Playing Five Card Shutdown

For a while, pundits were warning that the government of the sole remaining superpower (and the owner of the most nuclear weapons in the world) was going to shut down the office later this week. This appeals to the miscreant in me. Don't like government? Let's take it away and see how that works for you.

Shutdown is a game of brinksmanship. Each side teases the other, provokes the other, rattles their saber a bit. The spirit that makes brinksmanship effective is that each side implicitly recognizes that the other is rational and that nobody really wants to jump off the cliff.

It's a lot like mutual assured destruction as a nuclear strategy. Russia knows our missiles will survive a first strike, we know their missiles will survive a first strike, and so we've ensured peace by making a first strike irrational.


That "rational player game theory" stuff got us and Russia through fifty years, and then a funny thing happened: new players joined the game, and they might not be as rational as the old school guys who shared the mutual flick. They might even be in Pakistan or North Korea. I don't feel so good about playing Mutual Assured Destruction with North Korea.

The same flaw in the brinksmanship game becomes evident when you play Government Shutdown. Back in the day, the Republicans and the Democrats knew that the country would blame both parties for a shutdown. The Nation would see it as a failure of leadership, an abdication of responsibility. Nobody would win, so nobody would start it.

Then some new players showed up who flirted with the unthinkable. Maybe they could survive a first strike. Maybe they could shut the government down. Gosh, we'd get some good press! We'd appeal to the base! It might be a lot like Humpty Dumpty; it's easy to shut it down, it's hard to make it work.

It makes me nervous when irrational people start playing with complex, important things. It scares me when irrational people start considering the unacceptable as a strategic goal; you never know where they'll stop once they get off the reservation.

In this year's circus, the Tea Party crowd has promised to shut it down. The Dems might like to have the Republicans shut it down; it makes them seem like grownups. The older Republicans might like watching the New Kids stub their toes. At least one writer has suggested that Shutdown is a win-win for all involved.

This last week a few things left me 95% sure that the odds are over 80% that these fools are actually going to jump over the brink; this in spite of the fact that people all around the world are getting killed resisting dictators, and maybe this would be a good month for democracy to play nice in front of the new kids.

• The Republicans said they don't want a shutdown
• The Democrats said they don't want a shutdown
• Newt said we shouldn't have a shutdown, unless it's the only alternative to House Republicans losing their integrity
• somebody proposed a two-week Shutdown Buffer, which was considered a master stroke of leadership
• Newt Gingrich explained, The last big shutdown was a victory
• Frank Rich asked, Why Wouldn't They Shut It Down?

Karl Popper's turkey taught me that the past does not predict the future. I do know that if you stay around long enough, you get to see a few variations on the theme and you can appreciate the differences among them.

So, just in case our Leaders manage to jump off the cliff, here's a picture of the perpetrators of a previous Shutdown celebrating; you might caption it, "The Usual Suspects".


Newt Gingrich, John Boehner, John Mica, April 7 1995.
You remember what Milan Kundera said, right?

Chaos Theory: Oberstar, Mica, Bike Trails

"Chaos Theory" deals with complex integrated systems and the unexpected, non-trivial macro outcomes of what would be generally considered micro-events. A butterfly in Iran flaps its wings, the monsoon in India lasts a little longer, African textiles are now more competitive, new schools open and literacy improves, and so on.

People in Minnesota voted and an established incumbent is replaced by the challenger. People in Florida decided to keep their incumbent. Across the county, for a thousand different reasons, people choose Red or Blue, and the small changes add up to a switch in the majority in the House of Representatives, which will bring non-trivial changes to many aspects of our lives.

"Transportation Policy" is an uninspired phrase that will never serve as a pickup line, but transportation is a major factor in our modern specialized lives. Probably everything in your house and everything in your pantry comes through the transportation system.

While we'd like to think our economic system is a pastiche of individual enterprises led by Adam Smith's invisible hand, there are in fact people in charge of the transportation structure. People like the Dept. of Transportation, which is a federal agency in the Executive Branch, which is funded and given oversight by Congress. (Boring, I know, but stick with me here, please.)

I've recently written about how the change in "ownership" (a telling concept, that) of the House of Representatives will result in significant changes in terms of river transportation policy. The key under-story is that the replacement of James Oberstar with John Mica as Chairman of the House Transportation Committee will have profound implications for the national transportation system.

Today brings us a message posted on the Montour Trail Yahoo Group from the Rails-To-Trails Conservancy. The message describes the impact that replacing Oberstar with Mica will have on bike trails.

To: Three-Rivers-Heritage-Trail@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Wed, December 1, 2010 10:37:35 AM
Subject: [Three-Rivers-Heritage-Trail] A message from Kevin Mills, Rails-to-Trails Conservancy

Please help RTC stave off dangerous walking and bicycling attacks in the next transportation reauthorization! Encourage your colleagues and friends to visit www.railstotrails.org/AAA.

As you may imagine, the election results are already having a profound impact on the debate over reauthorization of federal transportation policy.

Decades-long cycling champion and current chair of the U.S. House of Representatives Transportation and Infrastructure Committee James Oberstar (D-Minn.) lost his Congressional seat, costing our movement a passionate and knowledgeable transportation leader. As Republicans assume control of the House, John Mica (R-Fla.) is set to become the next committee chair, and Nick Rahall (D-W.V.) will be the ranking member of the committee.

One key argument I expect will gain significant traction in the new Congress will be the idea of a user-fee funded transportation system. In other words, instead of using gas taxes to develop balanced transportation systems that best meet the needs of communities, some seek to turn back the clock decades to a time when gas taxes were limited solely to providing roads and highways for automobiles. If this view takes root, it would effectively eliminate sources of funding for trails, walking and bicycling that have been the lifeblood of our movement. Transit funding also would suffer.

Such a backward-looking mentality was recently advanced by AAA, which is using the credibility of their enormous membership to sway decision-makers to take a position that most of their members find objectionable. To send a message that such an approach is unwise and unacceptable, RTC initiated a campaign asking AAA to join America's transportation future.

This campaign has proven wildly successful, with tens of thousands of Americans from around the country - many of whom are AAA members - calling on AAA National to support continuation of crucial bicycling and walking programs funded by federal gas taxes.

I need your help now. We are preparing to deliver names to AAA of those who have signed the petition. As active transportation leaders in your communities, you likely have access to e-mail lists and networks through which word of our campaign can be spread. We need to maximize the number of petitioners to demonstrate the popularity and importance of continued federal investment in walking and bicycling.

Will you please spread the word by Monday, December 6, to your colleagues, e-mail lists, Facebook and Twitter followers, and ask them to visit railstotrails.org/AAA?

Thank you for your support,

Kevin Mills, Vice President of Policy, Rails-to-Trails Conservancy

Please consider visiting www.railstotrails.org/AAA.

I'm intrigued at what all the implications of swapping Oberstar and Mica might be, and how we'll see them locally. Watch out for those butterflies!

Burying The Lede: The Delta Queen Suggests A Sea Change

Sean Hamill has a well written story in Saturday's Post-Gazette about the Delta Queen and her possible return to service as a riverine resort, a moored motel, or a crap-shooting casino.



The article tells the vessel's history and the fortunes of similar ships from the same era. The story goes on to describe the effect of the recent election on the ship's future utility, and in doing so hints at the pending sea change in transportation policy.

To lift a few details from Mr. Hamill's excellent piece, the 1966 federal Safety at Sea Act (P.L. 89-777) forced any predominantly wooden boat to cease operating as an overnight cruise vessel if it carried more than 49 passengers.

Although the Delta Queen has a steel hull, she has a wooden superstructure and carries up to 174 passengers. Congress had granted her nine exemptions to the Safety at Sea Act since 1966.

The last waiver expired Oct. 31, 2008, after Rep. James Oberstar, D-MN, chairman of the House Transportation Committee, denied the owner's request for a tenth exemption. Oberstar said he was concerned about the possibility of a fire on the wooden boat.

Company officials claimed that Mr. Oberstar opposed the tenth exemption because the company had forced the Seafarers International Union, which represented the Delta Queen's crew, off the boat when they bought it in 2006.

In this month's elections, Mr. Oberstar lost his House seat to a Republican challenger, ending his eighteen consecutive terms.

Since the House went Republican, the new Chairman of the House Transportation Committee is Rep. John Mica, R-FL. Mica's ascendence bodes well for the vessel's owners; this Republican has never met a union-busting Company that he wouldn't sell grant a safety waiver to.

To WWVB's untrained eye, this smacks of union-busting. A new Company bought the ship and forced the union out, replacing them with lower-paid employees. Oberstar, a good man and a union supporter, gave them a taste of their own medicine; in a way, he locked out the owners the same as they threw out the union.

Mr. Hamill's story about a parochial point of interest paints a broader picture of the times and suggests the shift we'll soon see in trucks, trains, ships and planes.