From Dick Lugar’s first address after leaving elective office, an observation worth pondering:
Perhaps the most potent force driving partisanship is the rise of a massive industry that makes money off political discord. This industry encompasses cable news networks, talk radio shows, partisan think tanks, direct mail fundraisers, innumerable websites and blogs, social media and gadfly candidates and commentators. Many of these entities have a deep economic stake in perpetuating political conflict. They are successully marketing and monetizing partisan outrage.
When I was growing up, the accepted description of America was “land of opportunity.” It was commonly believed that the American Dream could be attained by anyone willing to work hard; social mobility was the name of the game.
Knowing that poverty isn’t necessarily permanent is hugely important in a capitalist system. Inequalities are inevitable, but they need not be paralyzing, they need not engender the sorts of simmering resentments that lead to social unrest, because they are seen as temporary and (fairly or unfairly) a reflection of the effort and entrepreneurship of the individual.
We are beginning to see what happens when it becomes apparent that Americans can no longer work themselves into the middle class. Thanks to short-sighted and mean-spirited public policies, such social mobility as previously characterized our economic system (it was probably never as obtainable as national mythology had it) is largely a thing of the past.
In a column addressing the need for high quality early childhood education, Gail Collins put it bluntly: “We have no bigger crisis as a nation than the class barrier. We’re near the bottom of the industrialized world when it comes to upward mobility. A child born to poor parents has a pathetic chance of growing up to be anything but poor. This isn’t the way things were supposed to be in the United States. But here we are.”
In his recent book on inequality, Nobel-prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz underlined the current lack of social mobility in America–and its unpleasant consequences.
We have a problem, and it isn’t temporary, isn’t a result of the recent economic downturn. Social scientists have documented the characteristics of stable democracies–the attitudes and institutions that keep societies from erupting, that strengthen the social fabric rather than tearing it. A perception that the government “plays fair” and a belief in opportunity for advancement–a belief that effort and diligence will be rewarded–are among them.
In his State of the Union speech, President Obama proposed two measures–universal access to preschool and raising the minimum wage–that would begin, however modestly, to address the problem. There is ample research connecting early childhood education to later economic well-being. There is equally persuasive research rebutting the proposition that a higher minimum wage means fewer jobs. (The latter proposition seems so logical, I used to believe it was self-evident; a copious amount of research, however, shows otherwise.)
The “usual suspects” met the President’s proposals with their usual screams of “socialism.” Those usual suspects, however, should rethink their support of the status quo. When poor people lose hope–when the belief in the possibility of bettering their condition disappears, and they face the fact that social mobility is rapidly becoming a myth and the American Dream is out of reach–they become people with nothing to lose. Eventually, they take to the streets and threaten the comfortable.
What’s that old line? Pigs get fed, but hogs get slaughtered.
The news that Senate Republicans plan to filibuster the President’s nomination of (Republican) Chuck Hagel for Defense Secretary ought to be the final straw.
Harry Reid clearly allowed himself to be punked, settling for a toothless agreement with Mitch McConnell rather than the genuine reform of the much-abused filibuster that he promised. And we are all paying a high price for his fecklessness.
I understand the legitimate use of that legislative weapon to prevent a majority from running roughshod over the minority. But in its current form, the filibuster is being used by a minority–by partisans whose positions were emphatically rejected by the electorate–to defeat virtually every effort undertaken by a popularly-elected majority. As a result, government has been brought to a standstill. Nothing can be done unless a super-majority vote can be rounded up–and finding sixty votes in a Senate occupied by too many small-minded, mean-spirited partisan hacks is no easy task.
At the very least, those who want to bring government to a halt should have to stand on the Senate floor and actually talk. It should not be enough for the minority members to raise their little pinkies and announce that they are “virtually” filibustering, so please go f#*#k yourself.
The intransigence of these GOP Senators has cost this country dearly during the recent economic meltdown. For every bad idea they’ve blocked, we’ve lost many more opportunities to improve the lives of middle-class Americans, to strengthen our crumbling infrastructure, to create jobs and take measures to protect the environment.
The federal legislative system is designed to work on the principle of majority rule. A majority of those who have been elected to represent the voters is supposed to determine what laws will be enacted. That doesn’t mean that Senators who oppose legislation cannot express that opposition forcefully in their floor speeches and their votes. It does mean that when the minority party consistently refuses to allow an up-and-down majority vote, that party isn’t just blocking particular measures: it is undermining American government–and it is becoming increasingly clear that destroying the capacity to govern is not an incidental or unintended consequence of these tactics; it is the real reason for them. It’s a feature, not a bug.
Presidential nominees have never been filibustered. Even John McCain–who has made his contempt for the man who defeated him quite plain– has argued against such an unprecedented move. If the Republicans want to vote against Hagel’s confirmation, fine. That is clearly their prerogative–although, as Dick Lugar has maintained, there should be a rebuttable presumption that the executive is entitled to his choice of those he wants populating his administration. Preventing an up-and-down vote simply because they can–motivated by spite, anti-government fervor and a level of partisanship that dwarfs anything previously seen–is beyond reprehensible. It is beyond irresponsible.
It’s despicable and profoundly unAmerican. And it needs to stop.
As Hoosiers proved again last November, we’re a Red, Red State. And evidently, that partisan identity–and a deep desire to thwart that Kenyan interloper who inexplicably occupies the White House–is motivating a costly and immoral decision on healthcare.
The Affordable Care Act–aka “Obamacare”–provides incentives for states to expand Medicaid coverage. That expansion is not mandatory, however. (The Supreme Court’s decision upheld the Act, but not provisions making Medicaid expansion obligatory.)
There’s a lot of misunderstanding about Medicaid and who it covers. Currently, Indiana’s Medicaid program provides health care to about one in seven Hoosiers–mostly children, pregnant women, the disabled, seniors in long-term care and very low income families. The word “families” is key here, because non-disabled childless adults under the age of 65 are not eligible for Medicaid, no matter how poor they are. And the “eligibility” of families with children is mostly illusory: a family of three (mother, father, child) with income over $4582 a year makes too much to qualify.
The new health reform law gives Indiana the option of expanding Medicaid to provide care to Hoosiers who are currently uninsured–by increasing eligibility to low-income working adults with incomes up to 138% of the federal poverty level. Last year, that would have been $15,415 for an adult, and would have allowed that family of three to make the princely sum of $26,344.
If Indiana opts to participate, an estimated 450,000 Hoosiers would benefit. And here’s the kicker: if Indiana does participate, the federal government will pay all the costs for the first three years. The state’s portion would then phase in gradually, topping out at 10% in 2020.
And if we don’t participate? Well, poor people have this pesky habit of getting sick anyway. And we already pay to treat them–frequently, in the least cost-effective way, when they appear at hospital emergency rooms. When uninsured folks are treated there, the costs of their un-reimbursed care drives up the premiums of those with insurance. If the hospital is public, our taxes go up. If the hospitals still can’t recover their costs, they cut healthcare workers or reduce services. The 10% Indiana would eventually have to pay to cover far more people is unlikely to be more than we are actually paying now in a variety of ways–it would just be more visible and much more cost-effective.
The arguments against participating mainly boil down to two: the feds might change the formula sometime in the future, and we don’t like the government or the President.
Let’s see: on the one hand, the federal government will pay to cover nearly half a million Hoosiers whose lack of insurance is currently costing all of us money and jobs. On the other hand, we can show that socialist Barack Obama how much we hate him.
Even Ohio Governor John Kasich–a man without a “blue” bone in his body–has concluded that cutting off one’s nose to spite one’s face is rarely a sane public policy option.
It’s a new year, and with it has come a whole new crop of state and local elected officials. It’s early, but the signs are not auspicious.
One of the first official pronouncements from Indiana’s newly inaugurated Governor was a solemnly-delivered promise to stop regulating—to cease issuing administrative rules except when “absolutely necessary.” Cynics noted that the language of the executive order pretty much anticipated business as usual, but they missed the point of the exercise, which was to confirm the new Governor’s conservative, small-government “bona fides.” And what better way to accomplish that than by demonstrating his profound misunderstanding of his own job responsibilities and the role of the state in the operation of the market?
What is the proper role of government in a capitalist system? It is to act as “umpire” or referee, ensuring that everyone plays by the rules. Wasn’t it Teddy Roosevelt who reminded us that monopolies distort markets? If one company can dominate a market, that company can dictate prices and other terms with the result that free-market transactions—defined as exchanges between a willing buyer and a willing seller both of whom possess the necessary relevant information—will no longer be a genuinely voluntary transaction.
If Manufacturer A can avoid the cost of disposing of the waste produced by his factory by dumping it into the nearest river, he will be able to compete unfairly with Manufacturer B, who is following the rules governing proper waste disposal.
If Chicken Farmer A is able to control his costs and gain market share by failing to keep his coops clean and his chickens free of disease, unwary consumers will become ill.
Most economists agree that in order for markets to operate properly, government must act as an “umpire” in such situations, assuring a level playing field. They use the term “market failure” to describe three situations in which Adam Smith’s “invisible hand” doesn’t work: when monopolies or corrupt practices replace competition; when so-called “externalities” like pollution harm people who aren’t party to the transaction (who are neither buyer nor seller); and when there are “information asymmetries,” that is, when buyers don’t have access to information they need to bargain in their own interest.
Policymakers and economists may disagree about the need for particular regulations, or the optimum number of regulations, or the relative costs and benefits of suggested regulations, but most do agree that capitalism requires appropriate regulation. Unregulated markets can lead to a very different system, a system about which I have previously blogged, called corporatism. In corporatist systems, government regulations favoring powerful corporate interests are the result of lobbying by corporate and monied special interests that stand to benefit from them. You might think of it as a football game where one side has paid the umpire to make calls favorable to that team.
The rhetorical framework employed by Governor Pence, where the forces of Leviathan–defined as the government in which he serves–are in opposition to the creative energy of the market, has been a staple of American politics for at least three decades. Unfortunately, it’s an incomplete and misleading framework, and its continued use undermines both the government’s ability to do its job and, ironically, citizens’ ability to impose appropriate limits on government authority.
American politics has devolved into an exchange of bumper-sticker slogans and labels barely masquerading as discussion. Terms like capitalist, fascist, socialist and communist are used as epithets by people who rather clearly have no real acquaintance with the elements of those economic philosophies. The result is a discourse that has more in common with a mud fight than a debate, a faux “conversation” where everyone is talking nonsense, but it really doesn’t matter because no one is listening anyway.
Those of us who teach public administration talk a lot about transparency. An essential element of that transparency is a “back to basics” honest discussion about the role of government. Americans may be talking a lot, but we are not having that discussion.
It’s seductively easy to blame “Washington” or “government” or “the Statehouse” for doing too much or not doing enough or doing the wrong things. It’s a lot more difficult to have an adult discussion with one’s constituents about the complexities and ambiguities of decision-making in the administrative state. I get that: no one was ever elected using a campaign slogan proclaiming “On the one hand…but on the other hand..” (I know. I once tried.)
Until we elect people who are willing to have that honest discussion, however, we will continue to see officeholders—many of whom have spent their entire lives in government—rhetorically biting the hand that feeds them, and continuing to undermine the enterprise they claim to serve by mischaracterizing the questions we face.
Government officials do not face a choice between regulation and the free market. They face a much more difficult question: which regulations will protect the operation of the market and ensure a level playing field? How much is enough, and how much is too much? What are the costs and what are the benefits? Who will bear those costs?
Elected officials who don’t understand that this is the question aren’t likely to endorse sensible answers.
