Just Another Can’t-er In Congress

Eric Cantor (R-VA) is attempting to work a bi-partisan plan to avoid the agreed to consequences of the Super-committee’s failure. There are three things that Cantor is doing wrong:

1.       He is illuminating the disingenuous and duplicitous nature of the cliff-hanger strategy that the Republican and Democratic parties engaged in when they crafted and agreed to the consequences of failure. Isn’t this the very definition of waffling, flip-flopping, not having the courage of your convictions? If you can’t accept the results of failure, perhaps you should have shown the Stupor committee how to succeed; crafted a better agreement to start with; or not supported it.

2.       He is engaging in the same ‘tried and failed’ methods that the illustrious professionals in Congress have been using for decades, and attempting to achieve different results than those that have been produced in the past. In other words, he is operating in an insane manner. Add a little extension here, a small benefit there in exchange for a reduce cut here and there. A pushing the problem down the road strategy.

3.       He is persisting in working on the problem as framed by the political parties, rather than stepping forward and showing the American people that the political leaders of both stripes are failing them because they just don’t understand what the problems are and more importantly they don’t have a clue about how to effectively, meaningfully and creatively change the mind-set that is preventing the public from being served by their representatives instead of being served to their representatives.

Eric needs to operate counter to his name. He must become a Can-er and not a Can’t-er. The moment for Cantor to seize the day and emerge as a new political leader for America is perhaps upon him. If only he can glimpse a part of the vision for national salvation, he may be able to lead America into a new and saner future. He only needs to be able to free himself from old, antiquated, and ineffective views.

Congress Helping the Needy, Uh – Corporations?

Praise the Lord! Finally, Congress is doing something to help the average American; and this is a bipartisan effort. Yes, both Republicans and Democrats are stepping up hand-in-hand to offer some relief to those who need it most. What are they planning and who does it help? Well, American corporations that have oodles and oodles of profits stashed away in banks holding profits that are from foreign corporate divisions and entities where the profits are claimed to have been created. The corporations want Congress to grant them a tax-exemption (or tax holiday) where they are permitted to bring the profits home and pay a small tax on them; 5% is a probable target. And of course they are telling your Congress-persons that if they do this that the tax break will stimulate the economy; and that is how we will all benefit.

Now this all makes sense of course. The last time that Congress did this, it might not have worked to do anything to create jobs. But this time of course, it will because this time the corporations are truly intent and serious about doing something that would help the economy. If I were an officer of a corporation, I would want to encourage Congress to do this because I am going to get a lot more money out of it. So it won’t bother me that I hire and pay lobbyists, who use to work for members of Congress or for the current or former Administrations, to solicit the support of the folks that they worked for.

The corporations aren’t doing anything wrong here; because it’s Congress that set-up the tax code that produces and encourages the results that produced both the corporations’ overseas profits holdings and that discourage investment in American business infrastructure. As usual, Congress in their complete ignorance of what they are doing have masterfully allowed the Corporations to make the bulk of their revenues in the United States and then transfer this wealth to foreign countries to the detriment of America. Why Republicans and Democrats are so eager to rob America of its strength and vitality I don’t understand; but it must be something that the majority of Americans want. They put these folks in office and support their insane and insipid policies and principles.

You would think that the politicians would see how to address this problem. As it most often is, the solution is simple and direct. It would benefit the corporations, the economy, and the American job market. Who am I kidding? Congress, do something to solve a problem! Wouldn’t they have to see it as a problem rather than as just another opportunity to get campaign donations?

Perhaps the electorate should be asking the candidates for the up-coming offices to explain why they don’t fix the problem rather than reward corporations who took advantage of the staggeringly stupid tax code for multi-national corporations that the Republican and Democratic parties put in place to start with.

I:DEA 1 – Independent Thought

One of the first things that Independent voters need to do is to remain independent and uncommitted. Whether during the Democratic or Republican parties’ primaries or the general election, Independents should refrain from providing any overt or implied support for one party’s candidate over the others’.

There are a couple of reasons for this.

The influence and power of Independent voters is at its greatest when no one can depend upon it or even assess which direction it is likely to go. The candidates are forced to contend with the orthogonal forces of retaining their core party constituencies and providing some reasons for the Independents to choose them over their rival(s). This creates more opportunities for the candidates to exhibit some sustentative aspect of their philosophy of government and society, and the true nature of their positions and policies on issues that are important in the public or the private arenas.

Independents should be asking themselves, “Why are they wrong?” This is important because as an Independent you should not be bound to any ideology of the candidate’s party. If you buy into the ideological concept then you are prone to fall into thinking that their positions and policies are the right ones just because they appear consistent with the ideology. The ideology might sound good and have all the trimmings you expect of an American value, but it may also be a directionless compass that provides no guidance what-so-ever to establishing a position, policy or goal in the service of the American society. If you ask why they are wrong and can’t find or think of reasons that support that contention then you are more likely to find a candidate who has not just found some popular ‘button phrases’ to push. But remember even here if you find the answer acceptable, don’t commit. As an Independent you want to find individuals who can make you understand why the country should pursue a particular course, and you want it to be based on information and facts that are relevant to the real world.

When you are polled about your opinion on political issues, candidates and choices you have to not accept the premise of the question. As an Independent you should consistently indicate that you would not be persuaded to vote for or against someone because of a statement make by them or about them. You wouldn’t agree or disagree that a position on one issue is critical to your decision. You should indicate that no candidate or party has adequately presented a clear and well explained position on how they would implement and fulfill their proposed solutions. You can indicate that you like what someone has done on some issue, but that that is not sufficient to determine your choice. So generally you don’t want to provide pollsters with useful information. You do want to take the poll/survey, you just want to make sure your answers are unsupportive of anyone. It’s not in an Independents’ interest for the parties and candidates to find ‘sound bites’ that seem to win over voters. You want candidates to struggle to provide you with a demonstration of their ability to understand and explain how their actions will result in positive outcomes for the nation.

Independents should also tell any friends, neighbors and relatives who tell you why their candidate is the one to vote for and support that you don’t see their favorite candidate as being a sufficiently moderate voice and force for the nation. Independents are the only group who can make moderate candidates stronger candidates. Any party that wants to survive will have to find candidates that can work with like-minded individuals of any political orientation that can find a common ground to accomplish the tasks of government. Independents, I suspect are not generally individuals who think that all-or-nothing solutions are in fact solutions to the problems facing our pluralistic society. If’s if very simple, it’s probably actually very simple; and complex problems are rarely solved by people with simple solutions. Those solutions are simple for a reason.

Independents should discuss and offer opinions about issues; provide assessments of why a proposal, plan or policy of a candidate is worth consideration; and present questions and concerns that the candidates are not addressing. But it should be clear that no candidate has sufficiently satisfied the Independent with regard to these issues or questions.

A last thought here for Independents is a condition for supporting a candidate; even if you won’t tell them that you support them. If you don’t think that candidate is smarter then you, why would you vote for them?

Now to have an impact on the candidates and parties, Independents don’t want to wait until the election and convey their choice through their vote. A month or two before the election, but not sooner, Independents should feel free to indicate their preferences. This will focus the candidates and parties upon the views and requirements of Independents as surely as your execution day focuses your mind.

Potential Energy and Independent Power

The obvious and evident failure of the Democratic and Republican parties to recognize their responsibility to represent their constituencies, not their special interest campaign backers or their core party ideologies, but the American citizens within their respective political districts has been showcased in the current national debt ceiling debacle on display for the last six-plus months. Now I enjoy watching the ineptitude and stupidity of our political leaders as much as anyone, but I am getting tired of having to increasingly pay more and more for the consequences of their collective incompetence. Consider a recent statement that indicated that ‘no solution that put the burden of new taxes upon those who cannot afford them, will be tolerated’. Unless I missed something, isn’t there a logical inconsistency somewhere in this statement when the proposals for ‘new revenues’ are targeted on high-income (wealthy) individuals? Can you really be wealthy, and not be able to afford a tax increase, that is still less than historic levels? Well, the statement does play well in the media; I suppose it doesn’t matter that it’s demonstrates an idiotic premise. I would have recommended staying with one of the other fallacious statements that doesn’t look so stupid when a simple question is raised.

 And don’t be fooled by either side that throughout the entire ranting exercises (I cannot in good conscience even allude to their debating the issue) of each partisan mob that they understand or even attempted to inform anyone about how and what you will pay under their varied and respective proposals. Whether it’s the extreme right-wing Republicans or extreme left-wing Democratic, these tunnel-visioned party fanatics have deluded themselves and they hope fooled most other Americans that their approaches would address the nations fiscal problems.

The conventional wisdom (what a misused concept for the political wonks who spew their sage detritus about the workings of our elected partisan automaton) is that the Republicans and Democrats will be unable (I think incapable and inadequate are more apropos) to reach a compromise agreement on dealing with raising the debt ceiling and coming to grips with government spending and revenues. So rather than a carpe diem moment, the great and grand political leadership of America are kicking the can down the road in hopes of perpetuating more self-centered, self-serving campaign sound-bites to keep the addle-pated core , well addled and foaming at the mouth.

What recourse for America is there? The answer is that you have to look at the physic of the political reality. The Republican and Democratic parties are only in control because the true power brokers in America are not focused or organized. Elections are determined by the nation’s independent voters. Voters who cannot bring themselves to aligning themselves with either party because those parties are ideologically, intellectually and ethically bankrupt. Independents are the potential power in America. Their choices represent the energy that can power the movement of our governmental and societal systems to productive and responsible solutions.

The challenge for Independents is create an independent communications medium to provide a lens through which their energy can be focused and brought to bear on the issues and choices that need to be made. It is in this context that future topics will be presented on sowing the seeds of political innovation for raising a crop of American leadership that is not stunted and deformed by the inbreeding of the lesser of bad choices, and improper culling of the evolutionary viable members of the herd.

The US Budget: Three Errors Americans Keep Making

America and Americans are desperately seeking solutions to their economic woes. As is typical of our citizenry, they persist in looking for the quick, the easy and the effortless fix. Doesn’t matter whether they are Republicans, Democrats, Independents, or any of the lesser marginalized cults. They seize upon the particular orthodoxy, beliefs and tenets of their political theology to answer all issues, questions and problems. It doesn’t matter if their partisan faith is irrelevant, flawed or useless; their personal political beliefs provide them with an internal comfort that all will work out fine because they believe that they are in the right. From this unfounded confidence in their ideology, Americans guide their political judgments and decisions; and thus predictably we get the inevitable consequences from ill-informed, ill-intended and ill-defined legislative and administrative efforts. What is wrong with the political decisions that Americans are making?

Well, we don’t have the space to go into everything that the electorate is doing wrong, but we can at least identify three mistakes that they make over and over and over.

One: Many voters, particularly those aligned with a formal party, are sufficiently moronic to believe the political rhetoric and theater that is played out in the media, meetings and campaigns. Instead of engaging in any assessment and analysis of what the country’s needs and interests are, what the society’s needs and interests are, and what the people’s needs and interests are. They abandoned their responsibility to their countrymen/women agreed to in the country’s contract. Instead they believe the words and speeches of their partisan leadership without asking whether there is any substance to the text. Failure one is not noticing that the same answer, the same sound-bites, the same posturing stances on principles cannot be an informed, intelligent and appropriate solution to any issue brought into the public forum. If you don’t question and demand an explanation that makes sense and informs you then you just aren’t trying.

Two: When a politician is elected, you can choose to trust them or not. This one is really easy. If you trust them, then you must never have met a politician before. You must never have read or heard about what politicians do, or who politicians cozy up to. In short, you cannot trust a politician. So mistake number two is that voters put their preference into a special category of honest, different from the rest.

Three: Politicians can fix our problems. The simplest way to clarify your error on this one is to ask: “What problem have you ever actually seen politicians fix?” They follow, they don’t lead. They are not informed or intelligent enough to solve problems. This is why their legislative and administrative efforts always define how something is to be done or solved. That is not a solution, it is a dictate. It only says: “This is how I want it to be”, and has nothing to do with dealing with the physics of government and society. So mistake three is voters accept the premise that politicians have the ability to solve the country’s problems. They accept this without any evidence that politicians have any understanding of what the underlying conditions of the problem are, nor possess any notion of what actions can influence the situation to produce the results that are desired.

Is it any wonder that politicians have spent the last two plus years failing to do anything to correct the American economy? They talk about cutting budgets or taxing the wealthy. These of course are not solutions to the problem, and more importantly, they just talk about what is to be done. They do nothing. The definition of Congress: They do nothing

Connections: The Missing Factor

The lack of jobs growth in the US’s economy is perplexing the experts and the not-experts (the politicians). Republicans have their pat-answer: lower corporate taxes and the jobs will come. While that has its ever popular consumer attraction appeal, it is an answer that is not really based on any statistical or historic evidence. Democrats have a less monosyllabic and more varied approach with their guesses: tax-credits, more stimulus/investment, infrastructure, training, and the list goes on. There is a reason that the politicians are clueless, aren’t they always clueless! The economists on the other hand have N*(N-1)/2 possible theories on what is preventing slow or no job growth under whatever circumstances exist at the time; where N is the number of economists questioned. The problem is that the economists are almost as bad as the politicians when it comes to guidance on what to do to turn the job situation around. If one of them (or a small group of them) is right there is unfortunately no way to figure out which one it is.

As for the politicians, since they don’t know what to do anyway; they fall back on their preferred decision making method: do what their respective special-interest contributors tell them to do. This may benefit the special-interests, but these special-interests are not concerned with jobs or anyone else for that matter. They are just seizing the opportunity to gain some monetary advantage at the expense of everyone else.

The nation’s problem is that unless the politicians begin to understand just a little about what is causing our jobs problem and what needs to be done to effectively do something about it that the economy will continue to limp along and suffer from the drag that unemployment puts on all facets of our economy.

Let’s take a look at the “tried and true” adage that small businesses create most of the new jobs in the economy. Even if you look at that in a simple-minded manner, you know like a politician, the data is questionable on that ‘fact’. In ‘fact’, it may be that small businesses hinder job creation. The real fact is that size of company is not the determining variable. Newness of company is much more salient, as both a creator of jobs, and as a destroyer of jobs (almost half don’t last five years). So using the big “small” word is one of the many ways that politicians miss the ‘fact’. All in all, politicians shouldn’t get the job based on their interviews so far.

But even if politicians and policy-makers began to appreciate this part of the equation, they still wouldn’t be able to do the math required to impact job growth. Just knowing that new businesses create new jobs doesn’t really tell you what to do that would actually help get more new businesses started; and one might ask “why is the government trying to create jobs” shouldn’t the market place do that? Just another political-economic concept that the politicians don’t know what they’re talking about.

What do politicians need to start learning? Thought it is beyond their innate abilities, we can hope that they have someone on the staff and advisory committee that is sufficiently competent to find some expertise to train the politician to stop making political plans and start supporting plans and policies that are prepared by more knowledgeable and accountable people. The accountable part is critical.

First lesson, jobs are created due to a number of factors in any economy; but in our economy there is more than just the number of factors. While each factor contributes to or detracts from job growth, there is also a higher math facet to the equation; in addition to adding its own contribution to the equation different factors may influence the effectiveness of other factors. So it can get very complex, very fast. So in the real world it is important to understand the most powerful factors, particularly those that you can influence, and construct your “influencing” policies and programs around them. You also want someone monitoring the one’s you can’t and looking into the impact that the middling and minor factors are having which may undermine all your good intentions.

Now here is a thought provoker: Big businesses create jobs (B-jobs), which cause middle-size businesses to create jobs (M-jobs), which cause small businesses to create jobs (S-jobs). The number of S-jobs is typically going to be greater than the number of B-jobs and maybe M-jobs. The number of M-jobs is likely to be as great as or greater than B-jobs. Now before you jump off the cliff that your political leaders have already flung themselves over, while they are shouting that you should jump now before you are left behind, don’t conclude that is therefore best to emphasize S-jobs. You know why of course.

Yes, that’s right; the majority of S-jobs and even M-jobs are created because of the B-jobs. This is one of those intertwined relationships in the jobs creation equation. Now please, don’t go running off thinking that all you have to do then is create B-jobs. You would be right if you could just go do that, which you can’t without understanding many of the other factors. And, you would also have to make sure that you were creating B-jobs that were; well, valuable. This is not a job for politicians; you need a group of people of at least modest intelligence for this and you need to set up your economic systems to support and not inhibit beneficial results.

So yes, you don’t want to tax businesses beyond rational levels; but equally important you don’t want to be rewarding businesses to do things that are disadvantageous for our economy but benefit the business. You know, exactly what politicians do.

Democrats and Republicans: Ranking Parties

The House passed a bill today to prevent funding of the health insurance exchanges, the part of the 2009 Health Care reform bill that would enable states to establish insurance exchanges that offer health care coverage to individuals and small businesses. This provides an opportunity to assay the intelligence exhibited by our legislative liabilities. As with most analytic procedures you only need a small sample to determine the quantity and quality of substance in the specimen. This is significant because we would not want to risk extracting any more from the Congressional population than absolutely necessary to avoid depleting whatever amount of valuable resource might exist at all, given its extreme scarcity in that environment.

So rather than pose the question crudely as: Which party is more stupid than the other? Let’s approach the topic in a civil manner and ask: Is there a level of intelligence distinguishing between the Democrats and Republicans?

The Democrats shoehorned the 2010 Health Care reform bill through Congress last year, much to the chagrin of the Republican minority. Within the reform bill was a provision to have insurance exchanges set up by states to provide access to affordable health care insurance. Under the reform act most tax-payers would receive a government subsidy. The Republicans viewed this as just another government take-over of health care. Their position was that it was impractical and unaffordable.

In a major Republican proposal by Paul Ryan, chairman House Budget Committee, which most Republicans tout as a significant forward looking proposal claim that it will provide for affordable national health care. Under this plan most individuals would receive a government premium subsidy to assist paying the insurance companies for an approved health care plan.

One can see instantly the obvious and clear radical distinctions between these two approaches.

My problem is that neither does anything productive to address the real problem with affordable health care. Neither plan is substantively different than the other, other than who is paying whom campaign contributions, and who is appointing the “death-panels”. Ryan reformulated an approach that changes how insurance companies will get their piece of the pie, but he also came close to envisioning a new approach that would actually help America’s health care system, reduce government spending, and present a bill that would be capable of garnering bi-partisan support. Unfortunately, close does not assay as there.

So how do the two parties measure out on distinguishable levels of intelligence? Fortunately for all of us, neither party is completely devoid of intelligence. This of course was a foregone conclusion since I cannot prove the absence of any intelligence. But neither does either party show enough intelligence to be evaluated as having any value and thus non-differentiating.

The inability of Congress to serve the American people is almost inconceivable.

Two, Three, Four, … N Wrongs Don’t Make You Right

Everyone is familiar with the adage that “two wrongs don’t make a right”. But as with everything in life, the lessons that are learned from such wisdom is not guaranteed to be passed along to the recipients with assured fidelity. Let’s take a moment to examine our major political parties. As organizations, or as individual units within the larger structure, the Democratic and Republican parties exhibit a confused and deviant deduction from such sage advice, and from their own policies and actions.

The sage councilor would expect one to comprehend that after an initial act which can be objectively and subjectively recognized as being wrong, that following that act with a second action that is known to be wrong in its own context does not result in situations or conditions in the world that are somehow realigned to an correct or righteous state. Unlike the negative in math, the product of the two wrongs is not a positive outcome. The two parties however arrive at a different political calculus, but one which is as irrational and unreasonable as any false logic that you will find among elementary school students.

Whether their failure to learn from others wisdom or from their own experience with their inept results, our politicians persist with their blind adherence to political and ideological principles. That their philosophies are irrelevant and extraneous to the issues or problems that they are addressing is not relevant to them. Somehow they have arrived at a maladaptive interpretation that success must depend on the number of ‘wrong’ actions required. If they simply continue to apply their ideological methods to the problem then eventually they will be effective in correcting all the previous errors and thus achieve the original solution they desired.

Consider President Obama, a Democrat for those who don’t know, he voted against raising the debt-limit when in Congress but now as President emphasizes that it would be irresponsible to vote against it. He concluded that it was wrong to make a political vote on an issue that was critically important for the country. Now he has made two acts (decisions) here. But if they are both wrong, then how would we expect to achieve the desired goal. Consider his first act, was voting against raising the debt-limit wrong? It’s what many Republicans, particularly of the Tea Party persuasion, think should be done now. Is advocating increasing the limit wrong? There will be dire economic consequences if the US defaults, and that won’t be good for America but it will be a godsend for our enemies. The answer is yes, they were both wrong.

Now consider the Republicans, they have been just as complicit in the disastrous economic policies we have been following for decades. Before Obama’s first two years, America had plenty of Republican decisions, including decisions on the debt-limit. How many times have Republicans advocated capping the limit? Each year for ten years Congress and two Presidents have approved raising it. Were they wrong? Was it a mistake for the Republicans to conduct two wars and expand other military efforts, to cut taxes on the wealthy, and introduce other unfunded programs without any budgetary means of accounting for their payment? Is it wrong now for the Republicans to want additional cuts in the budget as their condition for supporting raising the debit-limit? Yes, here again they are wrong.

You may wonder how it is possible for both the Republicans and the Democrats to be wrong. And the answer is simple: neither understands what they are doing, neither has a sound approach or vision for guiding the country forward, and neither has learned that just doing another wrong-headed knee-jerk will result in what is right for the nation.

It was wrong for Obama to vote against raising the limit, but because he should have insisted that Congress commit to both raising the revenues to both cover that increased expense but to also reduce the existing debt, and to reduce government spending through informed and meaningful modifications to delivering the goals and objectives of government programs at more cost effective levels. He is also wrong to advocate raising the limit now because not doing so would hurt the economy. He should be insisting that the country do the same necessary things to address the real problem.

The Republicans were and are wrong for ignoring the consequences of spending when it suits your ideology but not being responsible for those obvious and predictable consequences. They are also just as wrong in asking for governmental cuts in order to get their support. If they had a viable plan for leading America, they wouldn’t need to hold the country hostage in a game of brinks-moron-ship. If you cannot present an intelligent approach that will make sense to the public then at least they should be able to find a couple of folks who could craft one for them. But they have not done this. So yes they are wrong, and want to persist in being wrong again.

America needs leadership that can put forth a path to promoting the general welfare. I think it will be just another Nth wrong to expect it from either Democrats or Republicans.

How To Fix Congress

Americans of every caliber are disappointed and frustrated with their government. It may even be possible that at this time, Americans have lowered their opinion of Congress to an all time low. While no opinion poll would ever show a negative number, since mathematically you cannot have a percentage below zero on a favorable/unfavorable question; I think that Congress may have snuck in a bill somehow that suspended the laws of mathematics. This utter lack of confidence, respect and tolerance for Congress results from the public’s experience that Congress has become stuck in the quagmire of partisan politics rendering Congress incapable of and uninterested in serving the public interests.

While some members of Congress will acknowledge that the public doesn’t view them favorably, they immediately pivot to a sound bite that “the American people have rejected the policies and positions of the party.” They will often then claim that “the American people have sent them to Congress to change the way that Congress works”. What the American electorate hears is: “Ya-da, Ya-da, Ya-da”.

The root-cause of Congress’ problem is their blind focus on partisanship. The members of both parties have evolved through generation after generation of the electoral selection process to emerge as the inbred progeny of their different core constituencies. These enfeebled and degenerate specimens have reached a state where they can no longer function as individual agents that think independently, that have individual goals and plans, or that can relate to normal human beings outside their core constituencies. They are devoid of the ability to relate to others: no compassion or empathy, no ability to compromise, no sense of their responsibility to diverse opinions under their oath of office. They fail to garner the confidence and respect of the American people because they fail to serve the American people.

Now there are two practical ways to correct this problem. Congress could fix itself. Some small set of leaders (preferably some of each caste) could step forward and inform the rest of Congress that they were going to begin to act in the interest of the American people, and then in fact actually do it. Not only would these Congressional Lazarus-es reignite the concept of serving their nation; but they would be recognized as statesmen/women who in a time of national crisis chose to fight and to lead for the good of the Republic, for the defense of our Democracy. This is the best way and the right way, so it will not happen.

This leaves the other option. Enough of the American people who love country more than party, who prefer thought over slogan, and who have a preference for freedom over the totalitarianism of either party’s hierarchies’ ideology must elect non-partisans to Congress. I don’t mean Democrats or Republicans who claim to be non-partisan. I mean non-Democrats and non-Republicans. This option is the medical remedy that equates to the surgical removal of the diseased cancerous masses that threaten the life of the body politic for a healthy American society.

Given the tremendous obstacles that either option would have to overcome, there is little hope that American citizenry will achieve a path forward that will correct our Congressional dysfunction. It may well be that our two dominate parties will have to impair the country to such an extent that either a political uprising will surface from the tectonic shift when public opinion absolutely cannot tolerate Congress’ idiocy, or when a more radical revolution occurs because of the disparity between the powerful and the other 95% of Americans.

I have always been an optimist and hope for men and women of vision and principle to step forward during periods of chaos. One of my favorite movie quotes is: “In chaos there is opportunity!”

Ryan The Republican – Another Comic? You Wish.

We can all relax now. The 7th term Paul Ryan (R-Rep. from Wisconsin) has seen the way to fix the health care system. Well, not really fix the system, but to get rid of the unsustainable Medicare program. Ryan proposes that the Government limit Medicare to people who are now 55 and older, and to create a new system that will provide subsidizes to future retirees who will select from private companies’ insurance plans. Not government vouchers, which Ryan the Republican knows is an unacceptable concept/term; but government subsidizes for insurance premiums. Because we all know that a voucher is a designated amount of money collected from our taxes, whereas a subsidy is a designated amount of money from our …? Well, anyway a subsidy which will solve our Medicare problem.

Ryan’s plan solves the Medicare problem because after about 40 or 50 years, the Medicare problem will be uhh! ... dead. And because Medicare is over, there is no government funding problem and no Medicare entitlement program. I am not sure Ryan has thought about it in detail yet, but there will be a new Government program and bureaucracy for administering the Ryan Economic Administration and Management Entitlement Department (REAMED) to collect the taxes required for the vouchers (sorry, subsidies), to maintain records of payments by individual, determine eligibility and allocation of payment amounts to individual retirees, and to engage in all the other governmental, legislative, bureaucratic, and budgetary activities that are necessary to have a government program, particularly an entitlement program. So that is one way the Ryan’s plan is different than Medicare.

But surely when we examine his plan in greater detail, we will see that there are many ways that it will reduce health care costs for the American public. For example, instead of using the leverage that the Government has under Medicare with health care providers, it will rely upon the insurance companies to not really care about the cost of services rendered. Fortunately, the additional cost that private insurers will impose on the health care industry segment, the providers will spontaneously and wit a self-sacrificing spirit reduce their costs. This is not to even mention the additional costs for insurance and health care that will be funneled into political contributions to support even more legislative efforts to reduce any leverage that a tax payer would have against the health care industry.

I also suspect that unlike Medicare, which collects taxes from current wage earners and spends these funds immediately for those retirees needing payouts to cover their incurred health care expenditures. The new Ryan plan would collect taxes for a number of years and then after you retire return those funds back to you. Oops! Who pays for the Medicare costs incurred during this transition period? Oh, yes. You do. Those funds collected will I suspect be spent and then Ryan’s plan will be spending it’s incoming taxes on the out-going subsidies (vouchers) just like Medicare.

Al least we won’t have the same issues with the current system. Ryan’s plan doesn’t involve creating the dreaded ‘death panels’ the Republicans’ terrorize those ill-equipped to relate to reality. His plan employs two paths simultaneously. First, those who can’t afford a private plan can just expire, the self-directed death panel so to speak. Second, the pre-existing private health insurance companies’ claims review/approval boards, the corporate death panels who are eager to kill grandma to insure a good bottom line, will execute their profit-motivated approaches as they do today.

There are going to be many similar superior differences just like those mentioned above that will make the Ryan Plan clearly different from the Medicare system. I am overjoyed with the prospects of such a wondrous plan. Fortunately or unfortunately, I am already too old to have such governmental largess granted to me.

What does annoy me is that Rep. Ryan, just as ineptly as any Democrat, does not understand the problem. He has the answer though, a feat that cannot be matched by the best minds in any other field or area of life. What a remarkable individual he must be to be able to solve a problem without a clue as to what the problem itself actually is. It never amazes me to see politicians take an important issue and turn it into a political platform without any notion of what they are doing or what its consequences are. The short-view of the small minded to address the complexity of a problem that has eluded his peers for generations, and which cannot seek a solution that would be more profitable for the private sector, more effective for the medically in need, and far cheaper for the American people.

Congress: Lost in A-Maze-ment of Their Own Making

Republican or Democrat, Tea-Party or Independent, House or Senate, crusty 50 plus year tenured old farts or bright shiny brand spanking new first-timers, conservative or liberal; our elected surrogates are wandering hither and yon in their quest to find an answer to the national budget, deficit and debt. Some know how to solve the problem, they campaigned on its promise, they tell everyone who has a microphone that ‘we must cut deeper to be successful’, and they refuse to support bills that don’t cut deep enough to do the job. But they don’t actually know what to do! It’s easy to say: “Cut spending”. But they find themselves lost in a labyrinth of special interest, sacred cows, powerful constituencies, political ideologies, and party allegiances that confound them at every turn. As they wander about in their corridors of power seeking to cut their way (and our way) back to an economic nirvana that never actually existed, they persist in twisting and turning their way from dead-end to dead-end.
Grasping at any opportunity to slice some budget item that doesn’t fits their clear-eyed, far-seeing, albeit obstructed view of the world. And wonder of wonders, our stalwart adventurers stumble forward with their budget fighting toolkit. Unfortunately, their tools are rather crude and simple implements that are based on the same methods and techniques used previously by their ancient colleagues and long-gone predecessors. Cut this, hack that, use an axe on that over there, and prune something back to the stub. The simplicity of the implements is somewhat required as our heroes don’t possess the skills or knowledge to use more powerful and effective tools. Besides would we really want to put powerful tools in the hands of the ill-prepared, ill-informed and ill-suited to address a problem which they don’t fundamentally comprehend? Oops! We seem to have found ourselves on the horns of the proverbial dilemma. Our congressional elite many not have access to or knowledge about superior methods for handling our fiscal problems, but we have placed the inmates in-charge of the asylum and armed them with weapons of mass disruption.

Well, here are some hints for our maze-bound legislatures. Recognize that your own favorite entitlement program (for those legislatures who are easily confused [all of them]; that’s the one you support, not the one you hate) is a major source of the problem. So Social Security and Medicare need to be reduced, but if you restructure rather than just reduce you can improve the program rather than impair it. And for our die-hard patriotic congress-persons who ever eager to defend America, the entitlement program for the Defense department needs to be re-vamped not just to save money but to revitalize the military-industrial complex’s focus on delivering the best equipped, trained, and capable military without undermining the very economic system that it depends upon. For those who want to reduce burdens of Government regulations, replace regulatory-based enforcement approaches with financial reward/penalty-based incentives to achieving public policy.

In short, we live in the 21st century. We haven’t lived here before, and wanting to go back is not the path to our future. America has always benefited when we have chosen to move forward, to strive for better way than those of the past; and to now and again remember that you must sacrifice when necessary and accept responsibility when required, if you wish to have a claim on freedom and democracy.

Congress on Failure: It's Our Motto

And now for the final part on how our political leaders succumbed to their lesser sides of their philosophies.

Congress passed and President Obama signed the extension of the Bush (now Obama) era tax-rates. Everyone in fool-ville is hooting for joy because they all agreed (compromised in agreement anyway) that this is best thing since Congress figured out how they could just raise the nation's debt ceiling. It's not just the the middle-class got a couple more dollars in temporary tax relief (temporary because with the debt increase they will have to pay it back and even more), but most importantly the very well to do got really big tax relief gifts from the politicians. These abundant and lavish gifts are a repayment by our legislators' to the wealthy for their control of the political funding machinery that runs the parties' campaign financing processes.

Now we cannot fault the politicians for bowing to the pressures that the well-healed special-interest groups exert, after all the most important thing is getting elected not what you have to give up or agree to to get there. This is a parallel to the public's lemming-like race toward whatever politician promises to support some totally meaningless or inconsequential policy or position that is more critical to the electorate than any of the responsibilities of a free and democratic society. Besides you can flood the media with tons of lies that satisfy and entertain the public while completely avoiding any meaningful discussion of issues and solutions to the problems that are the true business of the government and the governed.

But surely the continuing the tax-rates at this time are essential to the economy, and particularly the lower tax rate for the rich. All the economists that the government consulted agreed that now was not the time to raise taxes, because consumer spending accounts for the bulk of the economy and … Uh, Wait! The consumers, most of them anyway, are not wealthy and the upper rate tax rate doesn't apply to them. I am sure that the upper 1% spends a lot more than you or me, but I also know that it is the rest of us that makes and sustains the economy. So the tax-cuts for the rich isn't needed because of their spending, which they will continue to do and are able to do regardless of this tax-cut.

I know, the tax-cut for the 1% is because these are the people who create jobs for the rest of us. And if we tax them more, then more of us won't get employed. Yeah that must be it. Wait! If these folks create the jobs that make the economy robust then why haven't they been creating these same jobs already? In fact, shouldn't the bad economy have provided a better opportunity for these folks to have created lots of new jobs by now? Oh, and are most of these folks the small-business owners that we hear about creating most of the jobs in the country? Surely, they're not the CEO of large corporations that are so essential that only they can run our major industries effectively, the heads of the banking and finance institutions that have protected us from fiscal irresponsibility so well, the lawyers and law-firms that do most of their work pro bono just to benefit society, or the politicians who serve the public at great expense to themselves and their families.

Ok, but then the tax-cuts for the rich were necessary because we need to give the Republicans this tit-for-tat in order for the Democrats to get their important gifts. And these Democratic party needs were also essential to the economy because without them the economy would suffer. I guess this just means that our legislators and we ourselves are so stupid that we can't figure out that you could let one bill fail and propose another bill that addresses everything else but that didn't include the cornucopia for the rich.

But now that we have the extension, we can all look toward an economy that will absolutely recover. And if it doesn't work out at least we can't hold the politicians responsible because they did everything that was possible.

Besides the politicians need to start focusing on how to make everyone pay their fair share for the debt we just increased. And they need to make damn sure that the 1% don't get hrt by that.

How To Fail Again. Again (Part 2)

Before getting to the main Christmas gift from Congress – extending the Bush/Obama-era tax-cuts, there are still more lessor gifts tucked, shoe-horned, wedged, cobbled, and stuffed under the national tree. Given it's a tax bill, it's not surprising that Congress used their hammer to pound more and more tax cuts/credits/exemptions/deferments into the bill as a compromise to gain support. Now compromise isn't a bad thing, in fact it's an essential ingredient in politics. The structure of our legislature is a compromise, the Constitution is a compromise and the Bill of Rights is a compromise. So the fact that Congress and the Administration compromised in drafting the bill is to be expected, especially since neither the Republicans nor Democrats could get a bill through Congress and signed by the President without some give and take. Whether its a good bill or not is not tied to the compromises that have been made, that question has more to do with the all-or-none nature of the tax-rate extensions, its affordability, and the true worth and impact that it will have to the nation's economy. But that is for the Part 3. Here let's shake all those other boxes chock-full of goodies for those who have been uhh! Is it naughty or nice?

We have an environmental gift for renewable energy development. Good intentions no doubt, but couldn't Congress have thought about how to make it target market conditions that impede the development of renewable energy?

There's a gift from Social Security rates, wage earners will find that the government's hand will leave more behind in their pockets as it withdraws its take this year. While few like the pay-day mugging, is reducing the extraction really going to help address the real problem with Social Security? It's underfunded and proceeding toward yet another crisis, and the solution that's going to help is postpone doing anything about the growing cancer in the system itself. Yeah, now that's leadership!

The stockings are filled with all sorts of credits and incentives: child-care, college, use of mass-transit, hybrid cars, energy efficient products, and economic development support for Gulf Coast states. All things that lots of people like, support and don't want to give up. But all things that either cost money or redistribute wealth. (FYI, redistributing wealth is a given in government and societies; but usually the redistribution, as in this case, is not from the wealthy but to the wealthy.)

The justification of everything is that it will help the economy and will create jobs (or will prevent more jobs from being lost). Sounds good, sounds important, sound critical doesn't it. But do you really believe these politicians? When was the last time that they were right? When was the last time that they did something that people liked and then turned out to help the public, as opposed to when they did something that the public thinks was completely wrong but probably was both necessary and benefited the nation?
Everyone likes getting the presents under the tree at Christmas. But how often do people regret the costs that they have to struggle to pay after Christmas because they went out and bought things that they should have known were extravagant or beyond their mean.

The Tax-Cut Resolution, or How To Fail Again

We are on the verge of an Administration and Congressional agreement on extending the Bush-era tax-cuts for all Americans. As usual our illustrious and politically savvy leaders have failed to demonstrate a smattering of intelligence in their usual and pathetic legislative manner. The Republican side staked out a non-negotiation position that they would only support an extension of tax-cuts if it included every American. The critical aspect of this position being the preservation of the tax-cuts for the higher income individuals (particularly the very wealthy or it would not have been at all important to the Republicans). The Democratic position represented via the Obama Administration was to patch together a variety of attachments to the Republican position so as to create the sludge that feeds the politicians and the political process. Before considering how the tax-cut position is more of the same special-interest disaster for America, let's look at the the decorations added by the assorted visionless champions of the American electorate.
A couple of presents being offered up as a placating placebo for the economy are for ethanol. We get a subsidy for corn-based ethanol production and tariff protection from ethanol imports. Now I am sure that there are a couple of folks who will benefit from this, mostly politicians but there will even be a farmer here and there that get a little benefit. Of course, both could have gotten a really good benefit and the public would have benefited even more if they had crafted the law in an effective manner rather than the simple-minded and dysfunctional way that they always do.
So if encouraging ethanol production is good for America, then here's a couple of questions:
Why just limit it to corn-based ethanol? Wouldn't the same amount of ethanol produced via other organic matter be good for our economy, environment and electorate? It gets the same amount of money in the economy, and may do it at a lower cost to our food supply. And does subsidizing corn-based ethanol really add any jobs to the economy?
The tariff on ethanol imports extends the costs but doesn't actually promote any derivative benefit. So how does this generate more jobs? Might it not actually cost more jobs since it adds to the cost of the fuel used by other employers?
Finally, why not make the bill a productive impetus for the farmers and the energy industry, an economically stimulative action in support of the country, and something beneficial for the public both monetarily and in terms of new jobs? Just because these legislative light-weights can't see beyond their own limited horizons shouldn't prevent them from seeking the guidance and creativity of those who could serve the country's interests far better then they seem able to. After all, really good leaders don't actually have to know much or be able to do anything on their own, as we have evidence from many of our corporations' leadership; they just need to have people who can get things done show them the way.

Why Politicians Deserve No Credit

The sage insight and wisdom provided this week by recognized leaders from both the Republican and Democratic parties will be tossed aside by the self-absorbed politicians striving to enshrine themselves as demigods of their respective political philosophies. While it is more indirect, assessing the position that Tea Party members would take is likely to place them at immoveable odds with key aspects of the guidance being offered as the life-saving medicine for our nation. For a party that advocates fiscal responsibility, I suspect that in their heart-of-hearts tea party members mean they want to have what they want, and they want it now; but they don’t want to have to be held responsible for anything. Particularly they won’t be accountable for what they benefitted from in the past that they never paid for. You can hardly blame these weak-tea patriots, they have only recently been required to face the facts or consequences of their inattentive lifestyles. And even here, they managed to turn their mind’s eye inward on a utopian view of their future, where they expect anyone who is willing to lie to them to fix everything by promising to go forth and do what they want as long as it doesn’t affect anything that they see as good for them.

Who are the enablers of these irresponsible Lazarus-es of the American “Do Nothing” party? They are our politicians! Be they Democrat, be they Republican, or be they Tea Partyites or any other fractal variant of a party; these media crafted, sound-bite limited, issue distorting, bloviating sychophants are the bane of our democracy. These politicians always have the solution but never deliver it. They always promise to restore America to its rightful place in the world, but seem to do everything in their power to diminish, degrade and debase the vitality of America and its values.

Every politician in office today and those shortly to join the ranks of the incredibly incompetent will continue to avoid their primary responsibility; they will evade their responsibility for protecting the nation as obligated by their oath of office. The country is in debt. For decades politicians, particularly Congressional politicians, have been the sole builders of the debilitating debt deadfall that increasingly threatens America’s very way of life. Our politicians have done this by actively and knowingly passing budgets and legislation that either directly incurs greater debt or by ignoring the existing debt as if there were no consequences.

So let’s continue to follow these lackluster leaders and their new band of latter-day lackeys in pursuing the preservation of tax-cuts for everyone; thus advancing the day that crushes everyone under the uber-deficit created by their selfish partisans pandering to their respective special interests parasites. But since tax-cuts won’t pay off our debt, this chest thumping exhibition is just another log thrown onto the deficit deadfall we all get to enjoy when the trap collapses.

We certainly cannot depend on our political leaders, and extending them the country’s line of credit is just repeating the same act over again, and hoping for a different outcome. Yes, just going more insane.

If only there were an American value that we could live by, or some example from our history that illustrated the collective sacrifice that Americans made to protect the nation from destruction and preserve our principle of freedom, or even some document that provides some guidance that “as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness”. But we would appear to be devoid of any such lessons from our past that might illuminate a fiscally responsible path we must find to escape this labyrinth of self-imposed liabilities.

Let’s Try Something Different – Smart Politicians

Many Americans are confronted with a persistent, periodic and pernicious problem: who to vote for. Most of those assailed by this dilemma of choosing between the lesser of two evils are non-aligned Independent voters. Although there are even some amongst the ranks of the Democratic and Republican parties’ faithful, that actually think before they vote, that are just as confounded and perplexed about whom to support.

There are a number of reasons contributing to this consternation of the electorate, not limited to: distortions and lies in negative campaign ads; pathetic and paltry attempts by the news media to scrutinize the campaigns of either encumbering party; or the enfeebled, addle pated, and intellectually challenged candidates. With this dearth of worthy aspirants to the highest offices of our nation, we can hardly blame the majority of Americans from being disenchanted with the choices they must make among the insipid and misguided standard-bearers of their respective parties.

While it is far too late in this election period to seek out better choices, to quest for worthier representatives; perhaps there is a lesson to be gained from the bleak political landscape we travel. After our populace is plagued by the consequences wrought by these legislative mites, and their myopic societal visions weave their defective governmental fabric; we will have the opportunity viewing the on-going travesty as our American tapestry unravels into another season of self-serving, special interest driven, unreasoned congressional misrepresentation. Whether the Democrats retain majorities in the House and/or Senate, or the Republicans gain a plurality in either; the vitriolic and divisive uncompromising posturing of each partisan tribe will ensure that the American people will be disregarded in favor of power politics and extremist policies. From this corrosive and poisonous atmosphere, our citizenry must find an antidote to this dysfunctional dichotomy of a free society where neither the left nor the right seems to comprehend the basic principles our Founding Fathers conceived of in the establishment of our constitutional democracy.

Recognizing the need for a rebirth of American values in our government, our politicians and particularly our political parties; the independent voters of America, who control the outcome of our elections, need to look for candidates that are worthy of their votes. When polled prior to the elections, if neither party’s candidate measures up then they need to say they will choose from an alternative party but not the Democratic or Republican incompetents endorsed by the cultish rabble of their respective party members. There is only one way to evolve these pandering parties into organizations that strive to serve the American people, and that is to apply the ‘survival of the fittest’ principle to them. The Parties can adapt and respond to the needs of the independent voters; or they can go the way of other dead-end organisms unable to meet the challenges of their new environment.

What qualities should we seek in viable political candidates? Well, if you were hiring someone to work for you in a position that required sound and reasoned judgment, and who was going to determine how to establish the approaches that we would follow to achieve our common interests and goals; then I would advocate that you look for someone who you think is actually smarter than you are. What business man would consciously hire someone for such a job that they think is less qualified than they themselves would be? Would you really want someone who is just able to understand the world and issues as well as yourself? If so, then you have the results of your criteria. The lagging economy, the loss of status and prestige in the world, the deterioration of our national infrastructure, and the decline in America’s standard of living are the fruits of your quality of leaders.

To return America to a strong, vibrant and prospering society we need leaders with sufficient knowledge to know what they do not understand, to see the errors of their (and their parties’ past), and to put the interest of the country and its people before their own. In other words, we need politicians that are nothing like the kind we have today. We need persons who can speak intelligently and meaningfully about the issues that confront us, and not that can barely nor accurately recite the meaningless sound-bite of the day given them by their handlers. We need American leaders, not the Democratic and Republican sophists we are shackled with intent on following some self-delusional path to paradise. In truth, we need the ‘best and brightest’ from amongst us to step up to the task of dealing with our real problems and in protecting our rights and freedom from those who would limit them.

Our nation was founded upon the exceptional efforts that our forefathers made; it will not be preserved by the mundane squabbling of politicians bought and paid for by the highest bidders.

Who Knows How To Create Jobs: Democrats or Republicans?

Come on! You had to know the answer to this one. Who has a better broad, in-depth and sound understanding of the economic factors that create jobs? Who has the experience and real-world knowledge of business and job creation? Who would you turn to to formulate a national strategy for revitalizing employment in the United States?

The answer, of course, is that both Democrats and Republicans are completely unqualified, clueless and delusional about their individual partisan approaches to what will create jobs in America. Both parties, particularly their leadership, are career politicians who barely understand what an economy is, let alone how to guide one. As politicians they are philosophically and intellectually unprepared to address the issues and problems that have to be confronted in a competitive and capitalistic economy.

So as we approach the mid-term elections with the economy and jobs as two of the front-runner issues, the public will be bombarded with political ads, speeches and talk-show discussions about how their opponents’ plans are misguided and inadequate to dealing with these issues. We may even hear every now and then about how they will however work to bring jobs back.

None of them will tell you however that a Government, neither Republican nor Democrat, actually create jobs; at least not jobs that are self-sustaining. You don’t get a robust and resilient economy and jobs environment because of what the Government chooses to do. At best a Government can take actions to minimize the negative consequences of bad economic conditions, to the best of their abilities (which of course if one of our problems); and all too often the Government will take actions that will actually harm the economy (thought that of course was “not their intention”).

After all, if the Government could fix an economic downturn or crisis, you have to ask yourself: How did the Government allow the problem to get to the point required to become a problem? But you don’t have to ask yourself this question: Hasn’t the Government been doing things (or not doing things) for years that contributed to the problems that we are suffering for now and have suffered for many times before? And haven’t both Democratic and Republican parties been the “leaders” that have cast the stones into the waters that are now inundating us today?

Here is the question that your preferred politician should answer for you: If small businesses create the most jobs in our economy (which I hear they do), what is the critical and essential requirement for them to be successful in terms of the US economy?

Oh, and if the answer you get is either a tax-cut (or relief) or easy access to capital then you are still dealing with a politician who doesn’t know.

Elections and the Economy – American Intelligence Test #7

Worried about the economy, concerned about your job, despairing over unemployment; then certainly you know what you need to do in the upcoming elections. At least this would be the conclusion one might reach in listening to the news anchors and political talking heads and wonks. But of course, what is obvious and patently clear to those with common sense and conventional wisdom need not be connected to reality nor demonstrate a modicum of wisdom or a smidgen of sound judgment. So what we have here friends and neighbors is another chance to gauge the vox populi’s intellectual gravitas.

The test format is just five questions plus a bonus question, and in some instances commentary to place a particular context to the question. Following the questions, I provide my answers. However you don’t use my answers as a guide to correctness. Your score is your responsibility to assess. A willingness to deceive yourself, as to the correctness of your answers or beliefs, is just another measure of the actual intelligence being measured. To paraphrase Lincoln:

Some of us can fool ourselves all of the time, and all of us can fool ourselves some of the time, but all of us can not fool ourselves all of the time.

Prepare yourself to be employed in a brief endeavor.

Q 1: Which political party is primarily responsible for the current economic environment?

Democratic Republican Neither Both Other

Context: Your answer should be able to withstand the ‘test of time’, it should encompass governmental actions and decisions over the last twenty, thirty or more years. In essence, it did not take just one or two years to get to where we are.

Q 2: Which political party’s policies and principles are best suited to deal with the current economy and restore the country to a sound prosperity?

Democratic Republican Neither Both Other

Context: Your answer should account for what a given party actual did when they were in power or not and not just what they said they were going to do when they were pandering for you vote.

Q 3: Which governmental action(s) are most likely to solve the problems in our economy?

  A. Tax cuts

  B. Stimulus packages

  C. Infrastructure projects

  D. Federal Deficit reduction

  E. Government spending reductions

  F. Reform Foreign Trade policy

  G. Reform government bureaucracy

Q 4: After the election, how quickly can the government turn the economy around?

  A. Within 1 year

  B. 2 to 3 years

  C. 4 to 5 years

  D. Over 5 years

  E. Never

Q 5: Who has the most power to address and solve the nation’s economic woes?

  A. Presidency – the administration

  B. Congress – the legislative body

  C. You – the public

  D. Financial industry – banking and investment companies

  E. None of the above

Context: The power to control something necessitates the possession of the means to affect change and the ability to enforce adherence.

The Critical Bonus Question: During the upcoming political campaign which of these issues will be most important to your choice of candidate(s)?

  A. Tax cuts

  B. Education

  C. Immigration

  D. Family Values

  E. Jobs Creation

  F. Deficit reduction

  G. None of the above

Ding! Times up. You’re done, and you can now evaluate if you scored high, low or in the middle. For those with an interest, here are my answers.

1: B   Both parties have eagerly created their contributions to the economic policies and structures that have culminated in our current distressed conditions.

2: N   The parties only have policies and principles that they espouse often and loudly, especially during their campaigns; but neither appears to understand that they have to build upon and be held accountable for delivering on those policies and principles for them to even have a chance of mattering. And more importantly, they have to acknowledge and accept responsibility for the failure of their efforts when they have demonstrated that they did not understand or appreciate the consequences of their actions.

3: C,D,F   These activities come the closest to positive initiatives that the government could engage in to help the economy; but these items don’t directly address the underlying factors that cause our economic problems. The other items on the list can help treat the symptoms but are not agents to cure the economy.

4: E   The government can’t actually fix the economy, the best that they can hope to do is to provide stabilizing actions to help contain the extent that the economy goes completely off the rails. So the government can never deliver the turn around, no matter how much time you allow them to stumble around trying.

5: C   The economy is a product of the public’s behavior. “You reap what you sow” comes to mind. To add to those direct responsibilities that you need to own up to, the extent that the government contributes to the solution or the problem is derived from your choices anyway. See Question 1.

Bonus: G    If you haven’t figured it out by now, the items in the list are not solutions. They are just political bait dangled before you to tempt you into swallowing the hook. If your candidate cannot clearly explain how they will implement a policy or program that will address any of those slogan issues and then explain clearly how that will produce a positive effect on the economy then welcome to the cook-out, you will be served up for dinner shortly.

You don’t have to care about this test or your view of my answers. But you are about to take a test that you won’t be able to shrug off, whether you pass it or fail it. The election doesn’t give you as many choices for each question, and it doesn’t give you any latitude in the consequences resulting from your choices. You will get what you asked for; because the reality of the world is that for every action/cause there is a reaction/effect.

Three Things Congress Can’t Do

We all know that there are many things that Congress can’t do. However, there are things that they can do, ought to do, and were elected to do; but it appears that the residents of the House and Senate are ill-prepared, ill-advised and ill-suited to do their jobs. Among their many inadequacies our Congressional leaders lack are the intellectual prowess to confront the issues of the day, lack the Yankee spirit & fortitude to persevere in tackling our country’s problems, and lack the American integrity for fulfilling their responsibility to their countrymen.

Congress shows no talent or ability in three areas where they should be able to step up to the challenge, and where they ought to be actively engaged in creating the legislative and policy directions to craft an American future that will be sufficiently strong to fulfill its fundamental promises and obligations to its citizens. And unfortunately for us, these areas have one vitally important consequence for us: Congress takes our money to subsidize the budget to cover for their deficiencies.

First, Congress continues to create programs that require increasing governmental spending. Now if these programs produced corresponding benefits to the country and/or growth in the private sector that outweighed the costs, then the costs might make sense. But they are not; most programs are fraught with mismanagement, waste & fraud. And it’s not that these Congressional stalwarts are unaware of the abuse of the budget, they are usually neck deep in the morass. The indications can be observed in obvious and visible ear-marks peppered throughout the mire of their bills.

Second, our members of Congress are addicted or subservient to numerous special interests that urge, prod and coerce them into forging bad laws and bad policy. The results of their pandering to their special interest masters is that the public is provided with the opportunity to fund not only their special friends but we get to pay for the interest on the monies that we likely borrowed to fund it. Now isn’t that special!

Third, Congress refuses to recognize or admit to the one problem that supersedes all other problems combined. They will do nothing to address the Public-debt, a mere $13 trillion dollar problem. To put this in prospective, think the USA’s GDP for this year. Essentially we owe as much as we produce in a year. And to make things more impressive, Congress lets us pick up for the tab on having borrowed the money to pay for this excess. Now don’t go off and think that this is a Democrat problem just because they are in office, the Republicans are as aggressive a set of co-conspirators as you will ever meet.

Be they Democrats, be they Republicans, or be they the uber-wealthy new political candidate of your dreams; if they do not step up to the real problems for our country then you have just elected another politician who is telling you what you want to hear and who is the champion of your most sacred single issue. Of course, your most sacred single issue is one of the reasons that the country is in the sad sorry state that it is. The persons you want to serve you in Congress need to be people who can tell you why you need to do those hard and difficult things that we are all going to have to sacrifice to achieve.

Congress and Other Politicians: Illegal Immigrates in the Country of Intelligence?

What with immigration being one of the hot issues of the day, month, year, decade, … you would think that Congress and states’ legislatures would have found some viable and functional approaches to setting the legal and policy direction on it. But of course they have not. Is it because the two parties cannot find a way to work together? No, even when they have had the opportunity to pass whatever bill they have wanted the ‘best and brightest’ have flounder without a concept; or vacillated on some direction; or lurched toward some ‘tough on illegal aliens’ bill that was toothless, blind, and addle pated in its efficacy.

Is it because the solutions are beyond the ability of men and women of good will to conceive of or comprehend something of value? No, even politicians, including some members of Congress, have the wherewithal to understand a good idea when they hear one. Makes you wonder why they haven’t heard one doesn’t it?

Is it because the public would not accept a reasonable, prudent and principled approach to reforming immigration? Harder to answer, but in general at least 7 of 10 Americans would support both an informed and practical immigration policy and law. They would even vote for those politicians who sponsored and backed such legislation. Most Americans are not inflexibly bound to either major Party’s failed and outdated positions on immigration; as the public is fundamentally interested in the impacts that the past and present immigration laws have wrought upon the land. At this point, the public would welcome a political leader who stood up and presented an immigration strategy that addressed those facets of American society that are being dealt real and significant damage from the ineffective and unproductive process that exists today.

So where is the politician that will seriously think about immigration and develop that creative position to bring intelligence, insight and innovation to the fore? Who will recognize the factors that motivate and drive the illegal immigration and the counter-measures that are appropriate to deal with them?

It appears that they are not in the Democratic or Republican Parties. It appears that they are not in the State legislatures, nor are they members of the staffs of these politicians. It appears that the politics of the day have stagnated the imaginations, and solidified the mind-sets of the very people that are supposed to tackle these problems for the American people.

Maybe it would help if we gave them a hint. To solve this problem there is an essential principle that needs to be attended to: First, you have to understand the problem. And that is where the immigration reform effort needs to start, and the politicians need to exert their energies. Only when they see the real problem will they have any chance of finding an effective solution.