Archive for the ‘Conservatism’ Category

On Debt and the Scope of Government

Tuesday, September 11th, 2012

A Response to William McKenzie of the Dallas Morning Nees

McKenzie wants us to focus on the $16 trillion federal debt ( “Let’s make right-sizing government the goal”). First, remember that the United States has never been out of debt. We came close in 1835. The historical trend from the beginning of the Revolutionary War to the present has been a growing debt. The size of the national government has been growing since the adoption of the Articles of Confederation. In fact, the adoption of the Constitution was a significant growth in federal government.[1]

So, let’s talk about debt in terms of presidential periods, remembering that fiscal policy involves Congress as well as presidents. I will also begin with Wilson because that era first saw a billion dollar debt. The Wilson era saw a 722% increase in the national debt, largely attributable to WWI. The last two years, as we demobilized the debt was actually reduced. That reduction continued under Coolidge (-14%) and Harding (-17%) and into the first two years of Hoover. Those debt reductions ended with the beginning of the Great Depression; the Hoover years saw the national debt increase 33%, accumulated after the 1929 crash.

Roosevelt (whom McKenzie mentions) saw the biggest debt run up – a whopping 1,048%. Some of that was the New Deal attempt to end the Great Depression; most of it was the cost of WWII – which big, deficit spending most economists agree ended the Great Depression. Yes, you can spend your way out of a depression.

Truman saw the deficits fall dramatically and even surpluses that reduced the national debt in 1947, 1948 and 1951. This era saw an increase in the national debt by 3%.

Eisenhower was the last president who saw a reduction in the national debt in 1956 and 1957, but in the entire period the debt rose 9%.

Kennedy/Johnson saw the debt rise by 22% — partly due to Great Society programs and the Vietnam War.

Nixon/Ford saw the debt rise by 98% — partly due to the Vietnam War and sharply rising inflation in Nixon’s second term.

Carter saw the debt rise 43% as inflation continued.

Reagan saw the debt rise by 186%; G.H.W. Bush by 54%.

Clinton saw the debt rise by 32%. In 2000 it rose less than 1%.

G.W. Bush saw the debt rise 105%, attributed to the tax cuts of 2001 and 2003, the prescription drug program and the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. The sharpest rises occurred in the last two fiscal years – 11% and 18%.

The first full full year of Obama’s presidency saw the increase fall to 14%.

I can only conclude that since the days of Truman, Democratic presidents have seen more fiscal restraint than Republicans. Truman 3%, Kennedy/Johnson 9%, Carter 98% and Clinton 32% compared to Eisenhower 9%, Nixon/Ford 22%, Reagan 186%, G.H.W. Bush 54% and G.W. Bush 105%.

But absolute debt isn’t a particularly useful number. If you are considering taking out a mortgage (i.e. increasing debt) to by a $500,000 house, there is a difference if your income is $50,000 or $500,000. All else being equal, the debt load for the higher income is less than for the lower. The closest comparison is national debt as a percentage of Gross Domestic Product, which serves and an indicator of the ability of the nation to service the debt.[2]

At the end of Fiscal Year 1946 the national debt stood at 121% of the GDP. That is the highest I have found going back to 1900. That debt represents the debt accumulated by the U.S. government during the Great Depression and WWII. In 1981 it had fallen to 32% of GDP. Remember this is not a reduction in the dollar amount of the national debt — that had risen by $79 billion.

Beginning with FY 1982 we see the debt as a percentage of GDP rising every year except for FYs 1996 through 2001. Thus from Truman through Carter, the trend was for the debt to GDP ratio to fall; and from Reagan through Obama, except during the Clinton years, for the debt to GDP ratio to rise.

It is generally said that the fiscal policies of the federal government during WWII created the modern middle class. That may be an exaggeration, but it is certainly true that the size of the middle class grew in those years. The debates in the early postwar period were whether or not that middle class could be sustained in a postwar economy. The remarkable thing is that it was, and it grew. Certainly things like the G.I. Bill contributed to that. Returning veterans were often the first in their families to get a college education and become “white collar professionals” instead of “blue collar laborers.” Veterans could obtain ownership of homes, cars, refrigerators, TVs, etc.

We also see in that postwar period an increase in median income and, in fact proportional increases for low, middle and high income groups. Virtually all Americans were enjoying increased prosperity. That phenomenon does seem to have slowed some in the 1970s. But beginning in the 1980s we saw something new (or rather more like what we had seen in the 1920s and even the 1890s. High income groups saw their income soar, middle income workers saw their incomes stagnate, and low income workers saw their incomes fall. The result was a radically changed income disparity and wealth disparity. Many economists do not believe this bodes well for the future. The economic precedents (e.g., 1920s and 1890s) suggest grave dangers.

Finally, I would close with an observation. I suspect that the management of the Dallas Morning News, when considering going into debt to obtain a new press will weigh both its ability to service the resulting debt and the potential increase in profit resulting from the more efficient press. It would seem to me sensible that such factors enter into the discussion when discussing federal fiscal policy. As mentioned earlier, federal investment in education (via the G.I. Bill) resulted in increased productivity and prosperity for the American people. And, although it increased debt, it more than increased the capacity of the government to service that debt and also increased government revenues. Many, many other examples of this could be cited such as the government guarantee of home loans to returning veterans in the G.I. Bill, the construction of the interstate highway system begun by Eisenhower, rural electrification and so forth. It can similarly be argued that government investment in the health of the American people is such an activity, since there can be no doubt that healthy workers are more productive than unhealthy workers.

 

[1] “Historical Debt Outsanding” In the discussion that follows I have begun the “Presidential Eras” with the first full fiscal year of their term – typically beginning in September – through the fiscal year that ends in the first year of the next president. While that may bias somewhat, I would argue that the roughly u.5 months that overlaps is more a consequence of the predecessor than the incumbent.

[2] “Revenue as Percent of GDP” I’m using the GDP figures here and the previously cited debt figures.

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Book Review: Corporate Takeover of America

Thursday, May 10th, 2012

Winner-Take-All Politics: How Washington Made the Rich Richer — And Turned Its Back on the Middle Class by Jacob S. Hacker & Paul Pierson

As Will Rogers famously said, “I am not a member of any organized party — I am a Democrat.”

Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson detail how the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers organized business interests to block progressive legislation in the 70s. This involved both the long affinity between corporate America and the Republican Party and intensive lobbying efforts to dissuade moderate Democrats from voting for progressive legislation in the Senate during the Carter administration.

The first part of the book outlines the contrast between the American economic and political scene after World War II and the 70s with the scene in the past 30 years. Most of this material repeats what has been shown in study after study. The authors counter the usual explanations of the change in a CSI detective style, showing that such things as education and technology do not explain the concentration of power and wealth that has occurred.

What has happened, according to Hacker and Paul Pierson  is the strengthen organization of corporate America led by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers and the weakening of organizations which represented a broad spectrum of middle America. The authors describe how the Chamber of Commerce and National Association of Manufacturers successfully lobbied to block labor laws and business regulations during the Carter administration when progressives thought that a Democratic President, Senate and House would enhance regulation of environment and work and product safety as well as eliminate impediments to labor organizations. They also describe how corporate America has transformed the Democratic Party from a pro-working class party to a pro-business party, albeit perhaps not quite as pro-business as the Republicans.

Part of the reason for corporate success in Washington is attributed to the decline in participation in labor unions and a variety of middle American organizations including the Veterans of Foreign Wars and service clubs such as Lions, Shriners and Rotary clubs all of which did provide middle America with a more unified voice in the 1940-60s.

The authors also detail the fact that, at least in the late 1970s it wasn’t necessary for the corporate interests to enact new “business-friendly” legislation or to repeal older legislation; all that was necessary was to block passage of progressive legislation. We have seen this strategy repeated both during the Clinton administration which was unable to get health care reform passed. Doing nothing was all that the health care segments required. We have also seen it in 2009 — the Republicans do not need to pass anything for corporate America. All they have to do — and they have been very successful in this — is to block progressive legislation either by threat of filibuster in the Senate, or in committee, or in the 112th Congress the House. And, in either case, we have minority rule.

Hacker and Pierson do not go into great detail about the role of corporate America money in political campaigns. For that side of the story you should read Republic, Lost: How Money Corrupts Congress — and a Plan to Stop It by Lawrence Lessig.

The authors conclude the book with a conclusion “Beating Winner-Take-All” which I must confess is rather disappointing. Having identified the problem as being the effective political organization of corporate America to oppose progressive legislation and even to roll back progressive laws, Hacker and Pierson focus more on the difficulties of getting the tens of millions of middle Americans organized to oppose the corporate takeover of the political system of America. The opposition will require that middle Americans once again organize themselves to speak in Washington — and I might add in their state capitals.

I recommend this book for those who want to have a better understanding of the American political scene today.

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Four Books to Read before November

Friday, May 4th, 2012

Forty-forty: Eras of American Political and Economic History.

Recent American political and economic history can be conveniently divided into two forty year periods: 1933-1972 (from FDR’s first term through Nixon’s first term) and 1973-2012 (Nixon’s second term through Obama’s first). The first period covers a spectacular recovery from the Great Depression dominated progressives of the Democratic Party. It was an era of an improving standard of living for all Americans and of an unprecedented absence of economic crisis. The second period is an era of economic stagnation, wildly widening income discrepancy and repeated booms and ever worsening busts, the latest of which still depresses the American economy, especially for low and middle income workers. What happened?

Winner-Take-All Politics: How Washington Made the Rich Richer — And Turned Its Back on the Middle Class by Jacob S. Hacker & Paul Pierson

This book briefly describes the economic contrast between Richistan and Broadland, two mythical countries, one of which sees the concentration of wealth in the hands of a few and the other in which economic growth is shared by all. Our second era is represented by Richistan, while Broadland is more like our first era. How did this happen? The authors use a CSI analogy to ferret out the causes, dealing effectively with the arguments for rapidly growing income and wealth disparity. They conclude that the “criminal” is government.

But how was the government transformed from a moderately progressive democratic institution to a regressive institution representing wealth? The authors provide a good historical analysis of how, at the end of our first era and beginning of the second, the American political parties came to be owned by corporate America rather than the people. This section of the book is worth the price of the book. We see the huge increase in lobbying, campaign contributions, political action committees and propaganda mills posing as think tanks in the 1970s and 1980s.

Republic, Lost: How Money Corrupts Congress — and a Plan to Stop It by Lawrence Lessig 

Lessig explains in depressing detail how money corrupts our Congress. Although dealing specifically with congressional campaign finance, it is applicable to state politics and presidential campaigns. He argues that quid quo pro bribery is actually very rare, but the need for congressmen to raise large sums of money to pay for campaigns makes them dependent on their contributors rather than on the people alone. He also details the problem created by the “revolving door” by which government officials move from the private sector and back — often to very substantial incomes — is part of the problem. Less helpful are his suggestion on how to fight this corruption, although some of his arguments have merit. The main problem is getting reform through Congress (and legislatures) dependent on corporate campaign cash.

End This Depression Now! by Paul Krugman

We know how to end this depression but our political leaders lack the will to do so. Lessons learned from the Great Depression, the New Deal, World War II, and the postwar economy in America show the way. Paul Krugman traces the causes of the current financial crises, not as an attempt to fix blame (there is plenty to go around), but so we can understand why it happened and what can be done about it. These lessons are also learned from other nations that have experienced similar conditions in the late 20th century. The reasons recovery has been so slow is that the stimulus was too little, too brief and in some cases misdirected.

The shift of focus on the deficits and debt misdirects our attention from what must be done. At the end of World War II, the national debt was 120% of Gross Domestic Product. It “fell” to about 60% by 1964, not because we had budget surpluses and paid down the debt, but because the economy grew significantly. The dollar amount of the debt had actually increased. The debt as a percentage of GDP did begin to grow in the 1970s, but did not really take off until the 1980s and following.

The slow recovery does aggravate the debt because revenues are suppressed and expenses increased. Government spending increases aggregate demand which creates jobs — which increases the GDP and revenues and reduces expenditures for unemployment compensation, nutrition programs, medicaid, housing assistance, etc. That in turn reduces both the deficits and the debt as a percentage of GDP. Prolonging the recession will have costly long term effects. Long term unemployment makes it more difficult for older workers to reenter the labor market at previous levels, much less at levels they would have achieved if employment had been continuous. Even more dire is the fact that the recession is retarding young workers entering the labor market which will have a negative effect throughout their lifetimes.

Krugman offers a way to bring the current economy up to speed and refutes the arguments of the naysayers.

The Predator State: How Conservatives Abandoned the Free Market and Why Liberals Should Too by James K. Galbraith

Galbraith provides economic data on income and wealth disparity in a readable manner. The major problem with “free trade” is that business really does not want it. What the corporate lobby has done in the past 40 years is to “unlevel” the playing board to benefit large corporate profit.

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On the Enumerated Powers of the Federal Government

Thursday, March 29th, 2012

The “enumerated powers” argument always strikes me as somewhat dubious. It seems that the argument treats the first and last paragraph of Article I, Section 8, as fluff and what intervenes as the meat and potatoes of Congressional powers. I seriously doubt that the authors saw it that way. I also doubt that the anti-federalists in 1787-8 saw it that way.

The very first power in that opening paragraph specifies the power of Congress to levy and collect taxes. That power is nowhere mentioned in the subsequent enumeration. Note also that this paragraph also places a limitation on the taxing power that was subsequently modified by the 16th Amendment.  (There is another in Section 9.) If the “general Welfare of the United States” is a “fluff” preface to the more specific and limited powers that follow, then surely the power to tax, to pay debts and to provide for the common defense is also “fluff.”

But the clauses that follow, which is what is usually meant by “enumerated powers” seen as limiting Congress to those specific items, have a history. Shortly before the Philadelphia Convention of 1787 convened, James Madison drew up a list entitled Vices of the Political System of the United States. This list enumerates specific deficiencies which had appeared under the Articles of Confederation between 1781 when the Articles were ratified and in force and 1787 when the convention that drafted the Constitution met. The convention was convened specifically to deal with “problems” that had arisen under the Articles. Madison’s list is a fairly detailed listing of those problems. The clauses that appear between “but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States” and “To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers” track those “vices” Madison listed fairly closely. In other words, in these clauses (and some elsewhere) the convention was addressing specific issues, albeit in a fairly general way, known to exist in 1787.

It seems rather odd to suggest that the framers of the constitution intended that only issues known to them in 1787 were subject to Congress’s power to address. I believe the sounder argument is that the framers intended for Congress, through the representative processes subject to election by the people, to be able to address taxation, the common defense and the general welfare of the United States as new issues in the republic arose. They were smart enough to know that issues would arise which they had not foreseen in writing Article I, Section 8, that must be addressed by the Congress.

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Eliminate the Income Tax?

Sunday, March 18th, 2012

In the course of a discussion with a supporter of Ron Paul, it was stated that we should eliminate the federal income tax. I pointed out that this was a campaign to destroy the United States of America because there is no way for the national government to pay its bills without the income tax. To this I received the response that would be a good thing because then the national government would be constrained to the powers enumerated in the Constitution. That is not a reasonable response. Here is why.

In 2010 the total revenues of the United States Treasury were $2.2 trillion dollars. Of that 42% or $924 billion was from individual income taxes, 40% or $880 billion was from payroll taxes, $198 billion was from corporate income taxes, 3% or $66 billion was from excises and  6% or $132 billion was from other sources. If you eliminate individual and corporate income taxes and payroll taxes, which are a dedicated tax on income, the government revenues fall to $198 billion.

If you take the very narrow definition of constitutional enumerated powers to exclude the general welfare and a restrictive interpretation of the commerce clause advocated by many on the right, you have some government expenses remaining, specifically:

  • Defense at $847.2 billion,
  • Interest at $196.2 billion,
  • Protection at $54.4 billion, and
  • General government at $24.7 billion

Or a constitutional expense of $1,122.5 billion – and a deficit of -$1,077.5 billion. That is almost the kind of deficits we are currently running. If we require a balanced budget, as do many on the right, we would have enough to pay the interest on the national debt with $1.8 billion left over for defense, protection (e.g., Homeland Security and border control), and general government (i.e., the executive, legislative and judicial branches of government).

Notice that this involves a default on the national debt in the form the termination of all current and future Social Security and Medicare benefits. That’s even without the balanced budget amendment!

It also would result in the termination of all federal grants to state and local governments for a wide range of things including health and human services, education, and transportation.

It would also eliminate all federal disaster relief for hurricanes, tornados, floods, fires, drought, and earthquakes.

Eliminated would be any subsidy to farmers and businesses. Cuts in subsidies to oil companies would drive up the cost of gasoline.

Maintenance of national parks would end. The Constitution says nothing about national parks. It would end payments in lieu of taxes on federal properties to states and local communities. For that matter, it makes no mention of the purchase of land from foreign nations. Were the Louisiana, Gadsden and Alaska purchases constitutional?

The income tax was agreed to by three quarters of the states in 1913 and by every state admitted to the Union since. It was agreed to because we, the people, recognized that duties, imposts and excises were insufficient to pay the costs of government a century ago. An income tax was first proposed in 1812 to pay for the costs of that war. The United States actually found the income tax necessary in 1861 to pay the expense of the national government. It was subsequently ruled by the Supreme Court to violate Article I, Section 9, which eventually lead to the 16th Amendment.

The United States has changed dramatically since the Constitution was first written in 1787. It has grown from a nation of around 3 million to nearly 400 million, from an area of less than 900 thousand square miles to over  3.5 million square miles. It has changed from a rural, agricultural society to an urban industrial and technological society. People are much more mobile now than then. The 50 states are far more interdependent and interrelated than the original 13, partly due to the success of the Constitution and national government promoting interstate commerce.

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An Unintended Experiment in Education

Friday, December 9th, 2011

Southeast of Dallas there is the small town and school district of Forney. During the housing boom of the mid 00s, the town experienced phenomenal growth–something on the order of 25% to 35% annually.  The school population wasn’t growing quite as rapidly as the town because it includes a lot of rural area outside the city limits. But still it was growing at a double digit percentage every year. That meant that the school district was what Texas calls a “fast growth district.”

Texas accommodates fast growth districts by allowing them to estimate each year before the school year begins what their attendance will be. The state then funds that estimate, providing money for operations and building. If the district does not realize its forecast, then the state will call for a refund of the resulting surplus. The expectation is that the district will place the surplus in a reserve account, pending the state’s request for reimbursement.

For Forney ISD this was working exactly as intended by the state. But then came the recession and housing bust that began during the 2007-8 year. The town’s growth came to a screeching halt. When estimating growth for the 2008-9 school year and each year after, the school district made a serious mistake. It submitted its estimates based on the previous rapid growth which was no longer occurring. So they found themselves receiving millions of surplus state funding. Then they compounded that mistake with another–instead of putting the surplus in reserve accounts, they spent it.

They did not waste it on fluff. They used the building funds to build additional classrooms. They used the operational funds to hire additional teachers and to buy instructional equipment to be used by students to learn. In other words they spent educational money to educate children. True enough, they should not have done that. But they did it; hence the unintended experiment in education.

By hiring additional teachers, they reduced class sizes housed in the additional classrooms. With the reduced class sizes teachers could give more individual attention to students. It was also possible to introduce tutoring for those students experiencing difficulty. Equipment used by the students also promoted their learning.

The result? When the district was actually growing and there were no surplus funds, the district was rated “Accepted” by the state. That is essentially a grade of “C.” O.K., but not great. Passing, but you won’t get into Harvard, Yale, Texas University or Texas A&M with a grade of C. During the period of time when they were over funded and spent those surplus state dollars educating children the district rose in the state ratings–to “Recognized.” That’s a “B” instead of a “C.” But wait. Then they rose to a state rating of “Exemplary”–that is an “A.”

The argument that we should be “throwing money at schools” is nonsense. Yes, it is possible for schools to engage in wasteful spending on things that do not promote student learning. But when dollars are spent educating students, student outcomes do improve. Increasing those kinds of dollars increases student outcomes.

We’ve always known this. “Property rich districts”–that is those whose school property tax raises significant amounts of money per student–do tax and do spend more money educating students. The people in the district know it. Home values increase as real estate agents promote sales in a district with outstanding schools. People move into the district because schools are better, even though they may face a higher school tax bill.

Those parents who can afford to do so often pay big dollars to send their children to private schools. One of the reasons for this is that the classes are smaller and the students receive more individual attention. Private school advertise this fact.

The Forney experience, albeit unintended and now costly as they try to figure out how to return tens of millions of dollars to the state, does show that money is one factor that improves the quality of education. Withholding and reducing funding does not improve education. Yes, we must be sure that the funding is used to improve instruction and student outcomes. But that does not happen without an investment in our schools and future.

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Ruminations of a Septugenarian: Part Six

Saturday, November 12th, 2011

Today I’m ranting about today’s news. The business section of the Dallas Morning News reports that Texas Instruments (TI) is cutting 350 jobs. Reading the article this is a result of “synergies” resulting from a $6.5 billion dollar purchase of National Semiconductor Corp. I’m sure that this makes sense for TI and its stockholders. It probably makes sense to TI employees, but not those 350 employees of National Semiconductor. The article mentions that TI will employ 35,000 workers, including 5,300 former National Semiconductor employees. So the cut is quite small (1%) given total employment.

But reading this, I see yet another reason why the Republican contention that taxing corporations and wealthy individuals “cost jobs” and that it is corporations and wealthy individuals who “create jobs.” What in fact happened in this case is that a $6.5 billion in expended corporate assets resulted in the loss of 350 jobs. That’s not a lot in the greater scheme of things, but it still is a negative in terms of getting America back to work. But it is symptomatic of the problem with the Republican argument.

What economists know is that substantial wealth and assets are not being plowed back into the American economy. Much of the couple of trillion dollars in corporate accounts will be used not to create jobs, but to underwrite corporate acquisitions and mergers. Even in the best of cases such acquisitions and mergers do not create jobs, they have the opposite effect–they destroy jobs due to “synergies.” In the worst cases, the “winner” of an acquisition or merger pumps the assets of the victim and then dump it. Generally speaking acquisitions and mergers do not “create” wealth or jobs; innovation is more likely to create wealth and jobs.

Don’t get me wrong. TI is a company with a long history of innovation. Among its pioneering firsts was the transistor and the integrated circuit. It still designs innovative analog and digital devices found everywhere from cell phones to automobiles, from TVs to washing machines. But acquiring National Semiconductor isn’t innovation.

The news did not say how many of those 35,000 TI employees were in the United States. I know that TI has shut down plants in the U.S. and moved operations to Thailand and other countries. That is another problem with the Republican argument. If American Widget moves its plant from the U.S. to Indonesia, it may mean more employment in Indonesia, but less employment in the U.S. When Boeing moves a plant from Washington to South Carolina it may not result in a net loss of American jobs, but it does result in better compensated union jobs going away and being replaced by lower compensated non-union jobs. That is a net loss the the American economy; it tends to exchange middle income workers with low income workers and lower the median standard of living AND to increase income to Boeing executives and stockholders.

The evidence over the past 30 years is that low taxes for corporations and the wealthy do not create jobs. If they did, then we would not have 8+% unemployment in the U.S. “Discretionary dollars” for corporations and wealthy individuals does not go to innovative investments that create jobs. It goes for domestic acquisitions and mergers which destroy jobs. But even worse, it goes to various forms of foreign speculation and investment–like moving a plant from the U.S. to a foreign country. It involves playing games with speculation in foreign currencies.

Let’s consider and example that is also in the news. The Italian government faces a debt crisis. Earlier this week Italian government bonds were getting 7+% interest. The Italian government introduced austerity measures which resulted in the interest on their bonds dropping about 1%. Yes, those bonds are still risky. But they also draw wealth from the U.S. to Italy. Currently U.S. Treasuries are going for about 3%. My bond mutual fund is drawing a bit less. Now if you are wealthy enough to afford to gamble, the return on those Italian bonds is far better than on American bonds. And, of course, for the wealthy, those earnings are not taxed at 35%, they are taxed at 15% or not at all if one leaves those profits in foreign banks. One of the things that is worrying U.S. bank regulators is how heavily invested in those Greek and Italian bonds are American banks–either directly or indirectly through holdings in French and German banks. The regulators acknowledge that should Italy default on its bonds, it would impact American banks and our economy.

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Ruminations of a Septuagenarian: Part Five

Friday, November 11th, 2011

Today I went to the Carrollton Senior Center where I led the New Horizons Band of Dallas in a Veterans Day concert. The program began with the Pledge of Allegiance. I’ll confess, I botched it. I learned it one way when I was a child during World War II. It was changed when I was 16; I’ve never really mastered the change–the “under God” part. Not that I disagree with the notion; as a Christian I believe we are “under God,” as is every nation of the world.

What does the “under God” entail? Is it some sort of abstraction which has no bearing on our national polity. The particular “brand” of Christianity to which I adhere holds that both the Old and New Testaments teach a morality which we are obligated to follow. That includes the Old Testament prophets who spoke against those who accumulated great riches at the expense of the poor and the wheeling and dealing of the rich and powerful. They also taught we are to welcome the stranger in our midst. And it includes the New Testament which reports Jesus as teaching that the rich have the obligation to feed the hungry, shelter the homeless, care for the widow and orphan and heal the sick. He taught we should “render unto Caesar” the taxes which were due the government. Isn’t this what it means for a nation to be “under God?”

The pledge also refers to “one nation … indivisible.” It does not speak of some sort of loose “confederation” of “sovereign states.” Nor does it admit to secession of states from the Union. Nor does it endorse the divisive partisanship which poisons our polity these days.

“With liberty and justice for all.” No just for the “successful,” but all. If you are unemployed, you are not free. If you are struggling to keep a roof over your head, food on the table and clothes on your back, you are not free. If you are unemployed, your are not free. But the pledge is for “liberty … for all,” not just a privileged few–or even a privileged majority!

And this is not just. It is not just for the laborer to toil for a minimum wage which qualifies as poverty while the CEO “earns” 400 times as much from the fruit of the laborer’s labor. It is not just for a “common thief” to draw a long prison sentence for stealing a few hundred dollars which the corporation steals millions and faces at most a minor fine if caught.

If we are going to say the Pledge of Allegiance, then let us take the words seriously.

Post Script: When I looked up the date for the change in the Pledge which I mentioned above, I learned something. The Pledge of Allegiance was originally written by–gasp–A SOCIALIST! How about that, Tea Party!! Did you know you were reciting a socialist credo?

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Ruminations of a Septuagenarian: Part 1

Sunday, November 6th, 2011

I have been reading Ron Suskind’s Confidence Men: Wall Street, Washington, and the Education of a President and it started me ruminating on the decline of morals and ethics in the United States in my lifetime. Elders have, of course, complained about such declines forever. They complained in Athens in the days of Socrates. (He was one of the culprits.) They complained in Rome in the days of Augustus. It is one of the sacred prerogatives of elders.

Where to begin? I was born in 1937, so I have no real memories of the Great Depression. I’ve heard tales from my elders and learned more from the study of history and reading American literature dealing with the period. I’ve even watched televised idealizations of the era like Little House on the Prairie.

My first memory is of a Sunday afternoon and hearing the radio broadcast being interrupted to announce the bombing of Pearl Harbor. So my early memories often have to do with World War II.

My dad was in his forties, superintendent of schools, husband, father of two young boys and thus exempt from military service. He took on additional patriotic duties: air raid warden and a night shift at a local defense manufacturer. But we all were involved in the war effort in one way or another. Things were rationed: tires and gasoline. We drove the Nash that dad had bought the year I was born. (Good grief, we had that thing until I was in Junior High!) Sugar was rationed, so I learned to drink unsweetened ice tea; I still detest sweetened ice tea. I still have some of my shoe rationing stamps. For some reason butter was hard to get. Margarine was the substitute. It was white and came in a bag with a button of yellow dye. You massaged the bag to color the margarine so it looked a bit like butter. It didn’t affect me, but silk was unavailable (needed to make parachutes we were told). So women had to make do with nylon hose.

There were other things I wasn’t aware of, but have since learned. There were wage and price controls to prevent inflation and price gouging. The federal government’s spending involved huge deficits and debt–a greater percentage of the GDP than we have now. The top marginal tax rates were upwards of 90%.

I remember war bonds and for children war stamps that could be saved for the purchase of war bonds. we salvaged tin cans and tooth paste tubes to be recycled for the war effort. There was a victory garden in the backyard.

I bring all this up to contrast how we approached the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Except for the volunteers serving in the military, no one was asked to make any sacrifice. God forbid that a tax would be levied to pay for the war. Good grief, even LBJ had a tax surcharge tacked on our federal taxes to pay for the Vietnam War. In Iraq and Afghanistan “contractors” have gouged us out of billions for shoddy, wasteful “work”–some of which was never done.

Eventually these “chickens” will come home to roost. Over a trillion dollars of the national debt we complain about today is a direct result of those wars–and the cost of those wars will continue for decades after we finally are done with them.

That’s enough for today. Never fear, though. There is more to come. Stay tuned.

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Pseudo-Conservatives

Sunday, September 18th, 2011

Much of what the pseudo-conservatives advocate is the overthrow of programs we, the people, have established over the past 78 years that formed the American middle income workers. There is nothing “conservative” about it. It is a radical program to overthrow unions, public schools, Social Security, Medicare, the social safety net and to concentrate wealth and power in the hands of 400 of the super-rich.

If it is a call to return to the “values” of the Founding Fathers, then we would see demands for a much smaller military. The Founding Fathers feared a large standing army. Nor were they inclined to be meddling in the affairs of foreign countries–much less engaging in preemptive military attacks on foreign countries. They did not seek to establish military bases around the world.

If it is a call to return to the “values” of the Founding Fathers, then we would have open borders. There were no restrictions on immigration from 1788 to 1882. Anyone wishing to come to the United States simply could come, no questions asked. The immigration laws simply provided that those who did come could, after a period of years could apply for citizenship provided they had been law abiding residents.
The Founding Fathers did involve the new national government in public education. One of the things that happened that summer was negotiations between the Philadelphia Convention and the Continental Congress then sitting in New York City. That resulted in the Northwest Ordinance, which set aside public lands for public schools. Furthermore, ever since the Civil War, the national government has enacted laws supporting public schools due to the large number of men during every major war who were not suitable for military service because of educational deficiencies. Many education bills over a century and a half have cited the national defense as the constitutional justification for federal action.

What is totally missing from the U.S. Constitution is anything dealing with a federal power to regulate family values.

It is to be remembered that prior to 1788, the United States was, in point of fact, a loose confederacy of sovereign states. Yes, the national “government” was “small”. Yes, it’s taxes were low (it couldn’t collect taxes); but its debt was huge for the time (that’s what happens when a government has low taxes). It didn’t work. It was a mess. It made commerce a nightmare. There was a real danger of civil war. There were, in fact, armed uprisings. That is why the Founding Fathers met in Philadelphia in the summer of 1787 to “form a more perfect union”–a NATIONAL government whose laws were to be “the supreme law of the land” to which all state officials had to swear to be bound to support.

 

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