Some Common Sense from Phil Talmadge

Friends,
A couple of weeks ago, I was one of a group of people selected to preview a new pamphlet written by our friend, Phil Talmadge. With his permission, I am happy to present this important work to you. Please copy an distribute to those who can benefit from the message or, better yet, direct them to The Left Shue and begin a conversation...............














COMMON SENSE

by Philip A. Talmadge

Introduction


We’ve been had.

Over the last twenty-five years, average Americans have been sold a bill of goods on a number of important, and expensive, political issues by the people we elect. Americans have gone along good-naturedly with the misrepresentation, and sins both of commission and omission, by politicians and the political consultants and special interest lobbyists with whom they are allied.

This is not a partisan complaint. The policies that have most directly harmed the well being of average Americans have been enacted by Democrats and Republicans in Congress and in the White House. People in Congress and in the White House have refused to take responsibility for problems that damage the American economy, put Americans out of work, or will be even more harmful to our children and grandchildren.

If we fail to take action, to become more knowledgeable about how politics affects each one of us, to question government policies, and to see through the haze created by political spin doctors, we will only get what we deserve.

In 1776, Thomas Paine wrote a pamphlet entitled Common Sense that swept across the American colonies. In it, Paine made a short polemic on the need for American independence from Great Britain. The pamphlet helped to galvanize the argument for independence. His argument for independence had the force of common sense.

It is my intention in this pamphlet to discuss just a few examples of how our politicians have misinformed or failed to inform us of critical problems resulting in real damage to average Americans.

Americans have become too willing to accept what they hear from politicians of all parties and the media. We cannot remain true to our heritage if we accept political spin like “the Healthy Forest Initiative,” (calculated to cut down trees) the Clear Skies Initiative (more coal burning) or No Child Left Behind, or the massive redistribution of tax dollars from average Americans to bail out the failed investments of savings and loan executives all the while our politicians proclaim their commitment to the free market. We need to apply Paine’s common sense, to reinvigorate our democracy by asking questions, and demanding solutions to our problems that will benefit average Americans.






Chapter One –

The Savings and Loan Fiasco We Paid For (and Continue to Pay For)

There have been a number of excellent books written about the savings and loan scandal of the 1980s that opened the door most widely to “entrepreneurs” to exploit taxpayers’ dollars to bail out failed industries. This first big scam told the bolder entrepreneurs the American taxpayer could be had.

In the last 1970s and early 1980s, the United States experienced a terrible recession combined with runaway inflation. Savings and loan associations were designed solely for the purpose of providing home mortgages and most of these institutions only offered fixed-rate home mortgages. In the stagflation of the late 1970s and early 1980s, S&L’s were poor investments. With fixed rate mortgages, S&L’s could not raise their interest rates. S&L’s could not pay high rates on their savings accounts. Depositors withdrew their money from S&L’s and invested it elsewhere. S&L’s tried to raise account interest rates. Homeowners defaulted on their mortgages. As a consequence, S&L bankruptcies increased dramatically. By the time Ronald Reagan became president in 1981, two-thirds of the S&L’s were losing money.

The Reagan Administration and Congressional Democrats addressed this growing problem by deregulating the S&L industry. Rep. Fernand St. Germain (D-Rhode Island), later indicted and convicted for bribery by S&L lobbyists, obtained passage of legislation increasing federal insurance on S&L accounts, removing all limits on interest rates for mortgages, permitting the S&L’s to invest in other than home mortgages, allowing S&L’s to invest outside their communities, allowing them to offer no down payment mortgages, allowing real estate developers to own their own S&L’s, and permitting S&L owners to lend money to themselves.

The net impact of this legislation was massive fraud throughout the 1980s. The industry lost huge amounts of money in unwise investments. Famous fraud artists like Charles Keating, and others took advantage. Neil Bush, the brother of President George W. Bush, was involved with Silverado Savings. These institutions kept leaking dollars, and we taxpayers propped up the failing industry with taxpayer dollars.

In 1989, the first President Bush and a Democratic Congress provided $157 billion to bail out the industry. The moneys were generated by bonds payable over thirty years. The cost of these bonds to the American taxpayer is somewhere between $16 and $45 billion per year. To make matters worse, the federal government took over the assets of the failing industry and formed the Resolution Trust Corporation to sell the assets. The corporation sold the S&L assets at bargain basement prices to well-heeled friends of the Administration.

Think of it.

The average American taxpayer bailed out an industry that failed because of its own corruption and unwise investments. Con men made millions; few were prosecuted. Billions of dollars exchanged hands. Our government failed to regulate a corrupt industry.

The average American taxpayer to this day knows little of this phenomenal screwing for which we are all still paying and will continue to pay. Most critically, this massively corrupt activity received so little attention and so little political fallout, it became clear the United States government could be manipulated to the advantage of the few, if all was properly spun.

Those who would exploit the American taxpayer now knew they could get away with it, if they were ruthless and aimed high.


Chapter Two –

Federal Budget Deficits – Make Our Children Pay

It’s a very basic principle of political economy, or business generally, that income and expenditures must balance. Sometimes, if the income is less than the expenditures, the enterprise can get by in the short term by borrowing the difference. This isn’t a wise strategy in the long term. Money borrowed must be paid back – with interest.

When the Unites States government is involved, it can borrow funds to overcome budget shortfalls by issuing bonds that get paid off with interest over a period of many years. When our government runs a budget deficit, that is, the taxes we pay are not enough to pay for the cost of the programs Congress and the President enact, the government issues bonds to make of the difference or it taps funds such as the Social Security Trust Fund, that are not part of the regular national budget.

When the government is in the market to borrow billions of dollars, it is competing with others who want to borrow money, driving up the cost of money. This is often reflected in higher interest rates paid by consumers for credit card debt, home mortgages and the like.

When the government sells bonds, all sorts of interesting people purchase them. Most Americans would be surprised to learn China, Japan, Great Britain, and the Arab oil states have vast holdings in American bonds.

Since World War II, the United States government has operated at annual budget deficit, running up billions in debts. The years in which the Government operated at a surplus have been rare, and most of those years were during the last part of the Clinton Administration. Democrats and Republicans alike have been guilty of budget deficits.

Ronald Reagan spoke in terms of fiscal conservatism, but he spent vast sums of money on the military, with the help of a Democratic Congress, by borrowing the funds. This expense, along with the enactment of tax cuts, caused massive deficit throughout the 1980s. The present Bush Administration, with the help of a Congressional Republicans, has run up the largest deficits in American history while passing out tax cuts to favored friends.

Too little has been said of the political courage it took in 1993 for Clinton and the Democratic Congress to increase federal taxes. This step resulted in a lowering of the federal deficit and eventual surpluses in the last few budgets of the Clinton Administration. It also cost many Democratic members of Congress their jobs.

American taxpayers have been remarkably naïve about soaring budget deficits in the post-World War II era. The federal budget deficit was $413 billion in fiscal year 2004. It would have been even higher if the government had not used more than $200 billion in Social Security and Medicare trust funds. The present federal budget requires more than 10% of this outlays to be spent on the paying interest on the national debt, not on federal programs. Rather than reducing the national debt, it is growing. This means that interest rates will go up, and foreign interests will continue to own American bonds. Our children and grandchildren will have to pay off this debt.

Politicians of both parties have been gutless about budget deficits. Republicans refuse to identify specific programs or benefits they will cut to balance the budget. They aggressively support tax cuts that only make the deficit worse. Democrats similarly refuse to identify savings that can be achieved and decline to offer tax bills to pay for the programs they support. Both parties hide from “tax and spend” liberalism and instead embrace the irresponsible tradition of “borrow and spend.”

Fiscal discipline is hard. Bipartisan groups like the Concord Coalition, however, have identified how we can get to a balanced federal budget. It means cutting programs some group likes or raising taxes no one likes. It’s so much more expedient to be irresponsible. Let some one else, at a later date, pay the real price of this irresponsibility.


Chapter Three –

Social Security – Will Its Promise Be Fulfilled?

Social Security is one of the remarkable successes of American government. When it was enacted in 1935 during Franklin Roosevelt’s administration, it was designed to ensure no person would experience poverty in their old age. It had a subtle corollary purpose prompted by the Great Depression: to encourage older workers to retire to make way for younger workers in need of jobs. Over the years, the program added components for survivors’ benefits and disability payments. In 2004, 32.8 million workers received retirement benefits, 7.8 million received disability benefits, and 6.8 million received survivor benefits.

Social Security is successful and popular. The elderly no longer face grinding poverty in old age.

But, Social Security has never been a true, actuarially-based pension program. The disability and survivor benefits components are not actuarially-based. Retirees, by a law enacted in 1975, receive automatic cost-of-living adjustments every year. (2.7% for 2005). These COLAs are very expensive. Social Security is a social insurance, transfer program. One generation, in effect, agrees to pay benefits for earlier generations.

When people claim they “paid” for their Social Security benefits and long to have their contributions back with interest, they are dreaming. If they believe their contributions, their employers’ contributions, plus interest over the years would pay the benefits Social Security beneficiaries now receive, it’s not even close, given the COLA.

To pay for Social Security, we presently pay a payroll tax of 6.2% of our income up to a fixed income cap ($87,900 in 2004). Our employers pay an equivalent amount. The funds go into the Social Security Trust Fund. Unfortunately, various Administrations over the years have “borrowed” from the Trust Fund to try to balance the federal budget and to keep the actual budget deficits lower than they truly are.

The payroll tax is regressive. Bill Gates pays the same 6.2% of his first $90,000 in income as a middle class taxpayer. For many middle class taxpayers, however, they are unlikely to earn more than $90,000 per year. Thus, their entire income is subject to the payroll tax. By contrast, an awful lot of Bill Gates’ income escapes the payroll tax. Wealthy folks like Gates pay a lot less of their annual income to Social Security than does that middle class taxpayer.

Demographics are also impacting Social Security. In 1935, the average life expectancy in the United States was about 67 years. That meant that in 1935 Social Security was expected to pay benefits for about 2 years post-retirement. The average life expectancy in America in 2003 was 77.6 years. Americans are living longer and receiving Social Security for a longer period of time. The average life expectancy in the United States will increase.

Additionally, the Baby Boom generation will soon come of age for Social Security beginning in 2008 and thereafter, putting even greater pressure on the Trust Fund.

Even with all of these issues, it’s likely that Social Security will be able to pay full benefits to beneficiaries until around 2040.

But wait.

President George W. Bush and many of his political allies propose to “privatize” a portion of Social Security. They want to allow beneficiaries to invest a part of their benefits in the stock market instead of having the payroll taxes go into the Trust Fund.

This proposal has a number of hidden price tags. The cost of transition to this program will be $2 trillion over 10 years. The revenue lost to the Trust Fund by the funds that go to these private accounts must be made up somehow. President Bush does not propose additional revenue. This means the federal deficit will escalate dramatically.

What if the stock market fails to produce the necessary rate of return to the investors? Will the Trust Fund guarantee some or all of the benefits to beneficiaries? Many economists seriously doubt the rosy Bush Administration forecasts of rates of return on their investments. People in the stock business will earn very sizeable fees under the Bush plan.

Skepticism about proposals that lack specifics is probably worthwhile.

But this is not to say that Social Security reforms aren’t needed. They are.

This isn’t to say that private retirement accounts are a bad idea. They aren’t. 401(k) plans and IRAs are excellent supplements to Social Security.

There are a number of steps that should be considered to make sure Social Security will be there for all Americans.

Social Security should be “off-budget.” It should really be a Trust Fund that may not be accessed by politicians to reduce the federal deficit. The component parts of Social Security – old age pensions, survivors’ benefits, and disability – should be distinct with their own funding sources.

The payroll tax should be broadened and reduced. The Congress could fund Social Security more fairly by lifting the $87,900 income cap and reducing the 6.2% rate paid by workers and employers.

The eligibility age for Social Security should gradually be increased and perhaps tied to the increase in average life expectancy in the United States. The retirement age will be 67 in 2008.

Finally, Social Security benefits should be means-tested. The benefits received by a Bill Gates should be lower than those received by people of average means.

A reasoned national dialogue on Social Security is overdue. Quixotic political initiatives like those of George Bush, based on right-wing antagonism to Social Security dating from its inception, do to advance such a dialogue.


Chapter Four –

Heath Care and Medicare – Less Coverage, Skyrocketing Costs

The American system of health care is a series of dramatic contradictions. American health providers and pharmaceutical companies are on the cutting edge of improving care, and prolonging and saving lives, but America does too little to address significant preventable behaviors like tobacco use, obesity, and alcohol abuse that harm and kill millions each year.

Americans spend more on health care than any other people in the world, but at least 45 million Americans have no health insurance. Many get their health care in the expensive setting of hospital emergency rooms. When people have no health insurance and can’t pay, hospitals and doctors raise their rates to pay for this “uncompensated” or “charity” care. We all pay for the care of poor folks by this indirect method.

Some politicians decry “socialized medicine” or “government run” health care, but our government has successfully addressed the health care needs of the poor through Medicaid and the elderly through Medicare. Virtually every state has an insurance commissioner who theoretically regulates health insurance. One of the most successful, though little known, government programs in our history is public health, which has virtually eliminated such terrible diseases as cholera, polio, small pox, and many others. Most states have hospitals for the mentally ill. Government is actively in the business of health care.

Pharmaceutical drugs have become so expensive Americans must look to other countries like Canada to obtain affordable drugs.

So what are we going to do about health, health care, and health insurance? Most politicians do nothing. Health care is the most “admired” problem in America. Many politicians complain about the cost of health care for government and private businesses alike. They do nothing.

Talk is cheap. It’s time for action.

Government has to take the lead on health. This means urging people to choose healthier life styles. Americans need to eat better and lose weight. We need to exercise. Obesity is a national issue.

Americans need to avoid alcohol, tobacco, and drug abuse. A national strategy focused on treatment of these issues, and not a “War on Drugs” is long overdue. This is where the successful public health model is so useful.

If we choose to be healthier, the cost of our health care will diminish. It’s a lot cheaper to prevent people from smoking than paying for the later treatment of lung cancer or emphysema.

If we want to tackle health care and health insurance, we must limit the rising cost of those services. Public health care programs and private health programs cannot tolerate 15-20% annual health care cost increases. Cost containment is the first order of business in health care reform.

We need to squeeze the costs health insurers impose on the health care system. We need to eliminate overlapping coverages. Most people don’t know, for example, that they are paying separate premiums for their health insurance, auto insurance, and worker compensation insurance that often cover the very same event.

But most critically, government must encourage the creation of larger pools of purchasers to enable us to obtain the best possible prices for drugs and health insurance. For example, a state could unify the purchase of health care for all state employees, teachers, higher education faculty, and Medicaid recipients and their families in a single pool administered by a single agency. The State could authorize people or businesses to buy into such a fund at cost.

Alternatively, Congress could allow people or businesses to buy into Medicare or the federal employees benefit plans at cost.

The benefits of such efforts are clear. These pools would have an enormous impact on the price of drugs or health insurance by aggressively asserting their market power.

The pools could also change health care market by demanding benefit and administrative simplification. If an insurer wanted to do business with such a pool, it would have to agree to a single claim form, a single set of eligibility criteria, and other efficiencies. No longer would doctors and hospitals have to employ a phalanx of staff to figure how the different claim forms and eligibility standards each health insurance company uses just to pay the doctor or hospital.

Why haven’t we seen real reform?

Too many health insurers and drug companies make too much money from the present system.

Just as the private health care market needs serious attention, publicly funded health care systems like Medicare and Medicaid are not immune from this scrutiny.

There is some irony in the fact the Bush Administration is pushing Social Security “reform” while ignoring Medicare. In fact, the Bush Administration’s prescription drug benefit for seniors does little to curb pharmaceutical costs and gives drug companies greater power over drugs. The benefit will make Medicare’s fiscal woes worse.

In 1993, Medicare spending was $148 billion. In 2003, that figure increased to $283 billion. The prescription drug benefit may add $60 billion annually to Medicare’s costs. Congress borrowed from the Medicare trust fund to balance the budget.

This increase simply cannot be sustained without huge future tax increases or benefit reductions, particularly when more and more Baby Boomers become eligible for Medicaid.

Just think. Federal politicians promised the elderly extensive Medicare benefits, but lacked the courage to either restrain medical costs or raise the revenue to pay for the benefits.

We need to take control of the health care system, largely paid for by tax dollars, and demand a more sensible, fiscally responsible system.

Politicians have thrown up their hands on health care for too long. Health care in America is a right, not a privilege. We all need health services. Let’s be smart about this crucial issue.

What a concept – a health care system for all Americans, not a system dominated by the greed of health insurers and drug companies.

Another thought – a health care system for the elderly with reasonable benefit levels and funded by real dollars, not the vague promises of politicians, health insurance companies, and pharmaceutical companies.


Chapter Five –

The Energy Crisis, The Economy, and Foreign Policy

There’s a great urban legend that the United States government suppressed an inventor’s creation of an engine that runs on water because the petroleum industry wouldn’t permit such an engine.

While such an urban legend isn’t really plausible, the reality of our government’s policy on energy and its attendant relationship to American foreign policy is even more disturbing – and true.

For years, the United States government subsidized the petroleum industry. The oil depletion allowance gave the oil industry enormous tax credits available to virtually no other American industry.

American automobiles guzzled gasoline and the government did nothing to require the automobile manufacturers – foreign and domestic – to build more fuel efficient vehicles. In the 1960s and 1970s American petroleum production did not keep pace with the insatiable American need for oil, and oil companies began import increasing amounts of oil from Venezuela, Nigeria, and the Middle East.

The oil embargo of the early 1970s made it completely clear that foreign oil–producing countries could bring America to its knees by cutting off its fuel supplies.

Two statistics evidence just how significant America’s dependence on foreign petroleum has become. The United States had no trade imbalance. The value of our exports equaled the value of our imports. The trade imbalance was $617.1 billion in 2004. Similarly, in 1973, about a third of America’s petroleum came from foreign sources while in 2004, that same figure was 61%.

America’s dependence on foreign petroleum has become a key reality of American foreign and defense policy. It is not surprising American troops and naval forces are deployed in the Persian Gulf and this country has fought two recent wars in that region. America cannot permit any power to be in a position to sever access to the oil fields of the Middle East. The United States would not permit Iraq to seize Kuwait’s oil or be in position to threaten Saudi Arabian oil resources in 1991. By 2004, we could make Iraq’s oil resources secure for American consumers.

And you thought the Iraq war was about weapons of mass destruction and Iraqi freedom.

We have it within our power to change the dynamic of the Middle East and geopolitics generally by changing the energy equation. Less dependence on foreign energy sources means less likelihood of foreign military adventures to protect oil fields.

The United States government could begin a change toward energy independence by compelling auto manufacturers – foreign and domestic – to meet ever increasing fleet fuel efficiency standards for vehicles.

The government could give higher tax credits for the purchase of vehicles using hybrid energy sources or fuels other than petroleum like ethanol or methane (fuels that can be produced by American farmers).

All governments should only purchase hybrid cars or vehicles fueled by non-petroleum sources.

There are many more ways to become more efficient in the use of petroleum fuels in our cars and homes. But the point is, we have permitted the United States government to spend billions of tax dollars and the lives of American kids to protect America’s insatiable appetite for energy – inefficient vehicles and senseless practices that waste energy. In the final analysis, is another gigantic gas-guzzling SUV worth the life of an American soldier, sailor, or marine protecting foreign oil fields? Isn’t it smarter, and more patriotic, to achieve real American energy independence?


Chapter Six –

What Can We Do?

It would be easy to fall back on the usual clichés and say all the problems raised in this pamphlet can be easily solved. That’s not true.

We must simply be more skeptical, freeing our own minds of the usual political cant of liberal and conservative pundits in American politics and media. Rather than blaming forces beyond our control, we must start with ourselves.

We must let politicians know we are tired of the lies and half-truths in politics. We must demand real solutions to the problems we face. We should take nothing from the politicians at face value. We must question what we are told and seek answers for ourselves.

We should reject politicians who have no answers, but platitudes. We should reject politicians who are in bed with the interests in our society who have money and connections.

When we are certain of our views, we should reward the politicians who have exhibited independent judgment and penalize those who have gone along with the politically correct thing to do. It’s time for us to raise up a new generation of leaders who will be straight with us on the tough problems and help us arrive at the practical and effective solutions to the troubles we now face.

Let’s enact strict conflict of interest laws and stiffen the regulation of lobbyists so their pervasive influence over the Congress and state legislatures can be limited. Let’s enact stricter campaign finance laws to limit the power of money in political circles. Our government is not so much a democracy as it is a plutocracy with moneyed interests holding sway. That must end.

We should be tired of the pundits who mouth the same old stuff. These pundits are in the thrall of various ideological groups. Some of the pundits are even paid by the government in power. The media moguls are centralizing their control over the media. Anything resembling an objective viewpoint on the news is lost.

We own the airways – radio and television. Most Americans don’t know that fact. Radio and television stations lease the airways from us. It’s time for us to take them back and ensure that radio and television are operated in the public interest.

We should demand more news content in all radio and TV. The Fairness Doctrine, that ensured that viewpoints would be fairly delivered over the airways, should be restored so our airways will again become a place of fair debate and public discourse, not a cacophony of rancorous voices.

We’ve been had.

But there is a time to change what’s wrong with us. We can’t give up on our experiment in democracy. It’s time for a new generation of Americans to say they are not going to sit still for a government of the privileged, by the elite, and for the wealthy. We can take back our government, if we have the desire to roll up our sleeves and do it.

Hon. Phil Talmadge