Leaky pipes and voting

Voting is as important as tending to leaky pipes.  If you don’t tend to a leaky pipe, you may a flooded basement.  If you don’t tend to your government by voting, you may have flooded streets.

This was inspired in party by John W. Gardner’s statement:

“The society which scorns excellence in plumbing as a humble activity and tolerates shoddiness in philosophy because it is an exalted activity will have neither good plumbing nor good philosophy: neither its pipes nor its theories will hold water.”

and by Jackie Calmes “As Numbers Grow, Single Women Emerge as Political Powerhouse”, New York Times, 2014-07-02

Calmes points out that single women are more likely not to vote, especially in mid-term elections.

For more wonderful quotes by John W. Gardner, see http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/John_W._Gardner.  I especially like his comment on taxes:

“Handing money back to the private sector in tax cuts and starving the public sector is a formula for producing richer and richer consumers in filthier and filthier communities. If we stick to that formula we shall end up in affluent misery.”

Quote of the day - Health care costs

Well, not quite of today.  I'm just trying to make a dent in my backlog of notes.

"How does Medicaid achieve these lower costs? Partly by having much lower administrative costs than private insurers. It’s always worth remembering that when it comes to health care, it’s the private sector, not government programs, that suffers from stifling, costly bureaucracy."
- "Medicaid on the ballot", Paul Krugman, New York Times, 2012-10-29.

For some counter arguments, see "Krugman Flunks Health Econ 101", John Goodman, National Center for Policy Analysis, 2012-11-05 http://healthblog.ncpa.org/krugman-flunks-health-econ-101/

One thing critics ignore about private sector versus government programs is that government doesn't have CEOs taking home eight-figure salaries and other perks.

FEMA - A smart conservative speaks

FEMA does need reform, many states should look out for themselves, and the private sector can do things for disaster relief.  But instead of a broad brush attack on the Federal Government or a broad brush defense of business as usual, we need calm deliberation of the facts and of where the best resources are available.

See "How a Smart Conservative Would Reform FEMA", Jordan Weissman, The Atlantic, 2012-10-31.

Maybe Matt Mayer could be a catalyst for a "Real Republican" party?

Who creates jobs? Government or Corporations?

According to "The Myth of Job Creation", Editorial, New York Times, 2012-10-21, Obama and Romney agree that "government does not create jobs".  The New York Times disagrees, "Except that it does, millions of them — including teachers, police officers, firefighters, soldiers, sailors, astronauts, epidemiologists, antiterrorism agents, park rangers, diplomats, governors (Mr. Romney’s old job) and congressmen (like Paul Ryan)."

It is so hard to break the Norquist attitude that government is useless.  If government was so useless, why do so many corporations spend fortunes to get a government that will pass laws they favor?  If government was so useless, why do so many corporations seek government contracts?  If government was so useless, who would give corporations patents?  If government was so useless, who would adjudicate corporations billion-dollar suits against each other?