Leftists Pursue New Tactics

MW said: "The ironic thing is that the only way these think tanks will be able to come up with ideas that work is if they abandon the leftist ideals.."

So leftist ideals always result in ideas that don't work?

Thanks... I needed a laugh.

Isn't "The Phoenix Group" the name of the organization that MacGyver worked for?

Mark: Look at the scoreboard.

bit: Close, but MacGuyver worked for the Phoenix Foundation.

MW: The "scoreboard", as you put it, doesn't give such a landslide advantage to conservatives.

For example, conservatives believe that free markets can solve all the world's problems.. that capitalism reigns supreme.. when it is clear that pure capitalism creates both extreme wealth and extreme poverty.

It is true that capitalism results in disparity of wealth, but how this constitutes a "failure" is beyond me. It's only a failure if you define success as equality of wealth, which I don't.

WH: Equality of wealth isn't required for success. I define success in this regard as whether or not there is a level beyond which the society and government won't let you fall... a "floor", so to speak. Pure capitalism + the current level of charitable giving won't cut it.

Considering your last comment, are you saying there is enough of a safety net OR too much of a safety net? In either case this condition would support your opinion we can deregulate business for the betterment of the economy. Granted, there are some ridiculous regulation out there but my beef with this thought process is conservatives tend often to throw the baby out with the bathwater -- a good example is the Bankruptcy and Consumer Protection bill passed by Congress and heading to the Senate. A good idea but the result is too draconian and unfair --- to the point where the wealthy can hide their property if they do not meet the new restrictions for Chapter 7 while a middle income family also ineligible for Chapter 7 do not have such recourse (it is an expensive process available in only a few states) leaving their property to be taken under this bill.

Also, you say conservatives want to reduce government -- then why in this bill do they want to have the IRS determine how much you need to live on if you do not qualify for Chapter 7?

Note that this was voted UNAMINOUSLY by the Republican Congresspeople.

chris: Was your post directed at me? If so, please read this response:

On the whole, I think there are enough safety nets... but not enough of them are accessible to the people who need them, and too many of the safety nets are abused by people who don't really need them.

I have mixed feelings on the Bankruptcy bill. While it is true that people abuse the bankruptcy system, it is also true that lenders were playing too fast and loose with the credit... and were, themselves, irresponsible. Consumers were irresponsible too... spending way beyond their means. The bankruptcy and credit card debt mess is as much the fault of lenders as it is the fault of consumers.. in my opinion.

Conservatives.. at least those in control of the Republican party.. aren't really about reducing the size and influence of government. Their goals are to use big government, like Democrats do, but simply for different purposes and to satisfy different priorities.

Mark: Nearly every American (99%+) lives better than the aristocracy of 200 years ago. I'd say our "floor" is plenty high enough, and far too expensive, to boot.

MW: I didn't say I thought the "floor" wasn't high enough.

It's expensive, to be sure, but the charitable giving that would be required to maintain it or something close to it would be almost as costly.

Mark: Not really, since nothing is as inefficient as the government. Plus, it's significant to me that charitiable giving doesn't involve forceful coercion, like taxes do.

MW: Take your pick... being "forcefully coerced" by government, or "coerced", in a sense, by a guilty conscience. To me, it's six in one, half-a-dozen in the other.

Government doesn't have to be inefficient.

In terms of charity the 6 eggs from government will feed one person but only on mondays. Private charites the half dozen eggs will feed 6 people every day of the week. The problem is there is far more overhead in the government, in the private charities people tend to be far more willing to work for less money & benifits so the same amout of money for the fund goes further.

The government is by its nature inefficient and wasteful. Nothing gets done quicker than 2 weeks, shit we submitted some plans for traffic control on one lane of a side street and it took them 10 buisness days to look at them. Open a manhole...2 weeks notice and so on.

Lastly you want charitable giving to go up? Cut taxes.

Government doesn't have to be inefficient. Nothing you have said refutes that. The problem, it seems to me, is that we've seen nothing but inefficient government... and so we assume that efficient government is an impossibility.

Lowering taxes will automatically result in more charitable giving? Sorry, but there's no proof of that.

Mark: That we've never seen or heard of such a think is a strong indication that it doesn't exist. Further, whether lower taxes will lead to more charitable giving isn't the crux of the argument; its truth, if true, is merely a side benefit. The real point is that the majority has no right to vote to put a gun to my head and force me to give my money to someone else.

Sure government could be efficient, but it would take measures that would require and act of God to inact. The way public employees are currently handled virtually assures that the government will continue to largely inefficient.
1. The "its not my problem" attitude, is the overwhelming school of thought when it comes to things like infrastructure. Deparments aren't forced to think like a buisness so they do not. They don't plan ahead for repair & replacement of equipment in their budget because they can always raise taxes. There is no assest management if they buy a pump they run it into the ground, if a private firm buys a pump the firm has cash on hand equal to the diffrence between the depreciated value and the actual value to replace the pump when needed, public firms have tax & rate hikes. Pay attention to the word 'asset mangement' its the new buzz word for future which the government is getting dragged kicking and screaming into because they have been ignoring it for decades.
2. The union has a strangle hold on the departments. Many much need projects are on hold because the unions won't let work go. Why? because they don't want to contract the individual jobs, they want more workers even if the job is short term, the department is on the hook for as long as the worker is their and through pensions until they die.
Don't say they can layoff or fire people because that doesn't happen, infact its near impossible to fire a employee.
3. The quality control is lacking. You'd think if they paid tens of thousands for cleaning expenses on condemned property, they'd check to make sure it was clean right....right?
4. Explain to me why LA Unified needs 1.1 administrators for every teacher?

Sure it could be efficent, but not the way thing operate now.

As far as tax rate & charitable giving, I'll see if I can find where I read that, it may of been attached to the article on most generous states.

MW: I have no doubt that those things are your beliefs and opinions. The point I was trying to make is that you have to pick your preferred form of coercion: your government or your conscience.

the Pirate: As a non-union employee of a public school district in Wisconsin... I have some insight into how the things you mentioned work. I'll address them by number, corresponding to your numbers.

1. It's funny you should mention about budgeting for repair and replacement. In the district I work for, we recently had to go to referendum for facility maintenance... things like roofs, boilers, pavement, etc. We have one of the lowest cost-per-pupil ratios in the entire state.. and one of the lowest local tax levies in the county. For this upcoming 2005-2006 fiscal year, we've got to make cuts. The reason for this is really two-fold: the unions and an unfair state funding formula. Even when it comes to unions, though, our teacher and support staff pay scale is considerably lower than other neighboring districts. The larger problem is the state's funding formula, which arbitrarily took the amount that each district in the state was spending per pupil back in 1993 (when the formula was created) and capped it. Schools that were spending more (not necessarily being efficient) got to spend more. Schools that were spending less were forced to spend less. The difference between what we spend per pupil and the state average, if added to our bottom line for the past 12 years, would have eliminated the need to go to referendum. So, the point is that it's not always about budgeting for repair and replacement... because sometimes there isn't any money available to do that.

2. As far as unions go, I agree almost completely. They are more of a drain on the public sector than almost anything else.

3. Quality control is not uniformly good or uniformly bad across every locale.

4. I can't explain that. We certainly don't have that many administrators in the district I work for.

I read the articles you're referring to. In all of them, it is not clear whether lower tax rates are the cause of the generosity, or if something else more accurately correlates with the increased generosity.

1. Part of the issue in the infrastructure has been they never planed to raise the money to maintain the infrasture, rather than add a few cents to the rates 30 years ago to build capital they let it go, now they have no capital and have budgetary problems to take up the much needed repair. Just to give an idea of a line I have been working on, its been in the ground for 23 years and has never been taken care of, for a prespective the line is roughly 1.6 miles long 1/3 of it 84" and the rest is 54" and to asses, clean, develop odor control, & rehabilitation it will run in the area of +2 mil, thats if the sediment isn't hazardous. The money isn't readly avalible either and its on bonds, part of the problem is the didn't plan ahead, they were used to the fed just forking out money and didn't excrsie the best fiscal responsibility to maintain their assets. We have quite a bit of business now that just involves teaching public agencies how to manage assets and money. (ironically a unnamed Nor-Cal public utility hired us to explain to them the agency's bureaucracy, how it works and what people in the utility are supposed to do)

That being said certian services are better provided by the government or a requlate monopoly, but even then they should run it like a buisness and not a money backhole.

2. No comment need.

3. Quality control in the same office can be different, but some government offices are exceedingly poor.

4. All I know is its a big wast of money.

Part of the generousity another factor could be the % of people who regularly attend Church as those people are more inclinded to donate through good will or a sense of religious obligation.

the Pirate said: "Part of the generousity another factor could be the % of people who regularly attend Church as those people are more inclinded to donate through good will or a sense of religious obligation."

I think that is a better correlation than lower taxes.