PERSPECTIVE FROM THE 19^TH HOLE:  This is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf.  Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all of my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon (Les AuCoin), as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as a private sector lobbyist.  This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.  I could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf.  The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie.  And it is where you want to be on a golf course.

This is one of four departments I run as director with full and complete authority to manage them as I see fit.

There are no employees in any of the departments – the Department of Bits and Pieces (which is open today), the Department of Pet Peeves, the Department of Good Quotes Worth Remembering, and the Department of “Just Saying,” so my authority is individual and unbridled.

So, I now decide that the Department of Bits and Pieces is  open.

 Item #1:  BIDEN VS. TRUMP

It has been tempting for me to be so glad Donald Trump is out of office as president that I give Joe Biden too much room for operating.  There is no question that he has returned a semblance of order and normalcy to the nation’s highest political office.

But he still makes mistakes.

So, it’s good that the Washington Post Fact Checker column is alive and well.

Today, the column points out three consistent Biden mistakes:

• He messes up a comparison of war deaths to pandemic deaths, suggesting that the latter has resulted in more deaths than in
  World War I, World War II, and the Vietnam War combined.  Not true.
• He continues making a misleading claim Trump’s tax cut bill, contending that the benefits of the cut always end up in the pockets of the top 1 per cent of taxpayers.  Not true.
• He critiques Georgia’s new election, contending that it automatically shortens voting place hours to make it harder for persons to vote.  For all of the faults of the Georgia law – there are many – this is not one of them.

Item #2:  BIDEN’S BIG BET

We are just learning what’s contained in Biden’s big “infrastructure and etc.” plan.  It clearly goes beyond infrastructure and, in fact, may only go forward with huge tax increases.

Those tax increases are intended, supposedly, to fall on high wage earners, but it is hard to make that happen for at least two reasons.  First, not all high wage earners are rich folks who fall into the so-called 1 per cent category; in fact, they may be two-wage-earner families.  Second, if tax increases fall on business, it is consumers – you and me – who will pay them.

The Washington’s Post Greg Sargent wrote this about what he called “Biden’s Big Bet:”

“If you read the official summary of President Biden’s new $2 trillion infrastructure package, what’s striking is its air of what you might call forward-looking nostalgia.

“It’s nostalgic in its emphasis on boosting public investment to levels not seen since the prosperous 1960s, and in its faith that vast brick-and-mortar public works will restore national greatness.

“”But it’s forward-looking in its vow to direct such spending toward challenges such as climate change, racial inequities and the needs of the new, multiracial, care-economy-oriented working class.

This points to the big bet embedded in the new plan:  That in this combination lies a kind of kryptonite that will further weaken Trumpism, that amalgam of plutocracy and reactionary authoritarian nationalism, fueled by hallucinatory anti-leftism, that continues to hold large swaths of the opposition in its thrall.”

Not sure if Sargent’s notion is what motivates Biden, but it is an interesting idea as Biden navigates the shoals of a huge public policy debate.

Item #3:  SKEPTICISM VS. CYNICISM

I toyed with writing a separate blog on this issue, but decided to make the point more quickly – a point I adhered to when I worked as a daily newspaper reporter and a lobbyist.

Skepticism works well if you want to listen to perspectives, then form your own opinion without making harsh judgments about someone else’s point of view or motivation.

Cynicism, by contrast, is not as healthy because you tend to believe everyone is just out for self-interest and you don’t give any weight to careful consideration of opposing points of view.

Put simply:  Skepticism is good and productive.  Cynicism is bad and destructive.

When I worked many years ago in state government, one of my bosses frequently told me that cynicism is easy and skepticism is hard.

He was right.