Well we’re back here again. In the middle of 2011 I wrote about budget cuts versus tax increases. The ideas haven’t changed much. The alignment of the parties in power hasn’t changed much. What has changed? The only major changes are that the US government has borrowed another $1.5 Trillion since then (about a 10% increase in the debt previously owed) and a so-called “fiscal cliff” looms on December 31.
What does the President have to say about avoiding this “fiscal cliff?”
It appears that cutting tax rates on the so-called middle class (the under $250K earners) so that these folks can get ahead will be defined as accomplishing the “urgent business” of avoiding the present “fiscal cliff.” Clearly, this “fiscal cliff” has little to nothing to do with the $100+ Million per month of additional debt we are still incurring (an additional .8% of additional debt per month). This “fiscal cliff” which the President is talking about has mostly to do with the expiration of the Bush tax rates, which will revert to the higher rates set under President Clinton in 1994 with the assistance of a Democratically controlled congress. This “hard choice” by the President cuts the guts out of the idea that revenue can be used to significantly reduce the amount of debt we are continuing to incur since the proceeds of an increase in taxes on the wealthy are paltry when compared with the tax bonanza of allowing all the Bush rates return to their Clinton-era alternatives. This ‘solution’ has the virtue, however, of being politically kind of easy since the “not middle class” don’t have very many votes. And, anyway, the capital gains tax rates on the real multi millionaires (many if not mostly being members of the Democratic party) will only go up from 15 to 20%, retaining quite the advantage over the folks who earn their income through their own personal effort. Even so, the President’s multi-millionaire constituents won’t fare so badly since the capital gains rate will still be quite a bit below Reagan’s capital gains rate of 28% even though the tax rates on the people who earn their living at work will be significantly above the 28% rate enjoyed under the same Reagan.
What wasn’t directly mentioned by the President was that this “fiscal cliff” also includes automatic spending cuts, half of them being taken out of the defense budget (a cut of nearly 10% in a single year). It may be a “defense cliff” but it just doesn’t seem like much of a generalized “fiscal cliff” when the $130 Billion in cuts is compared to the sheer size of a $3.7 Trillion federal government budget (3%). Maybe that part of the “fiscal cliff” doesn’t really bother him so much, you think?
The administration has also just opened a new front on the “fiscal cliff.” Through Treasury Secretary Geithner the administration is pushing for Congress to permanently forsake its authority to control the extension of credit by the United States. It is actually one of the 17 enumerated powers of the Congress, specifically Art. I Sec. 8.2, which provides that Congress has the authority,”[t]o borrow money on the credit of the United States.” Put this alongside the question of whether the Congress has the power to completely take over the health care system of the United States which is nowhere to be found, but that’s another question for another day. Here’s Secretary Geithner being interviewed by Al Hunt about it.
Talk about frightening. The executive branch is proposing a modification to the basic power structure of the constitution without attempting to amend it. Oh well, what else is new?
My conclusion is the same as it was 1.5 Trillion borrowed dollars ago. We must show that we can do the hard things in order to maintain our credibility as a nation. The hard things would include letting tax rates go up and stay up on everyone and cutting the budget in a way which is hard and painful for a large number of folks. We’ve got to do it in order to maintain the value of the dollar. In order to keep our credit rating. In order to maintain our self respect. In order to keep from destroying the good and healthy aspects of a government, of, by and for the people.
I think that bankruptcy must be a misunderstood concept. In the Joe Soptic commercial (the commercial about how Bain Capital and Romney closed Soptic’s steel plant after siphoning out all of the money leading to the death of Soptic’s wife) bankruptcy and the idea of plant closing are conflated by focusing on the plant being “loaded up with debt” causing the plant to shut down. A permanent plant closing should be based upon whether the plant has value as a going concern, not whether the owner has accumulated debt. In other words, if a plant can produce and sell its products at a profit, there should be a mechanism for capturing this value. This is bankruptcy. Under bankruptcy rules the insolvency of the owner will not end its economic life of the plant but merely transfer ownership. What bankruptcy essentially does is shift ownership of assets, like factories, from an insolvent debtor to the debtor’s creditors or to others who buy the business from the bankruptcy court. This is the very idea of bankruptcy including the oft heard term ‘Chapter 11.’ When the value of a business as an ongoing concern exceeds the value of the same business when sold for its constituent parts, bankruptcy allows an orderly transfer of the underlying business in a way which protects its value for the benefit of the owner’s creditors. What happened with Soptic’s plant was that it was closed because it was no longer economically viable even if it is true that excessive debt was incurred by the company owner’s, including Bain, in the years leading up to the end.
As an example, see what happened to GM after its pre-packaged bankruptcy. GM went through bankruptcy and is now making “record” profits. It is once again number one in the world. But how can this be possible, the old owners of GM stock lost all of their equity, their stock certificates became worthless. Well, creditors like the US government* got 61% of new GM for about $50 Billion advanced. The unions got 17.5% for $20 Billion owed by old GM to their medical care trust fund. The bondholders got 10% for the $27 Billion that they loaned. Other creditors, including the people injured by GM products manufactured by the old GM got a percentage as well but they lost any right to sue the GM which emerged from bankruptcy. This is what bankruptcy is about. There was a small difference, though, between GM and other Chapter 11 bankruptcies. Notwithstanding the GM bankruptcy its union contracts remained intact. Contracts of any type can be broken or modified by the bankruptcy judge if it is in the best interest of the new company. The “loser” with the broken contract becomes a creditor of the old company, as with the $20 Billion owed to the UAW’s health care trust. But in this case, the union contracts were left intact to follow the new GM. And in fact, in 2011, the GM union contracts were even extended by agreement with the management of new GM, including the US government. But, even if the GM bankruptcy was unfair to bondholders and overly generous to the old GM’s unions, the effect of bankruptcy was that the new owners replaced the old owners and the company continued as a going concern. And that’s what I’m talking about.
*Of course, there was a enormous bailout from the US government involved in GM’s bankruptcy. Bailouts are unusual, notwithstanding President Obama’s campaign touting of the GM model, and such bailouts are really unnecessary in most cases. Other buyers were interested in GM but not in its union contracts. If businesses are economically viable after the bankruptcy judge eliminates burdensome contracts and debts, they can continue. In the GM bankruptcy it was the unions which were bailed out (the collective bargaining contracts were hardly touched) but the equity of the stockholders was destroyed. New GM was created to ‘buy’ the business of old GM but with collective bargaining agreements in place to carry on the business. And so it goes.
I’m sure that you all remember the giant brouhaha which ensued after the President said:
While I agree with the actual words which the President used, I profoundly disagree with his unspoken agenda.
The government of the United States was organized to protect the society, not to change or manage it. This seems to be entirely lost upon our President. He suggests that we owe something for the opportunities which we have had. I couldn’t agree more. He implies that we should be prepared to pay more in taxes in order to discharge this obligation. I could not disagree more. Taxes are the price we pay for a government to protect and serve us as a nation, not to serve us as individuals. It is only as a collective that our government is intended to provide for the general welfare. Otherwise the term ‘welfare’ would not have been modified by the adjective general. Our system, the one which the President actually says is so great, is based upon freedom. We are free to cooperate and compete among ourselves as we see the need. The government was not formed in order to mold our society or we as citizens, it is this free society within which free individuals thrive which is to be protected by the government.
The apparent source of the disconnect is that President Obama equates the government with American society generally. Therefore, he concludes that if we owe something to society we pay for it in taxes. The dual nature of our free society, one which fosters both cooperation and competition as the people see fit, is the very foundation of the system. It is not a part of the system to be redesigned or overcome. It is not a good which the government provides and which should therefore be taxed, it is something which the government protects and is obligated so to do. It is the sort of spontaneous and informally organized caring, sharing and cooperating which is at the very heart of our national character and will remain so so long as freedom reigns. It is fostered by the very freedom we have to either share or not share, as we ourselves see fit. It is not fostered by the heavy hand of the government. In fact the heavy hand of government will tear it apart.
Read this account in which a fellow blogger tells of one informal and voluntary association and a transfer between a businessman and a young student as told by the student. Had the businessman been required by the government to provide money or a job for the student it would likely have engendered resentment on the business owner’s part and the student would have taken it as his due. The results would have been wholly negative other than that the money would have ended up in the same place. Resentment and entitlement are not emotions to be fostered. Generosity and gratitude are. I wonder whether the President sees this or whether he is so focused in transferring wealth from one group of Americans to another that he is blinded by the beauty of his preferred ends and is unaware of or unwilling to see the moral questionableness and destructiveness of the means.
I wish that Trayvon Martin was not dead. His young life ended far too soon. Who knows what he could have been or done in his life? I feel deep distress for his parents. Losing a child is probably the hardest thing a person can undergo. I will pray for Trayvon and his parents. We all should.
For most of the last month the public focus has not been on Trayvon or his parents but upon Trayvon’s status as a proposed martyr. The President of the United States weighed in on Trayvon’s case in terms both measured and cool emphasizing that he had to be careful as chief magistrate of the country and further calling for a comprehensive investigation. That is he set the right tone right up until the point that he ratified a link between Trayvon’s race and his death by describing him as a young man who would have looked a lot like an Obama son, in other words a young black man. Wow, 90 seconds of good sense followed by a few seconds of spewing gasoline in a room full of matchbooks.
Then there is Rep. Frederica Wilson who takes to the floor of the House of Representatives every day with her poster which bears a four year old photo of Trayvon while she calls for justice against his “murderer” who is still “at large.” Prejudgment? Incitement? Political hay?
Next, we have the New Black Panther Party whose spokesman calls for the collection of reward cash for the capture of George Zimmerman, the admitted shooter. Is the implication that he be captured and “brought to justice” dead or alive? Is this a reasonable course of action in a situation in which charges are not even pending against Zimmerman? I am aware of no evidence that he is in hiding from authorities. Is this a crime, calling for the kidnapping or murder of another, or is this just free speech exercised in a very confrontational way?
And then there is the Reverend Louis Farrakahn. He tweeted as follows:
“Where there is no justice; there will be no peace. Soon and very soon, the law of retaliation may very well be applied.”
Is Rev. Farrakahn race-baiting? Since that term suggests a verbal attack upon members of a racial group, it appears not. Rather it appears to me that this tweet is a form of permission given by Farrakahn to the black citizens of our country to feel personally aggrieved by Trayvon’s death, based solely upon the the idea that Trayvon was just walking while black. That is Trayvon’s death is allegedly due to being racially profiled. A blogger whose blog is dedicated to defending Farrakahn had to say about whether he was race-baiting:
His words are clear . . . , these types of acts of violence against blacks, against youths; can result in the increased spirit of immediate retribution in the family of victims, because waiting on a justice will prove to be a double dose pain and heartache. Where not only have you lost a family member but even the justice system that is supposed to aid the victim, actually victimize the victims even more through loop holes, prejudices, and racism as well.
But is this blogger’s version any better? Where is the call for calm and cool reason? Why no call to await the results of the investigation? Who will lose out if there is a full and dispassionate investigation leading to a reasoned and just result?
We ought to view this volatile situation through the lens of the writings of famous Christian writer C.S. Lewis. Lewis has a good deal to say about what’s going on in the aftermath of Trayvon Martin’s death.
Even a good emotion, pity, if not controlled by charity and justice leads through anger to cruelty. Most atrocities are stimulated by accounts of the enemy’s atrocities and pity for the oppressed classes, when separated from the moral law as a whole, leads by a very natural process to the unremitting brutalities of a reign of terror.
Is Lewis right that anger leads to cruelty? Are people inciting new atrocities to “make up for” the Trayvon atrocity? Where is provision made for the moral law as a whole? Don’t we all know that anger, as stimulated by atrocities, leads to the loss of moral reflection and control by the aggrieved and their enraged defenders? Why would anyone want to stir up anger before all the facts are in? Again, the words of C.S. Lewis:
Suppose one reads a story of filthy atrocities in the paper. Then suppose that something turns up suggesting that the story might not be quite true, or not quite so bad as it was made out. Is one’s first feeling, `Thank God, even they aren’t quite so bad as that,’ or is it a feeling of disappointment, and even a determination to cling to the first story for the sheer pleasure of thinking your enemies as bad as possible? If it is the second then it is, I am afraid, the first step in a process which, if followed to the end, will make us into devils. You see, one is beginning to wish that black was a little blacker. If we give that wish its head, later on we shall wish to see grey as black, and then to see white itself as black. Finally, we shall insist on seeing everything – God and our friends and ourselves included – as bad, and not be able to stop doing it: we shall be fixed for ever in a universe of pure hatred.
What happens when we give in to the hatred and anger sought to be stoked by those seeking retribution for the presumed “racial profiling” death of Trayvon at the hands of George Zimmerman? Don’t we, as Lewis suggests, lose sight of our “enemies” as people with all of the rights of people. Anger will trigger in our minds a deadly revenge process for previous atrocities. And, as C.S. Lewis observed, these feelings will linger long after the Zimmerman case is resolved one way or the other. They will linger even if the evidence shows that Zimmerman is a man innocent of racially motivated murder even if guilty of atrocious judgment. That is why, I’m afraid, we are being subjected to a constant barrage of anger inciting images and rhetoric. As someone previously said, no crisis can be allowed to pass without being used. Here there is no denying that the crisis is being manufactured for the purpose of inflaming passions. That is not Christian and I doubt it is properly Muslim either.
Post Script:
A little addition on the question of why. Communist Revolutionary Che Guevara once said: “To send men to the firing squad, judicial proof is unnecessary. These procedures are an archaic bourgeois detail. This is a revolution! And a revolutionary must become a cold killing machine motivated by pure hate.” [Emphasis added]. Is this attempt to make Trayvon a martyr a step towards fomenting some sort of revolution or is it just about political business as usual using it as fuel to keep people in an inflamed state so that they and their votes can be more easily manipulated?
I’ll bet that you’ve noticed that oil prices and gas prices have been increasing lately. The president and his Republican potential opponents have noticed too. Not surprisingly the president and the Republicans disagree about solutions. The president proposes a bold-sounding “all of the above” strategy which involves government intervention on multiple levels and a free hand for government to pick economic winners and losers. The Republicans on the other hand generally propose a much greater role for the free market in their strategies although they are also far from eschewing all government intervention in the free market. In response to the Republicans’ free market arguments the president suggests that the free market strategies are as mythical and fallacious as the idea of a flat earth.* Hear he is (yes it’s a pun).
The president’s “all of the above” strategy includes loans and guarantees for solar companies like Solyndra and the latest bankrupt, Beacon Power Corp. He likes wind power, as provided by the windmills his policies subsidize which are produced by his buddies like Jeff Immelt at General Electric. He also likes the Chevy Volt, which made by Government Motors, which is now subsidized by a $10,000 federal tax credit and which has been purchased in quantity only by his friend Jeff Immellt at General Electric.
If you haven’t heard of it I would like to introduce you to a discipline called public choice theory or public policy economics. It deals with political choices made about economic matters when it appears that the “market fails.” Rather than actually describing it for you, I’d like to leave it to Dr. Mark Pennington to talk about public choice theory and the idea that the manner in which politicians and voters engage in public policy decision-making often results in outcomes which are counter-productive.
The president’s “all of the above” strategy is nothing other than embracing the idea that the government should deeply involve itself in economics and markets in ways which will definitely affect outcomes for us all. He, of course, believes, that the free market in energy has ‘failed’ or is at least in the process of ‘failing.’ He also apparently believed this even before the recent spate of gasoline price rises.** Following his heart he has tried his hand at passing carbon trading (cap and trade), fostering green “start ups” like the aforementioned Solyndra and getting on the bandwagon for the electric car. He may very well believe in what he says he believes in, but even if the government is right that the market has in some ways failed, public choice theory asks the next logical question, why should we believe that the government should effectively take over all or a majority of the decision-making about this issue? At least one outcome, probably the highest probability outcome, is that government will only end up spreading the costs of these policies among all citizens and inhabitants and focusing the benefits of the government’s action upon those who are supporters of the politically powerful, like the CEO of Solyndra and Jeff Immelt and the union members of GM whose pension plans are still being funded while the common stockholders of GM lost their entire investment.
Let’s go a bit farther about the president’s idea of flat earthers. Flat earthers saw that the ground around them appeared to be flat, hence they reasoned that that flatness continued on ad infinitum. Was this rational? Yes. Was it correct? No.
The president and his ilk believe in macroeconomic planning. They know that people can make plans, like plans for a house, and that those plans usually work out, more or less. So, is it rational for them to believe that they can make a plan to achieve what is best for everyone in the country? I’d give them a very questionable yes on this only because not to do so would be too cynical even for me. Are they right about it though? No. Why are they wrong? There are several reasons. The first and easiest to understand is that the world is simply too complex to effectively plan for, because it has at its most simply understood level six billion moving parts. Beyond the sheer complexity of macroeconomic planning, how does Dr. Pennington see the effectiveness of government intervention in economic issues versus private decision-making?
I hope you’ve found the idea of public policy theory at least interesting if not wholly persuasive. The rest of Dr. Pennington’s talk at the Adam Smith conference in 2010 is on Youtube and I hope you’ll take a few minutes to become more familiar with these common sense theories.
*I do agree that there is a limited amount which the president can do to alter the pricing structure of gas at the pump for the near term. Interestingly, however, while the president as a candidate argued that what was necessary was a long term energy strategy to wean us off foreign sources of oil and increase use of green energy alternatives. at almost every turn this has meant that he has acted to slow down the development and exploitation of existing and newly discovered sources of hydrocarbon supply. Unfortunately (or it could be fortunately for the deficit) it appears that much of the potential for future exploitation and development is under government land or water over which the government has supervision and stands to make money. It is also curious that the president while at the same time touting his green energy strategy also touts the fact that he the US is actually producing more of its own energy resources than at any time in the last eight years due I might add to nothing of his doing. In fact his go slow strategy will only bear its own bitter fruit over the next half decade.
**Of course, Pres. Obama’s energy secretary Chu has previously been on record saying that he wants U.S. gasoline prices to increase until they reach those paid by the citizens of Western European nations, currently about $10 a gallon. In fact, the President himself has said that he doesn’t mind increasing gas prices, he just doesn’t want them to increase “too fast.”
Is there such a thing as a ‘secular morality?” Where does it come from? Is it something we vote on? Is it something we universally or nearly universally agree upon? Is this secular moral code something so important that someone could choose to die for it? Is secular morality something we can be compelled to act as if we agree with or do we just need to obey it? Is the highest and best secular moral value based in politics or the conscience? If it is politically based doesn’t secular morality amount simply to that which seems easiest or most appealing to the human animal? If these morals are politically arrived at can they be changed by a mere change in the political climate or by what party is in charge?
Assuming that secular morality is something we collectively agree upon politically, what should the government do to instill or enforce secular morality? This is an important question. Once secular morality is adopted, is it the proper role of government to see that these ‘morals’ are force-fed to our children thereby becoming self-reinforcing? In fact, a set of ‘secular morals’ are already being force fed to our children in government schools like the “moral” ideas about global climate change, virulent anti-capitalism, population control and Johnny having two dads. Similarly the government has already done for us what is apparently morally correct; things like levying a trade ban against South Africa to stop the clearly repugnant apartheid (I’m not saying that everything they do is bad), redistributing wealth from one set of U.S. citizens to others ‘who need it more’, the provision of abortion on demand and mandating that there be “health care” for all.
So, is population limitation a high tree or even the highest tree in the secular morality forest? This question is at the heart of the new administration policy requiring nearly all employers, including religiously related ones, to provide health insurance for their employees and in so doing provide “no cost” contraceptives, abortifacient drugs and sterilizations to their employees. In fairness to the government, in its most recent proposed regulation the government will only require ‘the insurers for religiously affiliated groups’ to provide these benefits for free and the insurers must do so without charging the religiously related institutional employers anything for it. This “compromise” supposedly takes advantage of the concept, expressed by the president’s new chief of staff, that the government will require(?) insurers to accept the profits generated by not having to pay for “accidental” pregnancies and that these profits/savings will more than offset the cost of the free “birth control.” If this concept, as explained by the chief of staff on last week’s Sunday public policy shows, is actuarially correct why would insurance companies, well known for finding profits anywhere they can, have failed to do this of their own accord already? Will this logic apply equally to all sorts of questionable “preventive care” for fertile women or are these other savings actually the money left from not having to pay for the medical care for 18 years after the birth of an unwanted child? What has this all to do with secular virtue and secular morality anyway? According to secular morality are children bad or good? Or is secular morality a situational morality based upon the perceived circumstances of the parents and/or the apparent desirability of the infant/fetus? Or is it choice itself which is the highest moral good in the secular moral universe? If so, why do we limit this choice to a time prior to birth? What about the choice to engage in sexual relations in the first place, isn’t this a choice? What is so ‘morally’ different about a newborn and a fetus which are both 32 weeks of age (from conception that is)? Morals are just such slippery things.
Next question: does the administration’s rule about free birth control to be provided by insurers impact the freedom of religion of Roman Catholics and other religiously motivated individuals? Whether they run religiously affiliated hospitals, social service agencies or educational institutions aren’t they moral actors? Under Catholic religious principles these people are required to refrain from participating in or providing abortions or contraceptives except in highly limited situations. Requiring participation in this sort of activity is an imposition upon the consciences of religiously motivated individuals who are responsible for these and any other health insurance-purchasing entities. And what of Roman Catholic insurers, the “compromise” unambiguously destroys these businesses altogether.
Next question: Is there any provision in the secular morality which provides for people’s religious rights? In response to press questions concerning this violation of the consciences of Catholics, Jay Carney clearly enunciated Obama administration policy, to wit: after “careful” consideration the administration decided that the secular morality of the “need” to increase the availability of preventative services to women outweighed the secular morality which protects religious consciences and that this is the right balance(?) to strike. How do you weigh the secular morality of allowing religious liberty versus the secular morality of actively providing free birth control to all who have any inclination to use it? Only one of these secular morals is embodied in the constitution. But the president clearly has decided that the one moral good is not as worthy as the other moral good. Doesn’t this kind of mean that the government is deciding between the ‘moral good,’ as defined through the political process, that of providing free birth control pills and abortifacients to women and the Catholic/Christian moral good of respecting the dignity of the life of every fetus/zygote.
Well that’s it I guess. “Private” conscience is one thing and will be “indulged” if there is no substantial impact on the achievement of important secular moral aims. In this context the secular moral objective is plainly to limit the procreation of American women (or it could be to increase the amount of sex which American men have available with a greatly reduced chance of unwanted parentage). Limitation of procreation is apparently a very high goal of this administration and its allies in Congress. On Wednesday a group of Democratic party senators made this public announcement.
Have we reached the point in this country where a secular code of morality has displaced religious morality? Is unfettered liberty rather than principled liberty the highest political and moral end?
Let me ask a couple more loaded question before I go. Is it not in your experience, as it is in mine, that it is men, not women, who are the more powerfully motivated in their desire for intercourse? If this is so, whose freedom are we really talking about, men’s or women’s? At this very moment in this country, women are able to exercise either their right “not to engage in intercourse” or alternatively to obtain free contraception from Planned Parenthood or elsewhere virtually any time. What is more free than that? And what of Sen. Boxer’s list of other conditions which contraceptives treat? Well, why should these drugs, even if they are contraceptives used to treat these conditions, be provided free of charge when the rest of us must pay at least the deductible for drugs which treat our illnesses and conditions? Methinks she doth protest too much!!!
In sum, we know that in this administration’s opinion the secular morality of women’s health (sexual freedom) trumps the first amendment’s requirement that the federal government not burden the people’s free exercise of their religion. I would propose that what we really know is that constitutional rights just aren’t what they used to be. Secular morality must be provided for somewhere in the penumbra of the bill of rights and, stupid me, I just failed to see it there. Has this secular moral code now actually reached the status of a state religion? If not, it seems to me that we are getting closer and closer to that point. If it has, what do you think is the difference between a religious moral code and the secular moral code in terms of the Establishment Clause of the first amendment to the U.S. Constitution, to wit:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion . . . .
As you may recall, I’m a big proponent of dialogue, civil dialogue, between people who disagree. I recently complimented Steven Attewell of the Realignment Project blog as a progressive willing to engage without labeling or demonizing his opposition. My idea that our current politics amounts to nothing more than a clash of tightly held world views underlies much of my thinking and my advocacy of a more civil dialogue.
Today on the Bill Moyers program, Moyers and Company, we were introduced to a bright social psychology scholar named Jon Haidt, Ph.D. of UVA’s Department of Psychology. I am impressed and amazed that Moyers invited him. I am impressed and amazed that Moyers conducted the interview with a general air of civility and without obvious (other than his facial expressions) rancor.*
I’ve got to say that I await Haidt’s book, “The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion,” with much anticipation. Anyone who espouses the twin ideas that human beings are are all hypocrites and that the human brain is first and foremost a rationalization generator, has my attention. Moyers almost swallowed his tongue when Haidt said that we should stop idealizing his holy ‘reason.’This interview with Moyers just whetted my appetite for more.
By the way, here’s a link to Haidt’s home page if you care to look into this guy and it appears to contain a link to the Moyers interview.
See Haidt’s homepage at: http://people.virginia.edu/~jdh6n/.
At the end of the interview Haidt expresses some pessimism with our ability to make political changes which would encourage a more civil dialogue. He points to the practical difficulty of changing systemic electoral mechanisms in a world where both parties have incentives for keeping them as is. Nevertheless he pronounces two prescriptions to improve our present political situation which we can individually adopt. First he recommends that we, as a matter of personal morality, refuse to demonize or to impugn the motivations of those who oppose us on policy grounds. Second he suggests that we develop a complete intolerance for political corruption, whether it be on our own side or on an opponent’s side. We need to abandon the idea that, “Sure he’s a scoundrel but he’s our scoundrel.” Who knows but this could even bring an end to the truthfulness of the common Washington quip, “If you want a friend, get a dog.” I couldn’t agree more strongly with Haidt’s proposals. If the book lives up to the promise of the interview, I hope that people across the spectrum of ideas and ideologies will really listen to him and internalize his ideas.
*There was one moment during which Moyers could not keep himself from demonizing Republicans. Haidt was using the recent conflict over raising the debt limit to characterize the difficulty the parties had in reaching a compromise over the debt ceiling. Haidt was explaining that there are certain things which have been “sacrilized” (made sacred) for each of the parties. In posing a question about this situation, Moyers described it in this manner: “So John Boehner and the Republicans find it immoral to compromise and President Obama finds it immoral not to compromise.” This was hardly Haidt’s point, but I think that it was a stark shaft of light illuminating the interior of the Moyers brain.
In the last few years the term “American Exceptionalism” has come to the political forefront. As with any other term which moves into the political arena, it takes on the character of a political football. Whoever can define it in the public mind has control of the football. In preparing to run for the presidency Newt Gingrich wrote an entire book about it. In his introduction Mr. Gingrich describes the idea like this:
Belief in American Exceptionalism leads inevitably to smaller, more effective, accountable and limited government. The American Revolutionaries did not shed their blood for the welfare state; nor did they aim to replace the arbitrary rule of King George . . . with their own oppressive bureaucracy. Instead they fought for individual liberty–that made America an exception among all other nations.
But this individual liberty which Next speaks of is not altogether clear since it is likewise a term carrying a lot of political weight. To some people, like the President of the United States, I believe that liberty is merely a synonym for fairness which is the least clear term I can imagine.
As to his own idea of the meaning of American Exceptionalism, the President has said that he, as an American, believes in American Exceptionalism,
. . . just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism, and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism.
A less than clear exposition but clearly not in agreement with Mr. Gingrich’s view, I believe it is fair to say, since it seems to deprecate the very concept of exceptionalism itself.
First, Mr. Gingrich.
Then, President Obama.
I would like to tell you what I think about the source of the American Exceptionalism. I will start where our exceptionalism started, with the founding of the country. Our country was born in a war which was declared by a Continental Congress. A formal body of men elected by their peers from the 13 American colonies. In this elected Continental Congress effectively resided, in the minds of the people, the sovereignty of the American people. This elected congress appointed the officers to serve in its continental army, it declared the independence of itself and its constituent colonies and it appointed ambassadors and other officials to effect its will. It was not an army with a political arm but a civilian political entity with an army. The army, and its commander in chief reported to Congress and was expected to serve Congress. At the conclusion of the war the commander in chief resigned his commission to the Continental Congress and went home to Mount Vernon. This view of the role of civilian versus military power was thus established in the United States But why? Why was it that General Washington effectively bowed to the civilian government of the United States? The underlying thought process on the part of all concerned flowed naturally from the general view in the colonies as to the proper role of governmental power, including military power, in the country and an implicit agreement as to the ends it should serve. The result of these views was a Declaration of Independence which is one of the most elegant documents in all history especially when you understand that it was drafted by a committee and submitted to a vote. It acknowledged, as it must have, both unalienable rights of the people and the ultimate purpose of government itself, which was to secure those rights to the people. It further acknowledged that governments derive their just powers through the consent of this people, in this context — those who are governed. This was from the beginning in the DNA of the country, not because of the words chosen by Jefferson and Franklin and Adams et al, but because of innate characteristics and opinions held by the majority of the American people.
The next step in the creation of our country was the drafting and adoption of the United States Constitution. Every state had input into the drafting of the constitution. After it was drafted and available for all to read and digest, every state had a choice as to whether or not to adopt or reject the constitution. The notes of the convention kept by James Madison show the full range of the debate in the convention. And let me tell you something else about the ratification which you may not know. Each state selected the members for the ratifying conventions of the states. It was not a decision made by the state legislatures, bodies of general jurisdiction, but was made by a group of people selected for the sole purpose of adopting or rejecting the constitution as drafted.
Some states withheld their ratification until they received a promise that a bill of rights protecting individual and institutional rights from national interference would be added to the seven articles which outline and constitute our form of government. Once again, consent, not force, was the basis of the decision of how the country was to be governed and the decision to join the government by each of the states. The oath of office for officers of the government specified that it was the constitution, the form of government, that was to be upheld and protected by those officers. There was no dividing line recognized between the constitution and the nation itself. And since the constitution was the law of the land, which could be read and understood by every one of its citizens, we became a nation ruled by laws and not by men. This constitution and the history behind it became part of the DNA of the country.
The requirement that the consent of the governed was necessary in order to legitimate the government was a third element of the DNA of this country. And the model of government which they chose was a constitutional republic, a style of government providing through that constitution for protection of the rights of people and institutions through the separation of powers, the bill of rights and use of enumerated powers describing the functions to be undertaken by the national government.
This process of adopting a national constitution was a reflection of the character of the American people. The end product, which was adopted by the ratifying conventions of all 13 states, was a roadmap for how the future consent of the governed was to be obtained. Hence the people, those in whom the declaration of independence acknowledged the power to form governments as well as to change or abolish them, rested, created a government like no other for the United States of America through adoption of the constitution and the bill of rights.
What does this all have to do with American Exceptionalism, you may ask?
American Exceptionalism in my opinion, is very much about where the remaining power lies after a part of the power has been ceded to the government. The power which was not ceded to the government by the people continues to lie in the hands of the people themselves. This fact is embodied in the tenth amendment to the constitution, the last of the bill of rights. That is the most important element of the idea of American Exceptionalism. The people have ceded only so much power to the government as is necessary in order to establish peace and the rule of law so as to permit them, the people of the United States, to govern their own affairs as they see fit. This, rather than the idea of government by elected legislators and officers, is the idea behind “self government.” Self government is often misunderstood as the idea of being able to vote into office those who we believe should be there so that they can govern us under the fiction that we are acting through them. This, in my view, is not the main point of self-government. Self-government, correctly understood, is the idea that we citizens, acting within the law and in reliance upon the guidance of our own consciences, retain the right to govern our own individual affairs. We remain the sovereigns or governors of ourselves. This does not mean anarchy, far from it. it means that the people are entitled to pursue what they desire in the context of a free and civil society. Of course, as John Adams observed,
Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.
As such our churches, the ones which the government was to stay out of pursuant to the terms of the first amendment, have been, to a great extent, the voluntary “re-education camps” required in a free country for it to exist and prosper. This concept of self government, coupled with personal restraint, which I believe flowed from a well-spring deep in the hearts of the American people from the very founding of our country, is the source of the concept underlying the term ‘American Exceptionalism.’
Tonight’s the big night. A joint session of Congress and the President will present (at least part of) a plan to create more jobs to reduce the 9.? unemployment rate. Is the air electric with anticipation? Well, uhuh, it’s not, unless you mean about the NFL opener between the last two Super Bowl champs, the Packers and Saints, which will start shortly after the President leaves the speaker’s podium.
What’s happening? It’s just another chance for the President to get on TV and use his teleprompter jiujitsu on his opponents. What will likely transpire is an announcement that there is an exciting list of things which will receive federal money so that “we the people can have jobs.”
Afraid of the moniker that he’s just a big spending liberal, the President will “pay for” at least some of these expenses with “revenue enhancements” paid for by the people who still have a little money left in 2011. The President will seek to tax away any money that might have been “saved” and make sure that it is spent productively, as is always the federal way. Although the Republicans in Congress have already indicated their refusal to go along with this, the motive behind the plan is so that the President can say in his re-election bid that it is the Republican refusal to go along with his brilliant plan that is causing the continuing malaise in the economy. And, he and his surrogates will go on, the Republican refusal is because they love the “rich” so very much and don’t care about the poor unemployed. There will be no discussion about why the plan would have worked or whether there would have been some job losses to offset the job gains if he had gotten his way. It’s the perfect political plan, make it look like you’re trying to do something while making the other guy look like he’s resisting for political purposes, not economic ones. Same old playbook. It worked with the debate over increasing the national debt limit. The Tea Party label is permanently damaged and they got less than a 2% reduction in spending for the fiscal year beginning October 1. He made them pay a pretty high price for that hollow “victory.” Same plan, phase II.
The President, I predict, will not suggest increasing the capital gains or divident taxes on the very wealthy, he will target instead the upper middle class. Tiresome and predictable but it’s worked (politically) before. So why not again?
I know one thing for sure. Mr. Obama doesn’t understand or, perhaps, care about the TANSTAAFL rule. The TANSTAAFL rule provides that there is no such thing as a free lunch, someboy always has to pay. And the only interest group which he feels should not pay in order to build up the economy is the massive and growing government sector.
Coils of USPS Stamps - Courtesy USPS Website
The government does actually produce things but mostly not things that the public would pay for at the prices it charges. It uses either monopolies or taxes to corral the resources to make it run. If we don’t watch out, though, plans like President’s will create an entire country in the image of the U.S. Postal System. And that would be a helluva shame.
Last Monday the President of the United States blamed the debt ceiling impasse on the so-called Tea Party Caucus in the House of Representatives. Said Mr. Obama in his nationwide prime time televised address, they can be compared to a scattering of others before them who “held fast to rigid ideologies and who refused to listen to those who disagreed.” Here’s the segment of Mr. Obama’s address from which this quote was taken.
The Tea Party members, for their part, seem to be refusing to go along with a debt limit increase when the quid pro quo is Mr. Obama’s promise that there will be cuts, trust me. The Tea Party apparently asks for promised cuts and also Congressional approval of a balanced budget constitutional amendment which does not become law until it is adopted by 3/4 of the states.
In the view of the President, the rigid ones, the Tea Partyers, won’t be remembered for their ideological stand for less debt or a balanced budget amendment. Instead, according to Mr. Obama, the ones we should and do remember are those, supposedly like him I guess, who “put country above self . . . .” and who “. . . set personal grievances aside for the greater good.” This is nonsensical. The Tea Party has no animosity towards anyone. Most of the Tea Partyers are not even interested in being re-elected if they don’t achieve this goal. They want to balance the books. Plain and simple, their goal is to put this country on track to live within it’s means.
The public is apparently mad at the Tea Party. The public is, according to the polls, clamoring for a “compromise” which I think means simply that they want to go back to life as usual. Stop messing with the credit markets. A plague on both your houses. Stop threatening us with fewer benefits or more taxes. Just stop, stop, stop.
The people calling for compromise now are the same ones as those who called for compromise when Bill Clinton faced down a Republican Congress back in 1995. Clinton faced a Congress which wanted a significant change in the business of government as usual. This Congress, the first Republican Congress in 40 years, passed budgets with significantly lower budget deficits and no tax cuts. President Clinton, however, vetoed several of the budgets they passed and shut down the government before the Congress gave him what he liked. The ones we remember, President Obama says, are those who set aside pride and party to “form a more perfect union.” Mr. Clinton is, however, now widely revered and Mr. Gingrich, the leader of that Congress, is still largely reviled.
If the current situation is a replay of 1995 the Tea Party insurgents are playing the role of the fiscally conservative Republicans who came to Washington to cut the budget that year. The 1995 insurgents were pilloried in the press as being too extreme and in seeking to balance the budget on the backs of the poor. They just wanted to cut too much. Mr. Clinton shut down the government rather than give in to the Republican congress. In 1995 the people called for compromise, they just wanted to be left alone. And they got it and 16 years later we’re much worse off than we were then.
I think that President Clinton beat the 1995 Congress because we the people knew that the Congress was calling for something like austerity. Something like a balanced budget. Something which would change our cushy lives. We the people have reached the same point today only the Congress is divided. And the Tea Party holds a significant power base in only one chamber. We the people, however, want to go back to what we had before. We don’t want to be bothered by budget cuts and other revenue enhancements.
In 2011 when we answer our phones to talk to pollsters we say we want compromise. We act superior and tell them that we just want the politicians to act like adults!!! But we know, in our hearts, that what we really want is just business as usual. We’re happy to shoot the messenger. We wish to eat drink and be merry for tomorrow we may die!!! In the present case, as it was in 1995, the money we are spending will be paid back, after we die, by our children and grandchildren. We don’t want to cut the budget today or over the next eight years or ever for that matter. We avoid this because it will hurt. That is the bottom line. We the People aren’t really weary of the ‘ideological warfare’ between spenders and savers, we just don’t want to cut up the credit card just yet. We erroneously thought that we were willing to cut up the card when we elected fiscally concerned members in November of 1994 as well as in November of 2010. Now, when it comes to the pointy end of the spear or the sharp edge of the budget axe, we really just prefer not to change.
Unfortunately, either a minority like the Tea Party is going to need to hang tough and make us fix this although they’ll be acting in a throroughly undemocratic way. Or alternatively things will change when someone comes from the outside, like the rating agencies, and forces us to change. But we won’t believe that they will do it until they do do it. Until then we will continue to believe that we can be rich by collecting the printed dollar bills dropped from airplanes and helicopters. In fact if gold itself, all of a sudden, became as commonplace as paper, we couldn’t get rich by picking that up off the ground either. We will only stop when we have no ability to fool ourselves and stop looking to others to pay our bills. This, I think, is the meaning of what the rating agencies are telling us. They, the agencies, are just losing confidence in our willingness to be grown ups, and by that I mean somebody willing to cut back on their current expenses in order to pay the debts they incurred for goods and services previously provided. In the end we’ll get what we deserve unless we decide to support this strange ideology which believes that we need to pay our own bills now and stop putting the hard things off.
This is what Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D – Tex) says about Republicans who disagree that raising the borrowing limit of the federal government is a good idea no strings attached. To my mind she labels it as outright racism.
Is she in disagreement with Hillary Clinton on the right to debate and disagree with an administration? While it is possibly true that Hillary was overstating her own opinion while stating that we all, as Americans, have a right to disagree with any administration, to wit:
I could use the word hypocritical in relation to Lee’s outburst but as I’ve said in an earlier post, just because a person acts hypocritically does not make her wrong. Unfortunately, other than pointing out the idea that the forces against raising the debt limit have aligned during the term of President Obama as never before, she provides no detail about her reasoning. Therefore, it is hard to assess the correctness of her charge as a matter of fact. Without more we’re left with a charge unsupported by any evidence other than half the race of the current president. I wonder what Rep. West (R -FL) would have to say about the charge of racism in regard to his own vehement opposition to the president’s proposed policy regarding the debt ceiling?
Left in the air is a salient question. Why would people choose to disagree with a president over a budget issue solely in relation to the president’s race? I just can’t see it no matter how hard I try. Perhaps if Rep. Lee provided more background, like Rep. Clyburn did when he went after Sarah Palin in the wake of the Arizona shooting in January, we’d have more to go on. As it is though I am unable to determine whether there is an issue of different worldviews in this matter, as was the case with Clyburn’s charge which I addressed here, or whether this is just an instance of a powerful federal politician harshly speaking out against political opponents. In the last analysis it appears to me that Lee may very well just be in disagreement with Hillary Clinton on a fundamental issue of rights. She may disagree that all Americans have the right to disagree and debate with a black president if the history of their group (a group of nearly all white Republicans) somehow makes them suspect of having done so purely on racial grounds.
In an interesting twist, given her own race, it is theoretically possible that Rep. Lee is agreeing with the president solely on the basis of identity politics and therefore is actually the pot calling the kettle black (relax, this is just a saying not a negative comment on Lee’s or Obama’s race). Without more information it’s hard to know what the truth is on the matter. It is not hard, however, to label Lee’s position, stated as it was on the floor of the House of Representatives, as intolerant!!!! In fact in the future, every time I hear a charge of racism being made without the necessary groundwork having been laid by the person levelling the charge, my response will be an equally impassioned – “your intolerance is showing!!!!” How is that for a progressive comeback?
Why is it so difficult to find good leadership for those who seek less federal government intervention in and control of our lives?
”]
I think that this difficulty is at least partly due to the mind-set of people who adhere to the viewpoint that America would be a better place with a reduced intervention by all facets of the federal government. Such a person firmly believes in both the efficacy and the primacy of individual action over collective action. Therefore, such a person is motivated by his or her personal wish to be free to engage in those acts they deem worthy and efficacious for themselves as well as for the discharge of their responsibilities to the rest of mankind. They prefer to take responsibility to do things and do not want “government” either to preempt their action or siphon away the resources which they could use to accomplish their own view of the bettement of things. They want to be left alone to act personally and responsibly. They look at governmental intervention and its implied threat of force as disrespectful of the individual rights and abilities of both themselves and their neighbors. They do not seek governmental power to compel actions by other people. They would choose to use that power in very limited and constrained areas of life. What would motivate a believer in such philosophy to seek to enter high government office in the first place?
The very difficulty posed by this question is the fundamental flaw with finding leadership from among those claiming to be adherents to this philosophy. No one who prefers individual action to collective action sees their calling in seeking high office in order to use governmental coercion to achieve their vision. By definition they prefer personal action. Indeed they are suspicious of collective action which can only come into being through the coercive powers of government.
For the reason that a true adherent to this philosophy would seek nothing or nearly nothing from being in charge of the Federal government, only a sense of self-sacrifice is capable of motivating such a person, a believer in the primacy of individual action, to undertake leadership of the federal government’s power. George Washington was such a man and probably the only one in the history of the republic. He showed the spirit of sacrifice in his willingness to serve as the first President. The first few sentences of the First Inaugural Address clearly indicate his preference for individual action and his willingness to sacrifice personally for the benefit of his country as well as his profound humility given the task at hand:
Fellow-Citizens of the Senate and of the House of Representatives:
AMONG the vicissitudes incident to life no event could have filled me with greater anxieties than that of which the notification was transmitted by your order, and received on the 14th day of the present month. On the one hand, I was summoned by my country, whose voice I can never hear but with veneration and love, from a retreat which I had chosen with the fondest predilection, and, in my flattering hopes, with an immutable decision, as the asylum of my declining years—a retreat which was rendered every day more necessary as well as more dear to me by the addition of habit to inclination, and of frequent interruptions in my health to the gradual waste committed on it by time. On the other hand, the magnitude and difficulty of the trust to which the voice of my country called me, being sufficient to awaken in the wisest and most experienced of her citizens a distrustful scrutiny into his qualifications, could not but overwhelm with despondence one who (inheriting inferior endowments from nature and unpracticed in the duties of civil administration) ought to be peculiarly conscious of his own deficiencies.
Washington himself, a person who had risked everything to obtain independence for his country and liberty for it’s people, clearly felt himself inadequate to the office of first President of the United States. When approached he wanted nothing more than to be left alone to pursue his own private affairs at Mount Vernon. Nevertheless his heeded the call of his country and agreed to serve it once again. Upon leaving office he significantly remarked to his successor, John Adams, “[y]ou are fairly in and I am fairly out, let’s see which one of us will be happiest.”
How different the idea of “government service” has now become. The loftiness of the idea of sacrifice which was Washington’s idea has now been replaced by the idea, famously expressed by the Washington Post’s late columnist, David Broder, that ‘anyone willing to do what it takes to run for the presidency is automatically unfit for the highest office in the land.’ The idea of sacrifice has grown passe and in it’s place, at least according to the venerable and experienced Broder, has arisen the idea of a willingness to be debased in order to achieve presidential power. What would lead a person to debase themselves in this way in order to achieve something which requires, according to Washington, a separation from that which is personally most pleasing, minding to one’s own business? This drive, given the necessity of being debased, is fueled by human pride. This pridefulness is the belief that they are capable of doing great things if only given the reins of presidential power. The power to force others to submit to their will. For instance, President Obama expressed his own ideas about presidential power unabashedly:
This is why finding good and worthy leadership for the “less is more” crowd is so difficult. Lord Acton observed that:
Liberty and good government do not exclude each other; . . . there are excellent reasons why they should go together. Liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest political end.
He did not, however, explain how to find people to lead a government which values the individual action perpetuated by liberty over the type of collective action perpetuated by the coercion. Such people are the ones to whom the use of power against people who have not harmed them is distasteful even when necessary. This is especially so when the price to be paid for seeking presidential power is personal debasement and that goal, the power, is not sought after for it’s own use but only in order to deny it’s use to another for his time in office.
Given these circumstances it is not surprising that the selection of a candidate must be done with one’s nose held tightly shut and is among a group of politicians who are, because the nature of politics, only partly of the same a mind.
Remember when President Obama, last week, said in a press conference that in the middle of the decade his budget would have us to a point where we would no longer be adding to the deficit? Halleleujah!! Unfortunately, it is indisputable that the Obama budget never once comes close to matching income and outflow. The following is how the President’s new press secretary explained it, and did it without backing down an inch from what the President said:
This is an example of avoiding a plain mathematical truth through application of obfuscation and is just plain tomfoolery. It is true that:
In war, truth is the first casualty. Aeschylus Greek tragic dramatist (525 BC – 456 BC) .
But our politicians, for purposes other than war, have seemed to take this adage and placed it at the service of their intramural debates and elections. This is not a difference of worldviews, a topic often explored by this blog, with it’s attendant differences in context, language and emphasis created by differing worldviews. This is an example of a simple lack of candor. In no one’s world should this be okay. This is not an issue of context, of language or emphasis. It is just not true.
This also gives us a little taste of how we’ll be treated in the upcoming social security debates. An example of this was delivered by a group of Democrat Senators about 30 days ago. These Senators explained that the Republicans are in favor of ‘privatizing’ social security and that social security can pay every dollar of benefits for the next 27 years and that social security is actuarially sound among other important things.
I am unsure whether there have been any post-Bush Republican proposals for “privatizing” social security but I am certain that there is a big problem with calling social security “actuarially sound” and explaining that it has the resources to pay benefits for 27 years without any changes without further explanation. It is a bit like the President’s news conference when he suggested that in 2015 his budget will be balanced and his press secretary had to spin and spin the point until he was dry.
What is the truth? The truth is that in 2011 current social security benefits will exceed current social security taxes. How can it be that social security is “actuarially sound” or able to pay every penny of benefits for the next 27 years without any changes and yet social security has now started to pay out more in benefits than it receives in taxes? Are the Republicans ginning up lies? Are the Democrats now having to courageously put a stop it?
Well, the truth is that the social security system will need to call on non-social security tax revenues in order to pay the difference between current social security benefits and current social security taxes for the foreseeable future. It is a fact that this began in FY 2010. There is no end in sight. Since this is undeniably true, what do the Democrat Senators mean by saying that social security can pay every penny of benefits for the next 27 years? These Senators are only saying that the general tax revenues which are going to have pay the social security benefits will not be used to do so directly, they are saying that something else will happen between cup and lip. What will happen, however, is only on the books of the Social Security Administration. The government’s general revenues will, instead, be used to pay off some of the IOU’s which have been piling up in the SSA for 27 years. The general revenue funds which have redeemed the IOU’s will then be used to pay current social security benefits. In this way there will be two stops for these dollars, not one. The dollars will change status from general revenues to the proceeds from paying off the IOU’s. The net effect will be nothing, zero.
Do you remember the old pragmatic-sounding “pay as you go” Unified government budgets which began in 1983. Under the Unified budget social security taxes were used to pay-as-you-go for non-social security government programs. The surplus between social security outlays and expenditures in those years was used to make the federal budget deficit look smaller or the budget surplus look larger, including during the years of Mr. Clinton’s magic “budget surpluses” of FY 1998, 99 and 2000. See the chart below for a graphic example of what was going on.
For instance, as the chart shows, in FY 2000 approximately $200 billion was added to the trust fund as a result of this social security surplus. The accumulated surplus is what the Democratic Party’s Senators are actually talking about in terms of the “solvency” and “actuarial soundness” of the program. The existence of these IOU’s will not lessen the difficulty and the reality of coming up with the difference between the social security taxes and the social security benefits to pay retirees on an ongoing year to year basis.
This is a fact that everyone needs to know so that when politicians deny that social security amounts to a fiscal problem at the present time, you’ll know that they are trying to tell you something about accounting, not about reality. Because the general tax revenues will first be used to pay off the IOU’s which the SSA has been accumulating in it’s filing cabinets before being used to pay benefits doesn’t make a hill of beans to the painful reality that somebody will have to pay the bill.
Oh and by the way, as to the partisan politics of this. Control of Congress has been split almost evenly during the period since FY 1984 between Democrat and Republican. The presidency a bit more Republican at 16 years to 10. It should also be noted that during the legendary Clinton “budget surpluses” the Congress was Republican. In short, this not a partisan problem (notwithstanding the rather duplicitous grandstanding and fear-mongering by the Democratic Senators featured above) it’s a government problem. The only reason that the Social Security system didn’t collapse in the 1980’s, after nearly 40 years of Congressional control by the Democrats, the party whose Senators are now yoohooing about how the Republicans are all for putting granny out on the street, was because the government used it’s power to raise taxes not because it used it’s head to properly administer the taxes it had to fund the social security entitlement it had created!!!!!!
Short and Sweet Blog 