"Obama is coming in with enormous popularity. This is his best window of opportunity to impose a gas tax. And he could make it painless: offset the gas tax by lowering payroll taxes, or phase it in over two years at 10 cents a month. But if Obama, like Bush, wills the ends and not the means — wills a green economy without the price signals needed to change consumer behavior and drive innovation — he will fail."
Thomas Friedman argues for a gas tax to eliminate the lure of low prices.
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Friedman has the mindless moral scold position at the NYT.
Many economists on both ends of the spectrum (see Mankiw for example) want a gas tax as a means to beat the American people into a specific vision of energy use and urbanization. Sort of an economic behavior modification.
Affluent white people with tenure deciding how to beat down working people - nice concept.
$4 and $5 per gallon gas didn't slow down the American driver. How high of a tax will?
Pure nonsense!
These economic times haven't and won't kill any innocent people like 911 or any terrorist act. What is it that we are to mobilize against? Or mobilize for?
I 'll tell you what I get mobilized about, getting up every morning and trying to make as much money as possible.
How's about a gas tax now, which gets removed as the percentage of hybrid/electric cars increases? Or an offsetting tax credit for hybrid/electric ownership?
But when it's "just please pay more," I can hear the voice of Dutch saying the phrase "tax and spend Democrat", and the PEOTUS being called "One Term" Barack. Thanks, Tom!
There is an offsetting tax cut in the proposal.
I seem to remember saying a couple of times over the summer that those on the left complaining about high gas prices could not be taken seriously because the only thing they really had their panties bunched about wasn't the price but rather who was gaining from it. I don't know if the financial crisis is Obama's 9/11, but I would venture a guess that an immediate hike of the gas tax on the heels of last summer would be his gays in the military or social security reform.
Meanwhile, the NYT is on the death list for 2009, and its staff have to know it, which means that everything they write should at this point be scrutinized as resume padding - "who is this column really aimed at - which think tank's attention does the author want to attract?
A consensus is forming around a revenue neutral or "net zero" tax increase in the gasoline tax. You don't have to be a man-made global warming alarmist to see the other, simultaneous advantages of shifting the tax base to energy consumption from earned income (e.g., the payroll tax).
It's a policy long advocated by Greg Mankiw's Pigou Club.
Beside Friedman, Krauthammer also calls now a "once in a generation chance" because of low gas prices and makes the non-AGW argument for a shift in the tax base to energy consumption.
As with the rest of Obamanomics, however, does Obama have the courage to build consensus and cease the moment, or will he simply use the opportunity to grow the government and/or redistribute income?
Charles Krauthammer once proposed a variable gas tax. Pick a price per gallon, and the tax would make up the difference to that price. The price per gallon to purchasers wouldn't vary, unless the gas price went over the pre-picked price per gallon.
He had a whole column about why he thought it was a good idea, along with why it would never happen.
Oh, I hadn't seen the more recent Krauthammer column.
A major increase in the gas tax is political suicide and I don't think Obama would even consider it. People will never believe that they'll actually get the money back through other tax reductions and they'll be pissed at Obama every single time they fill up with $4 a gallon gas.
It does seem that the chattering classes, across the political spectrum, are determined to reshape the behavior of working class people who have the effrontery to drive cars. (I suspect Prof. Althouse is sympathetic to this goal of reshaping others' behavior.) Fortunately, we live in a rather anarchic democracy, where the chattering classes rarely get what they want, which accounts for their rather permanent peevishness.
Taxing gasoline to control consumption is market manipulation. It presumes that it will drive people to make "good" decisions, and the collected taxes will be put towards "good" purposes. Knowing Washington - god knows what that will be. Probably more social programs. Lets all not forget what the state lotteries were put in place for, and the slush funds they wound up being.
We have been experiencing the fruits of a manipulated energy market for some time now, with exceedingly mixed results. I cannot understand how this will "help" anything other than to fund a new generation of bureaucracy in Washington.
I couldn't agree more.
Friendman's piece is much more sophisticated than his lede. His substantial point is that the goal of greater energy efficiency cannot be achieved by CAFE standards or any other behind-the-scenes boondoggle. Energy efficient behaviour requires price signals:
The two most important rules about energy innovation are: 1) Price matters — when prices go up people change their habits. 2) You need a systemic approach. It makes no sense for Congress to pump $13.4 billion into bailing out Detroit — and demand that the auto companies use this cash to make more fuel-efficient cars — and then do nothing to shape consumer behavior with a gas tax so more Americans will want to buy those cars. As long as gas is cheap, people will go out and buy used S.U.V.’s and Hummers.
It is important to recognize who Friedman is arguing against -- he's not arguing against libertarians in this piece; he's arguing against eco-socialists. He is pointing out that energy policies that make no economic sense will continue to fail, as they have failed in the past.
Sean, they got what they wanted this year - they wanted a moderate Republican lamb slaughtered by a liberal Democrat. The soi-disant chattering classes wanted a do-over of '68 with a happy ending, and they got just that.
I think the way to phase it in would be 25 cents a year for four years, then double the tax after the next Presidential election.
I'd be curious to see where the monies raised go, however. If they go to anything other than bridge building and rail and fixing existing roads, I'll say No, thank you.
Friedman's proposal sounds like a win/win to me. Environmentalists get to preen about doing something to reduce carbon emissions. O and the Dems take a major political hit. And who knows, it may actually work! Let's do it.
Raise taxes in a recession?
Of course!
We have less money and some of us just got laid off, so now is absolutley the best possible time to add an additional burden, one that falls hardest on the poor.
It's for their own good.
Look at his wins:
- the gas tax reduces gasoline demand and keeps dollars in America = neutral (our politicians have shown an unparalleled ability to squander those taxed dollars)
- dries up funding for terrorists and reduces the clout of Iran and Russia at a time when Obama will be looking for greater leverage against petro-dictatorships = fail
(the terrorists need only wait a few years until the world economy picks up and they get their cash flow back from modestly increased per-person demand coming from the huge East and South Asian populations)
- reduces our current account deficit, which strengthens the dollar = win
- reduces U.S. carbon emissions driving climate change, which means more global respect for America = fail. (AGW is an oogedy-boogedy eco-totalitarian pagan religious cult. And who cares about the respect of Euros, which is what TF really means? They have shown in the most profound way that they don't even respect themselves and their culture - through their low birth rates, they are in the middle of falling into a demographic hole as big percentage-wise as the Black Death.)
And it increases the incentives for U.S. innovation on clean cars and clean-tech = win. (But let's do it by adding giant X prizes for delivering working technology, to supplement the current funding of on-going R&D. Lets reward success, not just effort. This is the way you defund the terrorists on a more permanent basis.)
"the gas tax reduces gasoline demand"
translated to street level means "I can't afford to buy a new hybrid, and I can't afford to buy gas for the car I have to make last for the next few years and their ain't any mass transit out here in flyover land."
And plus also it's great to tax the old living on a fixed SSI payment. They can't afford a new hyvrid either, are too scared to use mass transit, and now won't be able to drive to the doctor (the only one they could find, in another town, because no one is taking any new Medicare patients).
The new Democrat motto:
Screw the Poor!
Despite the offsetting tax decreases this will surely be more of a burden on people in westren states. I drive (carpool) 40 miles one way to work, which is in the middle of a military facility. Friedman lives where?
Today's financial crisis is the result of bad government policy and greed. On 9/11 we were attacked. I think its a bad comparison despite the fact that he works for the NYT.
Well-to-do pundits living in New York, DC, Boston and LA always love the Gas tax.
But what about rural and small town America? They have to drive long distances just to live. Its unfair for them to pay more - especially since they don't make much to begin with.
I'm for a Blue State Gas Tax. No need to have a car in Cape Cod, Boston, DC and Manhattan - so tax the hell out of them (Trooper excepted). But leave Podunk, Nebraska alone.
No need to have a car in Cape Cod
Wrong. You can't survive without a car on the Cape. There's a bus that runs up and down Route 28 a few times a day, but there's no mass transit on Cape Cod. Boston, DC, Manhattan, sure -- I didn't even own a car until I was 30 when I lived in Cambridge. But I grew up on Cape Cod and I spend my summers there still. I can tell you the resident demographic (as opposed to the tourist demo) there is a lot closer to Podunk, NE than it is to Boston's. The fact is, there are very few places in the country where anything approaching a workable mass transit exists. Even where population density and other factors combine to make it seem like a good idea, it still can't be run at anything but a loss.
The issue that Steve and RC raise is a subsidiarity issue - there should be little or no federal gas tax, and states should be free to set a level appropriate to their geographical realities. The idea of people who live in major urban centers like New York deciding questions for the entire country is strange enough, but the idea of their deciding questions about driving is bizarre.
Why is it that the people who are most enthusiastic about raising taxes are always most enthusiastic about raising federal taxes, where the impact on them personally will be the most attenuated it could be?
I wonder why Thomas Friedman and his ilk never argue for spending cuts?
David Henderson points out that the lure of low prices runs counter to Friedman's belief that we're "addicted to oil". When you're addicted to something you don't need a lure.
A revenue neutral tax at the federal level will not always be revenue neutral at the family level.
I just checked, I would have to walk 45 miles to the nearest mass transit, a once a day Amtrak train.
Having managed to turn our urban areas into dirty crime ridden messes, the pointy heads want us to move back. Wow.
Pogo:
Yes, but it will be better for everyone "in the long run."
Ask any economist about the "long run."
There's a bus that runs up and down Route 28 a few times a day, but there's no mass transit on Cape Cod.
I've taken that Cape Cod bus a few times. Wellfleet to Providence is a 2 hour drive, but 5 hours of relaxation by bus, counting the 1 to 2 hour wait for a transfer in Hyannis.
Simon wrote: there should be little or no federal gas tax, and states should be free to set a level appropriate to their geographical realities. The idea of people who live in major urban centers like New York deciding questions for the entire country is strange enough, but the idea of their deciding questions about driving is bizarre.
The people who live in New York City and Boston have decided that the rural parts of their state are serviced by toll roads. Urban centers are probably more powerful at the state level.
The issue that Steve and RC raise is a subsidiarity issue - there should be little or no federal gas tax, and states should be free to set a level appropriate to their geographical realities.
But what about rural and small town America? They have to drive long distances just to live. Its unfair for them to pay more - especially since they don't make much to begin with.
As usual, Simon and others get it ass backwards, conveniently ignoring reality and facts to fit their political view.
The Federal gas tax is disproportionately spent in rural states. Rural residents (and those living in smaller cities) generally drive fewer miles than those who live in big cities, where long commutes are the norm.
And anyone who has ever traveled in Europe knows exactly what the result of high gas prices--kept that way by high gas taxes--is. A more efficient fleet of personal vehicles and a much better maintained road and rail infrastructure as well as abundant, efficient, well-maintained public transportation and compact cities with a sense of community and livability.
People will never believe that they'll actually get the money back through other tax reductions and they'll be pissed at Obama every single time they fill up with $4 a gallon gas.
And they will be absolutely right to be pissed. The money will never be reduced elsewhere and as in California, the taxes will not be used for the purpose stated when originally assessed.
Offsetting by lowering payroll taxes... um yeah and then how are we going to fund the Ponzi Scheme known as Social Security.
My husband and I discussed this proposed payroll tax holiday the other day. Big whooop. We are self employed and have to pay both sides of the payroll taxes, don't pay ourselves a regular salary and have to put aside 15.3% of our income JUST to pay the estimated payroll taxes, nevermind the State and Federal taxes. Yeah. Big freaking help for the self employed. These politicians haven't got a clue.
As to the "green economy" (puke) this is such a joke. First of all, you can make all the hybrid cars you want, but until they have a useful function, other than commuting on a flat landscape in an urban area, they will never sell in mass quantities in rural, working America. It doesn't matter what level of taxes you put on gasoline or diesel if you need those types of vehicles for transporting goods, trucking, farming and construction. Prices will just go up on the end product of those industries to compensate for increased taxes.
As I've stated before, when you can make a hybrid that can pull a John Deere backhoe up a 6% snow covered grade or haul a load of hay or a loaded cattle truck or a cargo of vegetables to the processing plant......then, we'll talk.
This idea of forcing "green" (barf)energy and vehicles on the public a waste of money, time and energy. In addition all it will do is further cripple the manufacturing segment of our economy and depress economic recovery more in the future.
Thomas Friedman? Of the NYT? The NYT whose bonds are now a junk status item?
Perhaps Mr. Friedman should try out his theory on a macro scale first by, say, artificially pricing the fuel used by NYT vehicles to $5 per gallon, contributing the excess 'tax' to the NYC general fund.
Let us know how that works, then we can discuss rolling it out on a larger scale.
And anyone who has ever traveled in Europe knows exactly what the result of high gas prices--kept that way by high gas taxes--is. A more efficient fleet of personal vehicles and a much better maintained road and rail infrastructure as well as abundant, efficient, well-maintained public transportation and compact cities with a sense of community and livability.
As usual Freder pops in to heap laurels on those remarkably sophisticated Europeans and how it is just so much better over there than here in backward America. If we could only be more like them....
For someone who rarely, if ever, has a good thing to say about his own country it's a wonder he hasn't emigrated. Christ Freder, Canada isn't that far.
Oh and I really do like the idea of 300 million folks living in compact cities.
those remarkably sophisticated Europeans and how it is just so much better over there than here in backward America.
...completely ignoring the vast distances one must travel in the US. You can bicycle from one end of Holland to the other and back in what, 3 days? That doesn't quite work in the USA.
Every time I read the quote that is the title of this post, the more creepy it becomes. It would be more correct to say, the creepiness is inherent, and the more times I read it, the more it' inherent creepiness becomes evident to me.
As usual Freder pops in to heap laurels on those remarkably sophisticated Europeans and how it is just so much better over there than here in backward America. If we could only be more like them....
Unlike you, I am able to look at Europe and see that they are able to do some things right that we have gotten woefully wrong (especially health care and transportation policy). Sorry if it offends you that I don't believe that America is perfect in every way.
It is pathetic that you and Simon, who live in a state with some of the crappiest roads in the country, think we can't do better or at least acknowledge that we can learn from other countries' examples.
completely ignoring the vast distances one must travel in the US. You can bicycle from one end of Holland to the other and back in what, 3 days? That doesn't quite work in the USA.
Probably in a day if you are in good shape. But what is your point? People don't live in Houston and work in Chicago.
they will never sell in mass quantities in rural, working America.
I love the arrogance implied in this statement. That those living in urban areas don't work.
Say what you will about the remarkably sophisticated Europeans, but they've had high gas taxes for decades and have yet to come up with big breakthroughs in alternative energy. So why does Friedman expect anything better from a high gas tax in the US?
Corrected version: Today's financial crisis is Obama's 9/11. Friedman wants a gas tax, but the intelligence and facts are being fixed around the policy.
MadisonMan said...
"completely ignoring the vast distances one must travel in the US. You can bicycle from one end of Holland to the other and back in what, 3 days? That doesn't quite work in the USA."
One doesn't even need to take it on that kind of scale. Think about it in terms of the daily commute: some people can bike to work, but Steve mentioned a forty minute commute by car, and that's not atypical once you're beyond the coasts. I'm willing to bet that Steve's forty minute commute isn't five minutes of driving and thirty five minutes in a traffic jam à la the opening scene of "Office Space," so cycling just isn't an option. He would have to move closer to his job, or get a job closer to his home, neither of which may be an option either, and either way, the change circumscribes the pool of potential employers.
Say what you will about the remarkably sophisticated Europeans, but they've had high gas taxes for decades and have yet to come up with big breakthroughs in alternative energy. So why does Friedman expect anything better from a high gas tax in the US?
Their fleet efficiency is much higher (about 35%) than the U.S. They also use extensive use of clean diesel cars.
There is no doubt that getting away from the gasoline engine is a daunting challenge. Which is exactly why the effort needs to be subsidized.
Madison Man says . . .
I'd be curious to see where the monies raised go, however. If they go to anything other than bridge building and rail and fixing existing roads, I'll say No, thank you.
So if the new gas tax is offset with cuts in the payroll tax and we us the money for infrastructure, that leaves SS essentially unfunded. Well, it's not like the system is in any kind of financial distress or anything.
I love the arrogance implied in this statement. That those living in urban areas don't work
Sure they do, the majority (probably 60 to 80%)are working at jobs that are just not really necessary to the economy as a whole. Like my job, which I admit is a luxury job and and not really needed by the population.
Freder probably imagines that the meat and cheese in his market is from happy California cows who waltz their way down to the market and magically appear in nice precut pieces on those "green" stryofoam trays. That the aluminum and other minerals leap out of the groud to volunteer to become cans, foil and eyeglass frames. That the timber in the woods mysteriously fragments into cured 2 x 4s and plywood that then clicks it's little wooden ruby slippers together to appear at Lowes. That the flour and sugar he uses rains from the sky into 5 pound sacks. That the apples, oranges and turnups roll downhill into his local grocery store. That the fabric comprising of his clothing is spun and woven by dwarves and elves in the dark of night. (Actually, I'll give you that one, since they are probably made by illegal Guatemalan slaves in sweat shops in an urban area).
Sure people work in the cities and can get by with the foolish and energy inefficient "green" techology that is about to be crammed down our unwilling throats. The rest of us who live and work in the areas that provide the stuff that the Freder's of the world consider their birthright, cannot use that technology as it is. It doesn't matter what taxes you put on traditional energy or incentives you put on "green" (spew) energy....it isn't going to change actions unless the new technology actually WORKS and is more cost efficient. It doesn't and it isn't.
Now don't get me wrong, I am all for using alternatives if they work and are well thought out. In fact, we are in the process of researching the idea of expanding the co-gen plants that we have in this area that supplements the electricity grid and perhaps taking a plant off the grid for our local purposes of power,commercial greenhouse heat and of course making money.
Freder, my ass is not backwards.
Freder, my ass is not backwards.
Steve mentioned a forty minute commute by car, and that's not atypical once you're beyond the coasts.
God Simon, do you ever leave your little provincial shell? You, and all you other rubes simply don't know wtf you are talking about. The simple fact is the worst and longest commutes are on the coasts while the shortest are in the middle of the country (Chicago is the exception).
But don't let the facts prevent you from beating up on the jerks on the coasts.
Paul Zrimsek said...
"Say what you will about the remarkably sophisticated Europeans, but they've had high gas taxes for decades and have yet to come up with big breakthroughs in alternative energy. So why does Friedman expect anything better from a high gas tax in the US?"
You're assuming that the goals are efficiency and innovation, but what if the goal is hair shirt environmentalism? What if the real concerns are that Americans like their freedom and their luxuries more than goodthink permits? If the goal is to get Americans used to being told that they can't have what they want, to having less freedom, those things have certainly been achieved in Europe. Europeans accept without a second thought a level of plutocratic government control that most Americans - those in real America - recoil from. The project of American liberalism - the heirs of tories and loyalists - is, I'm afraid, to reject American exceptionalism root and branch, and to make us more like Europe. This strikes me as another blow for that project.
My morning loaf is permeating my entire loft right now.
How was yours morning loaves?
Unlike you, I am able to look at Europe and see that they are able to do some things right that we have gotten woefully wrong (especially health care)\
Especially healthcare? Huh? Have you ever spoken with someone in, say England, who has the pleasure of government healthcare? They hate it.
Ditto Canada, unless you believe a three month wait for a mammogram after your physician finds a lump is a good thing.
Ever see a Brit who has good teeth?
Ever see a Brit with good teeth?
Unlike you, I am able to look at Europe and see that they are able to do some things right that we have gotten woefully wrong (especially health care and transportation policy). Sorry if it offends you that I don't believe that America is perfect in every way.
I don't believe America is perfect in every way. Never said any sort of thing. Then again, you seem to delight in highlighting only America's warts and focusing on what you think are Europe's delights.
Oh and you think the American voter would put up with Euro style healthcare, you're kidding yourself.
It is pathetic that you and Simon, who live in a state with some of the crappiest roads in the country, think we can't do better or at least acknowledge that we can learn from other countries' examples.
Actually I prefer our Governor's method which is improving our roads as we speak.
The simple fact is the worst and longest commutes are on the coasts while the shortest are in the middle of the country (Chicago is the exception).
Apples and oranges.
You are referencing time. I'm talking about miles. The idea that we should not only tax gasoline to make it difficult for people to live but to also tax the number of miles driven, make it very unfair and punitive for those who live outside of the urban cesspools.
If the Cities want to improve their transport systems and create better commuting alternatives, fine....have at it. But not at the expense of those who will never ever utilize those services. The chances of me ever riding on a subway or train in New York or Chicago is less than zero. The chances that you will make my ability to drive expensive and for those of us who don't live in those area to make a living expensive, with zero return to ourselves.....probably about 80%.
Hmmmmm didn't we have a revolution or something about this kind of issue at one point in our history?
Dust Bunny Queen said...
"jobs that are just not really necessary to the economy as a whole ... luxury job[s,] ... not really needed by the population."
Writers for the New York Times, for example.
Henry - It makes no sense for Congress to pump $13.4 billion into bailing out Detroit — and demand that the auto companies use this cash to make more fuel-efficient cars — and then do nothing to shape consumer behavior with a gas tax so more Americans will want to buy those cars. As long as gas is cheap, people will go out and buy used S.U.V.’s and Hummers.
America's problems with energy are not just a function of MPG, but a multiplicity of failures under our political system.
1. Net oil use - as a function of lifestyle, industrial use, reckless immigration and population growth, driving habits - is what "MPG" is supposed to factor into. Not focus on to the exclusion of other factors:
a. People want a good lifestyle, and do not wish to wipe out the worth of 30 trillion invested in suburbs so we can all move into urban enclaves that only the rural and wealthy Elites promoting "No DRilling, Ever!" environmentalism can avoid. And rurals are not keen to return to pre-automotive days of horses, flies, and horseshit everywhere.
2. Private transportation is 40% of American oil use. The rest is gov't, heating, industry, public transporation. It is foolish to export good, but high-carbon use industrial jobs to China and the 3rd world. Want heating and public trans to run on natural gas? Well, you gotta drill for it, and the opposition blocks that..
3. We were self-sufficient in oil for most of the 20th Century. Starting at 60 million in 1900, when we were 150 million in 1950, even up to 160 million in 1960. We sure aren't at 300 million, because though we use less per capita, we have "more capita" making a higher net. Open Borders and instant anchor baby citizenship will make things worse, driving us to 368 million in 2030 and 440 million in 2050.
4. We can do well with driving habits to save more, this is one area a gas tax would do wonders...but so to would a steep luxury tax on excess oil or electricity use.
5. MPG is helpful, but at the individual level, only a component of energy use. 6 workers carpooling in a big SUV is a better use of resources than 6 environmentalists commuting in electric cars the same distance. A couple with lots of kids who use an SUV sparingly (7500 miles a year) are hardly "less morally virtuous" than a liberal power-lawyer who puts 63,000 miles a year on her PC hybrid commuting into San Francisco from the distant reaches of Marin County.
2. The idea of payroll tax offsets when SS and particularly Medicare are headed for insolvency to get a whopper gas tax passed is disingenuous. The gas tax augmentation is done. Two years later, the guillable masses are told the SS and medicare offsets must go away..for survival's sake of those programs..while the hefty gas tax stays in place (except you can be sure that the powerful and connected will ensure the gas tax is pared back on corporate livery services and private jet travel - to keep those industries "viable").
I would prefer we drill. Eliminate the ethanol subsidy. Get local fleets and trucks on natural gas. Beef up rail capacity so we no longer have semis doing runs of 1,000 miles or more but piggyback on rail. Phase out oil heating. Build 30 LNG terminals and 100 new nuke plants to power future electric cars - not coal plants. Put new CAFE standards in place. Keep present payroll taxes and prepare to transition to good universal health insurance like France, Germany, Japan have. (All pay 50% less per capita on health care than Americans do, all have longer lifespans.)
Off topic question for Ann Althouse:
How long would you tolerate a poster named Tommy 'T-Bone' Wright whose every post was about pussy?
Maybe he'd change his name sometimes. Tommylovesjuicypussy. Tommylikesitwaxed. Tommyneedsatightonetonight. Tommyfeelswornoutbutitwasworthit.
Finding pussy, kissing pussy, doing pussy, admiring pussy, fucking pussy. Latin pussy, preppie pussy. Pussy in the same building. Pussy at work. Pussy at the clubs.
Starting to get pussy as a teen-ager. Going to bars in Madison to get pussy, then on to Milwaukee, Chicago and New York.
Getting pussy on business trips. Getting pussy at conventions and other events.
And shitting. Every day a post about shitting. Shitting. The joy of shitting. Shitting stinking up the apartment. Shitting, shitting, shitting.
Just askin'. Curious about the standards.
Henry said...
"The people who live in New York City and Boston have decided that the rural parts of their state are serviced by toll roads. Urban centers are probably more powerful at the state level."
That's an unfortunate result of one of the Warren Court's most pernicious legacies, the forced dismantling of state senates apportioned by factors other than population. Unfortunately, I have no suggestions on how we can fix that mistake; even if Reynolds v. Sims were overruled tomorrow, how do we change back? Chicago would need to consent to removal from the Illinois throne, for example. Influence gained is rarely relinquished, even if the gain is ill-gotten.
Especially healthcare? Huh? Have you ever spoken with someone in, say England, who has the pleasure of government healthcare? They hate it.
Yes I have. Have you? My parents (who are 78 and 76) live in England--they lived in the U.S. for twenty years. They are extremely satisfied with the NHS.
My niece was born nearly three months premature in England (just over two pounds) and spent the first two months of her life in intensive care. My brother's in-laws (who are from New Jersey) kept insisting that they would help pay for the medical bills. They simply could not accept the fact that there weren't any.
BTW, the NHS is considered the most underfunded health care system in Western Europe. England pays about 6% of its GDP for health care and covers every one, the U.S. spends over 16%.
And you are right about dental care in England, but dental care under the NHS is extremely limited.
MichaelH - just create a blogger account called "TheTodd," and off you go! We'll find out! ;)
Actually Freder I do like the idea of increased nuclear power like the French. I think more plants which of course reduces our dependence on oil and carbon footprint.
If any pesky environmentalists get in the way we can also follow the French example of dealing with them too.
Freder probably imagines that the meat and cheese in his market is from happy California cows
You mean the California cheese marketers' TV commercials are lying?
Joan is exactly right. I can't imagine living without a car on the Cape, or the Berkshires, or coastal Maine, or any of the other scenic venues so beloved by the both the haut bourgeoisie and their various betters here in the Northeast.
The year-round population of these places is, as Joan implies, generally the exurban and rural working poor. Those of us who are hanging on to our current imitation of middle-class life may encounter them waiting tables, working at the nurse's office at camp, running kayak tours, working the ski lifts, packaging cheese for tourists in Maine, etc.
Many of us clinging to those middle-class East Coast suburban lives also know that we are a few paychecks away from joining those year-rounders at the cheese factory, if we should be so lucky when our *real* careers evaporate.
It may very well be a good idea in the macro sense to wean us off oil. But those year-rounders who can barely afford an old Chevy pickup or a rusted Subaru, not to mention those of us clinging to our minivans, know from recent bitter experience that $4.50/gallon gasolene means one thing: Getting screwed.
That's nothing new for rural folks. Been happening to them for 125 years or so. It's only happened to the middle classes for maybe 30 of those years, so we're still getting used to it.
The usual suspects can bloviate all they want about offsetting tax cuts. Those of us in the economic middle, however, know that we're where the money is. The Federal Government means to get it, or "return" all that "extra" money we make, as Barney Frank put it recently in what sounded like a Freudian slip, but may have been nothing more than an instance of simple honesty.
Any window dressing Washington may put up in the form of "offsetting" tax cuts will only be to pretty up a Potemkin village to make some elites feel better, while the rest of us sink further into lives indistinguishable from those of the year-rounders in a shack with that rusted Subaru out front.
American conservative shillmeisters like to go on about the high taxes and excessive regulation in old Europe. But, having a fair bit of contact with businesses and friends in Europe, I can tell you that Europeans actually GET something for that 60+% of their alleged income paid to the state. They get good public transportation, paid-for health care (which BTW is pretty good, except for sucky dentistry), generally excellent education from pre-school through university, and, yes, good roads for the large numbers of cars and trucks they STILL need despite high fuel taxes and trains and buses everywhere.
Americans of any experience know that we have to look further east to that Potemkin village for a model of what we can expect from our own Government. I think the Feds should get by with cheap tar paper and poster paints, rather than the pricey special effects Obama is talking about, if all they're going to put on is an overpriced show that's not quite up to the standards of summer theatre in the Berkshires.
If the Cities want to improve their transport systems and create better commuting alternatives, fine....have at it. But not at the expense of those who will never ever utilize those services.
How about the urban areas stop subsidizing your roads, water, electricity, crop prices? That anyone who lives in California (or most of the country west of the Missouri River), especially outside the cities, has the gall to gripe about subsidies or infrastructure improvements going to the cities, is beyond belief.
Michael_H said...
"Especially healthcare? Huh? Have you ever spoken with someone in, say England, who has the pleasure of government healthcare? They hate it."
As someone who lived in England for 22 years, I want to emphasize - and ditto - this remark. Anyone who thinks that universal healthcare is a good option should be forced to spend a couple of years living in a country that has it. They'd better hope they don't get sick.
My brother's in-laws (who are from New Jersey) kept insisting that they would help pay for the medical bills. They simply could not accept the fact that there weren't any.
Really? Is your brother's in-laws British citizens? If not you mean NHS will cover the medical bills of anyone who happens to require medical services in Britain?
Theo Boehm said...
"The Federal Government means to get it, or 'return' all that 'extra' money we make, as Barney Frank put it recently in what sounded like a Freudian slip, but may have been nothing more than an instance of simple honesty."
Or as some idiot once put it, they mean to spread the wealth around. Daniel Webster put it aptly: there is no shortage of men who mean to rule well, but who mean to rule.
I'm talking about miles.
Let's talk miles. How many miles do you put on your car a year? And don't include your husband's miles for his job. He's a plumber. He would drive a lot no matter where he worked.
The excellent Government healthcare system in Canada....
The Commonwealth Fund study found that 57% of Canadians waited 4 or more weeks to see a specialist. 24% waited 4 hours or more in the emergency room. Procedures that can have long waiting lists include plastic and eye surgery, hip and knee replacement, and cancer care. Canadians feel that the long waiting time should be addressed soon, especially now that discussion of the privatization of health care is arising, despite the fact that privatized health care systems also tend to be backed up. There is also an increasing shortage of doctors, especially those specializing. Canada is below the OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) average of 3.0 doctors per thousand population, having only 2.2 doctors per thousand population.
I love the rural/urban fight here. Keep it going.
By the way my morning loaf is still permeating my loft. That was a powerful loaf. Powerful loaves are not to be fooled with-we just need to accept them and respect them.
Did all of you know that elephants have large brains and mourn the passing of other elephants?
Really? Is your brother's in-laws British citizens? If not you mean NHS will cover the medical bills of anyone who happens to require medical services in Britain?
My parents and one brother live in England--they are all British citizens, although my brother's wife has retained her U.S. citizenship (although of course she has permanent resident status because of her marriage to my brother).
The way I understand it, the NHS will cover all emergency care for anyone who is in the country legally. They tried at one time to bill tourists but it was simply too expensive.
As for Canada. I tore my ACL skiing in Canada (this was Jan of '97). I got excellent emergency care there. My total hospital bill, which included doctor, x-rays, crutches and a knee brace, was CDN $400 (USD $300 at the time). Nine months later when I had a bicycle accident in Washington D.C. that required 37 stitches, my e.r. bill was over $2000.
24% waited 4 hours or more in the emergency room.
Last time I was in the emergency room I waited over six hours--and I got to go through the express lane as I only needed a couple stitches.
My morning loaf slid out with great ghusto today. It was like a skinny kid flying down a wetslide at a water park in Wisconsin Dells.
It more or less shot out of my hole rather than slid out or was pinched. It really was a thing of beauty.
American conservative shillmeisters like to go on about the high taxes and excessive regulation in old Europe. But, having a fair bit of contact with businesses and friends in Europe, I can tell you that Europeans actually GET something for that 60+% of their alleged income paid to the state.
Perhaps it's because of our jaundiced view of the mismanagement of our own Government's handling of our tax dollars.
And it is true that elephants have long memories, as well as hogs.
Elephants can remember a place or thing many years later.
Anyone who thinks that universal healthcare is a good option should be forced to spend a couple of years living in a country that has it.
And anyone who thinks it is a bad idea should be forced to suffer a serious trauma, say a traffic accident that requires emergency surgery to stop internal bleeding or better yet a cerebral aneurysm; or have a chronic but treatable condition, diabetes, epilepsy or high blood pressure perhaps; without insurance in this country.
The way I understand it, the NHS will cover all emergency care for anyone who is in the country legally.
That's incredible. Well not really. We're doing the same here except for those who are here illegally.
They tried at one time to bill tourists but it was simply too expensive.
For who the tourist or the British taxpayer? Honestly such a system seems quite unsustainable.
For who the tourist or the British taxpayer?
As incredible as it sounds to Americans (and something my brother's in-laws never fully could accept), the NHS simply doesn't bill for its services. It is truly a socialized system. The doctors work for the government. You go to the doctor or the hospital and there is no mechanism for individual billing. To set up a system for the small minority of patients who were theoretically not covered by the system would have simply been too expensive.
Most of the rest of Europe has a single payer or universal insurance system where the providers are still private but the bills are paid by the government or a small pool of highly regulated insurers.
A lot of comments are concerned with the distribution effects of the proposed gas tax. Those effects are real but not the main reason to oppose it. The larger problem is the use of the tax system to skew markets in whatever ways the political winds may be blowing today. That is almost never a good idea.
The current financial mess resulted, in substantial part, from the use of the tax system to favor investments in real estate over other investments. Markets reacted as one would expect, and overinvestment in housing was the predictable result. Other factors contributed to the perfect storm, but the use of the tax system to skew markets for political purposes was a large part of the story.
The proposal now is to use the tax system to disfavor oil as a source of energy, in order to skew energy markets in favor of alternative sources of energy. The benefits that might be achieved from doing so strike me as highly exaggerated, while the very real costs are basically ignored. The two most common benefits offered to justify a high gas tax are "energy independence" and the need for eco-friendly sources of energy. "Independence" as an objective in a global economy is mostly rhetoric, and if ever pursued seriously as a policy its results would be highly inefficient (think ethanol) and unachievable as a practical matter. The eco-friendly rationale is, if anything, worse. Tallying up the environmental pros and cons of different energy sources is a difficult and tricky exercise, loaded down with value judgments posing as something else. As far as I am aware, that's never really been done.
Putting all of that aside, and just looking at the results of the housing market example, why would anyone think that this is such a great time to propose using the tax system to skew markets, make allocation decisions and favor one group of consumers (those non-drivers in Manhattan) over another (the car-loving rubes who live elsewhere)? One of the lessons of the current financial mess is that a little humility is in order, and a great deal of skepticism is warranted, whenever some bright know-it-all proposes a simple political fix, all wrapped up in nice-sounding slogans, for imagined market failures.
We're doing the same here except for those who are here illegally.
Actually we don't. Hospitals can't refuse to treat you, but they sure as hell are going to bill you.
To set up a system for the small minority of patients who were theoretically not covered by the system would have simply been too expensive.
Somehow I don't think that is going to work here as we will not have a small minority of patients who were theoretically not covered by the system
I am not an expert on European health care but I have worked on the health side in the insurance industry in this country. That being said, I cannot imagine the level of taxation that would need to be levied to provide the kind of coverage that the majority of Americans enjoy to 300 million people.
[Europeans] also use extensive use of clean diesel cars.
Which are not legal in the USA, for the most part. You see, we have much stricter pollution controls than Europe does. Most of those diesels emit too many micro-particles to be legal here.
So, choose your poison: go for fuel-efficiency and piss off the environmentalists (who view any change of regulations as a GIVEAWAY TO EVIL INDUSTRY!!! no matter the logic or actual harm in question) or deal with less-efficient gasoline cars.
Actually we don't. Hospitals can't refuse to treat you, but they sure as hell are going to bill you.
Actually Freder, we do. I know firsthand.
Ever hear of the term can't get blood from a stone? Hospitals can bill till their heart's content and if Jose doesn't pay, where exactly do you think the hospital is going to get their money from?
The only difference between the NHS and our system with respect to illegals is that we go through the motions of 'billing' but don't expect to see a red cent.
Well, none of these single-payer healthcare systems are perfect. There WILL be rationing, however, no matter how it's done: Either the overpriced, ad hoc, flakey rationing we get in the US, or, to take the Canadian example, politicized and perennially underfunded Provincial rationing.
I recall having my first kidney stone attack 20-odd years ago in Boston. There were only 2 lithotriptors (high-tech stone-breaking machines) in Boston at the time. There were NONE in all of Canada. Because I had a plain vanilla-flavored, if large but non-threatening stone, I had to wait 6 weeks for treatment. Lots of Canadians with worse conditions were in line ahead of me. Canada didn't want to pay the capital costs of the high tech devices, and basically sucked off the Americans, who passed the well-padded costs to the insurance companies, who passed the costs to people like my employer and me, who would up subsidizing an entire cast of bureaucrats on both sides of the border.
A perfect mess of healthcare finance, which had the effect of me writhing in pain, basically unable to work for 6 weeks.
I make no brief for any specific healthcare finance system, but only say—as someone who has been both screwed and helped by ours and who has had to pay for it, and who has tried to start a business with the high and unpredictable cost of health care looming over the enterprise—that we have to do SOMETHING more rational and cheaper than what we have been doing.
I'm a great fan of the American way of doing things, and I'm constantly defending our approach to Europeans, but the way we finance health care in this country has reached the end of the line as far as I'm concerned. I say that as someone who works for a small/mid-sized business, and has tried to run his own. WE are the ones getting screwed by all this. And those of you concerned about free enterprise ought to consider how it has come about that a large segment of American free enterprise has been hamstrung trying to pay unpredictably high fixed costs that it no longer can afford.
Freder, why do you and your little friends want to destroy America with your stupid ideas when there are already plenty of picturesque chocolate-making sitzpinkling shitholes that are already living the "dream" that you stroke yourself off to every night? If Europe is doing everything right, THEN MOVE THERE ALREADY!
There's a difference between being a liberal who wants to change some things he thinks could be better and being a leftist douchebag who seems to hate everything about America and wants to scrap it (err, recycle it!) and turn it into a bigger and less efficient Belgium. I've never seen you write a single positive word about anything actually. Maybe that's why you don't move to Europe: they already have enough snide, self-loathing assholes to take care of.
24% waited 4 hours or more in the emergency room.
Last time I was in the ER, it took about 5 hours to get out. Once they figured out I was in no danger of dying, I sat for a long time.
I would have preferred just seeing my primary care physician, but I said two magic words that makes them tell you go to the hospital.
And Freder, if Canada is so great for health care, why do Canadians come to America and pay for what is "free" to them? Those of us on the borders see this all the time. Sometimes, Windsor hospitals send emergency patients over the border in ambulances to Detroit! (At least, in that case, the Canadian system pays, unlike in the case of the Canadian judges "too old" for a certain treatment. "Just go home and die" is the message there.)
BTW, Richard Dolan has essentially made my rather folksy argument about gasolene taxes in a very much better, general, and more rational way.
Excellent comment. I only wish I could write as well.
Which are not legal in the USA, for the most part. You see, we have much stricter pollution controls than Europe does. Most of those diesels emit too many micro-particles to be legal here.
Actually, except for California, they are legal here, and some of the new generation even pass CA emission standards. The Jetta diesel did quite well in this country.
The main problem was that most of the new high performance diesels require low sulfur fuel, which wasn't available here until about two years ago. Now that we have finally got around to mandating that, I think you will begin to get more diesel cars here.
Say what you will about the remarkably sophisticated Europeans, but they've had high gas taxes for decades and have yet to come up with big breakthroughs in alternative energy.
I wish we had France's nuclear energy policy.
But such a hope reflects, as much as anything, the unreality of this discussion.
The United States has an energy policy right now that is disfunctional, bordering on insane. It's a monopoly of fragile public-private partnerships that can't handle bad weather, let alone a changing market. It's a confetti cloud of tax incentives for upperclass home buyers. It's a coprolitic auto industry, a monument to regulation and incompetence.
The reason that economists support a gas tax is because it is direct, market-based way to assign a cost to the many externalities associated with the oil economy -- from infrastructure to geopolicy.
Friedman's idea has the potential to cut through a lot of crap.
It won't happen, of course, but neither will the libertarian phantasia presented as its alternative.
I think we in the US have the worst of both worlds when it comes to medical care. Unlike the rest of the world, we haven't gone full bore socialist, merely playing with it around the edges, with socialized medicine for the old, and for the kids, and for anybody who can't pay. Thus medical companies run up the charges on those who can pay to make up the shortfall.
There is no honesty in billing either. You need an interlocutor to mediate for you with the hospitals. Recently I cut my finger, the trip to the emergency room for 2 stitches was billed for 1600 dollars. It's extremely unlikely my insurance actually paid that much. But if I was uninsured, and unable to pay, then the hospital could turn around and write off the entire amount on their taxes, thus writing off a big chunk of their real earnings.
So we have price signals hidden from those using the product, an overarching authority fixing prices for nearly half the customers, and differential prices depending on if you have access to the proper channels (insurance or welfare). It's a screwed up system, and there really isn't much of the free market left in it. Socialized medicine probably isn't better than a free market approach, but it's probably better than what we have now.
Recently I cut my finger, the trip to the emergency room for 2 stitches was billed for 1600 dollars.
Man, and I thought over $800 for two stitches to my finger was outrageous!
I think Krauthammer already suggested this. Both are assuming the Congress will be responsible and truthful with the flip side tax reduction part of the plan. Hah!
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/015/949rsrgi.asp
MadisonMan, let me guess: "chest pain"?
I love how we've segued from mass transit to socialized health care. If I lived in a country with socialized medicine, I'm not sure I'd still be alive.
Counting labor as a couple hundred dollars an hour for the services of a skilled professional, I probably used up about 20 minutes of time between doctor and nurse(so about 80 dollars billable), and a couple hundred dollars facilities and materials cost (the thread, iodine, and such were so cheap as to be negligible, but having a room available and ready has costs), I figure a reasonable figure would be around 300 to 500 dollars, which is probably what my insurance negotiated the hospital to (and my deductible covered most of that, so there was little out of pocket for insurance).
But if I hadn't had insurance, I would have responsible for the whole thing; but that's okay, if I don't pay, then they just write it off as a loss, allowing the hospital to write down their profits at the end of the the year for about 1100 dollars (they eat the 500 dollars my treatment cost them).
I just looked up the prices on cosmetic surgeries, where unlike the rest of medicine, the prices are born by the patient and thus transparent. LASIK is 1600-3000, Lipo often runs less than 5000 dollars. Breast enlargement is in the low grands. And all of these are healthy, profitable businesses.
The funny thing is, if we in America kept a free market, where people actually pay for their care directly, they might still be able to afford to.
A gas tax as supported by (some) economists has crap-cutting potential. But Friedman's not approaching the question as an economist would-- he starts from the anti-economic assumption that "retool[ing] America around clean-power technologies" is an end in itself. An economist would, or should, start without any such presupposition; instead, he'd tally up the externalities (hopefully minus the usual hand-waving about big defense savings), raise (or lower!) the gas tax to match, and then let the market work out how to react.
Joan, you're right on the first guess!
Lots of followup, so far, to find nothing wrong. Except for my family history -- Men drop dead so easily in my Mom's family -- I'd never have gone in.
If I lived in a country with socialized medicine, I'm not sure I'd still be alive.
Statistically, your odds are pretty damn good. This country spends a bigger chunk of its GDP on health care than the next closest competitor (over 16% in the U.S. with the next closest being France at around 12%), yet our health outcome by almost any way you measure it is mediocre.
But Friedman's not approaching the question as an economist would-- he starts from the anti-economic assumption that "retool[ing] America around clean-power technologies" is an end in itself.
And there is an economic argument to made for this. It can be argued that the externalities of burning dirty fuels have never been paid for and that a tax is justified to pay for those costs.
Good thread everyone.
I understand the arguments against a gas tax, or more to the point using the tax system to set a floor price for gasoline.
However, I would accept those problems if we could dump the CAFE regime in exchange. CAFE is a huge factor in the failure of the US automotive industry. It is a hidden tax, and like all other hidden taxes, it is inefficient, counterproductive and undermined by loopholes that serve to illustrate its basic hypocrisy. While I recognize that politicians are now trained to avoid associating themselves with tax increases, sometimes the alternative means of achieving a social goal are worse. It's a cheap applause line among green-minded voters to demand a stiffer CAFE standard, but it's the classic case of seeming to offer something for nothing. "A cleaner environment and those bastards in Detroit will pay for it, just like they should!" The result is a distortion that affects the entire US auto industry, ensuring that the legacy of lousy, unprofitable products that nobody wants will continue, and that any hypothetical environmental gains will be offset by making politically convenient exceptions designed to stave off the full measure of economic disaster -- such as the "truck" exemption that gave rise to the SUV trend.
It can be argued that the externalities of burning dirty fuels have never been paid for and that a tax is justified to pay for those costs.
Perhaps if the government can demonstrate it's ability to use our tax dollars in an efficient manner I would also agree the tax would be justified.
However, I would accept those problems if we could dump the CAFE regime in exchange.
I agree, especially since Detroit found a loophole in CAFE that they could literally (and did) drive a truck through.
Both Henry and Salamandyr, above, are unfortunately quite correct.
We've been talking about a couple of very big, hard-to-solve problems, and it's interesting that so many people agree that they are problems to be solved. I think there might even be the basis of general agreement about what should be done, IF we had political leadership capable of forming a consensus and a system to support them.
This is a strange time of transition. Obama and the Democrats may say they're about Hope and Change, but perhaps more realistically we should be about the perennials of Hope and Fear: Hope that we can solve our problems; and Fear that things will turn out as badly as they seem to be headed.
But we should remember that they are OUR problems, our AMERICAN problems, and that we are all in this together. The weird and increasingly dysfunctional politics we've had since the '60's have, like our healthcare finance, reached the end of the line. We've got to stop this crap, symbolized by the so-called culture wars, and talk about reality, or we will soon find ourselves a fractured 3rd world hellhole, if we haven't in many ways already.
America has always been about limited government and private property. But both these things are neither absolutes nor categorical imperatives. We must find solutions based on these principles, but which preserve our American nation, our traditional freedoms, and protect our public from the worst effects of both government and private excess.
Those are nice sentiments, which I hope don't sound too naive, which I realize they might to many. But the one thing for which Americans traditionally have been noted is their practicality: We don't rely on grand abstractions when faced with real problems.
But we do have real problems. Our politics have moved too far to the weirdly abstract in the past 30 or 40 years, and have come to resemble the 'green' and 'blue' factions of the Roman circus: Identity politics trumping all else. At long last, let's have some arguments about economic reality, which we seem to at least a little on this thread, and forget about moonbats or wingnuts, and which group is the greatest victim, lest we find we're ALL victims of failed politics.
HoosierDaddy said...
"Perhaps if the government can demonstrate it's ability to use our tax dollars in an efficient manner I would also agree the tax would be justified."
Fred Thompson advanced a simplified but compelling principle to govern taxation: "a dollar belongs in the pocket of the person who earns it, unless the government has a compelling reason why it can use it better." Efficiency would be a part of that analysis, to be sure, but it's problematic: government is inherently inefficient whenever it acts as a monopoly, and its intrusion is usually unnecessary whenever it acts as a market participant. Sometimes government is uniquely placed to do something, though, so we have to accept it taking tax dollars to fund that activity even though it is likely to do it inefficiently.
Titus, I don't perceive this as an urban/rural "fight," I don't know where you'd get that from.
Theo Boehm said...
"But we should remember that they are OUR problems, our AMERICAN problems, and that we are all in this together."
That's an assumption. I don't know how true it is. To the contrary, it seems to me that many of those on the other side of the "debate" believe that many of our problems are a symptom of "American" thinking, to be cured by the injection of European concepts. As you say, "America has always been about limited government and private property," and to these loyalist revanchists, those are precisely the problem (or at very least, obstacles to be surmounted). "Socialism" is inaccurate -- too strong a word, and one much abused by Americans, but certainly there is an appetite among a particular sect, now in ascendancy, to have more government regulation, more government involvement, more centralization, more government control, all of which means more coercion by the state and less freedom.
"We've got to stop this crap, symbolized by the so-called culture wars, and talk about reality, or we will soon find ourselves a fractured 3rd world hellhole, if we haven't in many ways already."
I'm sorry, Theo, but that's trite. The culture wars are about real issues - and don't think that either side of them are any less invested than the other. (Obama is, too, as Amba explained memorably.) Of course the legality vel non of abortion is a real issue; to claim otherwise, whichever side one comes down on, is in denial of reality. Moreover, the real issues involved in the culture wars intrude into the issues on the approved list, both directly and indirectly. Consider, for an example of the foremer, government-provided taxpayer-funded healthcare. Will it offer abortions?
There are things we could do to reduce medical costs in this country that have nothing to do with socialized medicine.
Ban the AMA.
Radically expand the number of medical schools slots available in this country by opening new schools.
Contract with big name retailers to provide primary care clinics the way they do pharmacies and eyecare.
Loosen the rules forbidding medical practice by nurse practitioners and such.
Re-think rules on competitive advertising of medical services. Medicine might act like the free market if we treated it like the free market.
Put a big whopping tariff on overseas drug sales. Almost every country in the world free rides on our pharmaceutical development. Let them pay up.
America faces a quandary with its reliance on "free markets!" and lawsuits to compense for long-term planning and government regulation of products and services.
Markets, as we ruefully have learned, are limited to pure short-term vision in shaping US society, and easily manipulated by the powerful and corrupt. The doppleganger of "free markets" the all-wise US consumer, has compounded the damage to the nation by not saving, going heavily into debt, and impulse-buying into buying too much ChinaStuff and too much house and too much indulgent, bogus services.
Reliance on rapacious trial lawyers and "wise juries" counseled by the likes of John Edwards -- to optimize our goods and services in lieu of "evil gummint" oversight, regulation, setting of legal standards -- has been an utter, irrational failure.
Fred Thompson advanced a simplified but compelling principle to govern taxation: "a dollar belongs in the pocket of the person who earns it, unless the government has a compelling reason why it can use it better.
What Fred misses, bless his heart, is that what an American earns over some guy in Russia or Indonesia doing the same job - is less a function of his skill and more from the fact that they earn it in America and the wage differential is due not to the individual "Freedom Lover!" of libertarian mythos, but a function of all present and past Americans have done to create the infrastructure, markets, society that allow certain people to make an income killing.
What an American "earns" is not testimony to the money they are owed based solely on level of individual skill and work - but also attributable to Americans collectively for the collective work of ALL the People in rewarding those Americans at a higher and better wage than they could if they were magically transplanted to Romania or India. And had to parlay their legal services skills, shop entrepreneurship, or Bernie Madoff wizardry in a different collective of People with a different set of infrastructure, security, access to resources & capital (created by the work of others).
Thus, the rich and middle class DO owe society a portion of their earnings. Given the alternative of putting their "pure skill and hard work" up to be determined by a borderless, "pure" international labor pool. That would pay all senior truck drivers, cardio nurses, bankers specializing in secondary loans, and junior drug researchers of same credentials the same.
Cedarford, that criticism might actually mean something if our medical system was anything like an actual free market.
Freder, when you move to Belgium can you take Cedarford with you?
Cedarford, I'm quite certain that Fred does not "miss[]" that the blessings taking for granted by this generation flower from "all present and past Americans have done to create the infrastructure, markets, society" that are taken for granted by liberals as if gifts from a God they don't even believe in.
Freder, when you move to Belgium can you take Cedarford with you?
Not bloody likely. Cedarford is too busy running the Aryan Nation and preparing for the war against ZOG.
Anyway, except for the beer, I don't care much for Belgium either.
I would prefer Germany, Austria, Italy, or even the Czech Republic.
Simon: In the first instance, it may be an assumption, but I think the reality of actual American life and the rapid demographic dissolution of Europe will eventually give the small number of people who would still love everything European at least a second thought.
As I say, the 'radical' 18th century principles of limited government and private property have NEVER been absolutes on this continent. We have tried more or less government regulation and control in various areas of American life at different times in our history. The Constitution has, however, so far proved an effective deterrent to those European systems of absolutism or totalitarianism, admired by small factions of Americans at different times, but which are, in their essence, inoculated against by the firm sense of personal autonomy that Americans, new or old, seem to breathe in the air on this continent.
That said, there are forces abroad that threaten that personal liberty, not the least of which are economic ones, having very little to do with government encroachments. This was recognized 100 years ago during our Progressive era, when the closing of the frontier and the rapid development of an industrial economy threatened American liberty with depredations of an entirely different character than the feared tyranny of a strong central Government. A balance between government and economic forces was struck at that time, under the aegis of the Constitution, that has endured and evolved until the present.
The forces of trans-national capitalism, however, not to mention the intertwined Asian model of state-controlled 'capitalism,' are putting pressures on ordinary Americans in ways that are, if not entirely novel in the economic history of the world, fairly new here. We have arrived, by fits and starts, at a point where we cannot or will not make many of the goods we need. We have paid for them by a vast bubble of real estate speculation, leading to a collapse of markets unheard of for 75 years. In this witches' brew we find that there has been a remarkably unintelligent regulation of markets, combined with the fact that there remain surprisingly few large businesses that have much institutional or managerial loyalty to the welfare of the United States or their people, except insofar as they may be a source of stable currency and loans extorted from the public purse.
If ever there was a time for effective Governmental action, this is it. I do not mean, however, Governmental action designed to limit Americans' personal or economic liberty, but the necessary collective action implied by the notion of 'public good.' Whether the latter-day American Government is capable of such action remains to be seen. But starting with an a priori assumption that actions needed to preserve the very basis of traditional American liberty—a widespread economic prosperity—are doomed to fail, is to vitiate the raison d'etre of the nation-state, and abandon responsibility for our collective welfare to the Fates.
In this context, it seems to me trite to continue to argue about who must pay for abortions, or whether one person of the same sex would marry another. I have no illusions that such arguments should continue; I should encourage them. But given the increasing possibility of the disappearance of our former national opulence, we ought to consider that the erection of an American-owned factory would be of vastly greater consequence than any worry about how many parties to a marriage should have erections of their own.
MadisonMan: sorry to hear about your troubles. I'm sure you already know there are a lot of things that cause chest pain. I'll just suggest having your blood pressure checked in both arms, because my husband was recently diagnosed with HBP even though in his left arm, the arm they typically use, it's always normal. On the right, it was 20 points higher and enough to cause some thickening of his heart muscle. Nothing very serious, but we're very, very glad to have caught it in its earliest stage. Dropping dead is often caused by hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, but it's a condition that can be prevented if caused by HBP, and you know to look for and treat it.
Freder: good call on the beer, and Belgium.
As for the rest, government intervention got us into this mess in the first place, and subsequent meddling has continued to make things worse. Why do we expect more government intervention to be able to get us out? When has government intervention ever fixed a problem like this? What is that saying about doing the same thing over and over again, and expecting a different result? Ah, yes: the definition of insanity.
The culture wars are about real issues - and don't think that either side of them are any less invested than the other.
The 1871 Paris Commune declared all church property to be public property and eventualy executed the Archbishop of Paris.
Shortly afterwords, the army of the National Assembly reconquered the city and executed some 20,000 people.
Luckily, most Americans are not so invested in the culture wars as all that.
Freidman overlooks a harsh fact. When the average American like Dust Bunny is paid $1.00 for their hard work, the US govt takes 15 cents to pay for social sceurity and Medicare. And those systems are broke!
Why should Americans support a complex idea like Friedman's that mixes up gasoline usage and a bankrupt federal retirement Ponzi scheme?
America needs to scrap the existing systems and re-think and get back to basics on future social security and medicare plans asap.
Well, the Federal Government's relatively feeble efforts during the Depression may or may not have had the intended effects, but they did arguably prevent something like a Revolution, with untold possibilities for much worse in its aftermath.
And, of course, the vast expenditures of the Federal Government during World War II recapitalized American industry and stimulated aggregate demand to set the stage for the unparalleled prosperity that was the backdrop to many of our childhoods and youth.
What WOULD have happened if we had no Progressive Era or wars in the 20th century? Those would be nice speculations for a long winter's night, but the fact remains that the Federal Government's 'meddling' laid the foundations for our happy and spoiled recent past.
When has government intervention ever fixed a problem like this?
Umm, let's see. In the 1860's government intervention led to the first transcontinental railroad in the world (started during the Civil War). In the last half of the nineteenth century, government intervention, first in Europe and then in this country, produced public water, health and wastewater treatment systems, which finally made industrial cities able to maintain their populations (prior to the end of the nineteenth centuries the death rate exceeded the birth rate in almost every major city in the world because of easily preventable waterborne diseases like typhus and cholera).
Then the great water and flood control projects of the first half of the century made urban life in the west possible and brought electricity to much of the country. After WWII, government intervention tackled the problems of water, air and soil pollution in this country and developed a commercial aviation system.
I could go on for quite some time.
Well, the Federal Government's relatively feeble efforts during the Depression may or may not have had the intended effects
Feeble? I daresay that Dust Bunny Queen has water, electricity and telephone and paved roads as a direct result of the Federal Government's feeble efforts during the recession. Without the shift in attitude about what the government is expected to do (or did in partnership with private companies like AT&T by granting them complete monopolies in exchange for the promise of delivering phone service to remote communities), vast areas of this country would still be without basic utilities.
The simple fact is the worst and longest commutes are on the coasts while the shortest are in the middle of the country (Chicago is the exception).
That article is about the time, not the length of the commute. When I lived in DC it took me an hour to drive ten miles. Now it takes me 10-15 minutes to drive 3 miles. We’re not really talking about the same thing and your article doesn’t prove what you say it does.
Freder: They were feeble from a macroeconomic standpoint: It took the vast expenditures of WWII to actually accomplish the task of recapitalizing industry and stimulating demand.
However, you are absolutely right about the shift of attitudes toward what the Federal Government might be expected to do. For many, it's been a two-edged sword, but I think, whatever his failings, FDR and the New Deal actively prevented a much worse catastrophe by doing exactly the sort of things you mention.
How about the novel concept that government simply stops charging a gas tax, deregulates special blend fuels, and releases land leases on holdings where oil reserves are know to exist within the US? How about the idea that I don't want them telling me what to drive, how to drive, where to drive, when to drive and in general trying to limit my mobility options all the while trying to pinch the last few dollars out of my wallet? The founding fathers are turning over in their graves in seeing how this country, if not this government has become the giant, fat, bloated, obese pig it has become. Now we have morons who call themselves economists making suggestions on tax policies.
I daresay that Dust Bunny Queen has water, electricity and telephone and paved roads as a direct result of the Federal Government's feeble efforts during the recession. Without the shift in attitude about what the government is expected to do (or did in partnership with private companies like AT&T by granting them complete monopolies in exchange for the promise of delivering phone service to remote communities), vast areas of this country would still be without basic utilities.
Our District water is provided by an independent utility district (of which I am a board member) founded without any government assistance over 60 years ago. Most people in this area provide their own domestic or agricultural water through wells or other aquifer systems such as springs. The government has nothing to do with these ventures other than to impede.
Roads that were originally made throughout this area were toll roads, constructed by entrepreneurial souls and many are still private roads. Other than the Federal Highway, most roads are plowed only occasionally by the County, but mostly by folks who have access to their own equipment. Being outlying areas, we are used to being last on the schedule. Such is life.
The gasoline tax money that is supposed to be used for infrastructure road repair has mainly been channeled to the freeways and urban areas. We did get some bridges retrofitted for earthquake standards to the financial benefit of no one in this area as all jobs were contracted with construction firms from LA or out of state.
Our electricity is provided by a hydro project that was constructed in the 1920's by a private firm that basically diverted and stole our river from its historical bed. Our electricity cost is the highest in the State, even though I can almsot see the hydro plant from my office window. We do make some money locally with our own hydro and cogeneration plants that sell money back to the grid.
We used to have some industries that supported jobs, families and towns, but those were closed down by government intervention.
We pay just as much in taxes as others in the County and yet we have had removed from our location various county services: the Library, the Court, the Sheriff sub station, and the county dump station was closed. We now have to drive over 250 miles to go to court or report for jury duty, the back woods are clogged with old appliances.
We created our own library through a 501-c3. Have our own citizen's patrol, such as it is, and do not rely on the County Mounties for anything. In an emergency you'd better be prepared to handle it yourself because it will be at least an hour before anyone shows up if at all. We have several volunteer only fire departments to cover structure fires in the area and are only minimally funded by property tax revenue, when we actually recieve it. Often it goes into the General Fund and is taken by the State or County governments. Fund raisers and charitable donations are the way to keep alive.
Our phone company is a private company with, actually, great internet that we obtained from huge fiber project done by Level 3 and a couple of other firms that laid dark fiber. They didn't do it for our benefit, but it worked out that way.
So we have no government services, yet we have ALL the government interference and ALL the tax burden.
Tell me again, why I should be thrilled to pay high gas taxes for something that is of no use to me, rapid transit in some stinkhole city or to support inefficent and costly "green" (gag me) techonolgy that I will never use?
As far as I can figure out. We don't need Government but it needs us just like a leech needs a host to bleed dry. All take and no give.
Dust Bunny Queen, thank you for giving concrete examples of how government isn't the only, or best, provider of utilities. Amity Shlaes' The Forgotten Man details exactly how FDR's programs ripped the heart out of private industries' attempts at electrification, power generation, and water distribution. Government interference ran up costs, increased wait times, and sooner rather than later lost people both jobs and money. Freder's view of history is a popular one but it is not necessarily accurate.
Theo, it's not true that FDR prevented a worse catastrophe through his efforts. It is true that his incessant tinkering prolonged the Depression and in fact made things worse. (UCLA isn't exactly a hotbed of conservative thought.) Perhaps worst of all is the shift in attitudes mentioned. We were much better off when the majority did not look to the government for salvation.
The day the federal government taxes my loaves is the day I revolt. My loaves will be angry if they are taxed and no one likes an angry loaf.
Enough taxes I say...and more loaves in all their variety, color and splendor.
Healthy loaves make for a healthy country-I always say that.
Also, there is nothing more patriotic than a large, erect, cut hog-very American.
Also vages with wild manes are like the great untamed west-again very American.
Vages that are shaved are very euro and unpatriotic and tend to hurt the hog.
Theo Boehm said...
"[T]he Federal Government's relatively feeble efforts during the Depression may or may not have had the intended effects, but they did arguably prevent something like a Revolution, with untold possibilities for much worse in its aftermath."
It could very well be argued that what transpired was a revolution. In the space of a few years, there was a fundamental change in what the federal government actually did, how it did it, in what ordinary Americans came to expect from their government, and in public attitudes towards what the acceptable role of the federal government was. (Your comment also asks "[w]hat would have happened if we had no Progressive Era" (emphasis deleted), and one obvious example of something that wouldn't have happened is the New Deal and this revolutionary transfer of power to the federal government. Prior to the adoption of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Amendments, the feds would, respectively, have lacked the money and been unable to pass the legislation required for such follies.) Was that not a revolution?
You wrote elsewhere that "[w]e have tried more or less government regulation and control in various areas of American life at different times in our history. The Constitution has, however, so far proved an effective deterrent to those European systems of absolutism or totalitarianism...." But the Constitution is an imperfect bulwark against socialism, even if it is not stretched and abused as it was in the 20th Century. Nothing in the Constitution says that the government can't own property (to the contrary, several provisions - Article 1 § 8, Article 4 § 3, and the Fifth Amendment, for example - presuppose that it can). What, then, stands in the way of the nationalization of the commanding heights of industry if not the longstanding traditions of this country, stretched and thinned as they were in the 20th century, and now proposed for demolition by liberals as the latest inconvenience that must fall before their agenda?
Also vages with wild manes are like the great untamed west-again very American.
I always knew you liked Bush too, Titus.
How about the novel concept that government simply stops charging a gas tax, deregulates special blend fuels, and releases land leases on holdings where oil reserves are know to exist within the US?
Gee, in return, let's say the government stops maintaining and building roads and see how that inhibits your ability to decide "what to drive, how to drive, where to drive, when to drive".
Our District water is provided by an independent utility district (of which I am a board member) founded without any government assistance over 60 years ago.
Okay, I am tired of your rugged individualism--how you don't need the stinking U.S. or state government. Where exactly do you live. If you live in the mountains, I guarantee you, you receive more in federal money than your county pays in taxes.
Freder's view of history is a popular one but it is not necessarily accurate.
There are some programs (like those I mentioned above) that are simply unprofitable. Good chunks of the upper midwest and west are not, and have probably never been, economically viable. The only reason people live in parts of North and South Dakota and Montana is because that direct and indirect government subsidies keep them there (mostly in the form of agricultural subsidies but also roads, water projects and military spending). They were marginal when they were originally settled, and even more so now.
As for DBQ's part of the country. If not for the massive government water projects, nobody would be living in the mountains of California after the gold and other precious minerals were played out.
And for all the libertarian fantasies of the government selling all their land in the intermountain west. There is a good reason it belongs to the government. If it was offered for sale, nobody would buy it, and if it could be sold there is no productive use for it.
"The day the federal government taxes my loaves is the day I revolt."
Oh, you're already quite revolting.
Freder's vast knowledge of history seems to have begun and ended with "The People's History of the United States".
Okay, I am tired of your rugged individualism--how you don't need the stinking U.S. or state government.
And some of us are tired of your nanny state we-can't-wipe-our-ass without the government's help attitude.
I think everyone understands that the government is necessary, taxes are necessary to provide the services we need to maintain the standard of life we have.
Your problem is you have this attitude that government is there for EVERYTHING. Honestly you carry on as if there is no such thing as a bad tax and not one good thing has ever come out of private enterprise.
Don't believe anything that Freder says. He always seems to have some convenient story to make his point. Need relatives in England who love the health care? Need a wife that was sent off to fight in Bushitler's illegal war? He's a man of no accomplishments in life. He's a wanna be, and nothing more. He's told some other fables on other blogs that don't match his stories of today. Nonsense.
He's told some other fables on other blogs that don't match his stories of today.
list them, jerk, if you are accusing me of lying.
I think everyone understands that the government is necessary, taxes are necessary to provide the services we need to maintain the standard of life we have.
I don't think DBQ, Joan and Palladian would necessarily agree with that statement.
The wifey thing, for one. You once said you left Ohio(?) after your divorce and went to Atlanta. How about an update on your wife that was sent to Iraq. Can you remember anything you say?
I don't think DBQ, Joan and Palladian would necessarily agree with that statement.
Oh I think they do agree. What I think they disagree with is the level of taxation and how it's being spent.
If you want to tax me to build roads, bridges and dams, fine. If you want to tax me so that tax money can be re-distributed to send someone's kid to college or pay for more illegals health care then no, I object.
Oh I think they do agree. What I think they disagree with is the level of taxation and how it's being spent.
Absolutely. I agree that we need a government. What I don't agree with is the intrusive,wasteful, cronyism and entitlement government that we have.
I believe that Adam Smith had it correct
"An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations," written in 1776, Smith outlined three important government functions: national defense, administration of justice (law and order), and the provision of certain public goods (e.g., transportation infrastructure and basic and applied education).
And I'm not so sure about the governmental control of education.
Government exists to provide for security external and internal (raise an army, navy, air force, police and fire depts) and to outfit the security forces.
Government exists to help fund and provide for infrastructure items that are beyond the scope of the population. Interstate highway system, interstate rail system, international airports.
The government doesn't exist to be a Nanny or Big Brother to tell us what to eat, how to drive, where to live. Nor does it exist to pay people NOT to work if unemployed or to support non workers on welfare as a permanent life style. Infrastructure isn't new tennis courts, equestrian and bike paths. Public works are not Peanut Museum or studies on why Moose have sex.
To supplement DBQ's comment, government also has an obvious role in providing frameworks of law and regulation that help society and the economy function - tort and contract law to protect private property and reliance on promises, antitrust to minimize collusive and anticompetitive (and ultimately inefficient) behaviors, parcelling out of limited public resources à la the FCC, for example, and so on.
(I realize that DBQ referenced law as a government function, but I took the reference to law and order to mean the creation and enforcement of criminal law.)
Simon
You write that
everything the brain dead staffers of the moribund NYT write should at this point be scrutinized as resume padding - "who is this column really aimed at - which think tank's attention does the author want to attract?"
Agreed, but, in the larger sense, that has always been true, as witness Tom Friedman (to paraphrase "save the rustbelt" @7:15 AM), an affluent white guy with no financial worries deciding how to beat down working people to the applause of comfortable, smug, intellectualoid radicals.
The Friedmans of the world are not gonna give up their 11,000 sq ft homes to “save the planet”, you betcha.
And now, Krauthammer, one of my favorites, has joined the "tax the poor slobs using gas" crowd, alas. In a pure intellectual way, of course. What, truck drivers use gas to deliver the products we need? Um, you know, make that "think we need". Nevermind. Karl Marx rewriting farm policy in the British Library far from the madding crowd that, you know, actually farms.
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