Category Archives: Public Policy and Governance

My Very Own Economic Fantasy

Well, I see from my morning paper that the Congressional GOP is proposing to address the national debt by slashing funding for such frills as home heating assistance and job training. Our compassionate conservatives do remain adamant about protecting wealthy “job creators” from any additional taxes, though.

This shouldn’t surprise anyone; the GOP’s current ideological rigidity has proven impervious to evidence suggesting that keeping tax rates ridiculously low does not spur job creation. As many rich people will confirm, they are more likely to create jobs when poor people have the means to purchase their goods.

As long as those in Congress are playing fantasy economics, let me offer my own fantasy prescription for what ails us.

We have two big problems right now (okay, we have dozens, but I don’t have solutions to all of them): the erosion of America’s already inadequate social safety net, and the lack of jobs, especially for people who don’t have specialized skills. What if we created a true safety net, consisting of a basic income level for those falling below a set poverty level and single payer medical coverage for all of us? And what if, as part of that income support, we required the able-bodied to work for the government? I can think of all kinds of jobs we could create that would improve our local communities: taking care of our parks, assisting teachers in our schools, cleaning streets and alleys, tutoring…the list is endless. At the state and federal level, jobs could include repairing our deteriorated infrastructure, a la FDR.

This should pacify the folks who believe that anyone needing public assistance is by definition a parasite (somehow, their own use of Social Security, Medicare, police and fire, public streets, etc. doesn’t count as government assistance). And it would put people who need work in jobs that need to be done, but aren’t being done because the ideologues have been busy trying to fire every public worker, on the theory that someone working in the public sector teaching our children or protecting our property or overseeing the construction of our highways or administering our tax system doesn’t REALLY do a job–that only work in the private sector “counts.”

We all know this won’t happen. Instead, we’ll just protect the wealthy and screw the unfortunate. Welcome to the brave new America, compliments of Congress.

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But What About the Children?

I see where a federal judge has upheld the part of Alabama’s harsh new immigration law that requires public schools to check the immigration status of all students. This is one more effort to punish the children of undocumented immigrants.

What I find particularly galling about laws like this, and opposition to the Dream Act (which recognizes what any sane person understands–that a two-year-old did not intentionally ‘break the law’ by coming to the US with his parents) is that the people who are dead-set against allowing these children to attend public schools or universities tend to be the same people who can be found piously proclaiming their concern for ‘the children.’

Protect the children from exposure to porn on the internet! Protect the children from recognizing the existence of gay people! Protect the children from studying ‘dirty’ books in school, or taking them out at the local library!

This heartfelt desire to ‘protect’ children would certainly be laudable if it weren’t so selective. But somehow, this often-expressed concern doesn’t extend to paying taxes to insure that poor children have enough to eat, and it doesn’t extend to educating them so that they can be productive members of the only society they have ever known.

Even Rick Perry, in the only statement he has made that I agree with, has said that people who would keep children of undocumented immigrants out of school are heartless. But then he heard the voice of the Tea Party, genuflected, and apologized. God forbid a candidate for President should show some human compassion!

How mean-spirited have we become?

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Doubting Evolution

I am a big believer in science, but I must admit that human behavior over the past couple of weeks has made me doubt evolution.

First, we had the appalling eruptions during GOP debates–first, audience applause when Brian Williams prefaced a question to Rick Perry by noting that executions in Texas during his tenure far exceeded those in any other state; and second, shouts of “yes, let them die” when Ron Paul was asked whether uninsured people should simply be allowed to die.

Now we have the repulsive right-wing reaction to the execution of Troy Davis.

Callers to conservative radio shows last night defended that execution by insisting that the family of the murder victim “deserved closure.” Presumably, closure can come only from the death of another human being.  Now, I am not a supporter of the death penalty, for many reasons I won’t go into here, but even if one does support capital punishment, I cannot conceive of the “closure” that would come from proceeding with an execution where there is such substantial doubt of guilt. How can killing the wrong person provide justice or even retribution? How would executing a possibly innocent man be any different from the murder for which they are seeking vengeance?

Perhaps human evolution doesn’t always produce a capacity for compassion or empathy, but it should at least produce beings capable of a modicum of reason. These sickening displays of irrational blood-lust suggest that some among our human family not only haven’t evolved, they’ve regressed.

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Failing Econ 101

If I had any doubts whatsoever about the pitiful state of economic literacy in this country, yesterday provided a perfect example. I was reviewing a paper submitted by a student to one of our faculty members. He had given her a poor grade, and she argued that she deserved higher marks. I am the Program Director, so grade appeals come to me. The paper was filled–as all too many are these days–with grammatical errors, but what really struck me was the student’s answer to the question: how can government encourage more citizens to become involved in policy deliberations? The response? By reducing taxes and providing more government services.

I rest my case. (Excuse me while I go slit my wrists….)

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Fall Housecleaning Time

This is the weekend I have scheduled for my fall housecleaning. It always makes me feel good go through the pantry, closets and other nooks and crannies that I can easily ignore during most of the year-those places that only get “the treatment” during the spring and fall cleaning rituals.

Which reminds me that November is coming, and with it, the opportunity to do some political housecleaning as well.

I thought about our desperate need for such civic housecleaning when I heard a caller to a radio show explain that the President’s jobs plan was ridiculous–not because it wouldn’t work, or was otherwise ill-conceived–but because we shouldn’t be spending money we don’t have. The nation, he proclaimed, should do what individuals do, and live within our means. (Ok, you can stop laughing now and read on.) The host, to his credit, asked the caller if he had a mortgage? A car payment? “Well, that’s different,” was the response.

Exactly. In fact, in the wake of the President’s speech (hell, for the past several years!) we have been treated to the antics of assorted elected buffoons who not only don’t have answers to our problems, but don’t know what the questions are.

The question is not whether we should spend money on Program A.  That’s a question that cannot be answered without several preliminary inquiries. Is this an investment–our house, the country’s infrastructure–or is it an operating expense, like rent or highway maintenance? As any businessperson will tell you, you borrow for the former but not the latter. What are the consequences of spending for the proposed purpose? What are the consequences of not spending for it? And if the benefits of spending outweigh the benefits of not doing so , will Proposal A achieve the desired results?

It’s bad enough that large numbers of otherwise reasonable citizens don’t understand that, but it is truly appalling when our elected officials don’t grasp the most basic elements of public or economic policy. (And yes, Mike Pence, I’m looking at you. And a lot of others.)

It’s time to do some housecleaning. And that housecleaning actually should be modeled on the process we use in our own homes. Housecleaning doesn’t mean a wholesale “throw the bums out” catharsis. When we clean a closet or drawer at home, we sort: we throw out the stuff that is no longer useful or wearable–the stuff that’s taking up space we need for better, more useful stuff. And that’s what we need to do for the next several Novembers. We need to get rid of the lunatics and egomaniacs, obviously, but we also need to retire the nice-enough people who are simply in way over their heads (yes, I’m looking at you, Mayor Ballard). But voters of both parties also need to understand that whatever the wingnut of the day may be telling us, we don’t throw someone out simply because we disagree with them. (Yes, I’m looking at you, Richard Mourdock.) There are plenty of people who will engage in thoughtful and informed analysis and simply reach different conclusions. We should opt for competence and intellectual honesty, not uniformity. To stretch my analogy past the breaking point, we need to throw out those high fashion shoes that have killed your feet ever since you bought them, and keep the comfortable ones that aren’t quite so flashy and  “in.”

Take it from someone who is in the middle of fall housecleaning.

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