Unfunded Tax "Cuts": You will note that the I have the word “Cuts” in quotes. Why? To quote Milton Friedman, “When is a tax cut not a tax cut? When the so-called tax cut is accompanied by a larger rise in government spending than in prices.” In other words, all unfunded tax cuts — including these — are actually future tax increases on the next generation.
Perhaps emblematic of his entire presidency, now we have Bush staring into the abyss of yet another cavernous disaster created by his own inattention. And yet again, we have to endure his bleating like a schoolgirl while the adults scramble to assuage fears and pull us all back from the ledge.“If money isn’t loosened up, this sucker could go down,” President Bush declared Thursday as he watched the $700 billion bailout package fall apart before his eyes, according to one person in the room.“We’re in a serious economic crisis,” Mr. Bush told reporters as the meeting began shortly before 4 p.m. in the Cabinet Room..."
However reluctant I am to do this, I have to give Bush some credit when it's due. I bust his chops on such a regular basis that it is only proper to back him when he does the correct thing, even when it's for the wrong reasons. Pay attention, this doesn't happen very often.The latest controversy is about the S-Chip program (State Child Health Insurance Program). The bipartisan bill that came out of the House and passed by the Senate provides for health insurance through the federally funded Medicaid type program for lower income kids whose parents make too much money to be considered destitute. In fact, the cut-off as written in the bill provides for children living at 300% of the poverty line, in other words a family of four can have an adjusted gross income ( NOT gross income) of $61,950 for their kids to qualify for free health care. Bush is right, this is an outrageous use of a welfare program, but Bush is wrong to lie about the numbers and the express purpose of S-Chip. Why lie? The correct numbers are bad enough.
Let's run the tax bill, and since I'm not a tax accountant feel free to correct me. If a family of four has one wage-earner, say a father, earning $100,000 per year in gross income, he can put $15,000 into an employer sponsored 401(k) and other deductions, which leaves $85,000 in taxable income. Subtract the standard deduction for him and his family, according to this calculator, and he pays 15% of the adjusted gross income of $60,700, or $8,323. This guy with two kids and a six figure income pays less than 9% of his income in tax and gets health insurance for his kids. Is this not outrageous? Even if I'm off by 20%, which I'm sure I'm not, it's still outrageous. (In Michigan, the MiChild version of S-Chip relies on self-reported monthly income, which seems like an extremely lax eligibility test for such a generous benefit.)
A guy drags down $100K and a mere 8 Grand fulfills his entire obligation to our nation? This $8,300 supposedly covers his full share and that of his three dependents for necessities like national defense; federal regulatory agencies such as the SEC, FTC, FDA, FAA, etc; highways and aviation maintenance; national parks and monuments; enforcement of borders and interstate commerce; -- and he gets free health insurance for his kids to boot?
Whoa... I don't think so...
Is this even sustainable? I know that the program will supposedly be funded by murky ideas like a cigarette tax, and we all know how this will work. More families and employers will jigger their incomes in order to qualify for this unbelievably generous government benefit. My employer tells me it costs approximately $20,000 to provide health insurance for a family of four so the incentive to eliminate this cost is overwhelming. Less families will choose to have a second wage earners in order to stay under the income limit to qualify for S-Chip. More politicians will pander and demagogue the program to expand it, such as is done with all government programs, such as is exactly what this current expansion proposal is, thus leading to certainly increasing costs. And voila, we have a backdoor national health insurance for almost everyone's kids! Furthermore, less people will smoke, or at least less people will smoke taxable cigarettes as the gray market develops (Did you know a big bag of loose-leaf “roll your own” tobacco is not taxed?), so the projected funding will surely dry up for this ever-increasing, non-discretionary entitlement.
I'm all for nationalized health care; I am one of the few physicians I know who thinks that the time is way overdue to provide comprehensive care for all citizens. My objection to this specific expansion of S-Chip is that it is not comprehensive enough-- because it excludes folks like me-- and, more importantly, it has inadequate funding. I mean, come on, break me off a piece of this "free" health care plan stuff. Between Medicare, Medicaid and now S-Chip, the only schmucks actually paying premiums into the system appears to be dwindling. And let's be honest about how to pay for S-Chip expansion, or any expansion of government health coverage. The only appropriate plan would include a large payroll tax or, even better, a huge consumption tax on meat, fatty food, SUV's, ATV's, cigarettes, alcohol, women's make-up, baby food and formula, plastic surgery, men's hard-on drugs, hair coloring products, boats, leisure air travel, cell-phones, soft drinks, fast food, restaurants, diapers, and other dangerous or unnecessary indulgences to fund such an entitlement. This current plan only covers kids and then it lays none of the burden on the parents who are having these kids which they apparently cannot afford. The S-Chip program mandates no co-pays, no premiums, no limits to the number of kids covered. Do you want ten kids? Fine, we'll pay their health insurance for you! Furthermore, it's providing welfare-type benefits to families who hardly should qualify for welfare. The nanny state gone berserk.
Now I'll start my personal rant. My wife and I don't have kids-- by choice. We both work, and without dependent deductions (I wonder who made that rule), we pay gobs of income tax-- nearly ten times what my fictional father pays-- and we also willingly fork over a full share of property tax that educates all the urchins in the neighborhood and throughout the city. We patiently wait for the school buses every morning on our way to work, to which we go for the privilege of paying 40% of our gross income in tax, and cheerily support fund drives for basketball camps and drama clubs when the kids knock on our door to disturb our dinner hour. We tip the paper boy. We endure the screaming and hollering all summer, we surrender our city parks for boys baseball and girls soccer, and we clean up our yard from their dogs and cats. Tell me, do we really have to pay for their health insurance, too? Even the middle class kids?
Don't get me wrong, I think health care is great, and necessary, and very cost effective. I'm a firm believer in the ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure maxim. In fact, I've devoted my life and a couple decades of training to this principle. But if you either cannot or will not provide basic sustenance for your progeny, then how about this for a novel idea: use birth control. And if you're a legislator who wants to be big daddy doling out my hard-earned tax dollars, then be truthful as to how much it will cost and who will pay, and how you will push to expand it in the years ahead. Everyone has their breaking point and for families making six figure incomes getting S-Chip bennies, well, for me, that's a bridge too far. I can also tell you anecdotes of folks I know who make oodles of cash, but their kids have children on S-Chip in its current iteration. Grandchildren of millionaires on the dole. Although true, I realize that's just an uncorroborated anecdote, so I'll leave it at that.
In closing, while Bush was right to veto the S-Chip expansion bill, he is still a doofus. A president should lay arguments like these out in a coherent form and engage all the congress critters behind the scenes to tone down such entitlements into a workable form. That's his job. That will defuse the furor that is growing now about this vetoed program. Unfortunately, Bush has spent all his political capital on a criminal war and pay-offs to his industry cronies, and all but his most strident co-conspirators or delusional base have abandoned him.
Bush is the architect of one of the largest and most egregious expansions of entitlements in world history when he designed Medicare Part D boondoggle for big pharma, so he's not one to talk. Furthermore, Bush has flushed down three quarters of a trillion dollars and counting into the Iraq rat hole which has funded his buddies in the oil and war contracting industries, so he's definitely not one to talk. Where have all the real conservatives gone?
I see a tsunami of anti-Bush Democrats demagoging this S-Chip issue into office in 2008, and then we'll have to see what manner of entitlement expansion takes place. And it's entirely Bush's fault. As a presumed conservative, Bush has been responsible for the most massive waste of tax dollars in our history, and that is not what conservatives are elected to do. Not co-incidentally he is now likely ushering in a whole passel of non-compromisers who will eventually get this crappy S-Chip pandering bill either signed by a Democratic president or passed with a veto over-ride. In the grand drama, that's what liberals do-- and they will.
After I rant and spew electrons all over the internets, I realize that a choice has to be made. Do I side with the starry-eyed liberals who want to provide health care for only a select few, or do I side with Bush who has no idea why he vetoed the bill? Given the choices available, I guess I'll have to take the starry-eyed pandering liberals over the criminal idiocy of the murderous and delusional Republicans.
Hi ho. It's off to work I go.
Richard Cohen from the Washington Post feels he has come up with a new tag for George W. Bush and fleshes it out in Bush the Neoliberal. While Cohen goes on at some length summarizing how Bush is not conservative, he hardly makes the case that Bush's policies have anything to do with liberalism, neo or otherwise. Cohen recognizes that Bush's disrespect for civil liberties counts against any liberal laurels. He cites issues such as Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo, and I would add overseas CIA renditions and warrantless wiretaps, but still Cohen persists with his silly argument about Bush being some type of liberal.
Cohen seems to think that hiring Condi Rice, Harriett Miers, Alberto Gonzales and other minorities and women is the hallmark of liberalism by expanding the diversity quotient of the executive branch. Other Bushophiles I know have also thrown up Rice's status as a de rigeur proof of Bush's open-mindedness. Cohen continues his nauseating surmise:
You only have to listen to Bush talk about the virtues of immigration -- another liberal sentiment -- or his frequent mention of the "soft bigotry of low expectations" to appreciate that the president is a sentimental softie, what was once dismissively called a "mushy-headed liberal."
Cohen contrasts Bush's “compassion” with the “foreign policy realism” of Cheney, Rumsfeld, Bush's Dad and Brent Scowcroft. Cohen does admit that while Bush may have been altruistic in purpose in Iraq, his incompetence derailed his policies.
Francis Fukuyama, in his latest book America at the Crossroads, explained the differences between the various foreign policy schools: realism, Wilsonianism, neoconservativism and isolationism. I would like to proffer another school as exemplified by the Bush presidency:
Neo-Incompetentism. This is marked by a dizzying array of pointless policies that do nothing beneficial, are potentially harmful, but give the veneer of responsible government: the unfunded No Child Left Behind and Social Security privatization are prime examples. Other policies such as Homeland Security, while decent ideas at the outset, are mismanaged so adroitly that they serve no purpose other than to give false assurance of safety. The ports are not guarded, plane cargoes are not inspected and the borders are not secure. Another hallmark of Neo-Incompetentism is that government departments that have been functional in the past, such as FEMA and the CIA, are compromised to the point of criminality.
Bush's administration has little resemblance to anything like liberalism or conservativism. He is in a class by himself. Cynics would argue that his tuxedo-wearing base of supporters are the only beneficiaries of such wrong-headedness. Who benefits from oil at $65 per barrel? Whose political hacks replaced the recently fired US Attorneys? What price has the Bush family paid in the war on terror? How many of his kids have volunteered for the war that he has sold as the battle between horrendous evil and all that is holy?
Bush's appointments come from many ethnic groups and do look like America, but the one thing they have in common is their incompetence. Wolfowitz at the World Bank, Miers for the Supreme Court and Gonzales at Justice: all done in order to show disdain for the respective institutions and to reward political cronies. Appointments have nothing to do with finding an effective person for the given position, but rather they are made in order to prove a point, usually a silly point. John Bolton had no chance of accomplishing anything at the UN, but following Neo-Incompetent dogma, he was the right man “so send a message.” Condi Rice is the only Secretary of State in history to intimate that diplomacy is somehow counter-productive.
The crowning achievement of the George W. Bush's Neo-Incompetent administration is, of course, the Iraq war. Conceived on false assumptions, planned with wrong intelligence, prosecuted with faulty strategy, promulgated with shifting missions and ending with an occupation marked by a lack of insight towards the culture... this is the prototype for a Neo-Incompetent policy.
Cohen, in his article, agrees that Bush's legacy will have lasting negative effects:
But it is with Iraq that real and long-term damage has been done. For years to come, his war will be cited to smother any liberal impulse in American foreign policy -- to further discredit John F. Kennedy's vow to "pay any price, bear any burden . . . to assure the survival and the success of liberty." We shall revert to this thing called "realism," which is heartless and cynical, no matter what its other virtues. The debacle of Iraq has cost us -- and others -- plenty in lives. But in the end, it will cost us our soul as well.
Instead of quoting Kennedy and pining about the oncoming “heartless realism”, I think a quote from Abraham Lincoln is more appropriate: “You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time.” And if Cohen thinks that Bush is well-meaning and honest, then count him in the former group.
Or perhaps Richard Cohen can learn from Groucho Marx, who said, “The secret of life is honesty and fair dealing. If you can fake that, you've got it made.”
Now that's a lesson George W. Bush definitely got.
Keith Olbermann, in tonight's Special Comment, let the Democrats have it for caving to the president's petulance over the funding bill for the Iraq war. Bush vetoed the first bill with timelines, or “artificial timelines”, as GWB would call them. As KO said, King George “held his breath” like a spoiled child until he got a bill that he wanted, and Pelosi and Reid blinked. Let's take another point of view on this. If I were President Bush, I'd be more nervous now than ever. For a while there it looked like the Dems were going to take the responsibility for losing this war off Bush's shoulders. Congress de-funds the war, we pull the soldiers out of Iraq and Bush writes in his memoirs ("mim-warz") that the surge would have worked if only he had this one last chance... result: legacy salvaged (sort of).
Now, Bush is is in a tight spot. 200 more soldiers killed in the last 60 days, Baghdad is burning, the Iraqi Parliament has taken leave of its senses, the surge is being re-written into yet another new “new” strategy and... what ho!... the Congress has tossed the hot potato back into President's lap again.
This war is not going to end well, we all know that. The President had chosen in January the worst of all possible strategies. The only two reasonable choices were to go heavy or go home. Instead of mobilizing this nation once and for all, enacting a draft and instituting martial law in Iraq, pleading with allies, the UN and NATO to pitch in, Bush chose to dither away his fifth and final opportunity to salvage something from this mess. If he weren't going to “go heavy”, then he should have just pulled the troops out once and for all, and the world would live with the dire consequences, like Cambodia circa 1975. If the Commander won't choose to win, then he should at least choose to get the hell out.
One could argue that the Congress has the moral duty to end the river of US soldiers' blood after 4 years of extreme mismanagement by the Commander Guy. One could call on the Congress to end it now once and for all, you know, be the adult.
But sometimes the responsible parent has to give the kid some slack and allow him to make some mistakes. Like when you were in high school and you got drunk with your buddies and crashed grandpa's car. You have to go to court, plead your case, and then you have to get a job to pay for the bodywork on the old man's Polaris. Let Georgey work his way out of this pickle, Mommy and Daddy aren't going to take the heat for you.
Yes, the losers are the US soldiers who are encumbered to do that extra tour in Iraq. The losers are the US taxpayers who will pay back this war debt with interest, with hard-earned labor and reduced entitlements for the next two or three generations. The losers are the Iraqi people who have almost a million dead already, another million dead once we pull out, and 2 or 3 million refugees gone to distant lands. The loser is the civilized world who will deal with a radicalized Muslim Asia for at least one more generation. But those losses are realized already and another summer won't a big difference make. For the soldiers who will certainly die in the next few months... well, Keith speaks for them.
Olbermann let the Democrats have it with both barrels, and I know he has a valid point. Generalissimo Codpiece is not going to all-of-a-sudden morph into a war commander ala Napoleon-- unless of course you're referring to Leipzig. But the reality is that the Iraq war would continue through the summer regardless of the wording on the current funding bill. The Congress has agreed to pay for it only through the summer, and when September rolls around and the situation is just as bleak, because we all know it will be, then the Congress can step in and call the game. Enough. It's over. Bring home the troops now, George. Collect all your little toys and soldier men and put them away and come inside now to get ready for bed.
The person I'd least like to be tonight is George W. Bush. Today is the day he became the sole owner of the Iraq war, and he paid for it with his soul, and his eternal legacy.
Logging on to Google News today, these are the top six stories. Perhaps Google is a participant in the Great Liberal Media Conspiracy (TM).
Large anti-US rally held in Iraq
Iran 'closer to nuclear weapons'
Commentary: Immigration plan unites far right and far left
Gingrich urges Gonzales to quit
U.S. Senator calls for engaging Syria
New Book Shows Bleak Outlook for Iraq Because of US Mismanagement
Each of these stories is representative of some aspect of the Bush administration's rank incompetence on various issues: occupation, diplomacy and immigration. And this is a random sample on a given day.
I've been thinking about the old joke about the man going into the service station for directions and the man behind behind the counter says, “You can't get there from here.” Thus, I'll discuss Option 4. To form a free, peaceful and democratic society in Iraq the necessary components may be lacking. As House has wisely surmised, they would have stumbled on a democratic system by now if they were so inclined.
The US mission in Iraq has inexorably creeped from a search for Weapons of Mass Destruction into a nation-building exercise that was destined for failure from the outset. The military won a decided victory over Saddam's Republican Guard within days and US led inspection teams ruled out the expected stockpiles of biochemical weapons within a few weeks, and everyone knew that Iraq never had nuclear capabilities.
So now we are entrenched militarily in a region that is increasingly unstable and no discernible realistic goal has been put forth. A comprehensive solution would have entailed political, diplomatic and economic phases in addition to the military phase. Unfortunately (an appropriate term in reference to Iraq), the time to have begun the political, diplomatic and economic parts of the plan was either before or during the military phase. Can we expect our diplomatic allies to sign on to the mission now? Can we expect the warring factions within Iraq to come to the table for a political solution as was done in Dayton? Can we expect the economy of Iraq to be self-sufficient any time soon? Hardly on all three accounts.
Having said that, I'll present the plan put forth by Michael O'Hanlon (at right) and Edward Joseph from the Brookings Institution who are calling for a partition, or federalization, of Iraq as was done in the Balkans in the 1990's. Sen. Joe Biden (D-DE) and others have called for similar partition plans as well. Obviously, these regions are different enough to obviate direct correlations between their solutions. Also, the Iraq war has been so mismanaged for so long that the chances of a peaceful outcome are vanishingly small.
O'Hanlon recognizes that Iraq, like the Balkans, consists of distinct subregions dominated by ethnic and/or religious majorities. These subregions should be allowed to exist in semi-autonomous states with self-rule based on their unique characteristics. Unlike Bosnia, however, Iraq has an economy welded to the delivery of one thing-- oil-- and that for a successful economic plan, collusion among the sectarian factions in Iraq must take place to exploit the export of oil in order to benefit all the players. Without a political truce among the factions, the economy of Iraq will falter.
Unfortunately (yes that word is used a lot in relation to Iraq), the circumstances in Iraq have not ever been amenable to a peaceful coexistence between Shi'a, Sunni and Kurds. Only with a dictatorial ruler has there been enough order to keep the oil flowing. Scowcroft and Poppy Bush were wise enough to know that in 1991, thus they allowed Saddam to stay in power after Gulf War I. And if the machinations of full scale diplomatic, political, economic and military nation-building were to occur, the work necessary should have been done in advance and by an administration more competent than the current one. Failure was predetermined in 2003.
O'Hanlon, however, believes that we could attempt a political solution even at this late date by bringing the major players together, Shi'a, Sunni and Kurd, for a summit to iron out differences and come to some accord, as was done in Dayton. So far, however, no inkling of such a gambit has ever been put forth. Furthermore, strong militia leaders such Moqtada al-Sadr and perhaps even al Qaeda leaders would demand to be at the table, which of course would be a nonstarter and could kybosh any deal. Sadr's militia reportedly numbers 60,000 and is fully armed.
In order to increase the slim chance of lasting success for O'Hanlon's political plan, a diplomatic phase would need to be instituted among our allies which would necessarily include UN, NATO and especially Arab states such as Egypt, Turkey, Jordan and Saudi Arabia. Having a true multinational force in place to keep the peace for the long haul would do wonders to instill a sense stability and commitment to the educated moderate citizens in the region. Unfortunately (there's that word again), many of the educated and productive moderate Iraqis have left in the continuing refugee migration of 1000 people per day. This brain drain will have lasting negative consequences on the social development of Iraq for generations to come. And with Great Britain reducing their presence to 4500 from 7000, chances of increasing an allied presence in the Iraq quagmire is zero.
My point in the previous discussion of Option III was that if, as Bush is determined to do, we are to entertain a purely military solution to Iraq, and ignore our allies' opinions, and pay for it by ourselves, then we had better have a big freakin' army. Only by having a huge overwhelming military presence to institute martial law for perhaps a decade can we have any hope of making up for the deficiencies of the political, economic and diplomatic parts of the plan. And nobody would be able to guarantee that even then we would be successful. In short, the 21,500 planned by Bush is way too little and way too late.
I admit that going through these perverse mental gymnastics is pointless. Bush will do what Bush will do as Decider-in-Chief, and it will likely make no rational sense. To speak of “solutions” in Iraq is specious. I'm also safe in that there is no way I will be proven wrong since Bush is unlikely to engage in the heavy lifting needed to institute anything so sensible as a comprehensive plan as Clinton had done in Bosnia, and the American people are wise enough to eschew any military draft for Bush in Iraq.
