I see the folks who love their guns are circulating the story of a women in Georgia who shot an intruder with a crowbar - citing the event as a reason why there shouldn't be gun control - and stretching their imagination to say it justifies having assault weapons in the home. One gun law supporter was quoted as saying "It's a good thing she wasn't facing more attackers. Otherwise she would have been in trouble and she would have run out of ammunition," said Erich Pratt, director of communications for the Gun Owners of America.
In the 65 years of my life I can't recall a single instance of a homeowner facing a horde attackers attacking their home. I'm sure that would make the headlines and I would hear about it. On the other hand I don't have enough fingers to count the massacres of innocent people that have occurred the last few years by nut cases wandering the streets armed to the teeth.
Media sources say the NRA is developing TV ads to exploit the story.
They are so out of touch with reality - so deeply enamored with their right to have guns - so wrapped up in the argument as to be out of touch with reality - it is mind-boggling.
I'm sure there are people who want to ban all guns, but I think most people don't have a problem with people who choose to have a gun in their house for self protection. It's foolish - statistically the gun in your house is more likely to kill you or one of your family or friends than an unknown attacker. But if a gun in the house makes folks feel safer, not a problem - maybe we can require trigger locks and some safety training and licensing to weed out the mentally unstable. But that seems to me to be a completely different issue than allowing anyone to buy a gun at private sales and gun shows. Or to buy assualt weapons that have no purpose other than killing or maiming lots of people really quickly.
80 years ago or so the NRA started as an organization of gun owners who recognized that guns were dangerous and wanted to lobby for regulation. Today's NRA is nothing more than a public relations company for the gun industry, oblivious for the greater good of this country.
Here is an interesting question. What countries in this world would you expect people to be lobbying to put armed guards in schools? It is inconceivable in virtually every other developed western democracy, and most of the non-democracies in the world. The only ones that occur to me besides the US are Iraq, Afganistan, Pakistan and the sub-saharan countries being taken over by Al-Queda.
Friday, January 11, 2013
Monday, January 7, 2013
Minimizing the corruption inherent in our democracy
The "fiscal cliff" deal that was just struck to avoid tax increases to all taxpayers is emblamatic of a basic problem with our democratic institutions - trading pork for votes. In order to continue current tax levels on most folks, with an increase in taxes for those making over $400,000 a year, Congress "had to" give big tax breaks to the rum industry, Hollywoods film industry, Nascar and algea farmers. A big part of the reason we have the deficit spending problems we have is that so many enactments of Congress get passed by giving unfair tax advantages to some influential (and wealthy) group with a key member of Congress in their pocket. Nothing new in this as demonstrated by the movie "Lincoln" circulating in the theatres at the moment. "Lincoln" documents the great emancipator's ability to cut unsavory deals to get the amendment banning slavery through Congress.
I am sure many in Congress don't like this tradition, but go along because "thats the way things get done" The tradition of pork is supported by a couple of factors that would be applicable even if all members of Congress were high minded persons seeking to do the right thing (we are giving some of them the benefit of the doubt here).
First, every member of Congress, particularly in the house with its two year terms, is looking to their job security - how do they get re-elected. So they cultivate powerful interest groups that can funnel them money to fund their campaigns, or who are influential in their district.
Second, new members who come to Congress are generally full of untested ideological opinions about what government should do or be, with little practical experience with what works. Good public policy requires a broad understanding of history, economics, law and social sciences among other topics. Most of the people who have the ambition to scramble up the political ladder are a little too busy with their ambitions to have time to develop that kind of understanding and the minute they arrive in Washington they are thinking about positioning themselves for re-election.
What if:
1. Instead of having people constantly worrying about their next campaign we made the terms of House and Senate members longer and limited everyone to one term, and required members to sit out of public life for 4 years after their term. To avoid the problem of having a Congress full of newby's who can be manipulated by lobbiests (which is what term limites often accomplishes) we could also have elections a year before the prior members term expires, and the newly elected member would serve a one year apprenticeship during which he does not actually vote, but spends his time learning what he will need to do to do a good job.
2. Another approach that could simultaneously be pursued would be a constitutional amendment giving the president a line item veto. This would allow the President to strike out pork without vetoing an entire proposal Some may recall Congress enacted a line item veto back in the early 1990's. The Supreme Court struck it down as unconstitutional, hence the need for a Constitutional amendment. Some argue the line item veto is abrogating the power of Congress. Seems to me the line item veto doesn't reduce the power of Congress, they can still overturn an item veto by a 2/3's vote. What it abrogates is the ability of individual members of Congress to hold legislation hostage to further the selfish interests of their supporters or constituents.
I am sure many in Congress don't like this tradition, but go along because "thats the way things get done" The tradition of pork is supported by a couple of factors that would be applicable even if all members of Congress were high minded persons seeking to do the right thing (we are giving some of them the benefit of the doubt here).
First, every member of Congress, particularly in the house with its two year terms, is looking to their job security - how do they get re-elected. So they cultivate powerful interest groups that can funnel them money to fund their campaigns, or who are influential in their district.
Second, new members who come to Congress are generally full of untested ideological opinions about what government should do or be, with little practical experience with what works. Good public policy requires a broad understanding of history, economics, law and social sciences among other topics. Most of the people who have the ambition to scramble up the political ladder are a little too busy with their ambitions to have time to develop that kind of understanding and the minute they arrive in Washington they are thinking about positioning themselves for re-election.
What if:
1. Instead of having people constantly worrying about their next campaign we made the terms of House and Senate members longer and limited everyone to one term, and required members to sit out of public life for 4 years after their term. To avoid the problem of having a Congress full of newby's who can be manipulated by lobbiests (which is what term limites often accomplishes) we could also have elections a year before the prior members term expires, and the newly elected member would serve a one year apprenticeship during which he does not actually vote, but spends his time learning what he will need to do to do a good job.
2. Another approach that could simultaneously be pursued would be a constitutional amendment giving the president a line item veto. This would allow the President to strike out pork without vetoing an entire proposal Some may recall Congress enacted a line item veto back in the early 1990's. The Supreme Court struck it down as unconstitutional, hence the need for a Constitutional amendment. Some argue the line item veto is abrogating the power of Congress. Seems to me the line item veto doesn't reduce the power of Congress, they can still overturn an item veto by a 2/3's vote. What it abrogates is the ability of individual members of Congress to hold legislation hostage to further the selfish interests of their supporters or constituents.
Friday, December 21, 2012
Sandy Hook and the NRA
This morning the National Rifle Association finally made an official statement in response to the Sandy Hook elementary school killings. They say the problem is not enough guns. Guns should be allowed in schools, and in fact that each school should have armed guards.
I am surprised they said anything, but the nature of their response is no surprise, Conservative anti-crime, pro gun folk always believe problems are solved by being tougher, meeting force with greater force, and they have dominated much of the debate in this country the last couple decades.
I don't think putting armed guards at schools is the best answer, but, in the spirit of compromise, I'm ok with armed guards at schools - if the NRA pays for it. Pay for the armed guards with a tax on guns and ammunition. As a taxpayer I am not interested in spending one more dime to support their narrow view of the world. Let the folks that love their guns pay for the consequences of easily available guns.
12/29/12 addendum - Interesting factoid relevant to the NRA arguments that guns aren't the problem, people are. The economist notes that on the same day 26 people died at Sandy Hook Elementary a fellow in Henen province in China, burst into a classroom and injured 23 kids, but no one died. The difference between 26 dead and 23 injured? Sandy Hook shooter had guns, the fellow in China only had a knives. (Econ 12/22/12 p.12)
I am surprised they said anything, but the nature of their response is no surprise, Conservative anti-crime, pro gun folk always believe problems are solved by being tougher, meeting force with greater force, and they have dominated much of the debate in this country the last couple decades.
I don't think putting armed guards at schools is the best answer, but, in the spirit of compromise, I'm ok with armed guards at schools - if the NRA pays for it. Pay for the armed guards with a tax on guns and ammunition. As a taxpayer I am not interested in spending one more dime to support their narrow view of the world. Let the folks that love their guns pay for the consequences of easily available guns.
12/29/12 addendum - Interesting factoid relevant to the NRA arguments that guns aren't the problem, people are. The economist notes that on the same day 26 people died at Sandy Hook Elementary a fellow in Henen province in China, burst into a classroom and injured 23 kids, but no one died. The difference between 26 dead and 23 injured? Sandy Hook shooter had guns, the fellow in China only had a knives. (Econ 12/22/12 p.12)
Thursday, December 20, 2012
Tax Simplification
Now that the election is over, and the fiscal cliff is looming, tax policy is back on the pundit's lips. There is broad agreement across the political spectrum that our tax system is way to complex, often unfair and subjects government to unpredictible wild fluctuations in income. Unfortunately, there are also tax breaks for particular interest groups spread across the political spectrum that makes changes to the system very difficult.
In generall all the proposal's I have heard don't really address the basic underlying flaw I see in the tax system that makes it so complex and convoluted. In the 100 years since the income tax was reinstated (it had existed briefly during the time around the Civil War) the entire system has been based on drawing a distinction between invested capital and income from labor. The theory is you don't want to tax capital because it can be invested to create jobs and wealth.
The distinction is false to begin with because it looks backward to focus on where money came from rather than looking forward to see what the money is actually being used for in. So a wealthy guy with lots of Capital gain can use $500,000 of his wealth for personal living expenses and pay 14% tax on that money, while a person who makes $500,000 in a year by working really hard and long hours is taxed at something like 30% or more on the full amount the income, even though he may invest $300,000 of it.
So in fact our tax system sometimes punishes money being used for investment and rewards the personal consumption of converting investment to personal use.
What if we changed the whole underlying assumption of the tax law, allowed people to create capital accounts, and any money going into a capital account, or generated by the capital account, has no tax consequences? Only money that comes out of the account for personal use is taxed, and it is taxed just like any other income that goes to personal expenses. We target the tax benefit exactly on money being used for investment to reward investment and wealth creation, and target the tax on money used for personal expenses to cover the costs of government.
There could be minimal complexity with maintaining the capital account. All the government would care about is when money goes to personal expenses. As long as you keep pouring the income from the investment back into investment you don't have to engage in complex tax accounting. There would have to be some rules to control the tendency of taxpayers to try to cover personal expenses with transactions in the capital account to avoid taxes, but that would be vastly simpler than the current system involving millions of pages of laws covering depreciation, deductions, characterizing income etc.
We couldn't do this overnight. It would be way to disruptive. So we start by allowing people to create capital accounts while we started closing loopholes and tax benefits in existing law. The capital account would make investing vastly simpler and more efficient so over time investments would migrate into the capital account system. Eventually we could abolish the old system without causing massive disruption in the economy.
This is not an idea that will be an easy sell in Washington. It will take a long term, broad based effort by citizens to raise the idea to a level of credibility that a politician who values his job will be willing to sponsor it.
In generall all the proposal's I have heard don't really address the basic underlying flaw I see in the tax system that makes it so complex and convoluted. In the 100 years since the income tax was reinstated (it had existed briefly during the time around the Civil War) the entire system has been based on drawing a distinction between invested capital and income from labor. The theory is you don't want to tax capital because it can be invested to create jobs and wealth.
The distinction is false to begin with because it looks backward to focus on where money came from rather than looking forward to see what the money is actually being used for in. So a wealthy guy with lots of Capital gain can use $500,000 of his wealth for personal living expenses and pay 14% tax on that money, while a person who makes $500,000 in a year by working really hard and long hours is taxed at something like 30% or more on the full amount the income, even though he may invest $300,000 of it.
So in fact our tax system sometimes punishes money being used for investment and rewards the personal consumption of converting investment to personal use.
What if we changed the whole underlying assumption of the tax law, allowed people to create capital accounts, and any money going into a capital account, or generated by the capital account, has no tax consequences? Only money that comes out of the account for personal use is taxed, and it is taxed just like any other income that goes to personal expenses. We target the tax benefit exactly on money being used for investment to reward investment and wealth creation, and target the tax on money used for personal expenses to cover the costs of government.
There could be minimal complexity with maintaining the capital account. All the government would care about is when money goes to personal expenses. As long as you keep pouring the income from the investment back into investment you don't have to engage in complex tax accounting. There would have to be some rules to control the tendency of taxpayers to try to cover personal expenses with transactions in the capital account to avoid taxes, but that would be vastly simpler than the current system involving millions of pages of laws covering depreciation, deductions, characterizing income etc.
We couldn't do this overnight. It would be way to disruptive. So we start by allowing people to create capital accounts while we started closing loopholes and tax benefits in existing law. The capital account would make investing vastly simpler and more efficient so over time investments would migrate into the capital account system. Eventually we could abolish the old system without causing massive disruption in the economy.
This is not an idea that will be an easy sell in Washington. It will take a long term, broad based effort by citizens to raise the idea to a level of credibility that a politician who values his job will be willing to sponsor it.
Saturday, December 15, 2012
California as the Bellweather of Republican Irrelevance
For my entire life I have heard constant talk about how what's hot in California will be the norm everywhere else in a few years. Whether that is broadly true across the spectrum of human activities is doubtful, but California certainly is a pop culture leader. It has also been the leader in politics.
The anti-tax revolution started in California with Propsition 13 in 1978, then was picked up by Conservatives across the country. California had Republican Governors from the early 1980's until the late 1990's and Republicans dominated the legislature. Nationally domination of Congress began the the mid-1990's.
Both in California and nationally the Republican movement was marked by an absolute certainty they were right about all things, a disdain for ideas not their orthodoxy, and an unwillingness to compromise.
In California the movement began to collapse when they backed draconian immigration laws in the Mid-1990's and was accelerated by their inflexible ideological approach that gridlocked the legislature for years. The obtructionist tactics of the Republicans fired up their base but over time aliented non-ideological voters. Republican influence has gradually shrunk to the point that every state wide office is held by a Democrat and the Democrats have super majorities in both legislative houses.
Nationally the Republican decline appears to have begun with the collapse of the economy in 2008 after years of dominating government. They had a short revival in 2010, but their obstructionist tactics over the following 2 years have pushed more and more voters away from them, even as it fired up the true believers.
I imagine they are taking comfort from the fact they still hold the majority in the House, but I saw a statistic the other day that lumping together all the votes in all house races Democrats actually got half a million more votes than Republicans. The only reason Republican's have a majority is because they gerrymandered so many districts to create protected havens for themselves.
I think the masterminds of the Republican party, the Rupert Murdoch, Karl Rove and the like, have trapped the party in a spiral of obstructionist behavior that will continue to alienate voters and push them toward California style irrelevance.
The country would be better off if we had a rational and pragmatic Republican party, but I don't see anyone wresting control of the party from the manipulators at the top any time soon.
The anti-tax revolution started in California with Propsition 13 in 1978, then was picked up by Conservatives across the country. California had Republican Governors from the early 1980's until the late 1990's and Republicans dominated the legislature. Nationally domination of Congress began the the mid-1990's.
Both in California and nationally the Republican movement was marked by an absolute certainty they were right about all things, a disdain for ideas not their orthodoxy, and an unwillingness to compromise.
In California the movement began to collapse when they backed draconian immigration laws in the Mid-1990's and was accelerated by their inflexible ideological approach that gridlocked the legislature for years. The obtructionist tactics of the Republicans fired up their base but over time aliented non-ideological voters. Republican influence has gradually shrunk to the point that every state wide office is held by a Democrat and the Democrats have super majorities in both legislative houses.
Nationally the Republican decline appears to have begun with the collapse of the economy in 2008 after years of dominating government. They had a short revival in 2010, but their obstructionist tactics over the following 2 years have pushed more and more voters away from them, even as it fired up the true believers.
I imagine they are taking comfort from the fact they still hold the majority in the House, but I saw a statistic the other day that lumping together all the votes in all house races Democrats actually got half a million more votes than Republicans. The only reason Republican's have a majority is because they gerrymandered so many districts to create protected havens for themselves.
I think the masterminds of the Republican party, the Rupert Murdoch, Karl Rove and the like, have trapped the party in a spiral of obstructionist behavior that will continue to alienate voters and push them toward California style irrelevance.
The country would be better off if we had a rational and pragmatic Republican party, but I don't see anyone wresting control of the party from the manipulators at the top any time soon.
Wednesday, December 12, 2012
How to Control Public Sector Compensation
Politicians will never be able to effectively control public sector compensation in a democracy, since public employee organizations will always be much more involved than the average taxpayer. Public sector compensation needs to be controlled by constitutional provisions that provide an automatic limitation to keep Government from overly burdening the private sector.
Every Jurisdiction authorized to impose taxes should be required to either:
1. Adopt an ordinance explicitly linking public employee compensation to average private sector compensation within the jurisdiction, or
2. Submit an audited report at least once every five years to the public comparing average private sector compensation within the jurisdiction with average public sector compensation (mean, median and mode).
Maximum compensation in every jurisdiction should be the amount paid to the highest elected official in the jurisdiction.
Public employees should be catagorized in two catagories:
1. Career public servants who's compensation level is linked directly to private sector compensation within the jurisdiction.
2. Learning experience positions paid at or near minimum wage. Every citizen in the jurisdiction is entitled to such a position for a period of up to 1 year, after one year they can continue in the position but the longer they are in such position, the more controls on their behavior they must accept.
Every Jurisdiction authorized to impose taxes should be required to either:
1. Adopt an ordinance explicitly linking public employee compensation to average private sector compensation within the jurisdiction, or
2. Submit an audited report at least once every five years to the public comparing average private sector compensation within the jurisdiction with average public sector compensation (mean, median and mode).
Maximum compensation in every jurisdiction should be the amount paid to the highest elected official in the jurisdiction.
Public employees should be catagorized in two catagories:
1. Career public servants who's compensation level is linked directly to private sector compensation within the jurisdiction.
2. Learning experience positions paid at or near minimum wage. Every citizen in the jurisdiction is entitled to such a position for a period of up to 1 year, after one year they can continue in the position but the longer they are in such position, the more controls on their behavior they must accept.
Sunday, December 9, 2012
Defense spending - The Public Must Lead the Politicians
In the aftermath of the election Washington has settled into the same partisan gridlock that marked the last couple years. The relative power of Democrats and Republicans has shifted, Democrats may push through some modest tax increases on rich folks but likely without really addressing the problem that created our fiscal imbalance.
The fundemental problem is defense spending. The deficit exists because we spend enormous amounts of money on defense but are not willing to impose the taxes to pay for it.
Republican's caused the problem with tax cuts coupled with increases in defense spending by both President Reagan and President Bush II. The economy blowing up after the Bush II years was just the icing on the cake.
But Democrats are afraid to confront the problem. They fear being painted as weak on defense, so in fact often go meekly along with increases in defense spending.
Democrats need to suck it up and start engaging the public on what purpose our massive defense spending serves. We spend, per taxpayer, 4 to 5 times more on defense than taxpayers of any country other than Isreal and a couple of tiny belligerent dictatorships in the third world. It is not because we live in a dangerous neighborhood (like Isreal), most of those we perceive to be potential enemies are half a world away. Much of our defense spending is on maintaining the ability to fight two wars on the other side of the world. Why do we need the capability to fight wars on the other side of the world? To protect our economic interests around the world. We aren't the worlds cop, we don't step in when genocide is going on, we step in when our economic interests are threatened.
Osama Bin Ladin didn't send terrorists to bomb a synagogue or a church, he went after the World Trade Center as his primary target, and the Pentagon as his secondary target. The building that represents our economic interests around the world and the brain of the military that protects those interests.
I don't really have a problem with us having overwhelming military superiority, I do have a problem paying extra to protect private investments around the world, when the wealthy folk that own those investments and are making lots of money have been paying less and less to support our defense spending even as our spending increased.
The Democrats need to ask themselves, would the average voting taxpayer, if he/she understood who was financing our military and who was benefiting, really have a problem with someone standing up to talk about the folks that benefit from our military paying a fair share for that benefit?
But this is an issue, like gay marriage, serious career politicians won't touch with a 10 foot pole. Two many vested interests with the money and lawyers to bury their political careers.
If we want to really solve the deficit the public needs to lead the politicians into serious discussion about what we want our Military to do and who should pay for it.
The fundemental problem is defense spending. The deficit exists because we spend enormous amounts of money on defense but are not willing to impose the taxes to pay for it.
Republican's caused the problem with tax cuts coupled with increases in defense spending by both President Reagan and President Bush II. The economy blowing up after the Bush II years was just the icing on the cake.
But Democrats are afraid to confront the problem. They fear being painted as weak on defense, so in fact often go meekly along with increases in defense spending.
Democrats need to suck it up and start engaging the public on what purpose our massive defense spending serves. We spend, per taxpayer, 4 to 5 times more on defense than taxpayers of any country other than Isreal and a couple of tiny belligerent dictatorships in the third world. It is not because we live in a dangerous neighborhood (like Isreal), most of those we perceive to be potential enemies are half a world away. Much of our defense spending is on maintaining the ability to fight two wars on the other side of the world. Why do we need the capability to fight wars on the other side of the world? To protect our economic interests around the world. We aren't the worlds cop, we don't step in when genocide is going on, we step in when our economic interests are threatened.
Osama Bin Ladin didn't send terrorists to bomb a synagogue or a church, he went after the World Trade Center as his primary target, and the Pentagon as his secondary target. The building that represents our economic interests around the world and the brain of the military that protects those interests.
I don't really have a problem with us having overwhelming military superiority, I do have a problem paying extra to protect private investments around the world, when the wealthy folk that own those investments and are making lots of money have been paying less and less to support our defense spending even as our spending increased.
The Democrats need to ask themselves, would the average voting taxpayer, if he/she understood who was financing our military and who was benefiting, really have a problem with someone standing up to talk about the folks that benefit from our military paying a fair share for that benefit?
But this is an issue, like gay marriage, serious career politicians won't touch with a 10 foot pole. Two many vested interests with the money and lawyers to bury their political careers.
If we want to really solve the deficit the public needs to lead the politicians into serious discussion about what we want our Military to do and who should pay for it.
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