THE CHARLIE RANGEL SCANDALS just keep going on. “‘I’ve never violated the public trust,’ he says. Which is utter nonsense.”
Archive for 2008
September 22, 2008
SHARED SACRIFICE: So one theme we’ve heard in criticizing President Bush is that, post 9/11, he didn’t require “sacrifice from the American people.” This is generally a euphemism for “higher taxes.”
It seems likely that no matter who is elected President, we’ll see higher taxes. But an awful lot of Americans don’t pay income taxes, or pay only very small amounts — and their numbers will grow under both the Obama and McCain tax plans. Raising top marginal rates won’t affect them. So if we’re to see shared sacrifice, what might that mean? It seems to me that shared sacrifice is not only about some people paying more to the federal government, but also about others taking less. And, yeah, that’ll hurt, but that’s what “sacrifice” is about, right?
There’s some evidence that Obama, at least, is quietly moving toward raising the Social Security retirement age. This is inevitable, and the sooner it happens the better. Adjustments should also be based on the cost of living, rather than wages, which would help keep increases under control.
We should also cut back generally on spending for entitlements — say a 10% across-the-board cut, to start. Economic subsidies (“corporate welfare” and farm subsidies, for example) should be cut even deeper. In fact, a 10% across-the-board cut in nondefense federal spending, in both entitlement and discretionary programs, would be a good place to start. This seems unthinkable, but states with budget problems make big across-the-board cuts all the time. (In Tennessee, Phil Bredesen is talking about a 3 percent across-the-board cut, but Tennessee’s budget problems aren’t nearly as bad).
The fact is, the coming entitlements crash is as big a threat as global terrorism, and one that requires a lot more in the way of “shared sacrifice.” We’re not seeing much talk from either party about that, but if we are, in fact, seeing a new seriousness on economic matters, and not just a sham seriousness for the election runup, then that will change. But it’s clear that the federal government can’t spend as much as it’s committed to spending, and can’t raise taxes enough to make up the difference without killing the economy. And the economic bailout-and-regulation talk now doesn’t make me think that we’ll see enough economic growth over the next five or ten years for this problem to fix itself, which was never likely and seems less so now.
In the meantime, though, we’re looking at the largest Social Security COLA in 25 years. That’ll help . . . .
On a related note, I think we should rethink this business of having lots of Americans who don’t pay income tax. As the Tax Foundation comments: “It is time for a serious public discussion of whether it is desirable to have so many Americans disconnected from the cost of government and what the consequences are of using the tax system as a vehicle for social policy.”
Personally, I’d like to see everyone pay at least some income tax, and I’d like to see the amount of tax paid, by everyone, go up or down every year in tandem with federal spending. That would encourage fiscal discipline directly. It would also make it harder for politicians to promise everybody a free lunch, but hey — why shouldn’t they sacrifice something, too?
“BORN OF THE CORRUPT CHICAGO POLITICAL MACHINE:” MCCAIN HITS OBAMA HARD. The first time I watched it, I thought it was a pretty strong ad. The second time, only so-so. On the other hand, it’s also not astroturf, so you gotta give ’em credit for that . . . .
MICHAEL SILENCE: Palin outdraws Biden 30-1.
During the workweek, it is not uncommon to find retired L.I.R.R. employees, sometimes dozens of them, golfing there. A few even walk the course. Yet this is not your typical retiree outing.
These golfers are considered disabled. At an age when most people still work, they get a pension and tens of thousands of dollars in annual disability payments — a sum roughly equal to the base salary of their old jobs. Even the golf is free, courtesy of New York State taxpayers.
With incentives like these, occupational disabilities at the L.I.R.R. have become a full-blown epidemic.
Virtually every career employee — as many as 97 percent in one recent year — applies for and gets disability payments soon after retirement, a computer analysis of federal records by The New York Times has found. Since 2000, those records show, about a quarter of a billion dollars in federal disability money has gone to former L.I.R.R. employees, including about 2,000 who retired during that time.
Read the whole thing; the story only gets worse. As government finances get tighter, this kind of thing is going to get closer attention.
ROGER SIMON: Open Letter to My Fellow Jews: The Democratic Party is not your religion (or anybody’s). Politics, in general, makes a poor substitute for religion.
SOME QUESTIONS ANSWER THEMSELVES: “How is it that Chris Dodd was on The Early Show this morning talking about the bailouts and Countrywide never came up?”
CREDENTIALS, RESUMES, AND SUCCESS: Reader Kevin Burns emails:
Please remind your readers that the reason that so many Americans mistrust and dislike the “elite” is that the best financial minds that the Ivy League could turn out created the subprime and securitization of mortgages mess.
The best and brightest political minds [from] those same universities created Fannie and Freddie.
Either these people aren’t nearly as smart as they tell us they are, or success requires more than an expensive education.
Well, yes, most of the people involved in this had elite degrees. That may not make it fair to blame the Ivy League, but it certainly means that a “best and brightest” resume is no guarantee of success.
MICHAEL YON: French and NATO Intentionally Deceiving the Public.
LEGISLATION OVER selling stolen goods online.
ASTROTURF DIRTY TRICKS? Dr. Rusty Shackleford says that smear videos aimed at Sarah Palin look to come from a P.R. agency associated with the Obama Campaign. Dan Riehl comments: “Politics aside, if this was the professional manipulation that it appears to be, it is not good for blogs, Left or Right. It undermines their credibility and makes them no better than a propaganda tool become smear merchant for whatever candidate they happen to support.” Stay tuned.
UPDATE: From the 2004 election, a warning about “black blog ops” that’s seeming kinda prescient.
GETTING MORE READERS by giving them less news?
NEWT GINGRICH: “Watching Washington rush to throw taxpayer money at Wall Street has been sobering and a little frightening.”
UPDATE: Ed Cone: The end of an era.
IF PAUL KRUGMAN DID NOT EXIST, Tom Maguire would have to invent him, just to have a suitable punching-bag.
The Democrats don’t want to admit that what they did for the most part in the two Clinton administrations was for the most part a continuation of the Reagan and first Bush administration — and then was continued and built upon by the second Bush administration. You had a lot of financial deregulation under the Clinton administrations. They repealed Glass-Stiegel, they deregulated credit cards, lots of stuff. They stepped on the gas in terms of private debt. The increase is extraordinary. So I can’t separate out the Clinton years from what preceded them and what came after them. And of course the Democrats need to be able to tell America in this election that … they have the answer. I understand that. But I don’t agree with it.
And I predict that an Obama Administration would continue the Bush/Clinton/Bush trajectory to a greater degree than either Obama fans or detractors are willing to admit at the moment.
ROBERT GEORGE: Cuomo For SEC? WTF? Indeed.
Of course, there’s this. Good grief.