The G.O.P.’s Journey From the Liberal Days of Nixon

The following is an excerpt from an article in 

The New York Times
Wednesday, September 05, 2012

The G.O.P.’s Journey From the Liberal Days of Nixon

By EDUARDO PORTER

To hear Republicans on the campaign trail, the United States could not have elected a more left-wing president than Barack Obama, one more hostile to business or more eager to expand government power. Left-wing Democrats, I’m sure, would disagree. If they had their druthers, they would probably make a more liberal, more pro-big government choice. Somebody, perhaps, like Richard Nixon.

That’s right. The Nixon administration not only supported the Clean Air Act and affirmative action, it also gave us the Environmental Protection Agency, one of the agencies the business community most detests, and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration to police working conditions. Herbert Stein, chief economic adviser during the administrations of Nixon and Gerald Ford, once remarked: “Probably more new regulation was imposed on the economy during the Nixon administration than in any other presidency since the New Deal.”

Nixon bolstered Social Security benefits. He introduced a minimum tax on the wealthy and championed a guaranteed minimum income for the poor. He even proposed health reform that would require employers to buy health insurance for all their employees and subsidize those who couldn’t afford it. That failed because of Democratic opposition. Today, Republicans would probably shoot it down.

Historians might protest that it is crazy to brand Nixon a lefty. He was rabidly anti-communist. If anything, they might argue, his seemingly left-leaning policies underscore how uninterested he was in the economy and how far he would go to buy popularity with public money.

Still, Nixon’s initiatives would never pass muster in the Republican Party of today, focused as it is on cutting taxes and public spending. His decisions not to try to undo big government programs passed by Lyndon Johnson’s Democratic administration underscores how much the political center has moved.

The difference between then and now is that Nixon — like most mainstream Republicans — accepted that government had a role to play guaranteeing Americans’ economic well-being. That consensus cracked around the time of Ronald Reagan’s inaugural speech in 1981. “Government is not the solution to our problems, government is the problem,” the president intoned. And the country’s political center set off on a long rightward migration.

For more, visit www.nytimes.com.

Conflict Minerals

Excerpt from an article in

The New York Times

Tuesday, March 20, 2012

Use of ‘Conflict Minerals’ Gets More Scrutiny

By EDWARD WYATT

WASHINGTON — An iPhone can do a lot of things. But can it arm Congolese rebels?

That is the question being debated by a battalion of lobbyists from electronics makers, mining companies and international aid organizations that has descended on the Securities and Exchange Commission in recent months seeking to influence the drafting of a Dodd-Frank regulation that has nothing to do with the financial crisis.

Tacked onto the end of that encyclopedic digest of financial reform is an odd provision. It requires publicly traded companies whose products use certain minerals commonly mined in strife-torn areas of Central Africa to report to shareholders and the S.E.C. whether their mineral supply comes from the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The measure is aimed at cutting off the brutal militia groups that have often taken over the mining and sale of so-called conflict minerals to finance their military aims. Just about every company affected by the law says they support it, but many business groups have also been pushing aggressively to put wiggle room in the restrictions, calling for lengthy phase-in periods, exemptions for minimal use of the minerals and loose definitions of what types of uses are covered.

Nearly every consumer product that includes electronic parts uses a derivative of one of the four minerals: columbite-tantalite, which when refined is used in palm-size cellphones and giant turbines; cassiterite, an important source of the tin used in coffee cans and circuit boards; wolframite, used to produce tungsten for light bulbs and machine tools; and gold, commonly used as an electronic conductor (and, of course, jewelry).

Given their broad application, the minerals have been a primary target of humanitarian groups concerned about genocide, sexual violence, child soldiers and other issues that have been common outgrowths of conflicts in Central Africa.

Ryan Stokes Budget Battle with New 'Blueprint'

Excerpt from an article in

The Hill.com

Ryan stokes budget battle with new ‘blueprint’ 
By Peter Schroeder

A fresh budget proposal this week from House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) will usher in another round of fighting over the federal pocketbook.

Ryan is expected to announce his “Blueprint for American Renewal” on Tuesday at the American Enterprise Institute. His budget panel is expected to follow that up with a markup of the package Wednesday.

The Republican proposal will be met with a barrage of Democratic attacks if, as expected, it sets a lower spending cap than agreed to as part of the summer’s debt-limit deal. House GOP leaders are selling a $1.028 trillion spending cap to their members, down from the $1.047 trillion deal hammered out last summer. Some conservatives are pushing for even stricter limits.

In the Senate, lawmakers will continue work on a bill aimed at making it easier for startup companies to raise capital. But some Democrats have aired concerns that the bill does that by rolling back key investor protections, and are pushing to strengthen that aspect of the bill before advancing it.

Elsewhere on Capitol Hill, the European debt crisis will be a hot topic, just days after the International Monetary Fund signed off on its $37 billion contribution to a broad bailout package for Greece. On Tuesday, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner will visit the House Financial Services Committee to discuss the state of international finance, and the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee is devoting a Wednesday morning hearing to Europe’s debt woes.