300 Posts and Counting
I haven't done any formal comparisons with other blogs, but 300 posts over 14 months seems to be rather prolific. I had a very small number of personal posts (e.g., a nephew's wedding, a retrospective on my academic career, and a list of the songs on my Ipod Shuffle). To be honest, when I started this blog, I wasn't sure that there was going to be enough material to post an analysis or commentary 2 of every 3 days. Just a reminder that I have a second blog about diet and nutrition, which is experiencing its one-month anniversary; I'm not quite as prolific there (but one should never underestimate how passionate people are about what they eat...)
Discouraged Older Workers Filing for Early Retirement or Disability
An AP report notes that starting next fiscal year, social security will be in deficit (i.e., next year's payroll contributions won't be enough to cover expected beneficiary checks) and start to draw down on the $2.5T reserve. Technically, so long as there are employees making payroll contributions, retirees/beneficiaries are guaranteed some payment. The problem is that with about 10% unemployment, and several others underemployed or discouraged workers not showing up in statistics, the trust fund is getting whipsawed by a fall in payroll tax revenues and an unexpectedly higher number of new applicants, as those, despairing of finding work anytime soon and at or near qualification dates, file earlier than intended, in order to get some cash flow.
I am not indifferent to financial hardship and the difficulty in finding work, particularly for older Americans, in the middle of the worst recession in decades. Plus, given the rules of a system that promised early retirement for people whom paid into the system into the system, I can't blame them for choosing what they have a right to do. (That really doesn't help people just a few years from retirement.) [I would be open to the concept of a federally-guaranteed hardship loan, collateralized by cumulative social security contributions.]
However, the bigger issue is solving social security funding, and I'll never forget that Bush, flush off his reelection victory, wanted to resolve social security in 2005--and the Congressional Democrats actually booed him. What makes Obama's criticisms of Congressional Republicans for having no "constructive" alternative to his fuzzily-defined "health care reform" (translation: Obama's idea of "constructive solution" is GOP capitulation to a Democratic plan) particularly hypocritical is the fact that when Bush put his political capital on the line to push social security reform, a sacred cow of American politics and the real use of "fear politics" of Democrats to bash Republicans for decades, the Democrats shot down the attempt, basically because Bush wanted young workers to have the option to control part of their contributions. (The paternalistic Democrats, fearing that young workers might not choose to invest in IOU's to cover the past bills of Big Government overspending versus real assets, assert that investing in American companies and workers is "gambling".)
So where did Obama put as his legislative top priority after the Democrats kicked the can down the road for four years on social security and Medicare? Well, solving the problem of 46 million people without health insurance, whether or not they choose to handle their own health care costs a la carte versus purchase a policy. [Well, you know, health insurance is an "entitlement"; Hippocrates needed to get approval from his patients' HMO's, and George Washington was excluded because of his preexisting war injuries. How did earlier doctors ever cope without all that paperwork? My guess: they spent more time with their patients...] But Obama tells us under the current system, unpaid uninsured medical costs are already passed on the private sector--so the problem is the private sector needs to cover costs they're already covering? Why then isn't one of Obama's reform priorities dealing with hospital cost recovery from freeloaders?
Obama has said that he would like to approach social security reform next year. Well, I'm glad to realize it's on his to-do list. (But do you think he might first want to consider over $30T in unfunded Medicare mandates?) The only "solutions" I've heard from Obama have to deal with robbing Peter to pay Paul, i.e., punishing success. (There are various Democratic schemes to do this, from means-testing benefits [that's fair: arbitrarily taking away benefits from the people whom pay the most into a theoretically self-financing program] to eliminating the ceiling altogether, effectively raising the tax rate on upper brackets to before the Reagan tax cuts. No discussion of modifying the nature of increases (e.g., to reflect costs of living), adjusting eligibility to reflect actuarial projections of lifespan, or diversifying/improving the internal rate of return on the reserve itself. Liberals haven't come to terms with the fact that even if you confiscate all the income and assets of the rich, you don't have the money necessary to cover progressive Democratic blank checks.
Health Care, Immigration, Wilson and Marte
I have a nuanced opinion on RI Hispanic Assembly Chair Ivan Marte whom resigned from his position (and the party) over the recent outburst from Congressman Joe Wilson (R-SC) directed at Barack Obama, whom said that Democratic proposals would not be funding health care benefits for guest workers (in particular, undocumented Latino foreigners). First of all, I do not like the health care reform debate becoming a proxy war over immigration reform. In fact, the law doesn't distinguish over national origin in a hospital providing emergency care. (I mean, if I experienced a critical health care issue while visiting a foreign country, I would hope I received due professional care under that country's health care system, no questions asked.) This is not only a question of individual dignity, but a matter of public health safety given a contagious disease. If a person is paying his fair share of insurance cost burden, he deserves to be covered with what his premium covers.)
I do not like the way the Republican Party (are you listening, Chairman Steele?) is handling these issues (of immigration and health care for foreign workers). It's important that the Party of Lincoln reflects those moral values of equal opportunity. I went to high school in a border city (Laredo, TX) and to a San Antonio college where most students were Latino. Years later, I was a state university professor in a different border city (El Paso, TX); in my Christmas Eve post, I mentioned one of my UTEP students, whom was Mexican--the only student in 8 years of university teaching whom ever invited me to a family celebration in honor of his graduation. My best friend at OLLU was a Latino, and I asked out a couple of Latinas while at UH. My personal experience has been very positive--very friendly, respectful, dependable, hard-working, church-going people, not asking for handouts but for an opportunity to pull their own weight. What many Angry Right and media conservatives have done is to implicitly paint a particular ethic group with a broad stroke, and the message is coming across as judgmental and harsh. My motivation is not one of pandering for Latino votes; it's one of doing the right thing. I believe that if you treat people with respect, the votes will work out on their own. I feel that Latinos whom have struggled to create their own business opportunity or whom hold traditional moral values will decide if a philosophy of victimization, a patronizing retread of slow-growth, bureaucratic European socialism, and progressive politicians (whom, by the way, do visit you every two years--around election day) whom have been throwing money at inner cities for decades without much effect, are more consistent with their own core principles.
That being said, Ivan Marte's disproportionate response to Congressman Joe Wilson's outburst (resigning various high-profile party posts and, in fact, the party) is a red herring. Wilson was referring to political games that Democratic Congressmen were playing on the issue--paying lip service as Obama did regarding benefits for undocumented workers in his Congressional address but refusing to put any enforcement dollars behind it--classic progressive doublespeak. Whereas I agree that Joe Wilson's outburst was unacceptable, so were the Democratic responses booing President Bush when he outlined social security reform a few years back (the basic difference was that Joe Wilson personally apologized for his bad behavior, but the Democrats, as usual, didn't).
Ivan Marte is really responding to Rhode Island Republican Governor Carcieri's 2008 executive order cracking down on illegal immigration, which was not well-received in the Latino community. Marte, who had also been appointed by the governor to the Republican Central Committee, was angry that Carcieri had not responded to his public relations suggestions to defuse the issue.
I do not think that Marte's position is reasonable. A governor's order to comply with national immigration laws, regardless of a foreign worker's home country, is legitimate, perhaps necessary. If Marte disagrees with national policy, he should run for Congress or the US Senate. The fact is that Marte assumed his assembly leader position AFTER the executive order. Either Marte has political principles relevant to GOP principles or he doesn't. That he would resign prominent leadership positions and his party over what any one person would say reflects questionable judgment; we expect elected officials to have a thick skin and to cope with difficult people. Carcieri suggests that Marte has not burned bridges with him, and Marte should reconsider his impetuous decisions.
