Quote of the Day
Love all, trust a few. Do wrong to none.
William Shakespeare
It's Time to Privatize/Deregulate the TSA
I have zero tolerance for two-time, two-time TSA patdowns of 6-year-old boys with video games. The kinds of Americans who justify "whatever it takes" in air travel at costs far exceeding benefits and blindly following rules for the sake of rules are exactly those Americans whom would sacrifice our traditional unalienable rights for the sake of authoritarian, unaccountable government bureaucracies.
Budget Debacle: Failed Obama Leadership
The Democratic strategy is fairly transparent: (1) they will only to concede to gimmick budget "cuts", e.g., reduction of planned budget increases; (2) they will refuse any substantive program reductions in entitlement and safety net spending (the majority section of the federal budget); (3) this leaves only tax increases and/or defense spending cuts, other than a residual 20% of the budget. Since the GOP strategy is essentially to declare defense and tax increases off limits, this leaves the GOP with only token reductions. Token reductions are exactly what we got a few months back, which blows the GOP's credibility. The Democrats then argue that they protected the "middle class", essentially code words for their grossly morally hazardous, money-wasting, ineffectual legacy government programs.
The only thing we're seeing any sort of agreement is the idea of broadening the business tax base by simplifying business tax exemptions, credits, reductions, etc., i.e., returning to mid-80's tax reform.
The negotiations I see have been utterly pathetic. While at the state and local level, we are seeing things like staff reductions, increased employee cost sharing of benefits, reduction in operating hours or facilities, we don't see any comparable austerity at the federal level, including things like rollbacks of Bush-era compensation increases, with large numbers of subordinate position funding linked to leadership position increases. Have we seen decoupling of these links? Compensation caps? Freezing of step increases and/or capping at improved COLA calculations? Reduced contractor rates? Hiring freezes and/or reduction in personnel? Have we seen cutbacks analogous in nature to state and local contexts, e.g., reduced operating hours, consolidations in facilities, deferments in projects or infrastructure spending?
When we start looking at entitlements, have we looked at tightening eligibility criteria, across-the-board premium increases, raising deductibles, reduced benefits, elimination of tax deductions for social security, caps on disbursements and/or increases, and across-the-board payroll tax increases? The latter may seem counter-intuitive, but the status quo assumes that existing payroll contributions are sustainable with existing actuarial trends, which flatly isn't true and is exacerbating unfunded liabilities. Even with Paul Ryan's approach which is a first step towards financial responsibility, he bends over backwards saying existing spending and disbursements won't be touched. That's because Ryan knows the GOP will pay a price in Democratic demagoguery if it demands true austerity today; I don't think it is morally acceptable to say this economy needs strong medicine but don't worry if you're 10 years or closer to retirement. You are going to get hit by Democrat demagogues anyway, so you might as well take the hit today and be the only grownups in the room. In effect, current program spending represents a de facto cost shifting from the present to future taxpayers. I consider that fundamentally unacceptable and morally bankrupt, shifting our legitimate costs to the next generation. If Democrats were truly ethical, candid and responsible, they would be honest with the American people about the fact they were perpetuating an intrinsically unsustainable Ponzi scheme to buy off voters in the next election at the expense of the economic future of American children and grandchildren.
We have a tax system that punishes savers and investors and rewards consumption. This is exactly the opposite of what we should have. I am not taxophobic--but until the Democrats are ready to acknowledge that exempting half of wage earners from paying down even a net cent to government overhead, there is so "shared sacrifice": class warfare politics by the Democrats is morally bankrupt: it perpetuates undue dependence on hopelessly inefficient and ineffective government programs, and recipients of "free" government goods and services have no vested interest whatsoever in assuring responsible stewardship of the people's money.
What would I do if I was Boehner? In exchange for national debt increase, I would demand an indefinite, across-the-board spending cap at 90% of current disbursements at the federal agency level. Nothing is off the table, including Medicare and social security. Let's force Obama to go on the record and make the hard choices at the federal level or face simple disbursement reductions across the board. I would also require the President to come up with a detailed proposal for eliminating $50T of unfunded liabilities. Do you think our "President" would accept the challenge? Do Democrats spend money responsibly? Is the Pope pagan?
I'm sick and tired of having a pretentious intelligent President posturing politically with every decision he makes. That's not "leadership"; it's abdication of leadership. I heard Tim Geithner go into pure political spin on Meet the Press. When 40% of the budget is unfunded, the American people need a President whom has the balls to do the right thing for America instead of trying to play every decision to his political base. That is not Democrat-America; it is America. He was elected to be President, not be part of the problem. This little blog should not have to show more leadership in one post that this empty suit has shown in 2.5 years in office. I've criticized both parties here, but when it comes to spending, at least the GOP are trying to do something about the problem instead of playing games with budget increases while totally ignoring the budget base. Only one party has talked about reducing the budget to 2008 levels; the other party hasn't even proposed a budget in 2 years. Now what other organization do you know of--family, state/local government, business--under limited income goes around spending money without even bothering to pass a budget? The proof is in the toxic Democratic pudding.
What Anti-Immigration Activists Are NOT Telling You
What Governor Jan Brewer and others are not telling most Americans, including anti-immigrant media "conservatives", is that there have been some broad changes which have significantly changed the dynamics underlying illegal immigration, particularly in recent years: there have been economic reforms which have increased professional and lower-skilled employment opportunities, increased utilization of H-2A applicants and legal immigration, reduced birth rates, democratic reforms and other factors have reduced illegal crossings or expired visas to roughly 20% of the levels we saw just 5 to 10 years ago. Moreover, Mexico's higher GDP growth rate and a bad US job market has reduced the natural economic incentive to illegally immigrate. Am I saying there is no illegal immigration? Of course not
Musical Interlude: My Favorite Groups
ELO, "Living Thing"
