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?
Showing posts with label legislation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label legislation. Show all posts
Friday, April 8, 2011
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
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.
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.
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
Credit-card sharks vs. regulation
A PBS Frontline program last night documented the thinking and the policies of credit-card companies as they seek maximum income. An interview with the man who, in a sense, started the whole process when he was CEO of Providian was refreshingly (and frighteningly) candid. He acknowledged that Providian had led the way (with many followers) in offering free credit cards (when most competitors were still charging annual fees) but making up the lost income by charging high interest rates combined with huge overdraft and late-payment fees. And of course other credit-card companies and banks saw the possibilities and quickly followed suit.
But this former CEO said something that I think gives a clue to the whole issue of government regulation of business. He acknowledged that his company – like almost every other – will be looking for loopholes in the newly passed credit card law. He said (paraphrased), “You [the government] can make any stupid laws you want, and we will play by those rules. But since our job is to make money, we will be looking for angles, loopholes, that will leave us a way to make a profit.”
I think this is a reasonable attitude, much though we would like every business to be charitable and altruistic – and much though it appears that Congress believes that to be the case when it passes laws that let business monitor itself and make its own rules.
No, let’s have a realistic separation of functions: let us recognize that the function of business is to make money, and one necessary function of government is to set up reasonable but realistic limits on how business can make money.
It appeared from the PBS program that the new law already has numerous loopholes, and credit-card companies will be able to exploit them to make even more money. Since it takes Congress an extremely long time to respond to abuses (and then the influence of lobbyists prevents Congress from really solving the problem), there seems to be an excellent case for a new regulatory agency that can create rules for credit-card companies (and other lending institutions) and modify them in a timely manner if they do not work as intended.
But this former CEO said something that I think gives a clue to the whole issue of government regulation of business. He acknowledged that his company – like almost every other – will be looking for loopholes in the newly passed credit card law. He said (paraphrased), “You [the government] can make any stupid laws you want, and we will play by those rules. But since our job is to make money, we will be looking for angles, loopholes, that will leave us a way to make a profit.”
I think this is a reasonable attitude, much though we would like every business to be charitable and altruistic – and much though it appears that Congress believes that to be the case when it passes laws that let business monitor itself and make its own rules.
No, let’s have a realistic separation of functions: let us recognize that the function of business is to make money, and one necessary function of government is to set up reasonable but realistic limits on how business can make money.
It appeared from the PBS program that the new law already has numerous loopholes, and credit-card companies will be able to exploit them to make even more money. Since it takes Congress an extremely long time to respond to abuses (and then the influence of lobbyists prevents Congress from really solving the problem), there seems to be an excellent case for a new regulatory agency that can create rules for credit-card companies (and other lending institutions) and modify them in a timely manner if they do not work as intended.
Thursday, November 19, 2009
Health Care Reform -- or Abortion
Killing is bad.
Abortion is killing.
So abortion is bad.
So if a health-care reform bill would in any way pay for -- or even condone -- abortion, it should not be passed.
But wait a minute: is abortion worse than other forms of killing? If your family is penniless and your child dies of malnutrition, is that not a form of killing? If you have a treatable disease but die because you couldn’t afford treatment, haven’t you been killed just as surely as if someone shot you?
How many women have abortions in a year? How many people die because of inadequate health care?
Some experts are saying that some 15,000 people die yearly because they lack access to health care. Either they don’t seek treatment because they can’t afford it, or they are turned away from hospitals or doctor’s offices for lack of insurance.
The counterargument has been that uninsured people can always go to an emergency room and receive treatment. Now there are studies that show that such people have a higher death rate than insured people with the same ailments. Why? Because the uninsured have not received the early interventions -- in the beginning stages of the disease -- and go to the emergency room only when the disease is far advanced. And they do not receive any follow-up after they leave the emergency room. So let’s add these numbers to those who die for lack of access.
And here’s something that perhaps should not be brought up here, since it would be hard to attach numbers to related early deaths, but here it is anyhow: It is well documented that about half of all bankruptcies -- and that’s several hundred thousand a year -- are medical related. Typical scenario: You have a job, and you have health insurance. You come down with a catastrophic illness -- perhaps a cancer that requires long and expensive treatment. You are out of work so long that you lose your job. Soon the health insurance expires or reaches a maximum pay-out level, and the insurance company tells you your treatments will no longer be covered. You borrow, you re-mortgage your house, eventually you declare bankruptcy, and you and your family are penniless. We have read -- anecdotally -- or people who have committed suicide in despair when they find themselves in such a situation. Obviously, there is a heavy economic and emotional cost to this scenario, and undoubtedly a cost in lives as well, even if we’d have trouble attaching numbers to it.
About abortions: I agree with the way Hilary Clinton phrased it: “Abortions should safe, available -- and rare.” Instead of banning abortions, it makes more sense to me to try to remove the conditions that cause unwanted pregnancies. Let’s teach young people -- male and female -- about human dignity, about respect for themselves and their partners, about sex as an expression of love and respect and dignity. And while we teach young people these things, let’s also teach them that if they insist on having sex without the intention of creating babies, they need to take precautions so as not to create babies. If we as a society could succeed in doing these things, there would be very few abortions in any case.
I would urge the anti-abortion opponents of health-care reform to save lives by working on eliminating the need for abortion, and to save more lives by supporting health-care reform.
Abortion is killing.
So abortion is bad.
So if a health-care reform bill would in any way pay for -- or even condone -- abortion, it should not be passed.
But wait a minute: is abortion worse than other forms of killing? If your family is penniless and your child dies of malnutrition, is that not a form of killing? If you have a treatable disease but die because you couldn’t afford treatment, haven’t you been killed just as surely as if someone shot you?
How many women have abortions in a year? How many people die because of inadequate health care?
Some experts are saying that some 15,000 people die yearly because they lack access to health care. Either they don’t seek treatment because they can’t afford it, or they are turned away from hospitals or doctor’s offices for lack of insurance.
The counterargument has been that uninsured people can always go to an emergency room and receive treatment. Now there are studies that show that such people have a higher death rate than insured people with the same ailments. Why? Because the uninsured have not received the early interventions -- in the beginning stages of the disease -- and go to the emergency room only when the disease is far advanced. And they do not receive any follow-up after they leave the emergency room. So let’s add these numbers to those who die for lack of access.
And here’s something that perhaps should not be brought up here, since it would be hard to attach numbers to related early deaths, but here it is anyhow: It is well documented that about half of all bankruptcies -- and that’s several hundred thousand a year -- are medical related. Typical scenario: You have a job, and you have health insurance. You come down with a catastrophic illness -- perhaps a cancer that requires long and expensive treatment. You are out of work so long that you lose your job. Soon the health insurance expires or reaches a maximum pay-out level, and the insurance company tells you your treatments will no longer be covered. You borrow, you re-mortgage your house, eventually you declare bankruptcy, and you and your family are penniless. We have read -- anecdotally -- or people who have committed suicide in despair when they find themselves in such a situation. Obviously, there is a heavy economic and emotional cost to this scenario, and undoubtedly a cost in lives as well, even if we’d have trouble attaching numbers to it.
About abortions: I agree with the way Hilary Clinton phrased it: “Abortions should safe, available -- and rare.” Instead of banning abortions, it makes more sense to me to try to remove the conditions that cause unwanted pregnancies. Let’s teach young people -- male and female -- about human dignity, about respect for themselves and their partners, about sex as an expression of love and respect and dignity. And while we teach young people these things, let’s also teach them that if they insist on having sex without the intention of creating babies, they need to take precautions so as not to create babies. If we as a society could succeed in doing these things, there would be very few abortions in any case.
I would urge the anti-abortion opponents of health-care reform to save lives by working on eliminating the need for abortion, and to save more lives by supporting health-care reform.
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