There are two things a person should never be angry at,
what they can help,
and what they cannot.
Plato
Tables of the Day
And you thought Detroit was in trouble.... First, keep in mind that the rest of national debt (table 5, line 1) is held in trust funds (less than $5T). So when you look at nearly $56T of additional money needed to pay out promised retirement benefits, is it fair to say Baby Boomers have "paid for" their benefits or shifted their fair share of the burden to younger people? (As a Baby Boomer myself, I have paid into these programs my entire work career, and I doubt I'll ever see payback on what I've paid into FICA.) But the reality is that the federal government has too many claims on roughly $2.5-3T revenues in a GOOD year. We have no choice--we need some combination of benefit reductions or additional funding, sooner than later.
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| Courtesy of James Hamilton and Cato Institute HT Mygovcost.org |
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| Courtesy of James Hamilton and Cato Institute |
There is just something so obnoxious about Congressman Peter King (for post formatting, a relevant interview clip is at the end of the post); he was on another recent Sunday talk soup and took yet another arrogant, judgmental slap at Rand Paul and/or Justin Amash. This clueless demagogue is pimping for a government bureaucracy run amok; he is knowingly gullible, willing to accept and promotes excuses, misleading claims and outright lying. He has been in Congress for 20 years, so there is no excuse for his being a naive, knee-jerk and fear-mongering member of Congress, sorely in need of an ass-kicking.
Boondoggles in the People's Republic of California
Judge Michael Kenny unfortunately has not yet ruled to block construction, but it's clear that he has not drunk the "progressive" Kool Aid:
Having exercised its independent judgment in this matter as authorized by law, the Court concludes that the Authority abused its discretion by approving a funding plan that did not comply with the requirements of law. Specifically, the identification of the sources of all funds to be invested in the IOS and the certification regarding completion of necessary project level environmental clearances did not comply with the requirements set forth in the plain language of Section 2704.08(c)(2), subsections (D) and (K).
FDR New Deal "Accomplishments", According to Dick Morris
Morris is a former Bill Clinton political adviser, whom was influential in Clinton's political comeback in Arkansas after being voted out following his first term as governor and in his reelection comeback after his disastrous 1994 mid-term rebuke. After certain scandals resulted in his resignation from the Clinton campaign and/or administration, he became openly critical of the Clinton's and particularly emerged in media conservative circles around the time of Hillary Clinton's failed 2008 campaign. He has become a best-selling pop conservative author and political commentator. His credibility took a hit when he openly predicted a Romney landslide days before the election. It was clear to me that Romney had failed to capitalize on his momentum after the first debate (after seeing my beloved UH Cougars blow the NCAA basketball championship by shifting into an uncharacteristic slowdown game, nursing a big but insufficient lead: NC State basically fouled the poor foul-shooting Cougars and converted at the other end, eventually whittling away the Houston lead: Romney never had a commanding lead when he started to coast on his initial debate victory). Even when Romney led in battleground states, his lead was within the margin of error, and it was clear the Dems had locked up early voting; when I saw long lines of minority voters in battleground states on election day, I knew Romney was done. I remember hearing Morris' predictions and thinking it sounded more like hype and wishful thinking than serious political analysis. I probably did not vocalize my skepticism in the blog since I knew an Obama reelection would be disastrous and secretly hoped that I was wrong.
Morris has been establishing his bona fides as a pop conservative pundit; I am on one of his email distribution lists, although I have not been watching FNC for some time, and Fox News reportedly dropped him as a contributor earlier this year. I would say I will occasionally go to his website to view his daily video (I didn't realize that he had put these videos on Youtube when I started this commentary, and his website videos do not allow for usable embedding; no doubt he wants eyeballs on his website.) Now to be honest, some of Morris' reflections on FDR are critical; but let me be clear: I think the New Deal and its successor, the Great Society, have not been a boon and tragic errors setting up an unsustainable over-promised, under-funded house of cards (see above).
Keep in mind when you listen to Morris' commentary that even with the disastrous 1938 election, FDR was working with super-majorities (e.g., 3-1 Dem in the Senate and over 260 seats in the House). This doesn't necessarily mean FDR had a rubber-stamp Congress; there were legitimate conservative Southern Democrats, for instance, whom opposed FDR's "progressive" domestic and foreign policies". I don't want to analyze everything here that Morris says, but I want to pick out a few things. First, he suggests that that social security freed up consumer behavior, which accounts for a large chunk of the economy. I want to point out that payroll taxes take money out of worker consumer pockets and have become increasingly regressive over time. Second, keep in mind we had a steep progressive income tax which retarded economic growth to the point that JFK/LBJ prescribed tax cuts to rev up the economy. Third, the social security system is a captive funding for cheap government financing, which is intrinsically vested for wasted Congressional spending; we know dollars lose purchasing power and bonds earn less than stocks over time.
Morris suggests that people are more willing to spend because they don't have to worry about an income in their old age. It's probably better to deal with elderly poverty in the context of overall poverty. Morris does not deal with the moral hazard (I don't have to worry about my golden years because the government will handle my retirement expenses). Just to give context, we went through nearly 150 years without a national pension--and a conservative should argue if we have a welfare net, it should be a state, not a national priority. My mom used to say one of the nice things about having 7 kids is that in their golden years my Dad and she could live round-robin at the homes of her kids; in fact, my first brother-in-law built an in-law apartment adjacent to his house. But social security was never intended to fully replace work income; there's a reason 401K's and IRA's came into existence.
However, Morris suggests that social security is a distinctive advantage over Japan and other competitive developed economies. I think this is a very dubious point. Social security is a concept that was first fleshed out in Europe and in fact Japan implemented similar reforms as early as the 1920's.
Bottom line, I completely disagree that the paternalistic, incompetent, noncompetitive government which never looks past the next election can be trusted with people's money and trust--just look at the unfunded liabilities above; there will be a day of reckoning for this house of cards. The other things he mentions--the SEC, the CFTC, etc.--I don't necessarily think are obvious no-brainers; I prefer voluntary organizations with some transparency mandates to entrenched, self-preserving, ineffectual, arbitrary rule-making bureaucracies.
Political Cartoon
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| Courtesy of Henry Payne and Townhall |
The Beatles, "Golden Slumbers / Carry That Weight / The End". This has got to be the greatest medley ever.
Congressman King Vents at Senator Paul
