Adam Selene's blog

Government grows. Deficits balloon. Whether we have a Democrat or a Republican in the White House, the story continues. The Era of Big Government is not over.

Why?

Isn’t the Republican Party supposed to be the party of free enterprise and smaller government? How then did we get the Americans with Disabilities Act, expanded Medicare, the Transportation Security Administration, No Child Left Behind, and massive bailouts with a Republican president on duty?

We have been corrupted, that’s how. And the liberals like it that way. Welfare is not limited to the poor. Nearly everyone is on some type of government social program: public schools, public colleges, Medicare, Social Security, farm subsidies… Republicans are on welfare too. When nearly everyone is on the dole, there is no special interest for small government. Only ideologues make the case for the Constitution.

Of course, some people are net taxpayers, but who? It is not easy to tell, given the incredible complexity of the welfare state. Moreover, net taxpayers will often cling to their government benefits as a matter of getting their money’s worth.

We might be able to climb out of this trap through clarity. Instead of focusing on tax cuts (which we cannot afford) and spending cuts (which we cannot legislate), we might focus on simplicity and clarity. Let’s start with the biggest federal program: Social Security Insurance. Replace it with free money for seniors and you keep the safety net which keeps grandmas off the street while at the same time you make it clear to the upper middle class that they need to return to traditions of self-responsibility. Currently, the upper middle class is getting a raw deal with Social Security, but they still get a benefit payment that is a function of taxes paid in. SSI still looks like a property right, an entitlement fit for a Republican. Replace SSI with a simple age-based payment and it becomes more clear who is a net taxpayer.

We might do something about other retirement programs as well. Maybe soldiers should be given 401(k) contributions instead of pensions. Teachers and professors at state run schools and colleges should definitely be given 401(k) plans, and those plans should allow individual stock picking. Anyone too irresponsible to manage their own retirement account has no business teaching our children.

The American people have spoken: they don’t like ObamaCare. Or, at least they don’t like something that Obama and the Democrats have done over the last couple of years. Either way, Republicans have the House back. But the Democrats still hold the Senate and Presidency, so Republicans cannot simply roll back the damage of the last two years with impunity. They have to be a bit bipartisan. Hardcore Democrats have been salivating for socialized medicine for decades, so they are going to cling to their recent “progress” with great tenacity. To achieve counterrevolution, we will need something to satisfy some swing Democrats, a new plan which is more progressive than the pre-Obama system of tax free employer provided health insurance.

And frankly, that’s a good thing. The old system stank. It exacerbated the worst problems with health insurance. These are:

• If the poor have insufficient insurance, they clog up the emergency rooms or go on Medicaid.
• If everyone buys medical care using insurance money, we have no market for medicine.
• If people change policies or (worse) have gaps in coverage, we have the problem of preexisting conditions.

The old system magnified all three problems. A tax deduction is valuable to high income earners and of little value to the working poor. This provides incentive for employers with mostly high income earners to pay employees with excessive health insurance while employers with minimum wage earners to provide limited or no health insurance. This is backwards! Ideally, we want high income earners to self-insure for all but the most catastrophic illnesses. That way, we have a cash market for medical services which the insurance companies can observe in order to calibrate their payouts. Meanwhile, we want the working poor to have low copayments because they don’t have much cash on hand.

The old system clobbered those who change jobs often; every job change means an insurance change. Without these forced insurance changes, we would have a market for whole health insurance. An individual could be a group of 1, if he buys a whole health policy while young and healthy. These forced insurance changes are a real paperwork headache for those who change jobs frequently, and their employers. Considering that many of the working poor change jobs often, this headache impacts them and their employers the most. Finally, the overhead of providing health insurance is more significant for small businesses than big corporations which have a dedicated human resources department. The old system was a recipe for corporatism and wage serfdom.

A better solution would be to eliminate the tax deduction, and divide up the resulting revenue to give every citizen free money for health insurance. The money would be a voucher, a coupon if you will, to subsidize buying either individual or group coverage as you see fit. As long as the coupon is worth less than the policy in question, consumers experience the full marginal cost of buying a more expensive policy. We have a market! Consumers have full incentive to shop for the best deal.

But they also have incentive to buy at least minimal coverage. Go uninsured and your coupon expires worthless. I predict that the young and healthy will rush to use their coupons to buy whole health insurance, catastrophic insurance if we make the coupons the right amount.

I also predict that the more progressive Democrats will oppose the idea, even though it is progressive. The problem is: it would work, and true progressives want any semi-private system to fail so we can move on to a single-payer system. That said, Democrats in more conservative districts would have a hard time saying no.

That leaves President Obama. Would he stick to his progressive roots? Or would he yield like Clinton did in order to have a shot at reelection? It is hard to say. Of course, we wouldn’t have ObamaCare in the first place had Republicans gone to a voucher system for health insurance back when we had control…

Obama associated with Marxists and other lefty radicals when he was young. This is not controversial. The real question is whether he still associates with such radical riff-raff today, or worse, is secretly carrying out their nefarious plans. In one case the answer is: we can only hope so.

I am referring to the infamous Cloward-Piven Strategy, an undemocratic plan to force a basic income guarantee by overloading the welfare system with applicants. Numerous writers have associated Obama with Cloward and Piven, and it is certainly true that Obama spent much of his career carrying out the strategy – that’s what  a “community activist” does. But we cannot prove conscious intent.  Or as Zombie puts it in Pajamas Media:

Me, I have a different explanation. I think it’s unconscious. I think Obama is on auto-pilot and never really sat down and pondered the distinction between trying, on one hand, to save the economy with government spending and, on the other hand, to ruin the economy with…government spending. It all blurs together after a while, doesn’t it?

Whether the conspiracy theorists are right, and Obama is secretly carrying out the Cloward-Piven Strategy, or whether the more charitable Zombie is correct and Obama is simply acting on a subconscious mind brought up on a combination of 60s radicalism and Keynesian pseudoscience is beside the point.The real point is we can use this facet of Obama either way – if we get out of echo-chamber thinking and actually study what Cloward and Piven actually wrote in The Nation. They did not call for destroying the capitalist system in this paper; they called for destroying the welfare system.Destroy the welfare system!? That sounds rather Republican to me!In particular, Cloward and Piven wrote:

If this strategy were implemented, a political crisis would result that could lead to legislation for a guaranteed annual income and thus an end to poverty.

A guaranteed annual income is not the same as destroying the capitalist system. It isn’t socialism. It isn’t even welfare. It is replacing myriad  need-based welfare programs with the simple arrangement of just sending everyone the same amount of free money from the government. Do so and we can send 80+% of the welfare bureaucrats and social workers back into the private sector. (The only ones left would be those for running mental institutions and other venues for the truly disabled.) A guaranteed annual income is to welfare what school vouchers are to public education.I am not the first freedom lover to like the idea. Milton Friedman called for a guaranteed annual income in the form of a negative income tax. Charles Murray, co-author of The Bell Curve, calls for an even simpler guaranteed income in his book: In Our Hands. An income guarantee is an essential part of the Fair Tax proposal; i.e., “the prebate.”Play our cards right and we can have a sequel to the glory days of Gingrich, who got a chastised Bill Clinton to go along with a plan for welfare reform that exceeded anything Reagan was able to accomplish. Under Obama, we might eliminate the welfare state entirely, even unto Social Security, and expel thousands of bureaucrats from Washington in the process. We eliminate the marriage penalty for the poor, as well as the work penalty. We’ll be able to get those public housing dwellers to mow our golf courses instead of importing work ethic from Mexico. Come to think of it, we’ll be able to privatize those public housing complexes while we’re at it.

But some of you will be tempted to continue thinking of the Cloward-Piven Strategy as a socialist plot. After all, it was first published in The Nation, and the language is very lefty. But try to overlook the enemy rhetoric and focus on the goal: replacing welfare with a guaranteed income. We have one state that already has a (small) guaranteed income: Alaska, home of Sarah Palin. Is Sarah Palin some sort of crypto-socialist?

 So, with Obama and the Democrats firmly in charge, and stimulus money spewing out of Washington, Ayn Rand books are again flying off the shelves. Does this mean that Atlas is finally going to shrug? Will the competent capitalists finally say “to hell with it” and go on strike? Will the lights go out in New York?

Did hardcore liberals flee en masse to Canada when the Republicans were in charge?

I don’t think so. The U.S. is still a pretty good place to do business, and last I checked quite a few billionaires and successful capitalists voted for Obama. Atlas will not shrug.

 Maybe we should celebrate the increased sales of Atlas Shrugged anyway. The strike against the moochers was a plot device, not a call to action. The plot device was an excuse to teach a philosophy, one that happens to celebrate capitalism and small government.

One question to consider: how many of these books will actually be read? How many were purchased for outreach by existing Ayn Rand fans? I can picture it now: “You voted for Obama?? Here’s an 1100 page novel proving you wrong. It may be long, preachy and ponderous, but it’s very appealing to bitter nerds. Prepare to be enlightened.”

I guess I’m just not sold on Ayn Rand as the optimal advocate of capitalism. Her philosophy is incompatible with being a Christian, a parent or a likeable person. This leaves a rather small and politically ineffectual target market. (Yes, I am aware that some Christians, parents and likeable people are enamored with Rand’s works. People who really like their government small can overlook much to treasure her well written words against socialism.)

Some of the new copies of Atlas Shrugged will be read, of course, and converts will be made. Should we at least celebrate this small victory?

Alas, no, for Ayn Rand’s ethical philosophy is incompatible with a free society. Rational self-interest may work within a capitalist framework, but it does not support said framework. As any work on public choice economics proves, the self-interest of the governors and those who actively support them leads to big government: crony capitalism, regulatory capture, and excessive pensions to civil servants. Donations to earmarking congresscritters pays dividends. Donations to a principled small-government politician are acts of charity.

There is yet another problem with handing out Rand books: Objectivist moral philosophy is just plain wrong. You are not going to convince a skeptical socialist to switch over to capitalism by handing him easily refuted arguments. Only those predisposed will drink the Kool-Aid, and that’s not a good thing. Bad ideas have bad effects. Spend some time at a Libertarian Party convention or an Objectivist meeting to see the damage.

It looks like the Republicans will be winning back many seats in Congress this fall. Here’s how: by screwing up horribly during the Bush years, they gave the Democrats an overwhelming victory in 2008, leading to great hubris. Americans love punishing hubris during midterm elections.

This is not a winning strategy.

Giving the other side rope to hang itself on can make it lose elections, even in Massachusetts, but in the process you leave a lot of rope lying around. Even if Republicans gain a majority in both houses as a mandate to repeal Obamacare, will they be able to fulfill this mandate? Not without a 2/3 majority in both houses they can’t. If you are just trying to rack up a bunch of R victories, this strategy may work, but if you are a conservative or conservative-libertarian, this is a path to incremental disaster. After the damage has been done, you don’t need conservatives, you need reactionaries. Reactionaries are even harder to get into office.

The Republican Party needs to evolve it wants to have a future. If it wants to rule again, it needs to concern itself with America’s future.

For starters, how about coming up with a credible plan to stop global warming? The no-nothing line popular among Limbaugh listeners may play well to selfish geezers, but it doesn’t work so well for the younger generations -- those who may still be alive to experience the effectives of future significant climate change. It doesn’t play so well to the not-so-selfish senior citizens who worry about the fate of their grandchildren either.

Yes, I know that the magnitude of future warming is quite uncertain. Someone might come up with cheap carbon free energy alternatives long before global warming becomes a real problem without any government action whatsoever. It’s also possible that the Soviet Union might have collapsed without the Reagan arms buildup and covert actions. But aren’t you glad we had Ronnie? Guess what: today’s Republicans are to the global warming threat what Jimmy Carter was the Soviet threat.

This doesn’t mean the Republican Party should run yet more RINOs, offering a lite version of the current liberal prescriptions. We don’t need to micromanage our way out of the fossil fuel economy. We need to make use of the market. We need a carbon tax. Jack up the price of burning fossil fuels, and the market will find the optimum way to burn less. And if global warming turns out to be a false alarm, we will have saved the earth’s limited supply of cheap fossil fuels for future generations. We will have also taxed our enemies. Radical Islam is funded heavily by the Saudis; put a hefty tariff on imported oil and they will have to either give up on funding fanatic indoctrination centers or take up a Spartan lifestyle themselves. We can justify a foreign oil tariff simply to pay for the Iraq war and keeping the Persian Gulf open.

We could use the proceeds of a carbon tax to get rid of a more heinous tax. A carbon tax would be an order of magnitude simpler than either the Flat Tax or the Fair Tax. Or we could use it to balance the federal budget. Those concerned about America’s financial future worry about the deficit. The Tea Party movement isn’t just conservatives; it’s also the remnants of the old Perot coalition. Don’t take them for granted. While Obama looks bad on the deficit today, he could manage a turnaround before 2012. Remember, the last president to preside over a balanced budget was Clinton.

Bush squandered the surplus. The Perot voters might well remember that fact. Don’t be overconfident.

The Republican Party leadership is blind to the future; the party caters to its aging base while ignoring the younger generations. They are running a political deficit just as recent Republican administrations ran large budget deficits. This blindness is nicely illustrated in Ann Coulter’s recent address to CPAC. After giving a witty presentation she took some questions. The second half of the Q and A session displays contempt for the young -- and for the future of conservatism. See the video here (or below if I get the embed to work).

OK, so maybe adopting Ron Paul’s foreign policy is unrealistic. While we have our share of bungles playing world policemen, imagine if China took over that role. Imagine Burma, or Sudan...and shudder. So I am not suggesting that conservatives adopt a libertarian foreign policy. And certainly wouldn’t recommend going pro choice as some libertarians desire. The Right needs its religious faction as well. But I am greatly disturbed by this remark:

In fact, I always maintain that I’m more libertarian than most libertarians. I just wish they would stop babbling about legalization of pot. Because we have, before we get to that, we need to get to the elimination of the Agriculture Department, the Department of Education, the Department of Commerce, the EPA...

Sorry, legalizing pot is orders of magnitude more important than abolishing the Agriculture or Commerce departments. Paying a few extra tax dollars to raise excess soybeans pales in comparison to going to jail. The EPA might even be worth keeping -- for those who give a damn about the future; i.e., the young.

Does the Republican Party want to be the party of “getting government off your back?” When you are in jail or on probation, government is very much “on your back!”

Coulter somewhat realizes that marijuana legalization is part of the small government package, but she qualifies the sentiment with this zinger:

We’ve got a lot of work to do before we get to the perfect libertarian state where people can take drugs and I don’t have to pay for them when they can’t get a job.

Um, Ms. Coulter, quite a few drug users have jobs. In fact, in some industries, such as Hollywood -- you know, the last remaining industry where U.S. exports dominate the world -- marijuana smoking is endemic. Maybe they ought to lay off the scotch and take up pot smoking on Wall St. They couldn’t do any worse.

OK, it is true that some people smoke too much dope and get lazy thereby. And this population might go up a notch if pot was legalized. And a few of those lazy hippies might collect a welfare check. Well, here is an idea, and it’s straight from the Bible: deal with it.

Jesus was a hippie. He and his followers couch surfed across Judea criticizing the ungenerous rich. In between free meals bummed from leading citizens of the towns they visited, they made use of the gleaner laws, part of the welfare system of the day. They picked ears of corn from fields they did not plant. These were able-bodied men; they had access to the best healthcare in human history. Yet they collected welfare.

And this points to another lesson conservatives need to learn: welfare per se does not lead to laziness, crime, and broken families. Conditional welfare does. Expend too much effort making sure welfare recipients deserve some meager largesse, and people will get good at being poor, ill, and without family. A safety net that bounces the able back into the workforce must be generous enough to feed a few undeserving hippies. Study the Old Testament welfare system for ideas on how to do be kinder and gentler without becoming a RINO. Do so and the party might get a few more of those low income Christians needed to form a majority coalition. You cannot build a majority recruiting at the country club.

Old people vote. Because they vote, the Republican Party can win elections even when they are a minority of voting-age citizens. Republican presidential nominations frequently reflect the party's geriatric base: Ronald Reagan dreaming about an idyllic past, Bob Dole grumbling about the baby boom generation, John McCain looking very, very old. George W. Bush was young, but he got the nod based on being the son of a president, who got the nod from being vice president under Reagan.

The strategy works, sometimes...for now. Old people vote. Old people also die. The Republican Party resembles a country Episcopal parish: dignified, traditional, and filled with gray heads. Where is the future?

Consider this hefty glop of polling data from a long-running online political quiz. Liberals outnumber conservatives by more than 2:1. Admittedly, the data is noisy. Some people play with it and take it more than once seeing the results of different answers. The population is large (over 60,000 people) but self-selected. The population is Internet-savvy, young, and interested in taking a political quiz. In other words: the future.

Perhaps the quiz itself is biased. Take it for yourself and decide. The author of the quiz claims to have deployed it at gun shows and found conservatives to outnumber liberals. So it's not all test bias. The quiz gives a real signal, and its prognosis for conservatives is grim.

But not as grim as the 2:1 numbers indicate. Young people age. When they get married and have kids, they have more concerns about drugs, security and sexual morality -- and they have less time to play with online political quizzes. More importantly, the quiz finds plenty of libertarians, more libertarians than liberals even. This is in part bias: many libertarian sites link to said quiz, and Libertarian Party members cluster at the radical libertarian apex. But even with the radicals (8.9%) filtered out (which thus excludes most LP members), we get more libertarians than liberals, and way more libertarians than conservatives.

To have a future, the Republican Party needs its libertarian wing. Instead, it listens to its aged conservatives, because of the party's seniority system for nominating presidents. As a result, the Democrats have the presidency and both houses of Congress, and our nation is sliding towards moribund European style welfare state status.

The Republican Party needs to listen more to its libertarian wing, but it still needs the rest of the conservative coalition; it cannot become merely a moderate libertarian party and win. The party needs its security minded seniors and its upright rural folk who live in the real world thus having better things to do than take online political quizzes.

How can the Republican Party appeal to its traditionalists without alienating its libertarians? Currently, the Republican Party is too divided to rule. It is good at grumbling in opposition, but not so good at putting through its agenda when in power.

The conservative coalition is not only too disunited, it is too small. As such the Republican Party depends too much on remoras and uncommitted swing voters. We saw this during the second Bush years: crony capitalism, sole source military contracting, incompetent appointments and a new Medicare entitlement. The first Bush gave us "read my hips" and the Americans with Disabilities Act. His reelection bid was an embarrassing pork fest.

In the coming months I shall suggest ways to better cohere the conservative coalition. I will point out overlap between Christian and libertarian values, and how to further liberty and security simultaneously. I will also explore ways to broaden the coalition, how to be "kinder and gentler" without sacrificing core values.