2002-11-06 - 9:30 a.m.
You know...perversely enough...this could be good.
For now, in 726 days, the Republicans won't be able to claim "The Democrats used their gridlock in the Senate to stop us". President Bush won't be able to say "I would have done so much, but I didn't have a Congress".
And, we'll be able to see just how "effective" Christi....err...Republican Rule is at enforcing morality on the American public.
Unless you're a CEO, of course...then morality is optional.
Only 726 more days.
Just for the record, since I expect this diary will still be here for comparison in two years...TODAY:
Unemployment: 5.6% (technically September number...best I can find, October doesn't come out for a couple of days yet)
Budget Deficit: $106,000,000,000 for FY2002
2004 Budget Projection: $14,000,000,000 Deficit
2007 Budget Projection: $104,000,000,000 Surplus
Above three figures per http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/fy2003/bud34.html
National Debt: $6,268,106,685,391.14 (according to http://www.brillig.com/debt_clock/ as of this very second)
Dow: 8684.65
NASDAQ: 1399.75
SP500: 916.07
Federal Reserve Discount Rate: 1.25%
Prime Rate: 4.75%
Number of American Soldiers killed in Declared Wars since 11/5/2002: 0 (obviously, no declared wars exist yet)
Number of American Soldiers killed in "Enforcement Actions" since 11/5/2002: 0 (this is a running total. I know there will be some, and a small number isn't necessarily a measure of failure)
U.S. Citizens killed in actions declared "Terrorist related" since 11/5/2002: 0 (again, a running total, and there are, unfortuantely, expected to be some.)
OKay, there's 12 measurable numbers, which I think everyone, even Rush Limbaugh and Ralph Nader, would agree have an impact on the average American, either financially or personally. Let's see just how good "Republican Government" will be at managing them.
I was looking for a 13th, the FBI Violent Crime Index...but I haven't been able to find a link to an actual *number* yet. I've found lots of Year to Year "It went up X%" kinds of things, but I can't find the baseline.
So...what would be the criteria for a "Success". Certainly, if all 12/13 of these measures trend positively, then Republican Rule has done well and deserves another 2/4 years. Also certainly, if they have all trended negatively, then toss the bums out and give someone else a shot at it.
Some of these measures require judgement as to what would be a success/failure. Certainly soldiers will die, that's a fact of life in the military. And if there is a declared War, then many of them will (probably). So obviously noone can rationally expect the next two years to produce 0 casualties. I don't have a good number here. PErhaps some sort of calculated percentage of a rolling average or something...going to have to think on this.
Likewise, as much as it pains me to say it, there will be another Terrorist attack somewhere which will claim American lives. If I'm calculating correctly, there's been an average of around 15 Americans killed per year over the last 15 years, excepting the WTC incident, which had an enormous impact, obviously.
So let's say that with his newfound powers to investigate and detain and prevent, he oughta at least be able to do better than the previous status quo...so...over 2 years...the target is 30.
Financial measures are easy to calculate if they've trended well or not. If the Dow/Nasdaq/etc are up, things are good, if they're down, they're not so good. UNemployment should be down to be good, up is bad (and my personal unemployment would be *very* bad).
THe National debt should be going down.
The Budget deficit should be going down, or turning into a surplus.
The "5 year out" projections should be better.
Like I said, we'll see how all this goes. My money, of course, is on that it won't go all that well.
And that doesn't even include losses of our personal liberties, like freedom of expression, sexual choice, reproductive freedoms, association, or other things that the Constitution provides for clearly, but are difficult to put into numbers.
We shall see, we shall see.
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