I've written before about how much I love taxes, and consider it a central patriotic duty to pay them in full. So I won't bore y'all with that. My beef this time is with his justification, one that's repeated parrot-like by everyone who supports his perspective. It is:
"Well, companies and families are having to cut back. So should the government!"
No, no, and no. And you're an idiot. And no. See, the budgets for families and companies are spent on those individual families and companies. The budget for government is spent on the whole society. That makes for a very, very different animal.
So if a company tightens its belt, it might mean cutting travel expenses. It may even mean laying off employees. If a family tightens its belt, it might mean fewer vacations, or maybe laying off a few kids. Not good stuff, surely, but still, restricted to just those entities.
But if a government tightens its belt, it could mean cutting essential services to all sorts of people, usually the most needy ones, and creating a devastating effect that may not be felt right away but slowly creeps through the society like a virus. The government doesn't exist solely to support itself financially (at least, not a functional government). The government exists to support the whole society financially. Telling the government that it needs to cut expenses isn't just getting tough on the government -- it's also punishing the whole society, often the most vulnerable elements of it to a disproportiate degree. It's cutting your nose to spite your face.
In bad times, the opposite has to take place. Governments have to take in the big picture, to counteract the negative economic trends, and become the spender of last resort when no one else is spending. Obama knows this, and is weathering the firestorm from people who say "Hey! How come you get to spend money when I don't? Spending is bad nowadays -- I saw it the 'Today Show' and everything!" But Pawlenty would rather throw anvils on the economy's sinking ship by forcing the government to spend less too.
(And yes, I know that the comparison isn't entirely fair, since Pawlenty has to balance the budget by law, while Obama is free to spend like a crazy person. But I submit that allowing just a wee boost in taxes to the upper-middle class and wealthy is not going to affect their spending much, not going to force them all to move to Florida or something as many conservatives claim (a lot of people enjoy living in Minnesota, believe it or don't), and meanwhile will tide us through this downturn and maintain a solid foundation for future prosperity. But now back to the regularly scheduled argument. Man, this might be my longest parenthetical statement ever! Let's just sit back for a moment enjoy the feeling of being in parentheses. It's quieter here, more peaceful. It's an exclusive club, only for those truly dedicated to reading pointless tirades. Welcome, friends. Sit, enjoy, and love.)
Of course, I grant you, governments can have plenty of unnecessary services that aren't really benefitting society much at all. Those can and should go. But good luck finding them at this point. Keep in mind that this country has been dominated by this "government is wasteful" philosophy for how long now? Since Reagan? And in that time, politicians have had every incentive to pander by cutting stuff and every incentive to not raise taxes. I've looked carefully through all that the government does nowadays, and I don't think there's much left to cut. Our Minnesota governor is discovering the same thing, apparently, but is still happy to cut the necessary services.
And if you're still convinced that our government is too big, I ask you: compared to what? Take a gander at every other highly developed nation. All their governments are much larger than ours. All enjoy a high standard of living, clean drinking water, relatively low crime rates, healthy people with reliable health services, food that you can basically trust to not kill you, streets full of fliers for phone-sex services, sullen and spoiled teenagers, abundant flocks of hairdressers, and buildings! Oh, the buildings! Point is, the big-government countries of Europe and elsewhere all tend to be pretty safe, happy, well-functioning places, and I don't think that is a coincidence.
Meanwhile, where do you find small governments that provide few services? Places like Burkina Faso. We don't want to be Burkina Faso, trust me. Despite their hilariously named capital city (Ougadougou), it's not a nation of people giggling all day at silly-sounding words. They actually have loads of problems with basic things like finding drinking water that we don't have to worry about.
I love government, in case you couldn't tell. I think our government is the major factor that makes us a successful, developed nation. Our government made and is making the long-term investments that make a society great, from highway systems to higher education. Most Americans seem to think our country has been such a great success because Americans are just so darn special. Bullshit. We're full of the people that the rest of the world threw away. We've been successful because the structures set up by our government and legal system struck the right balance between encouraging business innovation while also checking and balancing the excesses of capitalism.
And, most importantly, our government invests in the things that are vital to the economy, but that no business would ever see as a wise investment. Government does the long-term stuff that that brings benefits to a whole range of people but can't easily measured in dollars and cents. Businesses prefer short-term investments that benefit only themselves and are very easily measured in dollars and cents. Cutting jobs is the kind of thing that boosts your stock prices, not investing in education. (A related issue that I'll resist going into: How stock markets incentivize businesses to pursue short-term gains instead of, and often in the expense of, their own long-term interests. Quick version of my opinion on this: Grrr.)
Maybe an example is in order. Take K-12 education. No business in its right mind would pay for some random kid's kindergarten at a Catholic school (unless of course, they were trying to look like they're all a bunch of nice folks). That's not likely to be an investment that will pay off -- it's unlikely that kid will come to work for that company. As for families, few have the money to pay for Catholic school.
But if the government pays for that kid's education, then that kid will go to work somewhere, and the investment in the kid's education will be paid back to the society tenfold. Imagine if the government didn't do that - then the kid would be a moron. Morons are bad for the economy.
See, I'm not someone who likes putting government services in terms of compassion or it being "the right thing to do." Fuck poor people's feelings -- to me, they're an investment. If you give the poor enough services to climb out of poverty and have fulfilling lives, they contribute to the economy, and lift up everyone's boats just a little bit. If you don't, they may turn to crime to survive. That sinks everyone's boats a little bit.
Government does so many things for us that we take for granted. Enjoy driving on highways? Thank the government. Enjoy not getting botulism when you drink milk (as happened regularly in the days before the regulation of food)? The government is waiting for a thank you card. Enjoy having police and firemen and the legal system and the military and etc. etc. etc? You're welcome, says Uncle Sam.
In fact, I think almost every recent major failure in our economy is rooted in taking the government for granted, and then cutting funds to regulatory agencies or just failing to regulate sanely from the beginning. Among many people in this country, there is an unbounded faith in the invisible hand of the markets being able to only do good. But lately, the invisible hand has slapped us on our invisible asses so often that I'm thinking maybe we shouldn't give it quite so much free reign. It's good in some places, bad in others. It's all about continually making adjustments to strike the right balance.
And this gets us to the boogeyman of "socialism" that conservatives are getting their panties in a bunch over. Hey dummies, we already have socialism. Social Security is socialism. It redistributes wealth to the elderly. Education is socialism. It's redistributing wealth in favor of kids. And kids don't even contribute anything to the economy! Why are they getting such big handouts? They could at least put a few hours in at the coal mines to pay for it, am I right, Hannity?
Capitalism without any socialist structures means the raw, brutal, unfettered capitalism of the Gilded Age, when a few people wiped their asses with $100 bills and everyone else lived in shacks on starvation wages. But on the other hand, raw, brutal, unfettered socialism (odd turn of phrase there) equals the USSR, where no one but the government is motivated to do jack shit. That's no good either. It's not a battle of capitalism vs. socialism -- it's actually both. We have to continually work to find the right combination of the two.
And to be clear, I think capitalism is ideal for a lot of aspects of society, perhaps a majority of them. Capitalism is the only way to make good computers, food, twelve-inch dildos, etc. Regulation, the threat of lawsuits, and occasional government intervention are all necessary checks and balances on the extreme and damaging stuff that can sometimes come out of a pure profit motive, but on the whole, profit motives can be good and productive things.
But capitalism doesn't work for everything. It doesn't work for firemen -- imagine if you had to pay firemen a fee each month or they wouldn't come to your house when it's burning (which is how it actually did work in the 1800s). Capitalism is also not great for education, as I mentioned before (though it could be carefully infused in education, I think -- I like the idea of charter schools competing for students). I personally don't think capitalism works for health care (this is a whole 'nother post, but did you ever think about how backwards it is that health insurance companies have all their incentives pointing toward NOT providing their services to their customers? They make more money when they find creative ways to give their claimants less. That's a fundamentally warped system. Imagine if an orange farmer took a monthly fee from his customers, and then only provided oranges when people sent in forms saying that they were starting to get scurvy. The orange farmers who made the most money would be the ones who said "But do you really need three oranges? I don't care what your doctor says -- we only cover two per month for brown-haired people with large feet. Oh wait, you had pre-existing scurvy because you didn't have the money to have an orange plan for a long time? Oh well, then we can't help you, bye!")
Well, I went far afield of the original topic, but oh well. There are such fundamental differences between my perspective and those of the small-government freaks that it takes a lot of explaining.
10 comments:
Nice try, but no dildo ads. Curiously, lots of dating ads, however.
Give it time. The dildo ads will be there. Have faith.
Couple of thoughts. First, it was my understanding that companies and families are having to cut back. So should the government. That only makes sense. If companies and families are having to cut back, then shouldn't the government? Especially what with companies and families having to cut back. It's only fair.
Second, did you know that there are private fire companies. Here in San Diego, where 75% of the county is liable to burst into flames at any point in time, rich people decided that in order to save their ecologically inappropriately sited houses, they'd pay money for special fire protection. So next time there's a big brush fire, and your house is on fire, and you're not super rich, then you might just hear those firetruck sirens wail right past you on their way to hang out in front of someone's house that isn't on fire yet. So that brings back the nostalgia of the nineteenth century, doesn't it?
Thirdly, any advice for California, budget-wise? And this goes for any of the legions of readers out there. The Governator's planning to close 80% of our state parks, eliminate health care for like everyone, and sell San Quentin and the L.A. Coliseum. Some people are trying to build up outrage, but for the most part, people are like, well, we're so messed up, what's he supposed to do? So any ideas would help. I'll forward them to Arnold.
Lastly, and I don't know if you've thought about this Ed, but as far as Pawlenty's plan is concerned, I think he wants government to cut back because companies and families are having to cut back. Therefore, government should also be cutting back. Cut 'em back, is what I say. The ol' cut-back. The backing of the cutting, is what's called for in times like these. Especially when the cuts are having to back the cuts. Back!
Ed, to be fair to the Ouagadougouians, the itty-bitty governments(I'm really glad you mentioned the gentle serenity of parenthetical statements. I have always felt restfully calm when I'm in the midst of parentheses. Especially long ones (preferably with additional nested parentheses), but really, even simple number ones, like this, (1) and (2), are nice.) probably would work fairly well if the itty-bitty taxes didn't get automatically portioned into big jars labeled, "For my leather couch" and "for my Air Jordans" and "for my war boat" (be they land-locked or not).
Joe, don't the Californians know that there is gold in them there hills?
For California: Stop with all the referenda. Wipe them all off the books. I know it seems great in theory, but you can theorize in one hand and crap in the other and see which piles up first. Or something like that -- point is, the referenda made a system where they can't pass a budget without a 2/3 majority and can't cut certain areas of the budget and can't raise taxes -- basically, Californians have made California impossible to govern. Sometimes governments have to make tough, unpopular decisions just to keep things afloat, but the Californian government is not allowed to make any of them because the people have already disallowed them all. Maybe you just need smarter Californians, I don't know.
As to Ougadougou -- yeah, they would definitely be better off without all the corruption and such, no doubt. But I still doubt they'd be able to do much with such a small government. Takes lots and lots of money to build a national infrastructure, I'm afraid.
Granted, the Ougadougouites don't have the option of a big government, because no one has any money to contribute to one. But if they weren't so corrupt, they could start building some key elements of infrastructure -- a few key roads, perhaps -- and slowly build from there. the road stimulate commerce, the commerce would mean more tax money, the tax money could mean more roads, etc. It would take a long time, but they could build a big government and an accompanying strong economy if they were smart about it.
My point, I guess, is that economic advancement can't happen without a growing government laying the track for it and policing it. Granted, there's a limit, but United States is far from that limit -- we need national single-payer health service, like every other developed nation has, for starters.
And if you think we already pay a lot in taxes, know that every other developed nation pays more. And imagine if you paid a little more for a national non-profit health service, but that meant you, and your company, never had to pay for health insurance again. I think you'd come out ahead. Companies would definitely come out ahead.
The problem with the referenda isn't only that Californians are dumb, but that there isn't an "or" section on the ballot. The ballot reads something like this: do you want a high speed train ? (yes. awesome) Do you want to give more money to kids? (yes. i love kids) Do you want to give money to grow more flowers? (of course! flowers are beautiful) Do you want to stop paying taxes? (yes! I love money) Then before you know it, we just voted to spends a bizzilion dollars and give money to everyone possible (except homosexuals). Or like stupid proposition 13 where the people of california smartly voted to (A) have the stupid 2/3 majority to raise taxes and (B) not to ever raise property taxes on a person's house. So now there are all these people living in million dollar houses, paying the property tax on a house of $50,000, and California is ranked number 49 out of 50 on the amount of money (based on value) collected in property tax (and 47th in education. This might not be a coincidence). Admittedly, property tax goes to the county, but still. Apparently this also applies to businesses, so businesses that have been around a while (like Disneyland) pay really low property tax, while new businesses pay really high tax.
I was thinking about a new referendum on putting a stop to referendums.
It seems clear the referenda are the problem in California. I wonder what it would take to actually stop the referenda though. A politician couldn't start a campaign, because he or she would be accused of trying to take power away from the people (which would be good in this case, but still, bad from a PR perspective). It would take some citizen movement of people saying "Hell no, stop asking us to decide things!" But that also seems unlikely, as people very seldom give up power willingly. Can Obama declare martial law in California and just redo everything, maybe?
You know what? We're actually getting pretty close to the citizen revolt. That's why all the budget propositions in the last election failed. We were like, "Seriously, legislators, what do we pay you for? Enough already - just fix the budget, and let us know how it goes."
And everyone in Sacramento was all somber, and like, "Whoa. The People have sent us a message. This could be our last chance to get it right before the state falls apart." There was all kinds of talk of reform, up to and including rewriting the state constitution.
Of course, that was then. Now we're back to a week away from the state running out of cash and having to pay people with IOUs. They've sworn to keep the legislature in session until they come up with a budget, but I have a feeling that's just going to mean some sleepy state senators and still no budget.
Yeah, but that's like trying to overthrow a country by attacking the accountants. The people are basically saying "We reject all your solutions to fix the budget. Now go find some solutions to fix the budget! Geez! What have you guys been doing?" If anything, the citizens should revolt against themelves. They're at fault, not the politicians. The politicians are just the poor messengers who keep getting shot every time the king shoots himself in the foot. That metaphor went off the rails there, but you get the idea.
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