Divisive Politics

You’ve got to feel sorry for Matt Rosendale and his Republican colleagues in the Montana legislature. All they are trying to do is to keep you safe from international terrorism, and for their trouble, Democrats are calling them out as hypocrites. It just isn’t fair.

Here’s the way Rosendale, the majority leader in the Montana Senate, tells the story in a column in the Missoulian:

Last month, after the massacre in Paris, Republicans in the legislature, including Rosendale, wrote to Governor Bullock to express their concern about the safety of Montanans in the face of terrorism. They were particularly concerned, Rosendale says, by the lack of “vigorous screening” prior to allowing “vast numbers of unknown refugees to enter our state or country.” All they were doing was “trying to protect our citizens,” just being “prudent,” simply taking “every precaution.”

And how prescient they were! Just days after they wrote to the governor, 14 people were gunned down in San Bernardino, and one of the killers, Tashfeen Malik, was an immigrant who had managed to make it through the vaunted but clearly inadequate screening process. If only we had listened.

But we didn’t. No, all that happened, Rosendale says, is that legislative Democrats (I was one of them) said that the letter to the governor was “divisive politics.” And worse, the President and other Democrats took advantage of the San Bernardino shootings to again attack the Second Amendment, and deflect attention from their failure to stop people like Malik at the border. The fact that the Second Amendment allows for virtually unfettered access to guns, and that Malik took advantage of that access to arm herself, was irrelevant. What we need to do to stop gun violence is to keep people like Malik out of the country. And since that is not always going to work, what we need to keep mass murderers at bay is to arm ourselves to the teeth.

It’s hard to know where to start with this nonsense, but try this:

The Republican letter to the governor did not simply call for more vigorous screening of refugees. It called upon the governor to "use all legal means to block or resist the placement of Syrian refugees in our great state at this time." Unless the signers of the letter were inconceivably ignorant, they had to know that Governor Bullock had no means to bar Syrian refugees from the state. Their call on him to do so was at best an empty gesture and at worst, deeply cynical.

And they weren’t urging greater caution in admitting immigrants like Malik. They were asking for a ban on Syrian refugees. Those are the people, you’ll remember, who are desperate to get away from the barrel bombs and poison gas their own government is killing them with, from Russian jets dropping outlawed cluster bombs, and from the savagery of ISIS. They are the people who are so desperate to leave that they climb into rubber rafts with their little kids and try to cross the Aegean in the middle of winter. They are the thousands of people, including kids, who are drowning in the ocean, suffocating in closed trucks, and dying on top of trains under the English channel, just trying to get to safety. They are among the more than one million refugees to whom Europe has opened its arms and whom volunteers from all over the world, including Montana, have rushed to help. They are the people who hope to be among the 10,000 Syrians to be admitted to the United States, but only after being screened much more stringently than Malik was. And they are the people whom Matt Rosendale and his Republican colleagues urged Governor Bullock – impossibly - to slam the door on. How is that not politically divisive?

When it comes to guns, and the Second Amendment, it’s not hard to figure out that if Malik had never been admitted to the country, she wouldn’t have ended up slaughtering innocent people in San Bernardino. Rosendale’s got that right, but it’s hardly the point, which is that no screening of immigrants and refugees, no matter how rigorous, is going to stop the incessant gun violence plaguing this country. In 2013, more than 33 thousand people in the United States, the vast majority of them native born Americans, picked up a gun and shot themselves, or somebody else, to death. Seal the borders, and that number will hardly move.

The fact is that we are awash in guns, and any terrorist, any felon, any deranged person can, by hook or by crook, get their hands on one.  And we can’t do a thing about it, because thanks to the efforts of gun rights zealots, including politicians like Matt Rosendale, the Second Amendment has come to mean that virtually no measure to restrict access to guns, however limited, can be enacted.

So the only solution is more guns: arm the teachers, keep a pistol in your bedside table, make sure you are packing when you go out with your kids for dinner and a movie. This is the level to which we have descended, and you’d better watch your back, because nobody  - certainly not a pack of Republican legislators fretting about Syrian refugees - is going to watch it for you.

Pushing the Panic Button

When it comes to bashing Barack Obama and the Clean Power Plan, Senator Steve Daines never misses the chance to push the panic button.

At least that’s what he appeared to be doing last week when he robo-called a whole bunch of Montanans (I was one of the lucky ones) to deliver the terrible news: a new “University of Montana” study had shown that implementing the Clean Power Plan would be calamitous for Montana’s economy. We needed to act, and act fast, if we were to stave off disaster! The EPA is running amok! It’s a War on Coal!

Now first things first: “The University of Montana” doesn’t study things and it doesn’t put its imprimatur on studies done by the folks who work there. What Daines was talking about was an analysis conducted by the University’s Bureau of Business and Economic Research and paid for by Northwest Energy. Take that for what it’s worth.

You’ve probably already heard a bit about the BBER paper, which has been, to put it mildly, something of a crazy-making puzzle. But the question about it that has vexed a lot of folks is really pretty simple: how can somebody study the impact of implementing the CPP when nobody knows how it is going to be implemented? And the answer is equally simple: somebody can’t, and so that’s not what BBER really did. No. Rather, at the behest of Northwest Energy, BBER simply assumed that implementation would require the shutdown of all the coal-fired power plants at Colstrip (and the transmission lines they ship power on) and the construction of a new gas-fired plant in Billings. Then they used a computer model to calculate how these events would cause the economy to veer from the path that it might otherwise be predicted to follow. It was this veering from the path that got Daines so het up.

Now whether or not this exercise tells us anything useful is an open question. After all, there are ways of implementing the CPP that don’t lead to Colstrip being totally abandoned, and any implementation plan is going to have effects that go well beyond what happens in Colstrip. So the BBER appears to be assuming both too much and too little, all at the same time. On the other hand, Colstrip closures could just happen, and it’s worth knowing what the results might be. Just how bad are things likely to get?

Well, the table above is a screen shot from the BBER report (which you can download here) which summarizes the bad news. The figures in the table detail what the BBER calls the “losses” we are going to experience from implementation of the CPP. So, for example, according to BBER, as a result of implementing the plan we will “lose” $516 million dollars of personal income* in 2025. That looks pretty bad, and frankly, BBER has presented the information in a way that makes it look as bad as possible. But before you get too alarmed about these results, realize this:

1. The numbers in the table refer to the estimated difference between what would happen with the CPP and without it. So, for example, we would “lose” $516 million in personal income as a result of the CPP only in the sense that in 2025, according to the BBER estimate, personal income would be that much higher without the plan than with it. It doesn’t mean that personal income will fall by that amount in 2025. So another, and better, word for these losses might be “shortfalls.”

2. If you compare the size of the shortfalls shown in the table to the total value of the corresponding measure in the absence of the CPP, they turn out to be relatively small. For example, according to the BBER’s own estimates, without the CPP, total personal income in 2025 would be $54.3 billion. Implementing the CPP would reduce that total by the shortfall - $516 million - or just .95%. And if you have the patience to wade through the BBER’s ocean of numbers, you will find that almost all the shortfalls listed in the table are in about that same size range, i.e. 1% or less.

3. Leaving aside employment and taxes for the moment (I’ll get back to them later), according to the BBER’s own estimates, all the measures of economic performance shown in the table increase every year for the next 40 years, even if the CPP is implemented.  What’s important about this consistent growth is that it will eventually erase the shortfalls.  But how long is eventually? Well, going back to the same example, according to the BBER’s own estimates, between 2025 and 2026, even with the CPP in place personal income will rise by $1.32 billion, from $53.8 to $55.1 billion. This increase will erase the 2025 personal income shortfall in about 5 months. Again, digging around in the BBER’s own data will show that economic growth will eliminate almost all of the shortfalls listed in the table in less than a year.  In the end, what the BBER is predicting is not that implementing the CPP will produce a crisis or even a moderate downturn in economic activity. All that will happen, according to the BBER’s own estimates, is that the CPP will slightly slow economic growth, meaning that with implementation, our enjoyment of any particular level of economic activity (however you want to measure it) will be delayed by only a few months.

Now what about employment? In the BBER’s projections employment – measured in numbers of jobs - grows very, very slowly, and that means that shortfalls in employment will not be eliminated quickly by growth. In fact, in the BBER projections, even without CPP implementation, employment almost completely stagnates during the decade of the 2020s; over the entire 36 year period of projection, 2019 to 2055, employment grows at an average annual rate of just .3%. This appears to be awfully low; by contrast, in the 34 years between 1980 and 2014, employment in Montana grew at an annual rate of 1.46%, almost 5 times as high as the BBER model predicts for the next 34 years.

In fact, the BBER model appears to be generally pessimistic: the growth rates it predicts for personal income, gross state product, population and per capita disposable personal income, as well as employment, all fall well short of the actual growth rates of those measures over the past 35 years. Why that should be is anyone’s guess (the answer is hidden in the black box containing the BBER’s model) but it’s an important question: understating the rate of economic growth has the effect of making shortfalls in income or production or employment seem more significant than they otherwise would. Stated the other way around, the more rapidly the economy grows, the more quickly these shortfalls are erased.

Finally, regarding taxes: BBER provides no data showing projected total tax collections or collections growth to accompany the tax shortfall figures you see in the table, so it’s a little difficult to judge just how worrisome those shortfalls might be. Suffice it to say that right now, total state and local government revenue is somewhat more than $8 billion; by 2025 it should be well more than $10 billion. That means the BBER revenue shortfall for 2025 will be somewhere between 1 and 2 percent.

When you look at it then, nothing in the BBER paper suggests that implementing the Clean Power Plan is going to devastate Montana’s economy. It will keep on growing, keep on providing families with incomes and economic opportunity, keep on providing workers with jobs. And all that will happen at just about the same pace as it would have if the Clean Power Plan had never darkened our doorstep. That’s not to say, of course, that some local economies will not be severely affected; if the Colstrip generators close down, there will be hell to pay in Rosebud County. But we do know that the economy will grow and provide the jobs and opportunities needed to help damaged local economies make it through the transition to a new, low emissions energy future.

Now getting back to Steve Daines. It’s probably too much to hope that he will ever change his mind about the Clean Power Plan or fighting climate change. It’s probably too much to hope that he will ever pay attention to the facts. Because for Daines, the Clean Power Plan is simply a vehicle for attacking Barack Obama, harassing Steve Bullock, and boosting the electoral prospects of Greg Gianforte. That has to be expected. What’s not to be expected, however, is the uncomfortable suspicion than in this effort, Daines is being aided and abetted by the folks at the BBER and Northwest Energy, using the ratepayers’ money.

*Personal income here is basically the total pre-tax income flowing to all households during a particular year. Disposable personal income is what is left over from personal income after households have paid their taxes.

Wanting to Govern

Greg Gianforte, whose gubernatorial campaign up until now has been soporifically bland, finally took an oblique shot at Steve Bullock this past week.  And really, if that’s the best that Gianforte’s got,  I don’t think the governor has much to worry about.

To be clear, Gianforte has yet to admit that his hat is in the ring. Rather, he has been conducting an “exploratory” campaign, which seems to involve running around the state glad handing the voters and asking them if they think he should run for real.  He’s been soliciting contributions to support this endeavor, which seems to me a bit odd - please support me so I can come round and ask if you support me - but what’s really up with this strategy appears to be that it allows Gianforte to campaign without saying anything of substance. Given the extremity of his views, that’s probably a good move, and he’s pretty much stuck to it. There have been a few bobbles, such as when he opined that “the concept of retirement is not biblical,” but generally he has avoided controversy by confining himself to uttering platitudes about the importance of good jobs.

So it was a departure from the norm when earlier this week Gianforte sent out an email (text below) announcing his support for Attorney General Tim Fox and his suit challenging the Clean Power Plan. And taking a whack at Steve Bullock, Gianforte said that had he been governor, he would have been standing right alongside Fox, unlike “some of our own state leaders” who are “silent … when it comes to taking a stand for Montana’s rights.”

Here's Gianforte's missive:

We all know the West is a special place - we make our living here.  Susan and I raised all four of our children here in Montana.

But the special beauty we’re privileged to enjoy makes special demands on our stewardship of the land - demands that are often misunderstood by DC bureaucrats and liberal interests.

Perhaps the first thing they misunderstand is that those who make their living off the land have the greatest incentive and obligation to protect it.

That DC does not understand this is, sadly, not a surprise. But how can some of our own state leaders be silent on the question when it comes to taking a stand for Montana’s rights?

Just last week, our Attorney General Tim Fox joined Montana as party to a lawsuit challenging the EPA’s new carbon regulations - regulations designed to cripple Montana’s coal industry and take jobs from our state. I can assure you, if I were Governor, I would have been standing alongside Attorney General Fox and his effort to block President Obama’s plan.

President Obama’s plan will shut down Colstrip, and high wage coal jobs all across the state. The threats from Washington must be defeated.

If I decide to run and become your next Governor, you can bet I’ll take a defiant tone in the face of EPA intrusion. I’ll fight wherever and however I can to ensure Montana’s future.

And the more I hear from you, the more encouraged I am to run to take on these challenges.

We’ll be holding our state’s leadership accountable as I travel the state and hear your concerns.

If you share my concern for the future of Colstrip and high wage mining jobs all across Montana, join me on Facebook and follow us on Twitter. Also, please sign this this petition to stand up for Colstrip and high wage Montana jobs.

And forward this email to like-minded Montanans - we need them to join the team.

Let’s demand more from our leadership, together.

Thanks as always,

Greg

Like Steve Daines, Gianforte seems to think that President Obama is shoving the Clean Power Plan down our throats just “to cripple Montana’s coal industry and take jobs from our state.” He doesn’t mention a single word about climate change and doesn’t seem to know that the Clean Power Plan would produce billions of dollars of public health and climate benefits. And he fails to recognize that unless the United States is committed to seriously reducing carbon emissions - and Montana, like other states, is prepared to do its part - we will never be in a position to demand international cooperation for climate action.

That’s all pretty standard stuff, but Gianforte rings the changes on the Republican message with results that are downright bizarre. For one thing, he appears to think that the Clean Power Plan has something to do with stewardship of the land!  It’s hard to believe that he has really gone that far astray - maybe all he’s trying to do is perk up the ears of the Sage Brush Rebels  – but either way, it’s worrisome. And then there’s this business about “high wage coal jobs all across the state." You’d think that after all that exploratory campaigning he’s done, Gianforte would know where the coal mines are and aren’t.

And what is he going to do about this terrible plan? Well, besides standing resolutely alongside Tim Fox, if Gianforte decides to run and becomes our next governor, we can “bet” that he’ll take a “defiant tone in the face of EPA intrusion.” Wow, that’ll help.

The fact of the matter is that Gianforte doesn’t really look like someone who wants or is able to govern. He doesn’t see the dimensions of the crisis we are facing; he is willing to cede the lead to the attorney general; he is prepared only to stamp his feet and just say no; he doesn’t appear to recognize the importance of coming up with Montana made solutions; he’s not sure he wants to be governor; and if he is, all he can tell us is that he’ll take a “defiant tone” with the EPA.  And in going up against Steve Bullock, he’s taking on a guy who not only wants to govern, but actually has; a guy that in the face of do-nothing opposition has brought on Medicaid expansion and campaign finance reform and the water compact and a bunch of other stuff. In short, Bullock has governed and Gianforte doesn’t even seem to know what governing is all about.