Quote of the Day
There is much satisfaction in work well done,
but there can be no happiness equal to
the joy of finding a heart that understands.
but there can be no happiness equal to
the joy of finding a heart that understands.
Victor Robinsoll
Sunday Talk Soup
For any intelligent conservative, watching Meet the Press with David Gregory is a frustrating experience. David Gregory is predictable, holding Republicans or conservatives to a higher standard of specificity; what is remarkable is the fact that the invited guests are often caught off-guard and respond defensively or ambiguously. The fact that the mainstream media is intrinsically inconsistent and unbalanced in its coverage is hardly news, and one must readily concede: life is unfair; deal with it. In particular, given the GOP's historic sweep in last fall's election, the Republicans need to be a constructive partner and provide more than talking points and criticism of the President and the Democratic-controlled Senate.
Schilling is caught between the devil and the deep blue sea in terms of suggesting his own approach, knowing that his is only 1 voice out of 435 in the House. He did the correct thing, noting that everything has to be on the table and all but saying, "I will not tell you what concessions I might make (e.g., in increasing payroll taxes, which my supporters won't like), unless I see what the other side is willing to bring to the table (e.g., raising the age, which his supporters won't like)." Schilling, of course, is well-aware if he discloses concessions in advance, it moves the starting point for negotiation in the opponent's favor.
How would I have responded in Schilling's place? "A starting place should be the President's own bipartisan deficit reduction committee which won clear majority support, including the votes of all but one Senator on the committee. Unfortunately, the President has shown little leadership in backing the conclusions of his own committee. This is not unlike federal deficit issues, where the President has yet to propose serious plans to cut spending despite trillion dollar deficits as far as the eye can see and interest payments on the debt beginning to crowd out funds for government operations. He is doing what he has been doing since day one: spend today and pass along the bill to the next generations. Mr. Gregory, you know as well as I do: President Bush tried to do social security reform 6 years ago, and the Democrats rejected it and have failed to the present day to propose an alternative shared-sacrifice plan, while the financial backing of social security and Medicare continues to deteriorate, all but hastening the day of reckoning."
As a Tea Party ally, I can tell you what is probably a common position would be: the current social security system is unsustainable; it is little more than a Ponzi scheme, with its "investments" papering over federal operational debts (and keep in mind the federal government is the only entity that can pay off its obligations by printing money instead of relying on revenues). There is a moral hazard: the private sector has a variety of retirement vehicles, including annuities. Several other countries empower their citizens to direct their own retirement plans, but the US, supposedly a free market nation, refuses to do the same, with Democrats equating investing with 'gambling'. Most of us are planning for our own retirements, because we don't trust the federal government to manage our money:
What is fundamentally unacceptable is a class warfare back-door tax increase where lower-income people feel entitled to other people financing their own retirement. The social security program was initially designed when over a dozen workers supported every new retiree and expected life times were shorter.
Let's review a relevant discussion from historian David Kennedy:
FDR intentionally made everyone participate in the plan because we all have vested interests in the system. Even though it's called a payroll tax, it's not really a tax--because it's not used to support government operations; it's more of a mandatory pension contribution.
The current social security program is already progressive from the standpoint of payments (i.e., higher-income individuals/couples receive a lower rate of return), although the analysis is convoluted by the nature of cohorts (versus aggregate contributions). In my view, if we are going to pass social welfare legislation, it should be funded consistently, across cohorts, by general revenues, not by allowing the federal government raid the social security lockbox to fund old-age poverty programs. As we have come to expect, progressives like Pelosi, Obama and Reid want to change the rules of the game FDR started. The very idea of means-testing involves in a theft of property from upper-income people by arbitrarily reducing their rate of return relative to others--the same thing occurs by lifting an income ceiling for contributions. In reality, this move constitutes a back door general income tax hike.
What I find incredulous is the only fixes Democrats are proposing aren't shared sacrifice, given changing actuarial facts of longer lives (and hence greater amount of future payments) and an unsustainable burden on a relatively shrinking workforce. It's one thing if you increase contributions across the board, slash or adjust payments across the board and/or raise everyone's eligibility criteria consistently. But David Gregory needs to ask Democrats the hard questions, including the fact that most Democrats are in a state of denial that this house of cards is fine and doesn't need fixing, as if increased longevity without criteria and payment reform don't unethically transfer the real costs of social security onto future generations whom have to make up the difference. David Gregory may think he's being clever by putting Congressman Schilling in a no-win situation between giving progressives ammunition for playing whack-a-mole and his supporters, whom see the social security system as a classic example of Big Government run amuck, but what he is really doing is revealing his own bias and agenda.
David Gregory got Speaker Boehner to provide general approval of the Obama Administration's handling of the Egyptian "revolution". This is not the first time I'm felt like saying, "Speaker Boehner, just what were you thinking?" (Remember when he initially suggested that he might settle for a class warfare Bush tax cut extension?) It's like we have an attention-deficit disorder President; remember how many times President Obama has said that we "can't afford to do nothing"? (My last Google search on the topic came up with over 6 million hits.) Here's a radical thought: instead of providing vacillating, incoherent, or conflicting statements or throwing our longtime allies under the bus, we should exhibit some patience.
We are not responsible for the actions of the leaders of our allies or other countries, and our public statements as a government can actually be counter-productive, e.g., presumptuously attempting to lecture other countries on their actions or back other leaders into corners. I'm not trying to provide an apologetics for past relationships with autocratic governments. Our policies are context-driven. I'm not suggesting we "sell out" the interests of the people in certain countries, but we should avoid embarrassing regional allies publicly.
Arizona's Immigration Countersuit:
A Measured Thumbs UP!
I have made my position clear that, unlike other conservatives, I oppose state-specific immigration laws based on the Constitution. However, I find that it's highly unjust for state taxpayers to have to cover the costs of illegal immigration because of ineffectual federal border protection.
- Social Security Reform
Schilling is caught between the devil and the deep blue sea in terms of suggesting his own approach, knowing that his is only 1 voice out of 435 in the House. He did the correct thing, noting that everything has to be on the table and all but saying, "I will not tell you what concessions I might make (e.g., in increasing payroll taxes, which my supporters won't like), unless I see what the other side is willing to bring to the table (e.g., raising the age, which his supporters won't like)." Schilling, of course, is well-aware if he discloses concessions in advance, it moves the starting point for negotiation in the opponent's favor.
How would I have responded in Schilling's place? "A starting place should be the President's own bipartisan deficit reduction committee which won clear majority support, including the votes of all but one Senator on the committee. Unfortunately, the President has shown little leadership in backing the conclusions of his own committee. This is not unlike federal deficit issues, where the President has yet to propose serious plans to cut spending despite trillion dollar deficits as far as the eye can see and interest payments on the debt beginning to crowd out funds for government operations. He is doing what he has been doing since day one: spend today and pass along the bill to the next generations. Mr. Gregory, you know as well as I do: President Bush tried to do social security reform 6 years ago, and the Democrats rejected it and have failed to the present day to propose an alternative shared-sacrifice plan, while the financial backing of social security and Medicare continues to deteriorate, all but hastening the day of reckoning."
As a Tea Party ally, I can tell you what is probably a common position would be: the current social security system is unsustainable; it is little more than a Ponzi scheme, with its "investments" papering over federal operational debts (and keep in mind the federal government is the only entity that can pay off its obligations by printing money instead of relying on revenues). There is a moral hazard: the private sector has a variety of retirement vehicles, including annuities. Several other countries empower their citizens to direct their own retirement plans, but the US, supposedly a free market nation, refuses to do the same, with Democrats equating investing with 'gambling'. Most of us are planning for our own retirements, because we don't trust the federal government to manage our money:
What is fundamentally unacceptable is a class warfare back-door tax increase where lower-income people feel entitled to other people financing their own retirement. The social security program was initially designed when over a dozen workers supported every new retiree and expected life times were shorter.
Let's review a relevant discussion from historian David Kennedy:
But the experts envisioned a modest employee contribution and a substantial subvention from general Treasury funds... Roosevelt [said],“No dole. No money out of the Treasury.” The planners persisted:...the earliest retirees’ benefits would far exceed their contributions, creating an accrued liability that by 1980 would need to be covered out of general revenues. Nothing doing, said Roosevelt. “This is the same old dole under another name. It is almost dishonest to build up an accumulated deficit for the Congress of the United States to meet in 1980. We can’t do that.” FDR later claimed that he fully understood the fiscal rationale for the planners’ recommendations. “But those taxes were never a problem of economics,” he said. “They are politics all the way through. We put those taxes in there so as to give the contributors a legal, moral, and political right to collect their pensions. . . . With those taxes in there, no damn politician can ever scrap my social security program.”In other words, FDR intentionally built a house of cards from the get-go. He knew that if the tax rates were too high, to properly fund the system, they would constitute a barrier to hiring during the Depression. That's why the experts were arguing using general revenues to finance early retiree payments. But FDR knew if the system was financed out of general revenues, if and when politicians needed to look for ways to balance the budget, beneficiary payments would likely get a haircut.
FDR intentionally made everyone participate in the plan because we all have vested interests in the system. Even though it's called a payroll tax, it's not really a tax--because it's not used to support government operations; it's more of a mandatory pension contribution.
The current social security program is already progressive from the standpoint of payments (i.e., higher-income individuals/couples receive a lower rate of return), although the analysis is convoluted by the nature of cohorts (versus aggregate contributions). In my view, if we are going to pass social welfare legislation, it should be funded consistently, across cohorts, by general revenues, not by allowing the federal government raid the social security lockbox to fund old-age poverty programs. As we have come to expect, progressives like Pelosi, Obama and Reid want to change the rules of the game FDR started. The very idea of means-testing involves in a theft of property from upper-income people by arbitrarily reducing their rate of return relative to others--the same thing occurs by lifting an income ceiling for contributions. In reality, this move constitutes a back door general income tax hike.
What I find incredulous is the only fixes Democrats are proposing aren't shared sacrifice, given changing actuarial facts of longer lives (and hence greater amount of future payments) and an unsustainable burden on a relatively shrinking workforce. It's one thing if you increase contributions across the board, slash or adjust payments across the board and/or raise everyone's eligibility criteria consistently. But David Gregory needs to ask Democrats the hard questions, including the fact that most Democrats are in a state of denial that this house of cards is fine and doesn't need fixing, as if increased longevity without criteria and payment reform don't unethically transfer the real costs of social security onto future generations whom have to make up the difference. David Gregory may think he's being clever by putting Congressman Schilling in a no-win situation between giving progressives ammunition for playing whack-a-mole and his supporters, whom see the social security system as a classic example of Big Government run amuck, but what he is really doing is revealing his own bias and agenda.
- The Barack Obama Birth Certificate Kerfuffle
David Gregory seriously pursued the fringe right's issue with the President's birth certificate with Speaker Boehner. Boehner repeatedly said that he believes that President Obama has been a citizen by birth. That wasn't enough for the cagey Gregory: what about all these nonsensical polls showing that large percentages of conservatives, Republicans and/or Tea Party backers don't believe that Obama meets the nativist criterion in the US Constitution? Once again, David Gregory is arrogantly portraying that Boehner's failure to rebuke as a failure in leadership...
Let me make myself clear on this point: as far as I'm concerned, the fact that local Hawaiian newspapers carried timely notices of Obama's birth is more than enough verification. I am not particularly interested in whatever issues that have surfaced in procuring official copies of Obama's certificate. It's not like his mother in the early 1960's knew that her biracial baby would run for President one day, so she needed to engage in some elaborate conspiracy with the local government and newspapers to cover up his foreign birth. I do not know what the issues are in retrieving his official copy, but let's just say that it wouldn't be a surprise if the certificate got misfiled or there was some other bureaucratic foul-up.
Boehner refused to judge people whom allegedly believe in this nonsense. David Gregory wanted to play a game of gotcha, hoping to drive a wedge between the Speaker and conservative allies. Let's put it this way: President Obama is very unpopular with the conservative base. It would not surprise me if conservatives were asked something about Obama in a poll, they might figure out which response might signal their disapproval of Obama. In other words, the poll really isn't measuring whether people are familiar with the issue and carefully evaluated the evidence: the results may simply be an artifact of incompetent polling.
What I find outrageous is the fact that Gregory is one-sided in how he addresses nonsensical issues. For example, does he seriously apply the same line of questioning when it comes to interviewing Democratic politicians? How many times has he interviewed Democratic politicians without questioning their absurd allegations of "8 years of failed policies" under Bush? How many times have the politicians being held responsible for uncivil treatment of George W. Bush or Sarah Palin? More than 2 years after George Bush left the Presidency, his intelligence is still mocked on the late night circuit. (For example, over the past week, one so-called comedian used Mubarak's attempt to groom his son for the Presidency to draw an implicit comparison to George HW Bush and George W. Bush.)
- Obama's Handling of the Egyptian Crisis
We are not responsible for the actions of the leaders of our allies or other countries, and our public statements as a government can actually be counter-productive, e.g., presumptuously attempting to lecture other countries on their actions or back other leaders into corners. I'm not trying to provide an apologetics for past relationships with autocratic governments. Our policies are context-driven. I'm not suggesting we "sell out" the interests of the people in certain countries, but we should avoid embarrassing regional allies publicly.
Arizona's Immigration Countersuit:
A Measured Thumbs UP!
I have made my position clear that, unlike other conservatives, I oppose state-specific immigration laws based on the Constitution. However, I find that it's highly unjust for state taxpayers to have to cover the costs of illegal immigration because of ineffectual federal border protection.
Political Humor
A few originals:
- Former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak declined to run for reelection this September. He explained at his news conference that he wanted to spend more time with his mummy.
- No doubt the Chinese love American films. A new Disney theme park is being built near Shanghai. I suspect they have also seen the baseball classic, "Field of Dreams": "If you build it, they will come". After all, the Chinese have built several ghost cities and up to 64 million vacant homes...
The Bee Gees, "New York Mining Disaster 1941". This first major US single for the Bee Gees, with a distinctive opening chord, was really inspired by a Welsh mining accident the previous year (1966).
