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You can usually count on James Carville to provide a quote that gets passed around. In this case he may be offering advanced excuses for more liberal scandals in the days ahead. Does he know something or does it just make sense to ease the burden of the coming scandals? Carville expects a streak of scandals for the Democratic party. His reasoning offered is not complicated. “With two big Democratic elections in a row, Democrats now hold a larger majority — 340 U.S. representatives, senators and governors. Simple math and history point to the fact that the more elected officials a party has in office, the more likely its politicians will get caught up in some sort of scandal.”

That’s great Mr Carville but you should have gone one step further. Just pick the percentage. If there is a 10% chance that would mean 10 politicians out of 100 or 20 out of 200, etc. That would also follow your logic of more politicians, more chance for scandal. Not a large leap for anyone to come up with this prediction. Gee, the more criminals there are the more crime there will be. That’s a tough concept to understand, NOT. Would it be fair to say it’s the percentages, stupid?

At first it appeared that the distinguished jurist Chief Justice Roberts had abandoned any consideration for decorum when publicly ‘begging’ for a pay raise. After a review of his case (snicker, snicker) it turns out he may have a point. “I must renew the judiciary’s modest petition: Simply provide cost-of-living increases that have been unfairly denied,” Roberts said in his annual year-end report on the federal judiciary.

Alone among federal employees, judges will not receive a cost-of-living allowance in 2009. Members of Congress are getting a 2.8 percent boost, worth $4,700. But they refused before Christmas to give an identical increase to judges.

Federal trial judges are paid $169,300 a year. Appellate judges make more, ranging up to Roberts’ salary of $217,400. The salaries pale in comparison to what top lawyers earn in private practice.

Yup, the Chieft Justice has a point. But part of that being a reminder of how twisted the thinking is in Congress does not help his case. The question of pay for services rendered is not a new topic. A popular set of common arguments hold that either you cannot recruit worthy talent without adequate pay countered with you should seek other employement if income is a higher priority than service. Both arguments have flaws but the point is at 200K plus federal benefits and pensions, etc., there are not that many people who will feel sympathy for Roberts or his colleagues.

Should have known that a story about moderate Republicans being the most popular politicians had nothing to do with their faithful support of conservative principles combined with a statesman-like demeanor and the ability to affect reasoned compromise. Quite the contrary as it would appear their popularity comes from the fact they are targets to be bought off if the Dems cannot overcome the lack of a filibuster-proof Senate requiring a 60 seat majority.

Just like the battles over immigration reform, in this case again, weasel Arlan Specter features prominent in the story. Although he thinks there are so few ‘moderate’ Republicans, sometimes referred to as RINOs, that they could all fit in a phonebooth it is more likely they could easily fill a corporate board room.

“The power of moderates is declining in the country: They are fewer in number and the country has polarized,” said Thomas F. Schaller, a political scientist at the University of Maryland. “But in any vote where you are down to one to two votes there are always going to be people in the middle who have decisive power.”

There in lies the rub. If there were no moderates and it never came down to buying off a vote the measure in question would fail because it should. Instead we get the crap legislation that comes with politicians who won’t stand their ground. The same problem is found with pork, earmarks, lobbyists and amendments. All they do is load someone’s wallet for a vote.

Stanford Matthews
MoreWhat.com

This entry was posted on Sunday, January 4th, 2009 at 12:50 am and is filed under Public Affairs, Money Matters, wordpress, Politics, GOP, Democrats, lobbyist, ethics, Specter, Justice, Congress, Minimum Wage, Legislation. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.