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| What's missing in this picture? |
I'm reminded of a conversation I had recently with a friend. I said no way could the private sector ever get the country in such a jam as our politicians have with our $14 trillion debt. Bernie Madoff? Small potatoes. The tricky young English banker testing the limits of his first assignment in Singapore? Aspiring but no cigar. You get the picture.
What's missing from our political class is any immediate consequences for their actions/inactions. Parents, teachers, dog trainers, good bosses, etc. all know the road to success is paved with clear instructions and immediate consequences for one's actions. Your dog wants to sniff a hydrant while you're walking-Yank! The pinch collar sharply reminds him who's boss. Your child doesn't clean up their room? Sorry kiddo, give me back my car keys this instant. If politicians merrily charge our collective debt limit to the point of no return? Hmmm, sorry, then WE can't have our social security checks. Whoa! There's definitely something wrong with this picture.
My humble suggestion to change the power dynamic: Whenever the politicians can't come to an orderly and timely agreement & risk a government shutdown the president, every congressman, senator and all those assisting them on the public payroll will NOT receive their paychecks, or federal pension contributions, or health insurance co-pays, etc. for the duration, and will not be reimbursed for wasting our time. This lot needs a good dose of negative re-enforcement. If these draconian penalties don't work I suggest we get the CIA water boarders out of retirement.
-A letter in this morning's Wall Street Journal captures the heart of the matter. David Zukerman of the Bronx, NY is incredulous that President Obama is toying with his only means of support.
"I have no income other than my monthly Social Security check of $1,065 (plus another $200 in food stamps) no bank account, no money stashed away anywhere. I look not to the Republicans as the cause of my imminent and literal pennilessness. I look to the president as the cause for using my vulnerability to play political politics in hopes of re-election and ever-greater governmental power to advance the interests of those with whom he apparently feels most comfortable: our neoaristocrats, the people who can be found at the president's $35,000 fundraisers..."
So Carol...who wins...nobody..who loses...we all do and let's face it ..nothing ever changes...S
ReplyDeleteS-Just finished reading an editorial in this morning's WSJ, about Canada. ( http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111903554904576457880527361612.html?KEYWORDS=Fred+Barnes )
ReplyDeleteIt was a mirror image of 2011 U.S. Canadian government debt was 70% of GDP. A Liberal (!) prime minister, Jean Cretien, slashed spending. Unemployment benefits were cut by almost 40%, Federal employment slashed 14%, and no tax increases.
Canada now has a 3.3% growth rate, unemployment rate of 7.2%, and a deficit-to-GDP ratio a quarter of ours plus their dollar's strong.
Our country will become a banana republic if we do not acknowledge that whether it's regarded as fair or not entitlement spending at the current rate is bankrupting the country. Medicare will do no one any good when it goes bankrupt in 2020. Both parties need to address this issue honestly and with neutral statistics, not jerry-rigged social justice propaganda. It appears that U.S. schools have done an abysmal job in math education if the average person can't understand what it means to run out of money.
It is Obama's choice to default, there is plenty of revenue coming in to pay the interest on loans and all other debt obligations. He is playing politics to assure his re-election, he wants $2 more trillion dollars to spend. He is scaring people who live on limited incomes to put pressure on the "evil" Republicans who would "dare" to take incomes away from those most needy. I am afraid, Congress is going to cave eventually, after some weak measure of posturing and resistance to show their constituents that they have really put up a good fight but Obama is so powerful and so very smart, who can stand in his way.
ReplyDeleteIleana
Ileana, thank you for summing up the heart of the matter. I agree with you it is beyond the pale to scare the most vulnerable among us with threats they may not be receiving their government checks August 2nd. Congress has done an excellent job of displaying why the government shouldn't be in charge of something as vital as a monthly check, for they're using that power to blackmail us. Again, if the private sector did this they'd be charged with extortion and in all likelihood get to share a cell with B. Madoff. And to think the Democrats are supposed to be the party that cares most about the vulnerable among us.
ReplyDeleteMy issue with this debacle is congressmen & senators are paid very well by current standards yet they blithely risk this tedious showdown with no constraints. It they were in the private sector & did this, when their job description was to create a budget, they'd be fired. Yet they get paid as if nothing is awry. This compounds the problem.
Since my payroll taxes pay for Medicare and Social Security, "entitlement" is not an accurate term.Or do we want to call public education an entitlement program and cut/eliminate it? I agree that Congress should give up their August checks if I have to give up mine, but their greed pales beside the bonuses in the private sector that reward c.e.o.s for our current fiasco.
ReplyDeleteSally, 'Don't think payroll taxes pay for all of Medicare costs or Social Security for that matter. Social Security, however, should have a chunk of money in trust, as our investment, but the pols have squandered it, again, if they'd done that in the private sector they'd go to jail.
ReplyDeleteDo you know anyone with children in public school? Many high schools, even in once prestigious Fairfax County, have a 50% drop out rate! They doctor the stats, GED's count as graduating, etc., they teach what to think not how to think & there's rampant cheating, both with students & administrators.
Jim & I watched a very good film Saturday evening, called, The Company Men. It's about how the 2008 crash affects three corporate executives. There are 2 appropriate scenes to what we're talking about: the CEO gets a $22 million bonus while all these underlings lives are torn asunder. A graceful CEO would forgo their bonus in such circumstances & could easily do without those golden parachutes too. The last scene has a group of the company men forming a bare bones comeback, the goal: to bring back manufacturing to America. "We need to make things again, things we can touch."
Greed can be a vice for more than money, one can also be greedy for power. Look at the gargantuan governments in England, Greece, Portugal, Italy, the U.S., etc. We simply cannot afford it. Someone aptly quipped, "The problem with socialism is eventually you run out of other people's money to spend."
Big, big government is like trying to get a super sonic jet off the ground with the huge parachute drag chutes open. I believe in the Laffer Curve, that any tax rate above 18% is a drag on the economy.
Doesn't the film The Company Men illustrate how the private sector by definition does not act for the greater good? I'd rather be expecting my Social Security check from the fed than from Enron.
ReplyDeleteBill Gates wasn't acting for the public good with Microsoft or Thomas Edison with his light bulb or the Wright brothers with their aeroplane. They were obsessed tinkerers who had great ideas and were fortunate to live in a country that valued free enterprise. That freedom facilitated their taking those ideas to market. Nonetheless their work has benefited all of us.
ReplyDeleteThe USSR's raison d'etre was THE public good but women, usually the women, had to stand in line for hours a day just for bread. And when the USSR collapsed their most lasting contribution to the world was stockpiled nuclear weapons that may or may not be trafficked to terrorists.
The perception of 'the public good' is a complicated one. Who decides what the public good is & who pays for it?
If you were one of the Enron investors 10 years ago you'd prefer a check from Uncle Sam. But I fear Uncle Sam's checks may bounce as high as Enron's if our country goes bankrupt, even if we spent ALL of the money on the public good. We'll still be broke.