Centrist Pundits

We all know why talking points exist.  It is a twofold, reason, really – one is that when someone hears a good argument, they like to use it themselves.  I’ve been known to do that myself.  For example, when I say that I don’t understand why America can’t provide health care to all the people of America when other countries can do it, that isn’t original to me.  The other reason is because, well, sometimes, repetition makes things true, or at least, makes things seem true.  If enough people say “Eggs are bad for you” then people are going to start thinking eggs are bad for you, whether or not eggs are good or bad.  The real reason why talking points exist is because, well, they work.

Still, it seems to me you’d want to evaluate if your talking points really make any sense at all.  I know “The Daily Show” did a routine on this last night, but I thought it deserved some further consideration.  The talking points for the opposition on how the President wants to change health care seem to be “Do you really want health care to be as efficient as the DMV (or other government office)?” and “Why would you want to insert a bureaucrat between you and your doctor?”

That second one is nonsense.  There’s already a bureaucrat between me and my doctor, and he works for an insurance company.  Actually, my insurance is pretty good now, but back in the day, I had to fight for things like chiropractic visits.  And if I wasn’t fighting, I was constantly getting re-evaluated to see if they were still needed.  Because some guy who’s never met me or talked to my doctor has a computer formula that says I might be scamming the insurance company out of money with unnecessary visits… as if going to a doctor is a fun way to spend my time.  I wasn’t going to an amusement park; I was going to an office, waiting for 15 minutes to half an hour, for a 5-10 minute appointment that helped me continue to be able to use my arm.  So you know what?  I’ll gladly take the government bureaucrat instead, and I’ll tell you why.  Because that government worker at least in theory works for the people while the insurance company one works only for stockholders who have the sole interest in saving money, not my health.

As to that first one, we all have our stories of government waste.  We know they exist.  But on the whole, how bad a job do they do?  The two common examples are the DMV and the Post Office.  I know the story goes the DMV is inefficient, but for the most part, my experiences there have been quick and painless.  One license renewal was a pain, because they had had a number of people quit recently so there were long lines.  But that can happen anywhere.  And I barely go to the DMV any more, I can do all of that online.  Further, there’s millions of cars on the road in America, and most of them are registered, inspected, and insured (at least in those states where its required).  Heck, you want an example of government efficiency; the DMV knew the very moment I lost my auto insurance at one point due to a late payment, back when I was having money trouble, and they were on my backside instantly.

The post office gets a bad rap because they raise rates frequently, and every now and again someone snaps, and there are lines around the holidays.  But seriously.  Every day but Sunday, they come to your house and drop off your mail.  They pick up mail from your house at the same time.  They move things across the nation in 1 to 5-6 days, depending on how much you pay, or maybe a few weeks if it’s a larger package and you pay the lowest rate.  There are private corporations that do this, but the service is about the same (except they don’t always pick up) and the price is about the same – for packages.  Or letters can be sent via the internet, which is all on computers.  For moving physical stuff around, it is actually hard to really beat the post office.  Obviously, there are some things that Fedex and UPS do better, and some they do worse, but overall, the vaunted “private sector” doesn’t kick the government’s ass.

Social Security has never had a failure to process their payroll (individuals have no doubt fallen through the cracks- I’m merely saying as a whole, they’ve never messed up on a massive scale).  The military defends this nation and does their level best even when a President sends them in with no clear mission and lacking sufficient equipment – and trust me, I’d much rather have the military doing it than the private sector equivalents, who do nothing but scare the pants off me.  The fire department saves homes and the police save people.  Our national parks are generally awesome.

Do some departments cost a lot?  Sure.  Defense costs a lot, but having a weapon that works the first time, every time, and won’t hurt you if it fails costs a lot.  Heck, even normal objects cost a lot if they have to be safe for battle zones – go and watch the episode of West Wing episode “Process Stories” if you want to see why.  NASA costs a lot too, but since no one but governments and *billionaire* Richard Branson is sending people in to space – and he isn’t doing it regularly yet – I guess it’s just an inherently expensive proposition.  Could costs go down?  Sure.  And we should be looking to do so.  But some things just cost money.  Even health care costs money.  A medication may be 5 cents a pill today, but it probably costs millions or billions to create and test it.  Making it Governmental won’t change that aspect of health care, but it may make things more available to the people.

Oh, and yes, your taxes may go up.  Which always sucks.  Unless, of course, its offset by your insurance or other health care costs going down.  Which would only make sense.

If done right, which is admittedly a tricky proposition, there is no reason government run healthcare is inherently going to be poorly run.  To say that it is does a disservice to all our government offices that, frankly, we take for granted.  Unless government health care is run as efficiently and effectively as the United State Congress (under either party).  Then we’ll all be dead in a week.

JC Economy, Health care, Media, National Politics drugs, finance, Health care, taxes

Today, the US Supreme Court put Chrysler’s sale to Fiat on hold, slamming the brakes on a fast-paced bankruptcy process that’s raised more than a few eyebrows due to its White House-endorsed elimination of long-standing creditors rights.

In an order issued this afternoon, Justice Ruth Bader-Ginsburg granted a delay that had been requested by several creditors, most notably the Indiana state pension fund. No reason was given in the order, but the bankruptcy judge’s decision not to protect the secured creditors of the company, just like, well, every other bankruptcy that he and all other bankruptcy judges have done.

Normally, the secured creditors get paid first. That kind of protection is what makes people, companies, and, more commonly, institutions want to invest in companies. So, in a normal bankruptcy, they’re the ones that get paid first.

But this is no normal bankruptcy. It involves a huge American manufacturing company. It involves many other industries that feed into it. And, as many will tell you, it involves one of the most politically influential unions in this country.

The stay was the right move. The government cannot just leave Indiana retirees holding the bag for investing responsibly. If Fiat wants to take this company, they better be prepared to take some parts they don’t want — such as the liabilities of public servants from a state that usually votes Republican, but went for Obama last year.

Greg Economy, National Politics, Political Parties, Supreme Court Chrysler, finance, obama, Supreme Court, unions

I may be late on this one, as the controversy appears to have mostly died down, but apparently, it is a big deal to some that President Obama and his wife Michelle went out on the town last weekend, which costs the taxpayers money.  From what I can tell, the arguments seem to be that either the fact that taxpayers foot the bill for this kind of thing is inherently wasteful, or that in this time of economic hardship, this particular expenditure was wasteful.

If it is inherently wasteful, then I guess that’s a legitimate debate to take up, but if that’s the case, then one has to wonder why the debate is so partisan.  I’m a bigger Barack Obama fan than I was a George Bush fan, but it never even occurred to me to question why we paid so much for George Bush to go back and forth to Crawford, Texas so often.  Perhaps it occurred to others, but I always thought getting most of your life paid for in the name of security was just part of being the President, and something we, as Americans, through our representative democracy, had agreed was a good choice of how we spend taxpayer dollars.  We want the President safe as part one of our continuity of government plans – a phrase most people think means the line of succession but really begins with NOT NEEDING the line of succession – and so we pay a ridiculous amount of money to isolate the President in a practically undestroyable car, the most advanced plane in the world, one of the most secure buildings in the world, and with a security force that makes sure the entire area around the President is safe, at any given time.  The expense is inherent in that, whether the President is in DC, New York, or Saudi Arabia.

If it is because at this particular time, wasteful spending is frowned upon, I understand the sentiment, but let’s face it folks – this is the real world.  I liken it to why we have babysitters – because having a child doesn’t mean you don’t get to have any time to yourself for 18 years.  Becoming the President is a big thing and requires big changes, but seriously, you can’t be on 24/7 for 4 or 8 years.  You need to be able to relax now and again.  The elder Bush went to Kennebunkport, the younger to Crawford.  Clinton was a workaholic and didn’t go much farther than Camp David, but the point is the same.  And it doesn’t change just because the economy is in the toilet.  In fact, I think a fair case could be made that Obama has had more stressful situations to deal with this first half-year in office than many of his predecessors, and has had a greater need to relax.

It died out quickly and I hope it stays dead, because it was a non-issue.

Credit goes to Mark for helping me straighten out my thoughts as I wrote this article.

JC Economy, Media, Personalities finance, obama

GM declared bankruptcy today.  We’ve all pretty much known this was coming since way back when.  In some ways, it seems crazy that we pumped so much money in to GM since it seemed very much inevitable that they were going to file for bankruptcy protection.  We talked a good game about protecting jobs but perhaps the tens of billions of dollars could have been better spent training those who lost their jobs how to do something other than work for a company that drove itself in to the ground.  Or perhaps not.

But as I was talking about with a friend this morning, there’s still one major difference to me between the auto company bailouts and the financial sector bailouts.  I understand what an auto manufacturer does, and I understand how what they do affects other businesses.  I may not know how to assemble a car from pieces of a car, but I grok the concept of it.  And I know if they stop building cars, then people who make car parts lose their jobs going backward on the industry chain, and people who sell and repair cars lose theirs, going forward on the chain.

I, to this day, don’t understand what the consequences would have been of letting AIG and the like fail.  Oh, I know what I was told, that it would be of dire consequences and many would lose their jobs and their savings, but I don’t “get” what the financial industry does the same way I get what the auto industry does.  I don’t know what AIG does.  I don’t know what the people who “sell” to AIG do – or if such people even exist – nor do I get what happens the other direction on that chain, the people who “buy” such products, if they exist.  And it is not just AIG, it is that entire sector of industry.

So when we give 20 billion to GM, I can wrap my head around what they are trying to do.  I may think it is a mistake or I may not, but I get it.  I really don’t with the financial industry.  That’s probably a failing on my part, but I think it is a fairly common failing on the part of many Americans.  But perhaps if what those companies could do could be easily explained, America would be more able to evaluate what our Government is doing in regard to those companies.

Of course, perhaps that is no incentive to those companies, nor to our Government, to make what they do more understandable.  After all, it is harder to frighten an educated public in to giving you billions with vague, unsubstantiated statements.

JC Economy auto industry, bailout, bankruptcy, finance

President Obama is in the news today discussing the closing of a number of loopholes in the corporate tax structure.  Details can be found at various sources on the internet, such as http://money.cnn.com/2009/05/04/news/economy/obama_corporate_tax_proposals/index.htm

Obama’s stance is that there are unintended consequences in the way these codes are written that make it too easy for corporations to send work overseas and still get tax breaks in the U.S.  Opponents of what Obama is intending are saying that every time you raise costs for a corporation, they become more likely to just pack their bags and go wholesale to some lower-cost nation.

I’m reminded, to some degree, about the minimum wage debate.  Raising the minimum wage is seen as a good idea because it keeps those earning the lowest amounts at least somewhat able to afford food, shelter, etc, and keeps them from being exploited.  On the other hand, it can force small businesses to close their doors and it can make larger businesses go overseas.  In fact, it is a fairly predictable and easy formula – if it costs less to have someone make it in, say, Malaysia and to ship it here then it does to have it made here, then the job will go overseas. 

That same kind of formula could apply to the tax costs – if it costs a corporation more to do business with the HQ in America then it does for them to do their business while based elsewhere, then they will move elsewhere.

My problem is I’m just not sure how to win, here.  If we leave the loopholes open and they continue to provide jobs overseas while getting tax breaks here, how is that really any better than if they just move overseas entirely?  I guess the thought is that the few jobs they are providing here in America are better than the none that they’d be providing if they moved?

“Win” here is pretty simple: provide good jobs to Americans.  So what’s the best way of encouraging corporations to do so?  Seriously, I’m asking you.

JC Economy budget, commerce, finance, international, obama, taxes

Lots of people have already said almost everything I have to say on the modern-day tea parties.  That’s not going to stop me from saying it, I just want to acknowledge that before everyone accuses me of copying others.

Protests are good.  Really.  Protests helped launch the civil rights movement, protests keep vital issues in the public eye.  That’s why we hold them.  The only problem is that they are, by their very nature, a mob mentality, and mob mentalities are not humanity at its finest.

The tea parties aren’t a bad idea, per se.  They have some historical relevance.  Granted, what those 18th century Bostonians were protesting was taxation without representation, rather than pure, unadulterated taxation, but hey, there is at least some linkage there, given the statements by some of the modern tea party movement that they don’t feel “the common man” is being represented in Congress any longer.  That’s not really what taxation without representation means, of course, but there is at least a tenuous connection there.

But what gets me is that they are protesting now about our taxes being too high and about our money going to things the taxpayers wouldn’t pay for if given the choice.  This “grassroots” movement that is the culmination of stress about high taxes is anything but – it is merely a partisan ploy.  They are happening because Obama is in charge, despite the fact that Obama hasn’t changed any tax rates yet (any changes he’s made will affect the taxes you pay by April 15th 2010, not 2009), despite the fact that most Americans are getting lower taxes under Obama’s plan, and despite the fact that taxes are still lower than under the great Conservative Movement icon, Ronald Reagan, because we haven’t rolled back the not-so-iconic Bush’s tax cuts.

In other words, perhaps we liberals should take some comfort in the fact these tea parties are pushing the liberal agenda by pointing out flaws in Bush era tax codes and Bush era bailout expenditures.  Who knew that so many people would come out to protest Bush’s legacy?

Taxes should be as high as they need to be to pay for the common good, and no higher.  That leaves a lot of wiggle room and debate room for what falls in to the common good, and that’s okay.  But let’s not fool ourselves here.  We didn’t come to America to escape taxation entirely, and taxes are not at some all out crazed high, and it isn’t some liberal plot to lead to socialism.  The only perhaps legitimate gripe these tea parties had this year was that too much of our tax dollars go to bailouts of the undeserving, and frankly, I doubt many of the 270,000 or so people out there the other day were economists who understand why sometimes, bailouts might be needed, but instead, most were just everyday Joes, and there’s nothing wrong with that, but our instincts may well tell us the wrong moves on the economy.

JC Economy, Media, National Politics, Society culture, finance, taxes

Stuart Varney has an op-ed piece in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal where he states that banks that received TARP money are not being permitted to pay it back.

According to Varney, the motive behind this is simple: if the banks pay back the money, they won’t be subject to White House control. And he believes that the White House wants control of the banks so that they can control not just the supply of money, but how it’s used.

His piece is long on theory and short on specifics. Even if it’s true, I can’t be sure that the motives are the same as he claims. But I do think that if the Treasury is refusing to let banks pay back the TARP loans, then the American people deserve to be told why.

If a bank is too shaky to give the money back, then I believe that the government should have to prove that in court. Otherwise, it doesn’t really matter what it is — all that matters is what it looks like.

Greg Economy, National Politics bailout, banks, finance, mortgage, obama, TARP

Earlier today, Mainstreet.com released their Happiness Index, which is a ranking of states based on household income, debt, employment and foreclosures. There are a few notable exceptions, but by and large, the red states are in the top half of the list, and the blue states are at the bottom.

Now, of course this site is all about the purple. JC and I live in some very contrasting areas — states don’t come much bluer than his Empire State, or much redder than my Sooner State. But in an interview on ABC’s Good Morning America, part of the analysis about why this happens is cultural — in many of the states near the bottom of the list, people try to live beyond their means — which comes crashing down badly in poor financial times.

Now, with that said, I will note that New York is #14 on the list, and is the highest ranking major blue state. My home state came in at #6. And I see this here, too. I mean, we’re affected by the downturn in the economy, but not to the extent we see on the news in other places.

A year ago, Oklahoma City topped the list of Forbes Magazine’s America’s Recession-Proof Cities. While I think “recession-proof” is too strong, it does show OKC and a host of culturally comparable cities that have traditionally lower pay (and costs of living) than most of the larger cities on the East and West coasts.

In the ABC piece, they interviewed a mayor in Nebraska who noted that they don’t spend wildly in the good times, and they don’t crash in the bad times — it’s much more flat all the time. What’s behind that is a very conservative attitude towards money that has more to do with culture than the specifics of living on a plain.

I’d like to think that this is an important lesson for everyone to learn, but I rather suspect that when the economy is good again, the coastal spending frenzy will begin anew.

Greg Economy, National Politics, Society culture, Economy, finance, mortgage, recession

The Obama budget has passed both the House and Senate this evening.  I have no doubt that Greg and I both have more to say on it than this, but I want to point out two things immediately:

I have no idea what will happen.  I hope it will help.  I fear it will make things worse.  I’m leaning toward help, but it could go any direction.

But here’s the second thing, and it is kind of obvious, and I think it is something we can call agree on: dang, that is a lot of money.

JC Congress, Economy budget, Congress, finance

The actual Republican budget alternative, the one with actual numbers instead of the “gist” of things, is now out.  It is really not all that surprising; it focuses on limited spending – except for defense – and tax cuts.  In some ways, it is very much like a proposal from when Bush was in office, or if McCain had won, although perhaps slightly more fiscally conservative than Bush’s requests.

I will give the budget some credit.  First of all, I think it really does present an alternative to the Obama proposal.  I’m fairly sure it is not, overall, a good alternative, but at least the game is actually starting now.  And a couple of points are actually good ones.  More money for veterans is generally a good thing, depending on how they want it spent.  (I remember that certain leading Republicans aren’t fans of the GI bill, which does nothing but anger me)  And this may be the one time, the one time in all of recent history, where I like the idea of cutting capital gains taxes; very few are making capital gains right now anyway with the economy like it is, and if the cut encourages new people to invest, that may be a good thing.

On the other hand, many of the other tax cuts (or tax cut extensions) are the same kinds of proposals that helped create the mess.  I have no problem, as mentioned before, with more, not fewer, steps in our tax rates.  I’m of mixed feelings on corporate tax rate cuts – corporations can afford to pay, but on the other hand, no one wants them fleeing oversees, either.

I find the idea of putting more money in for defense spending than Obama wants to be rather crazy.  Obama is, for better or worse, the commander in chief, and the military is going to do what he says it is going to do, so putting more money in to it seems a bit like catering for 100 guests when the wedding is only having 25 people.

Representative Paul Ryan, who is the ranking Republican on the House Budget committee, stated that the President is “exploiting” the current economic problems to spend trillions on programs.  He may or may not be right.  The President would argue that he’s spending trillions on fixing the underlying problems in America which feed the economic crisis.  Po-tay-to, Po-tah-to.  But perhaps, just maybe, hoping against hope, will we see the Republican numbers and the Democratic numbers play well together, and have something develop more in the middle of the road?

Alas.  Probably not.

JC Congress, Economy, Political Parties budget, Congress, finance