Category Archives: ethics

A Whole Eight Years

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Social Security’s disability trust fund will be bankrupt in three years, and all those folks currently on disability will see their payments slashed.  Those coming onto disability will see far smaller payments than they were expecting.  Whether or not there should be a disability program, if so at what level of payment, or who should fund it are separate issues.  Let’s talk about what we have, and how we got here.

With the Panic of 2008, unemployment spiked, reaching above 10%.  President Barack Obama’s economic policies have slowed our recovery to the point of not recovering at all.  Even the current unemployment rate of 7.8% both is as high as it was when he took office and misleading in itself since it’s based on a far smaller work force than when he took office.

On top of this unemployment rate, whose primary effects here are to reduce the tax monies going into the disability fund and to increase the number of people going onto disability—anything to get enough money for an unemployed person, or someone who’s given up trying to find work, to put food on his family’s table or to pay the rent/mortgage—we have the following.

Obama is actively making it easier to apply for disability with no parallel move to make funds available to make the payments.  Indeed, Obama has steadfastly refused to allow any of our entitlement programs to be fixed, or revamped, or changed in any way so as to enable them to survive (again, whether they should as Federal programs is a separate discussion).

His Lieutenant in the Senate, Chuck Schumer (D, NY), insists that Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid are off the table in any debt, deficit, or budget discussion.  Obama said in his inaugural address last week that

the commitments we make to each other—through Medicare, and Medicaid, and Social Security—these things do not sap our initiative; they strengthen us.

Leaving aside the vapid ignorance of this remark, the statement demonstrates his refusal to touch them in any way.

And we have this nonsense from a tired old man, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D, NV), about entitlements generally, using Medicare as his example:

…savings from cutting wasteful spending and fraud will extend the solvency of the Medicare trust fund by an additional eight years….

Let’s ignore the fact that Reid cannot name a single instance of actual wasteful spending or of fraud—or explain why those have not already been rooted out, if he knew of them—Medicare’s (for instance) lifetime could be extended for a whole eight years, he says, like he’s proud of that fact.

Then what?

An Out of Control CFPB?

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But we knew that would be the case with a budget funded by on-demand calls to the Treasury and a deliberate lack of Congressional oversight.  Here are three examples, from Skadden Arps, the “second best global law firm,” according to Spirit of Enterprise.  In each case, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau imposed enforcement orders that charged both restitution payments and civil penalties for the miscreancies that wanted restitution.  Those miscreancies generally centered on “deceptive marketing and sales practices” and “deceptive debt collection practices.”

Capital One: Required to pay $140 million in restitution and a $25 million civil penalty.  The penalty was nearly 18% of the restitution.

Discover Bank: Required to pay $200 million in restitution and a $14 million civil penalty.  The penalty was 7% of the restitution.

American Express: Required to pay $85 million in restitution and a $27.5 million civil penalty.  The penalty was 32% of the restitution.

Assuming the restitution amounts are reasonable assessments of the severity of the banks’ misbehaviors, those civil penalties seem to bear no relation at all to the…crimes.  They seem, in fact, to be capricious and out of control—just a grabbing of what an unaccountable bureaucrat felt like taking.

Skadden’s complete report (it’s long and wide-ranging) can be seen here.

Debt Ceiling Negotiations

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President Barack Obama had some thoughts on this in a press conference the other day.  Surprise—I have some thoughts on his thoughts.

Obama said this in response to a question from CBS News‘ Major Garrett on how Obama reconciles his refusal to vote to raise the debt ceiling while a Senator (the raise would be a “leadership failure”) with his current refusal, as President, to negotiate his demanded raise of the debt ceiling:

And, you know, the fact of the matter is, is that we have never seen the debt ceiling used in this fashion, where the notion was, you know what, we might default unless we get 100 percent of what we want. That hasn’t happened.

Actually, we’ve seen this repeatedly in the recent past.  Under Presidents Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton, for instance, spending cuts (or what passed for them—reductions in the rate of growth of spending) were explicit parts of the deal to raise the ceiling.

Obama then added this:

Now, as I indicated before, I’m happy to have a conversation about how we reduce our deficits further….

There are a couple of things about this one.  One is that bit about being “happy to have a conversation.”  A conversation is an “exchange of thoughts and feelings.”  It’s not a negotiation.  Obama is willing only to engage in idle chit-chat on this subject; he’s not willing to enter into serious negotiation.

The other thing is that nonsense, “reduce our deficits further.”  As a man of Obama’s learned education knows—as his economic advisors in the White House and in his Cabinet know—a reduced deficit is still a deficit, and so it still grows our nation’s debt.  Once again, Obama is unwilling to take our debt seriously.

Obama then concluded his evasion of the original question (he never did address Garrett’s question of how Obama reconciles his Senatorial “No” with his Presidential “Raise it now” demand on the debt ceiling) with this:

But what you’ve never seen is the notion that has been presented so far at least by the Republicans that deficit reduction will only count spending cuts, that we will raise the deficit—or the debt ceiling dollar for dollar on spending cuts.  …what we’re not going to do is put ourselves in a position where in order to pay for spending that we’ve already incurred, that our two options are; we’re either going to profoundly hurt the economy, and hurt middle-class families, and hurt seniors, and hurt kids who are trying to go to college, or alternatively we’re going to blow up the economy.

The first part of that is true.  Having seen the failure of tying reduced spending growth rates to raising the debt limit, the House Republicans now are tying actual spending cuts to raising the debt ceiling.

The rest, though, is exactly what Obama is threatening.  He’s holding out for “100% of what [he] want[s],”  or he’ll blow up our economy.  He’s the one demanding a debt ceiling raise with no strings attached (he’s even called for ceding borrowing authority to him) and refusing to discuss any alternative.  He’s the one who’s said he won’t negotiate at all on the debt ceiling.

Yet, it’s his demand for continued borrowing, for continued expansion of our debt, that is profoundly hurting the economy, the middle class, seniors, the poor (who are notably absent in his “concern” for the welfare of others).   The opposition has already agreed to raise the borrowing limit.  They just want real spending cuts, also, so as to break the DC addiction to spending, and so as to reduce—or even eliminate—the need to borrow more.

Children and Gun Control

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In the aftermath of the Newtown shootings, the Left cynically is using children as weapons in their charge against weapons.  Here’s an example.  And the six-year-old miscreant Had Been Warned, too.

At Silver Spring, MD’s, Roscoe Nix Elementary School, Assistant Principle Renee Garraway sent a six-year-old boy’s parents “a letter” alleging that he’d

“threatened to shoot a student” and that he had been spoken to earlier about similar behavior.

The “threat,” it turns out, came in the middle of a game a boy and a girl classmate had been playing.  He pointed his finger at her and said “Pow.”

In the letter, according to The Washington Post,

an assistant principal had warned one parent that the child’s behavior could lead to a suspension.  At school, a counselor “had an extended conversation” with the child to emphasize “the inappropriateness of using objects to make shooting gestures[.]”

Because today it’s inappropriate for children to play games that children have been playing harmlessly for thousands of years.  And

an assistant principal had talked to the boy about the “seriousness” of the issue[.]

Despite that, according to the school district’s lawyer, Judith S Bresler,

…after the meeting with the counselor and assistant principal, [the boy] chose to point his finger at a female classmate and say “Pow.”

Why, the heinous, disobedient, little six-year-old monster.  We’ll show him.  And they suspended the little hand-totinggun-toting criminal for a day.

Montgomery County schools spokesman Dana Tofig chimed in:

[S]uspending a student is a serious matter, and that is especially true of a student who is in our early grades.

So, it’s an especially serious matter for a child to play Cowboys and Indians.  Oh, wait—there’s one of the Left’s code words.  Prolly ought to suspend him for his next move, playing Unarmed Settlers and Indians, too.  Or would an extended arm, with the other hand back by one’s ear, also be an illegal weapon?  Probably not.  Too bad, too; the school would miss out on two-fer in that game.  Or a triple play, if the child playing the role of the Indigenous American also weren’t actually one.

All of this actually happened in mid-December, shortly after the Newtown shootings (it’s only coming to light now because the family has been forced to file a formal appeal with the school, the first move in bringing the matter to court, over the school’s intransigence), so a measure of hysteria might be expected, as the family’s lawyer, Robin Ficker, noted.  But these school officials are grown, rational, trained adults.  They know better.

That’s what makes it especially appalling that these folks are using children in their war on weapons.

Whining

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Here’s Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R, KY) on leadership in the context of the coming debt ceiling fiasco.

Now, the question is, will the president lead?  Why should we have to be bringing him to the table?  Why isn’t he leading us in the direction of beginning to solve our long-term debt and deficit problem?  It’s perplexing to me that the president of the United States, elected to lead the country, is so reluctant to engage on the most important issue confronting our future.

In McConnell’s defense, this is a typical Republican whine.

When are you guys going to stop whining about the President being mean and supply your own leadership?  When are you guys going to stop surrendering the field to the Progressives, put up your own plans, push for them, talk to us Americans in your constituencies and your neighboring Democratic constituencies, and be leaders yourselves?

Quit worrying about bringing the guy who sits in the President’s chair to the table—move on without him.  Pass the relevant bills in the House, and call out the Progressives in the Senate and the White House over their intransigence in refusing to be part of the solution.  Show some responsibility—and take the initiative from the Progressives.

Or are you really so used to your status that none of you can conceive of actual Republican leadership?