Tag Archives: political economy

Who’s In Charge?

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State Financial Officers Foundation CEO OJ Oleka noted in his Wall Street Journal op-ed the foolishness of Minnesota’s decision to eliminate its State Treasurer position with effect ‘way back in 2003. Supporters insisted that the position was purely clerical and so not worth the million dollars a year cost. Instead, the position’s responsibilities were scattered around to other State agencies. Oleka added

When no statewide official is clearly responsible for safeguarding public money, taxpayers pay the price.

Like with the multi-billion dollar Medicaid fraud that’s being uncovered in Minnesota. Only it’s not just the citizens of Minnesota who are paying that price; it’s all of us citizens all across these United States.

Oleka also pointed out the value of having someone in charge of watchdogging a State’s public money.

Across the states, financial officers are proving that vigilance works. Kentucky Auditor Allison Ball uncovered $800 million in wrongful Medicaid payments. North Carolina Treasurer Brad Briner found $170 million in unspent funds, while Iowa’s Roby Smith delivered a record $469 million return on investments that help fund state services.

There’s another factor here, though. Every one of those officials are Republicans.

Hmm….

Rich Want to Pay More Taxes

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At least, that’s the claim of Tom Steyer and Mitt Romney. On this, The Wall Street Journal‘s editors are on the right track.

One curiosity of democracy is the rich citizens who tell politicians to raise their taxes. It’s the patriotic thing to do, they [not only Steyer and Romney] say.

And

The rich who favor higher taxes pitch this as an act of civic virtue.

Of course, both Steyer and Romney refuse to specify what a rich man’s fair share is, or how much more is more enough. Still it’s not like rich folks other than these two don’t pay more enough already. This graph makes that clear.

In the end, there’s nothing stopping these two virtue-signalers and their buds from paying more into the Federal Treasury on their own initiative. It would be a simple matter to have their accountant write the check. That they won’t, that they get quite indignant at the suggestion, demonstrates their insincerity and their authoritarian demand to impose their personal views on all the other rich folks around them.

Apparently, it’s patriotic enough to natter on about the situation, and civic duty is fulfilled by yapping.

Right Idea, Wrong Plan

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Alexandra de Hoop Scheffer, German Marshall Fund of the US President, says three things must occur in order to redress Europe’s defense situation, a situation which I believe currently threatens its ability to survive a war as a collection of sovereign, independent nations. Some of these steps apply to us, and we are also, I believe, in the same war-losing peril of our own sovereignty and independence.

First, Europe must rearm, and fast.

Indeed. But even today, I see little stomach for that in too many of the continent’s nations critical to the continent’s survival against a Russian attack. Both France and Germany are in financial crisis and are showing no political will to correct that. The UK is even worse off; its political management doesn’t even seem aware of the depth of its failure. Until they do gain the awareness and the will to act—and then act—they’ll be unable to be serious about rearming, much less hardening their digital and material (water, fuel, and heating distribution) infrastructure against cyber attacks. Only those nations still fresh from the Russian boots on their necks—Poland, the Baltics, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, and Moldova—remember what that life was like. Poland and the Baltics are serious about rearming, but they’re smaller even than Ukraine compared to the barbarian’s hordes and equipage. And they have a knife poised at their back in the form of Hungary, which is busily toadying up to Russia in its own effort to mitigate the consequences of being conquered again. Rearming is necessary, but it doesn’t seem promising, much less occurring any time soon.

Second, defense innovation must become a shared transatlantic mission. Neither side of the Atlantic can out-innovate geopolitical rivals alone.

De Hoop Scheffer fleshed this one out a bit; however, she’s mistaken in her proposed execution.

The US leads in emerging technologies, but Europe brings industrial capacity and advanced manufacturing. Joint work on protecting critical infrastructure, countering hybrid threats, and developing secure telecommunications and next-generation defense technologies must continue regardless of political noise.

Yes, and no. The US certainly can out-innovate our enemies alone. That’s how we ran the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics out of existence. We can—and we must—do so again, for all that we’re facing an aggressive Russia and an innovative People’s Republic of China. Our economic players’ freedom to innovate as they see fit gives them, and us as a nation, much more flexibility, and the ability to profit from their innovations, gives them much more incentive to innovate and to run the risks necessary for innovation than can any centrally planned process.

We need, though, to do our own manufacturing. Europe can never be an arsenal of democracy, especially with respect to modern weapons and cyber and space threats. Additionally, the industrial powerhouse of Europe, Germany, is not that anymore. Their industrial capacity is shrinking, and it’s becoming ever more expensive and unreliable as the German government insists on unreliable and expensive “renewable” energy sources while disdaining cheap, reliable oil, natural gas, coal, and nuclear energy sources.

Aside from that, we’re too likely to have to fight two or three wars simultaneously; we need our own manufacturing capacity to meet those equipment expenditure needs.

That doesn’t mean we should not share innovations with our friends and allies; of course, we should and they should with us. Accumulating best practices speeds innovation. We just need to guard against becoming dependent on others. Our dependence on the PRC for far too many items critical to our economy, our health, and our defense capability demonstrates the destructive folly of that. Friends and allies may be less likely to cut us off at critical moments, but that’s a non-zero proposition. See, for instance, an earlier France kicking our military out of that nation. See the German bureaucracy getting in the way of serious training exercises, including joint exercises.

Nor does that mean we shouldn’t buy European manufactures, also. We just can’t be dependent on them. Aside from the continent’s incapacity, two world wars showed vulnerability of US weapons flowing to Europe. That threat applies to the flow of manufactures from Europe to us in the event of another shooting war.

Third, Washington and European capitals must accept that their alignment is no longer automatic.

This is especially true given that fully a third of the European NATO members continue to welch on their financial and equipment obligations to NATO (and in so doing betray the other members of NATO) and continue to freeload off American money and our promise of American blood in defense of NATO Europe, legitimate members and scofflaws alike.

They need to build flexible coalitions outside the usual trans-Atlantic circle based on shared benefits, not only historical ties.

This is especially true for us. We need to stand up a new mutual defense arrangement that incudes the nations of the Three Seas Initiative, us, and the UK; although the latter’s inclusion should depend on its getting its fiscal house in order and then plussing up its defense establishment to something firmer than a secondary school football team. Absent both of those, the UK would be a net drain and so should not be considered.

Right Idea, Bad Plan

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Progressive-Democrat New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani wants to send $6 billion of city taxpayer money to a fancy, glittering new infrastructure of child care centers that he wants to build so mothers of small children—6 weeks old to 5 years old—can get back to work. (As if mothering children isn’t work in its own right, but that’s beyond the scope of this article). Erica Komisar, a psychoanalyst, wants that money sent, instead, directly to the parents for their use in raising their children their way.

That’s the right idea, but it’s a decidedly suboptimal plan.

Instead, reduce the city’s taxpayer bill by those $6 billion. Let all of the city’s taxpayers hang onto their money, instead of giving it up to the city’s government for spending on the favorite programs of whomever happens to be sitting in Gracie Mansion. Those parents of toddlers will benefit at least as much, from the increased city economic activity that tax reduction would generate, activity that would include increasing job availability; increasing wages; increasing availability of child care and babysitters at prices those parents actually could afford; increasing availability of employer-provided child care, not from government mandate but from it being a good business practice.

That economic flow-through won’t quickly develop; there’s a lot of economic destruction from prior city administrations’ Big Government impositions that needs to be corrected. That, though, simply puts a premium on getting a $6 billion reduction in city taxes enacted.

Republicans and Health Care

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Republican Congressman Jen Kiggans (VA) laid out the problem and in the process exposed an all too typical Republican timidity:

We run on this every time, there’s not an election that comes up where we don’t get beat up on healthcare[.]

Republicans far too routinely cower away from directly addressing healthcare, identifying who’s responsible for the problem, or what to do about it.

Some party elders now say Republicans’ best strategy might now be to avoid the issue altogether.

They’ve had this hide-under-their-desks posture ever since their one serious attempt at health care coverage reform went down in flames via ex-Senator John McCain’s late night showboating No vote killing a bill that would have rescinded Obamacare and restored the then-status quo ante.

A few days ago, Republicans in the Senate (which the press routinely and dishonestly characterizes as “Republican controlled”) offered a bill that would have redirected expiring Affordable Care Act subsidies to individual taxpayers’ Health Savings Accounts, which the bill also expanded explicitly to accommodate those payments. The bill failed on a cloture vote as the minority Progressive-Democratic Party’s Senators bloc-voted against it (thereby demonstrating that a majority of Senators does not confer on that majority party “Senate control”).

Asides aside, what’s shamefully cowardly is that, both during the Republican proposal’s runup to the vote and since the vote, all of those Republicans have been silent on one Critical Item: the Progressive-Democrats’ constant demand for subsidies for the ACA proves how unaffordable is their health care coverage program and how desperately that program needs reform. True, a few Republicans mentioned that the Progressive-Democrats had designed their subsidies to expire at the end of this month, but those were just occasional afterthoughts in other conversations.

It would be good for Republicans, and it would be good for our nation, if Republicans individually and as a political party—including at the State level as well as national—would but screw their courage to the sticking place, and they’ll not fail—not at health care reform, not at getting elected and reelected, and not at maintaining their majorities.

It’s clear that Obamacare/ACA is an utter failure at making health care coverage affordable—even with those taxpayer-funded subsidies, too many premiums in the government’s health coverage market are sky high, and deductibles and the out-of-pocket costs (even capped) are significant fractions of the incomes that the government defines as poverty-level. It’s also clear that Medicaid is rife with fraud and abuse (and waste, but the other two are the most rampant).

Republicans need to talk about health care loudly, frequently, and in specific terms, naming both the outlandish health coverage expenses and the politician they’re campaigning against who favors those expenses and favors keeping Americans dependent on any government they run. Republicans also need to explain in clear, no uncertain terms, that the cuts to Medicaid and the rules for eligibility that they passed in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act actually make things better for legitimate Medicaid recipients. Those reforms cut out those ineligible, like illegal aliens in sanctuary States; add income caps to eligibility; and require the able-bodied to work, actively seek work, train for work, or volunteer. Those reforms make more money available for those truly needing Medicaid.

In parallel, Republicans need to push a specific, concrete health coverage reform package that drastically modifies ACA or outright replaces it. This one requires the Chaos Caucus and the entrenched leadership to get off each other’s throats and coalesce around a specific, concrete package.

Republicans have wasted enough time bickering among each other under their collective House/Senate desk.