Sunday, September 20, 2009
The cost of "my rights"
"A privilege is something we receive when someone else pays. The police and firefighters whose deaths we will remember this month on Sept. 11 in part purchased my "right" to walk the streets of New York terror-free." - Mindy Belz
Some might include "the home children live in, the bed they sleep in, the food they eat, the clothes they wear, ad nauseum." Sadly, many have put forth the argument that these "privileges" are "rights."
Many of yesterday's children have grown to become today's young adults who confuse "privileges" with "rights" and in the end determine it is their "right" to shove their hand, or better stated have government shove it's "hand," into the pockets of their friends, family, neighbors and fellow citizens to pay for what they erroneously believe to be "rights."
That's not only wrong; it's pure and simple, selfish, self-centered and self-destructive. No one has the "right" to someone else's property, wealth (great or small) or time unless there is an expectation of remuneration. Few have an understanding of the value of what other's have, that is especially true in children who are always demanding of their parents the latest in clothes, toys, electronics, entertainment, food with little understanding that there is a price to be paid for all and the source of that payment is finite.
Sometimes parents, in an attempt to please their children, quiet them, assuage their need to conform to their peer group or just feel like they are being good parents, will give into their child’s demands. That can lead to an unhealthy expectation on the part of the child that all their expectations are equally important and must be equally met. They may then extend that expectation to their adult expectations of what government and the taxpayer should give them, limiting their own social, moral, and financial personal responsibilities. They think it is their "right" to have what they want with no understanding of the cost.
Other times, a parent may be unable to provide for a child's demands for his "rights," or see those demands as unhealthy, and withhold some of those "privileges." The child may in young adulthood grow to think he was "abused" by his "unfair" parents and in rebellion turn to government as the "sugar daddy" to fill what he may see as "rights" but are really "privileges." Thus he demands from government, becomes a dependent of government, and ultimately becomes a slave to government to which he has ceded his power of freedom, and, perhaps, even life and death.
Much of the demand for "rights" in today's ongoing debate finds its root in the erroneous understanding of "rights" vs. "privilege" and the teaching our children have received in much of their education about the role of government in their lives. They have been taught that government is their source of everything and it is in government that they will find complete fulfillment of their needs.
Sadly, they have not learned that what government gives with one hand, it takes away with the other. There is no "zero sums" formula where there is no cost for added service. They have also not had the historical perspective of seeing that government rarely meets the promises it makes, nor does it create a program, policy, bureaucracy, benefit or entitlement that ends up meeting cost projections. Rather, without fail, legislative cost projections are exceeded by many multiples. What was sold as costing $100 million ends up costing $300 million. What was budgeted for $1 billion ends up costing $3 billion.
In the 1960's when Medicare was being debated in Congress, then President Lyndon Johnson, as a strong advocate of Medicare, counseled legislators that if they were to win the debate, and thus the vote, they had to move the debate off the subject of cost. He told them don't let the costs get projected too far out because it will scare other people:
"A health program yesterday runs $300 million, but the fools had to go to projecting it down the road five or six years, and when you project it the first year, it runs $900 million. Now I don't know whether I would approve $900 million second year or not. I might approve 450 or 500. But the first thing Dick Russell comes running in saying, 'My God, you've got a billion-dollar program for next year on health, therefore I'm against any of it now.' Do you follow me?"
That $300 million program now costs $408,000,000,000 in fiscal year 2009. That's $408 billion, 1,360 times its original projected cost and 14% of the federal budget. Medicare and SCHIP add another $224 billion to the current budget. Those plans have no incentive to hold down costs, in the twisted world of government budgeting, if an agency cuts costs and comes in under budget in one year, they are not rewarded but penalized.
Government also has no incentive to hold costs down, because it has the power of the legislative and judicial system to demand more and more taxation from the citizens it is supposed to protect. Yet, today's young adults, in their focus on perceived "rights" and "entitlements" fail to consider the ultimate cost of their demands for more and more government intervention in their lives.
We as individuals have a right to demand quality health care services from those we pay. We have the ability to go to a different provider when we are not served properly. We have that right because we are paying the bill, either directly or via individual or employer provided insurance plans. We pay for those plans either directly or as part of our compensation package. We have, not perfect control, but control nevertheless, over the direction of our health care.
Health care in the US is about 1/6th of our economy, which is 16% or $2.404 TRILLION dollars. That is 77% of the total US government outlay for FY2009. And some want to turn over control of that portion of our economy, no, our lives, to a faceless government bureaucrat.
Under a plan of "privilege" where my neighbor, friends and family pay for my health care via government controlled plans, whether the so called "public option" or government mandates, I become dependent on and responsible to that other party and the whims of bureaucracy to meet my very personal health care needs. To a people who know of the struggle of running up against a government bureaucracy like the IRS or Social Security or Medicare, where faceless individuals have near unlimited power over your income, your finance, your freedom, your health care and even your life, the thought of more invasion by government into the intimate area of personal health is an fearful affront.
Those who have no understanding or experience in these matters merely see it as a relief from the responsibilities of life. That's a relief they may one day come to regret.
"We are all in the same boat on a stormy sea and
we owe each other a terrible loyalty." - G. K. Chesterson
Labels: children, federal budget deficit, government, health care, Medicare, personal responsibility
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
Just say NO!
We must demand our Senators and Representatives vote against any more bailout of private businesses and individuals with government, taxpayer money. It is time for us to bite the bullet and face the consequences of our irresponsible financial behavior. It is immoral for us to pass on to our grandchildren and great-grandchildren this debt.
The American people were sold a "bill of goods" last October, and it's happening again now. Throwing more taxpayer debt at the economic problems our nation faces will only at best delay the inevitable while piling up unconscionable debt on our children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
Our government now owes more money than all of us in the country put together possess. We now owe nearly $57 trillion while our total net worth is only $56.5 trillion. President-elect Barack Obama has said, "We've got trillion-dollar deficits for years to come even with the economic recovery that we are working on at this point."
Obama's plan, being promoted by Democrats and Republicans alike, is to pass out money, running up debt that our grandchildren will be forced to pay. Their solution is simple. Throw more money at the problem. Many of the projects clamoring for a piece of the "pie" at best are poor investments. Others just don’t make sense or amount to funding of projects no one else wants or sees a legitimate need of.
Where will the government get these trillions of dollars? They will go to the printing press and print more, which means that dollar in your pocket will be worth less. It also means the government will borrow more. From whom? Try China and the rich oil producing countries. At the rate we are going, China will never have to fight us. They will own us.
We don’t need to keep digging the hole deeper and deeper. Where will the bailouts end? We need some leadership from Congress, and we need it now. In the vacuum of statesmanship out of Washington, the American people must show that leadership. We know that in the real world there is no such thing as a free lunch; we must make sure oblivious Washington insiders know that as well.
They must stop feeding the American people a line of $&#@!. Democrats railed against Republicans over federal deficits during the Bush years. Now they are set to allow nearly as much deficit spending in one year than was incurred during the entire Bush administration, and yawn while doing so.
Stop the bleeding now! Just say NO to any more bailouts, "taxpayer investment" and government wealth transfers of all kinds. I for one am sick of the enormous transfer of wealth from this nation to China and the oil producing nations. Every dollar of deficit spending means more for them.
Write your Representatives, Senators and the President-elect. Tell them, "Stop it...NOW!"
"We are all in the same boat on a stormy sea and
we owe each other a terrible loyalty." - G. K. Chesterson
Labels: Barack Obama, Big 3 bailout, Bush, Democrats, federal budget deficit, national debt, politics, Republicans
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
How progressive taxes work...
Came across a paraphrase of the following on another networking site I regularly visit. Snope's can't verify attribution so I'll leave that part off.
Still, the analogy is sound and clearly explains the fallacy of a progressive tax system and especially one geared towards wealth envy, such as ours.
How Taxes Work . . .
This is a VERY simple way to understand the tax laws. Read on — it does make you think!!
Let's put tax cuts in terms everyone can understand. Suppose that every day, ten men go out for dinner. The bill for all ten comes to $100. If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this:
The first four men — the poorest — would pay nothing; the fifth would pay $1, the sixth would pay $3, the seventh $7, the eighth $12, the ninth $18, and the tenth man — the richest — would pay $59.
That's what they decided to do. The ten men ate dinner in the restaurant every day and seemed quite happy with the arrangement — until one day, the owner threw them a curve (in tax language a tax cut).
"Since you are all such good customers," he said, "I'm going to reduce the cost of your daily meal by $20." So now dinner for the ten only cost $80.00.
The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes. So the first four men were unaffected. They would still eat for free. But what about the other six — the paying customers? How could they divvy up the $20 windfall so that everyone would get his "fair share?"
The six men realized that $20 divided by six is $3.33. But if they subtracted that from everybody's share, then the fifth man and the sixth man would end up being PAID to eat their meal. So the restaurant owner suggested that it would be fair to reduce each man's bill by roughly the same amount, and he proceeded to work out the amounts each should pay.
And so the fifth man paid nothing, the sixth pitched in $2, the seventh paid $5, the eighth paid $9, the ninth paid $12, leaving the tenth man with a bill of $52 instead of his earlier $59. Each of the six was better off than before. And the first four continued to eat for free.
But once outside the restaurant, the men began to compare their savings. "I only got a dollar out of the $20," declared the sixth man who pointed to the tenth. "But he got $7!"
"Yeah, that's right," exclaimed the fifth man, "I only saved a dollar, too . . . It's unfair that he got seven times more than me!".
"That's true!" shouted the seventh man, "why should he get $7 back when I got only $2? The wealthy get all the breaks!"
"Wait a minute," yelled the first four men in unison, "We didn't get anything at all. The system exploits the poor!"
The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up. The next night he didn't show up for dinner, so the nine sat down and ate without him. But when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered, a little late what was very important. They were FIFTY-TWO DOLLARS short of paying the bill! Imagine that!
And that, boys and girls, journalists and college instructors, is how the tax system works. The people who pay the highest taxes get the most benefit from a tax reduction. Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy, and they just may not show up at the table anymore.
Where would that leave the rest? Unfortunately, most taxing authorities anywhere cannot seem to grasp this rather straightforward logic!
Sadly, in America today, according to a recent Gallup poll 46% of those polled would prefer to be the first 4 or 5 guys. They approve taking from the others, only they don't want it done voluntarily, they want it under the threat of government coercion.
That says much about the state of their self motivation and one might even say moral depravity. What happens when government gets into the business of wealth redistribution? Well, I'm talking more than we currently have and more like has been proposed by the incoming powers of our government, both legislative and executive branches.
In the mid '90's I was in Hungary, a nation that lived under Communism. In 1989 she came out from under that heavy handed rule and while the Budapest was thriving, outside the city the people still labored in a state of despair.
Old world horse carts still traveled the roads as people moved themselves and the fruits of their backbreaking labor in their gardens and fields. Once the socialist economic principles of Communism took hold, breaking their grasp on those weaker, poorer victims of it's failed policies was near impossible.
This is what some in power want for our nation. I have no doubt they don't wish the wearying daily struggle, but we have already seen the results of unintended consequences of well intended government intervention gone wrong.
The Community Reinvestment Act of 1977, at the heart of our current financial crisis. I've written much about that. The 2005 Energy Bill, expanded in 2007, mandating ethanol production. That short-sighted, well intended legislation resulted in dramatically higher grain prices and ultimately grocery prices, with little to show in energy production. There are currently calls to freeze its mandates at the current levels.
Social Security, a well intended product of the Roosevelt era, has had progressively steeper demands placed on it, disability benefits, survivors benefits, constantly increasing the meager monthly payments. All the while the population of those drawing SS checks grows as our population lives longer and the pool of those worker paying in continues to decrease as the birth rate declines.
I have two nephews, a niece, two step sons and two grandchildren who will be footing the bill for my Social Security payments, assuming it is still in force 12 years from now. Currently the estimated benefit for myself and my wife is $2489 in today's dollars. In 2020, at the current rate of growth, its estimated that for every recipient there will be 2.4 workers, and the ratio gets smaller every year. (More info)
That means, on average, out of each of their monthly paychecks, about $520 will be taken off the top to pay the social security for me, my wife and every other recipient. That, my friends, is wealth redistribution.
But for those currently coming into power in Washington, its a non-issue. The wealth redistribution they are pushing takes this much further and in the process the Ponzi scheme known as Social Security, Medicare, National Healthcare, Welfare, Child Credit ad nausem will end up breaking the back of the American economy.
Good intentions? Certainly, though some more skeptical will argue its merely buying the vote of the lower economic classes. But good intentions do not make good policy.
We've already seen in microcosm the results of human nature in the financial bailout. Companies are repositioning themselves to become eligible when they weren't before. Companies not related to the financial crisis are demanding a bailout for their sectors. Citizens are concocting schemes, dreaming up ways they think they should get a piece of this action.
What everyone forgets is that it isn't government who foots the bill. Government doesn't create wealth, it only takes it. Government doesn't produce a salable product. The current model seems to be redistribution.
According to the Tax Foundation analysis of 2006 tax data, if you earned $153,542 you were in the top 5% of income earners and paid 60% if income taxes. If you earned a modest $64,702 you were in the top 25% of income earners and one of the wealthy. You and your group paid 86.27% of all income taxes.
What does this tell us? For starters, the idea that the wealthy don't pay income taxes is a myth. Perpetuated by a political class with an agenda of riding wealth envy to power. Secondly, you could have confiscated the total incomes of the top 5%, those making %153,542 in 2006 ($2.43 trillion), and the total going to the government would come close to to paying the $2.7 trillion budget for that year, but only once.
The only answer to this is to reduce spending. In 2006 the federal government spent $248 billion just on interest on the national debt, that is more than twice the $117 billion spent on the Iraq war that year and $22 billion more than the federal deficit that year.
Confiscating wealth, nor redistribution of wealth, is the answer. A fair review of the data is convincing. The only answer for the fiscal dilemma our government is in, less government.
The only problem with this is the current and the incoming leadership on both sides of the aisle seem committed to more government, more intrusion into the private sector, more spending, more and increased entitlements, more deficits, and a higher national debt.
I've oft repeated this quote from Alexis de Tocqueville, "The American Republic will endure, until politicians realize they can bribe the people with their own money."
Our legislators discovered this long ago, the people are swallowing this hook into their collective gut and it will eventually rip us all inside out.
I want more for my nephews, niece, step sons and grandchildren. They deserve more, yet sadly, I'm afraid their generation may have fallen victim to the elixir of wealth envy and may well be bringing to power those who will orchestrate their own fiscal demise.
"We are all in the same boat on a stormy sea and
we owe each other a terrible loyalty." - G. K. Chesterson
Labels: federal budget deficit, national debt, politics, Social Security, socialism, taxes, wealth envy