No school principal would pull all the grownups out of his school for a meeting, leaving all students unsupervised. No parent would leave his kids in a car with the engine running while they went into a gym to work out. No parent would drop their kid off at a bar while they went to tryst at a motel…
So why do we think that cutting back on government, as Ryan (R-WI) proposed in his speech after Obama’s State of the Union address, is a good thing?
What happens when there is no one to look over one’s shoulder?
All of us hate having a boss look over our shoulder; even worse we totally despise the “office rat” peeking over the cubicle at us hard at work!
But all of us would admit, that the reason we despise that feeling as much as we do, the reason it rubs us all the wrong way,…. is because we fear they might actually find something wrong with what we’re doing… Because facing our own reflection in the mirror, we all would have to admit that we get lazy some time, that trying to be perfect all the time is hard, that if no one is looking and we can help ourselves, we all do it…
Whether it’s a hoodie on 31st and Market, or whether its a bank on 12th and Market, it’s all the same. If we don’t patrol…. we don’t control…
Now, there is too much. We can pull everyone off the streets, shoot them, and have streets free of crime… That is too much. We can regulate banks and tax all proceeds so their is no incentive for creating wealth. That too, is too much…
But to use those extremes of excess, to promote laissez faire towards both categories, is criminal… Which could explain why we have so many criminals on both extremes of Market Street. Because we destroyed our tax base, we’ve cut back on those responsible for watching them…….
Was it worth the savings? Did lowering taxes save our 401K’s during the crises of 2008? Did dropping tax rates, make our lives richer? Make us richer? Or did we just have to pay that saved money out to utilities, insurance, medical providers, banks, and wind up being poorer for paying them more than the savings our tax cuts saved us?
Does having money for a Diet Coke a day from saved taxes, help us with our deregulated Delmarva Bill that’s jumped 60%? Ummm, no?
Ryan is talking out his ass. Cutting back government is the wrong way to go… Cutting back waste is the right way to go…
No one alive remembers child labor in American factories. Practices like that are what happens without a government big enough to control business. China has child labor, as does most of the third world.
Why? Because it’s cheap. If you can get away with it…. one does it. Doesn’t matter if the financing for that child labor mill came from America, where it is illegal to use minors in dangerous occupations. That plant manager has the capacity to use almost free labor; it is not illegal; if a child gets ground up you simply replace them without consequences; his/her parents were overjoyed to reap the pennies you given them so they won’t give you trouble… Really, why wouldn’t you use child labor? Cause it’s wrong? Ha, Ha, Ha. Imagine… lol… not using child labor cause it’s wrong…. What a funny!……
Well, it is wrong and that is why you need government…. Cutting government back to where it is no longer effective, is simply the same as becoming a third world nation. They have governments… but their governments are not effective. That is what we have to realize, every single time we hear the words: less government, smaller government, less regulation, no regulation.
Do you know what you eat? Do you know what BHA or BHT does? Probably not. I didn’t, until recently. Did you know that aspartame causes the brain to shrivel similar to the shrinkage in patients with Parkinsons and Alzheimers? I didn’t. But we trust that if it is made and sold here in the US, it must be ok. Because our government allows it to be sold…. Republicans want to cut back, eliminating those types of regulations.
WE, the People, of the United States of America are just now emerging from a Great Depression, that was turned into a recession by very quick Keynesian economics that took place at the change of Presidency, by both a Republican and a Democrat administrations. It had to be done.
A blue ribbon panel that looked into that disaster, has determined that it was created (if one looks at the full report), simply because we chose not to look over the shoulders of those buying and selling our nation’s futures. This actually makes the case that we need MORE government, not less as Ryan so proposes….
The report cites:
It criticizes Mr. Greenspan for advocating deregulation and cites a “pivotal failure to stem the flow of toxic mortgages” under his leadership as a “prime example” of negligence.
The decision in 2000 to shield the exotic financial instruments known as over-the-counter derivatives from regulation, made during the last year of President Bill Clinton’s term, is called “a key turning point in the march toward the financial crisis.”
The report finds that the New York Fed missed signs of trouble at Citigroup and Lehman, though it did not have the main responsibility for overseeing them.
It says regulators “lacked the political will” to scrutinize and hold accountable the institutions they were supposed to oversee. The financial industry spent $2.7 billion on lobbying from 1999 to 2008, while individuals and committees affiliated with it made more than $1 billion in campaign contributions.
The report is harsh on regulators. It finds that the Securities and Exchange Commission failed to require big banks to hold more capital to cushion potential losses and halt risky practices, and that the Fed “neglected its mission.”
It says the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, which regulates some banks, and the Office of Thrift Supervision, which oversees savings and loans, blocked states from curbing abuses because they were “caught up in turf wars.”
“The captains of finance and the public stewards of our financial system ignored warnings and failed to question, understand and manage evolving risks within a system essential to the well-being of the American public. Theirs was a big miss, not a stumble.”
It quotes Citigroup executives conceding that they paid little attention to mortgage-related risks. Executives at the American International Group were found to have been blind to its $79 billion exposure to credit-default swaps, a kind of insurance that was sold to investors seeking protection against a drop in the value of securities backed by home loans. At Merrill Lynch, managers were surprised when seemingly secure mortgage investments suddenly suffered huge losses.
By one measure, for about every $40 in assets, the nation’s five largest investment banks had only $1 in capital to cover losses, meaning that a 3 percent drop in asset values could have wiped out the firm.
The banks hid their excessive leverage using derivatives, off-balance-sheet entities and other devices, the report found. The speculative binge was abetted by a giant “shadow banking system” in which the banks relied heavily on short-term debt.
Ok, so that’s a rather damning indictment for the policy of “leaving alone”..
For the record, we did leave alone and just like the last time we deregulated our financial scheme (1920′s) we got a catastrophic collapse.
Therefore what Congressman Ryan was promoting, a philosophy of cutting spending, whittling back government, limiting government, cutting back on regulatory agencies …. HAS BEEN TRIED, TWICE.
As a philosophy on the scale of global politics…. it doesn’t work…… But to hand it to him, neither does spending and taxing more to cover that spending.
Since 1900 there have only been 8 years where all parts of the economy came together, flourished, and every layer of income, got richer. That was the period between 1992 and 2000…
Taking our cue from that … what works for Main Street, is to tax the wealthy properly so they invest back into America to keep from paying taxes, and… train our government to spend only what we have to in order to make America stronger. Raising the amount of cash coming in, lowering the cost of expenses going out, will in the end, right our ship of state and send it sailing off in the right direction……
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January 28, 2011 at 9:12 am
Duffy
No school principal would pull all the grownups out of his school for a meeting, leaving all students unsupervised. No parent would leave his kids in a car with the engine running while they went into a gym to work out. No parent would drop their kid off at a bar while they went to tryst at a motel…
Very telling that you think the Government are grown ups and the rest of us are children. Meek helpless children that can’t get along without Mommy and Daddy. A view I don’t share.
Government is supposed to be “minding the store” in the form of protecting citizens from force or fraud. (Whether the banking examples above count as fraud is a separate argument.)
To me this encapsulates the difference between the Left and everybody else. The Left believes we are all helpless and couldn’t possibly get through the day w/o Government. Everyone else knows they get through most days without government quite well.
January 28, 2011 at 12:51 pm
kavips
an over-exaggeration to be sure….. I’m not sure what the Left thinks, or if it thinks at all. I know the Right doesn’t… lol.
The argument is that people don’t do well without supervision. Some do better than others, but… believing they do, goes against centuries of evidence proving otherwise.
We may wish for the alternative…. but that alternative doesn’t work…..
January 28, 2011 at 1:24 pm
anonymous
Government is necessary and must be good, to be efficient.
Kavips says, Cutting back government is the wrong way to go… Cutting back waste is the right way to go….” In the last paragraph, kavips says, “…train our government to spend only what we have to in order to make America stronger…”
The overall, ‘more or less’ of government, whether it’s in school. state or federal government, isn’t really a starting point, when a government has been padded with inefficiencies, cronies, favoritism, greed, paybacks, etc, rather than having a society function with the correct amount of emergency responders, effective teachers, proficient office staffs, skilled technicians necessary, etc.
Size isn’t the most important factor needing change, government quality, effectiveness is. A foundation of quality, fairness, (list good government traits here,) is the supporting structure and needs to be increased to reflect a higher percent of ‘good government.’ Government needs to regulate against financial theft, injustice, educational failure, environmental degradation, sickness, greed, crime, assorted corruption, etc. This is key, rather than looking to adjust size of what exists, as is. As is refers to damaged goods. If the foundation of governmental standards are raised, various vices peculiar to the various disciplines, could be eliminated.
Take a sinking bridge for example. Would making it smaller, make it more efficient? Or would one fall off the deep end, sooner? What’s the real problem? The foundation? Look up the ladder, to whomever signs off on the plan whether it be for a bridge or government. Look to talented project leaders, to excellent architects, the sound drawn plans and keep a constant eye out for detrimental factors that would weaken the function.
In the private sector workplace, waste and failure doesn’t last long, because efficiency, outstanding performance and better products, work for the company. If top notch leadership, management were present in the government offices, necessary governmental jobs wouldn’t be at the chopping block. Politicians need to look at what they mismanage and gov employees need to look at what they tolerate in their own workplace, they know it best. In the private sector, efficiency, size, are a natural outcome. Proper size of proper government, should be the good, natural outcome. Excesses of waste, fraud, bloating, existing within bureaucracy – is that what we now have? Who protects it? Therein lies the problem.
Which elected, appointed officials, department heads, etc. will come forward and say, you know, my son-in-law, neighbor, business partner’s wife, appointees, etc., aren’t actually effective or needed governmental employees, contractors, suppliers, etc. Mr. Jones’ job, is not necessary; that nice lady isn’t teaching; the new appointee isn’t in his field; this person has 2, 3 jobs and is spread too thin; there are conflicting interests; or the new, smart, grad, would make a better manager. These types of corrections could change government, for better government, thereby less taxes. Who will step forward?
Government that protects citizens’ rights, advances a state, a country. Having a corrupt political machine in place, advances a corrupt political machine.
Duffy, that Americans get through any day without ‘government’ is total nonsense. Government is there, everyone knows it is there and are glad of it. There are places without government, except for their own force and fraud. Republicans need to be aware of what some republican ‘leadership’ might really want. American Citizens want a government of,by,for the people.
January 28, 2011 at 3:12 pm
kavips
Today the government plowed my roads, On those roads, drove a government mail truck to bring a letter to my door. A government subsidy gave my provider an incentive to lay cables out to my neighborhood so I could type this. I drove into town on a government road. Waited at government stop lights to move forward. Thank goodness the government took my sewage I flushed down my drains. I even had the nerve to complain that the government hadn’t moved fast enough on clearing the snow in town….. My neighbors would sweat without their government Social Security checks. One is currently using her mental health benefits courtesy of our government’s Medicare….
I think no American goes through their day without government. That is how pervasive it permeates our daily lives.
Which is why, … cutting back on government, although sounding good to people like Duffy, who don’t equate simple things like roads with government…………….. will be the end of us all…
A better bet, one that would settle the argument once and for all, would be to have competition between government entities and private enterprises. Let’s see who is cheaper, Let’s see who provides the better service, Let the competition begin. That is what was exciting about having a single payer option compete with private insurance companies over health care.
Bottom line: Health Insurance companies screamed it wasn’t fair; they knew they could not compete…
That is why all this talk that private enterprise can do better, and cheaper, needs some factual documentation. Comparing two different kinds of fruits, needs some prior standards of comparison before attempting to decide (on what basis) between the two…
February 1, 2011 at 5:51 pm
Duffy
OK I was unclear and probably over reaching. Yes we all encounter government every day. I was saying that I got up in my non-government built house and got in my non-government car to go to my non-government job. I bought non-government food for lunch and used my non-government computer, phone, network and cell phone etc.
A great many of the above services would be well served by private industry. We have private trash pickup in Delaware and it works very well. It’s way cheaper than I had in New Jersey. My streets are plowed by private plowers. The homeowners association pays for it. Why? I live on a public street but if I waited for government I might as well wait for spring. Mail? MAIL!? Don’t get me started those idiots have been losing money for 200 years and they had 150 years of monopoly. They’re on track to lose BILLIONS this year. Don’t tell me we couldn’t do better with private carriers.
I expect that the size of much of the government will grow (as with population) but it is the role, scope, cost and efficiency that bothers me more.
Frankly we’d do much better if we made everything transparent.
lastly, Anonymous you make some good points but could you pick ANYTHING else as a handle so we know who’s who?
February 3, 2011 at 12:55 pm
kavips
And it should be noted that I’m glad Duffy doesn’t have a house, car, job, lunch, computer, phone, network, and cell, all supplied by the government. Such did wonders for the Soviet and Maoist economies.
But it should be equally noted that there are areas where strong government is necessary… hence the Constitutional Convention after suffering through years of the Libertarian Articles of Confederation…..
Especially when it applies to business and Commerce. Prime example is the Interstate Road system, (originally a military endeavor) as opposed to strings of toll roads crisscrossing this nation.
Bottom line, some things are better for government; some better handled by private enterprise.
I think the constant give and take between the two is the key ingredient that gives us a better balance and quality of life, over the admonition of either one or the other.
Private enterprise models are like the primaeval oceans, seas of anaerobic bacteria, creating an infinite number of genetic opportunities. The ones that work, move up the ladder. Government planned options, are limiting, like having a Creationist, who pre-plans each species, then acquires all the building blocks, then causes it to become a living entity; occasionally the results are worth it.
The question we have to argue, and it will always be argued unless mankind makes a very grave mistake, …… is which option we will apply to a particular function or event at a particular breech in time.
This argument, brings the best of both sides to the table, and we can make a conscious collective decision ( after arguing of course) and move forward. Sometimes we get it wrong, like Prohibition, but we can only make decisions based on the options laid at our table. Fortunately, we also can repeal our mistakes…
The problem that is inherent with Free enterprise systems, is that like anything, if they become too big, … they suck up resources … just like a king, just like a dictator, just like Mr. Potter, ….. because they can. Private enterprise is wonderful, but it leads to an unbalanced system. Competition breeds evolution. But, that can be misleading if the top product becomes a dodo bird, dominant over all it surveys, but unprotected against a new menace that will one day breech it’s shores. It exists no more.
So we need some type of monitoring system that notes when inefficiencies began occurring, that is big enough to create a new paradigm, to again create competition.
And as did the founding fathers, I put my trust in “We, the People.” When they sense things aren’t working right, they should use their tool, “Big Government”, to create new rules and a new paradigm.
Teddy Roosevelt did so with Standard Oil. And of course, some of us were hoping to create that paradigm with the public option in Health Care.
Basically we need to create that environment where the most productive survive… If private enterprise can’t (or won’t), We the People, need to unite behind our Government, to make it happen.
Once accomplished, we again need to let Private enterprise function as unhindered as is possible.