Fair...But Balanced?

As I've been out of town on business with limited computer access , I haven't been able to comment on recent events in a timely manner. But I'm here now... (smile)

Despite all the posturing and protesting on by various Senators and Congress members, it appears that President Obama's recommended compromise of extending the Bush-era tax cuts to all incomes for two additional years in "exchange" for an additional year of unemployment benefits will eventually pass. The fact that few politicians - and citizens in general, perhaps - are happy about all aspects of the recommendation means that it is a good start.

Nonetheless, I'm still not convinced about the benefit of extending the tax cuts to those in the upper-income brackets. However, just as some question the material effectiveness of the Bush/Obama stimulus package over the last two years, I can also respect the argument that conditions could have been much worse over the last eight years without the presumed reinvestment of Bush tax cuts by the upper class. I don't understand, though, why Obama did not push for two more years of unemployment benefits to balance out the benefit to those who are working or otherwise living comfortably.

It will be interesting to see what happens in December 2012 when this issue is brought to the table again. Conservatives will surely see the current tax cuts as a new baseline from which future spending cuts - and, of course, even deeper tax cuts - should be made. Progressives will see the tax cuts as the temporary measure they were meant to be and will bristle at what they see as the continued loss of an estimated $70 billion in annual tax revenue.

Unfortunately, the cuts that will be made - at least if Republican politicians have anything to say about it - will likely happen to programs involving those who most need the help (e.g. Social Security, Medicaid/Medicare, welfare). I've previously shared my skepticism about an increase in charity by upper-income households. U am also concerned that the objects that some desperate "entrepreneurs" may pull out of their proverbial bootstraps may turn out to be morally and legally unacceptable.

Now if Social Security and welfare are going to indeed take a hit, let's look at other supposed "sacred cows" that conservatives may favor such as defense (as recommended by the bi-partisan Bowles-Simpson commission) as well as capping the tax benefit of mortgage deductions and dividend interest.

Playing The Percentages

I read an article recently which, in defense of extending the Bush-era tax cuts to the wealthy, claimed that those in the upper-incomes pay seventy-something percent of all taxes. For the sake of argument, let's say that they pay 75%.

I'm reminded of my college sociology class where the professor said that despite stereotypes, people would be "shocked" to hear that white people actually make up the majority of prisoners in the penal system.  My first thought was, "That's because there's more white people in the country. Duh!"

By the same token, it would make sense to me that the wealthy pay 75% of the country's taxes as they bring in (at least) 75% of the country's revenue. "Duh!" We're not even accounting for international tax shelters and other options to which the lower and middle classes don't have access.

At best, fiscal conservatives may say that the lack of upper-income tax cuts on financial and employment recovery was due to concern about fighting two wars during the first six years and insecurity about presumably "anti-business" Democratic goals during the last four years.

At worst, I believe that the wealthy, just like most everyone else in these economic times, simply held onto their money to preserve their standard of living.

In the end, it would appear that Democratic Congress members from moderate-to-conservative states who, fearing a later Tea Party-fueled backlash, will not cap an extension of the Bush-era tax cuts during the upcoming lame duck session. Given that the Bush/Obama stimulus packages have had all of two years to work, it will be interesting to see how rapidly the extended tax cuts "trickle down" for the greater good over the next two years.

November 3, 2010 - The Aftermath

OK...

So I was not too surprised at last night's election results. I had become convinced that the House of Representatives would be switching to the GOP although I had hoped (correctly) that the Democrats would be able to hold onto the Senate. I only hope that the Administration and Congress can find some common ground to move the country forward instead of just pre-gaming for 2012. The Clinton/Gingrich years, where compromises like welfare reform were accomplished, would be a better model than the Bush/Pelosi years which were largely filled with gridlock.

Despite the wishes of Boehner and Co., I don't think cutting both taxes and spending will be any more effective in general than raising both of them. One will have to go in the opposite direction of the other. As I often say here, each end of the economic spectrum can do more to contribute to the common good even in these tough times. However, while the lowest-income households can only contribute increased effort, the highest-income households already possess enough access to informational and financial resources to withstand a temporary sacrifice. I don't believe a combination of voluntary charity and compulsory bootstrap-pulling will be enough to make up the difference.

I predicted two years ago that if Obama  and the Democratic Congress emulated the no-compromise style of  the Bush Administration and Republican Congress, then they too would lose their government monopoly. Unfortunately, this scenario has come to pass; I just didn't think that it would happen in only two years. Then again, for fiscal conservatives that gritted their teeth through eight years of "Big Government" Republican policies under Bush only to be confronted with "Even Bigger" Government under Obama, the Tea Party was a reaction whose voice was heard. (Edit after first two replies: Granted, Tea Partiers and mainstream Republicans alike have railed against the possibility of the "biggest tax increase in history"...which of course follows the biggest tax decrease in history from which upper-income households benefitted the most. However, the intended "trickle-down" effect from said households appears to have been, at best, no more materially effective over the last nine years at saving or creating jobs than has Obama's two-year-old stimulus package.) At least Boehner admits that this opportunity is not a mandate so much as an audition. Let's just hope that beyond the soundbite rhetoric, substantive work can actually get done over the next two years.

The Pledge To America

On another social network, a friend of mine posted the Republican-drafted Pledge for America:
http://www.foxnews.com/projects/pdf/pledgetoamerica.pdf.

While I agreed with few of the concepts, I was glad to finally see more specifics about what the GOP aspires to do.

Here is my response to my friend's post with a bit more thorough spell checking:

Much of the first few pages look like they could have been written by Pelosi and Reid four years ago.

I'm cool with medical malpractice tort reform; i.e. a max limit on subjective "pain and suffering" not the actual lifetime medical costs. I'm sure the Democrats had to placate the trial lawyers lobby by not including it.

Letting people buy insurance across state lines sounds good in theory. I have heard that some states currently have very few choices. My concern is that this plan would ironically result in an oligopoly of companies who adopt the "Wal-Mart approach" of undercutting smaller insurance companies and later, after buying or bankrupting said companies, raising their rates.

Interesting graph on page 13. I wonder how much weight they truly gave Bush's bailout spending. At least they made Clinton look relatively good. Imagine that!

I don't agree that the individual mandate to purchase health insurance is a "tax". Every time an uninsured person uses the ER as their primary care facility, we insured people pay a "tax" in higher rates.

Judging from the emphasis on defense spending on pages 19 and 20, it sounds like all we have to do is convince all able-bodied poor to put themselves up on the front lines and that would balance the starvation of social programs to fund the increase in military investment.

Summer 2010 - A Recap

I'm back!

Yes, it's been a long, long time. As many (okay, just about all) of you that know me offline are aware, it's been a rather busy summer. My biggest project has been a new business as well as an accompanying blog. But more about that in a bit.

It's also been a busy summer on the national and global level, too. It would be impossible to catch up with you on "everything", I do have a few thoughts to share.

It would appear that Obama's veneer has worn off. Of course, he never was the knight in shining armor for fiscal conservatives who thought a McCain Administration would give them what they had been craving for eight years. But even some moderates seem to have become impatient and disillusioned about the pace and type of recovery the country has been undergoing. As for me, I see some success but also some disappointment.

As appealing as I would have found a single-payer health system, I feel that the health care bill that was passed was a reasonable compromise. While Obama, Pelosi and Reid would have done well to include some reasonable Republican ideas such as tort reform on medical malpractice suits, I don't see convincing insurance companies  to cover everyone to be a "government takeover". Unfortunately, unyielding/base-pleasing GOP politicians won't give the Democrats credit for that.

On the other hand, I'll admit that when I supported the economic stimulus bill, I had envisioned something akin to FDR's New Deal where unemployed/underemployed people would be put to work helping to restore the blighted areas of their own towns and cities as well as other plans designed to improve the overall infrastructure of the country. While I have heard of a lot of road improvement projects, it seems like more could be done. Perhaps it's because the stimulus funds are being released at a relative trickle.

Speaking of trickling, I do agree with Obama's intention to end the second experiment of Reagan-inspired "trickle-down" regressive tax breaks favoring the top 2% of the nation's wealth. If individuals are indeed reinvesting their excess into their businesses and communities - a scenario of which I am admittedly skeptical - then the effect has far from succeeded in lifting up the other 98% of the country. Then again, Obama's tax breaks for businesses that invest in equipment and even a GOP idea for a payroll tax "holiday" are ideas that I think are worth exploring.

I do think that illegal immigration is a problem, both for the United States and the (primarily Central American) countries whose citizens have left. But I don't think Arizona's SB1070 law - let alone a similar law enacted here in Prince William County - is the right answer. Not unlike how capturing drug lords would be more effective than putting drug users in jail for hard time, so should businesses who knowingly break employment laws face civil and criminal prosecution instead of a focus on deporting undocumented workers. I believe the immigrants are simply following the money. Meanwhile, the offending businesses are shortchanging these workers by paying them uncompetitive and often illegal wages. If/when this situation is resolved, I sure hope there is a gold rush to the seasonal agriculture jobs and low-skilled factory positions by those citizens who feel those opportunities have been "taken away" from them.

And now on a more personal note...

I left my government contracting position by the end of May. Whether I resigned or was let go depends on one's perspective.

Despite my best efforts, I realized by early May that the position just wasn't compatible with my skills. I shared my thoughts with my recruiting manager who said it was essentially up to the client unless I chose to resign as a salaried consultant. I was encouraged to stay until the contract ended in August while receiving a promise to talk to the client about coming to a more expedient resolution. So with the choice essentially out of my hands, I attempted to tough it out and I felt my production was improving if not necessarily at an ideal pace.

When I arrived home on the Friday afternoon of Memorial Day weekend, I received a call from my recruiting manager with the news that I had been dropped by the client due to performance and other trumped-up concerns that I will not share here. The end result was that I was being let go from the salaried consultant program. So basically, the only difference between then and early May was four weeks' worth of pay and a heaping dose of anxiety.

Having mixed feelings about my new found freedom, I took advantage of the opportunity to work on the business that I had opened in March but had done little to promote due to work and school. At this stage, I'm still deep into the "marketing stages" of the business (i.e. not much $$$) but I am optimistic about the future. They say that some of the most successful businesses are started during the recession. I intend to be one of them.

 I decided to hire a personal trainer to set up exercise programs for me to follow on a weekly basis. I also returned to my volunteer gig at the nearby library.

Contrary to last year's cross-country experience, this year was spent mostly at home. In lieu of the week-long Vegas BBW Bash, I went to Atlantic City for a couple nights in June with my buddy Frank and attended  the rebirth of the Philly BBW Bash with Cathy. Before and after the Philly Bash, we had some visitors.

Cathy invited her two oldest grand kids Ben and Ella to stay with us for a week. It was a special treat for them as they had the opportunity to fly "by themselves" to DC (BWI) courtesy of Grandma. Now, as someone who grew up as an only child and would go on to raise four-legged children, having two youngsters in our home was a bit of an adjustment. But I appreciated the chance to get to know each of them better. I also had an excuse now to see some of the local sights I had wanted to visit for quite sometime: the International Spy Museum, Lincoln Memorial as well as the newish WWII Memorial. Cathy drove the grand kids back to Texas while I played cat-sitter and deprogrammed from an overdose of Nickelodeon and the Disney Channel.

Last but not least, Cathy and I cherished the opportunity to another summer vacation together. It was nice to be able to sleep late and stare into each others' pasty faces without having to rush to get out of bed.

But alas, school has started again and I've been staying focused on the business, getting some household chores out the way, preparing for upcoming travel classes and thinking about when I might put my rusty fingers back on my piano keyboard.

Life could be better...but it ain't so bad at the moment.

Obama and Bush: Peering Into The Reflecting Glass

It’s been quite a while since I shared. My obligations to work and school took up most of my time and my brain. That’s all changed but I’ll get into that in another post.

I continue to feel that when the Democrats and Republicans in Washington look at each other these days, they should see a reflection of themselves in the previous administration. In many ways, it’s as if they ignored recent history and are therefore doomed to repeat it. There are probably numerous examples but here are some of the most obvious ones.

GW Bush took office shortly before the tragedy of September 11th, an emotional and financial disaster that will take decades to recover from.

Obama took office and shortly afterward expanded upon Bush’s bailouts of the mortgage, banking and auto sectors, an emotional and financial disaster that will take decades to recover from.

The questions surrounding the 2000 Florida vote recount was an ongoing controversy during the Bush Administration. To this day, there are some that say he should not have been elected while others say he simply played by the rules.

The questions surrounding the legitimacy of a Hawaii birth certificate is an ongoing controversy in the Obama Administration. To this day, there are some that say he should not have been elected while others say he (or rather, his family) simply played by the rules.

Bush’s signature goal was to privatize a portion of Social Security, an effort that was met with stiff opposition from Democrats, other progressives, many independents and even a few Republicans.

Obama’s signature goal is to socialize a portion of health care, an effort that, while passed, was met with stiff opposition from Republicans, other conservatives, many independents and even a few Democrats.

Those who opposed Bush’s war efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan were painted as “unpatriotic” by his most strident supporters.

Those who opposed Obama’s universal health care plan were painted as “uncaring” by his most strident supporters.

Bush attempted to fill a Supreme Court vacancy by nominating Harriet Miers, a woman who had no judiciary experience.

Obama is attempting to fill a Supreme Court vacancy by nominating Elena Kagan, a woman who has no judiciary experience.

In response to an expletive that Bush declared about a reporter, Vice-President Dick Cheney agreed “big time”.

In response to the signing of the healthcare bill, Vice-President Joe Biden blurted out that it was a “big f****n’ deal”.

The reality of a Republican-controlled Administration and Congress (not to mention Court) spurred the mobilization of such political organizations as Move On as well as news sources such as the Huffington Post.

The reality of a Democratic-controlled Administration and Congress (and aging Court Justices) spurred the mobilization of such political organizations as the Tea Party movement and Freedom Works and news sources such as World Net Daily.

Despite losing the Presidential nomination, the loyal support that Howard Dean received was recognized as he was rewarded by being named the Chairman of the Democratic National Committee.

Despite losing the Vice-Presidential election, the loyal support that Sarah Palin received was recognized as she has been rewarded by becoming the de facto “face” of the Tea Party movement.

Of course, we’ve previously covered the audacious declarations of both Kanye West and Glenn Beck, respectively.

And finally:

Bush was criticized, particularly by Democrats, for his slow response to Hurricane Katrina’s devastation in the Gulf Coast. His response was that he trusted the states to do the right thing.

Obama was criticized, particularly by Republicans, for his slow response to the oil rig devastation in the Gulf Coast. His response was that he was trusting British Petroleum to do the right thing.

Now if we can just keep any potentially dangerous objects out of Joe Biden’s hands, it might tip the scales in Obama’s favor!

Imagine...

Now the vast audience that reads this blog knows that I love people of all shades and creeds. They also know that I respect if not always agree with those who hold primarily conservative views including those in the Tea Party Movement. And not only do I know that there is a small but significant number of black conservatives out there but I also believe many black Democrats are DINOs (Democrats In Name Only) because of their perception of Republican policies. With that long disclaimer, I'd like to present the following blog that I stumbled upon courtesy of Facebook. Going beyond the "mirror image" experience I predicted when Democrats and Republicans switched positions of power, this piece explains why there is more than a little concern about potential backlash from fringe conservatives about Obama's ascendancy to the White House.

http://ephphatha-poetry.blogspot.com/2010/04/imagine-if-tea-party-was-black-tim-wise.html

(Note at the end of the post that the author is a white gentleman.)