I worked many years, and there was an old saying: You made an ad for everybody and you speak to nobody. Obama's style seems to manage by consensus, which just does not work. It was much better when he took the tack, "I'm President, this is my platform, this is what I want to achieve." Kinda sorta worked with the Health Care Act, Why not with the budget? In the latest budget fight, Obama tried to make everyone happy and no one is satisfied. He should have pushed it through last October when Democrats were in control, but blew it.
If I were President, here's what I would do:
1. Preserve anything in the budget that creates a more educated, better-equipped workforce for the next generation. "I believe that children are our future..." Whitney sappily sang, but as one president said during one of our worst economic periods, and I'm paraphrasing, "there's no better money spent than putting milk in the bottes of babes". Education and funding for feeding poor kids is the first thing to go in most budgets, as kids don't vote, and their poor parents statistically don't vote either. Many a great American has come from the most meager of backgrounds, with a little bit of help. Instead of breeding little criminals with no hope or vision of a successful long term future, there needs to be a little investment in the American Dream that does not involve buying a lottery ticket. These long-term programs are not popular, as results are not measured until 4 - 5 elections from now, but we will be better off in creating successful, tax-paying workers and business people that pay into Social Security that will enter the work force 20 years from now. We may actually re-build our middle class!
2. Focus on cheaper preventative services, not the expensive fix, like jail and welfare. This is related to point 1. Planned Parenthood is a good example. 97% of their services are affordable and accessible medical care, education and prevention, not abortion. Which would you rather do, prevent pregnancy and unwanted children, or support these moms and kids for the rest of their lives when no services are available? It seems our conservative friends are irrational when it comes to sex, family planning or anything related to preventing pregnancy. If they were true fiscal conservatives, they would see that an ounce of prevention is worth the untold billions of "cure", but the hypocrites act as if life begins at conception and ends at birth. Put aside the unpleasant business of the by-products of unprotected sex. Cancer screenings, check-ups and all preventative care should be rewarded, while the outcomes of not having done so should not and have penalties or taxes put upon them. Cut the "horse has left the barn" outcomes, such as prisons. Repeal the Rockefeller laws and be done paying for the folks with relatively minor drug infractions. Fine them instead, dearly, and build revenue. Give minor offenders a choice - pay $25K or go to jail, for example. I'm sure people will fork over the money. It's kind of like a crook tax. Richard Nixon was the last of the fiscal conservatives and social liberals in this respect. We had the greatest amount of government-sponsored drug treatment during his administration, and his programs have been cut ever since. Now we have jails filled with crackheads and meth addicts.
3. Re-evaluate outdated entitlements. Paying farmers NOT to grow crops to boost prices? Paying "famers" because they have two pieces of livestock on their land? Hell, I'll go out and get a couple of llamas! I'm all for helping farmers who are trying to contribute to our sustenance, but there are a lot of "sacred cows", pun intended, that need to be slaughtered. Most businesspeople like myself succeed and fail by their own efforts. Farming should be no different, save draught, disaster or plague of locusts. I know that it's part of our national identity, but our government talks out of both sides of its mouth - "supporting" the family farm, while cutting taxes and giving other breaks to agribusiness. Sad but true. Tax the crap out of Monsanto, ConAgra, etc, and you might see a comeback in the family farm on its own merits.
4. Raise taxes on financial service companies while cutting taxes on manufacturers with US-based factories. Wall St. has been much-demonized, as it should be to an extent. Once greed is rewarded ad infinitum, things will certainly end badly. BUT the major issue is what is made there except for money? It's transferred from here to there, person to person, under the ruse that "jobs are being created". Hundreds of thousands of finance jobs were cut, yet banks had some of their best years ever, while the average working person, some of them former finance people, were hurting the most. Companies that make money from making money should be taxed at a higher rate. Plain and simple. Companies that actually make products in the USA, not somewhere else, that have some utilitarian value, should pay the least corporate tax. THEY will create jobs. Remember Detroit? Remember when electronics were made here (Zenith, GE, Fischer, Maytag, Kenmore?) Hell, Americans invented the light bulb and television and made them here, but there is little of that left. We need to get some of our industry back. The founder of American Apparel had the right idea (personal proclivities aside). There is something to the "Made in the USA" concept but this catchphrase means nothing without the infrastructure of industry, and the government, supporting it. This also means increased tariffs on imported goods, including goods made by American companies abroad. That's what every other country in the world does except us. Ever wonder why Levi's cost so much in England? So, you increase revenue from taxes from financial services, and increase revenue from goods not made in the USA. People who really want imported goods can pay extra. There is no reason why a car or t-shirt made abroad should cost less than a car made in the USA.
5. Tax the rich. I don't mean disproportionately, but I do mean fairly. Sorry, I may be one of those people, but I don't care. It's not some Ayn Rand-ish form of punishment for the hyper-capable, but the richest 1% of us all are paying the least amount of tax in history. When our most famous capitalist, Warren Buffet, thinks there is something wrong because he's paying the least tax he ever has, maybe we should listen to him. The "trickle down" theory didn't work under Reagan, and it won't work now. "Voodoo economics" exists even more so today. Reagan looks like a moderate compared to some folks. Tea Baggers forget that government GREW under Reagan, and passed the Tax Reform of 1986, which closed a lot of loopholes for the rich. Like the Reagan years, the deficit and military spending are out of control. Bring back the luxury tax. Tax consumption and not savings. You spend more, you pay more. It's that easy. The current theory is that if rich people are taxed less, they will spend money like drunken sailors that will somehow benefit the guy washing dishes in a restaurant. A true capitalist takes that tax savings and buys more stock, which your joe punchclock will never even dream about. The American CEO is paid disproportionately for the so-called value they create (or destroy, as the CEO of Home Depot was paid $35MM to get lost), so they should be taxed disproportionately. Once you get into 9 figures in income, I'm sure these guys or gals won't feel a thing forking over another $10 million. That's a $10 million you'd have a way harder time squeezing out of your average minimum-wage worker or union member.
6. Cut military spending. Forget we have two wars going on under dubious pretenses. We'll take that as given. But our military used to be it's own little society with it's own police, interrogators, cooks, laundry people, logistics, drivers, mechanics and even factory workers. Now it seems aside from officers, pilots, infantrymen, and special forces, everything besides fighting is done by corporations. It's going to hurt Dick Cheney's former employer, but service men and woman can do their own laundry, not pay Halliburton $100 a load. Can you believe they put Cooky out of a job? Not to mention "contracted" interrogators run amok because they are not in the military chain of commend and have no accountability. Kick the fuckers out. Our military should do government sponsored R&D and manufacture in government plants. Bring it back in-house and save money, and increase national security at the same time. Private corporations don't care if they sell the technology to us or Iran - a buck is a buck. It might be nice to also give our soldiers a broader set of skills they can use then they return home from war aside from firing an AK-47. To anyone who thinks I am saying this for any bleeding heart social reason, which is partly true, I suggest you search youtube for President Eisenhower's parting address. Here is one of our greatest military leaders, and Republican president with a great interest in having a strong military, who pleads urgently that war should not become a business, and our economy should not rely on the military as an "industry". He coined the phrase "military industrial complex". You can have a strong military policy and strategy, and limited cost-efficient operations (see Clinton administration sorties). Spending endless amounts of money does not make you successful in war. At this point, we are throwing good money after bad, but we should at least be keeping it in the military family in future endeavors.
The budget is meant to be fiscal, not political. We need to balance the budget by increasing revenue in a higher proportion to budget cuts. It's math, not morality. A dollar of prevention is worth $10 or possibly $100 of cure. Create new taxes and revenue streams and fund programs that may actually benefit future generations in becoming tax-paying citizens. If only our leaders could see, and act, beyond the next election.
If I were President, here's what I would do:
1. Preserve anything in the budget that creates a more educated, better-equipped workforce for the next generation. "I believe that children are our future..." Whitney sappily sang, but as one president said during one of our worst economic periods, and I'm paraphrasing, "there's no better money spent than putting milk in the bottes of babes". Education and funding for feeding poor kids is the first thing to go in most budgets, as kids don't vote, and their poor parents statistically don't vote either. Many a great American has come from the most meager of backgrounds, with a little bit of help. Instead of breeding little criminals with no hope or vision of a successful long term future, there needs to be a little investment in the American Dream that does not involve buying a lottery ticket. These long-term programs are not popular, as results are not measured until 4 - 5 elections from now, but we will be better off in creating successful, tax-paying workers and business people that pay into Social Security that will enter the work force 20 years from now. We may actually re-build our middle class!
2. Focus on cheaper preventative services, not the expensive fix, like jail and welfare. This is related to point 1. Planned Parenthood is a good example. 97% of their services are affordable and accessible medical care, education and prevention, not abortion. Which would you rather do, prevent pregnancy and unwanted children, or support these moms and kids for the rest of their lives when no services are available? It seems our conservative friends are irrational when it comes to sex, family planning or anything related to preventing pregnancy. If they were true fiscal conservatives, they would see that an ounce of prevention is worth the untold billions of "cure", but the hypocrites act as if life begins at conception and ends at birth. Put aside the unpleasant business of the by-products of unprotected sex. Cancer screenings, check-ups and all preventative care should be rewarded, while the outcomes of not having done so should not and have penalties or taxes put upon them. Cut the "horse has left the barn" outcomes, such as prisons. Repeal the Rockefeller laws and be done paying for the folks with relatively minor drug infractions. Fine them instead, dearly, and build revenue. Give minor offenders a choice - pay $25K or go to jail, for example. I'm sure people will fork over the money. It's kind of like a crook tax. Richard Nixon was the last of the fiscal conservatives and social liberals in this respect. We had the greatest amount of government-sponsored drug treatment during his administration, and his programs have been cut ever since. Now we have jails filled with crackheads and meth addicts.
3. Re-evaluate outdated entitlements. Paying farmers NOT to grow crops to boost prices? Paying "famers" because they have two pieces of livestock on their land? Hell, I'll go out and get a couple of llamas! I'm all for helping farmers who are trying to contribute to our sustenance, but there are a lot of "sacred cows", pun intended, that need to be slaughtered. Most businesspeople like myself succeed and fail by their own efforts. Farming should be no different, save draught, disaster or plague of locusts. I know that it's part of our national identity, but our government talks out of both sides of its mouth - "supporting" the family farm, while cutting taxes and giving other breaks to agribusiness. Sad but true. Tax the crap out of Monsanto, ConAgra, etc, and you might see a comeback in the family farm on its own merits.
4. Raise taxes on financial service companies while cutting taxes on manufacturers with US-based factories. Wall St. has been much-demonized, as it should be to an extent. Once greed is rewarded ad infinitum, things will certainly end badly. BUT the major issue is what is made there except for money? It's transferred from here to there, person to person, under the ruse that "jobs are being created". Hundreds of thousands of finance jobs were cut, yet banks had some of their best years ever, while the average working person, some of them former finance people, were hurting the most. Companies that make money from making money should be taxed at a higher rate. Plain and simple. Companies that actually make products in the USA, not somewhere else, that have some utilitarian value, should pay the least corporate tax. THEY will create jobs. Remember Detroit? Remember when electronics were made here (Zenith, GE, Fischer, Maytag, Kenmore?) Hell, Americans invented the light bulb and television and made them here, but there is little of that left. We need to get some of our industry back. The founder of American Apparel had the right idea (personal proclivities aside). There is something to the "Made in the USA" concept but this catchphrase means nothing without the infrastructure of industry, and the government, supporting it. This also means increased tariffs on imported goods, including goods made by American companies abroad. That's what every other country in the world does except us. Ever wonder why Levi's cost so much in England? So, you increase revenue from taxes from financial services, and increase revenue from goods not made in the USA. People who really want imported goods can pay extra. There is no reason why a car or t-shirt made abroad should cost less than a car made in the USA.
5. Tax the rich. I don't mean disproportionately, but I do mean fairly. Sorry, I may be one of those people, but I don't care. It's not some Ayn Rand-ish form of punishment for the hyper-capable, but the richest 1% of us all are paying the least amount of tax in history. When our most famous capitalist, Warren Buffet, thinks there is something wrong because he's paying the least tax he ever has, maybe we should listen to him. The "trickle down" theory didn't work under Reagan, and it won't work now. "Voodoo economics" exists even more so today. Reagan looks like a moderate compared to some folks. Tea Baggers forget that government GREW under Reagan, and passed the Tax Reform of 1986, which closed a lot of loopholes for the rich. Like the Reagan years, the deficit and military spending are out of control. Bring back the luxury tax. Tax consumption and not savings. You spend more, you pay more. It's that easy. The current theory is that if rich people are taxed less, they will spend money like drunken sailors that will somehow benefit the guy washing dishes in a restaurant. A true capitalist takes that tax savings and buys more stock, which your joe punchclock will never even dream about. The American CEO is paid disproportionately for the so-called value they create (or destroy, as the CEO of Home Depot was paid $35MM to get lost), so they should be taxed disproportionately. Once you get into 9 figures in income, I'm sure these guys or gals won't feel a thing forking over another $10 million. That's a $10 million you'd have a way harder time squeezing out of your average minimum-wage worker or union member.
6. Cut military spending. Forget we have two wars going on under dubious pretenses. We'll take that as given. But our military used to be it's own little society with it's own police, interrogators, cooks, laundry people, logistics, drivers, mechanics and even factory workers. Now it seems aside from officers, pilots, infantrymen, and special forces, everything besides fighting is done by corporations. It's going to hurt Dick Cheney's former employer, but service men and woman can do their own laundry, not pay Halliburton $100 a load. Can you believe they put Cooky out of a job? Not to mention "contracted" interrogators run amok because they are not in the military chain of commend and have no accountability. Kick the fuckers out. Our military should do government sponsored R&D and manufacture in government plants. Bring it back in-house and save money, and increase national security at the same time. Private corporations don't care if they sell the technology to us or Iran - a buck is a buck. It might be nice to also give our soldiers a broader set of skills they can use then they return home from war aside from firing an AK-47. To anyone who thinks I am saying this for any bleeding heart social reason, which is partly true, I suggest you search youtube for President Eisenhower's parting address. Here is one of our greatest military leaders, and Republican president with a great interest in having a strong military, who pleads urgently that war should not become a business, and our economy should not rely on the military as an "industry". He coined the phrase "military industrial complex". You can have a strong military policy and strategy, and limited cost-efficient operations (see Clinton administration sorties). Spending endless amounts of money does not make you successful in war. At this point, we are throwing good money after bad, but we should at least be keeping it in the military family in future endeavors.
The budget is meant to be fiscal, not political. We need to balance the budget by increasing revenue in a higher proportion to budget cuts. It's math, not morality. A dollar of prevention is worth $10 or possibly $100 of cure. Create new taxes and revenue streams and fund programs that may actually benefit future generations in becoming tax-paying citizens. If only our leaders could see, and act, beyond the next election.
Fantastic post. I disagree on a few of the details, but you pretty much hit the nail on the head on all the major issues we face.
ReplyDeleteThe lunacy of the war on drugs is something we can no longer afford. Added together, the societal cost of full prisons and the lost revenue from potential taxation is absolutely staggering. Employers would still be free to drug test as much as they care to. Drug abuse should be seen as a mental health issue, not a crime.
I'm in favor of subsidies for small family farms, but we absolutely should cut the perks for agribusiness that make no sense. The problem, of course is that it's agribusiness who have all the lobbyists.
You're on the right track about the financial industry - it only exists to ENABLE production, it does not produce anything in its own right. When we allowed a non-productive industry to become 1/6 of our economy, bad things were sure to follow. I wouldn't raise taxes on financial firms, because that could drive business overseas. I believe we need to put strong controls back in place to build a firewall between commercial banking and investment banking. If there are firms that are too big to fail, then they're too large to exist. We already have plenty of anti-trust laws on the books - they simply need to be enforced. You're on target about CEO pay - it's excessive and definitely contributes to the sort of short-term thinking that gets us into all kinds of trouble. I'm starting to see an increased emphasis on shareholder rights and corporate governance that gives me some hope for the future.
On taxation, I think we need to lower corporate taxes and increase the effective rate paid by the wealthy. That doesn't necessarily require a rate increase - reducing tax breaks and loopholes would probably be the best approach. Lowering corporate taxes will make us more competitive in the world economy and bring more corporate profits and investment back to the U.S.
You're dead-on about the military as well. As someone who has worked with many, many IT contractors over the years, I can guarantee you that except when they're used in very tightly focused, limited-scope ways, they cost rather than save money. Even the very best contractors do NOT share the goals and ethical mandates of your organization, and using them for large, core projects almost invariably leads to a fine mess. Indiscriminate use of contractors, as we've seen in our recent wars, is a disaster waiting to happen.
There can't be more than a handful of brilliant rock & roll musicians in the world who could have written this post. You, Ms. Kitty, are truly amazing.