Entries for January 2009

By Michael Barone, Thomas Jefferson Street blog

Reader and blogger Al Lewis agrees with my call for abolition of the penny, and has gone more than one step better, with a specific proposal.

By Michael Barone, Thomas Jefferson Street blog

What does the public think about the stimulus package that has been passed by the House? Pollster Scott Rasmussen reports that currently 42 percent favor the stimulus package and 39 percent are opposed—a pretty close result. Last week he reported that the public favored the stimulus package (presumably as it was then constituted) by a 45 to 34 percent margin. I think we can conclude that the balance has shifted slightly. Interestingly, Rasmussen reports that higher earners tend not to support the stimulus package, even though Obama ran even with John McCain among high earners and was actually ahead among voters making over $200,000. Tentative conclusion: Some significant quantum of high income Obama voters are queasy about big government spending programs. The verdict on a stimulus program that is entirely tax cuts? Almost the same as to the Obama package: 43 percent in favor, 39 percent against, although of course different segments of the electorate respond very differently to the two approaches.

By Michael Barone, Thomas Jefferson Street blog

The House voted almost entirely on partisan lines to pass the stimulus package that, slightly amended, came out of the House Appropriations Committee. It passed without a single Republican vote and with 11 Democratic votes against, from Allen Boyd (FL 2), Bobby Bright (AL 2), Jim Cooper (TN 5), Brad Ellsworth (IN 8), Parker Griffith (AL 5), Paul Kanjorski (PA 11), Frank Kratovil (MD 1), Walt Minnick (ID 1), Collin Peterson (MN 7), Heath Shuler (NC 11), and Gene Taylor (MS 4). They break into several categories. Boyd and Cooper are "blue dogs" by conviction who represent state capital districts (Tallahassee, Nashville) that wouldn't have minded pro-stimulus votes. Bright, Griffith, Kratovil, and Minnick won their seats in 2008 in Republican-leaning districts. Ellsworth and Shuler won their seats in 2006 in Republican-leaning districts. Kanjorski is an old-timer who was pressed in the 2008 election. Taylor is a temperamental Jacksonian maverick elected in the Gulf Coast Mississippi district who mostly votes like a Republican but wears no man's collar. Peterson is a committee chairman (Agriculture) who represents a rural district that, despite historic DFL roots, has recently been the most Republican district in Minnesota in presidential elections. It took some guts, in my view, for Boyd, Cooper, and Peterson to cast these votes.

By Michael Barone, Thomas Jefferson Street blog

Remittances to Mexico in calendar year 2008 fell by 3.6 percent, which apparently was twice as much as experts projected. This is a big hit to Mexico's economy; remittances are Mexico's second biggest source of hard currency, after oil exports. This is just more evidence that, as I wrote in a recent column and blogpost, that we may be seeing a sharp decline in immigration—and perhaps a significant reversal of immigrant flow.

By Michael Barone, Thomas Jefferson Street blog

The December 2008 state-by-state unemployment rates are out, and there are some interesting regional patterns. National unemployment, as previously announced, was 7.2 percent—a big jump from November.

Unemployment rose in every state.

By Michael Barone, Thomas Jefferson Street blog

Here's a nice review in the Weekly Standard of my former U.S. News colleague David Whitman's book Sweat the Small Stuff: Inner City Schools and the New Paternalism. David has also been a cross between a journalist and a serious social science researcher, determined to understand how the real world works, starting off with (I think) something of a liberal mindset but also unafraid to see through dogmatism of all kinds. In this book, based on extensive research and in-person reporting, he tells us about six inner city schools which really seem to be doing a superior job of teaching not only the basics of reading, math, etc but of teaching basic niceness. Good manners, consideration of others, civility—these, contrary to the thinking of so many liberals, do not always come naturally to children. Rather, as this book argues, to the contrary. And especially to kids who grow up in disadvantaged backgrounds. David's meticulous reporting and absorbing narratives tell us what can work. This is a fitting companion to Mathews's definitive history of the KIPP schools, Work Hard. Be Nice , which I've written about before. Both make the point that kids need paternalism and guidance, not open-ended invitations to unguided and undisciplined self-expression if they are to get ahead.

By Michael Barone, Thomas Jefferson Street blog

Gov. David Paterson's appointment of 20th District Congresswoman Kirsten Gillibrand to the Senate is an interesting one. She has political genes: Her grandmother Polly Noonan was evidently a very close friend (presumably mistress) of Erastus Corning 2d, who was mayor of Albany from 1942 until his death in 1983. Ben Smith has something on her Albany political connections. Steve Weisman's review of a biography of Corning has more. Corning was quite a political character: great-grandson of the similarly named founder of the New York Central Railroad, son of an Albany political fixer, an ally of Daniel O'Connell, who was head of the Albany Democratic machine from the early 1919 until his death in 1977. Here, Paul Grondahl, the author of that biography, gets his readers at least thinking about the possibility that Corning was the biological father of Gillibrand's mother—and points out that Gillibrand's father was also close to Corning.