Extracts from the Discomfort Zone

New Deal II

When one considers the economic trajectory of the American middle class over the last 30+ years under Reagonomics along with the very tenuous current economic situation and the totally out of sync republican austerity approach to the economy,  then it is not a big stretch to envision the coming of New Deal II.

The republican "trickle down" hypothesis/philosophy has been soundly refuted by virtue of the data showing the trajectory of real income over the past 30 years.  

So, if the republicans are able to implement their policies,  the situation for the middle class will become increasingly dire.   Ultimately another  economic and/or politcal crisis will ensue and a majority of the electorate will finally realize what has been going on and will elect a Democratic President and a filabuster proof Democratic Congress. 

And then, ...  New Deal II will occur!  In New Deal II, our government will:

• complete the job on universal health care;
• dramatically increase support for and access to education and training;
• dramatically increase government sponsored research and development;
• implement a national energy program with emphasis on alternative energy sources;
• conduct absolutely essential national infrastructure projects;
• reform the tax code and revise the marginal income tax rates to generate income sufficient to reduce the debt and adequately fund the New Deal II.

So, the republicans are in a bit of pickle over the long haul.  They can begin to collaborate now on bipartisan solutions to our serious problems or they can be obstructionists and even come into total power again. But, .. the republican policies will make our problems much worse and will put the middle and lower classes in a much deeper hole and then the republicans will be swept out and we will have New Deal II. 

Happy Days Will Be Here Again!

 

What Is a "Fair" Income Tax Code?

There has been a lot of discussion lately about the "fairness" of the US income tax code.   On the one hand it is a fact that the upper 10% of American income earners pay around 70% of the total income tax revenue collected by our government.  On the other hand the concentration  of wealth in America has become as extreme as it has ever been about 2 and one half times what it was when the American middle class was flourishing in the 50s and 60s.  

So Conservatives argue that, given that the upper 10% pay  70% of the total collected, then the tax code is more than fair to the lower 90%.  As such income taxes should even be reduced further! 

But the last thirty years of US economic history suggests that as marginal and capital gains have been significantly decreased wealth has concentrated and the middle class has suffered in terms of real income and associated standard of living. 

So, this suggests, at least to me, a different definition of tax "fairness"  that goes as follows.  The tax code is fair when it taxes the segments or quintiles of American income such that ultimately the lower 90% of American income earners are "appropriately" sharing in the economic growth of America.    By "appropriately" i don't necessarily mean "equally" but I do mean sharing "significantly" in the growth.  To restate this notion of "fairness" the tax code ought to be such that it facilitates an optimal outcome in terms of percentage of Americans who are making "progress" in their standard of living. 

So, given the proper definition of "fairness",  the Democrats ought not get caught up in the simplistic discussion of "fairness" cited above because that is a losing proposition!

 

The New Gilded Age, Social Darwinism, and Consequences

Recently President Obama called the draconian Ryan budget plan "thinly disguised Social Darwinism".  Robert Reich has written in a recent HuffPost article that the Republican rhetoric over the past few years is strongly suggesting a return to that period in American history called the Guilded Age when the Robber Barons controlled the nation,  most Americans had very little influence,  and many were impoverished. In this context,  Reich points out that this philosophy of Social Darwinism is attributed to Yale Professor William Graham Sumner who wrote in 1883 that:

"Let it be understood that we cannot go outside of this alternative: Liberty, inequality, survival of the fittest; not-liberty, equality, survival of the unfittest. The former carries society forward and favors all its best members; the latter carries society downwards and favors all its worst members."

I agree with Reich when he asks: "Could there be a better summary of what today's regressive Republicans believe?".

So what are some of the consequences that could be anticipated if the conservatives and the current group of "robber barons" were to go the social Darwinism route? 

First we could look at a time in our history when social Darwinism was "in effect" - namely,  the Gilded Age. During this period (1865-1900) the industrial age had its early heyday and a few folks got incredibly rich while most struggled to get along and perhaps 40% were at or below the poverty rate.   And there was a lot of bad behavior in terms of labor abuses, corruption,  and speculation.  And,  we see that the incredible economic growth didn't in more modern terms  simply "trickle down" to the less fortunate. 

But fortunately the Gilded Age was followed by a Progressive Era (1890-1920) during which a middle class emerged and demanded a fair chance to participate in the economic growth and to gain a bigger share of the gains that were  largely going to the very top echelons of American income earners.  At the same the government also began to regulate the extreme business/financial behaviors that occurred during the Gilded Age and  taxes were increased to fund our participation in WW I. 

So one could conclude that the Gilded Age with all of its excesses and inequities but fueled by the industrial revolution ultimately contributed to a stronger middle class and generally higher standards of living in the US population.  But,  it took a strong progressive movement amongst the people and the government to enable a wider sharing of the gains made.

Then there was the Roaring 20s period and its excesses aided by low taxes, deregulation, concentration of wealth, and plenty of speculation that ultimately resulted in the Crash of 29 and the Great Depression.  This period as we know was followed by a very progressive New Deal period led by President Roosevelt and aimed at economic recovery and providing help for the Nation's unemployed, elderly, sick, and poor.  

The economic situation was turning around albeit slowly and then WW II came along.  The war stimulated almost total employment in America along with price controls and high marginal tax rates.  And, as the war was coming to an end, the Roosevelt Administration enacted the GI Bill which served to create a well educated workforce going forward into the 50s.  During the Eisenhower Administration  the middle class grew and flourished and the nation was able to make massive investments in national infrastructure - this occurring in spite of and because of the fact that marginal income tax rates remained very high throughout the 50s, The marginal income tax rate was lowered to about 70% in the Kennedy Administration and he post war economic heyday continued through out the 60s.   

Now let's fast forward to circa 1980 and the advent of Reaganomics that began a 28 year era of "supply side" economics and the "trickle down" theory (punctuated noticeably by the Clinton Administration)    during which Income tax rates were dramatically cut and regulations were eliminated.  There was the perception that the nation prospered over this period.   But,  a retrospective analysis shows that during the period from 1979 to 2008,  Americans in the lower 60% of income experienced no growth in real income over that period and even the forth quintile of income (61-80%) enjoyed only very modest increases.  In stark contrast the upper 1% enjoyed a nearly 300% increase in real income!   Conclusion:  trickle down didn't happen!   These are the numbers in spite of the fact that during the Clinton Administration (which raised income taxes),  had a booming economy on its watch, balanced its last four balanced budgets, and saw a significant rise in real income across all quintiles of American income.  In other words if not for the Clinton Administration the dismal performance of the Reaganomics era in terms of trickle down would have been worse!

I should also add that while our nation raised taxes significantly to fund WW I and WW II it did not raise taxes to fund our recent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (with exception of the Clinton increases that were reversed by Bush II). As such our country's debt skyrocketed during the Bush II administration.

Many pundits are designating our current economic experience as a new Gilded Age  in which economic growth has been propelled by the information age and new technology, wealth has become extremely concentrated,  ordinary people not benefiting in terms of real income growth, and speculation and corruption resulting in a catastrophic financial crisis and economic down turn in the context of a serious debt problem.     

At the same time,  the present day Republican Party (via the Ryan budget) seems bound and determined to dramatically cut the federal budget and at the same time further cut marginal income tax rates to levels that would be less than half of what they were following Kennedy's cuts in the 60s.   This would mean that social services to the American people including health care, would be gutted and we would arrive at a situation that puts all Americans including the under served and under privileged pretty much on their own and we will be exercising a "survival of the fittest" social philosophy.    Another words we will have achieved a state of "social Darwinism".  Further, our nation would have no resources for absolutely crucial renovation of the infrastructure, education reform, and R&D in energy and environment. 

Given the demonstrated failure of supply side trickle down economics, I am at a loss to figure out how the Republicans might conclude that the situation that they seem determined to achieve would be good for the Nation.  Clearly, it would be (and has been) very good for the top echelon of American wealth holders but it would be catastrophic for ordinary Americans and in the long haul for the country.  So I am wondering what "nation" the Republicans are actually concerned about. 

 

 

 

 

 

Why Conservatives Have Such Disregard for the Truth and Other Issues As Well!

Recent conservative pronouncements and behaviors have left me totally perplexed and seeking explanation.  Conservative lack of empathy for the plight of the growing underclass and the conservative penchant for truth denying across many domains of discourse/knowledge are a puzzlement.  

I initially concluded that the reason's that conservatives are such truth deniers in various areas to include science, history, economics, current events, and politics were ignorance amongst the less intelligent and educated conservatives and conspiracy among the more intelligent and educated conservatives (in order to leverage falsehoods for political advantage/control).

But over this period of hypothesizing about conservative pronouncements and behavior,  I have become aware of some extremely interesting research  that is growing in terms of body of knowledge and consensus findings and that basically concludes that there are profound differences between liberals and conservatives in terms of psychology, brain function, genetics that are amplified by environment in terms of upbringing and variety in information channels. 

This research is summarized in a very interesting book by Chris Mooney called "The Republican Brain
The Science of Why They Deny Science and Reality".   Chris has also posted a number of articles to Huffpost et al to include:

Why Republicans Deny Science

Want to Understand Republicans First Understand Evolution

Given the information provided in the growing body of research it appears that conservatives need closure, avoid change, are more fearful and easily revulsed,  and have a strong penchant for sticking to beliefs in spite of over whelming true countervailing evidence. 

Liberals on the other hand are open to experience, the information that is forthcoming from the experience, and to change that the new information strongly suggests.   Liberals appear to need "cognition" more than do conservatives. 

Given this information/knowledge derived by scientific study one could try to convince conservatives of their penchant for "errors in belief " but the research cited above indicates that that would be futile.  Reason and logic are not going to prevail!  This notion comes to me rather late in my life with a bit of shock and dismay because I have always felt that a strong enough argument presented to reasonably intelligent people would carry the day.  The science cited above explains a lot as to why I had so much trouble getting certain people to accept arguments that were overwhelming in terms of fact, logic, and reason.

As such,  Chris Mooney proposes a different or perhaps additional response to the very concerted efforts by conservatives to spread their untruthiness - namely,  rather than to just directly rebut their claims with facts, logic, and reason liberals should also tell their own moving but true stories/narratives regarding the benefits and outcomes of liberal ideas/actions.  This would provide response to the constant stream of false crap that is coming from conservative talk shows, think tanks, churches, and organizations/foundations that publish for public consumption.   

There is hope for liberals.  People of the liberal persuasion outnumber conservatives in America and as such we could have a majority of voters in America who are actually open to existing and new true information and requisite change.  And further,  the independents,  who may be much more open to facts, logic, reason and ultimately  to change, represent a crucial audience for a liberal narrative that tells the true story and at same time corrects the "errors in belief" that the conservatives promulgate.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Republicans Are Challenging Their Own Idea in the Supreme Court!

The Affordable Health Care Act aka Obama Care is being challenged in the Supreme Court.  At the heart of the challenge is the "individual mandate"  which amazingly was initially a Republican idea. Yes, that's right!  The Republicans were the first to propose this idea which of course they turned against when Obama adopted it. 

This phenomenon of the Republicans challenging their own idea in the courts is a prime example of how the Republicans have gotten totally wrapped around their "defeat Obama at all costs" axle. 

Obama is in the driver's seat because all he has to do is make reasonable proposals and the R's will be totally against them thus looking like the obstructionist twerps that they are. 

Some where along the way the R's lost the bubble on how the loyal opposition should actually behave and I am thinking it will cost them dearly. 

I yearn for a resurgance of moderate Republican politicians!

 

 

 

 

The Republican Views on Oil Supply and Demand Just Don't Hold ... Oil!

Given the rising (globally set) price of oil and hence the rising proce of gasoline,  the Republicans are tblaming  Obama for this phenomenon and accusing him of being against oil.  And of course the Obama administration is offering rebuttal to these claims by citing that US oil production is up and US oil consumption is down from which one might reasonably conclude that the price of oil is set globally as opposed to supply and demand local to the US. 

But this doesn't seem to have an effect on the Republican argument because even though economically savvy Republicans know better they are counting on the economic ignorance that is inherent in their base and a large percentage of independents. 

So, I think it would useful to walk through an oil drilling, selling, and buying  "thought experiment" in the context of globally set oil prices to see what would have to happen to get gasoline prices down to 2.00 per gallon. 

So, first of all, in order to be able to sell gas for $2.00/gallon the oil that goes into the production of that gas  would have to cost much much less than it does on the current world market. But since we are talking about oil coming from US wells/sites then we can just sell that oil to the refineries for a sufficiently low price to enable $2.00/gal gas.  Simple right? 

Wrong!   The big question is how are we going to cause the price paid for US produced oil to be much much lower than the price on the world market? Of course if this is left to market forces then it's not going to happen!  In other words why would the supplier of the crude sell it to a US entity if it can get much more on the open global market? 

So,  the only way for the crude  to be acquired by the refineries at such a low price so as to enable $2.00 gas is for the government to either control the price of US crude local to the US or to subsidize the suppliers of US crude so that they can sell the crude to the refineries for the sufficiently low price. This subsidy would amount to the difference between the global market price and the sufficienly low price. 

Both of these approaches would of course be doomed to failure - the first because  oil exploration and drilling would dry up in the US, and the second because the cost of the subsidy would no doubt increase the national dept by an unacceptable amount. 

But the really interesting implication of this thought experiment is that for the Republicans to achieve $2.00/gal gas, they would have to support some very un-Republican ideas regarding big government, debt, overly constrained free enterprise,  government price controls, etc.   

As such, all this Republican babbling about $2.00 gas,  just doesn't hold ... "OIL"!

 

 

 

We Don't Need Romney's Brand of Economic Expertise!

Mitt Romney repeatedly claims that he has the experience and knowledge to fix the economy.  He makes this claim apparently because of his experience as a turn around expert and financier of business as opposed to  an actual business owner/operator.    Romney's knowledge and experience is about a very narrow facet of the overall economy and really involves taking advantage of "low hanging fruit" in the overall economic landscape.  Further, in Romney's line of work, one can make millions even when the overall economy was in the tank.  Romney's experience has occurred in the context of being a member of the upper 1% and his experience is largely about making more money for a member of the upper 1%.  Also we should keep in mind that Romney is a believer in Reaganomics and in spite the apparent growth in the economy as a result of Reaganomics we must take note of the fact that  average real income for the lower 60%  segment of American income has not grown at all during the last 30 years (in spite of the all boats rose phenomenon during Clinton).   

So then,  one might conclude that Romney's brand of economic knowledge and experience is not exactly what we need.    It might be good for the upper 1% but certainly not good for the lower 3 quintiles of American income.  And ultimately if the American middle class is not prospering and growing then the economy will not flourish. 

And so finally I  dream of a scenario in which I am interviewing Romney on a major network and the following dialogue ensues:

Me:  Mr. Romney, do believe in Reagonomics i.e. supply side economics and the trickle down theory?

Romney:  Well of course I do!

Me:  Well do you realize that while the supply side theory worked for the upper 10-15% echelon of income earners in America,  the trickle down part of the theory didn't at all work?  In fact it failed miserably!   As such the lower 3 quintiles of income have not shown any meaningful increase over the whole period since the beginning of Reagonomics.  Do you realize that?

Romney:  That is simply not true!

Me:  Mr. Romney, allow me to show you some data on growth of real income by income quintilefor two periods in our economic history - the period from 1947 to 1079 and then the period of Reaganomics from 1980-2001.  

 Romney:  Hmm.   That data can't be correct!

Me: It is data collected by the government over the past 60+ years and probably doesn't reflect partison views particularly since a lot of this growth in real income occurred during the Eisenhower administartion a time when the marginal income tax rate was at 91% and the government was engaged in hugely beneficial public works programs. 

Romney:  (breaks into his rendition of "Nobody Knows the Troubles I've Seen"!

 

 

What Is an Enterprise Architecture and an Enterprise Architecture Framework?

Today's business enterprises are becoming more and more complex and more and more dependent on information technology (IT).  There is increasing risk that the bottom line is negatively impacted because business scenarios/processes may not be well defined and that IT may not be well applied or "aligned" with business objectives and processes. 

As such, the notions of "enterprise architecture" and "architecture frameworks" have become quite topical.  

So what is an enterprise architecture?  There are many definitions but I will provide my own here. 

Enterprise

First, let's define the term "enterprise".   An "enterprise" is a collection of interacting/collaborating entities (e.g. a company) that has an expressed mission, vision, goals, objectives, and strategies and subsequently acquires, develops, and executes capabilities to realize the vision and achieve the goals/objectives.

Enterprise Architecture

An "enterprise architecture"  consists of:

• composite or multi-faceted models of the As-Is and To-Be  enterprise;
• identification/specification of the gaps between the As-Is and To-Be models; and
• a plan for transitioning from the As-Is to the To-Be state.  

The  multi-faceted models are expressed in terms of:

• the business model;
• the data/information model;
• the application model; and
  
• the technology model. 

A key idea here is transformation from As-Is to To-Be and the associated notions that the To-Be business model drives the To-Be data/info and application models which in turn drive the To-Be technology model.   As such there is an increased probability that the data/info, applications, and underlying technology as implemented are properly aligned with the implemented business model. 

The business model includes specification of the structure of and interaction between the enterprise's:

•  mission, vision, goals/objectives, strategies;
•  products/services and capabilities/functions;
•  roles, business rules, processes, data objects/stores, and flows of control and data/information

The data/info model specifies:  the structure and interaction of the enterprise's major types and sources of data, logical data assets, physical data assets, and data management resources.

The application model specifies: the structure and interaction of the applications as groups of capabilities that provide key business functions and manage the data assets. 

The technology model specifies: the structure and interaction of the platform services, and logical and physical technology components.

Enterprise Architecture Framework

An enterprise architecture is a complex, composite entity that must be developed in the context of an enterprise architecture "framework". So, then, what is an enterprise architecture framework? 

First, a framework is  a conceptual structure for content or process that can be used as a tool to structure thinking, ensuring consistency and completeness. 

So accordingly, an enterprise architecture framework is a conceptual structure for content or process that can be used as a tool to structure thinking about, ensuring consistency and completeness of  enterprise architectures.  In other words, an enterprise architecture framework is a  foundational structure,  or set of structures, that can be used for developing a broad range of different architectures.

So what does an enterprise architecture framework consist of?   As a good example, the key elements of The Open Group Architecture Framework  TOGAF 9.1  (page 2 at concept map) include:

• enterprise architecture development method, guidelines, and techniques: this is about the core "how to" information with regard to development of enterprise architecture.
• enterprise architecture content framework to include the EA meta-model: this is about the absolutely essential  reference concepts, terms, attributes,  relationships and ultimate deliverables and artifacts that will be used to express the enterprise architecture.
• enterprise architecture "continuum":  this is about notions of the usefulness of generalizing on specific architectures and specializing more generic architectures for purpose of architecture re-use and creating architectural building blocks. 
• enterprise architecture repository:  this is about the absolutely essential capability to capture, manage, and search the enterprise architecture constructs that are developed. 
• enterprise architecture capability: this is about the enterprise's capability to develop enterprise architectures.  This involves consideration of required knowledge/skills, tools, and governance.   Here the notion of capability maturity model might be applied to facilitate improvement and increase capability maturity in the development of enterprise architecture.   

Key Observations

First, enterprise architecture is much more than IT architecture. The business architecture is the center of attention.  The business modeling aspect of enterprise architecture is absolutely essential since it drives the formulation of the other architecure models.  The business architecture specifies what the IT architecture (systems and technology) specifications must trace to and support/enable. 

Secondly the enterprise architecture framework  and (particularly the methodology, meta-model, and repository elements are very important to the development/maintenance and application of complete and consistent  enterprise architectures.   

Thirdly, these constructs cannot be leveraged/applied without the requisite enterprise architecture development/maintenace platform/tool(s).  The Open Group's Archimate platform is an example of an open source capability that happens to apply the TOGAF 9.1 framework.   There are many such platforms/tools both open source and commercial and the selection of such must be given careful thought.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

Reflections, Lessons Learned, and Other Thoughts from My 42+ Year with the Intelligence Community

This post is about my long and interesting career in one of our Nation's service intelligence  centers and my professional afterlife following my departure from the center.  As you will read,  my career was not without accomplishment but it was also not without tumult.  I was one of my organization's most highly recognized and highly paid senior leaders but when I spoke truth to power and became critical of the civilian leadership's lethargy, all manner of "defense mechanisms" amongst the organization's establishment were activated.   Here is my story. 

In early Nov 2006 I retired from a 42+ year career in a major service intelligence center.  For the last 13 years of that career I had served as one of the top civilian leaders in the organization.  To be more specific, I was one of about 5 or 6 so called "associate chief scientists" who along with the chief scientist of the organization constituted the organization's top civilian leadership. 

During that last 13 years as a top senior leader I had become more and more concerned and vocal about improving the performance of the organization.  In that context I was involved in a number of initiatives to improve aspects of my organization's performance.  In the aftermath of 9-11 my concern about improvement reached its highest levels and I became a very outspoken  proponent of process improvement and re-engineering in a variety of "key process areas" of the organization e.g. strategic planning, project management, resource management, threat knowledge management, production management, IT management, etc, etc.  In my mind, there was plenty of room for improvement and 9-11 and the post 9-11 situation demanded it!

Much to my gratification, several of the "causes" I had been campaigning for became corporate objectives in the organization's strategic plan. In that context, I worked my derriere off to do my part but then I discovered what almost everyone else already knew i.e.: most folks in a position to influence anything didn't really care enough to make it happen.  So, the strategic objectives were not achieved even after being included in the strategic plan for several years in a row. Note: The IT organization - where I worked very hard to make it happen - did accomplish its part of the overall corporate objective.    

My directorate was able - through internal directorate level efforts - to establish a first ever corporate level IT governance framework.  This was driven by the obvious imperative for improvement and use of best practices and it was also strongly suggested by federal law (i.e. Clinger Cohen Act) and associated DoD and service component  polict and guidance.    

Then came the first big test of  the IT governance framework in which the organization's CIO repeatedly directed a large directorate in the organization to accomplish a major system development using the prescribed and published corporate architecture.  Application/reuse of the corporate architecture was mandated by Clinger-Cohen and was a sound move from a technical perspective.  This system development if accomplished "corporately" represented an awesome opportunity to achieve a huge win-win for the organization since one element had the money and another element had the architecture. 

But, after a lengthy period in which the division in question exhibited some very questionable behavior in an effort to avoid compliance with the CIO's direction, the issue was elevated to the top leadership level of the organization.  Much to my great disappointment the top leadership ultimately looked the other way and did not exercise its proper authority to ensure compliance with CIO direction and federal law. 

At this point I became very frustrated and also very strident and I began to insist, on the record and directly to the top leadership that the organization do the right things and, when I was ignored, I openly criticized my top leadership (who were by and large my peers) that they were not exhibiting appropriate leadership behaviors.  The more I criticized, the more I was ignored, and the more I was ignored, the more I turned up the volume on my criticism so that finally the leadership had had enough! 

One day, the 25% retention incentive that was being paid to me (to make my compensation equivalent to the other associate chief scientists who were Defense Intelligence Senior Leaders (DISLs)) didn't show up on my paycheck!   My organization had summarily reduced my pay by about $29K per year and did so with out notice!

As such I retired from my 42+ year career with the intelligence community.  Subsequently I started a second career as a defense contractor/consultant.

Over the last several years I have been reviewing the bidding, recounting various events including those cited above, and compiling some core thoughts and lessons learned from my 42+ year experience and the subsequent professional afterlife.    I offer these for what they are worth at: Lessons Learned in My 42 Year Career in the IC

 

It's a Cold and Broken Hallelujah!

Over the past 30 years are so the upper echelons of American income/wealth have enjoyed a Reaganomics Hallelujah.  Income and accumulated wealth  going to the upper 1% have risen to dangerous levels.  But for the middle class and poor the promise of trickle down did not materialize. 

In observing conservative behavior over the past few years it occurs to me that the conservative approach to political and economic life in America is very conveniant  because not wanting to change anything in America  preserves a pretty cushy situation for the  "worthy"  people in America (the conservatives) who see their way of life being threatened by the increasingly multi-cultural nature of our country and the growth of the "undeserving" class.    The more radical conservative view if not the prevailing view seems to be that any American who is amongst the down trodden wouldn't be in that state if they were "worthy".    

 The conservative approach to virtually every problem our nation faces is way over simplified.   For example,  they would solve the energy crisis simply with more drilling;  they would solve the environmental problems by denying that they exist or just ignoring them;  the would solve the nation's economic problems by simply cutting taxes and regulations; they would solve the economic demise of the middle and lower classes by concluding they are "unworthy" and/or by stating that their needs will be met by "trickle down" from tax cuts for the wealthy;  they would entrust absolutely critical investment in education, infrastructure, and R&D to the private sector; and of course they would entrust health care totally to profit seeking entities.

These non-approaches to our problems are not only lazy but also very self serving to the upper echelons of American income that the conservatives cater to because of course they are the only "worthy" ones.  But most importantly these approaches either haven't worked or won't work.  For example, the last 30 years of Reaganomics, in spite of the stellar performance of the Clinton administration,  has battered and diminished the middle and lower classes in America.  Reduced levels of regulation brought us the financial crisis and the Great Recession.  The level of investment in our Nation's education, infrastructure, and technology has been greatly reduced over the past 30 years all the while the upper echelons of American income have enjoyed almost obscene increases. It has been a Reaganomics "Hallelujah" for them.    

The philosophy and attitudes behind these non-approaches are all very simple, tidy, easy, and pat.  With their ideology,  the conservatives don't have to think critically and push for difficult change but rather they are very inclined to obstruct positive change because life is good for the "worthy" ones. 

So in the context of the preceding we see the conservatives continuing to propose the same old stuff even though it doesn't work (at least for most Americans) and then totally obstructing any attempts by the Obama administration to move forward on our Nation's problems. That's because they are still enjoying  the "Hallelujah" of the past 30 years.   The last two  lines from the song "Hallelujah" come to mind:

It's not somebody who's seen the light
It's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah