Politics, Government & Public Policy: May 2007 Archives
JV sent me a link to a post claiming that lobbyists buy votes based on data from MAPLight showing the correlation between donations and votes by various legislators.
If you click the “Video Tour†button on the home page, you’ll see a six-minute video that illustrates the point. You find out that on H.R.5684, the U. S.-Oman Free Trade Agreement, special interests in favor of this bill (including pharmaceutical companies and aircraft makers) gave each senator an average of $244,000. Lobbyists opposed to the bill (such as anti-poverty groups and consumer groups) coughed up only $38,000 per senator.Surprise! The bill passed.
If you click “Timeline of Contributions,†you find out that — surprise again! — contributions to the lawmakers surged during the six weeks leading up to the vote. On this same page, you can click the name of a particular member of Congress to see how much money that person collected.
Another mind-blowing example: from the home page, click “California.†Click “Legislators,†then click “Fabian Nunez.†The resulting page shows you how much this guy has collected from each special-interest group — $2.2 million so far — and there, in black-and-white type, how often he voted their way.
Construction unions: 94 percent of the time. Casinos: 95 percent of the time. Law firms: 78 percent of the time. Seems as though if you’re an industry lobbyist, giving this fellow money is a pretty good investment.
Of course, correlation does not equal causation, as the first commenter on that post points out. Do legislators vote in certain ways because money is given to their campaigns, or is money given because of how the legislators vote? To put it another way, which came first, the money or the votes? In reality, the answer is neither -- money and votes are symbiotic.
Legislators don't pocket this money, they spend it to get reelected. It's a cycle, like how water cycles through the environment as clouds, rain, rivers, oceans, and then clouds again. "Special interest groups" get money from voters who want to pool their resources to achieve some political goal; the groups give the money to politicians who have and will vote the way the group wants; the politicians spend the money to convince voters that they should be reelected.
Does this political-money cycle always work perfectly? No, because money is not a perfect proxy for votes -- that is, everyone gets one vote, but some people have exponentially more money than others. Still, it's the best system I can think of other than making me king-for-life. The last thing we need is the government "elite" regulating our speech or telling us how we can spend our own money.
If the federal government followed the same accounting rules that corporations, states, and local governments use the truly astounding extent of our national debt would enrage the public.
Modern accounting requires that corporations, state governments and local governments count expenses immediately when a transaction occurs, even if the payment will be made later.The federal government does not follow the rule, so promises for Social Security and Medicare don't show up when the government reports its financial condition.
Bottom line: Taxpayers are now on the hook for a record $59.1 trillion in liabilities, a 2.3% increase from 2006. That amount is equal to $516,348 for every U.S. household. By comparison, U.S. households owe an average of $112,043 for mortgages, car loans, credit cards and all other debt combined.
Unfunded promises made for Medicare, Social Security and federal retirement programs account for 85% of taxpayer liabilities. State and local government retirement plans account for much of the rest.
These numbers are obviously unsustainable and demonstrate why social security is doomed and young workers would be foolish to expect anything from it for their retirement. It is disgraceful for our government to hoodwink us like this, and I hope that the Financial Accounting Standards Advisory Board will follow through with its proposal and force the feds to accurately count the costs of our "entitlements".
It bothered me when John Kerry and John Edwards abandoned their Senate responsibilities to run for president in 2004, and it bothers me when John McCain (and other GOP presidential-wannabees) are doing the same thing now.
McCain's aides have acknowledged that the senator hasn't been as active in the Senate this year as he's been out campaigning. As Capitol Briefing noted Thursday, McCain hasn't cast a vote in more than five weeks now.But Jones said McCain's staff has been deeply involved in the immigration talks. ...
After making a few comments, McCain left the Capitol to head to New York for presidential campaign events. Later that day, McCain missed his 43rd straight vote, this on the $2.9 trillion budget outline.
I still fervently believe that political office-holders should resign if they intend to spend all their time campaigning for another job. Here's some data from the end of April about presidential-wannabe absenteeism, and I'm sure the numbers are much worse now a month later.
Besides Sen. Tim Johnson (D-S.D.) - who's missed the entire year as he recovers from a brain hemorrhage - McCain has now missed more votes, 60, than every other senator, making it to less than 60 percent of roll-call votes.The next three most absentee senators are also 2008 candidates, Joseph Biden (D-Del.), Sam Brownback (R-Kansas) and Christopher Dodd (D-Conn.). But they've only missed 41, 37 and 26 votes, respectively. And two top-tier presidential candidates, Sens. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) and Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.), have been present so often on the chamber floor you wouldn't even know they're running for the White House.
Obama has missed seven votes, Clinton three.
McCain also continues to miss many critical votes on Iraq, the issue that he has previously said would be so critical to his own campaign. He's now missed at least seven votes of prominence on Iraq.
Good for Senators Clinton and Obama. I couldn't abandon my responsibilities at work for months or years on end to, say, start my own business, and there's no reason we should expect less from our "leaders". And yes, I'm basically forced to resort to scare-quotes for these people, because it's really hard to remember the last time I felt led by any of them in any way.
I don't understand why the agricultural industry -- dominated by giant, well-organized corporations -- gets what is in effect free government insurance against damage to their business.
Agricultural Disaster Assistance Appropriations Act On Passage 05/10/2007 House Roll Call No. 336 110th Congress, 1st SessionPassed: 302-120 (see complete tally)
This House bill would provide $3.5 billion to farmers who lost crops or livestock due to weather-related events during fiscal years 2005 through 2007. Farmers who lost 35 percent of their crops or livestock producers located in counties where the Agriculture Department declared a natural disaster would be eligible for relief.
Why can't farms buy insurance in the private market like everyone else? Is there something special about the agricultural industry that prevents them from buying insurance and passing the costs on to their customers? Considering every other similar circumstance, it's hard to believe that the private sector couldn't handle this much more efficiently.
My brother sent me a link to WashingtonWatch, a blog/wiki that attempts to calculate the net present value of various legislation pending in Congress. Some legislation saves taxpayers money, but most of it costs us. As the methodology page indicates, this isn't the last work on the financial aspects of legislation, but it's a place to start.
Porkbusters is another good site that focuses on pork-barrel spending by our Congressmen. The quote by Trent Lott at the top of their page is priceless.
I don't have the patience to write up a minute-by-minute analysis of last week's Democrat primary debate or last night's Republican one, but here are my general impressions.
Democrats: Hillary was the clear winner. Obama stumbled several times: forgetting about Israel and denigrating the Confederate flag could lose him votes (but would anyone who cares about the Confederate flag vote for a black guy anyway?). None of the other candidates distinguished themselves except Mike Gravel, who's a loon (and therefore surging in online polls). Hillary came across as measured, confident, and polished -- no major mis-steps, which should be her main concern at this stage of the race. Obama needed to come out strong to demonstrate why he'd be a better pick than the anointed crown princess Hillary, and he didn't do it. Edwards was... mostly invisible. Richardson looked like he was about to faint from stage-fright, but of all the Democrats he had the most specific and rational policy ideas.
I was glad to hear the Dems talk tough about the GWOT, despite their constant harangues against "this administration". Socialized medicine scares me though, and they all seem to be for it... just imagine how much you hate dealing with the IRS, and extend that to the medical field. Just look at how terribly the Department of Veterans Affairs is run and imagine your health care being administered by a similar federal bureaucracy.
Republicans: The "big three" of Rudy, McCain, and Romney did the best. I like Tancredo, but I was surprised by how nervous he appeared. Ron Paul is a nut, but he's a nut that I agree with on a lot of issues (not the war, though) and I'm glad he was there. He didn't come across nearly as crazy as Mike Gravel did for the Democrats, and all the Republicans on stage could genuinely say that any one of them would make a better president than any one of the Democrats.
Romney was the most eloquent of the speakers and his take on Osama Bin Laden ("He is going to pay, and he will die") was strong and somewhat humorous.
McCain seemed solid, but his denunciation of pork-barrel spending rang hollow in my ears... he promises to veto pork-barrel bills as president, but he's in the Senate right now! He can filibuster those bills any time he wants, why is he waiting to be elected president?
Rudy came off well, and his constant reminders of the miracles he worked in New York were impressive. His stance on abortion seems rather ill-formed, and it's not clear to me what he'd do about it. Even if he vows to appoint pro-life judges, I'm not sure I'd believe him... plus, the presidential podium is a powerful platform for advocating an end to abortion, but he certainly wouldn't use it to that end.
Missing: I'm looking forward to seeing Fred Thomson in one of these debates. I like what I've read about him, and I want to see him on the stage.
Here's a simple flat tax primer from the Heritage Foundation that explains how a flat tax system would work and why it would be beneficial for our country. There are numerous advantages, but three are of particular import in my mind.
No Double Taxation of Saving and InvestÂment. Flat tax proposals would eliminate the tax code’s bias against capital formation by ending the double taxation of income that is saved and invested. This means no death tax, no capital gains tax, no double taxation of saving, and no double tax on dividends. By taxing income only one time, a flat tax is easier to enforce and more conducive to job creation and capital formation. ...An End to Micromanaging and Political FavorÂitism. A flat tax gets rid of all deductions, loopÂholes, credits, and exemptions. Politicians would lose all ability to pick winners and losers, reward friends and punish enemies, and use the tax code to impose their values on the economy. Not only does this end a major source of political corruption, but it is also pro-growth since companies would no longer squander resources lobbying politicians or making foolish investments just to obtain favorable tax treatment. ...
Simplicity. Complexity is a hidden tax amountÂing to more than $100 billion. This is the cost of tax preparation, lawyers, accountants, and other resources used to comply with the Internal Revenue Code. The Internal Revenue Service even admits that the current tax code requires taxpayers to devote 6.6 billion hours each year to their tax returns.[8] Yet even this commitment of time is no guarantee of accuracy. The code is so complex that even tax experts and the IRS often make mistakes. All taxpayers, from General Motors to a hamburger-flipping teenager, would be able to fill out their tax return on a postcard-sized form, and compliance costs would drop by tens of billions of dollars.[9]
The end of the guide talks about how a flat tax would make America more competitive in the world market, and that's also an important consideration.
People should realize that a flat tax could be implemented in a revenue neutral manner (though I'd prefer to cut government revenue). There's no partisan advantage here, and people of every political stripe would benefit from a simpler tax code.
