It was a privilege to be able to attend Obama's inauguration. Many people I've talked to and some in the media have commented on the relative absence of applause lines in Obama's speech. First, I thought it was a good speech in setting up the public for what lies in store for us and preparing us for the tasks ahead, because our problems will not be solved just because we elected some new officials; these problems will take patience and input from ourselves. I thought Obama hit these notes when he talked about the need for us to take "responsibility" seriously again.
Second, I wonder whether the advent of the online age has or will have some effect on these speeches. Until now, speeches have been events heard once and quoted occasionally. But now they can be accessed anytime at our convenience. Perhaps Obama's speeches are geared to some extent for those interested in a repeat hearing in a screen-to-individual setting. If so, then the need to lay out a good argument may take precedence over a series of good applause lines.
Thursday, January 22, 2009
Thursday, January 15, 2009
Our Questionable Commitment On Kids' Health Insurance
The House has passed a bill expanding S-CHIP, the combined state-federal program for children's health insurance. It passed Congress in 2007 but was vetoed by President Bush. With expanded Democratic majorities and a Democratic president, it seems likely to become law this time around. And who can be against making sure that kids have adequate health care, right?
Me. Or at least this version of ensuring it.
The problem is the payment mechanism. The bill pays for the expansion by raising the federal cigarette tax by 61 cents per pack. I have two objections to this funding method.
First, it's either unsustainable or it taxes addicts. The idea of a "sin tax" is to reduce the consumption or the activity being taxed. If the goal of raising the cigarette tax is to reduce smoking while at the same time expanding children's health insurance coverage, then its implementation will indeed reduce cigarette sales and eventually deprive the program of the money it relies on. A sin tax is simply not a sustainable source of revenue for any program if the sin tax accomplishes its objective. Or, if raising the price of smoking doesn't decrease the incidence of smoking, then perhaps all we are doing is shifting the cost of the program expansion to those who are addicted to nicotine and who have no choice but to pay whatever taxes are required to satisfy their habit. That hardly seems like a just way to fund a kids program.
But my more fundamental objection is that taxing smokers absolves the rest of us from taking responsibility for this program that most people say they want. Most people say they support health insurance for kids; but how strong is that support if the best we can say is "yes, insure kids--but only if smokers pay for it." I think if I support a program, then I should be willing to help pay for it myself, not sluff off the responsibility on others.
This legislation is one example of what's wrong with our relationship to our government today--or, conversely, our government's relation to us. It's easy to be for something that requires nothing of us. It was easy to be for the Iraq war if we were asked neither to server nor to pay for it. It was easy to be for tax cuts if we didn't have to give up any programs that would help make those cuts fiscally responsible. And it's easy to favor expanding health care as long as someone else picks up the tab.
But that approach is not sustainable, and it's not realistic. Government isn't an abstract entity that just takes our money, or just doles out programs. It's the way we work together to achieve certain goals that we think are of national importance. It's the way we pay together for programs we say we want. And we do pay together, for the most part; I don't want to minimize the taxes that many people pay or the burden they impose on some households.
But by placing the burden of paying for popular programs on a particularly small part of the population, we avoid having a real discussion about what we are and are not willing to pay for ourselves. I think we should have that discussion because I think it's the only way to achieve long term fiscal responsibility. I think that if we really care about health insurance for kids, we should be asked to help contribute to the cause. And if a majority of us say that we're not willing to pay, then maybe some of us don't really care about insuring kids as much as we say we do. Real support is manifested by a willingness to act; talking about some wonderful goal won't make it happen.
If most people say they don't want to pay for kids' health insurance, it may not be the outcome I prefer. But at least that's responsible democracy. To impose programs or reduce taxes as if they're all free may be democracy too, but it's not a responsible one, and it's not an approach we can keep up for long without suffering the fiscal consequences. Let's have an honest discussion with ourselves on this and other issues, and let the chips fall where they may.
Me. Or at least this version of ensuring it.
The problem is the payment mechanism. The bill pays for the expansion by raising the federal cigarette tax by 61 cents per pack. I have two objections to this funding method.
First, it's either unsustainable or it taxes addicts. The idea of a "sin tax" is to reduce the consumption or the activity being taxed. If the goal of raising the cigarette tax is to reduce smoking while at the same time expanding children's health insurance coverage, then its implementation will indeed reduce cigarette sales and eventually deprive the program of the money it relies on. A sin tax is simply not a sustainable source of revenue for any program if the sin tax accomplishes its objective. Or, if raising the price of smoking doesn't decrease the incidence of smoking, then perhaps all we are doing is shifting the cost of the program expansion to those who are addicted to nicotine and who have no choice but to pay whatever taxes are required to satisfy their habit. That hardly seems like a just way to fund a kids program.
But my more fundamental objection is that taxing smokers absolves the rest of us from taking responsibility for this program that most people say they want. Most people say they support health insurance for kids; but how strong is that support if the best we can say is "yes, insure kids--but only if smokers pay for it." I think if I support a program, then I should be willing to help pay for it myself, not sluff off the responsibility on others.
This legislation is one example of what's wrong with our relationship to our government today--or, conversely, our government's relation to us. It's easy to be for something that requires nothing of us. It was easy to be for the Iraq war if we were asked neither to server nor to pay for it. It was easy to be for tax cuts if we didn't have to give up any programs that would help make those cuts fiscally responsible. And it's easy to favor expanding health care as long as someone else picks up the tab.
But that approach is not sustainable, and it's not realistic. Government isn't an abstract entity that just takes our money, or just doles out programs. It's the way we work together to achieve certain goals that we think are of national importance. It's the way we pay together for programs we say we want. And we do pay together, for the most part; I don't want to minimize the taxes that many people pay or the burden they impose on some households.
But by placing the burden of paying for popular programs on a particularly small part of the population, we avoid having a real discussion about what we are and are not willing to pay for ourselves. I think we should have that discussion because I think it's the only way to achieve long term fiscal responsibility. I think that if we really care about health insurance for kids, we should be asked to help contribute to the cause. And if a majority of us say that we're not willing to pay, then maybe some of us don't really care about insuring kids as much as we say we do. Real support is manifested by a willingness to act; talking about some wonderful goal won't make it happen.
If most people say they don't want to pay for kids' health insurance, it may not be the outcome I prefer. But at least that's responsible democracy. To impose programs or reduce taxes as if they're all free may be democracy too, but it's not a responsible one, and it's not an approach we can keep up for long without suffering the fiscal consequences. Let's have an honest discussion with ourselves on this and other issues, and let the chips fall where they may.
Where Was Cheney's Plan B?
In his Jan. 14 PBS Newshour interview, Vice President Cheney said that he "underestimated...the extent of which the Iraqi population had been beaten down by Saddam Hussein," adding that "we thought that the Iraqis would be able to bounce back fairly quickly once Saddam was gone or the new government established and step up and take major responsibilities for governing Iraq." When asked for the source of that miscalculation, he said "Well, we didn't have that good of intelligence, I don't think, with respect to sort of the state of affairs inside Iraq. A lot of that had been wiped out over the years. Saddam Hussein was so brutal, killed so many people, slaughtered so many innocents, that it had a lasting effect on Iraqi society that was greater than I expected."
This seems to me to be revisionism at its finest. My understanding it that there were plenty of people at the State Department who warned that Iraqis should not be expected to be able to take over major government functions, that there was likely to be a power vacuum, that more troops would be needed to supply security and the delivery of basic services, and that it would take time for Iraqis to develop the capacity for self-governance. I don't think the problem was an absence of good intelligence; the problem was that the administration had decided it was only going to listen to those who already agreed with what they thought was going to be the case and rejected the opinions of those who disagreed with them.
But even if the intelligence was bad regarding the Iraqi's ability to establish a new government, is that any excuse for the failure of American planning? Only fools make major plans based only on a best-case scenario. Even the most minor businesses have contingency plans and backups in case things go wrong. Where was this administration's backup plan? Why assume that in a project as complicated as reconstituting an entire national government would go exactly as those in charge of the operation would hope? If there was any doubt as to the nature of the operation, wouldn't it be incredibly stupid not to plan for other scenarios, even worst-case scenarios? In a project this complicated, wouldn't common sense dictate going in with the resources to deal with the most adverse set of circumstances instead of the minimal resources needed to deal with an ideal situation?
But such has always been the case with this administration. There is no Plan B except to make Plan A work. They believed that the way to eliminate the national debt is to cut taxes and "grow the economy." And if it doesn't work? Forget the idea of paying down our debt and then cutting taxes when it might be safer to do so. Plan A will work, and the possibility that it might leave us worse off isn't enough to have a contingency plan.
I can only speculate as to why this administration never has a backup plan. Perhaps it's because making sure things will work would actually make demands on government resources that they don't want to face. Going into Iraq with enough troops would prove too costly and conflicted with their tax cut mantra--never mind that doing it wrong would cost us far more in the long run. Paying off the debt before trying out their tax cuts wasn't as politically popular as cutting taxes now--never mind that running up more debt would leave us in a far more vulnerable position if the economy turned sour.
This administration hasn't just been irresponsible. It has been reckless. And those that run it have refused to take responsibility.
On another note, Cheney also said in the interview that "I think the tax packages we passed in '03, for example, produced 52 months - uninterrupted months of job growth.
This seems to me to be revisionism at its finest. My understanding it that there were plenty of people at the State Department who warned that Iraqis should not be expected to be able to take over major government functions, that there was likely to be a power vacuum, that more troops would be needed to supply security and the delivery of basic services, and that it would take time for Iraqis to develop the capacity for self-governance. I don't think the problem was an absence of good intelligence; the problem was that the administration had decided it was only going to listen to those who already agreed with what they thought was going to be the case and rejected the opinions of those who disagreed with them.
But even if the intelligence was bad regarding the Iraqi's ability to establish a new government, is that any excuse for the failure of American planning? Only fools make major plans based only on a best-case scenario. Even the most minor businesses have contingency plans and backups in case things go wrong. Where was this administration's backup plan? Why assume that in a project as complicated as reconstituting an entire national government would go exactly as those in charge of the operation would hope? If there was any doubt as to the nature of the operation, wouldn't it be incredibly stupid not to plan for other scenarios, even worst-case scenarios? In a project this complicated, wouldn't common sense dictate going in with the resources to deal with the most adverse set of circumstances instead of the minimal resources needed to deal with an ideal situation?
But such has always been the case with this administration. There is no Plan B except to make Plan A work. They believed that the way to eliminate the national debt is to cut taxes and "grow the economy." And if it doesn't work? Forget the idea of paying down our debt and then cutting taxes when it might be safer to do so. Plan A will work, and the possibility that it might leave us worse off isn't enough to have a contingency plan.
I can only speculate as to why this administration never has a backup plan. Perhaps it's because making sure things will work would actually make demands on government resources that they don't want to face. Going into Iraq with enough troops would prove too costly and conflicted with their tax cut mantra--never mind that doing it wrong would cost us far more in the long run. Paying off the debt before trying out their tax cuts wasn't as politically popular as cutting taxes now--never mind that running up more debt would leave us in a far more vulnerable position if the economy turned sour.
This administration hasn't just been irresponsible. It has been reckless. And those that run it have refused to take responsibility.
On another note, Cheney also said in the interview that "I think the tax packages we passed in '03, for example, produced 52 months - uninterrupted months of job growth.
"We've run into trouble recently, obviously, beginning in '08 because of the financial crisis, as well as the recession, but those are not U.S. problems alone. Those are global problems, those are problems that have affected nations and economies all over the world; that's not something that is just a U.S. problem."
First, it's hard to link economic growth to the tax cuts as effect and cause. Clinton raised taxes coming out of a recession, and we had more economic growth than this administration got with its tax cuts. Second, Cheney conveniently omits, or just doesn't realize, that those 52 months of job growth did nothing for most Americans. The job growth was by all accounts anemic for an economy coming out of a recession. And those years of "growth" did not move median salaries. The only ones who benefited were those at the top.
And yes, the economic problems today are global; but many economists trace their sources to the US. Foreign banks bought the securities based on mortgages in the US that never should have been sold and which assumed that US housing prices would never go down. So Cheney refuses to acknowledge that a fair share of the global economic crisis was inextricably linked to what was going on in the US.
But at least those packaging securities based on the false assumption that US housing prices would never go down show that this administration wasn't the only entity that lacked a Plan B.
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