| Morning Jolt
. . . with Jim Geraghty September 19, 2013 What Do You Mean, We're Flying into a Budget Dogfight with No Parachute? I don't oppose the Ted Cruz-Mike Lee plan for brinksmanship on stopping Obamacare . . . I just wish there was a clear backup plan in case it doesn't work. When you raise that question, you often hear a response of, "if we don't fight now, when will we fight?" That's a valid but separate argument. That's an argument for trying it; my question is about what the GOP should do if it doesn't work. And if you don't think there's at least a chance that the public recoils from a government shutdown and overwhelmingly blames the Republicans for this . . . well then, you're willfully blind. This isn't something that is guaranteed to work as long as we believe in it enough. This isn't Tinkerbell. Because it looks like a government shutdown's dead ahead: House Republican leaders bowed to conservative demands and announced plans Wednesday to strip out money for President Obama's healthcare law in a stopgap spending bill to keep the government running after Sept. 30. The reversal by Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) raises the stakes in a fiscal fight that could shutter much of the federal government. The continuing resolution (CR) the House plans to vote on as soon as Thursday is likely to be dead on arrival in the Senate, where Democratic leaders have vowed to reject any attempt to unravel Obama's signature domestic policy achievement. During a closed-door meeting Wednesday morning, GOP leaders also told members they would move legislation in the next week to raise the federal debt ceiling while also delaying the implementation of ObamaCare for a year and laying out a path forward for tax reform and the construction of the Keystone XL oil pipeline — all Republican priorities. Conservatives applauded the shift, a week after they rebelled against a leadership plan that would merely have forced the Senate to vote separately on a measure defunding the healthcare law. "It looks like they did exactly what we wanted them to do," Rep. Mick Mulvaney (R-S.C.) said. Obama seems convinced that if there's a government shutdown, he wins -- which suggests that he won't flinch as the deadline approaches. And his side is getting ready for one: The White House told federal agencies on Tuesday to prepare for a government shutdown. President Obama's budget director Sylvia Matthews Burwell in a memo to agencies said they should set their plans in case Congress fails to pass a funding measure by the end of the month. The government would shut down Oct. 1 without action by Congress. Moe Lane: "I support defunding, but let me be blunt: I've been covering politics for over a decade, and I've never seen 'and then a miracle happens' work as part of a legislative strategy. Absent use of Orbital Mind Control Lasers, this scenario almost certainly ends with the Republican leadership having to decide whether to play chicken with the US economy. In their place, I'd be damned hesitant to pull the trigger, too." Stocks Booming! . . . In Same Old Lousy Economy We've Had for Past Five Years The Dow Jones Industrial Average and S&P 500 hit record highs Wednesday -- great news! What's behind the boom? After spending months alerting the public that they could begin to wind down an $85 billion-a-month bond-buying program at their September policy meeting, Federal Reserve officials got cold feet Wednesday and decided to keep the purchases in place. The reasons: An economy that has failed to live up to the Fed's expectations for growth and a worry that a jump in long-term interest rates over the past several months could squeeze an already weak recovery. Oh, wait. That doesn't sound like such good news. Fed officials, who have been consistently disappointed by economic growth, nudged down their growth forecast for this year and next year, projecting growth between 2% and 2.3% in 2013 and between 2.9% and 3.1% in 2014. Wait, that's bad news. Yet traders on the floor of the stock exchange were literally roaring exuberantly when the markets closed Wednesday. How about those corporate executives? "A new survey shows U.S. CEOs are less optimistic about the economy's prospects for the next six months. The survey indicates that disagreements over the 2014 budget in Washington are making them cautious about hiring." But wait, there's more: While the unemployment rate has fallen from 8.1 percent to 7.3 percent over the past year, even those with a job are falling behind. Real average hourly earnings rose just 0.7 percent during that time period and real weekly earnings are up only a tad more, at 1.0 percent. That means even with inflation at relatively tame levels—at least by government accounting measures—it still has beaten the growth in pay. And speaking of inflation: The 71 food items tracked by the Bureau of Labor Statistics saw prices rise an average of 2.1 percent over the past year—not bad, but still well above the rate of pay increase. And speaking of food: More Americans continue to utilize the Special Nutrition Assistance Program—food stamps—to deal with their grocery bills. The latest figures show food stamp rolls at just under 47.8 million—15 percent of the total population—and 23,116,928 households, which is a record high. Indeed, the latest Census figures released this week show the number of Americans living in poverty remains at 15 percent—representing 46.5 million people—the second straight year the number has not moved. Wealth disparity has reached its widest chasm since 1928, the year before the stock market crashed and the Great Depression began. The percentage of Americans in the workforce, 63.2 percent, is the lowest in 35 years. About 75 percent of the 1 million new jobs created this year are part-time. Wages have barely budged in the past five years. Meanwhile, corporate profits are up 42 percent from 2007 , and the stock market has spent much of the year at new highs. Starbucks' New Policy: Grounds, Not Rounds Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz: We believe that gun policy should be addressed by government and law enforcement — not by Starbucks and our store partners. "Recently, however, we've seen the 'open carry' debate become increasingly uncivil and, in some cases, even threatening. Pro-gun activists have used our stores as a political stage for media events misleadingly called 'Starbucks Appreciation Days' that disingenuously portray Starbucks as a champion of 'open carry.' To be clear: we do not want these events in our stores. Some anti-gun activists have also played a role in ratcheting up the rhetoric and friction, including soliciting and confronting our customers and partners. "For these reasons, today we are respectfully requesting that customers no longer bring firearms into our stores or outdoor seating areas—even in states where 'open carry' is permitted — unless they are authorized law enforcement personnel." Peggy Noonan spoke to Starbucks chairman Howard Schultz: Why did you do this? Why does Starbucks have to have a position on people bringing guns in for coffee? "We are not a policy maker and we're not on any level anti-gun. But over the past four months there's been episodes in and around our stores that alarmed us. Advocates on both sides [of the gun debate] began to stage events in and around Starbucks stores that mischaracterized Starbucks' brand and position. That was not in the interests of our company, our shareholders and employees. So open-carry comes, and we abide by the law. But it began to disturb us, the number of customers and children who became alarmed at seeing people in the store carrying guns. . . . We had a couple situations the past few weeks where some people walked in with rifles! [Some local Starbucks stores] became a staging area for the argument over Second Amendment rights. We're not pro-gun or anti-gun, and we decided to respectfully ask gun owners to leave their guns out of Starbucks." John Ekdahl, over at Ace of Spades: Notice, this is not a ban. It's a polite request they are asking customers to honor (It's a little unclear as to whether this applies to just open carry or concealed as well). Some are claiming he just buckled to liberal pressure and he's lying through his teeth. I'm willing to take him at his word, because I assume the company just wanted to sell coffee without the endless headaches that go along with people making a spectacle of the previous policy. Please understand, I am a strong supporter of both open and concealed carry. The issue I have here is one of strategy. I do not think this type organized campaign wins us any converts in the middle, because it seems very much like intimidation to "moderates" on the issue. I think even people who are inclined to support expanding gun rights would be turned off by the sight of a bunch of people walking around with rifles in Starbucks. It's a shame they decided to change the policy. Had gun rights activists sent emails or letters thanking the company for their policy and simply continued their patronage (while carrying when they otherwise would), I don't think it would have come to this. Cam is unimpressed: I appreciate Mr. Schultz's attempt to placate both sides, but again, with all due respect, I think that's the wrong approach. The smart decision would have been to try and do what was in line with the values of Starbucks as a corporation. Starbucks says it has a commitment to the community rooted in "the belief that we can balance profitability and a social conscience". A strong community is home to rigorous debate open to both sides. A commitment to the community, to our community, from a corporation that wants to serve a "social conscience" should at least champion free speech, even if it wants to stay neutral in the gun-control debate. And that's what these open-carry events (and the anti-gun protests) are . . . political speech. . . . I'll honor Mr. Schultz's request not to bring my legally carried firearm in his stores anymore. I'll take my business to those stores who truly don't care about my status as a gun owner but who see me as a valued customer. A hard, but ultimately accurate, message from Sonny Bunch: . . .it's obvious Schultz has no fear of guns (nor should he; when's the last time there was a mass-shooting at a Starbucks perpetrated by someone with an open-carry permit?). No. He fears the left. And he doesn't fear the right. These are all sensible positions for him to take. Look, here are the facts of life, my conservative friends: We don't do the politicized life particularly well. We don't make our decisions about where to buy our coffee based on who Howard Schultz donates to in election campaigns or what sort of policy they have toward guns or how they accumulate their fair trade coffee beans. We care about taste, expense, and convenience. The left, however, does the politicized life exceptionally well. They mount campaigns to pressure corporations to get what they want. They organize boycotts. They direct their complaints to gatekeepers who share their views and can influence policy. They blacklist artists with whom they disagree and pressure corporations to do the same. They control the levers of the media to add additional pressure from newspapers and television networks. So there will be a lot of fulmination on social media from those on the right about rights and guns and the Constitution, and then a little less the next day, and a little less the day after that, until finally you forgot why you were mad at Starbucks and you stop tweeting and Facebooking and kvetching and start buying pumpkin spice lattes by the bucketful and, in a moment of clarity, you'll think about how silly it was for you to give up Starbucks in the name of something that literally never impacted you in the first place because you don't have an open-carry permit. The right is wired different than the left. It's a healthier wiring, one that leads to far more enjoyment in life and far less heartache. But it's a wiring that leaves you particularly poorly equipped to wage these kinds of fights. It's why you lose. It's why you're losing the culture. It's why Howard Schultz doesn't fear you. ADDENDA: I suspect this Onion op-ed, entitled, "I'm Just A Free Spirit Who Is Entirely Financially Dependent On Others" speaks for quite a few young people: "Some of my friends are these uptight 9-to-5-ers whom I routinely leech off. They don't get it. While they're busy chasing that brass ring, wasting their lives at the office so they can have that perfect house, I'm at their house, enjoying their cable, relaxing, and taking whatever life, and my friends, give me." NRO Digest — September 19, 2013 Today on National Review Online . . . | CHARLES C. W. COOKE: The Right loves it, and the Left hates it, just because of its connotations. Addled by the AR-15. KATRINA TRINKO: The House GOP fights to restore the work requirement for receiving food stamps. Sanity on Food Stamps. HENRY OLSEN: We should focus on cutting crop subsidies to the rich, not transfering payments to the (mostly) poor. Food (Stamps) for Thought. THE EDITORS: Cornelia Pillard is unsuited for a judgeship. Questioning Pillard. ALEC TORRES: Does a university's liberal sexual agenda trump students' conscience rights? Sex Ed at UCLA KEVIN D. WILLIAMSON: The Texas Public Policy Foundation educates Congress on how to reform criminal-justice systems. Not Too Soft, Not Too Hard. SLIDESHOW: The Navy Yard Victims. | Editor's Note:
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