David Brooks, while assuming that the poll numbers will carry Obama down the street to the White House, thinks the nation is on an inevitable political swerve from the big-spending Right to the big-spending Left:

Over the past decade, liberals have mounted a campaign against Robert Rubin-style economic policies [of free-trade and balanced budgets], and they control the Congressional power centers. Even if [Obama]’s so inclined, it’s difficult for a president to overrule the committee chairmen of his own party. It is more difficult to do that when the president is a Washington novice and the chairmen are skilled political hands. It is most difficult when the president has no record of confronting his own party elders. It’s completely impossible when the economy is in a steep recession, and an air of economic crisis pervades the nation.

David, you’ve got a lot of ‘splainin to do.

First, I will concede that the Democratic Party is much more xenophobic and jingoistic on trade than it was during the Clinton years (see the recent votes on CAFTA and the trade agreement with Korea).  The party’s adherence to balanced budgets is a bit unknown, since the GOP has also found it shamefully convenient to buy political advantage through wasteful spending (the bad, the ugly).

However, it is fair to say that while the record shows that Sen. Obama is an obedient servant of the Democratic leadership, it is not fair to say that Barack Obama himself is as obedient.  While he was starting his political career in Chicago, he frequently bucked the South Side Chicago political machine in the pursuit of his own political ambitions, paying no heed for the establishment’s requests that he “wait his turn.”

To curry favor with the Left, he has established a starkly partisan voting record on the Hill, but since his nomination, he has morphed toward a more centrist view (see the FISA vote, his new-found “discovery” of the Second Amendment).

Brooks is right though.  With a wobbly economy and no shortage of government promises, if financial reality coexists with campaign promises (either Obama’s or McCain’s) the National Debt is set to explode.

A former manager of the International Space Station writes that it may be possible to harvest solar energy from satellites and the beam the power back down to earth.  The main advantage is that there is no interferance from clouds and that a network of satellites can relay solar power at night.

The writer also beleives that such a project might make NASA relevant again.

In fact, in a time of some skepticism about the utility of our space program, NASA should realize that the American public would be inspired by our astronauts working in space to meet critical energy needs here on Earth.

Of course, a former NASA scientist would say that.

In other news, the governor of Texas is asking the EPA to waive the ethanol mandate for gas sold in the state as the demand for corn ethanol has driven up the cost of food and feed.  The corn lobby is understandably upset, but certainly the affordability of food for everyone is more important that the need of midwestern farmers to grow rich.  Furthermore, if ethanol were so important Congress would consider eliminating the import tariff on Brazillian sugar cane ethanol, which is much more environmentally sustainable than its corn cousin and would lower the cost of food.  Thus the trade wall for Brazillian ethanol could be converted into a sea wall protecting the world’s vulnerable from the “silent tsunami“.

Thomas Friedman in the NYT is back to his usual environomics finger wagging:

It baffles me that President Bush would rather go to Saudi Arabia twice in four months and beg the Saudi king for an oil price break than ask the American people to drive 55 miles an hour, buy more fuel-efficient cars or accept a carbon tax or gasoline tax that might actually help free us from what he called our “addiction to oil.”

Friedman forgets is that our democratically elected president is simply representing the wishes of the American people, who steadfastly demand cheap oil.  No candidate has offered to raise the gas tax because they know that to do so would be touching a third rail of politics, “elite opinion” be damned.

Friedman further laments the Bush administration:

The failure of Mr. Bush to fully mobilize the most powerful innovation engine in the world — the U.S. economy — to produce a scalable alternative to oil has helped to fuel the rise of a collection of petro-authoritarian states — from Russia to Venezuela to Iran — that are reshaping global politics in their own image.

Though I don’t doubt the wisdom of developing such industries, it will only be possible with higher gas prices, as the demand for alternative fuels will necessarily increase.    Unfortunately, high gas prices are politically unpopular.

Friedman may be right about what energy policy shifts are needed, but his opinions are not going to go over well at the polls.  Not everyone can afford a Prius, Tom.

One of the most disappointing moments in the recent Democratic debates came when Sens. Clinton and Obama nearly tripped over each other in a contest to denounce the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Threatening a unilateral withdrawal from NAFTA upon her increasingly unlikely election, Sen. Clinton admitted that some regions of the country do benefit from NAFTA, while others, primarily in the rust belt, suffer. Sadly, Sen. Clinton fails to explain why the economic interests of those who benefit, including American consumers, should take a back seat to the economic interests of a few rust belt manufacturers.

A recent article in the Post explains that many economists estimate that NAFTA has benefited the United States, particularly Texas:

Overall, the Texas economy has profited from NAFTA, studies have found, with manufacturers taking advantage of cuts in Mexican tariffs to send more electronics, industrial machinery, chemicals and instruments south, according to a 2006 Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas study. The same report found that the export of Texas lumber and furniture declined after NAFTA.

Though Clinton and Obama both promise to “renegotiate” NAFTA, it is unlikely that any renegotiation could reasonably be called a free-trade agreement. Both Canada and Mexico have their share of upset constituencies that would demand more protection in any deal, as would American textile mills and manufacturing unions.

American consumers benefit from cheaper goods and American farmers, particularly corn farmers, benefit from export opportunities to Mexico. One group with a particularly strong interest in protectionism is organized labor. As U.S. manufacturing output has increased steadily over the decades, the number of American employed in manufacturing has dropped. Though output is up, labor unions benefit not one bit from output increases, since their economic lifelines come from the dues of employees. Clearly the anti-trade rhetoric of Sens. Clinton and Obama will woo the hearts of union leaders.

Though Sen. McCain steadfastly supports NAFTA even in front of skeptical audiences in the rust belt, it is unlikely that a possible Democratic win in November would number the days of NAFTA. Shortly after the February debate in the video above, Canadian news outlet CTV reported that a senior Obama staff member quietly reassured Canada’s ambassador to the U.S. that Obama’s words were just to please the crowd:

The staff member reassured Wilson that the criticisms would only be campaign rhetoric, and should not be taken at face value.

The Obama campaign stood by the NAFTA-bashing, of course, but did not deny that his campaign had contacted the ambassador.

I am impressed with Sen. McCain’s defense of NAFTA, since it takes a good deal of courage to support something unpopular. His courage on this matter, though, is only admirable because he is right in his assessment on the long-term benefits of trade. Free trade is always a politically fragile issue since the benefits are subtle (decreases in costs of consumer goods), whereas the resulting job losses, even if only for a few, are obvious and painful.

Despite Ross Perot’s famous prediction that NAFTA would result in a “giant sucking sound” of U.S. jobs fleeing to Mexico, the unemployment rate in the U.S. actually declined after the agreement’s ratification. Furthermore, the biggest competitor for U.S. manufacturing jobs is not Mexico, but China, which lies outside the scope of NAFTA.

Nonetheless, NAFTA-bashing, though popular with the more xenophobic section of the electorate, is widely considered by economists to be a net benefit to America. This is probably why the Obama campaign official quietly reassured the Canadian ambassador that the senator had no plans for withdrawal.

The Clinton campaign, as I have noted, also double-talks on trade issues. It was recently revealed that Mark Penn, one of Sen. Clinton’s senior advisors, also consulted the Colombian ambassador about how to secure a U.S.-Colombia free-trade pact. Upon public revelation of this seeming double-dealing, Penn resigned. All for election-year politics. George Will explains:

Mark Penn’s sin was to be caught doing something sensible, surreptitiously. That is the only way Democrats can do sensible things regarding trade when their party is pandering to organized labor. Penn’s downfall makes him a member of a species that many Democrats insist is large and about which Democrats theatrically grieve: Penn is a casualty of free trade.

Penn’s consultations with the Colombian ambassador were to no avail. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi promised today to change House rules to kill the bilateral deal—a deal that she helped negotiate! The New York Times explains:

What Democrats do not want, many of them say, is a vote that would force lawmakers to choose between the labor and working-class opponents of the measure, who say that trade has cost American jobs and led to wage stagnation, and the Wall Street and manufacturing interests that favor the deal.

Interestingly the article notes that both Sens. Clinton and Obama oppose the deal (publicly, at least), “in part because labor groups say that President Álvaro Uribe of Colombia has not done a sufficient job of cracking down on anti-labor violence committed by right-wing groups.”

George Will fires back:

Colombia’s unions, however, document that the number of murders of their members has sharply declined. Edward Schumacher-Matos, visiting professor of Latin American studies at Harvard, notes that “it was far safer to be in a union than to be an ordinary citizen in Colombia last year”: The murder rate of unionists was less than one-eighth the murder rate of Colombians generally.

Sen. Clinton’s opposition to free trade is in markèd contrast to her husband’s position on trade. Though one should not expect her to adopt unswervingly the views of her husband, it is doubtful that her NAFTA threats are sincere. She is pandering to her a core constituency of union members, whom she needs to turn out in significant numbers in Pennsylvania’s upcoming primary. Be it with Mexico, Canada, or Colombia, the Democratic Party has turned against the nation’s overall best interest in trade. The Washington Post’s editorial board, certainly no bastion of conservatism, put it well:

Are [Clinton and Obama] unaware of the real statistics on NAFTA’s effects? Voters are left to wonder, and to ponder which would be worse: that the candidates are sincere and misguided or are insincere and lacking the courage to speak honestly.

Good question.