The oil disaster currently unfolding in the Gulf of Mexico is yet another example of what happens when public policy is hijacked for thirty years by short-sighted, self-serving, sanctimonious hypocrites who, when they are not canoodling with mistresses or prostitutes, spend the bulk of their time worshipping at the altar of "tax cuts" instead of figuring out how to make the country function like the world leader it purports to be.
We could have begun investing in a clean energy economy many years ago. We didn't because for thirty years we've been bickering over tax cuts and "family values"; because two of our last four presidents were oil men with a direct financial stake in keeping the oil industry profitable, no matter what the environmental or geo-political cost; and because too many powerful corporations and wealthy individuals have disproportionate influence over the direction of public policy that affects every man, woman and child in the U.S.
The fact the we're even discussing "energy independence" in the year 2010 is a testament to the disgraceful mismanagement the nation has endured since the energy crisis of the 1970's. Ronald Reagan made a point of removing the solar panels that President Jimmy Carter installed on the roof of the White House. The message was clear: clean energy is a "liberal" idea and therefore suspect, if not downright un-American.
Then we did virtually nothing for thirty years. Columnist David Brooks bemoans the fact that government is now "standing in the way" of clean energy innovation in the U.S. He must be losing his mind. The big energy companies have been "standing in the way" forever, using their vast wealth to defeat any long-term policy initiatives that might undermine their short-term bottom line. Now, David Brooks is going to claim it's the government's fault? The government is standing in the way of progress?
Give me a break. Government is "standing in the way" only in the sense that our two major political parties are so dependent on campaign cash from the big energy companies that they are petrified of doing anything that might make them mad.
Then, of course, the country put George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Enron and Halliburton in charge of our energy policy for eight years, which is a bit like putting Osama bin Laden in charge of Homeland Security.
The disastrous Bush administration was the icing on the cake after thirty years of Republican distractions, diversions, divisiveness and self-delusion.
How much more evidence do we need that infantile "debates" over tax cuts, abortion, and gay marriage are allowing our country to slide in a decidedly bad direction? How many systems in our country have to be "broken" before our politicians, elected officials, and, most importantly, our citizens, wake up to the reality of what our nation is becoming?
Lincoln said, "A house divided against itself cannot stand." A house suffering from thirty years of neglect, disrepair and vandalism doesn't have much of a chance either. If our country were the crumbling eyesore down the block, it would be reported to the authorities, condemned and bulldozed to the ground.
Why are we continuing to ignore the obvious? It's not difficult to identify the problems.
Let's start with this, from the American Society of Civil Engineers. This is their "Infrastructure Report Card" for 2009.
Aviation D
Bridges C
Dams D
Drinking Water D-
Energy D+
Hazardous Waste D
Inland Waterways D-
Levees D-
Public Parks and Recreation C-
Rail C-
Roads D-
Schools D
Solid Waste C+
Transit D
Wastewater D-
America's Infrastructure GPA: D
Estimated 5 Year Investment Need: $2.2 Trillion
If a political entity or think tank published such an appalling "report card," no doubt it would be excoriated for "blaming America first" - though who else other than "America" is to blame for allowing the entire nation to deteriorate so completely is a mystery to me.
For a close-up view of just one of our developing problems, check this out:
Americans to Drink More Treated Sewage.
...with water supplies tightening around the country due to growing populations and drought, many communities are considering tapping their sewage treatment plants as a new source of drinking water.
Nice.
Or try thisfrom the American Federation of Teachers and the Indoor Air Quality Association:
The Indoor Air Quality Association (IAQA) today officially endorsed a compelling new report from the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) that brings attention to the poor condition of thousands of schools across the country. The AFT represents over 1.3 million school employees, and the report released December 4 highlights unhealthy conditions involving mold, air quality problems, temperature extremes, dilapidated classrooms, and infestation by rodents and insects in many U.S. public schools.
Does anyone in Washington read this stuff? Probably not. Because if they did, they might have to face up to this:
The United States is no longer the world leader in secondary education, according to the rankings of an international organization.
The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development places the United States 18th among the 36 nations examined, USA Today reported Wednesday.
Headed to the top of the heap is South Korea where 93 percent of high school students graduate on time compared with the United States where 75 percent receive their diplomas.
The seemingly downward trend of U.S. education worries economists.
"The United States has rested on its laurels way too long," Jacob Funk Kirkegaard of the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington, told USA Today. "Other countries have increasingly caught up and surpassed the United States."
"We've been asleep for a good number of years as a country," says Richard Freeman, an economics professor at Harvard. "It's not that we're doing horrible. But the other guys are moving faster."
Maybe we shouldn't worry so much about education - or bridges or clean water or hazardous waste or - well, you read the list. What about air travel? Do you like to feel safe when you fly?
Problems Plague New Air-Traffic Control Computers
New computers crucial to modernizing the U.S. air traffic control system have run into serious problems and may not be fully operational by the end of this year when the current system is supposed to be replaced, a government watchdog said Wednesday.
The $2.1 billion computer system has misidentified aircraft and had trouble processing radar information , Calvin Scovel, the Transportation Department's inspector general, told a House panel. Air traffic controllers at a Federal Aviation Administration radar center in Salt Lake City, where the new computers are being tested, also have had difficulty transferring responsibility for planes to other controllers, he said.
Our institutions of higher learning have been complaining for years about the quality of their incoming students. We don't have enough well-educated kids entering our big universities, particularly in the sciences, and we are not sending enough fully-qualified high-tech students out into the workplace. This is why universities and companies all over the country are begging the government to relax its visa requirements to allow more foreign high-tech workers into the country.
No less an authority than Bill Gates has this to say about it:
"The thing that limits us is hiring the world's best engineers," he says, noting that 60 percent of the students at the top U.S. computer-science departments are foreign-born.
"Traditionally, most of them stay in the country and jobs are created around them. Now that we've hit these quotas, they have to go somewhere else," Gates says.
If living in an under-educated, waste-drinking, drought-ridden, decaying and downright unsafe country doesn't particularly bother you, rest assured there are other, even more urgent dangers we are steadfastly ignoring.
The Attack Coming From Bytes, Not Bombs
Richard C. Clarke, former "terrorism czar" for presidents Clinton and Bush is out with a new book. If even half of it is correct, we are potentially in very big trouble.
“The United States is currently far more vulnerable to cyberwar than Russia or China,” he writes. “The U.S. is more at risk from cyberwar than are minor states like North Korea. We may even be at risk some day from nations or nonstate actors lacking cyberwar capabilities, but who can hire teams of highly capable hackers.”
Lest this sound like the augury of an alarmist, the reader might recall that Mr. Clarke, counterterrorism chief in both the Bill Clinton and George W. Bush administrations, repeatedly warned his superiors about the need for an aggressive plan to combat al Qaeda — with only a pallid response before 9/11. He recounted this campaign in his controversial 2004 book, “Against All Enemies.”
Once again, there is a lack of coordination between the various arms of the military and various committees in Congress over how to handle a potential attack. Once again, government agencies and private companies in charge of civilian infrastructure are ill prepared to handle a possible disaster.
If this excerpt doesn't scare you sufficiently, read the passage later in the article about “trapdoors” — computer code that allows hackers future access to a network. North Korea is believed to have placed trapdoors and perhaps other malicious software "on computer networks on at least two continents."
Interestingly, as I write this, the Republican State Convention is being held here in Minnesota. The most recent speaker declared he wants to "dismantle the welfare state" because it is the only way to get the budget deficits under control. Yes, this is still what they talk about at Republican State Conventions. Immigration is popular, too.
Minnesota has actually become a bit of a microcosm for what happens to a state when its governor pledges to never raise taxes. The state is slowly falling apart on every front because Governor Tim Pawlenty refuses to consider any new sources of revenue.
So, do we live in a "Welfare State"?
Listening to Republican leaders and Tea Party protesters, you would think the federal government spends all of its revenue on programs for poor people and nothing else. The most common refrains are, "I'm sick of the government taking money out of my pocket and putting it into someone else's"; or, "I'm a capitalist. I don't believe in the redistribution of wealth."
Let's look at that for a minute. Is that what's really going on? How much of our tax dollars are being taken out of "our" pocket and being put into someone else's (presumably someone who "doesn't really want to work")?
Where do our federal tax dollars actually go? Here's a recent breakdown:
Defense $715 billion (20% of the overall budget)
Social Security $708 billion ( 20%)
Medicare $468 billion (14%)
Medicaid $285 billion (7%)
Safety net programs $482 billion (14%)
Interest on debt $230 billion ( 6%)
Other (see chart at CBPP) $700 billion (20%)
The tax protesters who rail against a tyrannical government taking away their money and their "liberty" - whatever that is - also oppose cuts in defense spending, Social Security or Medicare. So we can assume they're happy knowing their tax dollars are being spent on those programs. That's about 55% of each tax dollar right there. This must not be the money they are so angry about.
In addition, the American public wants the government to support its veterans, believes it should invest in scientific research, and expects it to pay for improvements to infrastructure, transportation, and all the rest of the programs that comprise the "remaining fifth" in CBPP's pie chart. They might quibble with a program here or there -- like supporting the arts and the humanities - but that's a drop in the bucket. Overall, there is strong public support for the majority of these budget items. That's another 20% of each tax dollar.
Interest on the debt is out of our control. In the short term, at least, we are locked into how much or how little we all contribute to pay down our national debt. So, let's agree to take that 6% off the table for the moment.
What we're left with, then, are Medicaid and other safety net programs. This is money that is taken directly out of our tax dollars and given to others in need. Together, these items make up roughly 20% of the federal budget. So the really objectionable amount, the tax dollars that the federal government is literally taking out of our pockets and "redistributing" is about 20% of the total federal budget. That's about $750 billion.
That's a lot of money. But how much is each household actually contributing? Roughly how much of your federal tax dollar is being "given" to other people? Obviously, the answer is not the same for everyone. But for the sake of argument, let's look at the current median household income in the U.S.
USA Today puts that figure at about $50, 300. Another source has a somewhat higher figure: $52, 000.
So, it's a bit difficult to pin down a median income, considering all the variables. I'm going to go out on a limb and put the figure at $55,000, since a number of our most angry citizens earn a bit higher than the median.
A family of four making $55,000 would pay about $4200 in Social Security and Medicare taxes. We're going to assume that, like most Americans, they don't want those programs cut. They want to collect Social Security when they retire and they want Grandma to get the health care she needs. So, this $4200 doesn't fall into the "giving money to people who don't want to work" category.
What about the federal income tax?
Assuming they take the standard deduction to which every family of four is entitled, this family would pay no tax at all on the first $27, 000 of income.
Then they would pay tax at a rate of 10% on the next $16, 000, which equals $1600.
Finally, they would pay a tax rate of 15% on the remaining $12,000 of income, which equals $1800.
This brings this family's federal income tax payment to roughly $3400. In reality, it would be somewhat less, because most families receive tax breaks and credits for things like owning a home, child and dependent care, contributing to an IRA, and others. So, for the sake of simpler math, let's say that the total federal income tax payment is around $3000.
We're still operating under the assumption that this family, as anti-government as they may be, is relatively happy with 75% of the things their tax dollars pay for: Defense, Social Security, Medicare, and that "remaining fifth."
So, in reality, it's the 20% of the federal budget that is going directly to help people in need that this family is really steamed about. (We're still trying to ignore the interest on the national debt.)
So: 20% of $3000 is $600. Six hundred dollars of this family's gross income of $55, 000 is going directly to help people in need.
That's just over 1 percent.
And let's not forget, this family, though it is not "needy," still receives all kinds of "help" from the federal government, just by virtue of being citizens.
Here is a list of some of the "services" everyone receives as a taxpayer. (Some of the departments listed below administer programs for all those people who don't want to work, but they also perform other functions which benefit the rest of us.)
Homeland Security: Works to prevent terrorist attacks within the United States, reduce vulnerability to terrorism, and minimize the damage from potential attacks and natural disasters. It also administers the country's immigration policies and oversees the Coast Guard.
Treasury: Regulates banks and other financial institutions, administers the public debt, prints currency, and collects Federal income taxes.
Justice: Works with State and local governments and other agencies to prevent and control crime and ensure public safety against threats, both domestic and foreign. It also enforces Federal laws, prosecutes cases in Federal courts, and runs Federal prisons.
Agriculture: Promotes U.S. agriculture domestically and internationally, manages forests, researches new ways to grow crops and conserve natural resources, ensures safe meat and poultry products, and leads the Federal anti-hunger programs, such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (formerly known as the Food Stamp program) and the National School Lunch Program.
Health and Human Services: Performs health and social science research, assures the safety of drugs and foods other than meat and poultry, and administers Medicare, Medicaid, and numerous other social service programs.
Interior: Manages Federal lands, including the national parks, runs hydroelectric power systems, and promotes conservation of natural resources.
Transportation: Sets national transportation policy, plans and funds the construction of highways and mass transit systems, and regulates railroad, aviation, and maritime operations.
Commerce: Forecasts the weather, charts the oceans, regulates patents and trademarks, conducts the census, compiles economic statistics, and promotes U.S. economic growth by encouraging international trade.
Energy: Coordinates the national use and provision of energy, oversees the production and disposal of nuclear weapons, and plans for future energy needs.
Labor: Enforces laws guaranteeing fair pay, workplace safety, and equal job opportunity, administers unemployment insurance (UI) to State UI agencies, regulates pension funds; and collects and analyzes economic data.
State: Oversees the Nation's embassies and consulates, issues passports, monitors U.S. interests abroad, and represents the United States before international organizations.
Housing and Urban Development: Funds public housing projects, enforces equal housing laws, and insures and finances mortgages.
Education: Monitors and distributes financial aid to schools and students, collects and disseminates data on schools and other education matters, and prohibits discrimination in education.
National Aeronautics and Space Administration: Oversees aviation research and conducts exploration and research beyond the Earth's atmosphere.
Environmental Protection Agency: Runs programs to control and reduce pollution of the Nation's water, air, and lands.
General Services Administration: Manages and protects Federal Government property and records.
Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation: Examines insuring deposits and promoting sound banking practices.
Office of Personnel Management: Oversees issues related to human resources, such as hiring practices, health insurance policies, and workforce performance evaluation.
Some people would argue that the list above simply demonstrates that government is too big. Government, the argument goes, is too bureaucratic, too inefficient, too ineffective, and ultimately "intrudes" too much into society, preventing its citizens from leading free and prosperous lives. Why are we paying taxes if all we get for our money is more government "intrusion"?
Well, forgive me for asking, but what exactly is the "intrusive" part of this list? I understand that all bureaucracies are irritating. But do we really not want to protect our waterways and have reasonably clean air to breathe? Do we not want labor laws that protect workers? Do we want the government to "butt out" of our exploration of outer space? Should we just ditch the whole idea of national parks and interstate highways? Should we allow commercial interests to dig, mine, burn and spill toxic waste wherever they please, without regard to worker safety, environmental impact or public health?
Well, this much is certain: we do not need "big government" to insure our banks, inspect our meat, make sure our prescription drugs are safe, forecast the weather, chart the oceans, regulate patents and trademarks, promote U.S. economic growth by encouraging international trade or conduct foreign policy. We could do all that just fine on our own. So, butt OUT!!!
The irony, of course, is that one reason all of us find certain aspects of government frustrating is because they are underfunded. (Now there's a statement likely to make an anti-tax person run screaming into the night.) But the bulk of government problems are simply a function of human nature itself.
Large companies are inefficient and stupid, too, we just don't hear about it until their oil rigs explode in the Gulf of Mexico. And more likely than not, this new disaster was caused by corporate greed and incompetence - two things "big government" is typically expected to try to rein in, so that people don't get killed and vast areas of shoreline aren't irreparably damaged.
Conclusion
Our country as a whole devotes 20% of its tax revenue to people in need. The average working family contributes about 1 - 2 % of its household income to this pool of money.
American-style capitalism is uniquely cruel in the way that it rewards the "winners" and leaves behind the "losers." The government steps in to give the "losers" a helping hand precisely because our free-market system is so brutal, not because people don't want to work. The system itself, by its very nature, perpetuates an under-class. The fact that we spend 20% of our tax revenue helping out the least fortunate among us is a clear acknowledgment that the free-market economy - or more specifically, the free-market economy as it operates in this country - simply does not work for millions of people.
So, is the federal government taking money out of your pocket and giving it to someone else? Sure it is, but not very much. 1 - 2 % for the median income family of four. Religious leaders typically instruct to give 10% of our income to the needy. Very few people live up to that.
What strikes me as rather sad is that the most rabid anti-tax, anti-government citizens tend to be those who would benefit the most from a more "progressive" tax system: average, middle-class wage-earners. The people who Sarah Palin claims live in the "real America." Joe the Plumber, for example. Like Mr. The Plumber, most people in Sarah Palin's "real America" don't earn six-figure salaries. The median income in "real America" is quite a bit lower than that. It's not called the "middle-class squeeze" for nothing.
History tells us that there will always be an "elite." There will always be a "few" and a "many." But over the last thirty years, the problem in the U.S. has been exacerbated by a massive redistribution of wealth upward, not downward.
The despised "elites" aren't who the Republican Party, Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck want you to think they are. The elite class in the U.S. is indeed very rich, very powerful, and very influential - and they are overwhelmingly Republican.
If average working people want to march in the streets because they feel screwed by their government and are pissed off because money is being taken out of their pockets and given to someone else, this is what they ought to be marching about. If they want a more equitable society - that is, one in which they earn good pay for their job, can afford to send their kids to college, retire comfortably and feel like they're getting good value for the taxes they pay - then this is what they need to fix:
In the United States, wealth is highly concentrated in a relatively few hands. As of 2007, the top 1% of households (the upper class) owned 34.6% of all privately held wealth, and the next 19% (the managerial, professional, and small business stratum) had 50.5%, which means that just 20% of the people owned a remarkable 85%, leaving only 15% of the wealth for the bottom 80% (wage and salary workers). In terms of financial wealth (total net worth minus the value of one's home), the top 1% of households had an even greater share: 42.7%.
The effective federal income tax rate for the 400 taxpayers with the very highest incomes has declined by nearly half over the past two decades, even as their pre-tax incomes have grown five times larger, new IRS data show.
The top 400 households paid 16.6% of their income in federal individual income taxes in 2007, down from 30% in 1995
.
So, a person with an annual income of $340 million - six-hundred and fifty times more than the median income - pays the same amount of tax, as a percentage of their income, as you do. And less, as a percentage, than you do if you earn between $68,000 and $135, 000.
In addition, the combined net worth of the 400 richest people in America is $1.27 trillion. That's just slightly less than the entire United States budget deficit for this fiscal year.
Meanwhile, between 2000 and 2008 - what a coincidence! -
The incomes of the young and middle-aged — especially men — have fallen off a cliff... leaving many age groups poorer than they were even in the 1970s, a USA TODAY analysis of new Census data found...
...Household income for people in their peak earning years - between ages 45 and 54 - plunged [by]$7,700 to $64, 349 from 2000 through 2008, after adjusting for inflation.
One last thing to consider: according to Feeding America, 49 million Americans struggle with hunger. 17 million of these are children.
Still unhappy with the $600 a year or so you spend in federal taxes to help those less fortunate than yourself?
Get over it.
Next time: Some common-sense ways to reduce the deficit that will probably never happen
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