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Our problem isn’t the taxes, but the spending

December 10, 2012 by Leave a Comment

“Spending car” by Mike Lester

Is it time for Republicans trying to avert the fiscal cliff to give up on protecting the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy in exchange for entitlement reform?

Maybe, says former Senator Bob Bennett in an opinion piece in the Deseret News.

President Barack Obama wants to raise revenue by increasing taxes on households earning more than $250,000. The financial arguments for his position are weak — there aren’t enough such households to have a big impact on the debt — but he will prevail because all he has to do to get his way is nothing.

No deal, and taxes go up automatically on Jan. 1, giving him what he wants for the rich. Then on Jan. 2, he can propose that Congress immediately pass a law putting rates back down for the non-rich. If Republicans don’t pass it and there is a new recession, he will claim that it was their fault.

Maybe a better question would be: do Republicans still have a choice?

In many respects, the debate over taxes–raise them on the rich! Lower on the poor! Middle class! Get rid of deductions! Close loopholes! Reform the tax code!–is important, but really misses the point of what is behind the fiscal problems our country is facing. At the root of it all, the problem isn’t the tax code–though I’m all for reforming it, simplifying it, and making it more flat–the problem is that we are spending more than we are paying in taxes.

Let me repeat that with some emphasis: we are spending more than we are paying in taxes.  It’s a national problem carried and caused by each and every American. It isn’t about the rich–who are paying more and more–or the poor–who aren’t paying at all, but are more reliant on the government than ever before: it’s about all of us.

  • The Democrats: “Raise taxes on the wealthy!” comes the hue and cry from the Left, regardless of the fact that taxes cannot be raised high enough to avert future fiscal crises. In fact, they may aggravate them. No matter how many times the left side of the political spectrum tries to attack the wealthy, to say that they are not paying their fair share, the fact is that the wealthy are paying an increasingly large percentage of all taxes received by the federal government.  As I’ve noted in an earlier post, the 1950s, which saw record high tax rates on the very wealthy, also saw the wealthy supporting only 27% of the government’s budget. Today, the wealthy support 51% of the federal budget.
  • The Republicans: “No tax hikes!” is a great slogan, and indeed, Republicans are right that taxes slow the economy and hurt entrepreneurs, employers, and families. But they can’t fight tax growth with one hand, and spend more with the other.  One of the major mistakes of Republicans during the George W. Bush Administration was the passage of Medicare Part D, a massive expansion of government spending without corresponding revenues (also known as “taxes”). It didn’t help that we decided to invade and occupy Iraq and Afghanistan at the same time. My point is that you can’t fight taxes and create spending at the same time and expect the books to balance at the end of the day.
  • And the rest of us Americans: Like it or not, whether you are political or not, whether you voted  or not, you too are part of the problem. Our culture’s changing priorities is a part of the problem. Think about your own spending and lifestyle habits:  do you go to the emergency room instead of the physician? Do your lifestyle choices keep you healthy and physically fit? Did you take a job–any job–during the recession, and then, when it wasn’t enough to pay the rent or put food on the table, seek help from family, church, or charity first, before seeking government aid?  Are you saving for your retirement or are you expecting that Social Security and Medicare will provide for you in your “golden” years? And to the wealthy: do you give to a lobbying group that assures your industry gets sweet-heart deals, tax carve-outs and deductions, or protection from competition? For all of us: do you make an effort to be aware of the effect local elected officials actions will have on your home, neighborhood, city, or state?

In large part, I believe that the growth of the mountain of debt our country faces in the coming decades is not merely the fault of politicians in Washington, D.C., but also the result of changes in American culture where we demand more, and more, and give less, less not to our country, but to our neighbors and to our communities. As we fail to prepare and practice self-reliance and interdependence with our neighbors, we hand government bureaucrats more responsibility for things that would have, just a generation ago, been handled by neighbors helping one another.

The costs of Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security are among the heaviest that our country will need to burden in the coming decades, but reforming them is the work of politicians, and work that they can feasibly accomplish. The long-term future of American prosperity depends on it.

On the other hand, the effects that are created by an American culture that creates people that ask “what can my country do for me?” is an effect that can be deterred only by asking “what you can do for your country.” And that question can only be answer by some serious introspection–and personal change.

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Jim Dabakis is taking his lessons from Harry Reid

August 10, 2012 by 6 Comments

Jim Dabakis, Chair of the Utah Democratic Party (“I once caught a fish this big…” he might be saying. But probably not.) (Photo Credit: Salt Lake Tribune photographer Francisco Kjolseth)

Utah Democratic Chair Jim Dabakis is on the hunt. Or perhaps more accurate, a fishing expedition.

He’s trying to force the Utah Legislature to let him play by different rules than other tax payers by giving him documents for free just because he claims to smell a rat, never mind that he lacks any proof.

Like Harry Reid claiming Mitt Romney hasn’t paid taxes, an assertion that can only be disproved by exposing Romney to undue scrutiny, Dabakis is claiming a foul against the Utah Legislature that can be disproved only by granting Dabakis special privileges not given to other mere humans (i.e. tax payers).

The Legislature should uphold its duty to the people of Utah and requiring Dabakis and the Democratic Party to pay for the documents Dabakis has requested, just like everyone else. Allowing Dabakis a special priviledge and to have them without paying would set a bad precedent of the Utah Legislature bowing to pressure from political party leaders.

It’s ironic, really. That’s a complaint that Dabakis is usually leveling against the Legislature about Republicans, not the other way around. Funny how things change when the shoe is on the other foot.

____________________

Last year, redistricting conducted transparently and according constitutional parameters redrew the political lines across Utah, adding a Congressional seat and compensating for shifts in population across Utah’s geography. Because Republicans control majorities in the Utah House and Senate (not to mention Republican Governor Gary Herbert), it was Republicans who made the decisions about where the lines were drawn. As Speaker Lockhart said during the redistricting process:

We’ve been elected as legislators to make tough decisions. We look at all sides, hear all arguments and do some serious soul-searching. And though the Legislature is constitutionally mandated to draw districts, we have involved the public at every turn.

That wasn’t enough for naysayers, though, and Speaker Lockhart foresaw there would be those who would never agree to the results.

It’s willful ignorance or outright self-importance on [the naysayers'] part that they won’t acknowledge that the very demands they are making are the very things that will get us successfully sued at a cost of hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars.

Their talk is cheap. Their threats are opportunistic. Their verbal bomb-throwing is meant to obscure the reality of a fair process.

Now, over six months after the Governor signed the bill adopting the redistricting maps created by the legislature, Utah’s Democrats are doing exactly what Speaker Lockhart predicted. Jim Dabakis, “Rumpelstiltskin” of the Utah Democratic Party, has gone to great lengths to make gold out of straw. Upon making a GRAMA request for all documents related to the redistricting, the Democrats found out that there were more documents than they bargained for–or could afford.

Like every other tax payer, requests for public documents must be paid for by the requesting party. Because Utah Democrats had only paid for a portion of the documents, they were given only the first third of the documents, until the paid for the rest. According to the Salt Lake Tribune

The party was allowed to take one of three boxes of prepared documents for the $5,000 it had paid, but was told which box it had to take. The Legislature will not give it the other two boxes unless it pays the extra $9,250, but the Legislature’s top leaders are currently considering the party’s appeal of that.

Apparently, the first box was, well, unhelpful to Utah Democratic purposes. Rather than showing a pattern of Republican conspiracy to corrupt the process, the box showed careful attention to tax payer comment and participation in the redistricting. The attention was so careful, in fact, that many of the documents showed material that was already available through open sources on the internet.

Unfair, cried Dabakis. Rather than fork over the extra $9,250 (like every other tax payer, journalist, or watch dog group that requested documents would have to do, or has done), he claims that the Utah legislature is hiding something by requiring him to pay for them.

“It appears to be clear that they sifted through and picked all the completely inane things and put them in the first box, with the idea that they could cover up the rest of whatever is there. I think it’s pathetic,” Dabakis said. “This has all been manipulated.”

But, remember, there isn’t any proof that it’s been manipulated.  Never mind that he could have found any evidence just by purchasing the remaining material.  Just think–at the low cost of just $9,250 he could have proved corruption in redistricting and started a law suit to reboot the process.  Instead, he’s waited until just before campaign season and used it as a way to paint Republicans as corrupt and making laws out of the public’s eye. It’s an assertion that couldn’t be further from the truth.

In fact, Robert Rees, of the office of Legislative Research and General Counsel, said to the Salt Lake Tribune: ”There was no sifting through documents to pick out the bland ones. … The box provided happened to be the first set of documents produced through [our search] process.”  As a member of the Utah Bar, Rees is under an ethical, and legal, obligation to tell the truth. Further, the members of the staff of the office of Legislative Research and General Counsel are non-partisan, serving the members of the legislature from both parties.

It’s akin to Harry Reid asserting that Mitt Romney hasn’t paid taxes–just because Romney hasn’t released his taxes. The difference is that Dabakis can prove that he’s right–or that he’s wrong–just by playing by the same rules as everyone else and paying for the documents.  It’s a fishing expedition, pure and simple, that hurts your opponent, but does little to advance the public interest.

Dabakis’ rants to the news media from the empty steps of the Capitol building isn’t about policy, redistricting or process–it’s about election year politics and finding an excuse for attention when Democratic policies are failing across the nation. That alone should be enough for the state legislature to ignore his request for special treatment; that it sets a bad precedent, though, is sufficient.

[Vox Populi][Salt Lake Tribune]

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Public roads to nowhere [Contributor]

July 30, 2012 by 2 Comments

  [Benjamin Lusty is a lawyer and an occasional contributor to Publius Online]

______________________________________________________________

Democrats love talking about roads when they are actually talking about something else.  Listen to Massachusetts senate candidate (and progressive heart-throb) Elizabeth Warren:  “There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own.  Nobody.  You built a factory out there—good for you!  But I want to be clear.  You moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for.”  Hear this echo from President Obama:  “If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help.…  Somebody invested in roads and bridges.  If you’ve got a business—you didn’t build that.  Somebody else made that happen.”

The uninitiated may think that Democrats are actually talking about roads, which only they support, and without which we’re relegated to the anarchic Republican blood sport of “you’re on your own” economics.  Democrats, in their humble public spiritedness, plead for just a few more tax dollars, taken from just a few more rich people, to build just a few more miles of road so we can all share in the wealth they mysteriously generate.  Conservatives, they insinuate, cosset capitalist barbarians who loot our collective infrastructure.

This is obfuscation.  Democrats aren’t talking about roads.  They’re talking about entitlements and the taxes to fund them.  President Obama’s reelection wouldn’t herald a new age of aqueducts, Great Walls, and Hoover Dams.  It will aggrandize the welfare state.  Democrats retain power by distributing cash to special interests within their electoral coalition.  Seniors get social security and Medicare, college students get subsidized loans and Pell grants, and civil servants enjoy “Ferrari” health plans and gilded pensions.  In exchange, they vote Democrat.  It is simple entitlement politics.  Democrats’ political survival depends upon funding it all without asking sacrifices of their supporters.  Although road building grabs some votes, entitlements grab more.

Math, however, gets in the way.  Protracted recession and escalation of federal spending threaten both the treasury and Democrats’ electoral prospects.  This in turn necessitates a prolonged campaign to raise taxes to sustain current benefit spending.  But rather than honestly call for higher taxes, Democrats dress their politico-fiscal paradigm in the camouflage of “public investments” while simultaneously accusing conservatives of anti-social thuggery.  Raising taxes to pay for somebody else’s health care is a hard sale, particularly when higher taxes hurt the families that pay.  It is far easier to eulogize roads and hope that most people believe that’s the actual subject of the ploy.

Consequently, Democrats deliberately misuse the concept of public goods as a campaign strategy.  Public goods are simply those things that everybody can enjoy equally.  One person’s use of a road or a park does not necessarily limit access to the benefit it generates.  Similarly, everybody enjoys national defense, fire protection, and policing.  Government funding of public goods makes economic sense because private markets generally do not provide sufficient incentive for investment.

The same is not true, however, of entitlements which are only privately enjoyed.  One person’s Medicaid benefits cannot be consumed by another, even though the costs are shared by all taxpayers.  Further, entitlements do not lead to the creation of new goods.  Entitlement spending simply funds private consumption of things which the private market already creates.

Although the interstate freeway system may not exist without the Department of Transportation, Pennsylvania Hospital (the nation’s oldest) existed long before Medicaid selectively distributed health care benefits.  Unlike public goods, entitlements do not contribute to social wealth; instead they shift consumption from one group to another.

Democrats’ political survival, however, depends on their ability to convince voters that private consumption of public funds is actually a positive good to the rest of society that justifies elevated taxation.  This is only rhetorically possible if Democrats convince others that their spending program is simply nothing more than making everybody chip in their “fair share.”  The rhetoric used, however, is inherently deceptive and fails to convey honest information about the fundamentally differing economic qualities of public goods and entitlements.

Ironically, Democrats’ confusion of public goods and entitlements jeopardizes the ongoing vitality of public goods far more than any perfidy which they attribute to Republicans.  Entitlement funding dwarfs all other expenses and engrosses an escalating share of public revenue.  Absent comprehensive reform, entitlement politics will bankrupt the state, stalling every core public function upon which Americans rely.  Democrats are travelling a rhetorical public road to nowhere on the racecar of unreformed entitlements.

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Presidents ranked by job creation [infographic] [via Political Math]

June 18, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Hat tip to Matthias Shapiro, a friend and local policy wonk who’s got a penchant for making numbers make sense.

First, his infographic:

Second, the caveats (ask Matthias states them):

  • No, it’s not fair. President Obama hasn’t finished his first term, yet (but neither had Kennedy). On the other hand, if he’s going to get out of last place, the economy has to add 300k jobs per month until January.
  • President Obama started things in the hole.
  • Do Presidents’ really have that much control over economic growth? (No, but yes. Actually, maybe…)

Catch Matthias’ full post here and follow him on Twitter. He’s always entertaining, not to mention insightful.

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Four down…forty-six more to go.

February 1, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Newt lost Florida, and he lost big. He dissed Romney by not calling to concede. Guess what? There are still forty-six states left in the Republican nomination battle. We’re going to see a lot more of him and his antics.

Further, if you’re voting where I am, you’re voting last. Dead last.

But enough about Utah’s primary in the last third of June. I’ve already expended enough hot air on that else where. While there are some really interesting ideas for changing up the Primary process, we’ll deal with those on a later date.

Right now, we’ve got a primary battle, and it’s going to be long. Contrary to victory speeches and common sense, this race will continue for a while. Don’t believe me?  Check out this graphic from the New York Times (the red text and arrows are mine):

In other words, despite Romney’s big win in Florida–and yes, it’s a big win–it’s only a small minority of the total votes he needs to secure the nomination, not to mention the total votes that are available. If Newt Gingrich can mount a serious campaign somewhere other than in the Bible Belt, he can lengthen this race out for months.

What’s next, then? First up on the agenda is Nevada, which is heavily favored for Romney. With a substantial LDS population (somewhere between 7% and 8% of voters and 25% of caucus attendees), Mormon Mitt Romney will have a leg up on the competition. Further, neighboring Utah will be sending hordes of energetic Republicans who watched Mitt up close when he was brought in to save the scandal bitten Salt Lake Winter Olympics in 2002…which he did, successfully, transforming a deficit to a surplus, all on his own dime.

Anyway: Mitt will likely win, but only a proportional number of the delegates. Unlike South Carolina and Florida, which are winner take all, Nevada distributes its delegates proportionately, similar to New Hampshire.

After the Nevada caucus? Colorado and Minnesota are on February 7 (next Monday), but their delegates, like Iowa’s, are not pledged to the winner because the election is non-binding. (Yeah, that’s a topic for another post…) Following quickly four days later, we’ll see Maine…also, non-binding.

In that case, the next serious contest is likely to be Arizona and Michigan on February 28th. Arizona–also featuring a large LDS population–is a winner-take-all contest, but Michigan is hybrid. As the Washington Post explains it, “9 delegates are allocated proportionally based on the statewide vote. 21 delegates are awarded on a winner-take-all basis to the winner of each congressional district (1.5 per district).”  Got it?

Got it or not, the big day to put on your calendar is “Super Tuesday” on March 6. (Yes, Washington has a non-binding vote, but, well, let’s move on to the binding votes…). On that day, ten states will hold primaries (or caucuses), including Georgia (where Gingrich served as Congressman), Virginia, and Tennessee, all which are Bible Belt states where Gingrich is betting he’ll do well with the evangelicals. Further, all ten are proportional or some sort of hybrid of proportional, and a good showing will keep him neck and neck with Mitt Romney well into March.

Another graphic from the New York Times:

In other words, while Mitt’s likely to win the next five or even six states, it’s going to take him a lot longer to win the nomination if Newt (and Rick and Ron) stay in it. Newt is  a formidable opponent, and if Rick Santorum gets out, leaving his supporters to support Newt, then we see an even stronger Gingrich going into Super Tuesday.

Nate Silver, in one of his well-considered scenarios, lays it out well:

Mr. Romney endures a few more losses along the way, including in some midsize states, especially in the South. However, he wins the clear majority of contests. His advantages are accentuated by his performance in caucus states and his support amongautomatic delegates (the Republican equivalent of “super delegates”).

Volatility in the race decreases. Mr. Romney holds a stable if not overwhelming lead in national polls. There may be a point or two at which Mr. Romney loses a state unexpectedly, but this is not accompanied by a pronounced decline in his national poll ratings.

Meanwhile, some swing voters grow impatient with Mr. Gingrich, especially as his path to the nomination becomes more mathematically implausible. Some of them begin to support Mr. Romney just to get the contest over with.

Anyway you look at it, we’re in for four more months–at least!–of campaigning for the Republican nomination for the Presidency.

[New York Times] [Washington Post]

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Nationwide Poll: Most know that Mormons are Christians, but especially Republicans.

December 22, 2011 by 2 Comments

Most people consider Mormons–members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints– Christians, says a new nationwide poll by the Salt Lake Tribune. That’s interesting, and it’s also probably good news to Mitt Romney, whose biggest liability is not the health care reforms he signed as Governor of Massachusetts, but his religion.

What’s more interesting, at least to me, is who questions Mormons’ Christianity. It’s not those “crazy” conservatives; rather, it may be Democrats and Independents.

Check out the screen shot of the Salt Lake Tribune’s poll below:

At #1, the red circle, you see the percentage in the poll that consider Mormons to be Christians (which, by the way, they are). It’s just over half at 52%.

However, when that percentage is broken down into smaller segments, controlling for political affiliation, it becomes clear that the lack of acceptance is stronger on the political left.

Go to #2, the blue circles. Whereas almost 63% of Republicans believe Mormons are Christians, that percentage drops 14% among Democrats. It drops even further to 44% with independents, or people claiming no political affiliation.

What’s the upshot? The difference may not matter. Democrats and Independents don’t care about religion or belief in God as much as Republicans do.

“Clearly, religion is much more important to Republicans,” said Brad Coker, of Washington, D.C.-based Mason-Dixon Polling & Research, which conducted the Dec. 12-16 survey for The Tribune.

Further,

The partisan split is likely attributed to the larger number of secular Democrats, said Michael Cromartie, vice president of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, which studies public policy through a Christian viewpoint. He said while most Democrats are people of faith, the party “just has a lot more nonbelievers in it.”

English: Governor Mitt Romney of MA

Image via Wikipedia

So, controlling for “more nonbelievers” to the left of Republicans, and considering that any Republican candidate whose faith might be questioned (i.e. Jon Huntsman and Mitt Romney) is facing a Republican primary, we really need only look at Republicans’ perceptions of candidates. And, according to what we see here, Republicans care about a candidate’s faith, belief in God, and Christianity.

Especially the evangelicals. Says the article

White evangelicals often are seen as one conservative group most likely to criticize the LDS faith, but the poll found that 50 percent see Mormons as Christians, though 29 percent said they were not, the largest among any of the groups polled by The Tribune.

Are evangelicals shifting? Are southern preachers like Robert Jeffress losing their bigoted war against the LDS faith?

These are signs indicating that such may be the case. I’m still waiting to see. Until the Republican Presidential race shifts from New Hampshire to South Carolina and Florida, I’ll hold my judgement on whether the nation is ready to accept as one of their own a member of the LDS faith.

[Salt Lake Tribune]

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Twelve Adults and the CBO: How many adults in the room?

September 13, 2011 by Leave a Comment

The much ballyhooed Congressional Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction–aka the “supercommittee”–was supposed to hear a history of the debt crisis today.

You can imagine how well that was going to go over.  Partisans from both sides were prepared, I’m sure, to lay blame for the federal government’s fiscal problems at their opponents feet.

“It was Bush’s fault!”

“Was not. It’s Obama’s fault!”

“Nuh, uh!”

And so one. Fortunately, there was an adult in the room, and he was, contrary to oft-repeated and oft delusional grandeur of parental responsibility, not President Obama.

In fact, it wasn’t even a politician, per se. As NPR tells it

Doug Elmendorf, the man who runs the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO), immediately dispensed with the question of blame and laid out the options for the supercommittee.

“Putting the federal budget on a sustainable path will require significant changes in spending policies, significant changes in tax policies, or both,” Elmendorf said.

That’s a bitter pill, no matter what party you belong to. Elmendorf laid out the work before the committee. You have three issues before it, he said (and I’m quoting NPR, here):

  1. How much money the government is going to save;
  2. How quickly it is going to do it; and
  3. What mix of spending reductions (GOP choice) or tax increases (Democrat choice) it is going to use.

And partisan meat ain’t gonna cut it, alone. When Republican Senator John Kyl of Arizona suggested it could be recouped by stopping Medicare fraud or selling public lands, Elmendorf shut it down.

Neither of those would make up a very large part of the $1.2 trillion that the supercommittee is tasked with saving. (But he’d be glad to discuss those ideas, he said…just not on their own).

His idea, then? Raise spending or cut taxes now, and then later, raise taxes or cut spending. But lock it in now, with legislation in order to prevent future Congresses from waffling when the pressure is off.

Interesting idea, if something of a pipe dream. Check out the story from NPR.

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