Why “Deficits” Don’t Always Matter:

12 November 2013

As “Fiscal Conservatives,” we take issue with how the “Conservative” side of American politics looks at deficit spending and debt. Here’s why:

Every year, our family takes in a certain amount of money as “income.” A portion of that income, we use to make “capital improvements” and “investments.”

A portion of funds employed for capital investments constitutes down-payments for new real estate properties, for which we take out mortgages.

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If One Were to Look at selective parts of our family balance sheet, one might see:

Deficit Spending: We have added 80% of “spending” in relation to the 20% down-payment

Increasing Debt: We have added that 80% of “debt” to the balance sheet. This debt addition may be offset by total reduction of principal on all mortgages.

Over more than three decades of such “deficit spending,” our debt-to-equity ratio is less than 50%.

Any political “Conservative” might say that we are “spending” ourselves to ruin, and that we risk leaving a mountain of debt to our children and grandchildren.

Our children don’t mind.

Regards,
(($; -)}
Gozo!

[NOTE: The above post on “deficit spending” was prompted by our reading of Why The Most Important Budget Event Of The Year Has Had No Impact, which was posted earlier today by Stan Collender, at “StanCollender’s Capital Gains and Games.”

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The GOP Autopsy Challenge

22 March 2013

“What Should the Government Try to Be—something that helps them with their problems or something that gets out of the way and lets them lead their lives? The answer of course is both, but the Republican Party is having difficulty finding the balance.”

Thus writes John Dickerson, last Monday on Slate, in Habeas GOP.*

In the piece, Mr. Dickerson speaks to concerns of President Ronald Reagan, that the GOP, seeking to broaden its base by widening its appeal to voters, might water done the concentrated power of its Conservative message.

The great challenge of American politics, and of representative-democracy politics everywhere, is that politicians must master a fine line between the difference of ideological values that inspire and of pragmatic efforts that recognize the differences among us.

Those “differences” are the strength of representative democracy, which provides the best balance between the more-impulsive, forward-looking impetus, and the more-condensed, protecting-the-rear restraint, which balance keeps a society alive, while at the same time moves a civilization forward.

In other words, broadening a party’s appeal may be the price of successful politics in America, and for successfully moving America forward.
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The Conservative and Republican Message contains fatal flaws, as far as American exceptionalism is concerned:

We are not a nation that likes saying “No” to the future. We are a nation that dislikes government telling us what to do, but the reality of our government’s power–in building canals and transcontinental railroads, and Interstate highways and missions to space, and the Internet—far surpasses the small-government ideology of the small-minded among us.

How do we reach a balance between monumental, government projects and the need to keep government out of our hair? That is the American question. In current, American politics, it presents a specific challenge for the Grand Old Party of our republic.
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The Sooner That the Republicans find a way to contribute more-pragmatic reasoning to the solutions, the better off we will be, as an exceptional nation leading the world’s way forward once again.

Regards,

(($; -)}
Gozo!
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*Habeas Gop: the Republican Party’s Autopsy of its 2012 Loss Puts Political Expediency over Principles. Now it Just Needs to Find a Body to Lead It.
—John Dickerson, Slate (03/18/2013)

@GozoTweets
 

Hurricanes, Massacres, and Other Conservative-Converting Disasters

18 January 2013

Time Magazine’s Recent cover feature about New Jersey Governor Chris Christie once again reminds us of the key limitation of the American Conservative’s political views. Until the American Conservative experiences a need or disaster first- or second-hand, he doesn’t believe that it exists.

In the Christie case, the Governor’s embrace of Democratic President Obama and the Federal Government’s FEMA services made a big-spending Liberal out of this candid, big-hearted guy.

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From the Perspective of the American political Center, we are of course familiar with this tendency: if all it takes to turn an American Liberal into a Conservative is a single case of being wrongfully sued, all it takes to turn an American Conservative the opposite direction is one first-rate disaster. 

For superlative example, why do so many elderly, otherwise-Conservative Americans support Medicare and Social Security? Because they know first-hand how essential this social “safety net” is to keeping them on solid ground. 

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Our Favorite Big-Hearted Cynic, columnist Dana Milbank of The Washington Post, takes to task both sides of the current assault-rifle-control controversy—the National Rifle Association and the President—for their use of kids in the discussion. 

The National Rifle Association [NRA] has come out big, as we all know by now, with its questionable-taste ad, holding President Obama responsible for the armed-guard protection that his two daughters get at their private school. But Mr. Milbank also accuses the President himself of using children as props, in his address seeking to garner public support for his various proposals for bringing down body counts when it comes to mass murder in America. To this point, Mr. Milbank writes:

“There’s an argument to be made that the horrific nature of the carnage justifies reminding the public that children are vulnerable, but partisans on each side will only dig in deeper if they perceive that the other side is using kids as props.”†

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If It Takes a Disaster to turn an ideologically constrained Conservative into a Moderate American— reasonable-enough to realize that the Federal Government plays an essential role in modern American life—then it makes sense for Barack Obama to show what an innocent child—at risk of assault-rifle attack at school or movie theater or mall—looks like, while as President, he speaks to the American people in this disturbing debate.

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Does Either Side, Left or Right, have any substantive answers to the epidemic of mass murder in America? Well, maybe yes, and maybe no. Vice-President Joe Biden, at the behest of the President, recently sounded out a lot of different sides about this issue. The President, surrounded by his innocent-kid props, put forth his findings from the Vice-President’s efforts. The NRA fired back. While some of us debate the regulation of gun-ownership and the use of kids as political props, every one of us awaits to learn the news of the next mass murder.

Regards,  

(($; -)}  

Gozo! 

P.S.: To put a nice wrap around this, Governor Christie has now spoken out against the NRA ad, as CNN reports here: TRENDING: Chris Christie Rails Against NRA, Calls Ad ‘Reprehensible’

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*See the NRA’s ad here: When His Kids Are Protected by Armed...

† Read Dana Milbank’s Washington Post essay here: The Gun Debate Is Nothing to Kid About

@GozoTweets 

Unexamined Capitalism Will Not Serve Us Well

13 December 2012

In response to a comment on a Bloomberg View article, “Romney’s Bain Yielded Private Gains, Socialized Losses,” Online Gym writes:

“Gozo I sort of agree Capitalism remains the most-effective economic model....And yes our capitalist model is flawed. But it takes decades to get it correct....It’s almost like we need to slow down and review our growth and correct what needs to be corrected....”

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This is exactly right: being that capitalism is a human “invention,” of course it has flaws. Perfection is always the pinnacle to which we aspire, not one on which it is given to us to stand.

Given that we exist in a universe cycle of perpetual motion, of perpetual ebb and flow—of perpetual energy and entropy (as described in Newton’s laws)—the Perfect is near-certain to exceed our grasp.

This cycle provides the only canvas available for our great works. Which means that, often, “we need to slow down and review our growth and correct what needs to be corrected.”
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The way I see it, the Conservative mind-set is particularly averse to taking the wrong steps, in fear of making new mistakes. The hazards of “unintended consequences” seems to come quickly to the Conservative mind and lips.

That’s a good thing: the impulsive Progressives need someone to help slow them up. To keep them from rushing willy-nilly over the cliff.

But, then society as a whole needs the progressive risk-takers, such the Wright brothers, who take that cliff-leap and lead us eventually to flying around the world, seven miles up, at a thousand miles an hour.
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The “slow down and review” process began in earnest with the election of Ronald Reagan as President.

Under his guidance, sure, our debt grew to frightening heights. But things also got brought back down to Earth.

America took a breath, a pause, following the heady epoch from the Great Depression to the declines of the Vietnam War and the Great Society.

But it’s now thirty-two years on. This Conservative pull-back has hampered us with ideology that, the more its elements fail, the more its adherents want to double down.
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We need to take a clearer look at capitalism, and how it really works.

First of all, we ought to go read the book, to see how Adam Smith characterizes collaboration as the key element, rather than this thing about “competition” and “greed,” which are essentially side-effects.
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I think it’s a crime that we don’t teach such essential things in our schools. I believe we waste a tremendous learning and growth opportunity in our educational system, by not recognizing the demographic changes of the last century.

American kids no longer grow up in single-earner homes, where they learn our culture’s habits and values there. Instead, our kids learn from television and the Internet and the streets. It’s no longer enough to teach them history and math/science.

We need to teach them how to manage their economic lives. And how to manage our political society as a whole.
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My personal, big question is, “How do we get there from here, when the Right is so-blindingly focused on winning the tug-of-war between sides, that we have impasse at every turn?”

Unfortunately, I haven’t a clue. And so I keep coming around to places like this, getting up on my soapbox, and hoping that I can finally manage to spy something, from perched on the soapbox’s modest height.

Regards,
(($; -)}
Gozo!

@GozoTweets

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Read the originating discussion at:

Romney’s Bain Yielded Private Gains, Socialized Losses

The Republican Party of Projection Needs a New Bulb for its Projector:

12 November 2012

Republican Ideology, as currently configured, has stood up to be tested over the past thirty-two years.

It has failed miserably.

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The Apparent Cause of Republican failure is projection.

Most of what the Right perceives in the Left is actually its own reflection.

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Best Case in Point: the Romney campaign disbelieved Obama-leaning poll numbers because the Republicans thought that the Democrats were skewing the numbers.

Instead, it was the Romney campaign doing the skewing. And thus were their errors worsened, and their trend toward loss made stronger.

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Likewise, This Conservative Ideology—that the Democrats are the party of entitlement. Those of us on the outside of the whole thing see how much it is the Right that wallows in its sense of entitlement.

Such as wondering how they could have possibly lost the election, when their policies and practices led America into the mess, and then they scared much of the American electorate away.

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Karl Rove Accuses the Democrats of winning the election by scaring voters off of the Republican Party. We on the outside see this as ridiculous, of course: the Republican policies and principles are their own  policies and principles. Though some elements are often projected on others, yet do they often state these other ideological elements themselves.

And who more than Karl Rove has thrived, politically, on the promulgation of fear?

The whole ideology of the Republican Party is based on fear—gun-bearing thuggery; misogyny; aliens; welfare abuse; voter fraud; wealth-ravaging inflation; me-first healthcare access; other languages, other faiths, and other cultures—here in “the home of the brave.”

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To “Blame the Messenger”—who helps communicate the anti-immigrant, anti-choice, anti-voting, anti-poor Right Wing planks—exemplifies the Republican culture of entitlement.

And of projection.

Regards,
(($; -)}
Gozo!

@GozoTweets

IF GOZO TWEETED: Tweet #0014

01 MAY 2012

__________

WHO SAID IT? “No sacrifice at the expense of someone else is too-great a cost for a Conservative American in service of his ideology.”

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Regards,
(($; -)}
Gozo!

@GozoTweets

IF GOZO TWEETED: Tweet #0011

9 APRIL 2012

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QUOTE OF THE DAY: “Freedom isn’t free! (But someone else should pay for my healthcare.)”

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Regards,
(($; -)}
Gozo!

@GozoTweets

IF GOZO TWEETED: Tweet #0005

28 MARCH 2012

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Being Conservative means missing the old ways so bad that you’re willing to let others die for them.

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Regards,
(($; -)}}
Gozo!

@GozoTweets

The Republican Mythology of “Spending Like a Democrat”

“[North Carolina Representative Patrick] McHenry may pretend to be a Republican, but he sure as hell spends like a Democrat—or even worse.”

  —Republicans Against Patrick McHenry

26 FEBRUARY 2011

This idea—that Democrats “spend” more than Republicans do—is clearly a flawed mythology. It is wrong in two different ways.
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First, if you listen to Republican language (especially over these Obama years), you hear almost-exclusively the word, “spending,” and rarely hear the word, “investing.” Given that the Republican Party prides itself so vocally on things such as “fiscal responsibility,” you would expect it to make the distinction between items limited to “Expenses” on the income statement and items to be listed as “Assets” on the balance sheet.

Republicans Avoid this Distinction.

It’s as if you were to call someone out on the carpet about where the heck all their money goes, saying something like, “All you do is spend, spend, spend. Look at this! You’ve spent $4.00 for a café latte and $400,000 for a house. That’s more than $400,000 spent in one year—for coffee and other stuff!”

Without the transcontinental railroad and the Interstate Highway system and the NASA space program,  where would American be?

Spending like a Democrat.
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Second, if you look at the lessons of history, you may be surprised at recent examples of “Spending like a Republican.”

An example notable for its relationship to one of America’s greatest examples of Republican leadership, is the spending that President Reagan motivated, in his effort either to build a Strategic Defense Initiative (AKA “Star Wars”) or to bankrupt the Soviet Union (a legitimate “Mission Accomplished”). You may be too young to remember the fears that Democrats expressed when the Reagan years produced the greatest level of non-wartime debt that America had known. Democrats then were convinced (as Republicans are now convinced) that such deficit spending could not possibly be corrected. And it was not corrected until two presidents later, when the engine of American entrepreneurship turned that “spending” debt around.

Then, of course, we have the unfortunate example of President George W. Bush taking us into an arguably unjustifiable war in Iraq and into the Medicare-D program. Both of these items demonstrate irresponsible Republican spending—which may represent legitimate, if intangible investments—in that no provision of paying for them was part of the process.

Listening to Democrats speak—notably the members of the Congressional Black Caucus—one hears them speak over and over about how they plan to pay for their “spending” programs. From Republicans, one hears only the continued promise of “trickle down,” which clearly has not occurred in our economy over the past thirty years since we first elected Ronald Reagan to accomplish this economic miracle. The vague hope, expressed with strong conviction, that lower taxes for the wealthy somehow result in good-paying jobs for those lower down in the economic “food chain” just never becomes reality.

Conservatives like to disown the latter President Bush as not one of their own. But no one who knows anything about this man could consider him to be either a Democrat or a Liberal, hiding in Conservative, Republican clothing.

At some point, any true “fiscal conservatives” remaining in the Republican Party will need to face the truth:

American Democrats “invest” in America’s infrastructure for the future, more than they just “spend.” And “pay as you go” is a Democratic expression of fiscal conservatism.

The false Republican delusions that this party opposes under the combined labels of “Democrat” and “spending” are just an easy target, painted on the backs of those Americans actually committed to making our great nation a better place. And not just a better place for eviscerating the middle class.

Regards,
(($;-)}
Gozo!

Newton's Fourth Law

If We Are Controlled Entirely by Our Fears, we will never do anything. Because every action is subject to Newton’s Third Law of “equal-and-opposite-reaction,” and every major change to a complex system is subject to the so-called “Law of Unintended Consequences.”

Because Every Liberal or Progressive Move Forward generates a Conservative or Republican reaction, the political Right are generally considered “reactionary.” This concept comes from Newton’s law.

The Human Urge to Do Nothing reflects the fears of these two, unrelated laws. And yet, sometimes we can’t afford to do nothing. Sometimes, we just have to do something.

Despite the Flaws and Unintended Consequences that will surely come from the current bill, these things can be fixed. American ingenuity and invention knows no bounds, and we will be able to make this better. We will be able to limit the ways that government controls our healthcare—but we are virtually powerless to limit the way that our insurance company controls our care.

If the Bill Is Scrapped, the determination and drive to get it done will have been wasted.

If the Bill Is Passed, Newton’s First Law will kick in: a healthcare reform law in motion will tend to remain in motion.

The Determination and Drive of the American People to fix the thing will give us no choice but to move quickly and earnestly to make it right.

America Has No Constructive Choice but to Pass the Bill, get it started, and then get to work on making it better and better. When an object can’t go back and can’t stay put, it has not choice but to go forward.

Regards,
(($;-)}
Gozo!