Rights 4 Sale

Some people believe in past lives.  Some people are curious about it.  Some people reject it completely.

Whether you believe in reincarnation or not, consider this:  what if you come back and live again.  Would your political decisions be different if you had to come back and live under the effect of what you decided today?

Some political decisions are easy to dodge by just not confronting them on the basis of “It doesn’t affect me; I won’t be around to see what happens”.  The thinking is that we let it slide off our backs onto the backs of the next generation.  They are the ones who will be here to deal with it.

An example would be Social Security.  Most seniors do not want to confront what will happen down the road.  They are happy to accept the benefits today and reluctant to fight for what it might mean to the next generation.  But what if you come back and have to grow up and live under the decisions that are made today.  If it was you (reincarnated) and at the effect of policy made today, you might might not be willing to stand back and spectate.  You might take action.

The massive unfunded liability of Social Security over the next few decades means a reduction in spending or an incresasein taxes – or both.  Unless something is done now, the liabilities will mature and there is no provision is place to fund it.

This is not to say you should believe in “past lives” or reincarnation.  That’s up to you.  But, it doesn’t hurt to think of the future as if you will be there.  You might not be as apathetic or ambivalent if it affects you (a theoretical reincarnated you) directly.  This “what if” is a way of side-checking your decision to support an issue or take action.

On the ouside chance you might come back, you might want to do something about some of the issues that face us today.

Senate Chamber

When the Declaration of Independence was written, the Colonies alleged a number of abusive decisions and actions by England and railed against these actions being taken by King George III and the British Parliament without any representation.

These conditions guided how the Constitution and Bill of Rights were constructed.  Many of the provisions of the Constitution were adopted the preempt or prevent these abuses from reoccurring.

The government was also designed in such a way that it was difficult to alter the Constitution or pass unfair or unpopular laws.  The rules for amending the Constitution are provided within the Constitution.  The division of legislative, administrative and justice functions acts as a check and balance to tyranny.  The bicameral system of House and Senate balances what’s good for the country and what’s good for individuals.

The House is organized according to the population.   House rules are aligned with the idea that the House is there to directly represent the People.  The Senate is the “upper” house and is based on the Roman and British concepts or representative government.  While it only takes a simple majority to pass a bill in the Senate, it takes a 60% super majority to allow it to reach the point of consideration for a vote which keeps fringe issues from squeaking by on narrow, simple majority votes.   The intention is to prevent the tyranny of a 51% majority.

Recent attempts to restructure procedures by changing the requirements to pass a bill put us on a one-way street that permanently forfeits the freedoms built into the Constitution in exchange for short term and questionable benefits.

Maybe we should slow down and take a more prudent path.

Background

The Senate was designed to be the “upper” house.  Senators were given staggered, six year terms and members of the House of Representatives were given two years.  The basic reason for doing this was to provide more continuity to the Senate.  While, there was discourse about how to organize the legislative branch, it was hoped that the longer terms and the staggered terms would combine with the limit of two Senators per state (large or small) to create a conservative body that would respond more to the needs of the nation and less to the every-changing popular sentiment of the people.  The House of Representatives was organized to be responsive to the people, so representation and terms were designed around the distribution of population.

Cloture

To further stabilize the Senate and to prevent tyranny of the simple and/or hasty majority, the mechanism of cloture was “borrowed” from the British Parliament.  While it only takes a simple majority (51 of 100 Senators) to pass a bill into law, it takes a vote of three-fifths (60 of 100 Senators) to end debate or discussion and move the bill on to the voting step.   The motive here is to make sure those Senators who are in the minority regarding an issue have a fair chance to voice their opposition.  It prevents a simple majority (51 in this case) from overwhelming the minority (49 in this case).  It also provides some protection to small (as measured by population) states.

History

Cloture was proposed by the Democrat President Woodrow Wilson in 1917 and originally required a 75% (of the member present) majority.  It was modified by the Democrats in Congress in 1975 to three-fifths (60%) of the number of Senators seated in the Senate (rather than 60% of the Senators physically present).

Recent Change

Rather than calling it cloture, it has been repositioned and redefined as “a fair, up or down, simple majority” vote.  Long standing tradition in the Senate is that a proposed subject or bill is debated until 60% of the Senators agree to take it to the voting step which only requires 51% to pass.  This agrees with the conventional approach that has existed for 200 plus years.  The implication is that cloture is unfair and damaging the American people or cheating them out of something by requiring something more that a simple majority (sounds All-American; sounds fair) vote.  Statements are also leading people to infer that 60% approval is needed to pass the bill. The cloture procedure is being made to look anti-American so that current bills under consideration would pass through every step of the legislative process with a simple majority of 51 out 100.

Conclusion

The Founding Fathers talked about the tyranny of the majority where 51% can hold a hammer over the heads of the other 49%.  The Constitution gave us a structure that prevents outside or fringe ideas from becoming law.  For example, amendments to the Constitution require 75% approval from Congress and the States.  The filibuster rules have the same intention – a protection against imprudent attempts to pass less-than-rational legislation.

The legislative process is set up to accommodate proposals that have broad support by a clear majority.  Bills that are marginally popular have a more difficult time becoming law with protections like the 60% super majority in the Senate in order to get to the voting process.

Efforts to dismantle and change the traditional legislative process with a vested interest in getting specific legislation passed preys on people’s unfamiliarity with history, the Constitution or basic understanding of civics and democracy. 

As someone once said, no new law or benefit is worth giving up our liberty in order to get it.  If it can’t get though the legislature, it does not seem justified to change the traditional process or lower our democratic standards.  Maybe the legislation itself should be changed until it has the approval of the majority.

It is also misleading to dissect the issue and show that people agree to various parts, therefore they (probably) approve of the whole.  It is disingenuous, for example, to say that people want health care reform and then extrapolate that everyone, therefore, likes a particular proposal.

A pile of half-truths still doesn’t add up to one full truth.

Rights or Entitlements

There is a discussion about whether health care or other benefits provided to individuals by the government are natural human rights or entitlements.  Right or privilege.   It’s a subject that people will probably debate for decades or centuries to come.

Without getting into this part of the discussion, let’s just talk about it from the dollars and cents point of view.

If you look at the federal budget, one thing jumps out.  The combination of mandatory and discretionary spending is more than the revenue causing a deficit.  So, we are already spending more than we make.  If we want to our government to give more, then we have to find a way to get some more money or spend less.

Just borrow the money?  The only problem with that is we pay more interest when the debt goes up.  Interest is part of the mandatory spending.  When interest spending goes up, there is less to spend on other mandatory items, like Social Security or Medicare or less to spend on discretionary items like defense, education, roads or law enforcement.

We could just print the money, but that would cause inflation which would defeat the whole idea of having more.

The only other alternative is raising taxes so there is more revenue.  Every time this approach has been tried, increased taxes lowered productivity or caused inflation.  Current estimates say that personal income taxes would have to be increased to 60% to cover the expected growth in Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and interest spending.  It is doubtful that most people would put up with a 60% rate of income tax.

So, it’s back to square one.  Whether health care is a right or an entitlement, it is really junior to the question of whether we can afford it or not.  If we are going to pay for heath care, then we need to take something out of the existing budget or raise taxes. 

Proponents of the health care plan that is currently in the House and Senate say that we can pay for the new benefits by cutting existing costs.  Government programs have never been successful at lowering costs.  One might ask, if it’s so easy and so fiscally important, then why haven’t we done it already?

Let’s say that the typical person makes $1,000 per paycheck.  The taxes are approximately 20% or $200.  This leaves you $800 for necessary expenses like rent, utilities and food.  If you are lucky, these necessary expenses are less than $800 and you have some discretionary money to spend, invest, give away or save.

If government adds new benefits without reducing spending then they need more from you.  Suppose your fixed expenses are $800, then raising you taxes to $300 means that you need to make more money or reduce your expenses to $700.

So, let’s take it from the top.  As long as the government is taking in more than it spends, then it can spend the surplus on whatever benefits the people think are OK.   But, whenever the government spends more than it takes in, it needs to reduce services or increase revenue.  Translated, if you want more benefits, then you will pay more in taxes or government will have to spend less on some existing benefit.

The example above represents a typical American except that a typical American spends $850, but only brings home $800.  That means that the typical person has to borrow $50 per pay period through the use of a credit card or some kind of line of credit.

In the past, growing spending was obscured and hidden hidden behind a growing economy.  The same is true for individuals.  Growing credit card limits, growing debt or growing equity in real estate hid the fact that people were spending more than they made.

Now that we have an economy that is in recession, home values are decreasing and credit limits have has been reduced.  Meanwhile, federal spending is increasing while federal revenues have decreased.  The result is that there is less money in the federal coffers just like there is less money in your pocket.

Whether health care is a right or an entitlement may be purely an academic subject because there just isn’t enough money to pay for it no matter what it is.

Free Market and Capitalism.  These two terms are frequently melted together and used to erroneously label one thing.  Let’s look at the terms.

Free Market

A free market is described in a number of ways.  In a simple explanation, a free market occurs when a seller and buyer agree on a transaction to deliver a product or service at a specific time, place and price.  Under supply drives up the price and abundance lowers the price.

Any number of terms or qualification (caveats) can be linked to the agreement detailing the product or service delivered and how it is to be received and how payment should be made.

External restrictions can also exist (usually in law or regulation) that regulate price, taxes, safety, quantity, quality or that protect the public in some way.

Capitalist

For most products or services, some amount or labor is expended to create the “product”.  A factory worker makes 100 widgets per hour which the company exchanges for some amount of money or something of value.  Labor was turned into a “product” and the company makes a profit if it can sell the product for more than the cost to produce it.  Value was added with the aim of making a profit or a return on investment.

In finance, another dimension is added.  The bank (or some lender) lends money to someone to finance personal purchases or a business activity.  The interest charged represents “utility” or the cost of money.  It does not directly require any labor input to get this “profit” from loaning money.  The borrower made a decision to pay the interest in order to have the money now (utility) rather than having to save up or use existing cash flow to finance operations.

This is capitalism.  Providing the use of money and making a profit in the form of interest for providing this utility.

Profit

Profit has been labeled by some as evil and the cause if all of our troubles.  The Marxist hypothesizes that it is only the laborer’s work that provides profit and that the profits from business belong (rightfully) to the workers.  A profit is really just a return on investment for the investor’s risk and the investment of capital which could include opportunity, material, finance, intellectual property, facilities, know-how, organization and management (means of production).  This represents his salary for providing these things.  This has been an accepted concept since people have been exchanging goods and services with each other on a local, regional and international scale.

If labor was supplying the means of production, then Marx would be right.  But, in that case, labor would be the owner or they would be capitalist and the argument would fall apart.

The other alternative to having a capitalist system is to have state-run banks and Central Planning.  This would be straight forward Communism.

Summary

Free market and capitalism are not the same, but they do go together naturally, hand in hand.

Whether a market is free or restricted is mostly different from whether there is money available to finance operations.  Profits can be generated from investing capital which could include opportunity, material, finance, intellectual property, facilities, know-how, organization and management or investing money.  On a more basic level, salary (profit) can be generated by producing any sub-product, product of a service.

People who promote governments owning the means of production are saying that the profits belong to the laborers and that portion of profits collected by the government are re-invested for the benefits of labor.  Central planning makes all the decisions.  This is communism.

People who advocate strict controls and restrictions on business are usually social democrats or fascist.

People who believe that property should be owned by individuals, but regulated by government advocate social democracy or democracy.

Above that, free market individuals think that the natural balance of supply and demand along with prudent regulations will yield the most production and the most competitive prices.  This is a free democracy or a free market under any form of government that supports a free market.  For example, a constitutional monarchy might favor a free market.

Financial transaction can be regulated and restrictions can be placed on where financial transactions can occur or restrictions on the rates that can be charged.  Regulations can be at the state of federal level.  At the federal level, regulations can come from the Federal Reserve, the Treasury or any number of bureaus or departments of the Executive branch.

People desperate or quick to find an ideological position use the term free-market capitalist as a pejorative term, but it incorrectly combines a market term with a finance term.  It also assumes that all of tenants of the Communist Manifesto are true.  We have evolved from mercantilism to modern economic principles and we still argue supply-side versus demand-side economics.  It would be helpful to separate these terms so they can be properly understood.

It is deserving of a whole study by itself, but it is probably clear to most that communication is the most important ingredient in peoples’ relationships. 

Actions or things that stop or that block communication cause us to dislike the thing with which we can’t communicate.  A good example would be the tax code.  It is 7,500 pages long (if printed 60 lines to a page, which it isn’t) and there is probably not a CPA or tax attorney on earth that understands all of it.  The average citizen understands a fraction of a percent of the tax code and, guess what, doesn’t like it at all.

The same is true of the heath care bills.  They are 2,00o pages and people, even congress men and women, don’t know what’s in it.  It’s so complicated that the average citizen can’t communicate with it and, guess what, doesn’t like it at all.

There are many more examples.  Cap and Trade legislation.  Financial practices regarding complex investments.  Federal statutes.  They are all complex and hard to communicate with.

So, if you want people to dislike something, just be sure to block their communication in some way and they will not like it, won’t agree about it and will not understand it.

Someone can make a rational decision not to like or support something after learning about it, but the key word here is rational.  Open communication and people can make a self-determined, rational choice.  Cut communication and you guarantee that people will not like it.

In a sane, open and democratic society, those things that increase communication are good and those things that cut communication will cause us to succumb.

It has hard, if not impossible, to be pan-knowledgeable about one subject, let alone all of the subjects that make up current events or the world of political and civics issues.

Frequently, people latch onto one point, learn something about it and then harp on that.  They may understand all of the nuances of this one subject and may even understand how this one subject relates to other concerns.  More often, people work out something that they personally understand and can talk about and then consider that they have a well developed political point of view.

Most successful propaganda consist of data that is easily assimilatable form, can be remembered and can easily be repeated to others.  To someone who has difficulty making their own analysis, this drive-thru, fast-food-like delivery of minimal political  knowledge is all they need to sound smart.

Harping is easy to recognize.  The Harper drones on and on about one subject, usually repeating popular talking points, and can not or will not answer questions about other subjects.  They can’t debate a subject, but resort to tactics like personal attacks, throwing out red herrings and revising history.

Most political parties don’t do a good job of educating their followers.  Platform planks are usually singled out, featured and spun to address current political events in a way that benefits that party.  Citizens are fed propaganda in the form of talking points or slogans unsupported by understanding.  Under this way of operating, people don’t become informed voters.  They become loud harpers.

What’s missing these days is discourse.  In Colonial days, debate was ubiquitous.  Today, Ideologues don’t want their critics to be able to express opposing opinions because Ideologues can’t argue their points of view without exposing their real objectives. 

True discourse is letting all sides express, without suppression, their points of view.  It should be resurrected.

We are creaturers of habit.  Our education and life experiences teach us to expect certain outcomes for certain inputs.  You do this and you get that.  We learn what to expect.  In science, that’s good.  It’s all about prediction and knowing what to expect.

It doesn’t always work for people.  In fact, people are pretty unpredictable.

A good management tool – and it’s simple – is this; you get what you inspect, not what you expect.  Anytime you assign a task to someone, no matter how trivial, you should go inspect to make sure the task is going according to your expectations.  It’s not rude or condescending to inspect and it usually doesn’t cost you anything.

If you just wait for the results, you may get something other than what you expected.  After all, people do funny things.  You may expect “x” and get “y”.

Often politicians say that something must be done and they need something else before they can do anything about it.

For example, there are numerous examples where someone is denied health care because of this problem or that loophole and the solution is an all-encompassing heath care bill that creates sweeping changes in all health care in order to solve some of these problems and loopholes.

In this case, the politician says that we need the health care bill in order to solve the problem.  We have to have something in order to do something.

But, a common sense question would be, “Why not just solve the problem by changing the rule or regulation?”  Why not change the health care provision so that the person is not denied coverage.  It doesn’t take a new health care bill to effect a change.

It’s the same in a number of areas.  Laws are on the books that would solve a lot of problems if law enforcement or prosecution would just enforce them.  We don’t need a new law before we can do something.  Just follow the laws we already have.  Borders and immigration.  Guns and their misuse. 

Quite often, the request for new laws means additional restrictions and a lessening of liberty by having the new law go further than the existing law in order to solve the “problem”.

So, be suspicious when you hear that we need the have this in order to solve that.  There is usually a simpler solution or even an existing solution that is being ignored.

In the Fifties, Madison Avenue had a phrase they used to extend the life of many products.  New and Improved was used for almost everything.  Any minor change in the ingredients or packaging earned the right to call it New and Improved. As the consuming public became more aware and more questioning, it started to challenge some of these claims only to find that the label New and Improved was not always deserved. 

The same happens in politics.  When you see the term Progressive, just think New and Improved.  If you look up all of the products and groups that call themselves progressive or label their ideas progressive, it’s usually because they don’t want to be associated with something old or established.  The Health Care Bill has had a number of names and the elements, especially the contentious ones, have been renamed a dozen times.

There are almost no Democrats, now.  There are lots of Progressives.

The new Progressive Party no longer wants to be known as the Democratic Party.  The label progressive is supposed to confer approval upon everything so labeled.  Ideas, planks in political platforms and the aims of political parties are called progressive to make you think it is modern, young (and not fuddy-duddy), hip, cool and up-to-date.  It is also used to reposition something that has a bad image, needs an image makeover or needs to get some new attention.  Just call it progressive and your good to go, again.

Same is probably true for Conservative or Independent.  It’s not fashionable to say something is Republican anymore.  But, say you’re a Regan Conservative or Independent and you’re OK.

But, only fundaments can tell you whether something is Democratic or Republican – liberal or conservation.   I can be labeled Progressive and it’s something new, but keep in mind it may only be the Madison Avenue version of New and Improved.  Look at the underlying fundamentals and you will know how to label it correctly.