Whose Ox Was That?

One of America’s most enduring fault-lines is around convictions of personal self-sufficiency, and the very real degree of contempt that accompanies indicators of other people’s dependency. The “makers and takers” narrative is the most recent manifestation of this phenomenon, where people who “stand on our own two feet” engage in moral indignation aimed at those perceived as “sucking at the public tit.’

What is so ironic about this simplistic construct is that the self-proclaimed “makers” are the recipients of the largest percentage of government largesse. They just don’t see it that way. What they get is their due; what that other guy gets is charity.

It isn’t limited to corporatism, or crony capitalism or the tax loopholes and immense amounts of outright subsidy enjoyed by our so-called “captains of industry.” It goes much farther, and is frequently a product of well-meaning public policies.

I thought again about the multiple ways taxpayers subsidize the “haves” while I was reading a fascinating book about housing policy: The End of the Suburbs: Where the American Dream is Moving.

The mortgage interest deduction provides nearly 400 billion in subsidies to homeowners each year, propping up the market for single-family homes. Renters, of course, enjoy no such assistance. The unintended consequences of FHA mortgages have been amply documented–FHA regulations encouraged new construction to the detriment of repairs and improvements to existing housing stock, encouraged redlining (making it much more difficult for African-Americans to buy homes), and (by stipulating that homes had to be built far from “adverse influences” and in areas of “economic stability”) favored suburban over urban homeownership.

It’s not just FHA. Suburban development has been subsidized by everything from highway construction to artificially low gasoline prices. William Wimsatt wrote an article for the Washington Post a couple of years ago in which he detailed–and rebutted–five “myths” about the suburbs: myth number three was “the suburbs are a product of the free market.”

Taxpayer subsidies are everywhere–from the public schools that educate most American workers, to the “free” highways over which we ship our goods (if you ship by train, no such luck–pardon the pun, but you pay full freight), to the food stamps and other benefits that the makers scorn even while they supplement and thus enable the below-living-wage compensation paid by Walmart and its ilk.

The next time you hear a Tea Party crank fulminating over the cost of the hateful “Obamacare” and the illegitimacy of requiring that we all chip in to keep poor folks from dying, you might consider the fact that long before passage of the ACA, seventy percent of all medical costs in the US were being paid with tax dollars. From medical research to medical education to Medicare and Medicaid to emergency room services to the uninsured–we all paid for all of it. We just did it in the most inefficient possible way–a way that also, conveniently, allowed us to maintain the fiction that we had a “free market” health system. We didn’t, and we don’t.

What we have is an attitude: If a public service benefits me, it’s a natural outgrowth of the market. If it benefits poor people, it’s socialism.

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A Simple Quiz

I happened to catch a recent interview between a Tea Party Congressman and a reporter. (Unfortunately, I didn’t get the names of either.)  The Congressman defended  the decision to shut down government if that’s what it took to stop the hated “Obamacare” by saying that government had “no business” being involved in healthcare. When the reporter asked the obvious follow-up question, “what does that mean for your position on Medicare?”– the Congressman looked at her blankly and responded “What’s your point?” He rather clearly had no idea that Medicare is a government program.

Americans are electing to office people who are totally ignorant of the world they inhabit and the Constitution they claim to revere. As “Red George O’Malley,” a frequent commenter here, aptly put it, they are prisoners of their own ignorance.

Recently, I was asked to develop a “quick and dirty” quiz that might test the actual civic knowledge of some of the folks who are so vocal about government and political life. My guess is that readers of this blog would do well on that quiz–and far too many of our elected officials and vocal opinionators wouldn’t. It’s ten questions: see what you think. (Answers are at the end.)

1.     The American Constitution was based largely upon principles of “natural rights” and John Locke’s “social contract” theory. Those ideas came primarily from (a) the bible; (b) English common law; (c) Enlightenment philosophy; (d) James Madison and Thomas Jefferson. 

2.     The first ten Amendments to the Constitution are referred to as the Bill of Rights. The Bill of Rights (a) is the source of rights that government has granted to American citizens; (b) is a list of human or ‘natural’ rights that the government is prohibited from infringing; (c) was included in the Articles of Confederation; (d) all of the above; (e) none of the above.  

3.     Checks and balances were intended to limit concentrations of government power. They include (a) the three branches of government; (b) federalism; (c) judicial independence; (d) all of these; (e) none of these.  

4.     Freedom of Speech is (a) protected by the First Amendment; (b) protection against government censorship; (c) intended to protect unpopular views, even when majorities of citizens believe those views are dangerous; (d) all of the above; (e) none of the above.    

5.     The phrase “separation of church and state” refers to (a) the assault on Christianity by liberal judges; (b) the rule that Churches are tax exempt; (c) the operation of the Establishment and Free Exercise Clauses of the First Amendment; (d) all of these (e) none of these.  

6.     The Fourth Amendment was an outgrowth of anger at searches by King George’s soldiers under what were called “General Warrants.” The Amendment (a) prohibits government from conducting searches without ‘probable cause’; (b) has been held to require individualized suspicion; (c) forbids government from conducting ‘fishing expeditions;’ (d) places the burden on government to justify a search; (e) all of these.  

7.     Equal Protection of the Laws requires government to (a) treat all citizens the same; (b) treat similarly-situated citizens equally; (c) protect citizens against discrimination by other citizens; (d) all of these; (e) none of these.  

8.     The Deficit is (a) the national debt; (b) the difference between what government takes in and what it spends on an annual basis; (c) calculated without taking entitlements into account; (d) all of these; (e) none of these.  

9.     The Debt Ceiling (a) is the amount of money the country is authorized to borrow; (b) allows the U.S. to borrow what is necessary to pay amounts Congress has previously spent or authorized spending; (c) has generally been raised by large, bipartisan Congressional majorities; (d) all of these; (e) none of these.

10.  A scientific theory is (a) scientists’ best guess about the way a natural phenomenon works; (b) a systematic methodology based on the accumulation of empirical evidence; (c) based on Darwinian ideology; (d) a rejection of religion.

Answers: 1(C); 2(B); 3(D); 4(D); 5(C); 6(E); 7(B); 8(B); 9(D); 10(B).  

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Bottom-line Ideology Bites

The news-magazine show Sunday Morning had a fascinating piece this week on a new approach to debt collection. The story reported on a collection company that refuses to employ the typical tactics–harassing phone calls, threats and the like. Instead, the collectors work respectfully with the debtors, helping them to renegotiate what they owe and manage their finances more prudently. The founder’s basic premise: people would pay their bills if they had the money, and hounding them is unlikely to give them the means to pay.

According to the company’s owner, his firm is twice as profitable as those using the more traditional tactics.

Respect for people–what a concept!

Respect for the worth of one’s employees can also boost profits, no matter how counter-intuitive some “hard headed” businesses might find that simple premise.

I’ve written before about the difference between the approach of Costco and Sam’s Club to  their workers. Costco pays its workers, on average, twice as much per hour as Sam’s Club, and provides them with health insurance to boot. Yet it is far more profitable.

There is a self-defeating belief among some businesspeople to the effect that a healthy bottom line depends on cutting costs wherever possible, especially personnel costs. There is plenty of evidence to the contrary: employee turnover and disaffection can cost more than skimpy payrolls can save. That is a lesson that even Walmart appears to be learning. The company recently announced that some 35,000 part-time workers will be returned to full-time status–entitling them, not so coincidentally, to heath coverage as required by  the Affordable Care Act.

As Forbes reported, Walmart’s unwillingness to pay most of its workers a living wage has left the company without enough full-time workers to properly run a retail outlet. The result has been that the company has placed dead last among department and discount stores in the Customer Satisfaction Index for the last six years.

Furthermore, again according to Forbes, Walmart sales have been “sinking dramatically”–a state of affairs that even Walmart has concluded is the result of its relentless effort to avoid paying decent wages and offering health insurance.

This was a lesson learned by Home Depot in the early 2000s, when its CEO cut full-time staffing in hopes that the savings would boost the bottom line. It worked–briefly. Then customer service declined, and with it, same-store sales. Home Depot reversed course–and profits rose.

As the Forbes columnist noted,

Who  would have guessed that a well-staffed store filled with competent and reasonably paid employees might actually have an impact on the success of a company?

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From the Mouths of Babes….

Okay, so maybe not babes. Actually, graduate students.

Where I teach, at SPEA-IUPUI, students have the option of enrolling in “Directed Studies,” essentially, tutorials in which a professor supervises student research that culminates in a relatively lengthy and (hopefully) analytical paper on a subject that the student wishes to explore.

I recently worked with a student who wanted to understand why lower-income Americans so often vote against their own economic self-interest.

The paper he turned in gave evidence of considerable research, and it made a number of very good points. He gave me permission to share a couple of his more intriguing conclusions.

For example, he looked closely at Paul Ryan’s 2012 proposed budget, and the analysis of that budget by the Congressional Budget office. As widely reported, the plan proposed massive savings to be generated by “adjusting” Medicaid and turning Medicare into a “voucher” system. It also dramatically reduced corporate and individual tax rates, while purportedly “growing overall revenue…What was not included, however, was the way Mr. Ryan intended to grow this revenue.”

These specifics would seem to be particularly important, since the plan made very clear that tax receipts would plummet and defense spending would increase. As my student recognized, however,  actually identifying specifics–in this case, specifying the programs that would be cut and the extent of those cuts–would spell political doom.

“This is an example of calculated policy ambiguity. When presented to less educated voters or those who do not possess the means or time to fact-check its claims, it appears as a viable way to aid our country in the face of mounting debt. However, when examined closely it reveals a strategy of political gamesmanship and a budget plan that would hurt most those its simplified talking points are aimed to attract.”

A second tactic pinpointed in the paper revolved around the deliberate use of religion to divert focus from bread-and-butter issues–the use of hot-button “wedge issues” to obscure the economic harms likely to flow from other, less emotionally-freighted policies and positions. The paper cited research showing that religiosity is more important than income, sex, age or ethnicity in predicting support for conservative causes.

So. Bright shiny objects (Stop the “homosexual agenda”!! Birth control means sex without consequences!! War on Christmas!!) plus “calculated economic ambiguity.”

Sounds about Right.

There Must Be a Pony Here Somewhere

As if the posturing and idiocy of the shutdown weren’t enough, Ed Brayton quotes Ezra Klein on the GOP’s opening debt limit gambit.

The House GOP’s debt limit bill — obtained by the National Review — isn’t a serious governing document. It’s not even a plausible opening bid. It’s a cry for help.

In return for a one-year suspension of the debt ceiling, House Republicans are demanding a yearlong delay of Obamacare, Rep. Paul Ryan’s tax reform plan, the Keystone XL pipeline, more offshore oil drilling, more drilling on federally protected lands, rewriting of ash coal regulations, a suspension of the Environmental Protection Agency’s efforts to regulate carbon emissions, more power over the regulatory process in general, reform of the federal employee retirement program, an overhaul of the Dodd-Frank financial regulations, more power over the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s budget, repeal of the Social Services Block Grant, more means-testing in Medicare, repeal of the Public Health trust fund, and more…

House Republicans are walking into the debt-ceiling negotiations with an opening bid that makes them look ridiculous. This looks like an Onion parody of what the House’s debt-ceiling demands might be. It’s a wonder it’s not written in comic sans.

Words fail.

While there have been recent signs that Boehner may be retreating from the Tea Partiers’ insistence on pushing the world economy into depression if they don’t get their way, this opening demand would seem to prove a point often made by people who object to the “plague on both your houses” or “they all do it” constructions so beloved by the media–the so-called false equivalency.

Perhaps over time, we can count on both political parties to be equally irresponsible, but right now, no one can beat the GOP for sheer lunacy.

At their most idiotic, next to this, Democrats look like statesmen.