There it was again today. Someone berating the congress for “doing-nothing”, and it was put forward again that this is one of the reasons voters are unhappy with their representatives.
“The congress needs to get busy doing the “people’s work”” is a common refrain which aims to take advantage of voter ignorance of what that really means. What it DOESN’T mean is that the congress will be doing any “work” for us. They won’t be mowing our lawns, doing our laundry, or painting our houses. “Doing the people’s work” is a euphemism as foul as any ever uttered that they slid in there while no one was paying attention. What they have convinced voters it means is that the congress is standing up for their interests, but what it really means is that they are making more and more rules about what we the people can do, and can't. They are developing more and more new programs, bureaus, and departments that will grow and grow into the future, requiring ever increasing revenue streams that exist only in the minds of ivory tower economists and progressive ideologues.
Our do “something” congresses have spent us into a $22 T debt hole that our children’s children won’t see the end of. We should ALL be ashamed. And even more troubling than the monies we already owe, are the unfunded liabilities…. the monies that our elected representatives IN OUR NAMES have promised to pay in the future. Now 123 TRILLION DOLLARS.
These were not “Do-Nothing” congresses. No. These congresses were, indeed, doing the people’s work. And this is what we have to show for it.
But that’s just what an average guy thinks.
Sunday, March 9, 2014
Tuesday, February 4, 2014
Loss Of 2.3 Million Jobs Offers Welcome Choices To American Workers
Today the non partisan Congressional Budget Office released a report that said that because of the effects of the implementation of 0bamaCare 2.3 million jobs would be lost over the next ten years. Also today in the White House press briefing room the presidents chief economist Jason Furman was putting lipstick on this pig and claiming that it was a net positive because now families would have the chance to make choices. He even went so far as to pose what he must not have realized was such an absurd hypothetical that I almost fell out of my chair.
He said something like: suppose someone is working at a job 65 hours a week only because they need the employer provided health care benefit. NOW they will be able to work say….. 35 hours a week, collect a subsidy and still have “insurance”. Never mind of course that even though their premium payments will be subsidized, their co-pays at the doctor and pharmacy will be hiked up and their deductible is sure to increase.
But beyond that absurdity this attitude illustrates just how ignorant these government elitists are of what it’s like to work for, and actually earn a living. Even if you take as an example a semi-skilled worker earning $15/hr. Sixty five long hours of work would give you a gross monthly income of just over $4,900. Of course there are payroll taxes and your contribution to your health care, but that’s where you start from. At thirty five hours your gross pay for the month would drop to $2,220. What working person with responsibilities would voluntarily choose to take a 54% cut in pay? No one in the lower or middle class I can tell you that much for certain.
And what of battle against “income inequality”? Does this “choice” not cut this family’s income in half? Does this not increase income inequality rather than reduce it?
HELP!!! I’VE FALLEN OUT OF MY CHAIR…. AND I CAN’T GET UP!!!
But that's just what an average guy thinks
He said something like: suppose someone is working at a job 65 hours a week only because they need the employer provided health care benefit. NOW they will be able to work say….. 35 hours a week, collect a subsidy and still have “insurance”. Never mind of course that even though their premium payments will be subsidized, their co-pays at the doctor and pharmacy will be hiked up and their deductible is sure to increase.
But beyond that absurdity this attitude illustrates just how ignorant these government elitists are of what it’s like to work for, and actually earn a living. Even if you take as an example a semi-skilled worker earning $15/hr. Sixty five long hours of work would give you a gross monthly income of just over $4,900. Of course there are payroll taxes and your contribution to your health care, but that’s where you start from. At thirty five hours your gross pay for the month would drop to $2,220. What working person with responsibilities would voluntarily choose to take a 54% cut in pay? No one in the lower or middle class I can tell you that much for certain.
And what of battle against “income inequality”? Does this “choice” not cut this family’s income in half? Does this not increase income inequality rather than reduce it?
HELP!!! I’VE FALLEN OUT OF MY CHAIR…. AND I CAN’T GET UP!!!
But that's just what an average guy thinks
Friday, January 3, 2014
The Minimum Wage
Today, the minimum wage is mostly paid for entry level jobs that require no proven skills or practical job experience. If you’ve ever talked to an unemployed, job seeking recent high school graduate you know the familiar refrain: “They won’t hire me without experience, but how can I get experience if they won’t hire me”? Minimum wage laws are partly responsible for this lament. Employers are required to pay a specified “minimum” wage to new employees and so must ask for experience, skills, and proven maturity in return. If the minimum wage were lower, or if there were no minimum wage at all, employers could more easily afford to hire the unskilled entry level worker and provide “on the job” training and the valuable experience that younger workers all complain about not being able to acquire.
So let’s ask ourselves: Who actually benefits from the minimum wage?
In general, it’s safe to say that a minimum wage only directly benefits those who already have a job by adding marginally to their income. In the long term it’s a different story. The minimum wage worker has no care for what the minimum wage is in the long term, as they don’t, or shouldn't intend to stay minimally employed. As time passes they will gain job skills and habits that will increase their worth to an employer above whatever a minimum might be. But let’s look at an example of what could happen.
Fast food restaurants are a commodity business. They all buy the same raw materials from the same suppliers at marginally the same price. They live and die in the public square by brand acceptance, efficiency and volume. Now for arguments sake lets say that the minimum wage for fast food workers were doubled. All fast food restaurants would face the same increases, no one would have a cost advantage over the others, and so what’s the fuss? Everyone passes the cost increase through to the consumer and we all pay a little more. This is sort of the fun part where economics plays such a clearly understandable role. It’s a hard fact that the more something costs, the less of it people will want to buy. People will buy more cheeseburgers for $1.00 than they will for $5.00. Nothing complicated about that. So the result is that the higher minimum wage will result in fewer burgers sold which will mean less profit for the chain, which will make the stock price go down. Boo Hoo right? (Wall Street Bastards) But what then? Because there is less profit to be made, people with money to invest will invest less, and investment capital will decrease. Less investment capital will lead to fewer new stores being opened, fewer new products being introduced, fewer new jobs, and even less training. And here’s the fun part: Automated fast food front counter sales points. Just like the self check out at the grocery store, it lets business operators use ONE check out person to serve multiple lines. In the fast food environment some people in the industry just LOST their jobs. And future generations of teenagers will no longer have these as their summer jobs, their first work experience, their foray into the working world that might just inspire, and motivate them to become worth more than any minimum wage.
There are others who benefit of course. Politicians benefit because they get to posture as supporters of the working class. Unions get the same benefit even though their stated goals are to increase wages for the dues-paying “employed” which makes it less likely that the unskilled will be hired in the first place. And kind-hearted people everywhere get to imagine that they stand “four square” for uplifting the working poor.
So the answer to our question: Who benefits from the minimum wage is this. In the short term workers currently and temporarily employed in entry level jobs benefit. Politicians benefit. Union leaders benefit, and kind hearted people benefit. However, those who do NOT benefit include workers who lose their jobs or see their hours cut as companies try to maintain profitability, those who are never able to find a job due to their lack of skills and experience and those still in school who can find no part time job and begin to see that there may very well be no place for them in the labor market.
When thinking about public policy it is important to look closely at the likely result of those policies and pay less attention to how they sound, or how it makes us feel to support them.
Discussions about a minimum wage often turn adversarial and pit the poor downtrodden against cold hearted business owners, but this examples shows us that it’s not nearly as simple as that. Would that it were.
But that’s just what an average guy thinks.
Sunday, December 1, 2013
Comprehensive Immigration Reform
It is a logical position to oppose ANY compromise with progressives on fiscal matters that apply to additional government spending and tax increases. It is also logical to worry about the nation’s $1.x Trillion deficit which is of course the amount of money we spend as a nation each year in excess of what is collected in tax revenue. Each year it gets added to the national debt which now stands above $17 Trillion, which is in turn dwarfed by our unfunded liabilities (promises we have made to pay in the future) which now are approaching or exceed $120 Trillion ( It’s hard to keep up). Additional government spending and taxes simply takes money out of the private sector where it could find its most efficient use and puts it in the hands of government bureaucrats who first take out the government cut and then spend the rest on whatever THEY think would be best. The list of beneficiaries always seems to be topped by the “Friends Of The Party In Power Benevolent Association”. Funny how that seems to work. But back to fiscal compromise.
Fiscal compromise is one reason why the world economy is in the shape it’s in. For many decades the path to success in the U.S. congress was to “go along and get along”. You scratch my back, and I’ll scratch yours. The secret to a long career was to bring home the bacon for your constituents so that when election time rolled around there would be no room for an opponent to criticize. This was done by agreeing to help your colleagues take home their own bacon. We’ve all seen “Mr. Smith Goes To Washington”. We all know how it works, but we also know that there isn’t really a crooked politician out there with the sense of decency to put a gun to his or her head.
But what’s the harm? A Billion dollars here a Billion dollars there. The government spends a Billion dollars every two hours and fifteen minutes. Who’s going to miss another Billion? Only they don’t get spent in single Billions generally. Generally they get spent by the hundreds of Billions and not for one time purchases….. but ongoing programs that now have managers who have a personal interest in continuing and growing the expenditure. Did you ever hear of a federal bureaucrat who advocated for the dissolution of his or her department?
So the spending and debt go up and up and everything seems cool. Everyone seems to be having a good time, and then something unexpected happens: Unexpected, but predictable, AND predicted. A policy of increasingly easy home mortgage financing promoted and then aggressively pushed by the federal government created the “housing bubble” which finally burst and crashed the whole world economy.
Compromise reaches its frenzied climax during the assembly of “Omnibus”, and “Comprehensive” legislation.
Omnibus legislation is just a hodgepodge of measures that legislators didn’t have time to deal with or didn’t want to talk about openly and so they wait until the very end of the session and throw them all into one big “anthology of pork”. Everybody gets something. Sort of like the Christmas party at school, only at this party there isn’t any limit to the amount of money that can be spent. The bills will contain legitimate amendments to existing law and other bureaucratic necessities, but way back in the back, neatly tucked in between substantive matters there will be more fiscal hijinks than you can possibly imagine. All of the things that legislators would be embarrassed to stand and openly argue for, or support are here, and the reason they’re here is because it’s where everyone is allowed a pass for voting in favor of all of their colleague’s corruption. The bills are long, and hard to read. Who’s going to know? And if someone does find out next year, who’s going to care? It’s a win/win.
Comprehensive legislation at least has a stated purpose which is to take a large general problem which is the sum of several, or many related problems and solve them all in one fell swoop. A problem with comprehensive legislation is that it requires a fair measure of arrogance to believe that one fully understands all of the moving parts of a situation and how they interact with one another. Yesterday’s comprehensive legislation was the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. We’ll be digging our way out from under that pile of rubble for a long time. Another problem with this sort of legislation is that it allows the executive authority the option of non-enforcement of parts of the law it deems unnecessary.
Today’s comprehensive legislation is “Immigration Reform”, which is only one of the three major problems that it purports to solve, the other two being border security, and what to do with the 12 to 14 million immigrants who are already here illegally. Tied together, these three separate but interacting problems will generate another 1500 page monstrosity of a bill, the exact contents of which no one will know until the provisions begin to be selectively administered. It will not be an attempt to solve a pressing national problem, but a means to an end, that end being an open border policy and liberal dispensation of social benefits and Constitutional rights to extralegals. The attempt to combine the solution in one piece of legislation will result in at least one, and perhaps all three of the problems going unsolved and perhaps made even worse. And there will be the requisite lies. If you liked “If you like your plan, you can keep your plan” you’ll LOVE “this bill does not give blanket amnesty to 14 Million illegals”.
The solution to the immigration problem is simple and can be accomplished by separate action. First) Secure the border. Everyone else does it, including all of those industrialized nations progressives like to trot out when speaking about nationalized health care. Securing the borders is not a small thing, but we landed a man on the moon in 1969. We can secure the borders. And those attempting border violation need to be immediately deported to the country that they just came from, not given a bus ticket to the U.S. city of their choice, and released on their own recognizance pending a hearing in six months. Simple. Except smugglers of course. They can stay. In prison, and THEN deported.
Next) While the borders are being secured, we can be reforming the immigration system to efficiently handle the volumes of applicants expected, and establish a status for guest workers who have no intention or desire to becoming Americans. We, as a nation, have a right, and responsibility to know who is coming to and leaving our country.
And Finally) Deal with the 12 to 14 Million “extralegals” already in the country. Separately, the issue is just as simple as the other two. With the borders secure the problem practically solves itself. People live their lives and eventually die. People move away. If no more illegals arrive then the number present will decrease all by itself. In the mean time some legal status can be given. No logistically minded serious person suggests the involuntary deportation of 12 Million people. It won’t be necessary to establish a special PATHWAY to citizenship. Immigrants can apply for permanent resident status and then for citizenship, just as they always could have, and once they have satisfied the requirements they can stand in front of a judge, raise their right hand, and recite the pledge of allegiance.
In separate pieces of legislation these three steps are straight forward and simple to execute. Trying to connect them would create a sort of Rube Goldberg contraption with so many moving parts that it would from the outset become impossible to operate or maintain. Our continuing experience with Healthcare.gov should have red flags going up on every pole.
Comprehensive legislation of ANY kind is the enemy of average Americans.
But that’s just what an average guy thinks.
Fiscal compromise is one reason why the world economy is in the shape it’s in. For many decades the path to success in the U.S. congress was to “go along and get along”. You scratch my back, and I’ll scratch yours. The secret to a long career was to bring home the bacon for your constituents so that when election time rolled around there would be no room for an opponent to criticize. This was done by agreeing to help your colleagues take home their own bacon. We’ve all seen “Mr. Smith Goes To Washington”. We all know how it works, but we also know that there isn’t really a crooked politician out there with the sense of decency to put a gun to his or her head.
But what’s the harm? A Billion dollars here a Billion dollars there. The government spends a Billion dollars every two hours and fifteen minutes. Who’s going to miss another Billion? Only they don’t get spent in single Billions generally. Generally they get spent by the hundreds of Billions and not for one time purchases….. but ongoing programs that now have managers who have a personal interest in continuing and growing the expenditure. Did you ever hear of a federal bureaucrat who advocated for the dissolution of his or her department?
So the spending and debt go up and up and everything seems cool. Everyone seems to be having a good time, and then something unexpected happens: Unexpected, but predictable, AND predicted. A policy of increasingly easy home mortgage financing promoted and then aggressively pushed by the federal government created the “housing bubble” which finally burst and crashed the whole world economy.
Compromise reaches its frenzied climax during the assembly of “Omnibus”, and “Comprehensive” legislation.
Omnibus legislation is just a hodgepodge of measures that legislators didn’t have time to deal with or didn’t want to talk about openly and so they wait until the very end of the session and throw them all into one big “anthology of pork”. Everybody gets something. Sort of like the Christmas party at school, only at this party there isn’t any limit to the amount of money that can be spent. The bills will contain legitimate amendments to existing law and other bureaucratic necessities, but way back in the back, neatly tucked in between substantive matters there will be more fiscal hijinks than you can possibly imagine. All of the things that legislators would be embarrassed to stand and openly argue for, or support are here, and the reason they’re here is because it’s where everyone is allowed a pass for voting in favor of all of their colleague’s corruption. The bills are long, and hard to read. Who’s going to know? And if someone does find out next year, who’s going to care? It’s a win/win.
Comprehensive legislation at least has a stated purpose which is to take a large general problem which is the sum of several, or many related problems and solve them all in one fell swoop. A problem with comprehensive legislation is that it requires a fair measure of arrogance to believe that one fully understands all of the moving parts of a situation and how they interact with one another. Yesterday’s comprehensive legislation was the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. We’ll be digging our way out from under that pile of rubble for a long time. Another problem with this sort of legislation is that it allows the executive authority the option of non-enforcement of parts of the law it deems unnecessary.
Today’s comprehensive legislation is “Immigration Reform”, which is only one of the three major problems that it purports to solve, the other two being border security, and what to do with the 12 to 14 million immigrants who are already here illegally. Tied together, these three separate but interacting problems will generate another 1500 page monstrosity of a bill, the exact contents of which no one will know until the provisions begin to be selectively administered. It will not be an attempt to solve a pressing national problem, but a means to an end, that end being an open border policy and liberal dispensation of social benefits and Constitutional rights to extralegals. The attempt to combine the solution in one piece of legislation will result in at least one, and perhaps all three of the problems going unsolved and perhaps made even worse. And there will be the requisite lies. If you liked “If you like your plan, you can keep your plan” you’ll LOVE “this bill does not give blanket amnesty to 14 Million illegals”.
The solution to the immigration problem is simple and can be accomplished by separate action. First) Secure the border. Everyone else does it, including all of those industrialized nations progressives like to trot out when speaking about nationalized health care. Securing the borders is not a small thing, but we landed a man on the moon in 1969. We can secure the borders. And those attempting border violation need to be immediately deported to the country that they just came from, not given a bus ticket to the U.S. city of their choice, and released on their own recognizance pending a hearing in six months. Simple. Except smugglers of course. They can stay. In prison, and THEN deported.
Next) While the borders are being secured, we can be reforming the immigration system to efficiently handle the volumes of applicants expected, and establish a status for guest workers who have no intention or desire to becoming Americans. We, as a nation, have a right, and responsibility to know who is coming to and leaving our country.
And Finally) Deal with the 12 to 14 Million “extralegals” already in the country. Separately, the issue is just as simple as the other two. With the borders secure the problem practically solves itself. People live their lives and eventually die. People move away. If no more illegals arrive then the number present will decrease all by itself. In the mean time some legal status can be given. No logistically minded serious person suggests the involuntary deportation of 12 Million people. It won’t be necessary to establish a special PATHWAY to citizenship. Immigrants can apply for permanent resident status and then for citizenship, just as they always could have, and once they have satisfied the requirements they can stand in front of a judge, raise their right hand, and recite the pledge of allegiance.
In separate pieces of legislation these three steps are straight forward and simple to execute. Trying to connect them would create a sort of Rube Goldberg contraption with so many moving parts that it would from the outset become impossible to operate or maintain. Our continuing experience with Healthcare.gov should have red flags going up on every pole.
Comprehensive legislation of ANY kind is the enemy of average Americans.
But that’s just what an average guy thinks.
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