I struggled a bit to come up with a title for this post. My original choice was “You Can’t Have It Both Ways”. An op-ed by Aaron MacLean in the Wall Street Journal expresses a view I have been waiting to hear for some time. Mr. MacLean is concerned about the implications of Europe rearming itself:

Hastings Ismay, NATO’s first secretary general, famously said that the alliance’s purpose is “to keep the Russians out, the Americans in and the Germans down.” The Russian leg of this stool gets the most attention, especially and understandably in light of Vladimir Putin’s aggression. But calls for greater European autonomy raise a second and more fundamental issue for American strategy—the German part of Ismay’s formula.

A net consequence of American security policy since 1945 has been the suppression of European politics: the process by which armed states consider the full range of policy ends and means. The success of postwar liberal politics, the dominance of social-democratic domestic priorities, and the progress of supranational political union—each supported by the American military—have had a pacifying effect.

Looking to Europe, many Americans complain that our costly diplomatic and military strategies have made unseriousness on the Continent possible. But is that bad for America? Do we want European states to rearm, to achieve something closer to strategic self-sufficiency, perhaps including nuclear proliferation to the east?

It isn’t Germany, specifically, that need preoccupy us—though the contributions of a unified Germany to international security over the past 150 years have been mixed. Ismay’s comment ought to remind us of the possibility of European politics more broadly. Perhaps we forget the vast slaughterhouse into which the Continent transformed on two occasions in the first half of the last century. Its wealth and leadership did little to retard and much to accelerate the industrial and pitiless cruelty, the movements of populations, the murders of whole peoples, and the conscription and sacrifice of millions. Twice, reluctantly, America sent its own youth, many of them victims of the Minotaur of European “progress.”

Our alternatives are limited.

1. We can do what we’ve done. We pledge to defend Europe. Europe dearms and uses the money it saves for other priorities. We maintain a war machine (including industry) capable of defending ourselves and Europe. We bear the costs as the price of that decision.
2. We can do what President Trump has threatened to do: if Europe doesn’t increase its military spending, we won’t defend it. That’s pretty hard to make stick and in all likelihood an idle threat.
3. We could behave like a real empire and exact tribute from European countries to defray the expenses of our military machine (see above).
4. We could pull out of NATO and leave Europe to its own devices. It’s not that important to us anymore.

My preference is the last. When Germany reunified in 1990 Lord Ismay’s formula became obsolete. When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991 it became surreal. Expecting the Europeans to have our best interests at heart when we don’t even do that ourselves is delusional. Whether the Europeans like it or not we’re more concerned about East Asia than we are about them.

The editors of the Wall Street Journal see President Biden’s budget proposal, released yesterday, as a flight from reality:

Most U.S. presidential budgets are exercises in fiscal deception, but even by that standard President Biden’s Monday proposal for fiscal year 2025 sets a record for unreality. It proposes defense spending as if the world is at peace, entitlement spending that isn’t sustainable, and tax increases that would hurt the economy if they passed, which they won’t. Congratulations, Team White House.

For me the most telling passage of their editorial is:

As a share of the economy, Mr. Biden wants spending to reach 24.8%, or a quarter of national wealth. The 1974-2023 average was only 21% and, as Mr. Biden told the country last week, the Covid crisis is over. But instead of letting outlays fall as a share of GDP, as they always have after a recession or crisis, the President wants the government to stay at a new and higher spending plateau.

I’ll return to that later.

Meanwhile, the editors of the Washington Post express a somewhat more charitable view of the budget proposal:

Like most presidential budgets before it, President Biden’s fiscal 2025 tax and spending blueprint is more of a political statement than an actual legislative proposal. Basically, it’s a reelection pitch straight from the “Middle Class Joe” playbook he ran on in 2020: raise taxes on the rich and businesses and spend much of the proceeds on federal support for child care, health care and housing. These traditional Democratic priorities failed to become law even when Mr. Biden’s party narrowly controlled Congress, so there is zero chance of enactment now.

with this as what I would assess is the most significant passage:

The short version is that Mr. Biden’s tax plan would be fairer and more fiscally responsible than Mr. Trump’s. The longer version is: Despite this reality, the country needs a reckoning on its unsustainable budgetary path, and Mr. Biden’s proposals, though better than the alternative, do not envisage one.

I have two questions for the White House and, I guess, the editors. First, federal revenues as a percent of GDP remaining fairly constant goes back a lot farther than 1973 as this graph from the St. Louis Federal Reserve illustrates:

Even at the height of World War II it was only 19%. Since World War II local and state government revenues as a percentage of GDP have ballooned from 7% of GDP in 1930 to nearly 10% now:

Here’s my question. How will the federal government increase its revenues as being proposed by the White House? Increasing marginal tax rates on individuals and corporations does not answer the question. Over the last 90 years marginal tax rates have varied enormously but the revenues as a percentage of GDP has hardly budged. More explanation is needed.

And then there’s the follow-up question. In January 2018 the prime rate was around 4.5%. Now it’s 8.5%. Here’s the market yield on Treasury securities:

As you can the rate is presently higher than it has been since the Bush II Administration. Interest on the debt is increasing faster than revenues by a considerable amount and the White House’s budget does nothing to address that. What is their plan for dealing with a budget that will grow fast regardless of whether federal spending on budget items other than interest increases or decreases?

I’ve been thinking about starting a recurring feature, “Ironic Juxtapositions of the Day”. For example, on Saturday one of the news aggregators that try to keep me informed had these two

“Immigrants are less likely to commit crimes than U.S.-born Americans, studies find”

and

“Juan Orlando Hernández, Former President of Honduras, Convicted in Manhattan Federal Court of Conspiring to Import Cocaine into the United States and Related Firearms Offenses”

which I found pretty ironic. BTW the flurry of corrective articles like the first one represent what I would call a “category error”. At least to me the question is not whether migrants commit fewer or less felonies than native-born citizens but whether migrants who have been convicted of violent felonies in their countries of origin continue to commit them when they come here. I suspect the answer is “yes” but determining whether that’s the case is actually quite difficult.

IMO we should be deporting non-citizens who have been convicted of violent felonies in their countries of origin who commit violent felonies here without any disagreement about it but that does not presently appear to be the case.

Last njght I watched nearly the entire Academy Awards ceremony for the first time in years. My wife and I have observed over the years that Oscars seem to be awarded in waves. Last night was no exception: it was clearly a Poor Things and Oppenheimer night.

Cillian Murphy was an obvious shoe-in for Best Actor for Oppenheimer although I was rooting for Paul Giamatti. If you haven’t seen The Holdovers, I recommend it (it’s streaming on Peacock which I get with my cable subscription). It’s a fine film, sort of a throwback to pictures that were made decades ago—no car chases or explosions, lots of dialogue. Da’Vine Joy Randolph won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress which I thought she deserved. Like all of the characters in The Holdovers, her role was a complex, layered one.

For me the toughest category to pick was Best Supporting Actor. I was gratified that Robert Downey, Jr. won for his performance in Oppenheimer but Mark Ruffalo, too, has been nominated many times without winning. IMO he’s one of the finer Gen X actors.

I was surprised that Emma Stone won Best Actress for Poor Things. I haven’t seen it yet but I probably will.

That Godzilla Minus 1 won for Best Film Effects was not a surprise but it did illustrate the conundrum in which Hollywood finds itself. GM1’s total budget was about $15 million—less that a tenth of the Hollywood blockbusters being produced these days. Clearly, there’s something wrong in Hollywood. They’re too darned expensive for such mediocre results—something that was called out, ironically, in one of the acceptance speeches. The chap doing the complaining had it wrong, though. Not only is it possible to make 20 $15 million dollar movies rather than one $300 million stinkeroo, it’s being done. The issue is distribution rather than production. And those $15 million dollar movies will have less box office appeal in China and India. Car chases and explosions translate better than dialogue.

One speculation is that its movies are being produced by committee. I suspect that, like all too many American enterprises, they are engines for making big bucks for a handful of people and have lost sight of their markets.

Last night I tried to listen to President Biden’s last State of the Union message of his first term. At one point I fell into a troubled slumber. It was largely a shouted wishlist interrupted all too frequently with rowdy outbursts. The Republicans cooperated by being surly and lacking in decorum.

The targets of the speech were Republicans, large corporations, individuals earning more than $400,000 per year, credit card companies, and landlords.

I was clearly not the audience for the speech. It was largely a campaign rally, presented on a take it or leave it basis. I suspect its intent was more to shore up the president’s support among Democrats wondering if he’s up to the job than to convince moderates or independents. Some are characterizing the speech as “fiery”. I thought the president looked old, frail, and doddered at times. It was little more incoherent, halting, or rambling than any other Joe Biden campaign speech.

As President Biden prepares to give his State of the Union message for 2024 which some of his supporters are saying provides him with the opportunity of resetting his reelection campaign, I thought it might be fun to do a little retrospective on his previous SOTU messages.

This evening’s SOTU will find the president not with the lowest net approval rating of his presidency but with the lowest at the time of any SOTU message:

In my memory no SOTU message has been a barnstormer of the sort that some, e.g. Robert Reich, are advising. All have been dreary wishlists, landing like dead cats, forgotten within days of their delivery.

The targets that have been leaked include big corporations, centimillionaires, credit card companies,

To date none of President Biden’s SOTU messages have been followed by sizeable improvements in his popularity. Will this time be different?

William A. Galston uses his Wall Street Journal column to give advice to President Biden on what to do in his State of the Union message:

He must deliver a forceful State of the Union address, campaign vigorously, accept media interviews he has ducked up to now, and debate Mr. Trump this fall.

There are certainly risks in such a strategy including the risk of a major gaffe which reinforces the message that many people have been receiving lately.

I suspect that Karl Rove’s assessment of the primary results on Super Tuesday in the Wall Street Journal:

We’ve never seen two candidates wrap up their nominations this early. What could have been contests have turned into coronations. Yet both Messrs. Trump and Biden aren’t only weak contenders but massively flawed, old and declining, despised by much of America. In my lifetime there have been lower points in our nation’s politics, but it is hard to recall them just now.

sums up the views of quite a number of Americans. What concerns me even more is how many people will tie themselves into knots to convince themselves that wasn’t the case.

I think there’s one really telling passage in E. Wayne Merry’s consideration of European countries rearming themselves at 1945:

Most NATO members regarded their militaries and defense industries more as jobs programs than as national security because, after all, defense was the responsibility of the Americans.

Where could they have possibly gotten that idea? The answer is simple: we’ve been telling them that for the last 75 years.

Does no one see a conflict between defense being the responsibility of the Americans and Europe paying its share? Apparently not.

Here’s a fun little graph illustrating French, German, and British defense spending as a percentage of GDP:

In case you’re wondering here’s a graph of the GDPs of those country also from the World Bank:

It looks to me as though their real spending had declined. Clearly, they’ve believed us.