An Uncompromising Failure, It’s Super-Committee to the Uhhh! Nothing

Twelve Congressmen and Congresswomen, stout-hearted and true, have officially announced that they failed to develop a debt reduction proposal. The singular task that they were commissioned to perform. And even before they had certified their failure, the Washington do-nothings were out and about proclaiming how their side had tried mightily to provide a plan, but the other side had worked their evil strategies to obstruct and defeat their valiant efforts. Yes, our politicians were being the best that they can be. They were acting exactly as the people who elected them would have and more importantly as the pubic deserved to be served.

Perhaps the public has had enough. The polls indicate that Congress has attained its lowest approval level ever, despite my not being included in the sample. So what is the public going to do?

Just like the Stupor committee, the public is going to fail. The electorate will not act to show the power of their dissatisfaction, the force of their anger, or the drive of their wrath. Voters will return the members of the Stupor committee to their offices. Why, because the public doesn’t understand the basic physics of politics. If your elected officials don’t accomplish the tasks placed before them then the voters need to separate them from their office even if their opponent is as big a nincompoop as they are.

When asked why they failed, you will hear lots of explanations, but none of these excuses matter. They failed, and they did nothing to prevent it. They only knew how to operate in the mode that Congress has come to operate in. Not one of the members thought of anything else that they could do. Not one of the members produced or provided any useful approach to addressing the impasse or lighting the way forward. Just more we said/they said bickering.

It can’t be left to the Democrats, it can’t be left to the Republicans; the nation’s Independents have got to stand up and make it clear that you go to Congress on the basis of Independents’ decisions and not that of whichever party the morons are affiliated with. As a member of Congress you do not talk about why the other side is wrong until after you have presented a plan of your own and a reasoned and rational argument for that plan. If the other side’s plan cannot hold up to your plan on the basis of that rationale then they are not ready to be your representative nor worthy of your vote. Simply put, no member of Congress today should have ever been elected.

That is the reason their approval is so low. People are beginning to recognize the magnitude of their mistake in voting for incompetent ideologies that are bought and paid for by the highest bidder.

Third Law of Budgets

Now we get to the fun part of reality. The politicians are really not going to like this. If the First Law of Budgets says you can’t win (get more out than you put in), and the Second Law says you break-even (get as much out as you put in); then our crafty politicians are going to want to work on eliminating the waste (nibbles) that occur in the financial transactions that their budgets feed. Politicians will want to make the nibbles so small that they become zero. They will want to make the exchanges perfect, a typical ideological vision: a get what you pay for nirvana.

But here’s the thing, there is no perfect transaction, no truly equitable exchange, no absolutely fair-market place. Maybe you can find ways to target a specific transaction and make it more equal, but that is one exchange and not the entire system. And every attempt to modify the process and method of transactions opens the door to new nibbles that also eat away at the value of the budget.

The Third Law as interpreted by C. P. Snow is “You can’t get out of the game.” And that is what will frustrate the politicians the most. They are denied the thing that they desire the most, the ability to control how things are to be. In the case of national, state or local budgets politicians want to be able to control how the economy will function; and being denied that authority will not rest easily upon their shoulders.

So in the end, the politicians have to live with the fact that they cannot win the budget game. They will never get more than they pay for, they won’t get even as much as they thought they should, and they can’t change that. What this means is that they have to learn what the real game that they are playing is. And in the budget world, it’s not deciding how much the budget should be. The game is deciding what the government pays for via taxes, and what the public pays for through the market place. And if you want to avoid the most waste or positively put, get the greatest bang for your buck, then you have to understand which avenue works best for everything you want in your shopping cart. Oh, and if you think the government or the market-place is always superior to the other, you would be ignoring history and you would be wrong. This is way political ideology is a mental blindness. It prevents the particular ideologue from seeing things that a clear mind can recognize with little effort.

The cure for the blindness is to be able to understand the forces that affect the size of the nibbles that the particular transaction approach imposes. Unfortunately once again, the politician will be left at a distinct disadvantage in this problem space, since comprehension is not their forte.

Second Law of Budgets

After attempting to digest the First Law of Budgets, I suspect not many politicians or members of the public would have much stomach for the second course. How annoying it must be to be told that you have to pay for everything. But for those of you who do, the Second Law is more esoteric and insidious. The Second Law of Budgets deals with the principle that in managing money the system is imperfect, you cannot attain a perfect conversion of a quantity of money into an exact equal value of whatever you equate it to. In other words, with every financial transaction there is an inequality of the exchange. Now the bookkeepers will contend that they can and do balance the books; that every penny, rupee, yuan, or pound is accounted for and that the ledger balances. But that is accounting, not money or value. The natural law that we are dealing with here, with regard to budgets, is that as money (value) flows from one region to another, or within the total system itself, that every movement includes a small (or not so small) loss to the parties engaged in the transaction. This loss can come from many factors and there can be more than one of these incremental losses nibbling away at the value of the exchange.

An example would probably be helpful. If you spend a $1,000 to buy a flat-panel TV and the value of the TV was agreed by all to be $1,000 then the exchange seems equal, balanced and exact. Except that there are additional costs that the buyer has to account for. There is typically going to be a sale-tax (both local and state), there is a cost to have it delivered or to transport it back to you abode, there may be an installation/set-up fee, and there is an immediate loss of market-value once you take it out of the box. You might even want to account for other value factors. If you gave the delivery person(s) a tip for their service then that was an additional value for the TV that is neither in its inherent value nor recoverable.

This gradual but continuing erosion of value within the exchange process is simply the operation of the Second Law of Budgets. Whatever you establish as your acquisition target there will be more and more cost bites added on to the value of what you desire or need with every person, action, and stage that the transaction encounters as you move closer to completing the purchase. In the end, you will possess the goal object but you will have spent more money for it than it will be worth at the moment of ownership/possession. As C. P. Snow would say about the Second Law: “You can’t break even.”

Now this should provide our budgetary heralds with some intriguing insights into the difficulties that Congress has to include in their reasoned and unbiased deliberations on what needs to be done by the government and what will be cared for by the private sector. I am sure that they will appreciate that every calculation of value that they think they are making will be reduced more and more by the little but persistent nibbles. The nibbles will come via the Second Law through each individual exchange along the chain of purchases, acquisitions, and trades that are the magic of the economy. Congress will learn that the best and most efficient exchange process is not in fact determined by simple and ideological approaches. The free market nor the government program set in any fixed relation to one another, and neither will ever perform as expected by the masters of the budget.

Let’s turn Medicare into a voucher/premium-supplement supported market-based insurance program. Nibble, nibble. Let’s raise the age or retirement. Nibble, nibble. Let’s reduce taxes on the wealthy to create jobs. Nibble, nibble. Let’s stimulate the economy with tax-credits and bailouts. Nibble, nibble.

What Congress doesn’t comprehend is that they are mostly a nibble, just another aspect of the Second Law of Budgets. Not only can you not get as much out of what you’re taxed as you pay in, but Congress insures that you get less. And they do so in the most inefficient manner. Democrat or Republican, they just keep nibbling and nibbling. Even when they tell you that they want to do less and tax you less, they haven’t figured in the non-government nibbles. Maybe you’re taxed too much, maybe you are not. That’s the wrong issue, it always has been. It’s just another one of their nibbles, it’s not like they have figured out that there are other nibbles out there that if not understood are worse than the one’s they want to try and change.

The national debt is in part a Congressional nibble. The deficit is a Congressional nibble. The declining entitlement programs funding is a Congressional nibble. Defense spending adds its own nibbles. Nibble by nibble the nation’s problems grow because Congress doesn’t understand the Second Law which leaves them vulnerable to it. It’s not that they make mistakes; they don’t even know the rules. They don’t make mistakes, they make actual bad decisions.

The Thermodynamic Laws of Budgets:

One of the reasons that politics is always so contentious is that politicians lack a common set of natural laws that they can use to explain their positions. Thus unlike the scientific laws that have allowed the productive members of society to have advanced the human race and in our instance the America condition to the high level of achievement that we prize so much. Politicians are left adrift and forced to use their own intellect to explain why their positions and policies are the more deserving of support. Given their dependence upon their own cognitive resources, is it any wonder that they are so inept and incapable of accomplishing even the very little that they do? Even more depressing is the public’s acceptance of the drivel that these same self-appointed paragons of pomposity spew in endless torrents of opinion.

To better serve both the public and our government there appears to be an urgent need for someone to lay before the public and politicians some of the natural laws that apply to the political realm and the real world that our elected officials dabble in daily with disastrous results. To that end, the following offering is presented to help raise the level of understanding of the politicians and the public alike. In the case of politicians this may be more challenging; but given their abysmal awareness, knowledge and understanding of almost anything important any infinitesimal incremental increase in comprehension will be a tremendous even astronomical gain for them.

As the nation’s budget is much talked about as a highly charged political topic, it seems apropos to examine the budgetary equivalent to the scientific Four Laws of Thermodynamics. In this discussion I will at appropriate times cite C.P Snow’s interpretation of the primary 3 Laws of Thermodynamics.

First Law of Budgets: Conservation of Money

Money is Money. It doesn’t matter who has the money, it only matters how much they have. It doesn’t matter what form it comes in, in the end the money in the system always equals the same amount of value. This principle applies to the total system (globally) or to regional segments where the proper accounting is maintained. The general rule is that within a specified region (including the whole) money is equal to ‘all value’ (money) transferred into the system minus ‘all value’ transferred out, plus all value retained in the system. Think, there is no other source of funds that can be magically tapped when you need it. If you need more money, you have to have it or find someone who is willing to exchange something of theirs with value for something of yours with value that nets out to you having more than when you started.

What does this mean for Congress, the Administration, or even the Supreme Court? It means that they have to abide by the First Law. It’s not that it’s a good idea, it’s not that it’s the right thing to do, it’s the physics of monetary reality; try and resist or ignore it and you will face the consequences of the power of the universe marshaled against you. According to C.P. Cook this means, “You cannot win.”

Some things that politicians and the public need to become comfortable with because of the First Law are:

• The public pays for everything. No one except the public has any money.

• Whatever the public wants the government to do, they have to pay for from their money (wealth); they have to be taxed by the government.

• Everything required by the government, everything prohibited by the government, everything encouraged or discouraged by the government, and everything that the government does to achieve some goal requires the public to be taxed. It doesn’t matter if you support or oppose what the goal(s) is, the public pays.

• When you borrow, you create a condition where you eventually transfer more money out of your region into the one you borrowed from. You are transferring your wealth to them, and the public’s wealth will be diminished.

• Here’s a tricky one. The conservation rule sounds simple, but the recognition of how this applies to something as big as our modern economy is not simple. Comprehending the implications of every budgetary decision will not be obvious, self-evident, or even within the grasp of most politicians or the public. But understood or not, the First Law will rule and it will have its way. No force on earth or the universe can prevent it; and if you want to pray to God to intercede then you should know that he created the Three Laws of Budget.

No one reading this should assume or conclude that the obvious meaning of the First Law is that Congress should cut or raise taxes, or cut or reduce spending. Those are just actions, they don’t account for the consequences; but the actions will operate according to the Laws of Budgets.

Next up, the Second Law of Budgets; until then start looking for the operation of the First Law in the world about you. It runs through everything you do. That’s why it’s a natural law, it’s part of the fabric (the physics) of the universe.

Weak Tea, Weak Knees, Weak Grip, Weak Willed: Just Weak

The nation’s political forces remain aligned along the same old fronts: Republicans / Democrats, left-wing / right-wing, progressive / moderate / conservative, and low / middle / upper / uber-rich income groups. Every issue is cast in terms of which forces support it and which opposes it. And these forces are confronting each other aggressively, and never more so than with America’s fiscal fiasco. The most strident entrenchments seem to be entangled with every issue and effort that Congress and the Administration attempt to address. Add to this the media’s exploitation of the political harangues as nothing more than grist for their ratings opportunities. As a result, we get a positive feed-back process that achieves only the distortion and confusion of meaning and substance on the issue.

In this turmoil of leadership, the positions and policies espoused by all parties, all allegiances, all constituencies are enfeebled, anemic, and inane attempts to deal with the issue that they purport to resolve. Do the American people really think that the way to solve complex problems is to limit the tools and methods that can be used to attack it? This is not the approach that successful and market leading businesses employ in handling the problems that confront them. They seek a thorough and knowledgeable understanding the problem, and explore all possible solutions and options that will enable them to successfully overcome the problem and emerge a stronger competitor in the market place. Is looking for simple and easy answers the goal of the education system that you would want for yourself or your children? Do you want your doctor choosing the simple diagnosis because it’s quick and easy; who cares whether it provides a course of treatment that cures the ailment! So if it doesn’t make sense to pre-judge and pre-determine what our acceptable options are for most other areas of life, what in the world would lead us to think that the best solutions for our nation’s political and economic problems can be dictated by the philosophy of “this is the way I want it to be”?

What is the logic that to believe that the chant “Stop Government Spending” or “Cut the Budget” is the answer? These may be reasonable and sound goals, but they are not being presented as goals, but rather as solutions. And as in any other endeavor, applying a rule or strategy without understanding what you are doing, why you are doing it, and what will happen when you do it; you will almost assuredly get a result that is vastly different than what you expected, desired and are willing to accept. Of course as in real life, you are forced to accept the consequences of you past actions. If you don’t believe that, then just ask how we got to where we are right now and why are you so desperate to change things to ‘fix’ the problem.

Is the absolute public position that we can’t touch Social Security, or we have to guarantee that the elderly continue to be covered by Medicare (and its ilk), or Defense spending must be increased, or pick your own personal insane no-compromise, no-retreat, no-sacrifice, no-change issue.

It’s this inept mind-set that prevents politicians from even comprehending that they are not qualified to solve these problems. They are responsible to get them addressed for sure; but that doesn’t equip them with the skills, information or capacity to solve the problems.

A worthy politician, if one exists in our system today, would look for solutions that can be explained to the public in terms of what the consequences are: who benefits and who sacrifices, why it is reasonable and just, why it is better than other proposals, and why it requires whatever action it requires. If you limit your choices, then you are just limited. America was not build by people who limited themselves.

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.

A Medicare Prescription: Sleight of Hand, Slight of Mind

2011 may well be a pivotal year marking the end of the world as we know it. So the Mayan’s may have been wrong about their 2012 prediction. What with Congress haranguing and flailing over the 2012 federal budget, the run up to the gladiatorial 2012 Presidential and other elections, and just for kicks the US economy will be suffering from high oil and gas prices and anemic job growth. All in all, the stars are aligning to portend the inevitable apocalyptic outcome from the confluence of ideological political policies, rabid special interest groups smelling pork, and an economic environment enfeebled by lackluster political leadership. Add to this the dullards’ debates on and pathetic proposed plans for how either the Democrats or the Republicans will ‘save’ Medicare and you have the spark to ignite the powder keg that blows us all to hell.

The Republicans are going to require future Medicare seniors to choose from the for-profit market place, and that choice will somehow magically save money. It may save the government money and thus the Republicans will be able to prevent Medicare’s astronomically increasing costs from busting the budget. But it only stops medical costs from devouring the federal budget, leaving the unquenchable beast free to feed upon the vast resources that the seniors will surely have in their treasure vaults. I am not trying to demean the Republican proposal because that would imply that it has any worth, value or merit whatsoever.

You can’t blame the Republicans though. Their proposal adheres to a couple of their core tenets of ideological faith and so must be right. The problem is that the Republicans are no better at translating their ideology into practical and well conceived policies and programs than say, the Democrats are to theirs. But that won’t matter, if they are wrong then 20 years from now it won’t be a problem that they care about because they will either be retired, dead or most likely be the first to blame someone else.

Now don’t think that you can turn to the Democrat’s to save you either. Their proposal is, well not actually a proposal, is to trim some here and there; to reduce some payments on this and that; and to encourage and reward providers that improve their quality and avoid unnecessary tests. Doesn’t sound like the kind of inspired reinvention of a Medicare approach that fulfills our promise to insure medical care for seniors over 65. They don’t really know what to do either.

The secret pill that they are looking for is to leverage competition, yes the market place, but not to trust the medical industry or insurance companies; rather to watch and verify, to reward for achievement and to penalize for failure [unlike Congress], and to limit the program to it specific objective. Even if Congress understood this, they are not the people to implement it; and therein is the biggest problem: Congress cannot be the agent of change, they can only be the authorizers of a solution.

The Collective Speaks. The Elective Obey

I guess the politicians will be scrambling now for yet another solution to the “problem”. Not that they have ever had a solution, nor for that matter have they understood why they don’t know what to do. How then will the Republicans or the Democrats, or a collaborative compromised agreement amongst them, solve the dilemma of the national debt and its deviant little brother the deficit with public opinion polls starting to indicate that the Great Unwashed do not like what has been proposed?

Well, our great leaders will do what politicians always do. They will change their statements and try and find some obfuscating means to accommodate their plans to appease the masses. What they won’t do is change their methodology. They will not recognize that ‘cutting’ is not the tool, at least not the tool that you should use to work this problem. Cutting equates to a surgeon removing parts of the patient because everyone agrees that the disease must be removed, but it doesn’t differentiate between healthy tissue and diseased tissue. Just cutting may result in a healthy patient (they may survive despite the cutting), the patient could wind up pretty bad off with severe impairments, or the patient might just be a corpse. And this is the technique that Congress is intent on using. They will cut us to salvation.

If our eager elective officials were problem solvers, they might want to step back, examine and study the factors that drive the spending, and once they understand what our governmental systems, programs and policies are doing wrong they need to modify the mechanisms that drive spending. Unfortunately, Congress is neither competent nor qualified to achieve such a degree of understanding. Thus Congress is in great need of the “a miracle happens here” mechanism. Congress may not have the ability to solve the problem but fortuitously they have the means to evoke the miracle; and to make it even better, it doesn’t matter whether you’re a Republican, a Democrat or even someone intelligent.

The solution is not in cutting the budget. The solution is in reducing the budget. The difference is that cutting is not directed, it is not focused and it is not productive or efficient. Reducing the budget is a proactive process. Reduction will occur because it will be targeted at an opportunity, focused on a specific area of spending that can be improved to the benefit of both the funders (us) and the drivers of the spending (hopefully us also), and reduction will craft a governmental operating process that strives to continuously deliver more for less. The output of the reduction approach is, now wait for it, cutting. It’s not cutting and then seeing what you get. It’s getting what you want and when you’re done you can cut-away the excess that you didn’t need.

The polls may show what the public doesn’t want cut, but just like Congress the polls don’t tell you what to do to achieve what the polls tell the public does want. They want to be able to afford our society, our nation and our future. So reducing spending also provides a path that fulfills the other aspect of saving our economy and country that the cutting method won’t. It will insure that the pledge that every American makes will be achieved, because we will be responsible and accountable for the tasks that are required to meet our obligations of a free, democratic society.

Congress Can't Empty A Boot With Instructions On The Heel

The Republicans have passed a federal budget proposal that demonstrates once again that whether the ideas in Congress come from Republicans or Democrats that the American people can depend upon Congress and its denizens to get it wrong. It's not that they're stupid, well it's not just that anyway. Congress' problem is that they fashion their policies, programs and plans from the ideological puffery that endears them to their core constituencies. Their attempts to beat their accursed foes consistently takes the fore in their efforts, leaving the matter of serving the public either in the background or completely out of the picture. It is in this context that Paul Ryan has set out his plan for 'The Path to Prosperity'.

The plan is not very long and does repeat itself a lot; much like a political speech at a fund-raising rally. In it he explains that if you take a lot of money out of government spending, that the government will spend a lot less. This may be math beyond the understanding of most Americans, but I am not sure that it would dazzle any 8th graders. He also refers to other areas where he would save money by cutting many of the items that have been noted by others here and there, including the bi-partisan committee that issued a set of recommendations for how America should deal with the national debit.

Ryan included in his plan a proposal for saving Medicare. He is sure of his plan working because he has some principles, some beliefs, that will resolve the problems that the current program is unable to deal with. And this one aspect of his plan illustrates the very reason that you cannot rely upon any one in Congress, Republican or Democrat, to solve America's problems. Ryan, our case study object of scrutiny, has put his faith in his “beliefs”, his “principles”. It's the free market, competition, and the ability of individuals and their own doctors in making the best decisions concerning their health care that Ryan knows in his heart will reduce the cost of Medicare.

My first issue with Ryan's claims is that his feelings and beliefs are the stuff of mom, home and apple-pie. I don't dislike his feelings and beliefs; but they don't constitute a plan, they don't assure anyone (except perhaps Ryan) that this will work better then the current abysmally run system, and they don't do anything like coming close to reducing the cost of Medicare. So once again we have a Congressional “Prince Vagueness” charging to the rescue with his plan to kill the evil dragon of government Medicare. He is going to replace it with the kind, generous and benevolent corporate behemoths that always do everything in their power to serve the public. And the government will be there to insure that the health care industry is fulfilling its role through the control of the government subsidies to public health care that they will manage on our behalf.

Say! Haven’t we seen this movie before?

I don't care what Paul Ryan believes. I want his plan to stand on something more firm and practical then a Congressman's intellect, particularly one warped and distorted by political ideologies that haven't worked before.

What will the free market guarantee under Ryan's plan. It will guarantee what a free market always guarantees. It will insure that the price will be what the market will bear. It may or may not be cheaper than one that is constricted by governmental involvement. Let's hope that it will be as efficiently and effectively run as say the financial institutions were over the last decade, or that the CEO's of the health care industries won't suffer too much with salaries and bonuses that will probably only be 200 to 500 times what the average American makes. Surely the public will not find the premiums to high to accommodate such sacrifices made by the officers and board of directors of these companies. Besides the public will receive a government provided subsidy to help off-set the higher costs of delivering services via for-profit institutions. Of course, the subsidy comes from our taxes, so we are getting subsidized with our own money again. Unless you are too well-off, then your money will be used to help support those who earn less. Well! At least the government won't be redistributing wealth like other plans would.

Maybe, it's the competitive factor that will insure Ryan's plan is cheaper and better than the current Medicare program. Now why is this? Because the insurance companies have boards that review and oversee what costs are covered or not under their plans. They seek to pay as little as possible for what they do pay for, and that must be how the insure that the price will go down. Well, I am glad that I won't be facing a government death-panel and can instead rely upon these corporate review boards to determine if the drug, procedure or cost of treatment is acceptable versus deciding on letting me die. And in medicine, we also always see that the price a medicine goes down with competition. Except in those cases where there is no competition like a patented drug, or a procedure performed by a capable surgeon, or the profit made by everyone if the patients have the greatest number of everything: drugs, treatments, tests, …

The reliance on the patient and doctor making the best decision thus leading to the lowest cost. You have got to be joking. If you don't see the falsifies in this logic then the drugs are not going to help you.

And now the really sad part. Ryan got close to an approach to revamp Medicare. He almost saw the way through the fog. But I think his 'feelings' got in the way. His 'beliefs' blinded him.

Ryan will be just another politician who stumbled down the road and took the wrong 'Path'. He isn't headed to Prosperity; he's on his way to Perpetuity, a place where Congress just keeps trying to get it right but lack the knowledge, skills, tools and understanding to have a chance. A pied-piper so to speak.

Congress, You Stupid Sheep! How Much Did You Save With A Shutdown?

The bickering blowhards, immoveable idiots and lackluster leaders have accomplished another great victory for the American people. They appear finally to have managed to shutdown the government, rather than continuing their ineffectual haranguing of the public through the media about their herculean struggles to bring about the meaningful change that they see as their mission in life. Never mind that none of the various ego-centric groups have actually taken the time or made the effort to think. We have just another round of ideologically arranged politicians that are only able to feed their political base the same rose fertilizer that seems to keep them content in their blissful ignorance.

Should they manage to navigate around some last minute ‘Hail Mary’ continuing resolution to perpetuate their deranged attempts to do their pathetic version of a bait-n-switch fire-sale; it won’t be because they have understood anything, it will merely indicate they want some more time to play politician at the public expense. I can’t wait for the old clichéd “the American people” want me/us to do whatever asinine bumper sticker slogan they saw on their drive to Congress.

Perhaps the news media should start a tote board on how often Congressional members are asked why they don’t address the budget areas that are the substantial cost-causers in the budget, and then proceed in not answering. Maybe reporters, pundits and new anchors could ask them if these problem solving politicos can name in order the top five budget-gobbling entities* in the federal budget. For those who claim that as a group that they were elected to deal with this specific problem this should be like reciting “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star”. If by some miracle they actually know, our hollow heroes should be asked why they are not proposing how to address the unsustainable tax-sucking economic vampires that these budget entities represent. Is it because they don’t have a clue? That they never had a clue? Or, that the concept of having an idea is too foreign to their mentality for them to even attempt it?

Should the government shut-down, the vast majority of tax dollars that are misspent will continue to be misspent. In one case, if these penny-pinching spendthrifts succeed they will increase the excessive funds thrown at one of the least well managed rat-holes available to them. What spending did the shut-down stop? Less than 15% of the budget. How much of that 15% is just delayed spending, and is not a savings at all? How much will the shut-down cost in lost effort, and is thus just more wasted money that we can credit directly back to Congress? How much damage will the shut-down do to the rest of the economy?

Certainly, our elected legislators have considered and calculated the financial value of a shut-down versus spending their time and effort in actually addressing the real problems that face our nation. And if you believe that then you should hear about this investment group that this guy, Bernie Madoff is forming and he is looking for investors.

I don’t mind political comedy, but I prefer it not being the primary and singular job of the members of Congress.

* Top Five: 1- Soc. Sec., 2 - Dept.of Def., 3. Medicare, 4. Medicaid, 5. Other Mandatory programs, 6. Interest on National Debt (a special adder for the reader).

Rather Than The Difficult Choices

Congress has a Constitutional responsibility to determine and fund the country’s budget. This responsibility was assigned to them specifically because they were thought to most directly represent the people and the people’s interests in the government. Clearly they have done a stellar job in regard. And as we are all witness to, they continue to conduct themselves with the high level of effectiveness that has brought the country to its current state of economic vitality and stability, its well rated public regard and appreciation, and its effective and efficiently managed government bureaucracy. In other words, Congress is proceeding in the same inept, disorganized, partisan driven, and moronic manner that the American people have come to value from the best and brightest.

The budget battle lines are drawn along new contending fronts that divide the old established guard from the new insurgents that have erupted with the tectonic shifts that have introduced new instabilities wrought by the Tea Party. Injecting these new players has substantially improved the ability of Congress to serve the people’s interests notably. It has been generations since we have seen politicians that are as skilled and adept at finding the compromises that enable the Government to fulfill its Constitutional duties. Of course there are a few members of Congress aligned on some particular high-ground of their own making, who are unable to participate in open debate that exchanges ideas and informs both their peers and public alike.

These different groups of like-minded elected sages are often confused by subtle concepts like “compromise”. It appears that the concept of finding a workable agreement that benefits each disparate group is either not understood or defined as losing which is a non-negotiable and unacceptable condition. Their lack of knowledge and appreciation of the significance and central role that being able to compromise had to the creation of our nation, its founding laws, and the advancement of our democratic system is in stark contrast to their ability to prevent progress.

Unfortunately for the country, there are enough of these small groups that in aggregate they represent sufficient numbers to oppose any effort by anyone else to insure, provide, promote and secure our public and private interests.

What we get in exchange for appointing them to the halls of power is partisan bickering about how much to cut from the budget, where the cuts are allowed to come from and where they are not, and the inclusion of social agendas into a budget process because if you can’t get people to accept your point of view let’s be totalitarian about it. It is so inspiring to see a group of people who value only their own views as our founding fathers would have advised them to do.

The budget issue is not just an issue of cutting or spending. In fact, these are not the issue or problems at all. Surely someone in Congress is smart enough to see where the problems are, and could help lead the Congress to a solution that will establish Justice for everyone, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity. Instead of deluding not just themselves, but through their actions or more appropriately their inactions and ineptitude missing the moment that America so disparately needs.

Why is knowledge and understanding so unrepresented in Congress, and undesired by the voter?

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.

Unchecked and Unbalanced: Cutting Congress

America has often been referred to as an experiment in democracy; sometimes as the great experiment. While we tend to think of this experiment and ourselves as starting the experiment with the birth of the nation, it started earlier when various immigrant/pilgrim groups sought out the new lands to find their way to freedom and opportunity. Yes and in some cases to seek the possibility of becoming rich from the bounty of the new world. And it worked. America became great and powerful, its people became free and prosperous, and some found riches beyond all expectations.

America and Americans did this by taking risks, by stepping up to challenges, and tackling whatever problems confronted our path forward. Sometimes we did this reluctantly, sometimes we leapt before we looked, and sometimes we brought the problems upon ourselves. And in almost no instance was America without its constituencies that opposed one another on either the issue or the solution.

Today we face a tsunami of problems threatening to inundate our freedoms, our economy and even our very sense of America. Most of the problems are neither obscure incomprehensible threats to our way of life, nor are the America people disinterested in how we as a nation will choose to face the onslaught of these problems.

One of the largest seismic threats to America is the wave of debt our country has naively and blithely not only allowed to grow, but also for which Americans have rejected any recognition of responsibility for and where we hold no one to be accountable. Even as Congress has belatedly begun to take up the task of addressing the economic wave about to wash over America, they do so with the self-interest driven political perspectives and without any informed comprehension of the consequences of their feeble and inept approaches for addressing the problem.

Those in Congress who do not see the necessity of major reductions in spending because it conflicts with their political support; and are willing to sacrifice the promise of America rather than make the effort or seek the council of those who could find and offer meaningful changes to our profligate ways. There are also those members of Congress, the rabid hatchet wielders, who want to radically cut the budget; but only in those areas that they deem unacceptable with their political views. And then there are those in Congress who talk a good story and advocate that we need to cut significantly and everything has to be on the table; but then they run out of specifics. They don’t of course run out of talk! You’ve heard the rhetoric: We’re here to lead the nation out of this disaster. And then we hear: We are waiting for the administration to make its proposal on how to reduce the budget in an acceptable manner. Certainly the type of strong and focused leadership that the country needs before the raising wave crests over their (and our) heads.

The concept of budget cutting is clearly not a difficult approach for Congress to discover. In fact, much like our democratic truth, it is a self-evident solution. Unfortunately, much like that democratic ideal, that self-evidence is not sufficient. Cutting may be the act required, but just cutting does not save the patient. Congress, unlike medical students, don’t seem to know that you have to understand what you’re cutting, why you’re cutting it and how this will help cure the patient.

I don’t actually expect our representatives to be capable of this task. Most have achieved successful political careers not because they are wise, intelligent or capable individuals. They don’t possess a vision for how to create governmental programs and policies that relate to fiscal responsibility; and they couldn’t conceive of developing new approaches to government that go beyond the immediate need for personal control that they believe is the answer to all things political and all things in general.

Cutting the budget may be a first step, but if taken alone just to take the first step doesn’t mean Congress is on the right path. A cutting Congress is just another blind step into the future without any leadership and without any achievement. This is not taking the risk that our forefathers took, and this is not the promise of America.

Congress Can’t: Solving the NPR CPB government funding dilemma

Congressional conservatives, particularly Republicans, are eager to cut government funding for National Public Radio (NPR) and some would want to include the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB). Whether they are after this cut because it will contribute to solving America’s budget crisis or whether they are seizing the opportunity to hopefully eliminate a media source that is indifferent to their personal views and perspectives is not the real issue. The real issue on the table is whether Congress is applying its great and vast intellect to the budget crisis in a constructive and responsible manner. And we all know how dependable it is to rely upon Congress to do anything right. So the House passed a bill to cut $50M for NPR funding from the CPB’s budget. The Senate just cut CPB’s budget $50M which evidently leaves it up to them to figure out how to apply the reduction. And thank God these moves will substantially solve our budget problems. Well, I can’t blame them for cutting something from every entities budget, but I doubt that was the motivating factor here. So perhaps Congress should receive a message broadcast from the public.
What we have here is a moment in history when any numbers of forces are conspiring to bring change to the world as we know it. And in this particular instance, to place the value of a public funded media channel into the direct hands of the public at large, rather than relying upon the pernicious machinations of Congress. This action would cause some disruption in the pubic broadcast arena, but it need not be a negative nor fatal prognosis; it could be a vast opportunity to increase the viability of public broadcasting by changing the dynamics at play.

Today Congress takes our taxes and in their infinite wisdom identifies how to spend it. At some past point Congress decided that America would benefit in any number of ways by supporting public broadcasting in a minimal way. And in looking back over what those public funds delivered, there have been benefits to the public. But times change, and Congress believes that NPR is not beneficial because many of them are not shown in the light and grandeur to which they believe they are due. Hiding behind the need to cut the budget is the typically cowardly way of using their power to punish anyone of whom they don’t approve. After all, cutting the budget is a reasonable and rational position and policy, although we are talking about an amount that is less than $0.000015 from every $1.00 of the federal budget; hardly a noteworthy amount to be spending the time they probably have spent on it already. The cut is not very honorable when we understand that the House’s bill is specifically identifying and targeting a particular entity that this part of the funding. I guess it is not surprising to see such crass behavior from these representatives of our society, and well isn’t it exactly what the public expects of “politicians”.

Have the politicians won, have they achieved their goal? Not yet, but they will get there. So what to do if you support or believe in public broadcasting? The answer is simple. Remove Congress from the equation. And if you are really interested in sending Congress a message then consider the following:

If just 50 million Americans set aside less than 1 penny a day or 6 cents a week, they would fund NPR (or CPB) with $150M; thrice what Congress is cutting. And here is the beauty, that contribution is tax deductible. So the public could cut Congress’ funding by about $50M at the same time. Now perhaps 50 million Americans is a lofty goal, and we may have to strive for only 10 million. That’s just 29 cents a week or 4 cents a day. These are not the kind of contributions that are even noticeable in most peoples’ personal budgets.

The solution to such abusive exercises of power on the part of Congress is to apply good old Yankee ingenuity. These folks are not even close enough to smart, to be able to prevent the public from getting what they choose to be in their interest. And CPB an NPR have access to a wide range of individuals, the public, that can show them how to create the processes that will free them from the bonds Congress will always want to impose.

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.

Politicians’ Progress: One Steps Sideways, Two Steps Back

We need to cut taxes! We need to cut spending! We need to protect the Military’s budget and allow it to grow! We need a balanced budget!

These themes seem to echo from some recent national exercise just barely beyond the recollection of the public awareness, an attention span deficit disorder if ever there was one. Given the citizenry’s ire about their government and the collective perception of an inept governmental vision, we have every politician and political party panicking and trying to find some course to sail their leaking and unseaworthy skiffs through the winds of this erratic Zeitgeist.

Let’s do the math!

The Military and Social Security are competing for the top position in the Federal budget. Social Security will win in 2010, but the Department of Defense is projected to take the lead in 2011. Health Care comes in next, although if you slice the pie a little differently it may be able to take first place in either year. We then get to Welfare and Interest on the Debit. We are now well past 80% of the budget. And let’s face it, we haven’t done much actual government yet! But we have accounted for $2.84 Trillion of the $3.55 Trillion 2010 budget. Surely if we cut half of the remaining $710 Billion, that’s $355 Billion for those Americans who helped put us in the 34th place in math among leading industrial nations, we would all save such an enormous amount that all our problems would disappear. Now if there are ~310M citizens (let’s not go there, it’s not a salient point here) then that budget cut would reduce taxes by $1,145.00 per person. Now I would like to have another thousand dollars to use to benefit myself; but I am not at all sure that it is enough to make up for a lot of that stuff that the federal government, albeit it very poorly and inefficiently, did with that money. And I am pretty sure that in the long run I would be better off if that $355 Billion were applied to paying down to national debt.

Returning to our political leaders (sorry I can’t think of a more apropos term but it’s hard to identify what they represent since it is not leadership), they are all about to line up behind the tax-cut, spend-cut, grow military, and balance budget scam under which they will do nothing significant to solving America’s problems. Cutting taxes and cutting spending while sounding good is not a guaranteed or even a likely solution to the deficit, to the economy, to jobs, or to the long-term interests of the American people. But it will do the one thing that is important, the one thing that is more important than the costs that every citizen will incur, the one thing that every politician pursues at any expense and at any consequence – their re-election.

Before these sycophantic plague bearers venture forth to save us with their promised solutions, perhaps it would be wise to remember the capitalistic maxim: caveat emptor. You are going to get what you paid for with your vote. Can you at least not whine about it when you get it!

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.

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.

Owing Not Owning Your Future: Your Deficit / America’s Deficit – Another Intelligence Test

It’s a new year, so it seems appropriate to take another perspective on the state of intelligence in America. Due to some recent mentions of the country’s budget and its deficit, this just occurs to me to be an appealing theme for a test. So I will follow the usual format, I will present a handful of questions, and some commentary to place a particular context for the questions, and at the end I will provide my answers to these questions. As before, your score is your responsibility to assess. And a willingness to deceive yourself as to the accuracy of your answers or beliefs is just another measure of the actual intelligence level that is 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.

So now we can get to it.

Question 1: If the United States were a person, let’s say it was you, would you say that you are managing your household budget prudently, responsibly and within your means?

Yes No

Context: Your household budget is what you are spending on all the things that go along with running the house (country). So are you spending what you have wisely given what you are getting in return, and given that it all has to come out of what you earn (here your taxes are the same as your wages, they both come from the same place – what you get paid).

Question 2: The U.S. Government has promised to pay a number of people a fair amount of money every year for, well the rest of their lives. Now since big-G doesn’t put aside any money for this purpose they have to get it from you (citizens) every year. Big-G doesn’t have enough to pay out what they promised, so what should they do?

A. Increase your taxes

B. Pay less than promised

C. Borrow more money

D. Cut all spending (everything) equally

Question 3: Who is responsible for creating the budget deficit?

A. Politicians

B. Political Parties

C. Voters

D. All of the Above

Question 4: Many economists will say that some deficit spending can be advantageous for the economy, or can be necessary under certain situations in order to help prevent or recover from economic downturns. If it’s good for the economy then it’s good for everyone, and the more we do the better it will be. Many people use their credit cards in this fashion. They keeping adding to their balance, buy more products, and help stimulate the economy. The financial industry grows its credit business and the economy is booming. No reason this should not go on forever.



Shouldn’t we therefore let our deficit grow every year?

Yes No

Question 5: Congress prepares and submits a budget each year. They get input from all the departments, bureaucracies, lobbyists, special interest groups, and every entity reaching out for a piece of the pie. And every year Congress approves the budget with full knowledge from the Budget Office how much more it adds to the deficit. Every once and a while Congress has to approve raising the debt limit allowed, and yes they approve raising it every time.

Who will actually pay for the spending decisions that Congress continues making each year?

A. The Government

B. Businesses

C. You, the public

D. Investors in Government bonds

The Critical Question X: Think how you think your preferred Congressional representatives would answer these questions. Are they answering the same as you or differently? Given the deficit problem, isn’t at least one of you really doing a bad job?

A. Yes, me B. Yes, the politician C. Yes, both of us D. No, there is no problem

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

Q1: No    Q2: D     Q3: D     Q4:  No    Q5: C      QX: B

You can probably tell that I hold the citizens responsible for the situation we are in. It’s not hard to have a poor opinion for people who do not accept the basic responsibility for their Government’s actions, and disregard for their obligation to prevent their elected officials from frittering away their heritage. If you want something from your Government, then you should be willing to pay for it (and not expect everyone else to pay for it).