of Germany — is about the same as in the United States, though Stuttgart quality and production remain robust.

And it’s not just happening in cars. In the early 1990s, Boeing’s main aircraft factory in Washington state required 22 days to build a 737 airliner. Today that factory builds a 737 that is technologically improved over earlier models, and completes each plane in 11 days. That means fewer jobs.

The drop in manufacturing employment — often blamed on jobs fleeing to China — emphatically is not happening for that reason. In the last 20 years, the United States has lost eight million manufacturing jobs. Over the same period, China has lost 26 million manufacturing jobs. China and the United States both have great numbers for industrial production, and should for decades. But steadily fewer people are needed, owing to improved productivity and advancing technology.

Should we ban productivity improvements? Outlaw better technology? If we’d done that in the 1950s, we would all be driving 10 MPG finned Cadillacs without seat belts.

Manufacturing is hardly the only sector where job reduction is mainly caused by trends other than the 2008-9 recession. Communication technology allows steadily more output (as cell calls, as news reporting) with smaller staffs. Shipping, wholesaling and  warehousing have shown major improvements in productivity per worker. Other fields have as well. This was in the cards whether there had been the 2008 meltdown or not.

Now think about the fact that employment is down since 2008 — but GDP is up. That means the economy is functioning just fine with fewer jobs.

Perhaps the economy would function even better with more jobs. Maybe if businesses that are flush with cash would “hire and invest,” as the president hopes, there would  be another boom. A plausible case can be made for this. Let’s hope we find out.

But the fact that nearly all economic indicators have bounced back quite nicely without a return to the previous jobs level seems to tell us the recession and the job drop happened mainly independent of each other.

And it may mean a fundamental rethinking of hiring and employment policies is needed — by business as well as by government — if the United States is to return to the five percent unemployment level that ensures a job is always waiting for those who need one.

Here we go again.

With a sort-of withdrawal from Iraq in progress, and a scheduled withdrawal from Afghanistan approaching, Washington needs a fresh adversary. How about China?

China is big and getting bigger. Its wealth and power is increasing. It’s inscrutable, whatever that means. (Just try understanding the United States.) And according to super-secret intelligence reports, China is pursuing national interest. This can’t be allowed — we’ve got to confront them!

Of course it is a standby of politics for governments to create international adversaries, in order to deflect criticism away from themselves. There’s a theory – best expressed in the great spoof Report From Iron Mountain — that while dictatorships can issue orders, democracies need enemies in order to prevent free men and women from saying, “To heck with central government.”

Polls suggest many Americans right now are contemplating the phrase “to heck with central government,” so perhaps Barack Obama’s White House thinks voters will be distracted if China is converted into an adversary. The idea is not new — the George W. Bush White House attempted the same.

When the younger Bush took office, the international scene was fairly tranquil, and at that point, people were tired of hearing Saddam Hussein blamed for everything. So Bush started talking tough about Beijing. This culminated in the Hainan Island incident, which raised international tensions. Cable news was abuzz with confronting China; Dick Cheney darkly hinted of war. The Council on Foreign Relations went to red alert.

Then 9/11 happened, and the China menace disappeared from headlines. Though not from intellectual discourse: this 2005 issue of The Atlantic, home to the very best general-interest public- policy writing, had “How We Would Fight China” as its main cover headline.

The cover photomontage, in creepy distorted color, shows an ominous, slanty-eyed sailor. Maybe he has inscrutable intentions! The Chinese sailor stands in front of, well, you can’t really tell, but the stuff in the background looks threatening too. “The American military contest with China in the Pacific will define the twenty-first century. And China will be a more formidable adversary than Russia,” The Atlantic warned.

Is the Chinese navy really a threat? Politically, is Beijing “newly assertive” or merely going through a natural transition as its stature grows? Do Beijing’s stances on exchange rates, trade and security threaten the United States, as opposed to merely annoying us? Because we annoy the living bejeezus out of them.

The United States wishes China would float its currency, rather than sustain fixed rates that promote Chinese trade. Governments make national policy based, usually, on what they believe advances their national interest. They may be wrong – maybe China should indeed stop managing the renminbi. But it’s ridiculous for Washington to act all horrified about Beijing using money to pursue its vision of national interest: if other nations told Americans how to use our money, we’d be outraged.

It is highly unrealistic for America to think China will fund the U.S. borrowing binge by purchasing Treasury bills; and also suppress its own consumption, while underwriting our middle class living standards by selling us cheap goods; and then also manage their currency to our liking.

U.S. political posturing about currency exchange rates go back at least as far back as the Ronald Reagan administration. American interest groups complain about exchange rates because this feels like something Washington should be able to control, whereas larger economic trends aren’t controlled by any government. When strong currencies benefit America, U.S. interest groups demand that. When weak currencies benefit us, we switch demands
Timothy Geithner just said:

G-20 emerging market countries with significantly undervalued currencies and adequate precautionary reserves need to allow their exchange rates to adjust fully over time to levels consistent with economic fundamentals.

Now, to whom could he be referring? Imagine how infuriating Beijing must find this sort of condescending hectoring, especially from a nation whose leaders will not take any step at all to put their own fiscal house in order.
China has many internal problems, including human rights abuses, corruption, pollution and lack of free speech. China’s relationship with Taiwan is a tense mess. The Han mistreat the Tibetans. The list of China’s faults could go on at some length.

But in the main, there has never been a superpower relationship like the one between Washington and Beijing — mainly constructive, mainly cooperative, neither side positioning to destroy the other.

The world’s largest public works endeavor — the $75 billion South-to-North Water Transfer Project in its early stages in China — could be smashed from the air in a day by United States precision-guided bombs. China is building the project because Chinese leaders assume they will never go to war with the United States. That’s what we should assume too — and not make China into a distant whipping boy for our own domestic problems that U.S. leaders are afraid to face.

Should the United States fear the Chinese navy?
China is expanding its navy, which today is equipped only for coastal operation, though perhaps someday will venture into the “blue water” where the United States Navy rules. Not long ago, the U.S. Navy and Chinese navy (its delightful formal name is the Army Navy) conducted joint exercises. Recently they have not, though China just conducted a joint naval exercise with Australia. Here is the Pentagon’s latest report on the Chinese military, which is decidedly non-alarmist.

This is the warship in the background of the 2005 The Atlantic cover. It’s the lead ship of a class that was cancelled, which makes it sound a lot less menacing. The vessel is a guided-missile destroyer. China has a handful of this type, while the United States Navy has many dozens. The United States has large numbers of more potent guided-missile cruisers, and a huge lead in nuclear attack submarines capable of long stays submerged: any one of them could eat the entire Chinese surface fleet for lunch.

The United States has 11 supercarrier strike groups: China doesn’t even have an aircraft carrier, let alone a supercarrier strike group. China has purchased unwanted medium-sized aircraft carriers from Moscow and is tinkering with them, though none sail. China is believed to be designing its own 50,000-ton conventional-power aircraft carrier, which would be similar to what the United States called a “fleet carrier” during World War II, and not as powerful as the 100,000-ton nuclear supercarriers the United States builds at enormous expense.

Today’s Chinese navy would not dare throw a stone at the United States Navy, and that relationship should continue for a generation or more. Will it change eventually?

By toying with aircraft carriers, China may be testing the waters, as it were. In the mid-1930s, when treaties forbid Germany from building heavy combatant vessels, Hitler ordered construction of “pocket battleships,” largely to see how Paris and London would respond. When they did nothing, he approved  a rearming program for the Germany navy.

Certainly Beijing might be engaged in modest naval expansion to see how we respond, thinking that decades from now, it too will command supercarrier strike groups. Friendly Washington-Beijing relations seem a better hedge against that day than scowling and finger-wagging. The United States asserts a unilateral right to sail as many advanced warships as it pleases. On what grounds could this right be denied to China?