Thursday, November 29, 2007

The Republican debate last night in Florida

After reading parts of the transcript for the debate last night, I now wish I had actually watched it. It sounds like it was a lot of fun, with fireworks galore and colorful personalities from left to right (or, rather in their case, from libertarian to fascist). Compared to the Democrats, there are actual ideological and policy differences among the candidates. While the Democrats are splitting hairs about whether every person is covered under so-and-so's health care plan or the precise day in which most of the U.S. troops would pull out of Iraq, you can find Republicans virtually miles apart on every issue.

This is not to say I'd ever vote for any of those loonies, but the fact that they are completely crazy must have made it all the more enjoyable to watch. You've got Ron Paul as this throw-back libertarian being hit over the head by John McCain. McCain called Paul's position on Iraq "isolationist" and indicated that American isolationism led to WWII. While Paul might be best described as "isolationist", having a particular stance on Iraq does not make one so. Moreover, saying that isolationism caused WWII is a bit extreme (hmm, I don't suppose that the rise of fascists, like Rudy Giuliani, had anything to do with it). Nonetheless, Paul is a bit out there, but he's got great entertainment value.

Then, you've got McCain and Romney tussling over waterboarding. Romney goes for the slimiest approach possible (i.e. the Bush approach) and pretends that it plays into the hands of the terrorists to define torture and, thus, cannot say whether waterboarding is torture but can say that he would never condone torture. What a loser. Maybe he should try reading any of the articles written by former generals, colonels, etc., intelligence officers, POWs, and WWII vets on this issue. But then, when you're a Mitt Romney, there's no way that the military officers could know a thing or two, is there?

On the other hand, Romney gets credit for putting the Confederate flag into its place, at least somewhat into its place. A stronger rebuke would be better -- you know, something grounded in history that shows exactly why all the pro-Confederate flag people are wrong. But still, just for taking the stand he did in front of an audience that almost certainly included many closet racists took some courage.

Then, you've got Rudy Giuliani being pestered by scandals. Would you expect any different from someone who was once the mayor of New York? That is the land of Tammany Hall.

And finally, you've got Mike Huckabee who was grilled (ha! yeah right, "gently probed" is a better description) about the issue of capital punishment, being a Christian, and, of course, the "what would Jesus do" issue. See, Mike, when you go around claiming the whole "I'm the best Christian up here" thing going on, people are going to start pointing out the inconsistencies between Christianity and the popular stances on issue (e.g. capital punishment, abortion, etc.). His response "Jesus was too smart to ever run for public office" was cute for the audience but, for anyone with a brain, should have required the retort: "So, does that mean you're stupid or that you're deliberately doing the opposite of what Jesus would do?" I mean, let's face it: No one, Democrat or Republican, is really a Christian on the issues. They use Christianity to support their arguments ONLY when it's convenient. When it's not, they drop their pretend Christianity and, only once in a blue moon, does someone actually call them on it to their face.

Saturday, November 17, 2007

Social Security and other problems

Since the 2004 elections, Social Security has been a recurring pop-up in politics. It's considered the "third rail", as politicians who touch it are always electrocuted. In fact, the beginning of Bush's plunge and the resuscitation of the Congressional Democrats was Bush's foray into "fixing" Social Security and the Democratic resistance to the plan. The Washington Post recently ran an editorial praising Obama and, to some degree, Edwards for having the courage to suggest fixes to Social Security while criticizing Hillary Clinton's "dodge" on answering the question about it. And, of course, Fred Thompson has recently had the courage to also suggest a fix to Social Security. I should note that none of their fixes completely fix the problem.

What is most interesting about the debate on this issue is that, relatively speaking, the problem with Social Security is minor and easily fixed, compared with the two other looming disasters facing this country: Medicare/Medicaid (perhaps also including health care as a whole) and global warming. The Medicare/Medicaid/general health care issue is vast in its complexity and virtually impossible to get a political handle on. It touches more than just money -- it touches life and death. It asks for a value on our health and, presumably, on our lives. Social Security is a mere shadow of the third rail that Medicare/Medicaid are. Medicare/Medicaid WILL bankrupt the government, whereas the money flow problem with SS will eventually cause SS payouts to be 70% of what they should be. Ironically, 70% of what the SS payments should be will actually be higher, in inflation-adjusted dollars, than what SS payments are today. In other words, this is not nearly the same fiscal problem.

Global warming, like the health care problems in this country, is vast in its complexity and is tremendously unpredictable in its effects. Moreover, the "fix" for global warming is nearly impossible unless we're willing to back off on our economic growth and ask developing countries to essentially become stagnant. It also requires the cooperation of everyone on the planet, which at least SS and Medicare/Medicaid do not require. Of course, the suggested "fix" by those not serious about the problem (e.g. George Bush) is alternative technologies. Yeah, sounds great, but when is that going to happen? Because we're looking at increasingly disastrous effects of global warming over the next 10 years -- the next 100 will be too late.

Which brings me back to SS. When you consider these other issues, you realize that SS is quite trivial by comparison. There are three ways to "fix" the problem, all of which should be used. First, the Obama and Edwards idea: Raise the cap on SS taxes. Well, duh. SS taxes (and Medicare/Medicaid taxes as well -- i.e. payroll taxes) are regressive. They are responsible, in part, for the fact that Warren Buffett pays less in taxes, as a % of his income, than his secretaries do. However, I would favor decreasing the payroll tax % while increasing the cap to help reduce the regressiveness of the tax.

Second, the age limit needs to be raised for when someone can start taking SS payments. The age limit was set at a time when people didn't live long after retirement. Now, for some reason, people think that the government, via current workers, should be financing you for the last third of your life. Sorry, but mathematically that just doesn't work out and is absurd anyway. No one should be guaranteed an early retirement. The age limit should be set based on the average American lifespan -- i.e. figure out how many more years someone will live rather than how many years they have already lived.

Third, cut the rate of increase in SS payments. This one is a little trickier. The increase in SS payments is based on wage growth -- not inflation, which is lower. Therefore, as mentioned earlier, when incoming money will not cover outgoing SS money, people will be receiving 70% of what they should be getting, which will still be higher than people are getting today, in inflation-adjusted dollars. Nonetheless, those who suggest tying the increase to inflation are wrong for a simple reason that I was reading about the other day. The elderly, because their money is spent on different things, face a different -- and higher -- rate of inflation than the rest of us. Instead, a tiered system will need to be put in place, whereby those in the lower income brackets get SS payments that increase based on wage growth and those in the higher brackets get increases based on inflation. Of course, this would be on a scale as you move from lower to higher, but it would help prevent the lower incomes from falling into poverty in their later years.

These three suggestions will never be adopted because they hit all three potential fixes, thereby arousing hatred on all sides of the issue. The only way this could ever pass Congress is if a bipartison commission came up with it and Congress had to vote in an up-or-down manner (like the BRAC proposals) on the proposed "fix" to SS. To bring this article full circle, the Post called Clinton's answer to the question about SS a "dodge" because she proposed a bipartisan commission to deal with the issue. Hmph. Sounds politically more realistic than coming up with a proposal that tackles only one aspect of the problem (like Obama, Edwards, and Thompson) while ignoring the others.