Somalia, here we come!

The big buzz-word in American legislative circles these days is "deficit reduction." Let's reduce the size of government, reduce government interference in business, eliminate waste, and by doing all these things restore individual freedoms.
Like pretty much everyone, I favor eliminating government waste -- though we might have some difficulty in defining waste, once we get beyond a few glaring examples.
Let's look first at the society we might end up with if all the cost-cutters were to get their way. (I'll mention a number of proposals at both state and federal levels, because they will all -- from whichever level -- impact how we live, and because they are all expressions of the same mind-set.)
The two major categories of cuts may be in services and in regulation.
Services: States are vigorously cutting funds to education. In North Carolina, funding to universities, to community colleges, and to public schools is being cut. Admissions are being limited, tuitions are being raised (in spite of a North Carolina constitutional requirement that university tuition be essentially free), academic programs are being shrunk or eliminated, teachers are being laid off, class sizes are being increased. Cuts are being considered for many court programs that have been successful at keeping people out of prison (though experts point out that eliminating these programs will actually cost more). Various counseling programs and other programs to help young people stay in school or families stay together are being cut. Cuts are likely or are being considered in services to a wide variety of needy people -- the poor, the sick, the unemployed, the elderly. I could go on and on. Even if not all of these cuts become reality, we are looking at a future in which the well-to-do are surrounded with legions of needy, desperate people, people who cannot afford the medical treatment they need, cannot get trained for good jobs, cannot afford decent housing, and are left to their own devices in their ignorant interactions with the law. Sounds a bit like Somalia to me.
Regulations: Of course we oppose government regulation, particularly of struggling businesses. Or do we? I oppose petty bureaucratic regulation. But is that all there is? There have been innumerable newspaper accounts of tainted meat (because it was not properly produced or inspected), of farm workers harmed by pesticides (because no one was inspecting to be sure the employer did not have his workers use chemicals in a dangerous way), of imported sheet-rock that emitted formaldehyde or other noxious chemicals (again because no inspectors stopped the import or sale, of prescription drugs recalled when people began dying (because the government didn't have the manpower to check these drugs adequately before they were put on the market). The extreme example of lack of government regulation might, again, be Somalia.
So what is appropriate regulation? For me, it's this: I want to be sure that any product or food or medicine I buy is very unlikely to harm me if I use it according to directions. And I want to know that anything I buy is what it says it is -- that I can trust the label (and the advertising) to tell me the truth. And since the goal of any business is to make a profit, and since some businesses will do this by any means they can get away with, we need government regulation to ensure that all businesses play by the rules, selling safe and honest products.
Before we get too busy with our axes, let's give some thought to the kind of society we want to live in. I've given you an idea of the kind of society I want to live in. As I've said, I want a society with enough government regulation to ensure that products and foods and medicines are honest and safe.
And I want responsive government services sufficient to maintain a population that is healthy, well-educated, well-housed, employed. I want my neighbor's kids in good schools, I want any sick or injured person to get good medical care, I want both good roads and good public transit so I and my neighbors can travel where we need to go, safely, conveniently, and economically. I want services available so that abused or neglected kids get counseling or support or protection or whatever they need so that they have an opportunity to grow up to be happy, productive adults.
What kind of society do you want to live in? How much government will it take to provide that? If you want zero government, do you think you might be happier in Somalia?

Why Are You Struggling?

Long ago, on a Roman galley, the captain tried an experiment. He let everyone on board -- oarsmen and aristocratic passengers -- vote on whether to change to a democratic system, where everyone would take turns, alternately rowing and lounging in the luxurious passenger quarters. Of course the aristocrats voted to retain the existing system. But then, to his surprise, so too did the galley oarsmen.

There is a simple explanation for why you are having a hard time financially, why you are in danger of losing your job or your health or your home, why you don’t have access to the luxuries that more privileged members of society are enjoying.
Why haven’t you realized the truth? In case you are too dumb to figure it out, here it is: It’s because you deserve what you are getting. And because deep down inside, you know this. That’s why you keep making choices that maintain the status quo, that keep you down and struggling.
You don’t believe it? Consider this:
Our legislators obviously believe what I’ve just said. They maintain a tax structure and an economic structure that does what it should do -- it rewards the deserving and punishes the undeserving. In other words, some people get rich, the rich keep getting richer, and the rest struggle to stay where they are, and sometimes, no matter how hard they struggle, they slip downward into poverty.
Look at the statistics -- they’re all around you. You’ve seen them. The top 2% make as much money as the bottom 50%. CEOs get paid on average 400 times as much as their lowest-paid employees. When failing businesses are sold out, the top managers (who ran their companies into the ground) walk away with “golden parachutes” worth millions of dollars.
And at the other end of the scale, 10% of our workforce is unemployed. This country has some 40 million uninsured people. The middle class is getting smaller. More people are in poverty than ever. Millions go to bed hungry every night. Hundreds of thousands of homes are being foreclosed, leaving ever more people homeless.
And how are our governments, local, state, and federal, coping with all this? They are reducing services to those most in need. Thousands of state employees are being laid off, hurting not just them but also all those that they were providing services for. Universities are cutting faculty and course offerings; students must pay higher tuition for fewer and more crowded classes. Public schools are laying off teachers and aides and increasing class sizes. Mental health programs, already appallingly inadequate, are being cut further, leaving the mentally ill in crisis and unable to receive treatment that might save their lives.
Clearly the decision-makers who have brought all this about are acting out of a morality that says that the deserving will be rewarded and the undeserving punished.
And who chose these decision-makers? You did. You have chosen to elect representatives who will carry out your moral values, who will punish you for all your flaws and shortcomings. And as long as you coninue to believe that you deserve the worst, you will keep on electing representatives who will make sure you get it.

Has Obama Failed?

The hue and cry of the Republicans -- and some Democrats -- has recently been to the effect that the Obama presidency has failed. Key evidence: the continuing high unemployment rate.
Is our economic situation as we want it to be? Admittedly no. Ten percent unemployment is clearly unacceptable. So does this mean that Obama has failed? I would suggest that the implied comparison (where we are vs. where we’d like to be) is erroneous.
The proper comparison has to be between where we are, under Obama, and where we would be if his administration had not done what it has, or -- to put it very bluntly and starkly -- where we would be if McCain had been elected.
Of course, we do not know for sure what McCain and Palin would have done, but we have a pretty good idea, both from those candidates’ statements during the 2008 campaign and from the statements and positions of Republican leaders since. I think it is clear that under McCain/Palin we would be feeling the effects of more tax-breaks for the wealthy, more cuts in government programs for the poor and middle classes,and less effort at economic stimulus.
And what would those effects be? The CBO -- Congressional Budget Office -- recently released some projections that without the Obama stimulus programs, unemployment now might be 13% or 14%. And we can figure that there would be more people losing their homes, more people exhausting their unemployment benefits -- in short, we would be in a major depression, not just a painful recession.
So has Obama failed? Hardly. He has achieved a lot, compared to where the country was when he started and where it might have gotten to with different policies and programs.

And we need to recognize too that what the Obama administration as accomplished has been tempered -- and severely limited and distorted -- by the obstinacy and determination of Republicans to do everything possible to cause Obama to fail, regardless of what might be best for the country.

Restore the Economy by Jobs and Education

All predictions say that even though the recession is technically over, unemployment will decline only slowly and over several years. Since -- as has been pointed out -- 10% of the population controls some 90% of the investment market, that 10% may be quite comfortable with the status quo, but for the other 90% of us the situation is at least worrisome and, for the 10% who are jobless, the outlook is just plain bleak.

It may be necessary to continue to pump money into Wall Street and big corporations and the like, but none of this has much immediate effect on the jobless.

There has been talk about job creation, but I have heard little emanating from Washington that sounds as though it will do much anytime soon, and what I've heard doesn't sound like a comprehensive coherent plan.

Here's my proposal:
First, some self-evident facts:
1) We are going to have to subsidize the unemployed for a long time.
2) The unemployed, for the most part, have lots of available time.
3) There is much work that needs doing in this country, including a) building/repairing/ upgrading facilities in national, state, and local parks and other public facilities; improving streets, highways, and bridges; building mass-transit (train, streetcar, and bus) roadbeds and rolling stock; c) upgrading the electric grid and transmission facilities; d) developing, manufacturing, and installing alternative power equipment -- solar panels, wind turbines, etc.
4) We are going to need more, and more highly trained, workers for a vast range of technologically advanced fields in the future: alternative power, medical technology, biotechnology, nanotechnology, and many others.

I would put all these indisputable facts together in this way:
Instead of just providing unemployment checks, let's offer most recipients two alternatives:
1) You can go back to school to learn some advanced skills. Government will put lots more money into paying stipends to those who want to improve their skills -- and perhaps the stipends will be bigger than the unemployment schecks. And while several million unemployed ate back in school, hundreds of thousands of teachers (who might be unemployed scientists and engineers) will also be given employment. And when the recession is truly over, and jobs are again plentiful, there will be a large workforce available of people with new high-tech skills.
2) Or you can move into any of a range of WPA or CCC type jobs: The government will pay wages for people who are available for relatively low-skill jobs improving the nation's infrastructure and public facilities. Many state and local governments have lists of "shovel-ready" jobs, some of which are already being done with stimulus finds. (Or if private companies need a boost to do many of the tasks suggested in (3) above, government might supplement wages, sort of like older OJT -- on-the-job-training -- programs.)

The advantages of this approach to the unemployment situation should be clear. Roughly the same amount of money would be spent, but this way it would produce improvements to the nation's infrastructure and facilities, and it would train a workforce for future jobs.