Tag Archives: government

The Carrot and the Stick

In yesterday’s blog, I suggested that–despite efforts to wage class warfare over the demise of the Twinkie–market forces were the real culprit. That prompted my cousin the cardiologist, whom I’ve quoted here before, to consider the proper role of government in promoting healthy eating. As he noted,

Studies showing that the ready availability of foods high in sugar, fat, sodium, and calories increase average body weight. Adults living closer to fast food restaurants consume such food more frequently than those who don’t and, consequently, are heavier. This is especially important for children; schools that serve more unhealthy foods or provide vending machines with unhealthy foods tend to be heavier than children whose schools do not permit such practices. Similarly adolescents who attend schools near fast food restaurants are more likely to be obese.

    Compounding these problems are other economic forces surrounding foods: The cost per calorie of healthy foods exceeds those of poor nutrient foods. In the past 30 ears, this cost disparity has increased; between 1985 and 2000, the prices of healthy foods, like fruits and vegetables, fish, and dairy products increased at more than twice the rate of prices of sugar and sweets, fats and oils, and carbonated beverages.

    Finally, we must consider portion sizes as another contributor to obesity. For children alone, between 1977 and 2006 the average portions of soft drinks, pizza, and Mexican foods increased by 34, 140, and 139 calories, respectively,. Sodas, sold originally in 6.5 oz. bottles, are now typically sold in 20 ounce containers. Studies have shown in general that increased portion sizes lead to rises in calorie intake: as a result, US adults now consume over 500 calories per day in 2006 compared to that in 1977. This trend has been further exacerbated by our increased eating away from home, for in 2008, Americans spent 49% of their food budget on food away from home compared with 33% in 1970. On average, each meal eaten outside the home increases that day’s consumption by about 134 calories, while, at the same time shifts the content toward less nutritious ingredients such as saturated fat and added sugar.

In New York, as we all know, Mayor Bloomberg led the fight to ban the sale of large sodas. I agree with my cousin that no matter how well-intentioned, efforts to have government “decree” healthy portion sizes are not the answer. Nor is the answer some “nanny state” that requires us to eat our vegetables or limit meals eaten out.

Does government even have a role in our personal eating habits? It’s hard not to sympathize with a libertarian response–“What business does the state have telling me what to eat, after all? Next thing you know, the local constable will come knocking on my door to see whether I’ve eaten my broccoli!”

Even those of us with a libertarian bent must concede that–at the very least–consumers need information upon which to make our choices. We need to know what’s in the “food” we are eating (note quotes around food); much of it has been so processed and adulterated, there’s no way to know what it contains. We depend upon government-required labels to tell us just how nutritious (or not) it is.

Can government go farther? Here’s where the battle lines get drawn. Public health officials justify added interventions by pointing to the economic consequences of the obesity epidemic, and the medical consequences of poor eating habits. Bans on large soft drinks or other sugary treats will be a hard sell, though, in a country where individual choice is prized.

From my perspective, raising tax rates on such drinks makes more sense. Since 2009, 19 states and eight cities have proposed such taxes on these drinks, according to the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity. The advantage of raising such taxes can be taken from that of tobacco products. Cigarettes are clearly the cause of numerous diseases, costly in both human suffering as well as expenses to society at large. Thus heavy taxes provide the dual advantage of discouraging their consumption as well as raising taxes that can aid in the care of these afflicted individuals. In the case of sugary drinks (and other similar products), taxing these products, plus providing healthier alternatives such as fruit juices in public places would move us in the right direction. A penny-per-ounce excise tax on sugary drinks would effectively raise the shelf price of these drinks by about 20%. According to a number of studies, this would result in a 14 to 20% reduction in the consumption of the taxed beverages.

Makes sense to me.

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Heartwarming Pictures

In the wake of Hurricane Sandy, there have been some really heartwarming pictures and stories showing the various ways New York city residents (and others) are coping with the aftermath. They can be boiled down to one phrase: caring and sharing.

So we see pictures like the one of a house where residents have run extension cords to the street and posted a sign: “We still have power. Feel free to charge your phones.” In darkened neighborhoods, there are pictures of neighbors checking on each other, sharing flashlights and the occasional home generator, helping each other with food and blankets. My own son, whose midtown apartment never lost electrical service, has told friends to come over to “shower and power”–and tells me that many other residents of his building are doing the same. Mayor Bloomberg noted this morning that there hasn’t been a murder in the City for the past three days.

While first responders are evidently doing their usual great job, they can’t be everywhere. So New Yorkers are–as usual–depending on the kindness of neighbors and strangers. And those strangers are responding.

This should not be a surprise. New Yorkers–routinely maligned by folks who don’t like cities and fear people who don’t look like them–has a history of coping well with challenges. I recall stories from the blackout several years ago, where people who owned small restaurants opted to empty their refrigerators and cook up the contents–throwing impromptu dinner parties for passersby, choosing to do something for others rather than simply letting the food spoil.

It’s too bad it takes adversity to remind us that we are part of a human family, and we ought to act like it.

For that matter, it sometimes takes an event of this magnitude to remind us why government is important–and that, properly run, it works.

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Incivility and an Inability to Govern

There’s an interesting symposium on political civility in a recent issue of PS: Political  Science and Politics. The articles wrestle with some foundational questions: what is the difference between the sort of argumentation that illuminates differences and is an inevitable part of democratic discourse and rhetoric that “crosses the line”? What do we mean by incivility?

The consensus seemed to be that incivility is rudeness or impoliteness that violates an agreed social standard.

I’m not sure we have agreed social standards in this age of invective, but surely attacks that focus on, and disrespect, persons rather than positions should count as uncivil. An example of civility in political argument might be Dick Lugar’s often-repeated phrase to the effect that “that is a matter about which reasonable people can differ.” (Hard to imagine Mr. Mourdock, who has taken pride in incivility and intransigence, making such a statement.)

The contributors offer a variety of perspectives on the definitions and causes of today’s nasty politics, but one of the most trenchant observations came from a Professor Maisel of Colby College, who attributes the gridlock in Washington and elsewhere to “partisan one-upmanship expressed in ways that do not show respect for those with differing views.” As he notes (referring to Erik Cantor)

If your will is to prevent legislation from passing, to prevent the president’s agenda from moving forward, to work the system to your political advantage, then lack of civility works.

In other words, if your over-riding motivation is simply to beat the other guy–to keep the President from a second term, as Mitch McConnell famously admitted–and if that motivation outweighs any concern for the public good, governing is impossible.

The reason politicians no longer “respectfully disagree” with each other, Professor Maisel points out, is that they do not in fact respect the views of their opponents. They hardly know them. The days when Congressional families lived in Washington and socialized–when their children went to school together, and their spouses carpooled or otherwise interacted–are long gone. It’s easy to demonize people you don’t know.

Add to that an even more troubling aspect of today’s politics, a disregard for fact and truth, enabled by partisan television, talk radio and the internet. Survey after survey shows that people on the Left and Right alike get their “news” from sources that validate their biases. Worse, we have lost the real news, the mainstream, objective journalism that fact-checks, that confronts us with inconvenient realities. In such an environment, it becomes easier to characterize those with whom we disagree as buffoons or worse, unworthy of our respect.

When political discourse is so nasty, and regard for truth so minimal–when the enterprise of government has more in common with a barroom brawl than a lofty exercise in statesmanship–is it any wonder that so many of our “best and brightest” shun politics?

Government is broken, and we need to fix it. Unfortunately, the symposium contributions didn’t tell us how to do that.

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What If? What Then?

Let me start this post with a caveat: I am not an economist. I don’t play one on TV. At most, I’m a reasonably well-informed consumer of economic news.

That news, however, is troubling. Following the various indicators could give you whiplash–housing may be recovering, but unemployment claims are up. No, unemployment claims are down, job creation’s up, but retail is down. No, retail is up this month, but…Well, you get the point.  If the economy were a car, it would be stuck in low gear.

There are as many theories about what ails the American economy as there are pundits and candidates for office. It’s too much government spending or not enough stimulus or the meltdown in the EU or GOP efforts to win the Presidency by delaying the recovery. And all of these  analyses clearly point to contributing factors.

But what if what we are seeing is the start of a long-predicted “structural change” brought about by technology? What if Europe calms down and we get past November only to discover that employment still doesn’t return to previous levels? And since I’m playing “what if” here, what if instead of the toxic political finger-pointing and infantile blaming that characterizes our current politics, we had a serious discussion about the appropriate response to that structural change?

Persistent high unemployment would present a huge challenge to social stability and economic health. Fewer people with money to spend would depress markets; more people needing social welfare support would stress the federal budget and make it more difficult to reduce the deficit. The existence of a persistent underclass would generate resentments and social unrest at a level that would dwarf today’s Occupy movement.

It seems to me–again, an admitted economic amateur–that such a scenario would require government to become an employer of last resort. Surely, hiring people to mow parks, clean streets, assist in classrooms and do similar jobs would be preferable to welfare, both for those being employed and society at large. The tasks being performed would improve the quality of life in our cities and towns, and productive employment would provide people with both self-respect and money to spend in the market.

Right now, of course, the rhetoric is all about heading in the opposite direction: laying off even badly needed government workers and pooh-poohing their value. If we are seeing the start of structural change, it’s going to be awfully hard to turn that tanker around.

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Loss of Trust

In 2009, I wrote a book titled Distrust, American Style in which I argued that a loss of trust in our social institutions–and especially in our government–has had significant negative consequences for our ability to function as a productive society.

Things haven’t improved since 2009. If anything, our levels of distrust have continued to grow, and for good reason.

A couple of days ago, major news outlets reported the emergence of a legal memorandum generated during the George W. Bush Administration. There was evidence that the Administration had attempted to destroy all copies, for obvious reasons: the memorandum opined that the “enhanced interrogation” techniques being employed and defended by the Bush Administration were war crimes. Whether one agrees with that assessment or with the more accommodating analysis provided by John Yoo, it is clear that the White House was aware that their actions raised significant legal and constitutional issues, and that it was prepared to ignore both those issues and the rule of law.

It would be comforting to conclude that such actions were confined to one rogue Administration, or at least to the federal level, but evidence suggests otherwise; in fact, there has been a rash of disclosures of local-level prosecutorial misconduct recently.  In Illinois, a recent investigation of the criminal justice system uncovered evidence that–among other improprieties–prosecutors had failed to turn over documents in their possession proving that a man convicted of double murder in 1992 could not possibly have committed the crime he was accused of — because he was in police custody at the time. (But the police managed to get him to sign a confession. It is estimated that some 25% of criminal confessions are extracted from people who are actually innocent of the crime to which they confess–another rather disturbing bit of data.)

Add to such unsettling disclosures the constant drum-beat reporting corporate misdeeds, and the pervasive belief that wealthy individuals are able to “game the system” in their favor–able to buy favorable tax treatment, able to escape regulation, able to evade the consequences of predatory behaviors, able to elect public officials that will do their bidding–and you get a level of cynicism that undermines social cohesiveness and our ability to come together to address the issues that face us.

When people no longer trust our governing institutions, it is easy to sell them conspiracy theories. It is easy to turn groups against each other. (Want evidence? Look at the recent disclosures about the tactics employed by the National Organization for Marriage!)

We can’t rebuild trust by wishing it back. It will take a national effort to insure that our institutions are trustworthy–beginning with government. Because if we don’t trust our common institutions–government, yes, but also the church, major league sports, businesses and financial institutions, none of which have exactly covered themselves with glory lately–we certainly aren’t going to trust each other.

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