The Personal is Political. The Political is Personal.

 
lest we forget

Last night, someone said,

A new Iraq will also need a humane, well-supervised prison system. . . . America will fund the construction of a modern maximum security prison.

This proposal is nothing new. "America" (meaning "our grandchildren") is already funding the construction of a maximum security prison in Iraq.

In fact we are funding two of them. 4000 beds each. $50,000 per bed.

This was all part of GWB's $20.3 request for funding back in fall 2003.

At the time, Sen. Christopher Dodd (D-CT) was one of the few arguing for a scaling back of the proposal, asking in part, "Do we really believe, in a democratic Iraq, there will be a need to imprison three times more Iraqi citizens than were kept behind bars under Saddam Hussein?"

The Senate passed the $87 billion total package on Nov. 3rd. 2003.

[Update 5/26/04: The Washington Post helpfully clarifies (that I was incorrect above): the purported dollar amounts going to prison construction in Iraq are far smaller than I thought -- or at least they were before Monday night's speech.

I am left with two desires: 1) for two weeks off and free Lexis-Nexis service, so that I can compile a breakdown and chronology of the confusing/underreported/unsynthesized ups & downs of what we're spending in Iraq (I could find no such compilation on-line before posting yesterday), and 2) for a straight answer to the question that the Wash. Post article raises: Will the newly announced Iraqi prison project be: a) yet another unfunded mandate, announced in a high profile speech but thrown by the wayside when it comes time to pay for it? or rather, b) an attempt to expand Halliburton/KBR construction contracts prison building projects in Iraq by the steamroller of executive fiat after Congress specifically cut them back?]

[update 5/27/04: answer to my above q seems to be "b", as indicated by today's nyt article (gist of which is conveyed here, registration free), entitled "Pentagon Was Blindsided by Bush Pledge to Raze Prison" and which features final grafs:

Mr. Bush's announcement also surprised Capitol Hill, including the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Foreign Operations, which oversees reconstruction spending in Iraq.

"None of the groundwork was done for something like this to be more than a public relations announcement," said Tim Rieser, a senior Democratic aide to the subcommittee. "And now we're going to have to figure it out after the fact." White House officials, Mr. Rieser said, "routinely treat Congress as their personal A.T.M. machine."

Last fall, the administration asked Congress for $400 million to build two maximum-security prisons in Iraq, but Congress, citing what it described as excessive estimates, reduced that to $100 million for one prison, in Nasiriya. Although the administration has money for another prison — Congress appropriated $18 billion last fall for Iraqi reconstruction, with much not yet spent — officials would have to get lawmakers' approval for it.

yes, i am devoting far too many blog inches to this story, maybe because i am having trouble removing my eye from what seems to be a small, fascinating microcosm, example, case study and peephole into power-with-a-capital-P as we see it exercised in its most prominent forms in 2004, in all their incoherence, abhorrence, comedy, wastefulness, willful obliviousness, sado-masochism, wish-fulfillment fantasy and sickness, beholding of which produces a queasy voyeuristic feeling not unlike looking at this artwork.]

post-Rapture economics

I can't find anything in the 2004 Republican Party platform that addresses the question of tax relief after the Rapture. When 15% of the population disappears, won't that mean a much higher tax burden on the 85% (according to Billy Graham) Left Behind?

I think that this is a serious omission in the GOP's preparedness for the End Times, a failure to think a couple steps ahead, and one that could undermine the base's confidence about the Party's across-the-board commitment to lowering taxes and making the pResident's tax cuts permanent.

Certainly, the government's Tribulation-related expenditures will be high, what with the need for military preparedness for the final war, propagation of the Mark of the Beast, etc. But GOP true believers shouldn't complacently expect to rely on offsets and efficiencies caused by consolidation of all states into the One World government to cause the reduction. There is a serious question about whether tables should be produced now clarifying how rates will be adjusted during the post-Rapture period until the Second Advent (.pdf).

If the answer is that "only unbelievers will be Left Behind, and tax relief for that constituency is not a concern," then this raises, by reverse implication, the question of why the tax burden on believers shouldn't be entirely removed now, so that only those who deserve it pay their share. The 2004 Party platform glaringly omits mention of this reasonable tax reform proposal.

I have looked to see if this question has been addressed on such incisive sites as Prophezine, the Institute for Christian Economics and Original Intent, with no success.


"getting the subtlety exactly right"

Interview with Dia: Beacon architect Linda Taalman.

The same issue of Loud Paper has an essay about what it is like to be in love with an architect.





posted by TiR at 6:37 PM