Wall Street Journal, “White House Under Fire for Unspent Infrastructure Cash“: “The Obama administration has paid out less than a third of the nearly $230 billion allocated to big infrastructure projects in the economic-stimulus program.”

Michael Barone, The Examiner, “Big government forgets how to build big projects,” comparing the construction of the Pentagon in WWII to a little bridge being rebuilt over an inlet on the Potomac. Both, 18 months: “Big government has become a big, waddling, sluggish beast, ever ready to boss you around, but not able to perform useful functions at anything but a plodding pace. It needs to be slimmed down and streamlined, so it can get useful things done fast.”

Washington Post editorial, “Stimulus programs hobbled by regulations“: “[Lawmakers] could carefully exempt projects in any future stimulus from burdensome regulatory requirements, even if those requirements make more sense in calmer times.” Even? It’s also possible they don’t make sense at any time.

Harold Meyerson, Washington Post, “Rebuilding the Democratic brand with jobs, “If the Democrats focused on boosting manufacturing, with a corollary upgrade to our infrastructure, they’d tap into the only area in which the public wants a more activist government.” Trouble is, an activist government tends to make manufacturing less competitive globally.

White House blog, “Obama Administration Officials Continue to Visit State Fairs,” announcing Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood’s attendance at the Illinois State Fair Friday, Aug. 20, “As part of the Illinois State Fair ‘Futures for Kids Day,’ Secretary LaHood will join law enforcement and traffic safety advocates for the 2010 kickoff of Operation Teen Safe Driving Illinois. Secretary Lahood will tour agricultural exhibits, visit the Illinois State Police Tent, and meet with high school students who have been helping to spread the word about the dangers of distracted driving.” We begrudge no one a trip to the state fair.

Wichita Eagle, “Grant may pay for bike lanes downtown“: “A federal grant that the city is poised to apply for could add miles of bike paths to the downtown area and convert four one-way streets downtown to two-way streets. Under the proposed grant application, the city would pay $10.5 million to leverage $24.5 million in federal money that is part of the TIGER II program.” What federal hand or eye could fund this fearful symmetry?

CNSNews.com, “White House Directive: Erect Signs at All Stimulus Projects as ‘Symbol of President Obama’s Commitment to American People’“: “The U.S. Department of Transportation’s Federal Highway Administration also issued guidance to ARRA [stimulus] recipients encouraging but not requiring that signs be posted at job sites.”

CBC News, “Feds flexible on stimulus funding deadline“: “The [Canadian] federal government is giving municipalities a bit of wiggle room on its deadline to receive infrastructure stimulus funding. The $4-billion federal program provides cash to shovel-ready provincial and municipal projects — provided they can be completed before March 31, 2011.”

The Washington Post runs a Sunday feature in it Outlook section, “Five Myths,” a generally interesting rebuttal of the conventional wisdom on hot policy and political issues. As a journalistic exercise, it’s problematic: The conceit requires a supposedly disinterested reporter to write an opinion column that communicates to the readers that sources are feeding them a line of garbage, courtesy of the same supposedly disinterested reporter.

Also, by requiring the analysis to be iconoclastic, the reporter is obliged to come up with five myths, even if the myth being debunked happens to be true. “Darn. I only have four ‘myths.’ Well, if I twist this around a little …”

This Sunday, it was Alec MacGillis’ turn in the box, “Five myths about the labor union movement,” including No. 4, “The Employee Free Choice Act would radically reshape the job market.”

Not really. While the proposal would bring the biggest change in generations, it would leave some union challenges unaddressed. The bill as written would let workers form a union if a majority of them sign cards in favor of one, without having to hold a secret-ballot election at the workplace. Unions argue that such elections are unfairly influenced by employers. But even before Democrats lost their filibuster-proof Senate majority, they had all but jettisoned that part of the bill — dubbed “card check” by opponents — because it lacked support among conservative Democrats. Instead, the measure would now ease the process by shortening the window before elections, giving employers less time to sway workers, and by increasing the penalties for employer violations, both relatively incremental changes.

MacGillis’ argument boils down to “not really.” Well, that’s one opinion. Organized labor has made the Employee Free Choice Act its top priority because forced unionization is the only thing that can save the labor movement from further private-sector decline. Harold Meyerson, the Post’s most left-leaning opinion columnist, wrote last week, “For the unions, the Senate’s inability to pass EFCA is devastating and galling,” arguing that the bill’s failure would allow continued “deunionization” of the private sector. “Devasting” suggests a radical reshaping, doesn’t it? Furthermore:

Robert Bruno, a labor relations professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago, doubts reforms short of card check can work. It is unrealistic, he said, to create neutral, civic-style elections in workplaces dominated by employers.

Employers “would have to agree to an environment where they give up a lot of control, a lot of prerogative,” he said.

That’s from a March 29, 2009, Washington Post story, which MacGillis leads off by describing EFCA as “a landmark pro-union proposal.”

Got that? It’s landmark, but not radical. As opinions go, that’s too nuanced for us. Or maybe it’s just a case of the “myth” being true, after all.

Harold Meyerson, The Washington Post’s most liberal opinion columnist, had a column last week, “Just One Word: Factories,” that boiled down to: Manufacturing is important and the United States should appreciate it more. Eh. Even knowing that Meyerson’s usual policy prescriptions would damage U.S. manufacturing competitiveness, there wasn’t a lot of that in the column, so who could object?

Dan Ikenson at Cato, that’s who. And boy, does he do it with brio. We’ll excerpt at length (asking Ikenson’s indulgence) because he offers facts instead of fallacies. From “Harold Meyerson is Part of the Problem“:

 Footnotes in the extended entry. (continue reading…)

Quickly overshadowed by Blagojevich developments in Chicago last week was an orchestrated, publicized and cheered factory seizure by activists from a radical labor union. The Republic Windows takeover deserves continued attention, however, as first, a crime, and as second, indication that ’30s-style sit-down strikes may return as attacks against the rule of law and the economy.

Thankfully, Walter Olson of the Manhattan Institute has cast a critical eye at the events in an article in City Journal, “Windows on the Future? — A radical union’s action in Chicago could be a sign of things to come.” The lead:

On December 5, badly hurt by the long housing slump and having maxed out its line of credit with Bank of America, the Republic Windows and Doors factory of Chicago announced that it would close and lay off its employees. In response, most of its 250 workers refused to leave the factory floor and announced through their union—the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers (UE)—that they would occupy the premises until they received severance pay. In the days that followed, activist supporters, including local left-wing and interfaith groups, waged a spectacularly successful public campaign: more than 4,000 news stories on the action have appeared so far on Google News, typically taking a tone highly favorable to the union cause. Support also came from local Chicago and Illinois politicians, including the city’s most celebrated public official of all, president-elect Barack Obama. Fielding a question about the plant occupation two days after it began, Obama declared his support for the workers: “I think they’re absolutely right. . . . if they have earned these benefits and their pay, then these companies need to follow through on those commitments.”

Summarizing at his Point of Law blog, Olson adds:

• You’d have had trouble guessing from a lot of the coverage, but it’s far from clear that the window factory owners owed any severance at all under the terms of the federal WARN (plant-closings) act. And it’s abundantly clear that the actual targets of the protest, the two banks, owed nothing.
• The whole point of this sort of illegal action is to resolve by force a dispute that would otherwise be consigned to the ordinary processes of law — put differently, to make sure the action’s targets never get their right to a day in court to put forth their (quite possibly meritorious) defense. When Chicago and Illinois officials jumped in to arm-twist the targets into settling, they endorsed this way of resolving disputes. That may come as little surprise given the reputation of Chicago governance. But why should anyone feel secure in locating a politically sensitive business in that city (or state) from now on?

The purportedly objective media wrote favorable articles, and some columnists went further, Olson notes: “Boston Globe columnist James Carroll, applauded the illegal action and left-leaning Washington Post columnist Harold Meyerson called for more of the same: ‘Barack Obama means to build a more equitable nation, but it would help him in that task if more workers sat down.’” Olson asks: Does Obama agree?

We certainly think the same question should be posed in confirmation hearings for the next Secretary of Labor (praised prolifically by Meyerson just yesterday). A nominee’s views of sitdown strikes and factory seizures warrant a full airing.

News coverage and commentary:

• Washington Post, “Calif. Congresswoman Solis Tapped to Head Labor“
• The Hill, “Solis to Head Labor Dept.“
• Wall Street Journal Blogs, “Green Jobs Proponent Hilda Solis Picked for Labor Secretary“

From Tapped, the blog of The American Prospect, a post by Harold Meyerson, an editor of the magazine and the Washington Post’s left-wing op-ed columnist, “Hilda Solis is Great.”

What does Rep. Hilda Solis, Barack Obama’s selection for secretary of labor, bring to the job? Only a record of passionate commitment to working people, a high level of political smarts, and some genuine displays of raw guts that could make her a star of American liberalism. …[snip]

While in the legislature, Solis also became the chief proponent in state government for the environmental justice movement that was bubbling up in various working-class communities around the state, steering to passage bills that reduced airborne carcinogens in industrial areas and that created parkland alongside the rivers that run through some of Los Angeles’ poorest neighborhoods. She took a leading role in promoting domestic violence awareness in the state’s communities of color….[snip]

In the House, Solis has continued to champion labor causes, immigrants’ rights, women’s health and environmental protections. She also worked closely with Rahm Emanuel in recruiting Democratic House candidates from the Southwest and Latino-dominated districts, so she brings to her new job a strong relationship with Obama’s incoming chief-of-staff. Now, she’s in the key position to promote the Employee Free Choice Act, which seems likely to be the most contentious issue on Obama’s agenda. But Solis has never been deterred by controversy.

 From The Plank, The New Republic’s blog, “A Secret Weapon For Obama’s Labor Secretary“:

Solis seems like a good choice for a labor movement that wants to see funding shifted from union oversight programs to efforts like conducting the required number of mine safety inspections, and restarting surveys of workers in vulnerable industries on issues like proper overtime payment. While Solis’s support for labor legislation like EFCA will earn her points in the labor community, Samuels says that shifts within the department, and the appointment of agency heads who are dedicated to the issues, could produce significant changes as well. Having a new labor secretary who knows her way around a red pen, a budget, and management principles could be a promising start.

UPDATE: (5 p.m.): SEIU President Andy Stern gives her a rave review at TPM:

“It’s extraordinary,” SEIU president Andy Stern said in an interview with us a few moments ago. “On every issue that’s important to us, she has stood up for an America where everyone’s hard work is valued and rewarded.”

As documented in posts here and here yesterday, The Washington Post has called the Administration’s decision to invest $250 billion in banks “nationalization” and said the act represented a move “to partly nationlize.”

It’s an inaccurate and inflammatory terminology. Here in the United States, nationalization means a government takeover, control, ownership.

In today’s Post,  Dana Milbank uses the term, but he’s a columnist who specializes in political mockery, so who cares?  A front of the business section story also mentions nationalization, but only to describe Secretary Paulson’s objections to the appearances of nationalization. Harold Meyerson, a left-wing, anti-business Post columnist writes that “the most right-wing administration in modern American history [is] scurrying to nationalize the banks.” But Meyerson is a predictable scold and Bush detractor, so again, who cares?

Meanwhile, the editorialists and business writer Steven Pearlstein eschewed the term. All in all, seems like editors are doing their job. Except on Page A6, written early in the day by political reporter Dan Eggen, “Signaling a Shift to Europe’s Path“:

In announcing plans to partly nationalize nine major banks yesterday, President Bush found himself in the unusual position of having to reassure Americans that he was not, in fact, opposed to capitalism.

That’s just flat-out WRONG.

Treasury describes the capital purchase program here.

Under the program, Treasury will purchase up to $250 billion of senior preferred shares on standardized terms as described in the program’s term sheet. The program will be available to qualifying U.S. controlled banks, savings associations, and certain bank and savings and loan holding companies engaged only in financial activities that elect to participate before 5:00 pm (EDT) on November 14, 2008. Treasury will determine eligibility and allocations for interested parties after consultation with the appropriate federal banking agency.

The minimum subscription amount available to a participating institution is 1 percent of risk-weighted assets. The maximum subscription amount is the lesser of $25 billion or 3 percent of risk-weighted assets.

That’s not nationalizing. It’s not partly nationalizing. It’s the government buying shares in a bank in order to boost their capital, a major and even history-making policy and regulatory step, to be sure. But calling it partial nationalization does the reader a disservice.

Are we being too cranky? Too paranoid? Too distracted by trivia? Too amused by emulating a Soviet-era Kreminologist poring over the lines of Izvetsia?

Don’t think so. As Meyerson’s column demonstrates, the use of the term “nationalization” to describe the Administration’s actions is an element of a political attack.  A mulitprong attack, perhaps:

• “Lousy plutocrats. They don’t believe in capitalism, just in lining their own pockets. We ought to really stick it to them. The caps on executive compensation are good, but next ….”
• “Hey, we’ve already nationalized the banks. Why stop there?”

Ultimately, the most important reason the term should be dropped from the lexicon of serious, fair-minded journalists is because it misleads and misinforms the reader about an important matter during a time when markets and public confidence are fraying. Accuracy is essential.