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A Great Government is What Makes America Great
25
February
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“My fellow citizens, never forget: We are Americans. And like my dad said years ago, Americans can do anything.” (Jindal, 2/24/09)

What makes America great?  Is it the greatness of Americans?  Is it some special LOST-island-like quality about the land we inhabit?  Or is it our values and their expression in our system of government?  While geography, natural resources, and immigration have most certainly affected our history (often for the better), what makes America great is that we are a nation of laws, not of men, where values are institutionalized in the government; chief among them is freedom.

Freedom is more than just freedom to…  It’s also freedom from…  Freedom from constant fear about personal safety or random acts of violence; freedom from oppressive search and seizure; freedom from crippling exogenous, uncontrollable financial ruin; and freedom of access to lifesaving health care.

“Republicans believe in a simple principle: No American should have to worry about losing their health care coverage, period. We stand for universal access to affordable health care coverage.” (Jindal, 2/24/09)

Really?  Just as long as it doesn’t involve a government guarantee??  I think this depends on what your definition of “universal access” is.  If by “universal access” you mean that anyone who can afford to pay for it can get access, then you do not mean “universal”.  If you mean by “universal access” that you can get lifesaving care, but you’ll end up losing your house in the mountain of resulting debt, then you do not mean “freedom of access”.

“What we oppose is universal government-run health care. Health care decisions should be made by doctors and patients, not by government bureaucrats.” (Jindal, 2/24/09)

Again, what this really means is that health care decisions should be made by doctors, patients, and for-profit insurance companies trying to spend as little on your treatment as possible.  This, again, is a false freedom.  The freedom to have someone make a profit-based decision about your health is far less free than a government bureaucracy being involved.  The freedom of a doctor is limited by the profit motives of an insurance company.

Reject false dichotomies between freedom and government involvement!  Freedoms are guaranteed by the government, empowered by the people.  Your freedom of speech is inalienable but enforced by the government.  The free market is built upon government security, government provided stability, government issued currency, government enforced contracts, etc.  Your freedom to drink tap water without fear is secured by a government agency.

Instead of complaining about ineffective government, work to make government better.  You have the freedom to make and keep America great.

Category: All Posts, Politics  Tags: , ,  Comments off
Don’t Believe the Bad Faith Economics!
27
January
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Nobel Prize winning economist Paul Krugman has an Op-Ed piece at the New York Times that you really should read right now.

But if you don’t, here’s the takeaway message:

  • People are lying about how much the Obama stimulus plan costs per new job created.  You can’t take a multi-year investment and divide it by the number of new jobs created in just one year of the plan to get the cost per job.  To do so is dishonest and/or ignorant.
  • No economist* believes that a dollar of tax cuts is more stimulating than a dollar of government expenditure unless they have a political motive.  (See Spending Multiplier Statistics).  If anyone is telling you that a dollar of tax cuts stimulates the economy more than a dollar of direct spending, you should count that person as either lying to you or speaking out of ignorance.
  • Finally, ignore anyone who says we ought to use monetary policy rather than fiscal policy (that is control the money supply rather than mess with government spending or tax structures).  Ordinarily this isn’t a dishonest argument.  What someone who argues this doesn’t realize is that we have already exhausted our monetary policy toolbox.  The interest rates the Fed controls are effectively at zero.  They can’t make them negative.  There’s no more stretch left in that elastic.

To summarize the summary: don’t believe the undisputedly false arguments being made against the spending stimulus plan being made only for ideological reasons.

Something not mentioned in the article that I think should be is that this spending-stimulus plan is an investment in our crumbling infrastructure.  If we just cut taxes, after 2 years we’d be left with debt and nothing to show for it.  If we spend on shovel-ready infrastructure programs (which abound and are not frivolous), we’ll be left with debt and a 21st century infrastructure.  A modern infrastructure enables higher efficiencies and stimulates the economy in and of itself.

In short, our kids’ kids are going to pay for this either way.  Don’t you think they’d less begrudgingly pay off a loan on a smart grid and public transit system that they’d still be using rather than what amounts to a night of hookers and blow for their great great grandparents?

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*See also:  Dr. Brad DeLong on What are Chicago’s Economists Thinking? and Krugman again in today’s NYT Op-Ed on A Dark Age of Macroeconomics.

Category: All Posts, Economics  Tags: , ,  2 Comments