I got involved in a debate when a friend posted something roughly as articulate as “F Obama”. Ideologically, I don’t always agree with our current president, but I am extremely happy he is in office. His predecessor, George W. Bush, has to go down in history as the worst modern president. Backing up that statement; I believe that President Bush entangled us in a costly and largely ineffective two front war with no clear military objectives, radically increased government spending at the same time lowering taxes, AND established the notion of a culture war. Since I feel neither political party really appeals to me, I thought I would take a stab at writing down what I really believe in.
What the government isn’t...
Before I say what I want from my government, I would like to start by saying what I don’t want. The role of the government is NOT to redistribute wealth or to make things “fair”. I have a five year old who is absolutely obsessed with things being fair. I have told her many times that, “Life isn’t fair.” I never, ever told her to expect fairness in life. Based on this small sample size, I am starting to believe that there is an evolutionary hard wiring to want “fairness”, yet the pursuit of “fairness” only leaves everyone equally miserable.
Some of us are born taller. Some are born better looking. Some lucky bastards get to eat whatever they want and not gain weight. There is no way for government to come in and change any of that. When people point to income inequality or try to raise minimum wage, I really think it’s that whole fairness thing kicking in. If you are working a minimum wage job and want to make more money, start applying for other jobs. Embrace the fact that the free market works both ways. Your employer does not owe you a job, but at the same time, you are not bound to work for your employer. If someone is willing to pay you a few bucks an hour more, tell your current employer, “Thank you, but it’s time I moved on.” Keep doing that until you have achieved workplace nirvana or no one else is willing to pay you more. It works. Trust me.
With the recent fiftieth anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s seminal, “I have a dream…” speech, there has been talk that one of their points called for a federally mandated minimum wage of $2 per hour. Although that seems laughable now, that amount comes out to roughly $15 an hour after adjusting for inflation. I lived somewhere that had a $15 an hour minimum wage, I don’t think it is a good idea. Everything cost twice as much and didn’t make the minimum wage earner any better off. This is not the role of our government. When government interferes, the results are often worse than doing nothing.
Just as I believe that the role of the government is not to redistribute wealth or to make things “fair”, I also firmly believe that our military is not to be used as the world’s police. The purpose of the military is to protect American interests. Period. In the early nineteenth century, President James Monroe established the Monroe Doctrine essentially letting Europe know to stay the heck out of our hemisphere. I am not advocating complete isolationism, but just as President Monroe European countries should stay out of our part of the world, we need to stop interfering in other parts of the world. We have a proven, horrible track record of backing the wrong people. The United States has funded the Taliban. We have, at one time, backed Sadam Hussien. We have armed warlords in Somalia only to have to intervene there later.
Atrocities are happening all over the world at any moment. There is an ongoing genocide in Darfur. Syrians are getting killed. However, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq should prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that the United States should not be in the business of nation building.
The federal government should not be taking tax dollars and redistributing it for “infrastructure”. Currently, there are plans to build a high speed train from Los Angeles to San Francisco. The federal funding for this project is expected to be between $12 and $16 billion. It is anticipated, upon completion, a passenger can make this journey in roughly three hours. Apparently, no one realized that there is already a viable and cheap alternative to the train which is being run by private businesses that can do the same trip in forty-five minutes. It’s called an airplane.
While I am all for more efficient transportation, this endeavor is best left to the State of California or private enterprise. Why should the federal government be subsidizing a train between LA and San Francisco and not between NYC and DC, Dallas and Houston, or Tampa and Miami? This seems like a waste of money considering that these cities are already connected via highways and air travel. Rail travel will take longer, cost more, and benefit few.This looks like a special interest boondoggle funded by the taxpayers of an entire nation that will provide no benefit to all but a tiny minority. This is not the role of the federal government.
What I do want
I want a smaller, leaner government. A government that gets back to the business of what it was meant to do by the framers of our constitution minus all the slavery stuff. Mainly provide for the common defense and ensure domestic tranquility. I would like it to stop overreaching and if the individual states want to experiment - let them. Stuff I’d like to see gone:
The United States Postal Service
While it made sense a couple of centuries ago, this institution is a huge money loser. Meanwhile UPS and FedEx seem to be able to do the same role, only profitably. Why are taxpayers subsidizing this organization? With the advent and mass adoption of email, the need of a postal service to unite a scattered population seems to be hanging onto a legacy that no longer exists. Lets stop the bleeding and completely privatize the mail.
DEA
The whole notion of the Drug Enforcement Agency, especially at the federal level seems nonsensical. We tried to ban alcohol in the 20’s. It didn’t work. The war on drugs has been lost - let’s stop this hypocritical crusade. Alcohol and pills - good. Marijuana - bad. Bullshit! My adopted home state of Washington has decided to legalize recreational marijuana. Nothing bad has happened. No increase in crime. No overall harm to society. Tax and regulate makes infinitely more sense than living in a police state meant to protect us from ourselves. We have the highest percentage of our adult population living in jail and it can all be traced back to our tyrannical prosecution of arbitrary drug laws. Meanwhile, the country of Portugal has thoroughly one upped the State of Washington by legalizing all drugs only to see drug usage and addiction go down.
IRS
Taxes are way too fucking complicated. On top of it, no one likes paying taxes, so we collectively overvalue the ability to write something off. The mortgage interest rate deduction must have seemed like a good idea, but in reality, all it does is inflate the cost of housing making no one better off except possibly realtors. I’m a bit torn as to what the right answer is but I think either a flat tax or a national sales tax would be infinitely better, simpler, and eliminate a lot of the IRS and the need for a ton of accountants. Those people could hopefully find jobs where they, I don’t know, do something productive.
The Federal Reserve
I’ve said it before, but it merits repeating. I think the purpose of the Federal Reserve is to cause asset bubbles. When I was a child, growing up in the height of the Cold War, I remember studying the Soviet “Planned Economy” and being taught the superiority of the American market economy. Planned economies give us bad cars, terrible service, and grocery stores look like miracles to those that escaped. No single person can predict the underlying demand of a population.
And yet, how different is our system from a planned economy? The Federal Reserve sets the interest rate. When interest rates are low, it is a message for people to buy. When interest rates are high, it is a message to save. Here is the thing, no one wants to save, we all want to consume. We are now going on year five of zero interest rates and the Federal Reserve is going to have to raise rates at some point, if only so they can cut them again. Not only that, going back to Greenspan, the Federal Reserve has done a horrible job in predicting trends. They are consistently too late in raising or lowering rates to have the desired outcome.
I don’t want to return our financial system to the Middle Ages and outlaw interest altogether, but… How can an unelected official have this much power in a democracy? Meanwhile, the big banks who are supposed to be risk averse had a field day giving out money to people who should never have received it. Instead of having to suck it up and deal with liquidation when the shit hit the fan, they cried, “Too big to fail!” which is a phrase I never want to hear again. It is a system that created privatized gains and socialized losses and is a recipe for disaster.
Banks have a purpose. Loans have a purpose. The interest rate should be determined by banks competing to attract the best customers or taking reasonable risks on less desirable ones. For those that love capitalism, the interest rates would be set by the market and not the Federal Reserve. Banks that loan prudently will see rewards. Banks that gamble will go out of business - that is the system we are supposed to have.
Other things, I would like to see changed…
A Radically Smaller, Focused Military
Right there in the Constitution, it says that our government is supposed to provide for the common defense. We absolutely do need a military. I am not sure whether we need new aircraft carriers or nuclear submarines. If the rogue state and terrorism are the main focus of our military in the twenty-first century, let’s make sure we have the right special forces, body armor, and deployment techniques to get strike teams in and out of dangerous situations. Let’s stay out of long, protracted civil wars where are men and women are sent to die for no clear military objective or US interest. It is worth repeating, we are not nor should we become the world’s police. Right now there is outrage that Syria has used chemical weapons against its own people. Somehow, this is more outrageous than when they shot their own people. It’s a tragedy, but US intervention is not going to solve the problem.
Former US President Dwight Eisenhower had warned about the rise of the “military-industrial” complex. He was very prescient with his speech. The cost of in lives and in a drain to our nation’s resources is staggering and it makes none of us any better off. Instead, let’s focus our attention and resources where strategic and military objectives can be met. The strike team that took out Osama Bin Laden in Pakistan is a good example. We got in, met the objective, gathered intelligence, and left. We need to do more of this.
Let’s talk about sex
I am about to move to a state where sodomy is outlawed. Not to get into too much detail but the laws against sodomy prevent oral sex. The only way I can see that a couple of guys got together to outlaw oral sex would be if it went like this.
“Hey, Billy-Bob, I really wish I got more oral sex.”
“Yeah, me too. But what can you do?”
“I know! We’ll ban it and via reverse psychology, the ladies will want to do it more!”
If that’s the way it happened, then I humbly apologize to the great state of Texas, but let’s face it the experiment in reverse psychology failed. The role of government in our sex lives should be strictly limited to the notion of age and consent. That’s it.
Sadly, Texas does not support marriage equality, yet I think this issue should be left to the individual states. Eventually, those that do not support marriage equality will eventually be shamed into it.
Once upon a time, my home state of Arizona repealed the holiday Martin Luther King Day. It was a dumb idea. The rest of the nation laughed at us. Boycotts were orchestrated. Money to the state was lost. The only thing good that came out of it was this hilarious bit from comedian Chris Rock:
We took a beating from every other state in the court of public opinion and eventually did the right thing. Texas may be the very last state in the Union to recognize gay marriage, but I guarantee it will happen. Leaving issues like this up to the states will allow some states to try the right thing, like recognizing the right of two consenting adults to make a commitment to each other, and for the other states to take a look and say, “Wow, nothing bad happened.” The decision should not be made at the federal level.
Empire Building
I have worked in the private sector my whole life. I have worked in a variety of businesses including telcom, technology, manufacturing, retail, professional services, and utilities. I often see conservatives and libertarians tout the efficiency of public companies. I wonder if they have ever worked in any of the companies that I have worked for, because I see inefficiency and waste all around. I have stated this before only to be told, “Yeah, but the public sector is way, way worse.”
In the private sector, I have witnessed first hand managers spending money on bogus projects because they did not want to be under budget and have less budget next year. This sort of thing is standard operating procedure in the public sector. There are certain things we need our governments to do and they should be on the federal, state, or municipal payroll. Other things can be outsourced.
Do we need roads? Yes! Are people needed to build and maintain roads? Yes! Should these people be employed by the city or state, be paid twice as much as the private sector, have better benefits, job guarantees, and a pension plan? No! We owe it to ourselves to outsource jobs that do not need to be executed by the state. Otherwise, we will build up an army of road builders who has the sole mission of growing itself. We are better off figuring out which roads need to be built or fixed and bidding the work out and managing the budget to prevent an ever growing machine we overpay for.
If this idea seems radical, it has been tried. The City of Sandy Springs, GA has a population of 100,000 citizens and has outsourced just about everything except the police and fire departments. However, the few remaining employees of the municipality are on 401(k) plans and are not threatening to bankrupt the city with an overly-generous, someone else will pay for it later pension plan. Further, they do not own any of their own buildings or equipment and depend on bids from the private sector to run things that are usually run by the public sector. The result? Everything works - only it’s better and costs 30% less. (http://www.mackinac.org/18713)
Tort Reform
I don’t think our founding fathers imagined a legal system like the one we have now. The judicial branch was supposed to interpret our laws and ensure that our rights are not violated as well as handle sentencing. Instead, we have too many lawyers playing a lottery type system. The system no longer cares about righting wrongs, in its place, is a system that is all about convincing twelve random people that some big company has done some vague sort of harm and hopefully award millions of dollars to a “victim”. The lawyers don’t care, they just want their substantial cut of the action.
Due to this practice we now have warning labels on everything. We have corporate lawyers who advise us to do things, but it doesn’t matter what they say, anyone can have a lawsuit filed against them by anybody at any time. If a blood sucking lawyer loses, they simply move on to the next case. This chaos is causing real world ramifications. Colossal douchebag John Edwards through a pity party for a “victim” in a courtroom claiming to channel the spirit of a disabled child in front of twelve semi-morons.
“'I have to tell you right now -- I didn't plan to talk about this -- right now I feel her (Jennifer), I feel her presence,' Edwards told the jury according to court records. "[Jennifer's] inside me and she's talking to you ... And this is what she says to you. She says, 'I don't ask for your pity. What I ask for is your strength. And I don't ask for your sympathy, but I do ask for your courage.'" - See more at: http://cnsnews.com/news/article/did-junk-science-make-john-edwards-rich#sthash.x65opS5f.dpuf
He proceeded to armchair quarterback an OB/GYN with an actual medical degree and declared that the doctor should have performed a cesarean. The court awarded the plaintiff millions of dollars and as a result c-sections are performed unnecessarily in the United States out of fear of a lawsuit.
Let’s stop and get this straight. Because of a meritless lawsuit by a bloodsucking lawyer and the non-medical expertise of twelve random rubes, doctors are now performing cesarians not out of the best interest of the mother or child, but out of fear of lawsuits? The rate of c-sections has gone from 5% to over 30% (http://www.childbirthconnection.org/article.asp?ck=10456) in the span of a few decades and John Edwards and his ilk are directly responsible.
How about some common sense reforms like loser pays or limiting the fees lawyers can collect on punitive damages? The current system is damaged and turning us into a nations of victims and victimizers.
Conclusion
I am an American and I truly believe that I am lucky to live in the greatest country in the world. I would like to keep it that way by getting back to basics. Less government, less war, and more individual responsibility.
