Indefensible

Speaking as a federal employee* the stories of largesse among the higher ranks of our armed forces really rub me the wrong way.

On one hand we have the cohort represented by General Petraeus marching to cocktail parties with an entourage of 50, decked out in epaulets, medals, and merit badges, screwing their fawning biographers, and biding their time before their fat 50s-era pension matures so they can sell their insider connections to the highest bidder among a sea of mostly unaccountable defense contractors. Or this guy.

On the other hand, there’s the typical experience of a federal employee, represented by me. If I have a meeting downtown I need to fill out a travel form for the five-dollar subway ride a month in advance. If there's a conference, only one person from my office can go, and it can’t be somewhere nice, like Vegas or Key West, or they probably won’t approve it. We have an office fund for the water cooler. Someone fronts the money and we all pitch in 8 dollars a month so we can enjoy our Cup ‘O Noodles with something other than bathroom tap water.

This is not to belittle military service. It’s to say that we are all public servants and should be held to the same ethical standards. Speaking with people I know in the defense community, it’s shocking to hear about the routine abuses of public office by the upper echelons of the military communities. It's even built in to the rules. Many defense contracts work under a cost-plus methodology, where instead of receiving a fixed sum for their work they are paid an open-ended rate for the hours they bill, plus a guaranteed profit, regardless of whether they are massively over budget or generate inferior work. We don't even know about large chunks of that spending (and others) because it's classified. 

Members of Congress routinely inquire into the minutest details about my tiny agency’s half-million dollar grants, looking for any malfeasance they can tout as government waste. It is rare to hear about any elected official providing meaningful oversight to the multi-billion dollar defense contracts, even as defense spending has nearly doubled since 2001. They target us because we are part of the health care safety net. We provide services to poor, politically unimportant constituents. 

Federal spending requires oversight. I get that. My agency doesn’t give a dime to anyone without half a dozen levels of program and grant review, independent audits, and continuous performance assessments. We're scared to death of Congress, but if Congress finds something wrong with my program, we’ll fix it. Meanwhile, twenty percent of federal spending goes to the defense department. Who’s watching them?

*Unofficially, not on Uncle Sam’s time or equipment

Five Things I Learned from the Election

1.      Money can’t buy you love.

Going into this election the pervasive view was that reduced restrictions on political advertising would mean billionaires buying elections. We can’t know what would have happened under the old rules, but after ridiculous billions spent almost nothing has changed. It is also clear that saturating the airwaves day-and-night with one side’s or another’s propaganda has steeply diminishing returns. Ads buy votes, but only to a very limited point. In the end you need a strong movement, a real passion for a candidate, and plans for the country that doesn’t freak most people out.

2.      We may need a constitutional amendment based on national annoyance.

Our nation has reached a point of electoral mutual assured destruction. It is bad for the country to have a four year presidential term, and two-year terms in the House of Representatives dominated for 18 months by fundraising and campaigning. It’s bad for our democracy to turn a spirited civic discussion into the Second Cola Wars. It’s bad for our collective psyches to have to hear political messages day and night for months on end. It’s oppressive, polarizing, and guarantees that our politicians will be working for whoever pays for their campaigns, and not the people who ultimately vote them in. Something has to be done about the length of campaigns, and the spending arms race, whose net result is only beneficial to the influence of advertisers and interest groups.  

3.      Polling doesn’t lie.

I’ve been on both sides of this. In 2004 I remember being sure that the polls were undercounting the young and minority groups who used cell phones or were otherwise difficult to reach. I remember looking at polls and thinking they must be off by 3 to 5 points based on some gut feeling I had that kept me going when winning felt like a mortal struggle. I was wrong then, and the other side was wrong this time. Modern polling is very sophisticated. Taken on a macro level over time, polls predict election outcomes with remarkable accuracy. Last night’s results look almost exactly like the weighted polling averages of many experts, red and blue. In the end I was only surprised by how few surprises there were.

4.      Even the deluded can concede that they were wrong.

Watching the internet and TV chatter since last night it’s striking how the other side has been so real about the policy and demographic corners they’ve painted themselves into. The same people who were so sanguine about their side’s mass appeal and were so absolutely certain about victory completely reversed themselves over the 15-or-so minutes around 11:00 last night. They could have called for revolution. Instead they became sober, contrite realists. It gives you a little faith in reality eventually winning out. It makes me a little less cynical about how the world works.

5.      The other side can be gracious in defeat.

After a brutal campaign Romney gave a magnanimous concession speech, and by any standards his audience was admirably calm and collected. Republicans were shocked by the results, but accepted what they meant without hesitation, and with minimal acrimony. When you scrape away the punditry, propaganda, loud extremists, and bluster of campaigns, what’s left are people of all kinds who are truly decent and absolutely invested in the future of this country. For me, it’s a reminder that most Americans want solutions to our challenges above ideology, and want leaders to work out our differences, no matter who’s in charge. It’s often those with the greatest power and influence who stand to gain the most from an angry, divided nation. We all need to learn that lesson.