The Times editorial board and columnist Tim Rutten both throw their support behind Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's choice of Charlie Beck to lead the Los Angeles Police Department. The board likes Beck's credentials as a reformer, but notes the work still to be done on that front. Rutten echoes that sentiment, and throws in a few more issues that matter to the City Council.

On a less sanguine note, Edward H. Crane, founder and president of the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, argues that neoconservatives transformed the Republican Party into an interventionist, big-government operation with no conservative policy agenda. Them's fighting words! Good thing they came out of Crane's word processor and not, say, Rutten's.

And Jeff Bleich, chairman of the Cal State University Board of Trustees, laments the slow death of the California dream. No, not the one about having a house on the beach. That died a long time ago. He's referring to "the promise of low-cost education that brought so many here, and kept so many here":

Speaking of schools, the editorial board criticizes a bill by Sen. Gloria Romero (D-Los Angeles) that combines some common-sense reforms to the public system with ill-considered ones. And, although it agrees that colleges and universities could do a better job controlling costs, it defends the decision by some to pay top dollar for top-drawer presidents.

-- Jon Healey

Illustration: Ted Rall / For The Times

What's not to like about a proposed fee on California hospitals? The hospitals themselves support it, because it would bring in billions of dollars in federal funding to repay the hospitals and other health care providers for the medical care they give to poor people. The Times editorial board urges Gov. Schwarzenegger to see the logic and sign the bill to make it happen.

They call it overdraft protection, but there's little to protect the consumer from the multibillion-dollar flow of money to banks that charge a fee over and over and over again to debit-card users whose accounts can't cover their purchases. Often the fee is bigger than the purchase, but the customer simply doesn't realize the account is overdrawn. The Times calls on the Federal Reserve to fix this with rules that require better consumer information, a choice for customers who don't want the so-called protection and notification for the customer before that costly but unaffordable purchase is made.

And the board calls on Honduras to allow the return of President Manuel Zelaya -- with limited powers -- until the Nov. 29 election, though it also calls on the international community to make sure Zelaya understands he should not attempt to stay in power.

Let's admit this openly: Tuna aren't as awe-inspiring as whales. They don't spout in the middle of the ocean or do a slow dive that ends with the farewell wave of a giant tail. Nonetheless, they need protection after drastic overfishing, writes Joshua Reichert of the Pew Environment Group. On the Times Op-Ed page, Reichert argues that fishing caps haven't worked and that nothing but endangered-species status will save the Atlantic bluefin tuna.

Finally, energy journalist Richard Nemec writes that Los Angeles has been playing political musical chairs in determining leadership for the Department of Water and Power instead of hiring the experts it so desperately needs.

Photo: Gavin Newman / Greenpeace International / EPA

-- Karin Klein

Small-government conservative columnist Jonah Goldberg makes a startling argument on today's Op-Ed page: We should make the House of Representatives bigger. A lot bigger, in fact; Goldberg says a Congress with 5,000 members would shake up our nation's calcified two-party system and more closely approximate the kind of democracy the founding fathers intended.

UC Irvine School of Law Dean Erwin Chemerinsky, meanwhile, debunks arguments that the healthcare bills pending in the House and Senate would be unconstitutional. And obesity experts Kelly D. Brownell and David S. Ludwig argue in favor of a tax on sugar-sweetened sodas, which would help fund healthcare reform programs and lower healthcare costs by decreasing obesity and related ailments such as diabetes.

On the editorial page, the board urges the Obama administration to consider backing new elections in Afghanistan or a transitional government, unless monitors can determine that the country's Aug. 20 election was legitimate.

The editorial board also takes up a gun-rights case and argues, surprisingly enough, in favor of stronger protections for gun owners. Though the board favors measures to reduce gun violence, it thinks the Supreme Court should rule that the 2nd Amendment applies to states as well as the federal government. That's because allowing states to ignore this part of the Bill of Rights could undermine the requirement that they abide by others.

Finally, the board notes that Comcast Corp.'s proposal to buy NBC Universal cuts against the grain of recent media deals, and its effect on the marketplace may be limited. But it will be interesting to watch how the combined company's approach to the Internet might change.

* Cartoon by Rob Rogers / Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

• $1.65 trillion added to the national debt, a 28% increase;
• A debt-to-GDP ratio of 11.2%, a post-war record;
• A $4.3 trillion increase in projected deficits over the coming decade, up 300% from the Congressional Budget Office's estimate last year.

CRFB President Maya MacGuineas cut policymakers a little slack, saying that many of the steps that drove up the deficit were needed to strengthen the economy. "But if not accompanied by efforts to reduce the long-term fiscal gap," she added, "they come at the expense of future growth and prosperity."

Lawmakers still have time to establish a bit of deficit-cutting credibility -- 12 of the 13 annual appropriations bills that were due by Oct. 1 are still working their way through Congress. Unfortunately, there are signs that some powerful lawmakers (in the Senate particularly) are more concerned about steering dollars to pet projects than saving money for taxpayers. Granted, earmarks are a minuscule part of the budget problem. But if Congress can't get the small stuff right, how likely is it that lawmakers will take the hard but meaningful steps to close the budget gap?

Incidentally, the liberal Center for American Progress added its voice today to the anti-deficit chorus, issuing a primer on the problem from a left-of-center point of view. Sounding a bit like editorial writers, the authors say that there are no easy choices (No, really?). They also offer a less-than-dispassionate view of how we got in the mess we're currently in, treating the Bush tax cuts in 2001 and 2003 as costly deficit boosters rather than acknowledging their role in stimulating the economy. The center's analysis gives short shrift to the growing economy's role in solving the short-term budget problems of the 1990s, and all but ignores the complex interrelationship between taxes, spending and GDP growth.  Nevertheless, the authors paint a clear picture of the structural problems facing lawmakers, and explain why neither spending cuts nor tax hikes alone can close the gap. 

-- Jon Healey

Today's editorial page casts a wary eye on former eBay CEO Meg Whitman, whose candidacy for governor of California has been shaken by revelations that she didn't register to vote until she was 46 years old, and only became a Republican two years ago. Is someone so seemingly apathetic about politics the best choice to govern what may be the most ungovernable state in the union?

With all due respect to the French culture minister, who said U.S. efforts to prosecute filmmaker Roman Polanski revealed the face of a "scary America," we on the Times editorial board think it's time the 76-year-old fugitive was brought to justice. Polanski's defenders ignore the simple fact that he fled the country while facing charges of raping a 13-year-old girl. Even for successful movie directors, that's not OK.

The editorial page also weighs in on plans to upgrade the sagging waterfront in San Pedro, which the Harbor Commission will consider today. There's much to like in the proposal, but something not to like as well: Plans to build terminals for cruise ships adjacent to San Pedro's only public beach. We think commissioners should proceed with the overall plan, but table the outer harbor cruise berths.

On the Op-Ed side, columnist Jonah Goldberg questions whether President Obama is living up to his centrist campaign rhetoric on the war in Afghanistan. While running for office, Obama tried to out-hawk Republican Sen. John McCain when it came to the war, but as the conflict becomes less popular he seems to be reconsidering. "What seemed like principled centrism in 2008 might simply be exposed as left-wing expediency in 2009."

Professor Christopher Layne and journalist Benjamin Schwarz ponder the waning of the Pax Americana, the post-war bargain in which the United States spent overwhelmingly on its military in order to secure world peace -- a practice that given current fiscal conditions is no longer sustainable. The result will likely be de-globalization as countries move more aggressively to pursue their financial and security interests.

Finally, civil rights lawyer Constance L. Rice bemoans the resignation of the head of the L.A. Unified School District's construction division, who was apparently forced out by district politics. The independent construction division was created to avoid more disasters like the spectacularly expensive Belmont Learning Center, and the increasing political interference doesn't bode well for the future.

Cartoon: Ed Stein / Newspaper Enterprise Assn.

-- Dan Turner

Reports are in that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger isn't going to close 100 state parks or anything like that number. Closing parks isn't the big moneysaver the governor had expected; the Times editorial page warned him about that in early June.

There also were small towns whose financial lives depend depend on the tourism brought by state monuments or parks.

The Times will editorialize tomorrow on the reasons why the governor should have thought this out better before donning his parks-Terminator costume.

Photo of Pio Pico State Historic Park in Whittier. Credit: David McNew / Getty Images

--Karin Klein

Former Times staff writer Johanna Neuman polled Washington insiders for the cause of today's hyper-partisanship in the Capitol, and names the most-cited culprit: Newt Gingrich. The architect of the Republican takeover of Congress in the mid-1990s also changed the congressional calendar and urged Republican lawmakers to spend their weekends at home, not mingling with colleagues of both parties in D.C. as they'd done before.

Updated at 1:05 p.m.: Neuman will discuss her Op-Ed on the "Michael Smerconish Show" at 7 a.m. EDT Wednesday, in case you're up that early and want to listen online. Or if you're in Philadelphia.

Columnist Jonah Goldberg eulogizes the "godfather of neoconservatism" Irving Kristol, who died last week at 89 -- and who had a major impact on Goldberg's political thinking.

On the Editorial Page, The Times examines the much-delayed work of the blue-ribbon panel trying to reimagine California's tax structure, and wonders if it might be a little too innovative. Its business receipt tax might not stand up to legal scrutiny, and its attempts to decrease revenue volatility appear to come at the expense of the poor and middle class.

We also address the backfiring strategy of seven former CIA directors who sent a letter to President Obama urging him to abort a Justice Department inquiry into torture... er, enhanced interrogation techniques... by the CIA under the Bush administration. The directors seem not to have realized that they were asking the president to abandon his assurances that Atty. Gen. Eric Holder would put the law above loyalty to the White House. The unintended result: Obama was forced to renew his promise, the opposite of the outcome they wanted.

And on the tangled question of Net neutrality, we weigh in on the side of new FCC chief Julius Genachowski, who wants to develop new rules governing what Internet service providers can do with the data that travels through their networks. Without such rules, the major phone and Internet companies have too much power to quash innovation in the name of "managing congestion."

Cartoon by Tom Toles / Washington Post

-- Dan Turner

If you did your children's homework for them in high school, how would they fare in college? That question comes to mind whenever I read or hear an argument in favor of requiring the federal government to "buy American." The latest example: the Op-Ed article we ran this week by Leo Hindery Jr., Leo W. Gerard and Donald W. Riegle Jr.

Hindery, a media investor, and Riegle, a former Democratic senator from Michigan, are involved in something called the Smart Globalization Initiative at the New America Foundation, a think-tank well stocked with my current and former colleagues; Gerard is president of the United Steelworkers union. They argue that requiring the federal government to buy American -- that is, to award procurement contracts to U.S. manufacturers when their products are made domestically and available on reasonable terms -- would provide a critical lifeline to the country's shrinking manufacturing base. Almost every other major industrialized nation has a requirement of that sort, they argue, so why shouldn't we?

I'm not a trade lawyer, so I won't try to make the case that such rules violate international trade agreements. Instead, I'll just ask how such guarantees help U.S. firms stay competitive in a global marketplace. Is it better to give them 100% of one government's business (ours) than to force them to vie for it, potentially making them better able to win contracts around the world? And if "buy American" requirements somehow resulted in a larger U.S. manufacturing industry, could those rules be dropped in future years without causing even greater problems? That's the argument many conservatives made against the stimulus package, which (among many other things) expanded unemployment benefits and helped states lay off fewer workers. When the stimulus dollars run out, will states have the political will to reduce benefits and shrink payrolls back to an unsubsidized level?

Don't get me wrong, I don't think these questions all have obvious answers. It's entirely possible that, by guaranteeing U.S. firms the domestic market, "buy American" provisions would enable U.S. manufacturers to sell their goods more aggressively overseas. (Granted, they could run afoul of anti-dumping laws if they cut foreign prices too deeply.) And there's little reward for being a free-trade purist if your major competitors are tipping their scales in favor of domestic firms. Nevertheless, I don't think it makes sense in the long term to shield U.S. manufacturers from competition, even when tax dollars are paying the bills. The federal government can and should try to stop the erosion of manufacturing jobs, but it should do so by creating a better environment for entrepreneurs, promoting investment, increasing the supply of skilled workers and battling to open markets overseas.

-- Jon Healey

If critics of Obamanomics won't listen to the Opinion Manufacturing Division, perhaps they'll listen to Rush Limbaugh. It's just not socialism, people!

According to the liberal media watchdog Media Matters for America, El Rushbo declared on his program today, "We've gotta stop calling it socialism, folks, 'cause socialism's lost its bite, and what he's doing is really not socialism anyway. Socialism is when the government owns the means of production." (Italics added by me.) He goes on to say -- and this is the part featured on the RushLimbaugh.com homepage today -- "Fascism is where politicians run it, but it's privately owned. We are fascists. Obama has turned this into a fascist nation -- think Mussolini." (Actually, the site's version of the quote is a little different: "Fascism is where the private sector still owns what it owns, but the politicians run it -- and fascism is exactly what we're getting under Barack Obama.")

There you have it. We can now proceed to having a rational discussion of whether Obamanomics and its ever-growing deficits amount to fascism (as defined by Rush, Jonah Goldberg or Il Duce himself), Keynesian economics or simple tax-and-spend liberalism.

Photo credit: AP Photo / John Bazemore

-- Jon Healey

I don't expect the white papers from the Center for a Responsible Federal Budget to put more spring in my step and a song in my heart, but today's report about Social Security's looming fiscal problems was unusually sobering. The CRFB said that recent analyses by the Congressional Budget Office and the Social Security Trustees don't agree on all the specifics, but they leave little doubt that the Social Security trust funds will soon begin doling out more cash than they collect from payroll taxes. By the CBO's reckoning, that day will arrive in 2017, wiping out the trust funds by 2043. By the Trustees' estimates (which are more pessimistic because they assume the Bush tax cuts will remain in effect), the trust funds begin to drain in 2016 and run out of money by 2037. "Despite these differences," the report says, "both reports show with near certainty that the Social Security system will add significantly to projected deficits and require considerable revenue or spending adjustments to remain solvent."

Ugh. The situation is similar in some ways to the Medicare Trust Fund, which is expected to become insolvent in 2017. The Social Security trust funds have about $2.4 trillion in reserves, which make the shortfall in revenue seem less pressing. But the shortfall will exacerbate the federal budget deficit immediately, so lawmakers won't be able to avoid the problem for long.

Without a change in policy, the CRFB says, Social Security benefits will have to be cut by an estimated 17 percent as soon as the trust funds empty. "Averting this scenario would require the equivalent of a 3 percentage point increase in the payroll tax in 2042 – the equivalent of a little over 1 percent of GDP," the report estimates.

While the exact size of the shortfall cannot be precisely predicted, one thing is certain: Social Security cannot continue on its path in the current fiscal context. The system will need to be rebalanced through adjustments to benefits and/or revenues; and the sooner we act the more we can spread out these changes and give workers time to prepare.

The CRFB calls on the Obama administration and Congress to take on Social Security as soon as possible, and give it the same intensity and urgency they've given healthcare reform. That may be good policy, but it sounds like a political non-starter. The bruising fight over healthcare reform is likely to drain Washington's will to fight another Herculean political battle, as well as the public's willingness to support yet another major policy initiative.

Photo credit: Justin Sullivan / Getty Images

-- Jon Healey