Let’s run government like a business

For many decades, there have government critics who think government would be better if it were run like a business.  Be careful what you ask for; you might get it.

If government were run like a business, then the president (or governor) would be approved every year by the Senate.  This approval would be almost automatic every three years. The President would hold his position until he retires, quits, or is fired by the Senate.  If  the Senate fires him, there would be few if any hearings

The President would appoint new members to the board as previous members quit or die.

Every year, the voters would get to approve a third of the current members of the board.   They would have two choices: for or abstain.

Rather than have a variety of public services available to all citizens, there would be fees for every service.

You want to get mail, you would have to pay an annual fee or by piece each day.

You want to drive somewhere, you would have to pay an annual fee to each jurisdiction you drive in or pay a toll each time you drive in a certain jurisdiction.

You want to have a quick response if you have a medical emergency, a fire, or a robbery, you would have to pay an annual fee to each entity or pay before you get the help.

And on and on it goes to where we might have to put coins in our refrigerator to open it.

None of us really likes to pay taxes, but without taxes our lives would be chaos.  Supposedly, Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. said, “I like taxes, they buy me civilization.”  And he was a Republican!!

Taxes are not a one-way transaction

We all complain about taxes and we all would like to pay less taxes or none at all.

But what happens when we pay less taxes?

We won’t have the public streets and highways that we want to be in pot-holeless condition.

We wont’t have fire departments coming to put out our house-fires or the neighbors’ house-fires that might expand to our house.  Does that give you a clue why tax supported fire departments are a good idea?  If not, consider how safe your house would be if you were the only one on your block who paid the fire department.

The same holds for police and snowplowing and street cleaning and …  Would you want to be responsible for clearing the snow from the street in front of your house?

And the irony of ironies is that the “conservatives” who complain the loudest about taxes for things they don’t like want to to throw money at the military, especially if it means a military base in their district.

Oh, yes!  If you can read this, thank a teacher.  If you're rich, maybe your daddy paid the teacher.  If you're not rich, hundreds and thousands of tax-paying citizens paid the teacher.  Or, the poor kid whose education you helped pay for in your middle-age may be the doctor that saves your life in your old age.

Would you rather pay low taxes or be happy?

The AARP latest news page has a list of the five happiest states.  Minnesota is number one.  Minnesota is also among the higher taxed states.

Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes supposedly said, “I like taxes; they buy me civilization.”

The other four states are Utah, Hawaii California, and Nebraska.  The full list is at https://wallethub.com/edu/happiest-states/6959/.  I’ll let you draw your own conclusions about the rankings.  This site also has the best and worst rankings for a few more categories; taxes were not among them.

“Best Places to Retire”?

AARP http://www.aarp.org/home-family/friends-family/info-2017/25-best-places-to-retire-fd.html and others often publish lists of “Best Places to Retire”.  First, “best” is subjective.  One person’s “best” can be another person’s “worst”.

Second, these “best” lists often include taxes, the higher the taxes the lower the rating.  Tax is one of those things you get what you pay for.  If “high” taxes are paying for subsidizing business to get them to relocate, the taxes are not much benefit for retirees.  If the “high” taxes are paying for infrastructure such as emergency services then they can be of great benefit to retirees.

Even a given area can have great variation in benefit to retirees.  For example, most senior housing is in the “middle of nowhere”: infrequent bus service and very long walks to anything.  On the other hand, when we decide to sell our house, there are several senior residences that are close to bus stops and within walking distance of shops and restaurants.

Hypocritic oath and an ignored reading

"The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States."

U.S. Constitution, Article VI

Somehow, we have a Congress that gave an oath to the Koch brothers and made sure they passed the religious anti-tax test of Grover Norquist.

Every year the Senate has a public reading of George Washington’s “Farewell Address” and the next day they ignore what he wrote.  Maybe many of them stayed away during the reading or slept through it.

"Observe good faith and justice towards all nations; cultivate peace and harmony with all; religion and morality enjoin this conduct, and can it be that good policy does not equally enjoin it? It will be worthy of a free, enlightened, and, at no distant period, a great nation, to give to mankind the magnanimous and too novel example of a people always guided by an exalted justice and benevolence.  Who can doubt that in the course of time and things the fruits of such a plan would richly repay any temporary advantages which might be lost by a steady adherence to it?  Can it be, that Providence has not connected the permanent felicity of a nation with its virtue? The experiment, at least, is recommended by every sentiment which ennobles human nature. Alas! is it rendered impossible by its vices?

"In the execution of such a plan nothing is more essential than that permanent, inveterate antipathies against particular nations and passionate attachments for others should be excluded and that in place of them just and amicable feelings towards all should be cultivated. The nation which indulges towards another an habitual hatred, or an habitual fondness, is in some degree a slave. It is a slave to its animosity or to its affection, either of which is sufficient to lead it astray from its duty and its interest. Antipathy in one nation against another disposes each more readily to offer insult and injury, to lay hold of slight causes of umbrage, and to be haughty and intractable when accidental or trifling occasions of dispute occur. Hence frequent collisions, obstinate, envenomed, and bloody contests. The nation, prompted by ill will and resentment, sometimes impels to war the government, contrary to the best calculations of policy. The government sometimes participates in the national propensity and adopts through passion what reason would reject; at other times, it makes the animosity of the nation subservient to projects of hostility instigated by pride, ambition and other sinister and pernicious motives. The peace often, sometimes perhaps the liberty, of nations has been the victim."

Who has the U.S. become beholden to either as a friend or as an enemy: Saudi Arabia, Israel, Iran, North Korea, Cuba .

Republican governors’ oxen gored

Republican governors are complaining about the cuts to the Federal grants they received.  These governors include many whose states already receive far more in federal money than their residents pay in taxes.

See https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/22/us/eyeing-trumps-budget-plan-republican-governors-say-no-thanks.html?comments&_r=0#permid=21886125

My comment was “States’ rights to federal funding?”

I also added a comment to Socrates who began "The Grand Old Parasites want everything and systematically refuse to pay for it.  They want something for nothing and refuse to acknowledge that taxes are the cost of civilization.”

Ironically, "taxes are the cost of civilization" supposedly was said by Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, appointed by Theodore Roosevelt.  I think both are spinning in their graves at the current status of their party.

Trucks, taxes, and benefits

I don’t drive on freeways much anymore, but are there still trucks that have signs on the back that state something like “This truck pays $4,362 per year in taxes.”

Shouldn’t there also be a sign that says the government provides $x,xxx per year in services to this truck”?

What is the pro-rata cost of highways for each truck?  Snow-plowing?  Police investigation of crashes?  Police protection of auto drivers harassed by tailgating truckers?

It seems more that someone benefits from taxes the more they complain about taxes.  Corporations want well-educated employees, but they don’t want to pay the taxes to educate future employees.  They want to sue those they claim have wronged them, but they don’t want to pay the taxes for courts.  They want laws to protect their interests, but don’t want to pay the costs of enforcement.

Corporations and others want a military that costs more than then next two or three next largest militaries, but they don’t want to pay the taxes to support that military.

Does U.S. Senate follow advice it honors?

Every year, the U.S. Senate has a member read George Washington’s Farewell Address.  For more details of this, see https://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/minute/Washingtons_Farewell_Address.htm.

It is a slog for many of us today to read the Address in its entirety, but it has much that has been ignored, even by those who read it.  For example,

"Hence likewise they will avoid the necessity of those overgrown military establish-ments, which under any form of government are inauspicious to liberty, and which are to be regarded as particularly hostile to republican liberty."

Or, very germane to the current Senate:

"The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism.  The disorders and miseries which result gradually  incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation on the ruins of public liberty.”

Have the many Republican Senators who have read the Farewell Address already forgotten:

"It is important, likewise, that the habits of think-ing in a free country should inspire caution in those entrusted with its administration to confine themselves within their respective constitutional spheres, avoiding in the exercise of the powers of one department to encroach upon another.  The spirit of encroachment tends to consolidate the powers of all the departments in one and thus to create, whatever the form of government, a real despotism."

There is much to agree with and some to disagree with, but the main thrust should be a guide for all of us.  What bothers me is how much those who annually read and listen to the reading of this document soon ignore it.

I ask my readers to select a few key points and write, email, or phone their two Senators if they are honestly following these points or have compelling reasons in the public interest to ignore some of Washington’s advice.

For the text, see https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/GPO-CDOC-106sdoc21/pdf/GPO-CDOC-106sdoc21.pdf.

See also "Did George Washington warn us about Donald Trump".

A rebuttal of the Star Tribune misuse of the term “free market”

I submitted the following commentary to the Star Tribune a day or two after D.J. Tice’s column which I considered another misuse of the term “free market”.  I have not seen it published yet.  Could it be that “free marketers” don’t like reminders of true free markets?

D.J. Tice’s column “ A foolish system and your money …” leads me to believe he is one of those who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.  I wonder if he has considered the number of times in a day that he has benefitted from public goods.

Did he drive on a freeway to work?  Did he pay the full cost of his share of the road, the full cost of the pollution from his car, and the cost of the loss of tax revenues from the houses that once were above the trenches that divide up our cities?

Did he take a bus to work?  His fare would have only paid part of the cost.  But the bus is a public good in that it reduces the number of cars on the road.  If he had to pay the full cost of his bus ride, he probably wouldn’t take the bus.

Did he walk to work?  Did he pay a toll for the sidewalk he used?  Did he put a coin in the traffic lights so that he could cross the street?

Let’s hope that his house never catches fire.  He would not be happy paying the full cost of the fire department response.  If his neighbor had the misfortune of a fire, would he help pay the cost of the fire department whose response kept the fire from spreading to his house?

I am a graduate of the Cleveland Public School System.  I doubt that my mother could have afforded the full cost of the schooling that qualified me to attend college.  Many other people, some childless, helped pay the cost of my education.

I could not have afforded the tuition at Case Institute of Technology.  A foundation paid full tuition the first year.  I flunked out of Case but the foundation kept paying a fraction of my tuition at Ohio Wesleyan University.  At both schools, many donors provided money to keep the tuition down somewhat.  Three-percent federal loans also helped.  I managed to get back to Case for graduate school with a graduate assistant position.  I doubt any of the work we did paid in full for our jobs and tuition.

Companies are demanding more and more highly specialized “skills”, but they are not willing to train people.  They expect the public schools and the colleges and universities to train these employees.  But they don’t want to pay the taxes for the public schools and colleges, institutions that would help those who can’t afford the elite institutions.  The smaller the pool of potential employees, the harder it is to find “qualified” employees.

Could he pay out of pocket for each and every medical visit he needed: office or hospital?  For those of us with well-paying jobs, health insurance pays for a chunk of the care, if not all.  But what about people who have jobs with no health insurance?  Has he considered that their lack of health insurance benefits him with lower prices? (Or the owners with much higher profits.)

What if there were a deadly epidemic that had no respect for wealth?  How might such an epidemic start?  Maybe those who first became ill could not afford the health care, health care that would have reduced their chances of spreading their disease.

Modern economies run a large array of public goods: roads, schools, police, fire, and regulatory inspections.  As Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes supposedly said, “I like taxes; they buy me civilization.”

A new form of taxation

Most of us complain about taxes in one way or another.  But we almost always have our individual ideas of what government should do.  We sort of ask government to lower taxes but be sure to fund my sacred cow.

To this end, I suggest that the tax forms have an allocation schedule on which we can allocate where we want our income tax money to be spent:

Each individual cabinet level department
The office of the President
The Senate
The House of Representatives

If a person’s list doesn’t add up to 100%, then the remainder will go into a general fund to be allocated in the usual manner by Congress.  If a person’s list adds up more than 100%, then the values are adjusted proportionally to add up to 100%.
Much of text lost because deleting a duplicate deleted both.

So, if a person thinks the only business of the Federal government is war, aka defense, then he or she can stipulate 100% of their income tax go to the Dept. of Defense.

If a person thinks transportation and education are the most important activities of government, then he or she could stipulate say, 40% for one and 30% for the other leaving 30% for Congress to decide how to use.

With this plan, if only two percent of the allocation went to the military or any other function, Congress would have to use general funds, if available, to make up the difference to what it thinks is really needed.

Whatever we do, we should remember the supposed words of Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., "I like taxes.  They buy me civilization."

Corporations and governments: can’t have one without the other

Considering some of the shouting, one might think that politics has divided into two camps: government is bad and corporations are for the common good, or corporations are greedy and government is for the common good.

As too often is the case, the truth lies somewhere in the middle.

First, let’s look at the similarities.

Corporations and governments are organized by people for a large number of reasons.  The people who organize these entities do so to provide goods and services, to make money, to be famous, or to push certain views, both altruistic and selfish.  Neither type of organization is any better than the people who run the organization.  Success depends more on the leadership and the resources available than on the form.  Success also depends on the circumstances of the time.  If a large segment of the population is not interested in an idea, it will take a lot of effort to promote the idea, whether a new product or a new law.  On the other hand, if a very large segment of the population is interested in an idea, somebody in corporations or government will be working overtime to fulfill the population’s wishes.

The big difference is that the corporations are run by the few and governments are run by the many, if the many show up and vote.

As many misinterpret Adam Smith’s “invisible hand”, many misinterpret Milton Friedman’s the only purpose of a corporation is to “increase profits”.

“[t]here is one and only one social responsibility of business–to use its resources and engage in activities designed to increase its profits so long as it stays within the rules of the game, which is to say, engages in open and free competition without deception or fraud."  - Milton Friedman, “The Social Responsibility of Business is to Increase its Profits”, The New York Times Magazine, September 13, 1970

Many interpret this as the only purpose of a corporation is to increase shareholder value.  Unfortunately, they ignore “rules of the game” and “without deception or fraud”.  But what is shareholder value?  Is it a continued gain in stock price?  Is it a continuous stream of increasing dividends?  Or could it be the long-term provision of a good or service?  For example, do investors want to create a product that could take years to bring to market?  Do investors want to insure that medical services can be provided to a community for decades rather than maximize profits for the short-term and destroy the community long-term?

Many point to the problems of MNSure and ObamaCare as examples of government inefficiency.  But guess who provided the computers and software for these health insurance programs?  Private companies!

And private companies have not been known for efficient, trouble-free rollouts of new products.  How many auto recalls are there every year?  Has every computer program or system you purchased or downloaded been free of bugs?  It seems every time I get a notice of an app update, the description includes “bug fixes”.

In the “bad old days” of mainframes, it was really a major milestone when a computer ran a whole day without a crash.  Now things are much better.  My laptop, which is more powerful than any mainframe I worked on, might go a whole week without some kind of frustrating error, including freezes.

MNSure and Obamacare are massive systems requiring massive co-ordination of many pieces.  As we don’t give up on our computers, we shouldn’t give up on massive projects that don’t work perfectly on the first day.

"I'm as confident of this as I would be that when the first cars didn't work well, it wasn't time to return to horses and buggies; it was time to improve the cars. This is the new technology; there are kinks to it and it's going to take some time to work them out.”
Joel Ario, quoted in “Contractor’s report slams MNsure weaknesses, readiness”, Elizabeth Stawicki, MPRNews, 2014-06-18

Are you collecting Social Security?  Is your check posted to your bank account on the promised day every month?  But it was not always so.  Like getting computers to not crash, the rollout of Social Security was not without glitches or without critics who claimed dire consequences.  Like “nationalization of wheat fields would soon follow” and Americans would be reduced to passive servility.  It would take forty years of tinkering to have ninety percent of Americans covered by Social Security.

See “What about Social Security’s rollout?” Bruce J. Schulman, 2013-10-29, Reuters

An interesting contrast to the call for less regulation and taxes is the call by some of the same people for government subsidy.  How many stadiums for billionaires have been built without government subsidies?  How many companies have chased after the best subsidies and tax breaks to determine the location of a new office or factory?  Are these the same people who say government shouldn’t be picking winners and losers?

Consider the big howl from Congress when Solyndra collapsed.  But nothing was said about the success of Tesla.  Both received start-up subsidies from the Federal government.  Tesla paid its loans back!  Also among those who received subsidies were Compaq, Intel, and Apple.  Now Apple is the largest company in the world in capitalization!  And looking for ways to avoid paying back its benefactor through taxes.

For a lot more on how government has fostered many other successful innovations, see “The Innovative State: Governments Should Make Markets, Not Just Fix Them”, Mariana Mazzucato, Foreign Affairs, January/February 2015.

- Mel wishes a few far-sighted Republicans and Democrats would start a Pragmatic Party.

This was also published in the Duluth Reader, 2015-03-26 at 2015/03/26/5005_corporations_and_governments_cant_have_one_without

George Washington: Ignored Father of his Country

The United States Senate reads “George Washington’s Farewell Address” every year, alternating between the two parties.  It was read by John Hoeven, R-ND on February 23, 2015.  The House of Representatives last read it publicly in 1984.  You can find a copy at http://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/resources/pdf/WashFarewell.pdf.

Whether Congress listens to the reading or not, I think they often forget what George Washington wrote, maybe within hours of the reading.

Washington warned again and again about faction.  One example is:

“[The obstructions of constituted authorities] serve to organize faction; to give it an artificial and extraordinary force; to put in the place of the delegated will of the nation the will of a party, often a small but artful and enterprising minority of the community; and, according to the alternate triumphs of different parties, to make the public administration the mirror of the ill concerted and incongruous projects of faction, rather than the organ of consistent and wholesome plans digested by common councils and modified by mutual interests.” [page 14]

He went on about how unprincipled men could actually take over the government, subverting the will of the people.

In the same month that a Republican Senator read “Washington’s Farewell Address”, the Republicans went right back to factionalism, finding all kinds of fault with President Obama and pushing a corporate agenda.

As General of the Continental Army, Washington provided lessons that we have not learned about wars but “insurgents” in many countries know only to well.

Washington and the Continental Army knew the country; the British did not.  Boxed in several times, Washington managed to escape with his army.  For example, he was in Manhattan and Brooklyn when the British invaded Long Island.  He commandeered every boat he could and took all his men, cannon, horses, and more to Manhattan on a foggy night and then on to White Plains..

"I am well convinced myself, that the enemy long ere this, are perfectly satisfied that the possession of our towns while we have an army in the field will avail them little.”  Think Baghdad, Kabul.

He predated by almost two centuries Mao Zedong: “enemy advances, we retreat; enemy retreats, we pursue.”

George Washington also stuck to the task from 1775 until the British surrender at Yorktown in 1781.  What is the average tour of duty of a general in Iraq or Afghanistan?  And of course, every general has a different idea of what to do.  Oh, yes!  Washington would let himself be outvoted by his officers.

As President, George Washington was for efficient government, not necessarily for limited government: “for the efficient management of your common interests in a country so extensive as ours, a government of as much vigor as is consistent with the perfect security of liberty is indispensable…  It is indeed little else than a name, where the government is too feeble to withstand the enterprises of faction, to confine each member of the society within the limits prescribed by the laws, and to maintain all in the secure and tranquil enjoyment of the rights of person and property.” [pages 15-16]

“[The spirit of party] opens the door to foreign influence and corruption, which find a facilitated access to the government itself through the channels of party passions.” [pages 17-18]  Does this apply to the Congressional invitation for the prime minister of Israel to speak before it?

“And let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion.” [page 20]  Note that he doesn’t specify what religion, one of the numerous Christian sects or one of the many non-Christian sects.

Washington wrote a section on the need for public credit and to use it sparingly by “cultivating peace”.  If war is necessary, the burden should not be put on future generations.  “[Y]ou should practically bear in mind that towards the payment of debts there must be revenue; that to have revenue there must be taxes…”  He followed this with a discourse about the problem of selecting what to tax.  I wonder what he would think of all the highways that we demand, the degree of safety oversight we want, and the research we want.

He wrote a couple pages about the necessity of treating all nations the same. “The nation which indulges toward another an habitual hatred, or an habitual fondness, in is some degree a slave.”  What would Washington say about our relations with Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Israel, Saudi Arabia, or Egypt?  All of them manipulate us more than we manipulate them.  George Washington considered those who resist these entanglements as the “real patriots”.

He also extended this view to commerce: “our commercial policy should hold an equal hand: neither seeking nor granting exclusive favors or preferences…” [page 28]

As much as we have put Washington on a pedestal, he is more modest: “I am nevertheless too sensible of my defects not to think it probable that I may have committed many errors.”

He looked forward to enjoying “the benign influence of good laws under a free government…”

Sorry, Mr. President, but fools have rushed in where heroes fear to tread.  We have many bad laws under a bought government.

Mel votes in almost every election, mostly in the hope of avoiding really bad laws.

Also published in the Reader Weekly, 2015-03-05 at http://duluthreader.com/articles/2015/03/04/4899_george_washington_ignored_father_of_his_country

Government efficiency

I am working on my taxes and wanted to find the Minnesota state forms online.  The main page had a link for business taxes but not individual taxes.  I sent a message to the help desk and received a response within two hours.

I had a problem with some commercial software about ten days ago.  I received an acknowledgment within two hours, but I have yet to receive anything further.  Sometimes I receive a good response from companies; sometimes I receive inadequate responses; and sometimes I receive no response.  Ditto government offices.

Efficiency does not depend on the form of the organization; it depends on the leadership of the organization.

See also "Excessive Corporate Inefficiency".

People, government, and spending money

“The people know how to spend their money better than the government.”  Really?

A Minnesota politician was quoted last month stating some variation of this Libertarian statement, but I can’t find it in a search of the Duluth News Tribune or the Star Tribune.  This mantra keeps popping up when a Republican doesn’t like a particular program or a given tax.  Funny how they rarely apply it to the bailout of the big banks.  And it never applies to any government activity that they support.

Let’s start with the military budget.  Do the people really know how to spend their money on the military better than the government does?  Those who spout my introductory statement seem to want to throw even more money at the military budget.  Regardless of your attitude toward the military, it is in the Constitution that the government should spend money on the military: “provide for the common defense”.  I don’t think the signers meant for the government to take up a collection to support our numerous wars.  Wars are often strongly supported by those who make the claim about the people knowing best how to spend money.

If your house were burglarized, would you want to be responsible for paying for an investigation, a trial, and a prison term for the culprit?  Would you want to have to buy insurance to ensure the thief was brought to justice?  We buy insurance to cover the loss, but we pay taxes for a criminal justice system.  Who runs the criminal justice system?  The government.  Who runs on platforms of “tough on crime”?  Those who are first to put government down.

If your neighbor’s house catches fire, do you want to pay for your private fire department to ensure the flames don’t reach your house?  Government pays for and organizes fire departments that are a phone call away for taxpayers and tax dodgers alike.  Even when local fire departments are all volunteer, they seek support from local taxes and state and federal grants.

We complain about the condition of our streets and the congestion of our freeways.  If we know best how to spend our money, do we want to be responsible for the condition of the streets in front of our houses?  You pay for a nicely paved street in front of your house, and your neighbor leaves the street a muddy mess.  We need government to co-ordinate this so we don’t get our cars stuck in the mud.

We go to restaurants and buy groceries without giving any thought to the cleanliness or condition of the food.  Most restaurateurs and grocers are scrupulous about what they provide, but they aren’t in control of every step of processing the food or even have the time or means to give a thorough quality check.  Government provides some oversight with food inspections, for example, in meat-packing plants.  Many corporations complain about this government “intrusion”, but without it we would have many more food-borne illnesses.  Think about Upton Sinclair’s “The Jungle”.  Think about the City of Duluth closing a couple of local restaurants because of numerous health violations.  Would “the people” have all the resources to make these checks?

Corporations complain about the lack of “qualified” employees, but they complain about the taxes to train these “qualified” employees.  Industrialized countries invest heavily in public education supported by taxes.  And they provide a range of subjects that provide skills to learn more about technical subjects and about subjects that make for better informed citizens.  What if education were only supplied by parents, either directly or by paying tuition to schools.  First, few parents know enough about all the subjects to fully education their children.  Second, many parents don’t have the resources to pay tuition for professional teachers.  Think of the literacy rates in countries where parents must pay school fees.  Only the well-off in these countries are sufficiently literate.

Speaking of education, a parallel statement to the one about spending money is that “parents know best what is good education for their children”.  A close example is the sweeping generalization that “Parents know kids don’t need Common Core, so politicians should listen”, Ben Boychuk, republished in Duluth News Tribune, February 1, 2015.

We were involved in helping our children with schoolwork, but we didn’t even pretend to know how to teach them the various subjects they took.  Except for the six years we lived in Europe, we sent them off to the local public schools.  In Europe, we sent them to Anglo-American schools because we expected to be in a given country for only two years.  About the only curriculum shock I had was when our daughter showed us the catalog for American history.  Rather than an overview, she had to select one or two narrower subjects, such as Andrew Jackson.

My own education experiences were more self-directed or teacher-encouraged than parentally involved.  My mother encouraged my brother and me to do well, but I doubt she knew much about what we learned or how we learned it.  For the most part we went to schools in the neighborhood. However, we rarely stayed in the same neighborhood for more than three years.  When we moved after I started high school, I selected an out-of-area high school to be with friends who I had known before.  And as Robert Frost wrote, “that made all the difference”.

It was Mr. Rush, a math teacher who punctuated his remarks with “when you go to Case”.  Six of us in my class went to Case Institute of Technology.  It was Mr. Cameron, the assistant principal who recommended that I apply for a Huntington Fund scholarship, which paid full tuition my first year.

Thank you, government, for spending so much money on me to get to that point.

Also published in the Reader Weekly, 2015-02-05 at http://duluthreader.com/articles/2015/02/05/4777_people_government_and_spending_money.

Understandable cell phone service

When I wrote “Junk mail and the fine print”, I neglected to mention my cell phone provider, Consumer Cellular.  It is very upfront about the costs and the usage.  I get to tailor it to what I think I will need in the next month.  Plus, Consumer Cellular gives me a report when I approach a limit.

You can buy a variety of phones from Consumer Cellular, either by phone or in certain chains.  If you want a smartphone, the prices start at $80.  If you want higher end phones, they start at $xxx plus $25/month for so many months.  This is the one place that Consumer Cellular is a bit opaque, but it does give you the added information with a click of your mouse.

The basic service is $10/month plus 25¢/minute.  The next step is $15/month with 200 minutes.

Data starts at 20MB for $2.50 and tops out at 2.5GB for $30.

My plan is for January is $81.39 for 600 minutes of talk, 1GB of data, a wireless home base at our cabin, and $25/month for my iPhone 5s.  The hard part is calculating all the surcharges and taxes; for some reason these vary every month, no matter the provider.  If I had a paid iPhone and didn’t have the home base, my bill would be about $46/month.  Even less if I didn’t use my iPhone for a hotspot when we’re at our cabin.

Oh, yes, Consumer Cellular uses the AT&T network.  At our cabin I can get from 10Mbps to 23Mbps.

Bottom line: Consumer Cellular is a case in what the free market in phone service should be.  The buyers have all the information they need to make a decision.

George Will and “Failing” schools

Here’s another letter to the editor that probably wasn’t published.  This was in response to George Will’s “Tall Order for a Few Federal Dollars”.  It was published in February 2001.  The only easily available copy I could find was from the Southeastern Missourian, 2001-02-03 at
http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1893&dat=20010203&id=H60fAAAAIBAJ&sjid=ftYEAAAAIBAJ&pg=2443,4795189

The text of my letter, dated 2001-02-03 follows.

I am amazed how ideology leads a deep thinker like George Will to be as shallow as he is in “Tall Order for a Few Federal Dollars”.

At the beginning of his article, he talks about “failing schools” and how transfers to other public schools or vouchers to private schools would allow students to leave these failing schools.  He goes on to list what factors lead to students’ success but he says that schools can only influence one of those factors and that additional resources won’t change any of these factors.

He also compares the “success” of private schools to the “failure” of public schools but with a superficial assumption that the student populations are identical.

He gives a measure of the skills of public school teachers without examining whether his measure is appropriate to what the teachers are doing.  He also links that measure to a comparison of “cognition” of American students with that of students in other developed countries.

Furthermore, he uses that measure to show that class size won’t make any difference.

From his article and from a couple hours of newspaper and Web research, I see a different picture.

First, if students are allowed to leave “failing schools”, which students will leave?  The “failing” students who are most in need of “better” teaching, or the successful students who have the advantage of the five factors of
- number of parents in home
- days absent from school
- hours spent watching television
- quantity and quality of reading matter in home
- amount of homework

If the successful students leave, won’t the failing schools fail even more?  If the failing students leave, won’t they be taking their problems to other schools and lead those schools to “fail”?

Will ignores that additional resources can change four of the five factors, including the only one he says that the schools can control - amount of homework.  If classes are smaller, then teachers can give and check more homework.  Schools can influence absenteeism with truant officers and counselors, neither of which work for free.  Schools can help reduce hours spent watching television by providing more after school activities; activities like sports, music, and theatre cost money in material and staff time.  Schools can provide a quantity of quality reading matter, but books and librarians cost money.  The only factor additional resources can’t change is the number of parents.

Will writes that most failing schools serve inner-city children but inner-city Catholic schools “do better with fewer resources”.  Are the public schools and the Catholic schools serving students with the same lack of success factors?  Because some parents choose to send their children to Catholic schools, might more of the success factors be present in those families?  Will doesn’t raise this question.  Furthermore, the Catholic schools can select their students; the public schools have to take all students.

Will states that “38 percent of American teachers had college majors in academic subjects” and implies that majoring in education makes a teacher inadequately trained.  However, most schools don’t get deeply into “academic subjects” until junior high.  Many elementary teachers teach a wide range of subjects, especially in the lower grades.   In 1997 there were about 1.2 million secondary public and private teachers and about 1.85 million elementary teachers.  That means about 39% of the teachers were junior and high school teachers.  That is rather close to the percent of teachers who had a major in an academic subject.

Will relates his perception that too few teachers had academic majors to how “American students’ cognition [compares] with students around the developed world”.  Again, is he comparing similar groups of students?  The Department of Education warns in Digest of Education Statistics 1999, Chapter 6 - International Comparisons of Education (http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2000/digest99/chapter6.html)  “...international data users should be cautioned about the many problems of definition and reporting involved in the collection of data about the educational systems in the world.”  Could it be that different kinds of students are being measured in different countries?  For example, are the students being measured in some countries only those on an academic track as opposed to all students in the U.S.?  If all students are being measured in those other countries, do they have the same mix of socio-economic classes as the U.S. does?  More specifically, is there a large portion of students who lack some of the five significant success factors?

Finally, Will claims small class size “simply increases the attention each pupil gets from an inadequately trained teacher.”  The Student Achievement Guarantee in Education program in Wisconsin has shown that smaller class sizes give better results (Duluth News-Tribune, Jan. 18, 2001).  As one teacher put it, with larger classes “it's a lot of tying shoes”.

Follow up email to the Washington Post:

In today's Star Tribune I found a more factual rebuttal than mine to George Will's Feb. 1st column on education.  It is about the ACE (A Commitment to Excellence) program in Minneapolis.  [The link I had no longer works.  The article was from 2001-02-04.]  In short, it is about a program that targets at-risk black males to give them tutoring and counseling to help them succeed.  The $500,000 program is sponsored by the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis Public Schools, and Hennepin County Children and Family Services.

You can find a link to the start of the article at http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-69979742.html.

Cost of government vs value of government

Too many people complain about the cost of government and the level of taxation, but they never look at any actions of government being investments.

Where would they get enough educated workers without government-provided schools?  Would enough parents or individuals have the time or money needed for the level of education required by many businesses?

How would they get the roads to move goods from manufacturer to warehouse to user?  Would they want to pay tolls for each segment of road, including local roads.

What would our health be without food inspection?  Maybe the food producer thinks regulations are burdensome, but what about the burden on employers who have many employees absent with food-borne illnesses.

Maybe factories think safety regulations are burdensome, but what would their costs be in reduced workforces and lawsuits?

The basic question is shall we have a society of maximum gain for a few or a society that provides for the “general Welfare” as stated in the Constitution.

Or, too many people know the price of everything but the value of nothing.

For a much better consideration of this, see “Our mismeasured economy”, Lew Daly, New York Times, 2014-07-06.

Constitution á la carte

“Á la carte” is French for “from the menu”.  It means that one chooses various items from the menu rather than being offered a complete meal chosen by the chef.  It seems to me that the writers of the U.S. Constitution provided us a complete meal for governance, but we all seem to pick and choose what we want from the Constitution and ignore much of the rest, even going so far as to go against the intent of the writers.

Let’s start at the beginning: “We the people…”  Just who are “the people”?  The word “people” is used just twice in the original constitution: in the opening and in Article I, Section 2.  In the latter “the People of the several States” choose the Representatives.  The “electors”, presumably of the people, are defined by state law.  Interesting, the Constitution doesn’t prohibit women from voting.  But considering that states had laws allowing only men to vote, then the Constitution indirectly prohibits women from voting.

Another prominent noun is “person”, again without gender stipulation.  All of the uses assume a single human individual, free or otherwise.  For census purposes the qualification “free” is added.  So, although the States didn’t allow women the vote, did they allow free Blacks and Indians taxed to vote?  The Constitution is mute on this.

The sticking point nowadays is the use of “people” and “persons” in the Bill of Rights.  The “people” can peaceably assemble, bear arms, “be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects”, retain rights not enumerated, and have powers not in the Constitution or “prohibited by the States.”

We seem to have a real “á la carte” on these amendments.

Some think peaceably assemble means they can have marches or demonstrations that block entire streets.  Others think that a small group of people, especially Blacks, is not a peaceable assembly.  The Twin Cities has a case that assumes one person sitting on a publicly-accessible chair is not peaceable assembly.

Bearing arms has been a contentious issue for ages, but most Supreme Court cases until at least 1939 interpreted it as militia-related and not personal.  After all, it is a right of the people, not of persons.  Now there are persons who insist that they have a right to have a gun wherever they feel like.  Interesting, that there were lots of sheriffs and marshals who made gun toters check in their guns while in town.

Many Southern States conveniently overlooked and resisted the Federal authority to override state laws regarding “The Times, Places and Manner of holding Election for … Representatives.”  See Article I, Section 4.

Many complain about federal regulation, but Article I, Section 8, leaves two questions wide open.  “The Congress have have the power to lay and collect Taxes…and provide for the … general Welfare of the United States.”  Are a highway system, an air traffic control system, and clean air and water “general Welfare”?  There seem to be many who think clean air and water are over-regulation.  Some of these same people want to have an extensive highway network to move themselves or goods, but they don’t want Congress to “lay and collect Taxes” for them.

One of the current ironies is that the Postmaster General is trying to overturn Congress’ responsibility “to Establish Post Offices”.  Is getting a Netflix DVD the next day a Constitutional right?  It is ironic that the Postmaster General’s actions are an attempt to promote corporate interests over public interest but that one large competitor to the Postal Service depends on USPS for the “last mile”.  UPS sends many small packages for the “last mile” via USPS.  Can you imagine UPS stopping every two blocks or so to distribute a package that fits in the mail box?

Some corporate interests are working overtime to redefine “limited time” for “exclusive Right to “Writings and Discoveries”  They hope to retain film and book rights forever long, long after the creators have died.  I can see a family retaining the rights but not for generation after generation.  I remember that some decades ago the Verdi family lost the rights to royalties for Verdi’s operas and other works.

Has Congress abandoned the spirit of no appropriation for Armies should be for longer than two years?  This was written because the writers of the Constitution disliked standing armies.  Not only do we have a standing army but a globe-straddling army.  I am glad that all the signers of the Constitution are not buried in the same place; the spinning in graves would be deafening.

Their backup plan was the state Militias which “may be employed in the Service of the United States.”  Many may complain about the multiple deployments of the National Guards, but they are Constitutional.

On the other hand, Congress was “To provide and maintain a Navy”.  It apparently doesn’t have the appropriation limitations that the Armies have.  After all, the Navy has to support Congress’ power to “punish Piracies and Felonies committed on the high Seas”.  Does this also apply above the high seas?

All of the above is mostly my opinion and interpretation of the Constitution.  I tried to frame most of it as questions rather than fixed-in-stone assertions.  Unfortunately, there are those who believe they can deduce the Founder’s intent by reading the Constitution.  Sorry, but consider all the words written in the Federalist Papers to “sell” the Constitution.  Also consider how few Supreme Court cases are decided by unanimous opinions.  These are judges who have spent life-times studying the Constitution.

Mel has long been fascinated by rules and regulations, and like many others, tries to interpret them to his advantage.

Also posted to the Reader Weekly, 2014-10-02.

See also
"Foreign policy foreign to founders"
"Constitution, Rights, and secretive Congress"
"Quote of the day: Stealing the Constitution"
"The right to bear Canons"

Who’s to blame for high taxes? Try looking in the mirror

Originally published in the

Northland Reader
now the
Reader Weekly
January 20, 2000

"Cut taxes!"  "Reduce spending!" Hardly a week goes by that we don't hear a politician or a fellow citizen utter these two paired slogans. But do we know anyone who is willing to make the hard decisions that will bring about these two much desired goals?  Though both parties use these slogans, little of substance is done because we demand so much of our government -- from sweeping streets to catching criminals to projecting power around the world.

Next time we complain about taxes, let's make a short list of government services we expect.  If we compare our list with somebody else's, it probably won't match.  Let's say we have libraries on our list and the other person doesn't.  That person might have snowplowing on their list but we don't.

Now, should one person be taxed for libraries but not for snowplowing and the other person for snowplowing but not for libraries?  What would that other person say when we drive on the newly plowed streets?  Would they call us a free-loader?  What would we say if that other person decided to borrow a book from the library?  Would we call them a free-loader?  In order to get some of the services on our list we have to compromise and agree to pay for some of the things on the other person's list. 

Now things really become sticky.  How do we pay for all the things on both our lists?  We could pay the library part of the cost of the books that we borrow.  But what about some child who can't pay for the books?  Should we deny that child a marvelous learning opportunity?

For many of the services we would like from government, it would be a very
complex and costly accounting problem to bill citizens individually according to the benefits they receive.  Therefore, a broad-based tax is more efficient.

So, we have decided we will have our government perform a long list of services and that we will all pay for these services through taxes.  How do we apportion these taxes?

If we assume that we all have access to all benefits, then each of us could pay a fixed sum, say $2,500 per year.  A family of four with an income of $20,000 would pay $10,000 in taxes, leaving them with $10,000 per year to spend on other things.  On the other hand, a family of four with an income of $100,000 would also pay $10,000 in taxes, leaving them with $90,000 per year for other things. Just considering the two families, the paying of the tax has caused the ratio of their incomes to go from 5 to 1 before taxes to 9 to 1 after taxes!  Is this fair just for the privilege of having access to government services?

If a lump sum tax is not fair, would a percentage tax be fair?  Let's suppose that we would pay 10 percent of our income in taxes.  So those earning $20,000 would pay $2,000 and those earning $100,000 would pay $10,000!  This would leave each income group with 90 percent of its income. All but the family of four with the $20,000 income would complain that a proportional tax was unfair to them.  Adam Smith, the "father" of "free markets", supported this scheme when he wrote in The Wealth of Nations:  "The subjects of every state ought to contribute toward the support of the government, as nearly as possible, in proportion to their respective abilities; that is, in proportion to the revenue which they respectively enjoy under the protection of the state."

Modern governments have taken "respective abilities" one step farther with progressive taxation, under which people making more money pay a higher proportion of taxes.  For example, a family making $20,000 might be taxed at eight percent while a family making $100,000 might be taxed at twelve percent.  If the less well-off family earned $1,000 more per year, how much would the utility of that $1,000 be? That is, could they eat a bit better or rent a less cramped apartment?  If the family with a $100,000 annual income earned $1,000 more per year, how much would the utility of that $1,000 be to them?  Would they eat out more often or rent a more luxurious apartment?  Or would it be like a blip in their investments?

If we assume the less well-off family used its extra $1,000 to buy more necessities and the more well-off family used its extra $1,000 to buy more luxuries, then a proportional tax would create a heavier burden on the less well-off family. We might say that each family's burden is more equal under a progressive tax.

No matter which tax system we choose, somebody is going to be unhappy. Since we have chosen a mix of proportional and progressive, just about everybody is unhappy.  We have local property taxes which are proportional using property as a proxy for income.  We have state and federal income taxes which are progressive.  And we have a number of other taxes levied by every level of government from the city to the federal; most of them are proportional.

Recently Duke Skorich wrote that the city of Duluth wanted the state of Minnesota to pay part of the cost of a recreational area.  The Duluth News-Tribune recently noted that the federal government was paying part of the cost of the renovation of the Old Downtown.  Congress included in its final budget bill some of the costs for new buses in the Twin Cities.

Why does this "bumping up" of costs happen?  Mostly because of us.  The more local our elected representatives are, the more we complain about any tax they may impose to fund the benefits we ask for.  Because we think somebody else will be paying, we ask the next higher level of elected officials to fund our favorite projects.  As the levels increase, it becomes easier for our representative to get projects for us and in turn blame other people's representatives for the high taxes!

So, "Cut taxes!" and "Reduce spending!"  really means "Cut our taxes!" and "Reduce your spending!"  But it will never happen until we change it to "Let's reduce our spending, and then we can cut our taxes."

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.”