Tag Archives: culture

The People are not Sovereign

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…government is.  Or so says Czar of all the Russias President Vladimir Putin.

Of course people wanted change.  But [people] cannot impose illegal change…you need to use only constitutional means.

Never mind that the will of the people is what gives “constitutional means” legitimacy, since those means are the will of the people given concrete effect.  But not in Putin’s world.  In his world view, “constitutional means” are what government says they are, and government is constituted the way the men populating the organs of government say it is.  No people, no citizens, are involved.

Putin also insisted that [Interim President] Oleksandr Turchynov was

not legitimate.  From the legal perspective it is Mr. Yanukovych who is president.

No.  Plainly no.  From the legal perspective, Yanukovich had lost all legitimacy the moment he lost the consent of the Ukrainian people to be their President.  That he had lost that consent is amply demonstrated by all those months in the streets—and not only in Kiev—by the people protesting, at first his actions, and ultimately his political status.  The firmness of their will is corroborated by the violence against and the murders of the protestors sanctioned by that government, and the people’s continued protests despite those atrocities.

Putin also has announced that he has no obligation to respect the wishes of the Ukrainian people as expressed in the upcoming May governmental elections, if he doesn’t get the results he wants.

Never mind that exactly those elections are what will express the will of the people, if the elections are allowed to go forward freely and fairly.  The only interference there will be “such terror as we see now” in the form of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.  The only “terror as [Putin] see[s] now” is his own terror of the will of the people—perhaps of the will of the Russian people, as well.

Finally, this:

Putin said Tuesday that Moscow reserved the right to protect ethnic Russians in Ukraine by any means necessary….

This was Hitler’s excuse for Sudetenland.  However, the “ethnic Russians” are Ukrainian citizens, not Russian citizens, and it is the responsibility of the Ukrainian government to protect its citizens.  If Putin is claiming a right (oddly, not a duty) to protect the badly abused citizens of another sovereign nation, than we have to ask: where is his duty in Syria, in northern Korea?  Oh, wait….

Welcome to the Republic

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Isn’t this part of what the 10th Amendment is about, guys?

Maybe some States finally are figuring that out.

Governors…have a blunt message for Congress and the White House: They’re moving ahead on job-creation, infrastructure and other matters in the face of federal inaction.

Democratic and Republican governors gathering for National Governors Association meetings say they’ve been forced to fill a vacuum created by the partisan battles in Washington that have blocked agreement on a long-term fiscal plan.

“We’re not waiting.  It would really be great for them to solve the mess here, but in the meantime we’re going to do what we can,” said Michigan Governor Rick Snyder, a Republican.

It’s not their mess to solve, albeit they’ve certainly been actively enthusiastic contributors to it.  Your States’ citizens are your responsibility.  The voters elected you to deal with the problems not to foist them off on relay them to the Federal government.

And this:

“There’s no long-term infrastructure plan coming out of DC—none,” said North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory, a Republican.

Mr McCrory last year pushed through legislation changing the way North Carolina spends scarce transportation dollars.  Under the plan, projects that boost the economy, such as highways that link urban centers and relieve congestion, get priority.

In an interview Friday, Mr McCrory said the measure was partially a response to the failure of federal lawmakers to rework transportation funding.

You guys shouldn’t need one Federal action first; you should be acting on your own initiative.  When that happens, you get McCrory’s outcome: you finally stop feeding your addiction to Federal dollars, you start getting more efficiency and better prioritization, and you stop spending OPM willy nilly.

And this:

Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper, a Democrat, said the “cycle of partisanship and dysfunction” in Washington could ultimately benefit state and local governments by forcing them to rethink how they relate to the federal government.

Well, NSS.  Welcome to the world of independence and responsibility.

States’ rights come with States’ responsibilities.  Where you guys been?

It Doesn’t Wash

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The Department of Homeland Security wants a private company to provide a national license-plate tracking system that would give the agency access to vast amounts of information from commercial and law enforcement tag readers, according to a government proposal that does not specify what privacy safeguards would be put in place.

Such a national license-plate recognition database, ostensibly, would “help catch fugitive illegal immigrants.”  But once in existence, to what use would (not might) government put that database later?  Can you say NSA, boys and girls?  The danger is illustrated clearly, if unintentionally, by David Roberts, International Association of Chiefs of Police’s Technology Center Senior Program Manager:

We’d like to be able to keep the data as long as possible, because it does provide a rich and enduring data set for investigations down the line.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation understands (see the first link) the danger of Roberts’ goal:

Ultimately, you’re creating a national database of location information.  When all that data is compiled and aggregated, you can track somebody as they’re going through their life.

Such an open-ended dragnet of no one in particular, but simply of all of us, for vague, undefined future purposes in not consistent with individual liberty—or responsibility.

Even though the courts have ruled on “presumption of privacy,” they’ve gotten it wrong, basing their “assumption” on a measure of mindreading that simply doesn’t exist in our species.  The fact that the loud, vociferous, even zealous, hue and cry over evasions of privacy—real or perceived—even exists demonstrates that there is a very strong presumption of privacy held by each of us, even as we move about in public.

Indeed, the logic is flawed, also.  The fact that what we do is readily apparent to our fellow citizens as we wander the mall, walk the sidewalks, talk on our phones, drive on our streets, etc, is in no way an agreement the government can track our movements, much less create dossiers on each of us as we engage in these activities in the view of, or in concert with, our fellow citizens.

The government is not our fellow citizen; it is our political employee.  Even so, it has far too much power to be trusted with watching the things we let our fellow citizens see us do without a court’s oversight, without, for instance, a specific warrant for which a specific probable cause concerning a specific individual among us must first be demonstrated and sworn to by the government official desiring to investigate one of us.

The relationship between us—or any one of us—and government is not at all symmetrical, and there is very little reciprocity involved.  Arguments supporting such government activities as tracking of our out-of-home movements assume, erroneously, exactly that symmetry.

There’s no doubt that such a…tool…could achieve much good.  However, the good achieved is through convenience to government, not through a fundamental change in capabilities for hunting down specific bad guys.  The dangers such a tool represents to individual liberty and responsibility—to what it means to be an American—far outweigh the benefits of that convenience.

Update: Now HHS Undersecretary Jeh Johnson is saying the idea of having a private company develop a national database of our license plates has been canceled.  So, where are we?  Is the idea done?  Or is it being brought inside HHS, to be pursued sub rosa?

And why is the Undersecretary making this statement?  Where are the HHS Secretary, Kathleen Sebelius and her boss, President Barack Obama?

Good for the Skins

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On the all-important Question of the Universe concerning what Washington should name their professional football team, Senator Maria Cantwell (D, WA) and Congressman Tom Cole (R, OK) wrote a letter to NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell in which they decried the Washington Redskins’ name as “an insult to Native Americans” and demanding that the Skins change their name to something more politically correct, more acceptable to these two Speech Police Officers.

In response to this foolishness, the Washington Redskins have issued a statement outlining their position on this matter.

STATEMENT BY THE WASHINGTON REDSKINS

ON SENATOR MARIA CANTWELL’S (D-Wash.) LETTER TO THE NFL:

As the former Chair of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, Senator Cantwell should be aware that there are many challenges facing Native Americans, including an extremely cold winter with high energy bills, high unemployment, life threatening health problems, inadequate education and many other issues more pressing than the name of a football team which has received strong support from Native Americans.

If the Senator wants us to change our team name, has she already told that to the team named “Redskins” in Wellpinit, Wash., where the school’s population is more than 90 percent Native American?  We hope Senator Cantwell has visited with those students in order to hear their thoughts.  We hope Senator Cantwell is aware how upset the students in Port Townsend were when they were forced to change their name.

In an ESPN report on Sept. 18, 2013, Tim Ames, the superintendent of Wellpinit schools stated, “I’ve talked to our students, our parents and our community about this and nobody finds any offense at all in it.  Redskins is not an insult to our kids.  “Wagon burners” is an insult.  “Prairie n—–s” is an insult.  Those are very upsetting to our kids.  But “Redskins” is an honorable name we wear with pride….  In fact, I’d like to see somebody come up here and try to change it.”

Finally, why did Senator Cantwell send her letter to the New York Times before she had the courtesy of sending it to the NFL?  No one other than a politician does that.

Surely, with all the issues Congress is supposed to work on such as the economy, jobs, war and health care, the Senator must have more important things to do.

“Redskin” is an insult?  How that dastardly slur, “Yankee,” or “Yankee doodle” that those Evil Redcoats used to call us?  Oh, wait….

Moral Hazard and Obamacare Welfare

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The recent CBO report on the mid- and long-term effect on willingness to be employed of Obamacare hinted at the moral hazard of Obamacare and of welfare, generally [emphasis added].

In 2014, for example, a single person or a family whose income is 150 percent of the FPL [Federal Poverty Level] and is eligible for subsidies will pay 4 percent of their income for a certain “silver” health care plan purchased through an exchange; if their income is 200 percent of the FPL, they will pay 6.3 percent of their income for that plan.  An increase in income thus raises the enrollee premium (and reduces the subsidy) both because the percentage-of-income formula applies to a larger dollar amount and because that percentage itself increases.  People whose income exceeds 400 percent of the FPL are ineligible for premium subsidies, and for some people those subsidies will drop abruptly to zero when income crosses that threshold.

That’s the mechanism through which this particular iteration of moral hazard works.  It’s a tradeoff of a short-term gain of minor security in return for giving up the opportunity for better lives in the longer term and permanently through working more hours, including to the point of working full-time, thereby increasing their earned income.

This mechanism is, in fact, an enormous marginal tax on the next dollar of earned income, and it hits our poor and marginal citizens the hardest.  This tax reduces the net value of the income increase from taking a better job or working more hours.  It’s a cynical poverty trap.

It’s not that these folks are lazy—that’s a question only in the minds of Progressives trying to distract from their failure by demonizing Republicans and Conservatives.  It’s that this iteration of moral hazard has honest men making entirely rational economic decisions—to stay on the welfare program(s).

Beyond the damage inflicted directly on these subsidized people’s true welfare and their morality, the moral hazard inflicts a broader failure, too:

Apart from harm to individuals, ObamaCare is also wasting human potential because fewer workers mean a less prosperous, less dynamic economy.  Contrary to liberal patronizing, many near-seniors, moms, and the rest like their jobs and contribute to productivity.  The 2.5 million worker ObamaCare job exodus, CBO estimates, translates into a 1.5% to 2% reduction in the total number of hours worked, which means less growth.

That failure, that slowed growth rate, reduces the ability of those who do wish to work more, who do wish to make things concretely better for their families, to do so.  It hits hardest, again, our poor, but this effect extends to the lower- and mid-middle class man who is working and looking to work more and earn more.

Here’s a concrete example, courtesy of Keith Hennessy, via AEIdeas:

  • A family of four with one wage-earner has $35,300 of income this year and no health insurance through work. Because of the significant Affordable Care Act subsidies, this family can buy health insurance for only $1,410/year.
  • The other spouse wants to take a part-time job to supplement their family income. This part-time job would earn them an additional $12,000 per year (gross).
  • But this additional income would reduce their ACA premium subsidy, so they would now have to pay $2,970/year for the same health plan.
  • This reduced subsidy, a direct result of the spouse’s part time work and higher family income, reduces the value of the $12,000 of added income by $1,560 (=$2,970 – $1,410). That subsidy reduction is 13 percent of the gross income increase.
  • So maybe this spouse chooses not to take the new part time job because the net financial benefit of additional paid work just isn’t worth it.”

When all the welfare payments (means-tested, also) for which a family in this income stratum is eligible are included in this sort of calculation, the subsidy reduction becomes a much larger per centage of the income increase—and even can be larger than that increase: a net income reduction from earning more through working.

This is illustrated in the graph below from Pennsylvania State Secretary of Public Welfare that shows how public benefits interact with each other to create welfare cliffs—income cliffs—that “phase” out as income smoothly increases.

What this means is that as people in these low-end earner brackets make more money, they face massive effective marginal tax rates—sometimes the equivalent of 100%.  Every dollar they earn would lose them more than a dollar in public assistance.

Hennessey extended his example [emphasis his]:

My back-of-the-envelope calculation, using H&R Block’s tax calculator, is that the ACA increases this moderate income family’s marginal effective [federal] tax rate by 13 percentage points, from about 37% to about 50%. The 37% includes very little income taxes, but a lot of reduced EITC and reduced refundable child credit, as well as higher employer and employee-side payroll taxes.

Then, the moral hazard question Hennessy asked, but which the Progressives avoid:

Finally, the hard one: do the benefits of the premium subsidy to this family outweigh the costs of trapping this family at this income level by killing the financial benefit they receive from more work, education, training, or other professional advancement?

This is moral hazard.  It’s economically more efficient, at least in the near term—that paycheck to paycheck, welfare payment to welfare payment time frame in which our poor and working poor exist—to not work more, to not earn more, but rather to continue the welfare payments.  This is not a matter of laziness; this is that cynically created poverty trap.

Again, it reaches beyond the welfare recipient, too.  Those who do make the choice to work more are forced by that choice to pay for those who choose to work less: the former are the ones who must pay the taxes that partially cover the welfare payments, with government borrowing covering the rest (a future tax on those working men and their children).