There is something very seductive about the Libertarian political ideal. It presents a system in which no one has to do anything that they don't want to do. Taxes are minimal, if they exist at all, and you don't have government always getting involved in your personal life. Drugs and prostitution would be legal, foreign wars and "police actions" would disappear, and everyone could just live their lives without undue interference.
Sounds lovely. But it is a total farce. There is nothing real about this utopian image, either in terms of the practical realities involved nor in terms of the moral rectitude that it tries to convey.
Let me state that again, more bluntly: There is nothing moral about Libertarian policies. In fact, Libertarianism is decidedly amoral.
Most people recognize that government just works better than private enterprise when it comes to certain things such as firefighting, police, education, national defense, and a whole host of other government-funded services that Libertarians would prefer to turn over to the private sector. Pragmatically speaking, Libertarianism just doesn't work, and has never worked, so there is no reason to believe that it ever will work. But that is a practical argument. My argument is that even if it could be done, implementing Libertarianism would give us as many moral problems as we face now, if not more.
The central Libertarian moral argument is that nothing should be illegal if it doesn't hurt anyone else, and no one should be compelled to do anything that they do not want to do. While I tend to agree with the former, the latter smacks of a disaffected teenager who feels too adult to be told what to do, but isn't adult enough to do those things anyway because that is what adults do -- without being told.
Here is the crux of my argument: Imagine you are walking along, minding your own business, and you notice that someone is in a locked cage and they cannot get out without help. Libertarianism would tell you that you are under no obligation to let the person out of the cage. You didn't put them there, so it isn't your responsibility to let them out. Of course, you could let them out, and a nice person would let them out, but you are under no obligation to be nice. You have a right to be an asshole, and compelling you to let that person out of the cage is no less an affront to your human dignity than it is for that person to be in a cage to begin with, and two wrongs do not make a right.
There is a certain appeal to this sort of argument, and it is a good one on many levels. However, as a society do we really think that one person's right to be an asshole is on the same level as another person's right to be free? If the only way to get that person out of the cage is to compel you to open the door, then I feel bad for your hurt dignity, but I will barely notice those feelings -- what with being overjoyed by the fact that an enslaved human has been set free.
Okay, so maybe that's just me. I can see how someone might not agree, that it is always wrong to compel someone to do something that he doesn't want to do. So let's make our analogy resemble life a bit more fully: Now, in addition to seeing a cage with a stranger inside of it, you also notice an electronic sign on the cage that shows you exactly how much money is being deposited into your bank account every day that this person is locked up. This may be news to you -- The "magical" appearance of that money was such an integral part of your reality that you never really noticed it, in the same way that we tend not to notice the oxygen that we breath every moment of the day. Okay, so you didn't know the true origin of all that money before, but now that you know the truth, would it still be morally acceptable to allow the person to remain imprisoned while you profit from their incarceration?
At this point, most people will acknowledge that a good moral compass would compel you to let the person out of the cage. Even the appearance of a conflict of interest should be enough to get any but the biggest assholes out there to let the poor man out of the cage. It's the only right thing to do. If someone tries to tell you that the only reason they didn't open the door is because they are not obligated to do so, they are only fooling themselves. The fact that they benefit from the man's continued incarceration is not just a happy (for them) coincidence; it is what makes the right to be an asshole so appealing in the first place.
In the real world, the analogy of the cage represents the institutional advantages that some people have that others do not. As a white, English-speaking, middle class, American, straight male, I pretty much have all of those advantages locked up, and I was quite precocious in this regard -- I had most of them under my belt before I even left the uterus! It would have been easy for me to miss just how good I have it, because I've never known anything else. People just let me do what I want to do most of the time, and if they don't, there is usually some reason for it that has nothing to do with the fact that I am white, English-speaking, middle class, American, straight, or male. This is the only reality I have personally known.
However, many of my friends of color have had a very different experience of life. Many of the doors that were wide open for me were at least partially closed to them, if not completely nailed shut. My life has not been easy, but how much harder would it have been if I had to expend extra effort just to overcome the obstacles presented by having a darker complexion, or "inside parts" instead of "outside parts"?
Although it took some work, at this point in my life I feel no guilt for having advantages that others do not. I did not give myself these advantages, that's just the nature of the playing field I was born into. I can only have real guilt or regret for the choices I have personally made, not those made by others long before I was born.
At the same time, however, the fact that I did not give myself these advantages does not give me free rein to abuse those advantages, or even to accept them without some consideration of the responsibilities that come with them. If I have advantages that I never had to work for, and others have disadvantages that they never did anything to deserve, then there is an imbalance. An amoral person wouldn't care, as long as he was on the winning side of that equation. But a moral person does care. A moral person wants everyone to have all the same great opportunities that he has had in life. A moral person does not turn a blind eye to the injustices served to his fellow human beings, no matter how far removed he is from the decisions that caused such injustices.
This is why Libertarianism is amoral -- it rails against any legislation that would address these institutional iniquities through programs such as welfare, affirmative action, social services, Pell grants, or any other publicly funded program designed to help the disadvantaged. For them, this is an involuntary confiscation of the money that they earned, and no positive use of that money can offset the fact that they were "robbed" of it in the first place.
What this worldview fails to consider is this: How much of that money were they able to earn thanks to the institutional power structures that favored them over others? This is an impossible question to answer in detail, but it still needs to be asked, because that's how we stay honest with ourselves. And if we are honest with ourselves, we must acknowledge that some effort must be put into neutralizing institutional advantages that lift some up by putting other people down. Until these iniquities no longer exist, and no longer present a danger of returning, Libertarian philosophies are -- in effect, if not intent -- little more than a smoke screen to protect the advantages of those already at the top. And there is nothing moral about that.
Saturday, November 3, 2012
Thursday, October 4, 2012
Mitt Romney: A Modern-Day Slave Owner
When I was a child, one of the first things I learned about American history is that we used to allow some people own other people. It was called "slavery," and it was abolished in the 19th century -- first by President Lincoln via the Emancipation Proclamation, and then more comprehensively through the 13th Amendment to our Constitution. From that time forth, any ownership of one person by another was illegal.
Except there is a loophole. What? A "loophole" in the ban against slavery, you ask? Yes, one large enough to drive a cotton gin through! It is enshrined in our Constitution, in the very Amendment that supposedly outlawed slavery. Here is the text of the 13th Amendment:
Section 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.
Section 2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.
Did you catch the exception to the no-slavery rule? Slavery "shall exist" as a punishment for crime, as long as the person in question has been "duly convicted."
What does this have to do with Presidential Candidate Mitt Romney? Well, we have a curious relationship between prisons and private corporations in America. Increasingly, states are turning their prisons over to private companies, who not only profit from the contracts themselves, but also profit from the forced labor of the prisoners they house (never mind the exorbitant rates they charge for a phone call to a loved one). So it's a good investment. And who do you think might have invested in such a grand scheme? That's right -- Presidential Candidate Mitt Romney.
"On August 26, 1998, BCPF [a Romney-owned company] acquired 5.21 percent of [Corrections Corporation of America] Realty Investors... By December 31, 1998, BCPF owned 7.13 percent of CCA Realty Investors" (http://crooksandliars.com/karoli/mitt-romneys-undisclosed-relationship-priva)
Once you peel back the layers of legal documents and shell companies, you have an entirely legal framework (the 13th Amendment) in which a person (Mitt Romney) can own other people (mostly dark-skinned), and profit from that ownership for the duration of their criminal sentence. Throw in the fact that our criminal code and the enforcement of our laws are skewed heavily against African-Americans and other minorities ("Black males have a 32% chance of serving time in prison at some point in their lives; Hispanic males have a 17% chance; white males have a 6% chance" ~Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2008), and you have a perfectly legal back door to modern day slavery.
To be fair, Candidate Romney did not own shares in CCA Realty Investors for very long. Filings show that all shares in CCA were sold sometime between January 8 and June 30, 1999 -- so less than a year in total. He wasn't looking to own people, he just didn't mind doing so for a time in pursuit of a quick buck.
Aside from the questions this raises about our legal code and how it is used to enslave and disenfranchise minorities and the poor, this adds a whole new wrinkle to the Presidential race, because according to Ancestry.com President Obama is most likely a descendent of an African-American slave -- not through his father, who was a Kenyan citizen, but through his (mostly) White mother.
In 2012, 147 years after slavery was officially "banned" in the United States, we have a Presidential election between a White former slave-owner, and dark-skinned, bi-racial, direct descendent of African-American slaves. Will wonders never cease?
Except there is a loophole. What? A "loophole" in the ban against slavery, you ask? Yes, one large enough to drive a cotton gin through! It is enshrined in our Constitution, in the very Amendment that supposedly outlawed slavery. Here is the text of the 13th Amendment:
Section 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.
Section 2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.
Did you catch the exception to the no-slavery rule? Slavery "shall exist" as a punishment for crime, as long as the person in question has been "duly convicted."
What does this have to do with Presidential Candidate Mitt Romney? Well, we have a curious relationship between prisons and private corporations in America. Increasingly, states are turning their prisons over to private companies, who not only profit from the contracts themselves, but also profit from the forced labor of the prisoners they house (never mind the exorbitant rates they charge for a phone call to a loved one). So it's a good investment. And who do you think might have invested in such a grand scheme? That's right -- Presidential Candidate Mitt Romney.
"On August 26, 1998, BCPF [a Romney-owned company] acquired 5.21 percent of [Corrections Corporation of America] Realty Investors... By December 31, 1998, BCPF owned 7.13 percent of CCA Realty Investors" (http://crooksandliars.com/karoli/mitt-romneys-undisclosed-relationship-priva)
Once you peel back the layers of legal documents and shell companies, you have an entirely legal framework (the 13th Amendment) in which a person (Mitt Romney) can own other people (mostly dark-skinned), and profit from that ownership for the duration of their criminal sentence. Throw in the fact that our criminal code and the enforcement of our laws are skewed heavily against African-Americans and other minorities ("Black males have a 32% chance of serving time in prison at some point in their lives; Hispanic males have a 17% chance; white males have a 6% chance" ~Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2008), and you have a perfectly legal back door to modern day slavery.
To be fair, Candidate Romney did not own shares in CCA Realty Investors for very long. Filings show that all shares in CCA were sold sometime between January 8 and June 30, 1999 -- so less than a year in total. He wasn't looking to own people, he just didn't mind doing so for a time in pursuit of a quick buck.
Aside from the questions this raises about our legal code and how it is used to enslave and disenfranchise minorities and the poor, this adds a whole new wrinkle to the Presidential race, because according to Ancestry.com President Obama is most likely a descendent of an African-American slave -- not through his father, who was a Kenyan citizen, but through his (mostly) White mother.
In 2012, 147 years after slavery was officially "banned" in the United States, we have a Presidential election between a White former slave-owner, and dark-skinned, bi-racial, direct descendent of African-American slaves. Will wonders never cease?
Thursday, February 16, 2012
An Answer to Candidate Ron Paul's Stance on the Birth Control Mandate
On February 13th, Representative Ron Paul released a "Weekly Update" regarding the Obama administration's birth control mandate policy. While Rep. Paul does not speak for all conservatives, this "Update" does seem fairly indicative of the religious conservative position. My response follows at the end:
Here is my response:
1) "Religious freedom always has been considered sacrosanct in this country. However, our federal bureaucracy increasingly forces Americans to subsidize behaviors they find personally abhorrent, either through agency mandates or direct transfer payments funded by tax dollars."
This is absolutely true, but that is the cost of living in a society with diverse beliefs, viewpoints, and priorities. I, for one, have a moral objection to the fact that we spend more on our military than the rest of the world combined. Roughly half of my income taxes go toward defense spending, and I object to that. I am also not the only one. But I accept the fact that I only get one vote, and sometimes I am going to be over-ruled. What religious employers will have to pay for their employees to get birth control is a tiny fraction of the money spent on the military, so I really don't feel bad for those who feel like their religious beliefs are being violated by this mandate. Refund me all the money I've lost to the cause of pointless wars, and then maybe we can talk.
2) "Proponents also do not understand that a refusal to subsidize those activities does not mean the employer is "denying access" to healthcare. If employers don't provide free food to employees, do we accuse them of starving their workers?"
No, we don't. That's because progressives and labor unions fought long and hard to force employers to pay a living wage to all of their employees. If an employer didn't pay their employees at least the minimum wage (which badly needs updating!), they would be subject to fines and civil litigation. The cost of basic healthcare is also supposed to be included in a "living wage," but over the years healthcare has become too expensive for many workers, and access to birth control is a vital component of one's health. The birth control mandate addresses this deficiency.
3) "In truth this mandate has nothing to do with healthcare, and everything to do with the abortion industry and a hatred for traditional religious values. Obamacare apologists cannot abide any religious philosophy that promotes large, two parent, nuclear, heterosexual families and frowns on divorce and abortion."
This is so false and inflammatory that it barely dignifies a response, but a response is needed nonetheless. First of all, with greater access to birth control comes a reduction in the number of abortions, so if there were an "abortion industry" special interest, it would be fighting against greater access to birth control, not supporting it. If everyone who didn't want children actually used birth control properly, the "abortion industry" would lose countless paying customers. As such, those who truly object to abortions should applaud an administration that champions this mandate.
Second, I cannot think of a single public figure or personal friend who actually hates traditional religious values; what they object to is the tendency of zealous religious conservatives to try to impose their religious beliefs on everyone else. When I say, "You can't tell me what to do with my body," I am not saying, "I hate your values," I am saying, "You can't tell me what to do with my body." If you don't like that, tough. Because you can't tell me what to do with my body. It's in the Constitution. Religious liberals really, truly, absolutely do not care what you do with your religious values, as long as you recognize where your values' influence should end and where ours should begin. As such, I draw a bright red line around the healthcare choices that affect me, not you. If your morals are offended, I am truly sorry, but on balance I think it would be better for the government to offend your morals than for the government to give employers the ability to come between women and their doctors when it comes to their healthcare decisions, because you can get over being offended but an unwanted child cannot "get over" being born.
4) "Because the political class hates these values, it feels compelled to impose—by force of law—its preferred vision of society: single parents are noble; birth control should be encouraged at an early age; and abortion must be upheld as an absolute moral right."
Again, no political figure "hates" traditional values, they just don't think such values should be imposed on those who don't share them. This includes the employees of religiously owned institutions. Why doesn't Rep. Paul care about the religious beliefs of those who are most affected by these policies, including the 98% of Catholic women who use birth control? Sometimes a policy question comes up, and there is no way to make everyone happy. Exempting churches but not their secular affiliates is an appropriate way to balance all the conflicting values and priorities - not a way to express hatred of traditional values. If Obama truly hated traditional values, he could have tried to include churches in the mandate, but he didn't. He tried to find the "line of best fit," but religious conservatives don't want a compromise, they want victory.
And by the by, although no one is promoting single-parent households (another canard promoted by the Right), single parents are noble - in countless cases, they are raising a child by themselves with little to no support while the other person who created the child has abandoned his or her responsibilities. Also, responsible birth control should be encouraged as soon as someone becomes sexually active, and since we cannot control every moment of a hormone-addled teenager's life, it is far better to teach them responsible sexual expression than it is to pretend that we can control their behavior. Just ask Sarah Palin about her experience in this area. And while abortion may or may not be an absolute moral right, it is an absolute, Constitutionally-guaranteed legal right, as interpreted by the Constitutionally-empowered Supreme Court for several decades now.
5) "But Catholic hospitals face the existential choice of obeying their conscience and engaging in civil disobedience, or closing their doors because government claims the power to force them to violate the teachings of their faith."
They can also choose to obey the law. I'm sure it would be nice to live in a world where only one set of values exists, but we don't live in that world. If they would rather stop healing the sick or teaching our youth than to live in a morally ambiguous world, that is their choice, but they can only retreat from our increasingly interdependent world for so long before they will eventually have to confront the fact that not everyone is going to conform to their ideas about how life "should be." And given that 98% of Catholic women have used birth control, I'm not sure how this mandate is their most pressing existential challenge.
6) "The First Amendment guarantee of religious liberty is intended to ensure that Americans never have to put the demands of the federal government ahead of the their own conscience or religious beliefs. This new policy turns that guarantee on its head. The benefits or drawbacks of birth control are not the issue. The issue is whether government may force private employers and private citizens to violate their moral codes simply by operating their businesses or paying their taxes."
Again, it would be nice if we lived in a world where the government never had to take sides in a debate between its heterogeneous populations, but we do not live in that world. Again, I point to the fact that my conscience and my spiritual/religious beliefs are being violated every time the federal government allocates obscene amounts of money to the military.
Finally, you may not like the fact that the benefits of widely available birth control are a part of this debate (benefits that include a reduction in the overall number of abortions, so why is this even an problem for the religious Right?), but that doesn't mean that you can unilaterally declare that this is not the issue or shouldn't be a part of the discussion. You have your reasons for your position on the matter, and we have our reasons for our side of it. Telling me that my reasons are invalid will get you no further in this debate than I would get if I told you that your religious convictions are "not the issue."
Many religious conservatives understandably are upset with the latest Obamacare mandate, which will require religious employers (including Catholic employers) to provide birth control to workers receiving healthcare benefits. This mandate includes certain birth control devices that are considered abortifacients, like IUDs and the "morning after" pill.
Of course Catholic teachings forbid the use of any sort of contraceptive devices, so this rule is anathema to the religious beliefs of Catholic employers. Religious freedom always has been considered sacrosanct in this country. However, our federal bureaucracy increasingly forces Americans to subsidize behaviors they find personally abhorrent, either through agency mandates or direct transfer payments funded by tax dollars.
Proponents of this mandate do not understand the gravity of forcing employers to subsidize activities that deeply conflict with their religious convictions. Proponents also do not understand that a refusal to subsidize those activities does not mean the employer is "denying access" to healthcare. If employers don't provide free food to employees, do we accuse them of starving their workers?
In truth this mandate has nothing to do with healthcare, and everything to do with the abortion industry and a hatred for traditional religious values. Obamacare apologists cannot abide any religious philosophy that promotes large, two parent, nuclear, heterosexual families and frowns on divorce and abortion. Because the political class hates these values, it feels compelled to impose—by force of law—its preferred vision of society: single parents are noble; birth control should be encouraged at an early age; and abortion must be upheld as an absolute moral right.
So the political class simply tells the American people and American industry what values must prevail, and what costs much be borne to implement those values. This time, however, the political class has been shocked by the uproar to the new mandate that it did not anticipate or understand.
But Catholic hospitals face the existential choice of obeying their conscience and engaging in civil disobedience, or closing their doors because government claims the power to force them to violate the teachings of their faith. This terrible imposition has resonated with many Americans, and now the Obama administration finds itself having to defend the terrible cultural baggage of the anti-religious left.
Of course many Catholic leaders originally supported Obamacare because they naively believe against all evidence that benign angels in government will improve medical care for the poor. And many religious leaders support federal welfare programs generally without understanding that recipients of those dollars can use them for abortions, contraceptives, or any number of activities that conflict deeply with religious teachings. This is why private charity is so vitally important and morally superior to a government-run medical system.
The First Amendment guarantee of religious liberty is intended to ensure that Americans never have to put the demands of the federal government ahead of the their own conscience or religious beliefs. This new policy turns that guarantee on its head. The benefits or drawbacks of birth control are not the issue. The issue is whether government may force private employers and private citizens to violate their moral codes simply by operating their businesses or paying their taxes.
Here is my response:
1) "Religious freedom always has been considered sacrosanct in this country. However, our federal bureaucracy increasingly forces Americans to subsidize behaviors they find personally abhorrent, either through agency mandates or direct transfer payments funded by tax dollars."
This is absolutely true, but that is the cost of living in a society with diverse beliefs, viewpoints, and priorities. I, for one, have a moral objection to the fact that we spend more on our military than the rest of the world combined. Roughly half of my income taxes go toward defense spending, and I object to that. I am also not the only one. But I accept the fact that I only get one vote, and sometimes I am going to be over-ruled. What religious employers will have to pay for their employees to get birth control is a tiny fraction of the money spent on the military, so I really don't feel bad for those who feel like their religious beliefs are being violated by this mandate. Refund me all the money I've lost to the cause of pointless wars, and then maybe we can talk.
2) "Proponents also do not understand that a refusal to subsidize those activities does not mean the employer is "denying access" to healthcare. If employers don't provide free food to employees, do we accuse them of starving their workers?"
No, we don't. That's because progressives and labor unions fought long and hard to force employers to pay a living wage to all of their employees. If an employer didn't pay their employees at least the minimum wage (which badly needs updating!), they would be subject to fines and civil litigation. The cost of basic healthcare is also supposed to be included in a "living wage," but over the years healthcare has become too expensive for many workers, and access to birth control is a vital component of one's health. The birth control mandate addresses this deficiency.
3) "In truth this mandate has nothing to do with healthcare, and everything to do with the abortion industry and a hatred for traditional religious values. Obamacare apologists cannot abide any religious philosophy that promotes large, two parent, nuclear, heterosexual families and frowns on divorce and abortion."
This is so false and inflammatory that it barely dignifies a response, but a response is needed nonetheless. First of all, with greater access to birth control comes a reduction in the number of abortions, so if there were an "abortion industry" special interest, it would be fighting against greater access to birth control, not supporting it. If everyone who didn't want children actually used birth control properly, the "abortion industry" would lose countless paying customers. As such, those who truly object to abortions should applaud an administration that champions this mandate.
Second, I cannot think of a single public figure or personal friend who actually hates traditional religious values; what they object to is the tendency of zealous religious conservatives to try to impose their religious beliefs on everyone else. When I say, "You can't tell me what to do with my body," I am not saying, "I hate your values," I am saying, "You can't tell me what to do with my body." If you don't like that, tough. Because you can't tell me what to do with my body. It's in the Constitution. Religious liberals really, truly, absolutely do not care what you do with your religious values, as long as you recognize where your values' influence should end and where ours should begin. As such, I draw a bright red line around the healthcare choices that affect me, not you. If your morals are offended, I am truly sorry, but on balance I think it would be better for the government to offend your morals than for the government to give employers the ability to come between women and their doctors when it comes to their healthcare decisions, because you can get over being offended but an unwanted child cannot "get over" being born.
4) "Because the political class hates these values, it feels compelled to impose—by force of law—its preferred vision of society: single parents are noble; birth control should be encouraged at an early age; and abortion must be upheld as an absolute moral right."
Again, no political figure "hates" traditional values, they just don't think such values should be imposed on those who don't share them. This includes the employees of religiously owned institutions. Why doesn't Rep. Paul care about the religious beliefs of those who are most affected by these policies, including the 98% of Catholic women who use birth control? Sometimes a policy question comes up, and there is no way to make everyone happy. Exempting churches but not their secular affiliates is an appropriate way to balance all the conflicting values and priorities - not a way to express hatred of traditional values. If Obama truly hated traditional values, he could have tried to include churches in the mandate, but he didn't. He tried to find the "line of best fit," but religious conservatives don't want a compromise, they want victory.
And by the by, although no one is promoting single-parent households (another canard promoted by the Right), single parents are noble - in countless cases, they are raising a child by themselves with little to no support while the other person who created the child has abandoned his or her responsibilities. Also, responsible birth control should be encouraged as soon as someone becomes sexually active, and since we cannot control every moment of a hormone-addled teenager's life, it is far better to teach them responsible sexual expression than it is to pretend that we can control their behavior. Just ask Sarah Palin about her experience in this area. And while abortion may or may not be an absolute moral right, it is an absolute, Constitutionally-guaranteed legal right, as interpreted by the Constitutionally-empowered Supreme Court for several decades now.
5) "But Catholic hospitals face the existential choice of obeying their conscience and engaging in civil disobedience, or closing their doors because government claims the power to force them to violate the teachings of their faith."
They can also choose to obey the law. I'm sure it would be nice to live in a world where only one set of values exists, but we don't live in that world. If they would rather stop healing the sick or teaching our youth than to live in a morally ambiguous world, that is their choice, but they can only retreat from our increasingly interdependent world for so long before they will eventually have to confront the fact that not everyone is going to conform to their ideas about how life "should be." And given that 98% of Catholic women have used birth control, I'm not sure how this mandate is their most pressing existential challenge.
6) "The First Amendment guarantee of religious liberty is intended to ensure that Americans never have to put the demands of the federal government ahead of the their own conscience or religious beliefs. This new policy turns that guarantee on its head. The benefits or drawbacks of birth control are not the issue. The issue is whether government may force private employers and private citizens to violate their moral codes simply by operating their businesses or paying their taxes."
Again, it would be nice if we lived in a world where the government never had to take sides in a debate between its heterogeneous populations, but we do not live in that world. Again, I point to the fact that my conscience and my spiritual/religious beliefs are being violated every time the federal government allocates obscene amounts of money to the military.
Finally, you may not like the fact that the benefits of widely available birth control are a part of this debate (benefits that include a reduction in the overall number of abortions, so why is this even an problem for the religious Right?), but that doesn't mean that you can unilaterally declare that this is not the issue or shouldn't be a part of the discussion. You have your reasons for your position on the matter, and we have our reasons for our side of it. Telling me that my reasons are invalid will get you no further in this debate than I would get if I told you that your religious convictions are "not the issue."
Thursday, August 11, 2011
Freedom: Ownership vs. Stewardship
Any government that would take away the people's right to buy inefficient cars and light bulbs is a horrible, tyrannical institution. This is what we are hearing from those who oppose programs that would phase out SUV's and incandescent light bulbs.
Because somebody way back when must have died to give us those freedoms, right?
So what kind of freedom are we talking about? The freedom to make bad choices? Actually, yes, I believe that we do have and should have that freedom. This is why it's called a "democracy" (even though we actually live in a "republic"). But it is one thing to have the freedom to make mistakes; it is quite another to demand that we, as a nation, refuse to learn anything from the consequences of our mistakes.
So let's look at an analogy: Imagine a young man who goes to a bar, drinks too much, gets in a fight, and hits another man in the face. However, instead of merely bloodying his nose, that punch actually kills the man. Our young friend would now be held legally responsible for the murder of another human being - even though he never meant to kill anyone. He had the freedom to go to a bar and drink as much as he wanted, but when he abused that freedom and wound up killing someone, even though society gave him the freedom to drink at a bar, we still hold him responsible for how he uses that freedom, and he will spend some of the best years of his life behind bars. This is because we understand that when someone use their freedom in a way that harms others, the responsible and adult thing for society to do is to take away that freedom.
Similarly, if we look at the deadly effects of air pollution it is easy to see that we are all collectively drunk with dirty energy, and as a result, tens of thousands of people die of pollution-caused illnesses every year. It is a tragedy that we have gotten to a place where the very air we breathe is killing us, but it is unconscionable that we continue to do it, now that we know the causes and have available solutions. That some people call this kind of collective murder a "freedom" is an incredibly twisted understanding of freedom.
Of course, the modern idea of freedom has its roots in centuries of history, leading all the way back to the idea of personal property. For most people, owning personal property means that you not only have the right to use and profit from your land and possessions, but also to abuse and destroy them, if that is what you want to do. This is freedom without responsibility, ownership without stewardship, power with no regard for consequences.
What is so ironic is that such irresponsible behavior and rhetoric comes from members of the "Party of personal responsibility." Republicans have used this refrain to justify cutting and blocking aid for poor and minority citizens, the idea being that the onus of helping the poor falls on the poor themselves, that they should take responsibility for their lot in life, pull themselves up by the boot-straps, and "make it" in this great country of ours. But as we can see from the way those same Republicans eschew responsibility for the effects of old, inefficient, unnecessarily dirty technology, this mantra of "personal responsibility" is actually just a ploy to avoid taking any personal responsibility at all. Yes, the poor often shoot themselves in the foot when it comes to making the kinds of choices that will lift their economic prospects, but they also face daunting institutional disadvantages to coming out of poverty, institutions that disproportionately benefit those who are already well-off. Why don't conservatives take responsibility for the consequences their policies have on the poor? For the same reason they don't take responsibility for the consequences of the pollution they create - because they are not the Party of personal responsibility, they are the Party of responsibility-free wealth and ownership.
This is what we see over and over again from our friends on the Right. They want the "freedom" to get rich, buy what they want, pollute as much as they want, consume as much as they want, and never once have to deal with "job-killing regulations" or to think about the consequences their avarice might have on others. It would be easy to demonize these people and to look down our noses at them, but to my way of thinking, they actually hurt themselves as much as anyone else, for two reasons:
1) Someday, all of this irresponsible behavior will come back to bite them where the sun doesn't shine.
2) These people are the biggest slaves of them all - slaves to their own fears and desires. How can anyone be truly happy when their hearts are full of such rot? How disconnected from all that is good do you have to be before the freedom to pollute seems more important than a child's ability to breathe clean air?
This is why the freedom to abuse power and ownership isn't freedom at all, it is slavery to our worst instincts. True freedom comes from being connected to your own goodness and a desire to see others thrive, so when you come into possession of something, you act as its steward for the benefit of all, not its slave-master for your own selfish pursuits. And when we all act as stewards for the many blessings we've been given, we can spread those blessings to others - and others will spread their blessings to us, creating a kind of synergy that is impossible to create in a greed-centered world.
That is to say, in a world of universal stewardship, we all win; and in a world of personal ownership, we all eventually lose.
Because somebody way back when must have died to give us those freedoms, right?
So what kind of freedom are we talking about? The freedom to make bad choices? Actually, yes, I believe that we do have and should have that freedom. This is why it's called a "democracy" (even though we actually live in a "republic"). But it is one thing to have the freedom to make mistakes; it is quite another to demand that we, as a nation, refuse to learn anything from the consequences of our mistakes.
So let's look at an analogy: Imagine a young man who goes to a bar, drinks too much, gets in a fight, and hits another man in the face. However, instead of merely bloodying his nose, that punch actually kills the man. Our young friend would now be held legally responsible for the murder of another human being - even though he never meant to kill anyone. He had the freedom to go to a bar and drink as much as he wanted, but when he abused that freedom and wound up killing someone, even though society gave him the freedom to drink at a bar, we still hold him responsible for how he uses that freedom, and he will spend some of the best years of his life behind bars. This is because we understand that when someone use their freedom in a way that harms others, the responsible and adult thing for society to do is to take away that freedom.
Similarly, if we look at the deadly effects of air pollution it is easy to see that we are all collectively drunk with dirty energy, and as a result, tens of thousands of people die of pollution-caused illnesses every year. It is a tragedy that we have gotten to a place where the very air we breathe is killing us, but it is unconscionable that we continue to do it, now that we know the causes and have available solutions. That some people call this kind of collective murder a "freedom" is an incredibly twisted understanding of freedom.
Of course, the modern idea of freedom has its roots in centuries of history, leading all the way back to the idea of personal property. For most people, owning personal property means that you not only have the right to use and profit from your land and possessions, but also to abuse and destroy them, if that is what you want to do. This is freedom without responsibility, ownership without stewardship, power with no regard for consequences.
What is so ironic is that such irresponsible behavior and rhetoric comes from members of the "Party of personal responsibility." Republicans have used this refrain to justify cutting and blocking aid for poor and minority citizens, the idea being that the onus of helping the poor falls on the poor themselves, that they should take responsibility for their lot in life, pull themselves up by the boot-straps, and "make it" in this great country of ours. But as we can see from the way those same Republicans eschew responsibility for the effects of old, inefficient, unnecessarily dirty technology, this mantra of "personal responsibility" is actually just a ploy to avoid taking any personal responsibility at all. Yes, the poor often shoot themselves in the foot when it comes to making the kinds of choices that will lift their economic prospects, but they also face daunting institutional disadvantages to coming out of poverty, institutions that disproportionately benefit those who are already well-off. Why don't conservatives take responsibility for the consequences their policies have on the poor? For the same reason they don't take responsibility for the consequences of the pollution they create - because they are not the Party of personal responsibility, they are the Party of responsibility-free wealth and ownership.
This is what we see over and over again from our friends on the Right. They want the "freedom" to get rich, buy what they want, pollute as much as they want, consume as much as they want, and never once have to deal with "job-killing regulations" or to think about the consequences their avarice might have on others. It would be easy to demonize these people and to look down our noses at them, but to my way of thinking, they actually hurt themselves as much as anyone else, for two reasons:
1) Someday, all of this irresponsible behavior will come back to bite them where the sun doesn't shine.
2) These people are the biggest slaves of them all - slaves to their own fears and desires. How can anyone be truly happy when their hearts are full of such rot? How disconnected from all that is good do you have to be before the freedom to pollute seems more important than a child's ability to breathe clean air?
This is why the freedom to abuse power and ownership isn't freedom at all, it is slavery to our worst instincts. True freedom comes from being connected to your own goodness and a desire to see others thrive, so when you come into possession of something, you act as its steward for the benefit of all, not its slave-master for your own selfish pursuits. And when we all act as stewards for the many blessings we've been given, we can spread those blessings to others - and others will spread their blessings to us, creating a kind of synergy that is impossible to create in a greed-centered world.
That is to say, in a world of universal stewardship, we all win; and in a world of personal ownership, we all eventually lose.
Friday, July 29, 2011
Enlightened Self-Interest
Wow, the whole world is going absolutely bonkers these days! With employment stagnating, the foreclosure crisis no better than it was three years ago, huge corporations capturing/buying the legislative process, and the environment burning down around our ears, all anyone can talk about is an artificially set limit to the amount of money America can borrow to pay for the things we already approved in our budget.
Madness, pure madness.
What I keep waiting for is a glimmer of sanity to peek through the fog of fear and vitriol, for somebody (*cough cough* our President *cough*) to point out that none of this bullshit is in anyone's self-interest. Actually, very little of what Americans seem to want is in their best interest. For instance:
* It is not in the banking industry's self-interest to water down regulations, because without regulations all you get is regular boom-and-bust cycles that destroy wealth and make it impossible to do business over the long haul. It was a decided lack of regulation that led to the Great Depression, and when we finally stripped away those regulations in the late 1990's and early 2000's, it wasn't long before we fell into the current Great Recession.
* It is not in the self-interest of the wealthy elite to block social programs, even if they are paid for with their tax dollars, because when the poor are more healthy and have more money to spend, the economy grows and more children go to college which gives us a highly trained workforce that powers innovation and the further expansion of wealth.
* Absolutely no one's self-interest is served by relying on fossil fuels for the cheap energy we need to power our economy, because fossil fuels pollute the air we all breath, warm our planet to the point of creating climate change disasters, and periodically dump toxic substances into our oceans and water supply. Of course, this is all pointless because if big oil companies diverted all of their investments into providing alternative sources of energy they would still make tons and tons of money.
* The American citizen is not served by relying on our medical enablers, who push exotic pills and expensive surgical procedures to alleviate our symptoms of disease without producing any long-term wellness. If we all took a little bit more time to make simple changes in what and how much we eat, how often we exercise, and how we deal with our emotions and stress, our health care bills would be getting progressively lower, not higher.
The list goes on and on. Ultimately, the point here is that when you make bad choices, you get bad consequences, and that is what we are seeing in today's America. If you want to make good choices, all you have to do is take responsibility for your actions, help those who are less fortunate than you (even if you feel like they "don't deserve" it), and stand up to those who would destroy themselves and take the rest of us along for the ride.
I can only pray that we as a people figure all of this out before the worst is upon us.
Madness, pure madness.
What I keep waiting for is a glimmer of sanity to peek through the fog of fear and vitriol, for somebody (*cough cough* our President *cough*) to point out that none of this bullshit is in anyone's self-interest. Actually, very little of what Americans seem to want is in their best interest. For instance:
* It is not in the banking industry's self-interest to water down regulations, because without regulations all you get is regular boom-and-bust cycles that destroy wealth and make it impossible to do business over the long haul. It was a decided lack of regulation that led to the Great Depression, and when we finally stripped away those regulations in the late 1990's and early 2000's, it wasn't long before we fell into the current Great Recession.
* It is not in the self-interest of the wealthy elite to block social programs, even if they are paid for with their tax dollars, because when the poor are more healthy and have more money to spend, the economy grows and more children go to college which gives us a highly trained workforce that powers innovation and the further expansion of wealth.
* Absolutely no one's self-interest is served by relying on fossil fuels for the cheap energy we need to power our economy, because fossil fuels pollute the air we all breath, warm our planet to the point of creating climate change disasters, and periodically dump toxic substances into our oceans and water supply. Of course, this is all pointless because if big oil companies diverted all of their investments into providing alternative sources of energy they would still make tons and tons of money.
* The American citizen is not served by relying on our medical enablers, who push exotic pills and expensive surgical procedures to alleviate our symptoms of disease without producing any long-term wellness. If we all took a little bit more time to make simple changes in what and how much we eat, how often we exercise, and how we deal with our emotions and stress, our health care bills would be getting progressively lower, not higher.
The list goes on and on. Ultimately, the point here is that when you make bad choices, you get bad consequences, and that is what we are seeing in today's America. If you want to make good choices, all you have to do is take responsibility for your actions, help those who are less fortunate than you (even if you feel like they "don't deserve" it), and stand up to those who would destroy themselves and take the rest of us along for the ride.
I can only pray that we as a people figure all of this out before the worst is upon us.
Thursday, December 30, 2010
An Obvious Solution to Our Economic Woes
Two years ago, our country was on the brink of economic collapse, but with a Herculean (if flawed) effort on the part of the federal government, we managed to pull back from total collapse to mere stagnation. Unemployment has been hanging around 9.8% percent for over a year, and although we are creating jobs now, we are not creating nearly enough to absorb our growing population, much less to re-employ all those people who lost their jobs in the crisis. We are stuck, so we can either muddle through as we have been since the stimulus package started to run dry, or we can try something radical. Such as look at the facts and respond accordingly.
What are the facts? As I see it, in no particular order of importance:
1) We cannot afford to inflate the deficit any more than it is already growing, so the best solution has to be deficit-neutral.
2) An economy is strong not when everyone has a lot of money, but when money is flowing freely from one person to the next in a virtuous cycle that adds jobs and wealth to the overall economy. Therefore, a healthy economy needs to have appropriate levels of buyers, sellers, manufacturers, servicers, laborers, law enforcement, and financiers/bankers (among many other sectors) to keep the money flowing and the economy growing. If any one of these sectors fails, the money pipeline gets clogged and everything starts to shut down. Therefore, in an economy that is stagnating like ours is, we need to see which sector is proving to be the bottle-neck and address the problem directly.
3) Right now, we are seeing two sectors that are hurting the rest of the economy the most: the banks (due to the foreclosure crisis), and the buyers (who lost their jobs when the banks ran out of money). First, the banks: The credit freeze that started this mess in 2008 never really thawed; the banks over-corrected for the years of loose-lending practices by making only the safest bets, and who can blame them? Why should they lend to any normal human being when they can lend unlimited money to the federal government with money they get virtually for free from the Federal Reserve. Basically we're paying the banks to step between the Fed and our Treasury, so it doesn't look like we're just printing money. The added benefit is that the government can then afford to continue to give them all that free money without anyone actually having to pay for it. Clearly the banks need to be weaned off the government teat so they have a reason to go back to the business of lending real money to real people.
4) In the meantime, however, the real problem with our economy is that demand is sluggish, due to persistently high unemployment. Even with a constricted banking sector, corporations are sitting on record profits and close to $2 trillion in liquid assets, so they don't need loans or employment subsidies. At the same time, they are not spending any of that money (and therefore not creating jobs) because it seems unlikely that anyone will be able to purchase the extra output. With smaller businesses, they would also be able to get by for a time without the banks if demand increased and bulked up their sales receipts. So while we do still need to address the banking crisis, it is really the lack of demand that most crippling to our economy.
5) The Republican solution to this problem is to cut taxes, which has the virtue of putting more money into people's pockets, and they prefer to enact such cuts across the board. Unfortunately, this approach has already shown its limitations, what with the utter failure of the Bush tax cuts to create any jobs over the last decade. It was tried again in the Obama Stimulus package, but its success was limited because people tended not to spend the money but instead either saved it or used it to pay off prior debts.
6) The more typical Democratic solution is to spend money, particularly in needed areas such as unemployment benefits, food stamps, education, and infrastructure. This approach is far more stimulative and forward-thinking than tax cuts that ultimately lead to greater hoarding at the top 2% of our society, but it puts the cart before the horse: spending on infrastructure is supposed to create a large number of jobs all at once, but employing people directly happens to be the most expensive way to create a job.
Now, what is the appropriate reaction to this set of facts? Let's start by dropping the pretense that any of these solutions can somehow escape the label of "redistributing wealth" - including and especially tax cuts for the upper class. Our nations richest members may pay a much larger percentage of overall tax receipts, but they are the ones who financially benefit the most from our governments' operations, and it is only right that they pay for what they receive in the way of subsidies, favorable civil laws and courts, a tariff system that protects them from unfair competition from abroad, and a very expensive standing army that is stationed around the world, providing silent (and sometimes not-so-silent) oversight of America's economic interests. If the rich did not get taxed at a much higher rate than the lower classes, the poor would then be subsidizing the government largess from which only the richest Americans benefit. Therefore, cutting taxes for the rich - especially in this time of historically low income taxes - amounts to the redistribution of wealth upwards, which is exactly what we have seen in the years of the Bush tax cuts.
Any choice we make will have repercussions on wealth distribution in one way or another, so we have to stop acting as if we can choose not to redistribute wealth, and instead focus on figuring out the best way to unplug the clog in the economy, with the end goal being that if at all possible, absolutely everyone benefits. Nothing less than a win-win-win proposition will suffice, so please consider the following: The best way to pump up sagging demand in the economy is to give every tax-paying American a free debit card, worth perhaps $600-$1200 per year (exact amount to be determined at a later date). Here is how I see it working:
A) The first condition is that if you want the card you have to apply for it; there are several reasons for this, one being that that the money will then go to those who are most likely to spend it. In addition, those who are philosophically opposed to receiving money from the government will not be forced to participate. Finally, it would also weed out the fairly well-off; they will tend not to apply since they don't need it and the more well-off they are, the more it will seem like too much trouble to bother with, even if the application process is simple and painless. This will make the middle-class the greatest direct beneficiaries of the policy.
The only other requirement is that you must have paid a minimum amount of income taxes the year prior. This way it can be billed as a tax cut, because you are just giving people their hard-earned money back.
B) Upon a successful application, you will receive a debit card that gets topped off at $50-$100 every month. You can spend it on anything you want, but you must spend it or you will lose it, so the stimulative effect will be similar to that of food stamps (which has one of the highest ratios out there), except that a much larger portion of the economy will benefit.
C) The program should last for a pre-designated period of time, preferably at least 3-5 years. This will reduce the amount of uncertainty in the market by letting our corporations know the new level of demand that they can expect for a long enough period of time that they can plan ahead for it. This is a key point, because the augmented, sustained demand will give them both the incentive and the stability they need to start spending all that money that they've been hoarding over the last couple years. Once they start spending, there will be a virtuous cycle in which they employ more people who can then spend more money, and the economy as a whole grows far, far faster than we might otherwise expect. In short, this program could provide us with an unprecedented opportunity to ignite the entire economy with one, well-placed spark.
D) Then there is the question of how to pay for it. Despite the rise of the Tea Party movement and their credo of lower deficits, we have seen in the Obama tax-cut deal that it is still politically feasible both to cut taxes and to increase spending without paying for any of it, and perhaps this program should operate on the same principle. Although I am no expert at this, I estimate that this program would cost less than $50-$100 billion per year, which is chump change compared to the Stimulus and near-$2 trillion deficits. However, a better solution would be budget-neutral, and in this case taxing the richest Americans makes a lot of sense, not only because we all need this program and they happen to be the only ones who can afford to pay for it, but also because we would just be giving all that money right back to those same people in the form of increased sales receipts for their corporate holdings, so they don't really lose anything and in the meantime the economy grows and everyone will benefit well beyond the direct effect of the actual money spent.
In sum, under this program we can stimulate the economy, grow our way out of this recession, give Americans their own tax money back, make sure every American benefits, pay for it fully, and side-step the banking mess altogether. Of course, we will still need to deal with the banks and the housing market at some point, but a robust economy will inevitably ease those problems as well, and in the meantime these sectors don't have to be an obstacle to our overall economic progress.
While I have tried to maintain an ideological balance in the structure of the program, I know that Congress is now the place where good ideas go to die, but there is no way to know what will happen if no one even proposes the idea, so let this be my contribution to the discussion and if you like the concept, please pass it on to anyone you think might be interested, and let's see what happens!
What are the facts? As I see it, in no particular order of importance:
1) We cannot afford to inflate the deficit any more than it is already growing, so the best solution has to be deficit-neutral.
2) An economy is strong not when everyone has a lot of money, but when money is flowing freely from one person to the next in a virtuous cycle that adds jobs and wealth to the overall economy. Therefore, a healthy economy needs to have appropriate levels of buyers, sellers, manufacturers, servicers, laborers, law enforcement, and financiers/bankers (among many other sectors) to keep the money flowing and the economy growing. If any one of these sectors fails, the money pipeline gets clogged and everything starts to shut down. Therefore, in an economy that is stagnating like ours is, we need to see which sector is proving to be the bottle-neck and address the problem directly.
3) Right now, we are seeing two sectors that are hurting the rest of the economy the most: the banks (due to the foreclosure crisis), and the buyers (who lost their jobs when the banks ran out of money). First, the banks: The credit freeze that started this mess in 2008 never really thawed; the banks over-corrected for the years of loose-lending practices by making only the safest bets, and who can blame them? Why should they lend to any normal human being when they can lend unlimited money to the federal government with money they get virtually for free from the Federal Reserve. Basically we're paying the banks to step between the Fed and our Treasury, so it doesn't look like we're just printing money. The added benefit is that the government can then afford to continue to give them all that free money without anyone actually having to pay for it. Clearly the banks need to be weaned off the government teat so they have a reason to go back to the business of lending real money to real people.
4) In the meantime, however, the real problem with our economy is that demand is sluggish, due to persistently high unemployment. Even with a constricted banking sector, corporations are sitting on record profits and close to $2 trillion in liquid assets, so they don't need loans or employment subsidies. At the same time, they are not spending any of that money (and therefore not creating jobs) because it seems unlikely that anyone will be able to purchase the extra output. With smaller businesses, they would also be able to get by for a time without the banks if demand increased and bulked up their sales receipts. So while we do still need to address the banking crisis, it is really the lack of demand that most crippling to our economy.
5) The Republican solution to this problem is to cut taxes, which has the virtue of putting more money into people's pockets, and they prefer to enact such cuts across the board. Unfortunately, this approach has already shown its limitations, what with the utter failure of the Bush tax cuts to create any jobs over the last decade. It was tried again in the Obama Stimulus package, but its success was limited because people tended not to spend the money but instead either saved it or used it to pay off prior debts.
6) The more typical Democratic solution is to spend money, particularly in needed areas such as unemployment benefits, food stamps, education, and infrastructure. This approach is far more stimulative and forward-thinking than tax cuts that ultimately lead to greater hoarding at the top 2% of our society, but it puts the cart before the horse: spending on infrastructure is supposed to create a large number of jobs all at once, but employing people directly happens to be the most expensive way to create a job.
Now, what is the appropriate reaction to this set of facts? Let's start by dropping the pretense that any of these solutions can somehow escape the label of "redistributing wealth" - including and especially tax cuts for the upper class. Our nations richest members may pay a much larger percentage of overall tax receipts, but they are the ones who financially benefit the most from our governments' operations, and it is only right that they pay for what they receive in the way of subsidies, favorable civil laws and courts, a tariff system that protects them from unfair competition from abroad, and a very expensive standing army that is stationed around the world, providing silent (and sometimes not-so-silent) oversight of America's economic interests. If the rich did not get taxed at a much higher rate than the lower classes, the poor would then be subsidizing the government largess from which only the richest Americans benefit. Therefore, cutting taxes for the rich - especially in this time of historically low income taxes - amounts to the redistribution of wealth upwards, which is exactly what we have seen in the years of the Bush tax cuts.
Any choice we make will have repercussions on wealth distribution in one way or another, so we have to stop acting as if we can choose not to redistribute wealth, and instead focus on figuring out the best way to unplug the clog in the economy, with the end goal being that if at all possible, absolutely everyone benefits. Nothing less than a win-win-win proposition will suffice, so please consider the following: The best way to pump up sagging demand in the economy is to give every tax-paying American a free debit card, worth perhaps $600-$1200 per year (exact amount to be determined at a later date). Here is how I see it working:
A) The first condition is that if you want the card you have to apply for it; there are several reasons for this, one being that that the money will then go to those who are most likely to spend it. In addition, those who are philosophically opposed to receiving money from the government will not be forced to participate. Finally, it would also weed out the fairly well-off; they will tend not to apply since they don't need it and the more well-off they are, the more it will seem like too much trouble to bother with, even if the application process is simple and painless. This will make the middle-class the greatest direct beneficiaries of the policy.
The only other requirement is that you must have paid a minimum amount of income taxes the year prior. This way it can be billed as a tax cut, because you are just giving people their hard-earned money back.
B) Upon a successful application, you will receive a debit card that gets topped off at $50-$100 every month. You can spend it on anything you want, but you must spend it or you will lose it, so the stimulative effect will be similar to that of food stamps (which has one of the highest ratios out there), except that a much larger portion of the economy will benefit.
C) The program should last for a pre-designated period of time, preferably at least 3-5 years. This will reduce the amount of uncertainty in the market by letting our corporations know the new level of demand that they can expect for a long enough period of time that they can plan ahead for it. This is a key point, because the augmented, sustained demand will give them both the incentive and the stability they need to start spending all that money that they've been hoarding over the last couple years. Once they start spending, there will be a virtuous cycle in which they employ more people who can then spend more money, and the economy as a whole grows far, far faster than we might otherwise expect. In short, this program could provide us with an unprecedented opportunity to ignite the entire economy with one, well-placed spark.
D) Then there is the question of how to pay for it. Despite the rise of the Tea Party movement and their credo of lower deficits, we have seen in the Obama tax-cut deal that it is still politically feasible both to cut taxes and to increase spending without paying for any of it, and perhaps this program should operate on the same principle. Although I am no expert at this, I estimate that this program would cost less than $50-$100 billion per year, which is chump change compared to the Stimulus and near-$2 trillion deficits. However, a better solution would be budget-neutral, and in this case taxing the richest Americans makes a lot of sense, not only because we all need this program and they happen to be the only ones who can afford to pay for it, but also because we would just be giving all that money right back to those same people in the form of increased sales receipts for their corporate holdings, so they don't really lose anything and in the meantime the economy grows and everyone will benefit well beyond the direct effect of the actual money spent.
In sum, under this program we can stimulate the economy, grow our way out of this recession, give Americans their own tax money back, make sure every American benefits, pay for it fully, and side-step the banking mess altogether. Of course, we will still need to deal with the banks and the housing market at some point, but a robust economy will inevitably ease those problems as well, and in the meantime these sectors don't have to be an obstacle to our overall economic progress.
While I have tried to maintain an ideological balance in the structure of the program, I know that Congress is now the place where good ideas go to die, but there is no way to know what will happen if no one even proposes the idea, so let this be my contribution to the discussion and if you like the concept, please pass it on to anyone you think might be interested, and let's see what happens!
Thursday, November 4, 2010
President Obama, the Hoards Are Coming
Democrats are reeling. Not two years ago, they were talking about a permanent Democratic majority, and now House Democrats have taken a serious "shellacking," as our president so aptly put it.
In less than two days since the midterms, President Obama - who still has more power than they do - extended an olive branch, and Republican Minority Leader Mitch McConnell extended a knife, claiming that his only priority was denying President Obama re-election in 2012.
Mr. President, in a few hundred years, your style of leadership may be all that is needed of an American president. Folks on the opposing side will probably respond a lot better to a genuine willingness to share governance and to work in a cooperative spirit. But that day is a long way off, and today we need a president who is willing to get his hands dirty - not by playing dirty, but by showing up, hitting hard, and getting it RIGHT for God's sake! That's why we elected you, not just to get shit done, but to do it in a way that just makes so much sense that you can't help but want to be a part of it. We made a good choice in electing candidate Obama; President Obama, you need to trust the American electorate and give us the gifted, articulate orator whose wisdom and obvious fairness we voted for in the first place.
At the same time, we as a people need to set an example for this progressive vision. We need to work together within our own community to show a united front to those who stand self-righteously on the backs of the poorest 95% of the country. Who cares if gay people get what they want before the immigrant population does? Instead of saying, "My turn! My turn!" we should have been saying, "No, after you! I insist!" We can agree to disagree about what the health care bill should have looked like, but can we all just agree that this is a step in the right direction, and that we have far better things to worry about than whether we can ever get a public option thrown in there somewhere?
What we have is an emboldened, radicalized Republican party on the rise, about to obtain vast legislative and investigative power, and wielding an agenda that is wholly and unequivocally destructive to this country and potentially the planet. It is not hyperbole to say this, nor is it a partisan position. This is what even moderate Republicans will tell you when no one is listening, and it is what we know based on hard data and expert opinion.
As progressives, we cannot afford to close our eyes and hope the craziness will just go away on its own. Millions of people have lost their homes and their livelihoods due to the free-wheeling, government-abusing ways of the Bush Republican party, so we know how bad bad can get, and based on what they're so proudly telling us, we know it can get so much worse.
This is why we need to learn to be comfortable wielding power. We need to be willing to have those confrontations that will almost certainly get ugly, but hold true to our principles and NOT roll over. We must prove that the way of inclusion and equality holds the force of truth, in stark contrast to the empty platitudes of freedom (for the rich to pollute the air we all have to breath) and free markets (which worked out so well for us in the end, right?). We have two years to prove to the reasonable, voting liberals and independents out there that we do not hurt ourselves when we help others, and those who poison the well are not the ones you want to put in charge of the water supply.
President Obama, please stand up and lead this charge to greatness!
In less than two days since the midterms, President Obama - who still has more power than they do - extended an olive branch, and Republican Minority Leader Mitch McConnell extended a knife, claiming that his only priority was denying President Obama re-election in 2012.
Mr. President, in a few hundred years, your style of leadership may be all that is needed of an American president. Folks on the opposing side will probably respond a lot better to a genuine willingness to share governance and to work in a cooperative spirit. But that day is a long way off, and today we need a president who is willing to get his hands dirty - not by playing dirty, but by showing up, hitting hard, and getting it RIGHT for God's sake! That's why we elected you, not just to get shit done, but to do it in a way that just makes so much sense that you can't help but want to be a part of it. We made a good choice in electing candidate Obama; President Obama, you need to trust the American electorate and give us the gifted, articulate orator whose wisdom and obvious fairness we voted for in the first place.
At the same time, we as a people need to set an example for this progressive vision. We need to work together within our own community to show a united front to those who stand self-righteously on the backs of the poorest 95% of the country. Who cares if gay people get what they want before the immigrant population does? Instead of saying, "My turn! My turn!" we should have been saying, "No, after you! I insist!" We can agree to disagree about what the health care bill should have looked like, but can we all just agree that this is a step in the right direction, and that we have far better things to worry about than whether we can ever get a public option thrown in there somewhere?
What we have is an emboldened, radicalized Republican party on the rise, about to obtain vast legislative and investigative power, and wielding an agenda that is wholly and unequivocally destructive to this country and potentially the planet. It is not hyperbole to say this, nor is it a partisan position. This is what even moderate Republicans will tell you when no one is listening, and it is what we know based on hard data and expert opinion.
As progressives, we cannot afford to close our eyes and hope the craziness will just go away on its own. Millions of people have lost their homes and their livelihoods due to the free-wheeling, government-abusing ways of the Bush Republican party, so we know how bad bad can get, and based on what they're so proudly telling us, we know it can get so much worse.
This is why we need to learn to be comfortable wielding power. We need to be willing to have those confrontations that will almost certainly get ugly, but hold true to our principles and NOT roll over. We must prove that the way of inclusion and equality holds the force of truth, in stark contrast to the empty platitudes of freedom (for the rich to pollute the air we all have to breath) and free markets (which worked out so well for us in the end, right?). We have two years to prove to the reasonable, voting liberals and independents out there that we do not hurt ourselves when we help others, and those who poison the well are not the ones you want to put in charge of the water supply.
President Obama, please stand up and lead this charge to greatness!
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