The legal question regarding John Swallow’s staying in office is: “How should the principle of ‘presumed innocent until proven guilty’ be applied to a public official who has been accused of serious wrongdoing but hasn’t been convicted of anything?”

The answer is, “scrupulously.” Otherwise, we would see the rise of more prosecutors like former New York Gov. Elliot Spitzer, who built his career through high profile “investigations” that made him look like a champion of law and order but quietly disappeared when media attention faded.

There is no easy way to recover from such treatment. Secretary of Labor Ray Donovan was forced to step down by a series of accusations which took years to resolve. After it was established that they had all been false, he asked, “Which office do I go to get my reputation back?”

“Presumed innocent” is in the law because there is no such office.

But matters of public trust involve more than the law. They involve public confidence, particularly with respect to law enforcement. Think of a police officer who, when caught in a highly threatening situation, deals with it by using deadly force. Relatives of those killed call him a murderer who should be prosecuted, while those rescued insist he is a hero who should be honored. An investigation is very much in order.

While it goes on, the officer is not fired but placed on administrative leave. If he is exonerated, he will return to duty with a clean record. If he is not, he will be dealt with appropriately. Either way, it is understood that he cannot effectively do his job until the matter is resolved.

The process applies to those holding office at the highest levels, even to the most wrongly accused. I refer to James Beggs, administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, who was indicted for allegedly committing contract fraud while he had been executive vice president of General Dynamics. Jim was a mentor to me while we were both at the Department of Transportation and is one of the finest men I know. When I heard the news, I was sure he had done nothing wrong, and I was right; the case was dismissed on the first day of trial. He later received a letter from the U.S. attorney general, apologizing for the fact that it had ever been brought up.

However, even though everyone who knew Jim Beggs knew that he would be completely exonerated, he was placed on administrative leave, just like the police officer. He could not effectively do his job until the matter had been cleared up. An “acting administrator” was appointed to run NASA while Jim’s case ran its course.

So if Attorney General Swallow chooses not to resign because he’s convinced he’s innocent, he should take administrative leave. That would permit him to devote full attention to clearing his name and dealing with the multiple investigations he is facing. An “acting attorney general” could then devote full attention to running the attorney general’s office, which it needs.

Timing is important in these matters. The issue of the moment is not “presumed innocent until proven guilty”; that will be resolved through due process. The issue of the moment is “ability to effectively do the job.” That needs to be resolved now. The state requires and deserves nothing less.

In 1997, after roughly two decades of steadily increasing temperatures, representatives from most of the world’s countries met in Kyoto, Japan, to draft what is known as the Kyoto Accord, the first international agreement on the issue of global warming. They were motivated by the fact that temperatures had been rising for about 20 years and computer models were projecting drastic consequences if significant actions were not taken — and soon. The Kyoto Accord set firm and specific targets for reductions in greenhouse gas emissions for most of the developed nations. “Developing nations” — a polite term for poor ones — were excused on the grounds that the economic burden of meeting such targets would make them even poorer; the term included China and India.

During the 15 years since Kyoto, worldwide greenhouse emissions have continued to rise, with China passing the United States as the world’s largest source of them. But temperatures have not risen with them. The planet is right about where it was in 1997. The highest recorded temperature year since then was in 2005, with 2007 and 1998 tied for second highest. To have 2012 post temperature numbers lower than those recorded in 1998 hardly represents a steady march toward doom. Even James Hansen, the former NASA scientist who has been the most outspoken activist on the issue, concedes that for 15 years temperatures have been essentially flat, even though worldwide use of fossil fuels has been going up.

What does that mean? Your view depends on your point of view.

From President Obama’s point of view as a supporter of global warming theory, the last 15 years have been a temporary aberration. He stresses the fact that “12 of the last 15 years have been the warmest on record,” suggesting that the future trend will again turn upward and prove him right. From the point of view of global warming sceptics, the past 15 years are the future trend and they’ve already been proven right.

My point of view, growing out of conversations I have had with scientists at various national laboratories, is that both of these conclusions are premature. The climate is far too complex to be captured by the models that have been built, and more study — a lot more — is needed before we can be even relatively sure about what the future may hold. No single 15- or even 20-year period can be a reliable indicator of a long-term climate trend.

One scientist told me, “There are at least six different indicators of climate behavior and we have only studied two of them — temperature and the acidity of the oceans. We think we have enough evidence from those two areas to conclude that human activity is affecting the climate in a major way, but we cannot be sure exactly how or how much. There could be other forces at work here that we still don’t understand.”

He summarized by saying: “The science is not settled.”

That suggests that more research is clearly in order, but that panic is not. I agree with another scientist who, when asked what he thought we should be doing, given all the uncertainties that surround the issue, told me, “We should be doing things that make sense anyway.”

That makes sense from any point of view.

The bill’s backers, referencing the National Rifle Association (NRA), said, “This is an outrageous example of a special interest group thwarting the public will through campaign contributions and intimidation tactics. The killings will go on even though 90 percent of Americans support stronger gun controls.”

Its opponents, claiming constitutional high ground, said, “Second Amendment rights have been preserved as, once again, Congress has sided with the vast majority of law-abiding citizens who wish to defend themselves.”

Very strong rhetoric over what was, in fact, a very modest proposal. It would not have broken significant new ground but simply expanded an already existing practice, background checks on gun purchasers. Its passage would not have deterred a crazed killer determined to shoot up a classroom or affected a citizen’s right to own a gun.

Immediate public reaction to the horror of the Newtown slaughter suggested that a much stronger measure would be drafted and very likely pass. At the time, Sen. Mark Begich, D-Alaska, said the desire to do something to show support for the victims and their families represented a ”sea change” on the issue; polls recorded a significant majority of Americans in favor of stronger gun controls. What happened?

As is always the case in questions of this sort, there are many answers. However, it is clear that supporters of gun control overestimated the staying power of their position. Attitudes on the issue changed, and the reason was less the NRA than Christmas. Americans simply turned their attention elsewhere. By the time Congress convened in January, support for stronger gun laws was back down to 38 percent, about where it had been before Newton happened.

Kevin Drum, of the left-leaning publication Mother Jones, puts it this way:

“How did this happen even though, as liberals remind us endlessly, 90 percent of the American public supports background checks? Because about 80 percent of those Americans think it sounds like a reasonable idea but don’t really care much. I doubt that one single senator will suffer at the polls in 2014 for voting against Manchin-Toomey.”

Pauline Kael was a writer for The New Yorker who exclaimed, after Richard Nixon won every state except Massachusetts in 1972, “It’s not possible! I don’t know a single person who voted for him!” Gun control supporters suffer from the Pauline Kael syndrome. They are unable to acknowledge the possibility that their reading of political trends might be myopic. Starting with President Obama, who led the charge with very strong rhetoric, they overreached and caused many people to tune them out.

To have 90 percent of Americans on your side is good, but to have only 20 percent of them care about your issue is bad, particularly at a time when there other things to think about — the economy, immigration reform, Obamacare and North Korea. Gallup now reports that only 4 percent of Americans think gun control is our most important issue, which plays perfectly into the hands of the NRA.

Politics has been called “The art of the possible.” If supporters of Manchin-Toomey had understood what had happened to public attitudes between Newtown and January, and started with a call for a bill on background checks instead of being forced to retreat to one as a last resort, the outcome could well have been different. The best proof of the fact that the “sea change” on guns was really only a single wave is Sen. Begich himself, who last week voted “No.”

In the early days of the republic, presidents didn’t issue budget proposals. The Constitution gives Congress the sole power over federal expenditures. It was only as the executive branch began to grow in size and complexity, and particularly when the country went to war, that Congress allowed the president to project how much money would be needed, and for what purposes, in the coming years. A president’s budget carries weight because of the amount of expertise behind it, but legally it is no more than a suggestion and can be ignored, as many of Ronald Reagan’s budgets were.

So, why all the furor, if this is just a suggestion? Two reasons: momentum and symbolism.

Momentum is not just a law of physics. Once a government program is put in motion, it tends to stay in motion, in the same direction, at a slightly higher cost every year. Each such program has a constituency and being included in a president’s budget legitimizes it. Any suggestion in the president’s budget of a change in a program’s momentum and direction — up or down — energizes the relevant constituency, creating political consequences.

Symbolism also has political consequences. This president’s budget marks the first time a Democratic president has formally suggested Congress change the spending trajectory of entitlement programs, specifically Social Security and Medicare. The changes suggested are financially tiny but liberals see them as a huge symbolic betrayal. That is why they attacked the president so severely.

This could have been a Republican opportunity. Suppose they had said, “Thank you, Mr. President, for recognizing that the current pattern of entitlement spending is unsustainable. You and we both know that if it is not changed, it will hurt all seniors, particularly the poor. While we doubt that your suggestions will solve the problem, we are very pleased that you have acknowledged it and are willing to work on it with you.”

That would have symbolically put Republicans on substantive high ground and cast the president’s liberal critics as obstructionists who don’t want problems to be solved. It would also have increased Republican bargaining power during subsequent negotiations, because it would have deprived the president of any excuse to change his position. By passing up that opportunity and denouncing the entire budget as nothing but a political document, Republicans strengthened the hands of the liberals.

“See? You offered conservatives an olive branch and what did you get? Personal abuse! You should have known that you can’t deal with them! Stick with us!”

This version of events is taking hold in the public mind. It not only reduces Republican bargaining power but allows the president to have it both ways. In theory, he’s responsible on entitlements but unable to act because of Republican intransigence. In practice, liberals get what they want and the president pays no political price.

Substantively, the Republican reaction to the president’s budget was fully justified; the document is open to legitimate criticism on many points. If enacted in its entirety, it would almost certainly not achieve the results it promises. Strategically, however, because it does contain the symbolic admission that Republicans are right about entitlement spending, a more nuanced reaction could have set the stage for a positive shift in momentum on an issue of great import. An opportunity missed.

Consider the health care exchanges, which are the procedural heart of the program. The act requires every state to have one, to be established by the state itself unless it “opts out;” in that case, the exchange will be set up by the federal government. It is clear that the federal government will not be able to fulfill its responsibilities in this regard when January comes.

Some defenders of the administration say this deficiency is the result of a Republican conspiracy. “The majority of the states that have opted out have Republican governors. They did it in order to add to the federal burden, slow things down, and thus make the president look bad.”

That’s hard to believe. Why would a governor deliberately do something wrong for his state just to hurt a politician who can’t run again? When President Obama signed the bill, he knew that the right to opt out was in it and that some states would exercise it. Surely, a contingency plan was drawn up to deal with the possibility that many would?

Apparently not. Three years later, the administration’s exchanges are still not ready. It plans to install stop-gap alternatives that will last for at least a year, maybe more.

Exchanges have not been the only bump in the road on the way to Obamacare. Along with other shifts, the administration has switched positions on Medicare Advantage, a program passed by Republicans which Obamacare repealed on grounds that, well … I never quite understood why. The White House now says that portions of Medicare Advantage will be kept, by executive order.

Add to that the new cost estimates that show that many Americans will pay higher premiums just to keep what they have while other employees, who were assured that they could keep what they have, are discovering that they won’t be allowed to. Consider the number of doctors who are retiring to avoid dealing with the uncertainties and complexities of the law. The emerging picture is that of an Administration capable of passing laws but not of effectively implementing them.

The growing grumbling is bipartisan. Joe Klein of Time Magazine, no Republican apologist, is scathing in his critique: “Obamacare will fail if [the president] doesn’t start paying attention to the details of implementation, if he doesn’t start demanding action. And, in a larger sense, the notion of activist government will be in peril … if institutions like the VA and Obamacare don’t deliver the goods.”

Complicating matters for the president is the fact that Obamacare remains as unpopular as it was when it was signed. That surprises many Democratic political advisers, including Bill Clinton. They were sure that once it became law and voters found out what was in it — it does contain many things which many Americans like — opposition would turn into support. Since that hasn’t happened, implementation problems will be resented even more.

If he is to avoid bipartisan demands for a major overhaul of his “signature achievement,” President Obama has a lot of work to do in the next nine months.

The answer, of course, is that a $20 minimum wage would vastly increase poverty by destroying many existing jobs. Telling a worker, “The government decrees that you are now worth $20 an hour” might make him feel good but won’t help him if the skills he has to offer are not worth that much to a prospective employer. The idea of a federal minimum wage arose when many Americans worked as unskilled laborers on farms, in factories, or retail stores or as household help and were often paid less than their work was worth. That situation has changed as most of those jobs have disappeared in the age of technology.

President Obama’s economists understand this, which is why they don’t propose anything close to $20. However, there are indications that the difference between a $20 wage and a nine dollar wage would only be one of degree. There would still be a negative impact.

The grimmest poverty statistics in America are in the inner cities and on Indian reservations, where there are many high school dropouts with very few skills. Unemployment rates there are over 50 percent. A nine dollar minimum wage would not create any new job opportunities for those who live in these places but would almost certainly eliminate some of the marginal jobs that currently exist there.

Michael Saltsman, Research Director for the Employment Policies Institute, can put a number on how hard it would hit the needy, citing a study showing that employment of single mothers drops by 6 percent whenever there is a 10 percent increase in the minimum wage, and employment, not wage level, is the driving force behind poverty.

Saltsman reports, “According to the Census Bureau, 60 percent of people living below the poverty line didn’t work last year. They don’t need a raise, they need a job, period. And among those who do work and earn the minimum wage, the vast majority live in households above the poverty line. This partially explains why numerous studies have shown no relationship between a higher minimum wage and lower poverty rates … the benefits generally aren’t accruing to those in poverty.”

How can it be that “the benefits (of the minimum wage) generally aren’t accruing to those in poverty”? One reason is that many minimum wage jobs go to teenagers, working not because their families need the money but simply because they want the experience of holding a job. Raising their pay doesn’t help the poor.

There is a better way to do that, one that enjoys bipartisan support. The Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), was established in 1975 under President Ford as a wage supplement for low income families. It has spread to many states, which have added their own benefits to it. The study cited above found “a 1 percent drop in state poverty rates associated with each 1 percent increase in a state’s EITC.” A low wage family can file a tax return and get a check from the government, which encourges work even at entry level, low paying jobs.

To fight poverty, strengthen the EITC. Raising the minimum wage is an idea whose time has gone.

The answers are probably yes to the first question, almost certainly no to the second.

Start with the Department of Defense. There are certainly many places where cuts in the DOD’s budget could produce savings, but brute force across-the-board cuts are not the way to achieve them. The sequester could affect as many as 11,000 people in Utah, resulting in $86 million in lost wages while degrading efficiency at Hill Air Force Base in a way that would cost the government millions more. Hill is just one of many military facilities spread across the country; add them all up and we are soon talking billions. While it is true that some of the scenarios we are hearing about concerning how drastic the effects of sequestration will be are more calculated to affix political blame than to describe what’s likely to happen, there is no question that there will be costly side effects that will reduce any savings the sequester might produce on paper.

Will it really happen? Yes, I think so. But I hope its effects will be short-lived. Here’s why.

The timing of the cuts could be bunched into the last few months of the year, buying time for Congress and the president to negotiate a new deal to avoid sequestration altogether. That’s what most Washington observers expect will happen. However, it won’t prevent the whole exercise from being expensive. Already the hidden costs of sequestration are making themselves felt.

Managers of the various federal agencies have been living in an atmosphere of uncertainty for months: Will we be cut or not, and if so, by how much? As a consequence, they have postponed contracts, put various projects on indefinite hold and spent lots of management time drawing up furlough plans for their employees. This has lowered morale and disrupted existing work schedules, producing low productivity, the costly but inevitable byproduct of uncertainty. It has not only reigned all across the government but also been passed into the private sector.

Companies that supply the government with goods and services have been forced to put everything on hold until they find out what is going to happen. They have delayed placing orders with their suppliers and laid off some of their employees. The ripple effect of all this has meant higher costs within the affected companies (which means lower tax revenue from them and their employees) that match the higher operating costs within government. Even if sequestration doesn’t happen next Monday, a significant price in unproductive effort has already been paid. Will the cost reach $85 billion? No way to know for sure, but it is certainly possible.

The entire political debate has been over whose fault it will be if sequestration happens, when it should have been over how much net savings it would produce. If that had been the case, the whole idea would have been quickly dropped.

When using a meat axe where a scalpel is called for, it’s all pain and no gain.

I don’t know if they are wrong on the high side or the low side, close to or far from what will actually happen, but I do know that they are wrong. They are based on estimates of a wide range of variables, including the growth rate of the national economy, the level of tax revenue that will be generated and the amount of federal spending that will occur over the next ten years. It’s hard for anyone to know any of those things with precision over one year, let alone ten. Compare the projections confidently made ten years ago with where we are today and you will see what I mean.

Nevertheless, every year, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) examines a number of economic factors, feeds its assumptions into its computers and comes up projections “scoring” the ten year financial impact of every bill introduced in the Congress. If CBO computers say a proposal will cost X dollars over that period of time, X dollars is what the cost will be. CBO’s word is final.

The divergence between projection and reality can have long lasting consequences. Take health care. The initial score for Medicare was too low by a huge margin; the real cost has been more than 20 times higher than anticipated, even adjusting for inflation. Joseph Califano, the White House aide responsible for drafting the first Medicare proposal, has written that the potential size of the scoring error became known within 18 months of passage, but “by then it was too late.”

On the other hand, the score for the cost of the latest addition to Medicare – the drug benefit, Part D – has turned out to be have been too high. To the surprise of everyone, this program is currently costing substantially less than forecast while enjoying an approval rating in excess of 80% among those who use it.

Where are we now, with respect to Medicare? Overall costs have not been going up as fast as they were, so CBO has done a new projection. A few weeks ago, it announced that Medicare costs in 2020 would be $200 billion less than previously estimated. That’s good news (although the number is surely too high or too low) and Part D has helped.

Before it was passed, Medicare would pay for an expensive hospital stay but not for the much cheaper drug treatments that would prevent one. CBO scored Part D without taking that possible impact into consideration. Now we know that that really happens, and since increased use of drug therapies has lowered costs, further changes in Medicare should be made to accellerate that trend, regardless of how they score.

There is much more to be done before we can relax with respect to the rising cost of health care. Even as we applaud the trend, we don’t know every reason for its existence or exactly where it is going. As Yogi Berra has been quoted as saying, “Predictions are always uncertain, especially about the future.”

So, in our political dialog, we should be less dogmatic in citing projections that support past prejudices and more willing to embrace course corrections as new data become available. That’s the best way to make sound decisions about our fiscal problems in today’s fast moving world.

The tea party, that is.

It began in 2009 as a spontaneous movement with no formal organization, national leader or central source of funding. It spread its anti-government message to receptive recruits through Internet posts and email links. In the beginning, it was nothing more than a series of protest rallies, uncoordinated with each other and staged for no purpose other than to express outrage. After someone named it after the Boston tea party of Revolutionary times, it continued to grow, in part because the media became fascinated with it.

MSNBC bemoaned its existence, but Fox News gave Glenn Beck an afternoon TV slot in which he broadened and pushed its agenda — his ratings soared. The network also gave Sarah Palin a contract after she resigned as governor of Alaska and got the same result. The tea party was hot copy.

Thus stimulated, rallies got bigger, better organized and more frequent. National figures scrambled to get in. Former Rep. Dick Armey R-Texas, the head of a conservative political group called FreedomWorks, proclaimed himself head of the movement. Sen. Jim DeMint R-S.C., organized a PAC to channel money to underfunded tea party Senate candidates. As a number of those candidates won upset victories in Republican primaries, observers recognized that this was one of the most rapidly spreading and effective political brush fires in American history. Tea partiers looked to the 2010 election with great expectations.

The results were bittersweet.

In House races, enough tea party candidates won to shift control to the Republicans, ousting Nancy Pelosi as Speaker and putting themselves in position to strongly influence, if not dictate, the Republican majority agenda. In Senate races, however, the results were not so good. Tea party nominees in Nevada, Colorado and Delaware bungled three clear opportunities for Republican pickups in those states. As a write-in candidate, Sen. Lisa Murkowski successfully defeated the tea party candidate who had beaten her in the primary. Tea party leaders promised to do better in 2012.

They didn’t. In the House, the number of tea party winners shrank rather than grew. In the Senate, bad tea party candidates delivered easy wins to otherwise vulnerable Democrats in Missouri and Indiana, states which Mitt Romney carried. Identification with the tea party had become a political liability in any race which was closely contested.

Fox News had canceled Glenn Beck’s show before the election because he could no longer attract sponsors. Now, after it, they have not renewed Sarah Palin’s contract. Instead of growth, there is disintegration.

FreedomWorks had a disastrous 2012; for example, the viciousness of their attacks on Orrin Hatch made people mad at them, not him. Dick Armey left the group amid reports of infighting and complete disarray among its staff. Jim DeMint has moved from the Senate to the Heritage Foundation. (He insists that he will push tea party views in his new position, and Democrats hope that is true. One told me, “DeMint has been our greatest asset. He’s given us at least six Senate seats — maybe more.”)

Brush fires burn themselves out when the fuel is gone, and fuel for a political movement is victory. Electoral defeats for tea party candidates have created momentum in the opposite direction. If no national figures emerge to replace those who have departed — and there are no media stars or aspiring politicians on the horizon who appear to be willing to bet their careers on doing so — then the party truly will be over in a few years.

Nothing in politics goes on forever.

Over 90 percent of the callers objected to President W. George Bush’s immigration proposal, so one might think that a majority of Utahns were against it. However, those answering the phones soon began to recognize repeat callers citing the same arguments. They were not representative of a wide segment of Utah opinion but rather a relatively small group of very determined advocates committed to anonomously dialing our offices again and again. The business, religious and community leaders who outlined their views to me in person recognized that President Bush’s experience as governor of Texas had given him a realistic understanding of the dimensions of the problem and were strongly in favor of the measure.

It didn’t pass. For years, the reservoir of bitterness that lingered after the vote prevented any action on immigration. Now, however, the issue is back in the news, and arguments that were made in favor of the earlier bill are very close to those being advanced for the current one by Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., as he leads the negotiating team for Senate Republicans and gains support from many who had opposed Bush.

What has changed the atmosphere? Some election results.

George W. Bush got 47 percent of the Hispanic vote; Mitt Romney, 27 percent. It may not be fair, but the rhetoric surrounding the immigration issue in the last six years has been interpreted as a statement that Republicans do not like Hispanics. A majority of voters are offended by that idea.

Rubio has spoken out because he understands that the party needs to take control of this issue. Media figures who claim to be the watchdogs of Republicans, who see their job as keeping the party “pure,” have emerged as the primary spokesmen on the subject. That should not be, if only for purely practical reasons. A 20 percent listener rating can make a radio or TV host rich, but a political candidate has to have 50 percent to win an election. Rubio is telling the media figures to step aside and let those whose mandate comes from voters rather than listeners do their job.

To those who cry, “amnesty!” he points out that failure to pass a bill has given illegal aliens “de facto amnesty” because they have been able to stay here without paying any fines. To those who insist that the border be “secured” before immigration reform can take place, he points out that billions have already been spent on that project and it is time to stop using it as an excuse for further delay. To those who claim that he is simply pandering to Hispanics, he points out that there is strong support for his proposals among non-Hispanics on humanitarian grounds — “Don’t break up families.”

I’ve not met Rubio, but applaud him for straight talk to the tea party by a politician they have claimed as one of their own. The question I hear most often from Utahns is, “Why can’t members of Congress work together and get things done?” Immigration is a perfect opportunity for them to show that they can. Sen. Rubio and Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., are about as far apart as two senators can get, ideologically, but the fact that they are able to talk civily about an issue as important as this one indicates that the ice barrier between the parties may finally be beginning to thaw.