Thoughts on politics...

[whymc]

I'm not thrilled, obviously, with the results of this election.  One of the two people in the Senate that I've genuinely looked up to as something of a personal hero is no longer going to be there.  The house has flipped.  The Senate will be deadlocked

Comments

[voland]

You should be very worried about CA. They are already bankrupt, and now that they went democrat any austerity efforts there will be DOA. That is bad, for CA will set precedent for more bailouts and idiocy.

[whymc]

This depends on whether or not you believe austerity is the answer to CA's budget problems - I actually have a simpler one: amnesty for all non-violent drug offenders. This would release between 1/2 and 1/3 of all prison inmates, who are in jail for 'crimes' that don't actually threaten anyone, and would lift a huge expense burden from the state's budget... that'd be my solution...

[voland]

Austerity and fiscal sanity are the only long term solution for the country. Your solution is certainly great but it is not enough. Without serious long term reforms, spending cuts, and tax hikes, we will fail as a nation.

Please take a couple minutes to read this article.
http://reason.com/archives/2010/10/12/it-can-happen-here

[whymc]

I do, actually, agree with you on this - I use the example of the postwar US when I teach the economic portion of the history of the cold war. I guess that, if I had to list the reforms that I'd like to see, they'd run in this order

[voland]

Everything you state makes sense except 5, you really should abandon the class envy/hate of the left.

Now what prevents this from happening. IMHO it is the government itself. If you do (1) the .gov employed prison workers union will un elect you. (2) As soon as you try to do that everyone and their mom will bitch and moan... my prius is no longer subsidized think of the polar bears... (3) Then the corporation will lobby against you. (4) But what about jobs. (5) What we need is flat one rate tax on all income, your point five will result in all the problems you try to fix in (2) getting worse. (6) Not going to happen, way to many voters that work for all the agencies. You

This is the bomb obama and the left have planted in our republic. The more people work for the .gov, the less likely you are to ever fix the .gov. Simply put it, why would a unionized .gov worker vote for a guy that would fire him from his cushy job?

[whymc]

Seriously dude, what's your beef with a modestly progressive income tax? I'm not talking about maximum rates of 90% again, or something like that - I'm talking no tax up to the poverty line, 20% from there to 100k, and 35% from there on up. That's not such a high rate that people will actually stop trying to earn more, and it's not punishing people who achieve, or any of that bs - it's asking people who have done better in the country, and therefore derived more of a benefit from things like collective security, education, and infrastructure spending, to chip in a bit more.

Sadly, I do agree that these changes are unlikely - I'm coming more and more to believe that we're stuck in a wost-case scenario, where we have a bad hybrid of left and right, that features large government spending, but with most of that spending being siphoned off by insider deals with corporations. (If this were 30 years ago, I'd say unions, too... but unions are all-but-dead in the US right now).

[voland]

California is a good example of the paradox I present in my comment. So much of the population is either employed by or supported by the government, that any reform is impossible. The public sector unions in CA know that the state is bankrupt, they know that its unsustainable. But still they resist (in their own self interest) any reform, that might jeperdizes the high paying .gov jobs that they have.

[whymc]

I'll agree with you on the prison unions - that's one union I would dearly love to see busted - I still don't agree that the other government employees are getting some sort of super-cushy ride. A typical government worker makes about what I make, adjusted for regional cost of living... and most of them do useful things. I don't want to cut the dnr or the dmv, or apparently, anything that begins with 'd'.

[voland]

But we must cut the DMV, the DNR, the FBI, ATF, CIA, NIH, NSF ect.... There i no choice. Your comment is a picture perfect illustration of the problem with the country

[whymc]

We're going to run up against a certain fundamental point of disagreement here. I do agree that a certain extra degree of modernization and efficiency needs to be part of the process of change - I'll agree 100% about the automation of many things at the dmv. Bender could renew my plates. As for the rest - you're dead wrong about the online classes issue. Online education - trust me on this, it's what I do for a living - is 10 years away, at a minimum, from being as good as classroom education, and it might take even longer. As for the others - most Americans agree that government services are valuable - and so we should try to keep them, while making them more efficient. I'll agree that unions need to be a little more flexible about issues of discipline and merit-based evaluation - but management has, historically, used both of those as tools for union-busting, so why would unions give an inch, without solid promises that merit review will be used for merit review? They'd be crazy to

[voland]

If the same exact services were offender by private institutions would they be less valuable

[whymc]

You can't fool the market? Really? Markets are fooled or distorted in a million ways, from advertising to monopolies