Bill Redpath Visits Charlottesville - Part II

As I noted previously, U.S. Senate candidate Bill Redpath made two appearances in Charlottesville on October 16. In the afternoon, he was a guest on "The Schilling Show" on WINA-AM. In the evening, he was a guest of University Libertarians at the University of Virginia, speaking in Newcomb Hall to an audience of students and Charlottesville residents.

Redpath has been traveling around the state, meeting with groups of voters and with journalists. While he has not been permitted to participate in debates with his principal opponents, former governors Jim Gilmore and Mark Warner, he has been able to get some press attention.

For instance, last week Redpath had an op-ed piece in the Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star, which addressed the current economic situation. He began his article by drawing an analogy to a popular movie of the 1970s:

Driving from campaign event to campaign event--when I was the Libertarian candidate for governor in 2001, I drove 7,000 miles in the last five weeks of the campaign, and I never left Virginia--these days, sometimes I think about the movie, "Smokey and the Bandit." Maybe it's because of the passing earlier this year of my father, a quiet, stoic, Midwestern electrical engineer, who was a tightly closeted Burt Reynolds fan.

But, in particular, I think of one segment, in which (unless my memory fails me) Sheriff Buford T. Justice deems the pursuit of The Bandit (Burt Reynolds) insufficiently important to skip a meal. The sheriff runs into a roadside diner and orders a meatloaf sandwich, which he gobbles down while talking to the man seated next to him, who, unbeknownst to him, is the subject of his pursuit.

The Bandit eggs Sheriff Justice on to describe the ostensibly unlawful exploits of The Bandit. When The Bandit suggests the possible misconduct is insufficiently egregious, the sheriff turns to The Bandit and says, "Son, that's baby [poop] compared to what this guy's done."

The reason that I think of this scene is that for all of the (very valid) recent concern about high gasoline prices, the "credit crunch," the woes on Wall Street, and the resulting bailout bill (which I would have voted against), I think these problems are small potatoes when compared to this nation's main economic problem of the 21st century: our aging population and the coming entitlement spending explosion.

Entitlement spending is a major theme of Redpath's campaign. He addressed it on the radio with Rob Schilling, during an address at Virginia Commonwealth University last week, and again at the University of Virginia last night. He is concerned about the coming bankruptcy of both Social Security and Medicare. (See the video, below, for more details about Redpath's views on this issue.)

Reporting on Redpath's speech at UVA, associate editor Emily Poe of the Cavalier Daily wrote:

U.S. Senate candidate William Redpath, the current Libertarian National Committee chairman, spoke yesterday about his ambitions and goals for the country if elected, primarily those regarding national security, social security and public education.

The Liberty Coalition at the University hosted the event, which provided a forum for numerous views running contrary to those espoused by Jim Gilmore and Mark Warner, the Republican and Democratic candidates for the U.S. Senate, respectively.

Redpath, a clear non-favorite to win the election according to the most recent polls, which show Gilmore and Warner far ahead of alternative candidates, emphasized that he is running for office just as much for the chance of succeeding as for the chance of spreading different opinions and views.

“I wanted there to be a Libertarian voice in this election,” Redpath said.

Poe added:

Less trade regulation, in conjunction with reduced government spending, a flat tax system and an emphasis on improving the value of the dollar — possibly via the implementation of a gold standard — would better help address the financial concerns facing the country and world today, Redpath said.

Among those economic concerns, Redpath identified Social Security as one of the most significant. In fact, he said he believes the nation’s biggest economic problem this year is that the first wave of baby boomers are now eligible for Social Security.
“The Social Security trust fund is a complete economic illusion,” he said.

The “6.2 percent solution” provides the best option for the Social Security problem, Redpath said, which would allow workers to waive their Social Security accounts in order to put that money into their own accounts.

Individual citizens, though, are not the only ones who should be saving, Redpath noted. Government officials also need to cut back spending in both energy and regulatory sectors, he said. In regards to energy issues Redpath said the development of new energy technologies should be left to the energy experts — not the federal government.

Redpath spoke for about an hour at UVA, including a good 30 minutes of Q&A discussion with members of the audience. Conforming to YouTube standards of length, I have divided his presentation into eight parts.

Jim Lark, a former national chairman of the Libertarian Party, introduced Redpath.

Part I:

Part II:

Part III:

Part IV:

Part V:

Part VI:

Part VII:

Part VIII:

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Bill Redpath Visits Charlottesville - Part I

Bill Redpath, the Libertarian candidate for the U.S. Senate in Virginia, made two appearances in Charlottesville on Thursday. The first appearance was as a guest of local talk-show host Rob Schilling on WINA-AM's "The Schilling Show" between 1:00 and 2:00 p.m. Redpath used that as an opportunity to promote his speech that night at the University of Virginia, and to answer questions from Schilling -- a former member of the Charlottesville City Council -- and from the radio audience.

The night before, Redpath had been at Christopher Newport University in Newport News, participating in a forum with Libertarian presidential candidate Bob Barr (a former congressman from Georgia). For his part, Barr had also been a guest (by telephone) on "The Schilling Show" on Wednesday. (For a podcast of Rob Schilling's interview with Bob Barr, look here and scroll down.)

In his comments on the radio, Redpath noted that he had put about 4,000 miles on his car already this month, and that, when he ran for governor of Virginia in 2001, he traveled 7,000 miles during the last month of the campaign, without ever reading the Commonwealth.

The Cavalier Daily reported on Redpath's address at UVA, which was sponsored by the University Libertarians. CavDaily associate editor Emily Poe covered the event and wrote in today's edition:

The core of his platform, Redpath explained, focuses on reducing of the general scope of the federal government. He noted that for the nation to move forward successfully federal officials must reduce spending on a “long list of things.”

Scaled back federal involvement in areas like education, which Redpath said should be handled by state, local and private institutions, was also echoed in other aspects of Redpath’s platform, including national security.

Redpath said national security is — and will always be — one of the most vital issues facing the United States. Contrary to how some other politicians might address security concerns, however, Redpath said he believes the best way to secure the nation’s borders and take care of external military affairs is to practice “non-interventionist” foreign policy.

“I think that certainly getting the U.S. military out of Iraq is a no-brainer,” Redpath said.

Redpath said extending such a non-interventionist policy to more native concerns, such as the economy and pressing social concerns, is also needed.

“The U.S. should unilaterally drop its trade barriers, to bring other nations of the world into a great capitalist peace,” Redpath said, noting that he is a proponent of unrestrained free trade.

“Free trade is a pro-consumer policy and that’s the only thing we all are, we’re all consumers,” Redpath said.

What follows, in four segments, is Redpath's interview on "The Schilling Show" committed to video. (For an audio podcast, check out WINA's newly revamped web site.)

Part I:

Part II:

Part III:

Part IV:

The second part of this short series on Bill Redpath's visit to Charlottesville will feature video from his speech at the University of Virginia, including about a half-hour of Q&A dialogue with audience members.

Sarah Palin Visits Richmond

The McCain campaign misled thousands of its supporters in Virginia today, disappointing many of them in the process.

Last week, the campaign announced that vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin would be appearing at a rally in Richmond. The venue was to be the Arthur Ashe Center.

The response was so overwhelming that, two days before the rally (which was scheduled for Columbus Day), it was announced that the venue had been changed to the Richmond International Raceway in Henrico County.

According to the raceway's web site, it can seat up to 112,000 people. So it was not much of a stretch to think that there would be no problem in finding seats for the thousands of people likely to attend.

Attendance was sure to be high, especially since the weather forecast was for clear and sunny conditions with temperatures in the mid- to high 70s -- summer weather for mid-October. Since Monday was a holiday, many people would be free from work and school and able to attend. (Others, of course, would just play hooky.)

To the surprise of many, rather than holding the rally inside the racetrack, campaign organizers had erected temporary bleachers on the RIR parking lot, bleachers which could hold about 2,500 people -- 3,000 if they really were packed tight.

That left 15,000 to 20,000 people standing in line when the rally area was filled up, and standing outside the security perimeter when the rally began and the signs began to wave and the music began to play.

I was lucky. I was among those who got the "best of the worst" in the standing room area -- flush up agains the security fence with a clear view of the podium (so I was actually able to get some good video and photos -- see below).

Others were not so lucky, and were so far away from the action that even the heavy-duty sound system was not sufficient to make Governor Palin's speech audible for them. (Chants of "louder, louder" could be heard from that section of the audience, only to be misinterpreted by the candidate as heckling.)

Had the McCain campaign announced that the rally would be held "on the grounds of the Richmond International Raceway," I would not be so critical of it for being misleading. Sometimes accuracy is the best public relations.

Let's just hope, for the sake of John McCain and Sarah Palin, that this discourteous treatment of supporters and potential voters did not also dissuade some of them from casting their ballots for the Republican ticket on November 4.

With that bit of scolding out of the way, let me turn to a new target.

Sarah Palin announced, before her stump speech, that she had brought "a special guest" with her from Virginia Beach. That guest turned out to be the son of country-music legend Hank Williams, who was invited to sing the national anthem.

What a mistake that turned out to be!

Singing without accompaniment, Hank Williams, Jr. -- most famous in his own right for composing the theme song for Monday Night Football on ABC -- absolutely butchered "The Star Spangled Banner." He started off-key, and only got worse from there.

Put in as kindly a fashion as possible, Williams delivered an idiosyncratic rendering of our national anthem -- and I use "render" in the sense of "tearing into pieces." He was off the beat, improvised his own melody, and just about embarrassed himself and Governor Palin in the process.

Were it not for the crowd singing along -- and singing it correctly -- Williams would have been booed off the stage. And he would have deserved it. His performance made one long for Roseanne Barr.

Want proof? Here's the video.

I have posted more photos from the Richmond International Raceway rally over on Facebook.

Come Out, Come Out, Wherever You Are

Today (October 11) is the annual observance of National Coming Out Day. It commemorates the date of the second march on Washington for lesbian and gay rights in 1987. (The first such march was held on October 14, 1979. Is there some kind of connection between gay rights and Columbus Day weekend?)

The larger purpose of National Coming Out Day is to encourage gay men and lesbians, as well as bisexuals and others of the LGBTQ alphabet-soup spectrum, to be honest with themselves and others about their sexual orientation. The holiday (such as it is) has spread to other countries, such as the Netherlands, where it gets two days (October 10 and 11!) and Britain, where it is celebrated on October 12. (This will be a busy weekend for jet-setters.) The Human Rights Campaign has a page on its web site with information about NCOD events around the United States, along with some videos of personal testimonials about the importance of coming out.

My friend, Paul Varnell, who writes for the Chicago Free Press and whose articles also appear on the Independent Gay Forum, usually devotes one of his columns each year to the subject of coming out, in general, and National Coming Out Day, in particular. (I pointed readers toward one of Paul's articles on this subject three years ago.)

This year, in a Chicago Free Press column headlined "Coming out more," Paul writes about the way National Coming Out Day is commemorated:

Some major urban gay community centers and gay groups on college campuses organize an event where lots of people announce that they are gay or lesbian. There seems to be something empowering (or protective) about coming out in the midst of a group or at a formal event.

Actually, I suspect that many of the people participating in those events are to some extent “out of the closet” already, but perhaps NCOD events encourage people to be a little more open in their lives as well as publicize the existence of a considerable number of gays—a fact of which most people remain oblivious. It probably has a similar educative effect on the closeted gays and lesbians who might be standing around on the periphery watching what is going on. Reaching our closeted fellow gays is as important as reaching heterosexuals.

If we are to make substantial political progress, we need to make ourselves ever more visible. People have to get to know us to find out that we don’t fit whatever stereotypes they hold about gays and that in many cases we are people they already know. And they need to be alerted to a greater awareness that in many cases we have partners we cannot legally marry, that the hard-pressed U.S. military rejects our skills and that AIDS research at the National Institutes of Health seems to have stalled.

Not every justification for coming out is political, however. Varnell continues:

And coming out is an act of community benevolence. Each person who comes out makes it slightly easier for the next man or woman by acquainting more people with gays. Remember that we all found it easier to come out because people had come out before us and made the path that much smoother....

Most people picking up a gay newspaper and reading this are probably already out to some people. The goal is to come out to more people—in your family, among your co-workers, your friends and your fellow church members.

He adds a few words of advice for those who choose to come out, on October 11 or any other day:

Avoid a big announcement. Treat any disclosure as casually as possible, as if the other person already knew you were gay and you are just mentioning it explicitly in some context or other. People will take a cue for their own attitude from your attitude.

Try to come out in connection with something positive about yourself, some accomplishment in connection with being gay, so you are inviting the other person to share your happiness.

Immunize yourself against moralistic disapproval. Fight back against it or laugh at it. If someone says they disapprove of homosexuality, simply tell them not to engage in it.

I would add that those of us who came out a long time ago should be more compassionate and understanding of those who have not yet made that step forward in their lives. We should remember what a difficult decision it was to be honest and to shed the shells in which we lived. Opening the closet door is even harder in real life than it is in a South Park episode. Just ask Larry Craig and Mark Foley.

Bill Redpath Speaks at VCU

U.S. Senate candidate Bill Redpath, who is carrying the Libertarian Party's banner in the race to succeed retiring Senator John Warner in Virginia, spoke on Wednesday evening to a receptive audience at Virginia Commonwealth University.

Sponsored by Libertarians at VCU and the student publication, the Broad Street Journal, Redpath's address covered the range of issues being discussed by voters in the run-up to this year's general election, plus more topics that are not the stuff of water-cooler conversations: the economy in general and the Wall Street bailout in particular, free trade, the value of the dollar, Social Security and Medicare, John McCain and Barack Obama, the war on drugs, terrorism, the war in Iraq, gambling, same-sex marriage, and ballot-access laws in Virginia and other states.

As it happens, today (October 9) is Bill Redpath's birthday, and some of his supporters have suggested making contributions to his campaign as a way of conveying happy birthday wishes. There is a secure donation page for credit-card contributions on the Redpath campaign web site.

In the first part of this video recording of Redpath's speech, the candidate is introduced by VCU student (and blogger) Steven C. Latimer, speaking on behalf of the two sponsoring organizations:

Part II:

Part III:

Part IV:

Part V:

Part VI includes an answer to a question I posed about ballot-access laws and what Bill had to do, as a third-party candidate, to get his name on Virginia's general election ballot:

Part VII (the final segment):

Bill Redpath will be appearing in Charlottesville next Thursday, October 16. He will be a guest on "The Schilling Show" on WINA-AM at 1:00 p.m. and he will be speaking at the University of Virginia that evening.

There are three other candidates in the Virginia Senate race: former governors Jim Gilmore (Republican) and Mark Warner (Democrat) and Independent Green candidate Gail Parker, who ran for the Senate seat now held by Jim Webb in 2006.

This Just In: Signature Announces Sondheim Award

This news release from Signature Theatre in Arlington just became available about 35 minutes ago:

Signature Theatre to Honor Stephen Sondheim at Gala Benefit in April

Theatre to pay tribute to composer by establishing annual ‘Sondheim Award’

Arlington, VA − October 6, 2008 – Eric Schaeffer, the Artistic Director of Signature Theatre, tonight announced that Signature will honor Stephen Sondheim at a Gala Benefit in April and establish an annual award as a tribute to America’s most influential contemporary musical theater composer. Signature will salute Mr. Sondheim at a black-tie Gala Celebration on Monday, April 27, 2009, in Washington, DC highlighted by a musical tribute, festive dinner, and dancing and inaugurate an annual honor to be known in future years as The Sondheim Award. The award will be presented to individuals for their career contributions to interpreting, supporting, and collaborating on Sondheim’s musical works. Schaeffer announced the gala and creation of the award at Signature’s second Great American Musicals in Concert benefit performance of Sondheim’s Anyone Can Whistle. Proceeds from the April event will benefit the non-profit Signature Theatre.

“As Signature prepares to celebrate its 20^th anniversary season, we have decided that it is very fitting and appropriate to honor Stephen Sondheim, the composer whose musicals mean so much to us. Through his long collaboration with our company and the 18 Sondheim productions we have presented over the years, Steve’s works have come to be our ‘signature.’ Steve has been a great friend to Signature over the past two decades and we look forward to doing many more presentations of his musicals in the future. I’m thrilled that Steve has agreed to accept this tribute and inaugurate ‘The Sondheim Award’,” stated Schaeffer.

Stephen Sondheim said, “When Signature approached me about creating an award in my name, I was simultaneously flattered, honored and embarrassed – flattered that Signature should think so highly of me, honored because I think so highly of Signature, and embarrassed because I'm pathetically neurotic about being in the spotlight. The fact is that Signature has done me proud over the years, not merely in the frequency with which they have produced musicals I worked on but because the quality of the productions has been so consistently high and inventive. I look forward to being embarrassed when I inaugurate the award this spring.”

For information on sponsorship for The Sondheim Gala, ranging from $2,500 to $50,000, please visit www.signature-theatre.org or contact Signature Theatre at (571) 527-1828.

Stephen Sondheim wrote the music and lyrics for Bounce (2003), Passion (1994), Assassins (1991), Into the Woods (1987), Sunday in the Park with George (1984), Merrily We Roll Along (1981), Sweeney Todd (1979), Pacific Overtures (1976), The Frogs (1974), A Little Night Music (1973), Follies (1971, revised in London 1987 and in New York 2001), Company (1970), Anyone Can Whistle (1964) and A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (1962); as well as lyrics for West Side Story (1957), Gypsy (1959), Do I Hear a Waltz (1965), and additional lyrics for Candide (1973). Side by Side by Sondheim (1976), Marry Me a Little (1981), You’re Gonna Love Tomorrow (1983), and Putting it Together (1992, 2000) are anthologies of his work. For film he composed the scores for Stravinsky (1974) and Reds (1981) and songs for Dick Tracy (Academy Award, 1990). He wrote the songs for television’s Evening Primrose (1966), co-authored the film The Last of Sheila (1973) and the play Getting Away With Murder (1966), and provided incidental music for the plays The Girls of Summer (1956), Invitation to a March (1961), and Twigs (1971). He won Tony® Awards for Best Score of a Musical for Passion, Into the Woods, Sweeney Todd, A Little Night Music, Follies (1971 version), and Company. All of these shows won the New York Drama Critics Circle Award, as did Pacific Overtures and Sunday in the Park with George, the latter also receiving the Pulitzer Prize for Drama (1985). Mr. Sondheim is on the Council of the Dramatists Guild, having served as its president from 1973 to 1981, and in 1983 was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters. In 1990, he was appointed the first Visiting Professor of Contemporary Theatre at Oxford University, and in 1993 was the recipient of the Kennedy Center Honors.

Signature Theatre is nationally renowned for its presentation of Stephen Sondheim’s musicals. Since the 1991-1992 season when the company first mounted Sweeney Todd, Signature has performed Assassins (1992-1993), Company (1993-1994), Into the Woods (1994-1995), Passion (1995-1996), Sunday in the Park with George (1996-1997), A Stephen Sondheim Evening (1997-1998), A Little Night Music (1998-1999), Sweeney Todd (1999-2000), Gypsy (2000-2001), Putting It Together (2000-2001), Company (2000-2001), Follies (2002-2003), A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (2003-2004), Pacific Overtures (2004-2005), Assassins (2005-2006), Into the Woods (2006-2007), Merrily We Roll Along (2007-2008), and Anyone Can Whistle (2008-2009). Signature’s Eric Schaeffer was the Artistic Director of the Sondheim Celebration at the Kennedy Center in 2002.

ABOUT SIGNATURE

Under the leadership of co-founder and Artistic Director Eric Schaeffer and Managing Director Maggie Boland, Signature is a non-profit professional theater company dedicated to producing contemporary musicals and plays, reinventing classic musicals, and developing new work. To date, Signature has presented over 25 world premiere productions and is renowned for combining Broadway-quality productions with intimate playing spaces. In addition to the finest talent from the DC metropolitan area and New York, Signature has been a home to such theater luminaries as John Kander and Fred Ebb, Cameron Mackintosh, Terrence McNally, as well as Stephen Sondheim. Signature has been nominated for 234 Helen Hayes Awards for excellence in the professional theater and has been honored with 59 Helen Hayes Awards, including Outstanding Musical in 1992, 1993, 1995, 1997, 2000, 2005, and 2006, and Outstanding Play in 1999.

Contact Info
Ticketmaster (703) 573-SEAT (7328)

Signature Administration (571) 527-1860
Signature Theatre
4200 Campbell Avenue
Arlington, VA 22206

http://www.signature-theatre.org

Come On, Get Happy

According to a story in The Hollywood Reporter, the 1970s Friday-night hit from ABC, The Partridge Family, is being resurrected by NBC.

Nellie Andreeva writes:

"The Partridge Family" has found a new network home at NBC.

The Peacock has picked up a contemporary single-camera take on the classic ABC sitcom to be written by Jeff Rake.

It is one of two projects Rake has sold in the past week, along with untitled dramedy at Fox, a collaboration with Mitch Hurwitz to which Anthony and Joe Russo are attached to direct. Both projects have landed script commitments with penalty.

"Partridge" hails from Reveille, Geffen Records and Sony TV.

A fan of the 1970s series, Rake plans to "turn the premise on its head."

"In the original, the kids actually recruited their mom to front the band, which I can't see happening in any family on this planet," he said. "The new version will reflect what seems to me to be the more realistic family band scenario these days: a struggling, sort of well-meaning mom pimping her kids in order to create a wholesome-slash-sexy cash cow."

The Partridge Family was originally part of a must-see Friday-night line-up that included The Brady Bunch, The Odd Couple, and Love, American Style. There was also a half-hour comedy in the mix that never had much of a life -- whether the Bobby Sherman vehicle, Getting Together, or Nanny and the Professor (with Juliet Mills), or the ill-conceived Anna and the King, starring Samantha Eggar and Yul Brynner. (Really, who thought American audiences wanted to watch a stylish period comedy about a Southeast Asian autocrat in the middle of the Vietnam War?) Despite the success of the shows surrounding them, all these series fizzled rather than sizzled.

People might be surprised to learn that The Partridge Family actually had higher ratings than The Brady Bunch, which only achieved its status as a cultural icon later, through years of syndicated reruns in the afterschool hours.

In fact, The Partridge Family's audience grew from its Brady Bunch lead-in. I have a theory to explain this. Who would a teenage boy (or girl) in the early 1970s choose as a fantasy date -- Keith Partridge or Greg Brady? 'Nuff said. (My own preference was always for Danny Partridge, but then he was my age, not older, and I always go for the brainy type. Chacun à son goût.)

I am of that age for which The Partridge Family was an integral part of growing up. I won't embarrass myself by describing the posters on my bedroom wall or my habit of reading Tiger Beat and 16 magazines. But even the most cynical music critics would have to admit that the pop sound of the Partridge Family -- fronted by teen idol David Cassidy with Oscar-winner Shirley Jones singing back-up and driving a psychedelic bus -- had a certain pleasant quality to it. It had a nice beat, and you could dance to it.

Funny thing is, VH1 attempted to bring back The Partridge Family about five years ago, a project that seems to have sunk into the memory hole. Here's The Hollywood Reporter again, via CNN, on November 10, 2003:

An updated version of the 1970s sitcom favorite "The Partridge Family" is being hatched at VH1.

Sony Pictures Television, which holds rights to the popular show about a musical family, will produce a reality series for the cable channel chronicling the casting of the new Partridges as well as a scripted half-hour pilot featuring the winners.

"'The Partridge Family' is a part of pop culture that everyone remembers with tremendous fondness," said Zack Van Amburg, senior vp development and cable programming at SPT. "VH1 is just the right network for this."

I remember the reality-show auditions for that new Partridge Family; but what happened to the series itself?

Let's get the detectives from Without a Trace to investigate.

Dear Leader, Yes We Can!

No comment is necessary, except for crediting Reason.tv with this great mashup celebrating the best (worst?) of Obama-sycophancy.

This video is also available on YouTube, where it will live on and on and on as a reminder to these children about what their well-meaning but muddle-headed parents made them do. (I've passed this along to some Red Diaper Babies of my acquaintance, to give them a dose of nostalgia.)

Warren Coats Talks About the Bailout

The U.S. Senate has approved, by a vote of 74 to 25, a bailout bill. The House of Representatives voted down a similar bill on Monday by a narrow margin, and returns Thursday to consider another version (or versions).

Jake Tapper of ABC News reports:

The Senate tonight overwhelmingly passed the economic rescue package, or Wall Street bailout, as a way of forcing the House of Representatives to take a second vote on the bill, which it rejected in different form earlier this week. ...

Deliberations took place behind the scenes Wednesday, as senators added breaks and sweeteners to their version of the economic rescue plan. ...

The Senate modified the $700 billion financial rescue plan with a provision that gives the Treasury Department the authority to buy troubled mortgage securities.

The bill also now includes an extension of numerous tax breaks for research and development and renewable energy companies, as well as personal tax breaks for college tuition and disaster victims.

It proposes adjusting the Alternative Minimum Tax, so it doesn't hit more than 20 million middle class Americans in 2009.

In the run-up to the House vote earlier this week, economist Warren Coats published two commentaries on the proposed bailout -- one for the Cato Institute, one on his own blog.

In a September 26 article headlined "The D E F's of the Financial Markets Crisis" on Cato.org, Coats explains (citations omitted):

The background to our current financial problems is that the United States as a whole is over-leveraged. There is too much debt and too little saving. Efficient borrowing/lending can be very beneficial, but too little saving for the whole country and for individuals during their working years reduces productive investment and the income growth it produces and increases the economy's vulnerability to shocks. As a nation our net savings rate became negative in 2005 and remained near zero until this year. This has been possible because of high savings rates in the rest of the world and the ability of foreign governments, firms and individuals to invest large amounts of these savings in the United States. Foreigners were willing to invest in the United States (largely in government and private sector debt and to a much lesser extent in equity) for only modest yields because of their confidence in the safety of U.S. investments and they were able to do so because our (previously) overvalued currency (the so called "strong dollar") created a large current account deficit (excess of imports over exports) that foreign investments in the U.S. helped finance.

The inflow of foreign savings has kept interest rates low in the U.S. in recent years. This is a so-called "real" rather than a "monetary" phenomenon. During the period from December of 2001 until November of 2004 the Federal Reserve's overnight interest rate (fed funds rate) target was below 2% and the unusually low interest rates of this period are thought to have fed the housing price bubble. Many have claimed that these low rates were the result of excessively easy monetary policy, but this claim is somewhat contradicted by the evidence. During this period of low interest rates, the broad measure of the money supply (currency plus the public's deposits with banks-M2) grew on average at 6.2%, exactly the same average rate as between 1980 and now. During the shorter period between December 2002 and June 2004, when the fed funds rate was below 1.25%, M2 grew on average at 6.1% per year. However, when the fed funds rate was above 5% from November 1994 through March of 2001 the average growth rate of M2 was 6.4%. The Federal Reserve's adjustments in its interest rate target were largely stabilizing the growth in the money supply. A significantly higher fed funds rate during the 2002 to 2004 period would have resulted in much lower if not negative M2 growth. Interest rates were determined largely by the inflow of foreign saving. Nonetheless, interest rates were negative in real terms (less than the inflation rate) and contributed to market exuberance. A slower than trend M2 growth (and thus higher fed funds rate) might have been more appropriate. Furthermore, M2 began growing in March of 2004, and the Fed should have begun increasing its Fed funds target rate sooner than it did.

Coats, who spent more than 25 years at the International Monetary Fund and has helped some two dozen emerging economies build their banking and currency systems, concludes in his Cato article (citations omitted):

It is appropriate for the government to intervene to restore or preserve stable financial market if doing so saves taxpayers money in the long run. However, such interventions should be well-targeted and should minimize to the extent possible creating moral hazard incentives for financial institutions to take risks with taxpayers' money. We are rapidly reaching the point where the creditworthiness of the United States government itself is coming into question as a result of the growing list of unfunded commitments it has made.

Both private sector and government debt has skyrocketed in recent years. Credit market debt stood at $2.3 trillion in 1990, $6.4 trillion in 2000 and $12.9 trillion at the end of 2007. U.S. government debt (leaving aside state and municipal debt) was $3 trillion in 1990 (51% of total national output that year), $5.8 trillion in 2000 (59% of GDP), and $9.5 trillion (69% of GDP) at the end of June this year. Twenty-eight percent of it ($2.6 trillion) is foreign owned. The Treasury and Federal Reserve have just added a potential additional trillion dollars to this debt with their various rescue actions and proposals. Annual interest on this debt at the 3.8% currently paid for 10-year government bonds (while below the average interest on the debt) would be almost $400 billion or about 14% of the total federal budget. This seems quite manageable until the true deficit including the unfunded liabilities of Medicare/Medicaid and Social Security is calculated. According to Richard Fisher, President of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, these are ten times the existing debt. Interest payments on the full true debt would exceed total federal tax revenue. Existing government spending promises simply cannot be met. Some mix of reductions in existing entitlements and increases in tax revenue will be required. Our goal should be to minimize the negative impact on economic growth of that mix in order to maximize the additional government revenue arising from a higher tax base.

In a piece on his own blog, called "The Big Bailout: What Next?," Coats -- who was once an assistant professor of economics at the University of Virginia -- writes about a similar financial markets situation in Sweden in the 1990s and how the Swedes addressed it. He concludes:

No convincing evidence has been presented that existing liquidity and bank resolution tools are not up to the job of seeing us through the adjustments to earlier excesses now underway. As long as that remains the case the Federal Reserve and FDIC should continue to rely on them. Should fresh evidence indicate otherwise, the authorities should turn first to increasing deposit insurance limits, establishing a mortgage insurance agency (to replace Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac), and only as a last resort the injection of tax payer financed capital into (and thus government take over of) financial institutions judged too big to fail.

Both pieces by Warren Coats are well worth reading in their entirety. Some of the economic jargon might make hard slogging, but he does a good job of putting the current situation in perspective.

The Dangers of Voting

Since I drive around a lot on Election Day -- moving from precinct to precinct, visiting each of Charlottesville's eight polling places, plus the Central Absentee Precinct and the Office of Voter Registration and Elections -- it was a shock to find. out that the most recent scientific studies show that Election Day is hazardous for drivers.

According to HealthDay News:

Driving or walking to the polls on Election Day is a longstanding political tradition in the United States, but new research suggests it might be more dangerous than you think.

After crunching traffic fatality numbers, researchers discovered that Americans were about 18 percent more likely to die in accidents during polling hours on presidential election days than on other Tuesdays.

The increased risk is greater than it is on New Year's Eve or Super Bowl Sunday, the Canadian researchers added.

Reporting on the study, Patti Neighmond of NPR interviewed the study's principal author, Dr. Donald Redelmeier of the University of Toronto, for Morning Edition:

"We studied all the U.S. presidential elections over the last 32 years, beginning with Jimmy Carter in 1976 and ending with George Bush in 2004," he says of the research, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Redelmeier studied the U.S. in particular, he says, because this country maintains excellent statistics on vehicle crashes, noting exactly what time of day, when, where, vehicle, type and other information. He compared the number of crashes, injuries and deaths on Election Day Tuesday to the Tuesdays before and after.

His research revealed an 18 percent increase in motor vehicle deaths on voting day. "This equaled about 24 people [deaths] per election," Redelmeier says, adding that "this was remarkably consistent across different locations and years."

Redelmeier also found that about 800 more people suffered disabling injuries as a result of the crashes. These injuries and deaths far outnumber those reported during times associated with an increase in drinking and driving, such as Super Bowl Sunday and New Year's Eve. Unlike on those days, Redelmeier says, alcohol didn't seem to be an issue on voting day. And the crash rate didn't increase in the evening, when people might be more likely to drink.

An extract of Redelmeier's original article can be found on JAMA's website; subscribers can see the full article.

Do as O Says, Not as O Does?

The Obama for President campaign is running a TV ad in Virginia that highlights the policy differences between Barack Obama and his principal opponent, Republican nominee John McCain, on the issue of equal pay for equal work.

Politico, the newspaper for political geeks, has posted a video of this ad to YouTube:

New York-based journalist Deroy Murdock has looked beneath the surface of these claims and has discovered that when it comes to equal pay for male and female employees, Senator Barack Obama is better at talking the talk than walking the walk.

His running mate, Delaware Senator Joseph Biden, also talks a good game but fails to deliver in his own practice as an employer.

But -- surprise -- Arizona Senator John McCain is better at delivering the goods than he is at talking about equal pay issues.

Here's what Murdock found in his research for an article on National Review Online, first with regard to Senator Obama:

Based on calculations using Senate pay records posted by LegiStorm.com, a political transparency organization, between October 1, 2007 and March 31, 2008, Obama’s 28 male staffers divided among themselves total payroll expenditures of $1,523,120. Thus, Obama’s average male employee earned $54,397 on an annualized basis.

Obama’s 30 female employees split $1,354,580 among themselves, or $45,152, on average.

Among Obama’s top five highest-paid — and likely most senior — employees, one was female. Among his top 20, seven were women.

All told, for every dollar that Obama paid his average male staffer, his female counterpart made just 83 cents.

Here are Murdock's findings about Senator Biden's office practices:

As for Biden, his 14 male staffers split a total payroll outlay of $1,077,128.40. So, Biden’s average male employee earned $76,937.74 per annum.

Biden’s 27 female employees divided $1,517,874.47, or $56,217.57, on average.

Among Biden’s top five highest-paid aides, one was a woman. Among the top 20, 11 were women.

All told, for every dollar that Biden paid his average male staffer, his female equivalent made only 73 cents.

Why are these numbers important? Murdock explains:

This number is significant. Not only does Biden discount women by more than a quarter per dollar paid to men, on average. Biden collides into the standard by which his own campaign berates major companies for alleged pay discrimination.

Beneath the website banner “Fighting for Pay Equity,” Obama-Biden’s women’s issues page complains that, “Despite decades of progress, women still make only 77 cents for every dollar a man makes. A recent study estimates it will take another 47 years for women to close the wage gap with men at Fortune 500 corporate offices.”

Biden actually pays his average female employees four cents less than the level that triggers outrage on his own campaign’s website!

So what did Murdock find out, based on publicly available data, about John McCain's senate office employees? Here's the shocking evidence about McCain:

McCain’s 17 male staffers split $916,914, thus averaging $53,936. His 25 female employees divided $1,396,958 and averaged $55,878.

On average, these figures show, women in John McCain’s Senate office make $1.04 for every dollar a man makes — a full 31 cents higher than Biden pays. (For detailed figures see this chart. I outline my methodology in my previous piece.)

What do they say about people who live in glass houses?

What Kind of Fools Do They Think We Are?

The audacity of the Bush administration knows no bounds.

Brian Wingfield and Josh Zumbrun report on Forbes.com:

In fact, some of the most basic details, including the $700 billion figure Treasury would use to buy up bad debt, are fuzzy.

"It's not based on any particular data point," a Treasury spokeswoman told Forbes.com Tuesday. "We just wanted to choose a really large number."

The gossamer bailout will solve Wall Street's problems by flooding the financial industry with spun sugar.

Why not? If they're making up the numbers, any solution will do.

Just the Facts, Not the Meme, Ma'am

Colbert I. King is a man of impressive credentials. Before becoming a Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist for the Washington Post, he has been a Treasury Department official, World Bank executive, and vice president at what was once known as Riggs Bank.

So it comes as that much more of a surprise that, with the wealth of knowledge he has at his fingertips, he should make the mistake of repeating one of the most egregiously erroneous memes of the current -- if manufactured -- financial panic.

What's even more disturbing is that King could have avoided his error just by reading his own newspaper.

Here is what King had to say in his regular column on Saturday, September 20:

...banks have been foreclosing on homes at a rate not seen since the Great Depression.

Six days earlier, an economic analyst took on this oft-repeated but unproven claim in the pages of the Post's Outlook section. Donald Luskin actually checked out the facts, however, and wrote:

Patient zero in this epidemic is the Democratic candidate for president. As it would be for any challenger, it's in his interest to portray the incumbent party's economic performance in the grimmest possible terms. Barack Obama has frequently used the Depression exaggeration, including during a campaign speech in June, when he said that the "percentage of homes in foreclosure and late mortgage payments is the highest since the Great Depression." At best, this statement is a good guess. To be really true, it would have to be heavily qualified with words such as "maybe" or "probably." According to economist David C. Wheelock of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, who has studied the history of mortgage markets for the Fed, "there are no consistent data on foreclosure or delinquency going all the way back to the Depression."

The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) database, which allows rigorous apples-to-apples comparisons, only goes back to 1979. It shows that today's delinquency rate is only a little higher than the level seen in 1985. As to the foreclosure rate, it was setting records for the day -- the highest since the Great Depression, one supposes -- in 1999, at the peak of the Clinton-era prosperity that Obama celebrated in his acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention late last month. I don't recall hearing any Democratic politicians complaining back then.

Even if Obama is right that the foreclosure rate is the worst since the Great Depression, it's spurious to evoke memories of that great national calamity when talking about today -- it's akin to equating a sore throat with stomach cancer. According to the MBA, 6.4 percent of mortgages are delinquent to some extent, and 2.75 percent are in foreclosure. During the Great Depression, according to Wheelock's research, more than 50 percent of home loans were in default.

Moreover, MBA data show that today's foreclosures are concentrated in that small fraction of U.S. homes financed by subprime mortgages. Such homes make up only 12 percent of all mortgages, yet account for 52 percent of foreclosures. This suggests that today's mortgage difficulties are probably a side effect of the otherwise happy fact that, over the past several years, millions of Americans of modest means have come to own their own homes for the first time.

One sentence there stands out for me, and bears repeating (italics added, below):

According to the MBA, 6.4 percent of mortgages are delinquent to some extent, and 2.75 percent are in foreclosure.

Luskin's article discusses several other aspects of the economy, as well, and would be a useful tonic to those chicken littles who insist the sky is falling.

With the Wall Street bailout on the near horizon, pickpocketed taxpayers and pickpocket legislators alike would be well advised to study the facts of history rather than just repeating the most frightening rumors that come to their attention.