Pajamas Media

39 Comments

Bill:

Max,

Earmarks by themselves are a assult on a citizen government. It allows corruption to fester and gives the governmental control to the big money interests. (see immigration bill) It is simply payback for money given in an election. By allowing this type of behavior you are condoning a corrupt government.

19 billion is a lot of money. Period. Since our budget is in the red that 19 billion has to come from debt. The debt pays interest which is compounded over 30 years in most cases. Therefore the total cost of that 19 billion is greater than what you think.

It also adds to the 19% of the budget that we have no control over (interest payments). One of the biggest drains on the budget next to Medicare.

Also you are using one year’s figures. If you add 20 billion over 6 years or 10 years, we start to see some serious money. ( 120 billion to 200 billion) All paid for by debt.

Finally we get to the purpose of government. A federal government should not be elected to transfer money back to select districts nor should it be there to transfer wealth from the haves to the haves not. This causes incumbancy fever which causes a bubble to form between the people and their leaders.

A federal government should be there to defend the nation, ensure a free/fair marketplace between states and countries, and provide for infracture that is needed by the nation.

When you have vast wealth concentrated in the hands of 536 people there is no way you can have a free country.

I say let the Federal government give the money back to the States or the people and let them decide how to spend it.

Jun 21, 2007 - 2:02 am ajacksonian:

And not all pork in the DoD budget is related to DoD items, and yet it must be overseen and accounted for and *that* overhead is ON TOP OF the overhead already needed to do its job. Yes, Congressional pork *distracts* from the regular duties not only of the DoD but from all other parts of the Federal Government that has such fat additives put into it.

Say, how come the Congress asks the American People to ’sacrifice’ when it cannot give up its own little pet projects?

Even worse is the Congressional incompetence and outright disdain to even recognize the effects of their own law making. When the Junior Senator from NY goes to a VA hospital and decries the lack of funding and voluminous paperwork and points the finger of blame… does it point at those individuals who actually MANDATE via writing the laws that such incredibly voluminous paperwork is necessary? Does she hold up a mirror and recognize the *source* of that government inefficiency and waste? She does not. After being in Congress for a full term, she is unaware that the actual laws made by Congress have paperwork attached to them so that every clause and sub-clause, paragraph and sub-paragraph gets its own oversight so that it is adhered to when funds are put against it.

That entire set of whining about ‘lack of supplies for the troops’ points directly, not to the President, but to Congress for not doing its job of estimating what the size of the Armed Forces should BE, what supplies they will need for the mission that Congress has directed them to go on, not ensuring that the National Budget and industrial capacity is geared up to support that fight and, finally, to ensure that equipment needs *across the board* have sufficient outlay as mandated by Congress. The President proposes a budget… Congress writes the damned thing, and when they concentrate more on packing pork into the budget than looking out to the needs of the warfighter, then I, for one, have a problem. When a $1.2 billion biathlon track for Alaska gets shoved into the budget and soldiers find themselves without enough *bullets* then I do, indeed, have a major problem with Congress and its priorities that sees featherbedding its own interests are more important than those of supplying the warfighter.

Plus I have a lot of problems portraying the DoD has so very huge when it is outsized by the Dept. of Health and Human Services, and the Social Security Administration. And I really do not like members of Congress looking to establish their place at the swine trough and use it as a means of political favoritism that, by one’s own admission, he expected to continue on doing for 20 years. Somehow that just doesn’t sound like a Congresscritter looking out for the welfare of the Nation and, instead, looking to his own self-interest to get re-elected in the One Party State of Incumbistan. While we live in the poor vassal state of Electistan without any political parties.

Jun 21, 2007 - 4:39 am JKRibera:

Max,

I like your columns, but you miss this one by a country mile. Bill above gets it. It’s the corruption, stupid.

Sure an argument can be made that earmarks are “relatively” a small part of the budget, but they DISTORT EVERYTHING. No vote on any subject is untainted when earmarks are involved. The congressmen didn’t vote for an appropriation for roads, medicine, defense or whatever. They voted for their own little two-bit project. Democracy - the old will of the people - got the heave ho.

Consider that you got this one wrong, Max. But don’t be defensive. We all get it wrong some time.

Jun 21, 2007 - 6:50 am Fred Beloit:

Defending the indefensible is lousy work, but someone always volunteers to do it.

Jun 21, 2007 - 7:36 am Brian H:

Yeah, it’s lousy, but it beats the alternatives, as Churchill said.

There are a great many initiatives that need doing but “fall below the radar” of debated and debatable items. Earmarks get some of it handled, at the cost of including a lot of things that are unnecessary and amount to corrupt or stupid practice. On the one end, the fulminating stupidity of the Proxmires who sneered at anything they don’t understand, which is most things, and did a lot of damage. On the other, the incumbency purchase payoffs that distort elections.

Transparency helps, but the high volume and detail level of projects involved tends towards empowering a coterie of wannabe-Proxmires who are perfectly happy to toss out any number of babies so as to be able to claim to be assiduous bathwater-flushers.

Reminds me of the “hygiene hypothesis” in medicine/public health, which observes that attempts to sterilize living environments results in sickly, immune-deficient patients who haven’t been exposed to the “real world” of microbes. In this case, important detail-level activities and initiatives that later turn out to be necessary resources and pools of information and expertise are kept alive until called on by the shotgun financing of earmarks. Counting on official projections etc. to provide for all future options and needs is foolish.

Jun 21, 2007 - 8:43 am mishu:

Brian H.,

If any initiatives that need doing but are not worth debating at the national level perhaps shouldn’t belong in the national budget. That why we have these things called states and municipalities. If these initiatives are more relavant to a local congressional district, perhaps it should be debated and funded by the local government.

Jun 21, 2007 - 9:26 am Karl:

Much of what I wanted to say is stated above, but I will add this- much like the broken window approach to crime, the earmarks, if allowed to continue, add to the overall corruption, and climate of corruption in government.

Jun 21, 2007 - 9:28 am Bill:

Federalism works. The federal government has shown that they are unable to deal with anything. From roads to defense they have corrupted the process.

536 people should not have access to 2.9 trillion dollars. Our founding fathers understood that the more diffuse the government the more freedom the people had.

Think about it. 536 people get to decide where 2.9 TRILLION dollars go. The power that this confers is unprecendented in the history of mankind. Earmarks are only a sympton of the illness.

The problem is that the federal government has too much power with too little ability to make big changes. There are two cures. One is to give the Federal government unlimited power to get things down (liberal) or to take away the money so they do not have the means to turn to corruption. (conservative)

We have tried since FDR to give the Federal government more and more power to “get things done”.(Liberalism/campassionate conservatitism) I think in 2007, it is safe to say this approach has failed.

In veiw of this failure, it is time to change course and give the states and people back the power that we have transfered to the federal government.

One way to do this is ratify the 1st article of the bill of rights increasing the size of the House. Another way is to change the 1904 law limiting the number of House seats to 435. The Fair tax is another way that may decrease the flow of unlimited money to the government.

Term limits will not work because the corruption will only intensify before the deadenders are sent packing.

We the people have forgotten that government is a Necessary Evil. We need to remember.

Jun 21, 2007 - 10:42 am Miracle Max:

Responses, and thanks for the comments –

Bill — no matter how you pump it up, in the overall budget context $19 billion is peanuts. If you want to add up stuff over time, you have to add up the other pieces too for context, in either a budget or a GDP perspective. I’ve made clear that waste or corruption, it bad. Remember the guy who was going to end “waste, fraud and abuse”?

By the way, for Fiscal ‘07, net interest is 8.6 percent of outlays, not 19.

ajack — Too much pork is bad for you. We could do with less now. If Congress has asked anybody to sacrifice, I haven’t noticed.

Regarding supplying the troops, you can’t have it both ways. The White House demands that Congress abstain from “micro-managing” the military, up to and including abstaining from its constitutional prerogative to declare or undeclare war, so you can hardly blame Democrats in Congress for any recent deficiencies in provisioning the troops. Since 2001, the military budget has been under tight control of Republicans, especially the White House.

As far as which department is bigger, under the auspices of Social Security and Medicare, lots of checks are mailed out to individuals and health care providers. The number of actual government personnel or overhead expense in those places is dwarfed by the Pentagon. If you just look at dollars, ‘national defense’ and SS are roughly the same, but that defense category does not include stuff that arguably belongs in it (like vets’ benefits, for instance).

JKRibera — logrolling and vote-trading go with the territory of representative democracy, always have. A terrible system but, as Brian reminds us someone once said, not as bad as all the others.

Fred — Indeed. Otherwise Pajamas would have to shut down.

Brian — as you say, a lot of great scientific discoveries could be written up to sound really stupid.

mishu & Bill — there is a lot of reassignment of functions between levels of gov that would be worth doing. My favorite is to get anti-poverty and Medicaid out of the states and give them infrastructure education.

Jun 21, 2007 - 11:53 am Mark:

What has not been said is the following: “a Government of the People, By the People, and For the People”
I, for one, do NOT see the current (and the past 70+ years of) government doing much FOR the “People”. I have seen, however, a hell of a lot of government doing “TO the People”.

Ladies and gentlemen - how do we ’subjects’ fix this government?

Regards

Jun 21, 2007 - 12:15 pm Bill:

Max,

After years of government failure, why do you insist on trying to give more power to the government? In the last 60 years the government has failed on ever level except protecting our nation and minority rights.

It has failed on poverty, it has failed on medicare, it has failed on immigration, it has failed on infrastructure (our roads, bridges, power plants, refineries, dams, waste sites), it has failed on Social Security, it has failed on education, it has failed at everything it has touched. Except civil rights and defense.

The government spent $406 Billion on interest payments last year. that is more than 8.6% of the budget.

http://www.federalbudget.com/

Anyone that has to live within a budget understands the best way to do this is to cut out the small stuff that you don’t need first. With Congress that is earmarks. After the little things are gone that you will not miss, the next step is to reduce or cut major payments. Like credit card debt (which is mostly compounded interest). Then you can move to downsizing if the budget still does not meet the outlays. Getting rid of car payments, refinance your home etc.

Congress should get its budget to meet is outlays without asking for a raise from its employers first. (i.e We the people)

Jun 21, 2007 - 12:49 pm Miracle Max:

I don’t see all the failure you cite. Poverty reduction actually continued into the late 70s before the Nixon cuts began to take effect. After that there was relatively little serious effort in attacking poverty. (Clinton’s 1996 welfare reform was jive.) We stopped investing in infrastructure (except highways) in the 80s, thanks to RR. There is no failure on Social Security. Education is mostly a local deal. If education is so awful, how come American workers are among the most productive in the world?

Your interest figure is incorrect. The website you provide might be using gross interest, including interest the Gov pays to itself. Net interest — the burden on taxpayers — is what I said it was.

Your budget folklore is not relevant to decisions that have to be made. The gov does need to bring into alignment tax revenue and program spending. In this vein, earmarks are trivial.

Jun 21, 2007 - 1:36 pm QuickRob:

for Max, an economist, to call $19 billion chump change is irresponsible.

Anyway you cut it, it’s a lot of money. It works out to about 0.7% of $2,472 billion, but it is still a lot.

He starts his argument with that as a jump-off point, which I find disingenuous. Especially when it works out to be equal to 16.7% of the deficit.

He also suggests that since 44% of the pork is focused on the defense appropriation bill that it is NOT spread around widely. Well, Max, that leaves another 56%, doesn’t it? Instead of doing the Liberal thing and trying to frame this issue as one of excessive defense spending, why not address the larger half of the pork?

And then we are told that pork is good since it can be used to bribe congressmen/women into signing off on legislation, is that correct?

Because that doesn’t sound “good” to me, at least not in the traditional sense of the word

Jun 21, 2007 - 1:37 pm ech:

But it’s not possible to vet $2.8 trillion-with-a-T worth of spending in great detail. There isn’t enough time in the world.

If it can’t be vetted in great detail, why should Congress be allowed to appropriate it? I believe that if there is transparency, there will be time to vet it. Much of the budget goes for big ticket items. For example, Medicare/Medicaid can be divided roughly into 5 major buckets of dollars: administrative costs, hospital stay costs, office visits, drugs, and nursing home stays. So, all you need to look at are 5 buckets of dollars and you have looked at $500 billion dollars, 20% of the federal budget. Shouldn’t take more than a month or two to vet. Large chunks of DoD spending goes for purchase of major weapons systems, which are easy to review. Another big chunk at DoD is salaries and benefits for the troops, again easy to vet.

For that we need more and better bureaucrats.

No, fewer and better would do the trick. Don’t know where they are going to come from though.

Jun 21, 2007 - 1:52 pm Bill:

We stopped investing in infrastruction when NIMBY became the rage and Congress started to block local projects for political reasons (The wind power in MASS, nuclear waste site, power plants, are great examples). Short answer a federal government failure.

The poverty in America has gone down as the GDP has gone up. New Orleans shows the failure of the federal government to stop poverty. The best cure for poverty is work and education not free government handouts.

No failure in SS? That’s why it is forcasted to run out of funds in the very near future. Add Medicare to that as well. Another failure of the Government.

We can debate the interest figure all day. The end result is ALL interest is money that the government does not have to pay for other things. In times of War or national emergency a $8 trillion debt that soaks up interest is a not a good thing.(esp when your quasi enemies are funding that debt) Yet another failure of the federal government.

Education has been a failure. When a majority of people know who won the American Idol event but do not know who the vice president is, that is a failure. Education is local true. The States are short of funds because the Federal government hogs the tax revenues. Another failure of the federal government.

My forklore is called commonsense. You can not spend what you don’t have for any length of time before bad things happen. You can not increase taxes beyond a certain point before you start decreasing revenue by tax avoidence and lack of productivity. Therefore you have to cut spending if you budget is bigger than your income.

Where do you want to cut spending?

I think it is best to start with the small stuff and the interest. Neither of these do anything for the tax payer or for the country.

Or maybe you don’t want to cut spending and would rather have our taxes increased to fund this “pork”.

Which is it?

P.S. Your blaming of Nixon, Reagan, and Clinton fails to understand that it was the Congress (mostly a liberal congress for the last 60 years)that voted all of these things into law. You also fail to understand that the courts (again liberal) upheld all of those things. Therefore it was the ENTIRE federal government that has failed on all levels. Liberlism at all its levels have failed.(see soviet Union, Cuba,Eastern Europe, China pre 2000, the 1970’s USA) Even Bush’s form of liberlism has failed.

The bigger the government gets the bigger and more far reaching its failures are.

Jun 21, 2007 - 2:59 pm Miracle Max:

QuickRob — I said a couple of times $19 billion in and of itself is nothing to sneeze at. As for defense, defense procurement, including but much bigger than DoD pork, is the biggest efficiency problem in Federal spending, IMO.

ech — Congress appropriates without getting into minutia because any huge organization relies on delegation, in this case to bureaucrats. (Fewer, by the way, mean it is less possible to oversee procurement, see above.) Re: M&M, sure you can look at it; fixing it is another matter.

bill — poverty rate has bounced around since it stopped falling in the 70s. Since 2001 it has increased, along with GDP. SS won’t run out of money until 2041 (or 2048, if you believe Congressional Budget Office). Medicare is already bust, thanks in part to the President’s excellent drug benefit. No, you can’t debate the interest number; you were wrong, period.

Actually the Gov can run deficits forever, as long as they aren’t too big. Taxes should cover program spending. You can borrow to cover the interest indefinitely. As long as debt doesn’t grow faster than GDP, we’re o.k.

I’m for less pork, more investment in education, training, R&D, and infrastructure, as I said in my very first Pajamas column.

The Europeans do liberalism pretty well. There are successful models. We can do better.

Jun 21, 2007 - 4:10 pm TMLutas:

The current porkbuster campaign may very well be as small potatoes as you claim it. However what it does do is set up infrastructure for citizen oversight and create a methodology for further reform. Just because the first slice of the salami is thin says nothing about how much you want to slice.

Jun 21, 2007 - 11:40 pm Bill:

Max,

Check your numbers. Per the US TREASURY website.

Total interest paid by the government for 2006 was:

405,872,109,315.83

Already in 2007 the government has paid in interest for its debt:

254,689,263,161.60

http://www.treasurydirect.gov/govt/reports/ir/ir_expense.htm

I state again these numbers are more than the 8.6% number you site. It is closer to 16% assuming a 2.5 trillion budget.

You want to say I’m wrong give me your data.

You can not “grow” your way out of debt. The bill ALWAYS comes due. When half to 2/3 of your debt is in the hands of countries with different national interests, that bill has a way of coming due .

Regardless of the your theory of “growing yourself out of debt”, the fact remains that $400 billion was spent on interest last year by the government. What you may ask do we have to show for that $400 billion? Not a hell of a lot.

There is “good debt” and “bad debt”. Good debt gives you a return on investment. The Blackstone company is an example of “good debt”.

The Federal government is a good example of “bad debt”. Like credit cards, bad debt gives no return on investment. The Government is using debt to finance it’s present commitments. It is even using SS funds in the range of an additional $200 billion to finance its addictions to entitlements programs, defense programs, pork programs, energy programs, transportation programs etc. This debt can only go on as long as someone is there to lend the money. It has no redeeming value. In fact, it causes inflation and a devaluing of the dollar by increasing the money supply.

So last year $400 billion of tax payer money went to China and other debt holders. It did not go back to the tax payer. Talk about global income redistribution. This should make any liberal weep for joy.

The Europeans do liberalism pretty well? Yeah right.

I guess you do not see that they have had to starve their defense programs to pay for it. If not for the USA picking up the defense bill Europe’s liberalism would be dead. This does not even begin to mention the massive immigration European countries have had to import to keep there liberal systems afloat. For more proof see France’s last election. If liberalism was so good over in France why do the French want LESS of it?

So to sum up. We have 16-19% of the budget going to pay INTEREST on money spent in previous years for entitlement programs and PORK that can not pay for themselves. We also see the end game of liberalism’s failure in Europe with weak national defense, massive immigration, slow GDP growth, lack of productivity, and high taxes.

And yet you want more of this? 19 billion less in pork is a good small step to getting our house in order. After the pork lets start cutting another $400 billion in spending. I myself am for a massive reduction in Federal spending not related to Defense and a redirection of revenues from Washington to the states and from the States to the people. Pork is the symptom of this failure.

Washington has shown in the last 60 years that they can not spend the money correctly so why give them more?

Jun 22, 2007 - 12:01 am Rob Kiser:

This post is right on target. The only way to make “Pork” truly go away would be to balance the budget and hold the government accountable to FASB accounting practices. Only then will it make sense to talk about where the money is going. And then, when they really are held to some rudicmentary fiscal accountability, the waste would go away, because spending in one project would take away funding from another area. Choices would have to be made, instead of just borrowing the difference from our children.

Jun 22, 2007 - 3:28 am Jane Reinheimer:

If there’s anything that cows and chickens really like in Washington, D.C., it’s the safe haven for them, because this is a pork-craved town.

In total, there are billion of dollars worth of pork — those little slabs of political bacon that got slatered onto legislation that might or might not have had anything to do with what the pork project was all about.

Donald Lambo writes in an article in The Washington Times (http://www.washingtontimes.com/commentary/20070617-080234-4516r.htm) that there are 32,000 slabs of bacon on new legislation — that amounts to about 74 pork projects for each of the 435 members of congress.

For the first time, Democrats are getting worried about their porky little seats getting taken away from them.

Gee, do you think they might wish they could go back to right after the election when it was time to make good on campaign promises of reform and transparency about those old pork barrel earmarks that Nancy Pelosi now wants to call “legislative requests?”

That didn’t happen. There is no transparency. It’s the same old policitally hacked-up story. David Obey of Wisconsin (He’s the Chairman of the House Appropriations Committee.) has reneged on any transparency promises about earmarks. He now says that all pork projects are going to be kept secret until the appropriations bill passes through the House.

Hey, it’s not just the Democrats, folks. Republican lawmakers have earmarks too. Problem is, that appropriations bill is sitting out there in all the political heat just blooming. You’d think it was a big dough ball bloating over with a yeast infection, for crying out loud. It just keeps getting bigger and bigger and bigger.

President Bush may just veto the bill. It’s got $23 billion more than he requested. And he just may not sign a bill that gives him no clue of what he’s approving payments for.

That’s one of the really big reasons why congress doesn’t like our president.

For some reason, they seem to think he’s one of their employees.

They need to go back and re-read the U.S. Constitution if they believe that.

Read more:
http://www.washingtontimes.com/commentary/20070617-080234-4516r.htm

Jun 22, 2007 - 8:19 am Miracle Max:

I told you that your number was gross, the number relevant to taxpayers is net. Your number does not reflect interest received. Taxpayers do not have to provide cash to the Gov to pay interest that the Gov receives from the public or pays to itself. Go here and check table 3.1, page 54, for FY2007. Net interest is what I said it was.

I never used the phrase “grow your way out of debt.” That’s the White House jive. I said if debt and GDP grow at the same rate, that is sustainable indefinitely. Debt that comes due is just rolled over.

It would be better if the Gov was investing more. All your anti-government buncombe just makes that more difficult.

The extent of debt in foreign hands is a potential problem for political reasons, not economic ones. If the Chinese want to f** with us they can do it by selling U.S. debt. The have no economic reason to do so, quite the contrary. Our borrowing from them is financing their exports to the U.S.

I’ve dealt with the urban legend about European productivity here at Pajamas. Their productivity is on a par with ours.

You don’t have the facts. It’s as simple as that.

Jun 22, 2007 - 8:34 am John M:

Max,

You lost me when you wrote that Europe’s a good model. You’re kidding me right? All your other arguments have merit, even if I disagree with the conclusion, but Europe as a model? Their model, as Bill pointed out was built on their ability to funnel all would be defense related monies into social programs because the US picked up the defense tab. And in a tribute to the law of unintended consequences, the comfy socialist states they built made their citizens so complacent and selfish, they stopped having children. Now they have to import workers by the millions to support their policies. That is not a successful model. That’s a case in point of what not to do.

Since earmarks are, as you say, such a small part of the whole, then surely we should be able effectively fight the corruption it breeds, no? If not then how can we expect to impact even greater things? You have to start somewhere. If holding reps feet to the fire on this causes them to spend a little less time worrying about pet projects, maybe, just maybe, we’ll get them to behave a bit more responsibly.

Jun 22, 2007 - 8:51 am bill:

Max,

Like I said before. We can discuss the interest all day. You say net I say total. The point I am making is that $400 billion is being spent by the government on interest expanse. Whether it is paid by the taxpayer or the government is not the issue. The issue is that $400 billion is being spent on NOTHING but interest and a large part of that money is being given to unfriendly countries.

At the end of the day that is $400 billion we do not have to spend or give pack to the States. That is the COST of debt.

While debt can be sustained indefinitely in a perfect world, history shows we do not live in a perfect world. Events happen to change the perfect world and retard growth. Like Wars, 9/11, Katrina, Depressions, etc. During times like these, a the government saddled with large debt and interest payments is hamstrung on what it can do. Sure it could raise taxes but that will cramp growth. It could borrow more but the world markets may be tapped out if it is a world wide event. Finally, it could print more money but inflation would skyrocket. So debt is an albatross around the neck of government causing it to be unable to do what is needed at the exact time it is needed.

PORK is the fuel that drives debt. All Pork being unnecessary to the main functions of government is by definition being paid for by debt. Therefore any amount of the $19 billion would reduce the budget shortfall, decreasing the total debt, and decreasing interest on that debt.

Governments by their nature do not invest. They spend. That is where you are wrong.

News Flash. Countries will do things for other reasons than economic profit. Power, national defense, internal political pressure, etc are all reasons to screw with another country. By giving China the ability to deliver a sever blow simply because our government lacks the political will to pay for its love of Pork and entitlements is beyond traitorous.

Europe is another topic we can discuss all day. Which countries are you including in your productivity equations? Is it just France, Germany and Britain or are you including some of the new Europe in your equations?

If you do not want to repeat yourself, maybe a link to your previous article on Europe productivity?

Max, government can not do what you want it to do. That is not what government is or does. Our Founding Fathers understood that. Government is not the vehicle for your pet projects, or worldview. OUR Government is there to protect us from other countries, uphold laws and order, ensure our freedom, build infrastructure, and provide for a free/fair marketplace of ideas and goods. Everything else can be done better and cheaper by some other entity.

Jun 22, 2007 - 10:22 am Miracle Max:

Birth rates go down in all countries with high incomes. As I wrote in my previous column, the U.S. rate is due to fall as well. You may have noticed we import workers too.

We could do with a lot less defense expenditures. And if you subtracted our level of defense exp (as a share of GDP) from Euro spending levels, they would still be way ahead of us.

Corruption a la earmark is not good. I don’t defend it. I just put it in context. I should note they really exploded after the GOP took over Congress. Watch and see how much they decline this year.

Nobody has addressed one of my points: the anti-earmark kick is a veiled (and ultimately futile) criticism of the welfare state. It’s disingenuous. You can see this in the comments here, as people slide from earmark to public spending in general.

The welfare state is only going to get bigger. Earmarks will wax and wane but always be a sideshow.

Jun 22, 2007 - 10:43 am Bill:

Where to begin?

Birth rates are a function of more than high incomes. It is also a function of the welfare state, tax code, and abortion policy to name a few. One of the reasons people have more children in non welfare states is to help support the family through labor and wages. If the government supports you in old age why have several kids?

Importation of workers is due to several factors. One being a function of wage (i.e. Greed).

But regardless of the reason of importation of workers, you prove that a welfare state is not sustainable by your own argument.

The anti-earmark kick is not a veiled criticism of the welfare state. It is an in your face criticism of the welfare state and wasteful spending. Earmarks are the canary in the coal mine of wasteful government spending. Earmarks exploded during the Bush years not when the GOP took over Congress. At the same time, the debt exploded from $4 trillion to $8 trillion. Already Obey says there are above 30,000 earmark requests this year. This is not a decline.

Cut defense? Wait. The one program that the government has done well. The one program government has become the world leader of. The one program that has been a governmental success. This is the one you want to cut? And you want to cut this program to put the money into the programs that have failed? This statement makes the lest sense of all your points. Oh wait, I see liberals have no enemies in the world. Nevermind the increase in military spending by China, Russia, Iran to name the three biggest threats.

The welfare state will only get bigger if people continue to turn away from freedom for supposed security.

Earmarks far from being a sideshow, will always be a leading indicator of government waste, welfare increases, and out of control Congressional spending.

Jun 22, 2007 - 12:15 pm John M:

Max,

Thanks for the direct response.

Birthrates fall where income is high? Like China? Like Italy, or Russia? I’m sorry, I have not read your previous column so I cannot respond to what you wrote then, but your prediction that US birth rates will fall too is not supported by current demographic data. It’s a prediction at best, and an opinion at worst. We can certainly debate that though like gentlemen. My point however was not to debate birthrates per se, but to respond to your comment that Europe was a model of liberalism. Europe, post WWII spent so lavishly on state supported largesse that their citizens became so complacent and egocentric that they stopped having children. Why bother having kids to support you in your old age when the State will take care of all your needs? As a result they face a demographic crisis that has been well documented elsewhere. The European social state is failing and they need to import workers to support it. That we are imitating them by also importing workers as you accurately note does not refute my point that this is NOT a model we should embrace.

I’m sorry, but I don’t understand your comment about US defense expenditures vs. Europe. Surely you are not suggesting that somehow Europe spends more than we do (by any measure) on defense? I’m sure that’s not what you meant, so I’d be interested in your clarification. Whether the U.S. should be spending less on defense is not relevant to the argument, unless you meant that we should never have been a part of NATO, which would be an interesting debate to have. In fact, if Europe had been forced to carry the burden for its own defense post WWII, they would never have been able to afford to construct the social state that they now have. If they are indeed a model of liberalism, as you say, then they did it with someone else’s money without any intetion of paying it back.

I don’t think anyone addressed your point about the welfare state because I don’t think anyone disagreed with it. It’s probably implicit in everyone comments, so why would anyone argue? Earmarks are an appalling mutation of the welfare state. So is the tax deduction for mortgage interest, perhaps the biggest entitlement known to man. So what? You pick your battles. Your assertion that the welfare state will only get bigger may be correct. That doesn’t mean we should roll over and take it.

Jun 22, 2007 - 12:24 pm Bill:

John,

I think you are missing Max’s point. He could care less for earmark reform because he does not care about limiting spending. In fact he wants more spending. Earmarks for him are a non factor. He just wants the money spend on his/liberal pet projects. What matter if a measly $19 billion is spent to get those projects. It is just the cost of doing business in his worldview.

Max if I one reading you wrong please clarify. I would not want to take you out of context.

The problem is the different worldviews not earmarks. To conservatives earmarks are a sign that a free government is malfunctioning. To liberals earmarks show that the needed grease is there to turn the heavy gears of the government

Jun 22, 2007 - 1:02 pm Fred Beloit:

Max, your “reply” to me far above is akin to saying “So’s your old man.”

Jun 22, 2007 - 1:48 pm Miracle Max:

A basic point in economic development is the decline in birth rates when a nation passes from poor to well-off. It’s not a prediction, it’s an observed pattern. Of the ones you mention, Italy is in the well-off category, China is still a poor, developing country (though it’s moving very fast now). Russia was somewhere in between but devastated by the emergence from communism and the ’shock therapy’ it implemented. It’s still in sad shape, though they have been making a lot of money selling petroleum in today’s market.

As far as fertility rates go, here’s the Social Security Trustees’ predictions, as well as the history. They are projected to decline almost imperceptibly. They are higher now than in the 70s, lower than at other times. Make of that what you will.

The French rate, by the way, is close to the U.S. Other Euro rates are lower, so there is no pattern here that you can ascribe to ’socialism.’ It’s possible, I’m just guessing, that having 36 million foreign-born persons in the U.S. pushes up our fertility rate, relative to Euro nations with less inflow.

My point about defense was in response to the claim that since the Euros don’t spend money on defense, they can have bigger social spending than the U.S. But as I said, even if you assumed they did as much defense spending as us with the same total as now, there would still be much more left over than the U.S. has.

Yes the U.S. helped Europe in WWII. And France backed our glorious revolution. So what.

As for Bill’s assertion that defense is the one thing we do well, the mind boggles . . .

Jun 22, 2007 - 2:38 pm Miracle Max:

Fred — it was no less fact-filled than your original comment.

Jun 22, 2007 - 2:58 pm Bill:

Yeap, the mind boggles….We are the only superpower left in the world…the mind boggles…we crushed the Iraqi army in 1991 the 4th biggest army in the world at the time….the mind boggles…..Since 1812 our country has never been invaded…yet the mind boggles…we toppled Saddam in what 9 days the fastest military victory in the history of the world….but the mind still boggles….We went from no army to the world’s biggest and best in 5 years from 1941 to 1946…but the mind boggles…we fought the world’s most populous country on their home turf to a stand-still 4,000 miles from our shores…but your mind still boggles…

I repeat Defense is the only thing the Federal government has done right in the last 150 years…

Now compare that record to the liberal record. Secure retirement for citizens …not looking good.. eradication of poverty ..failure. World hunger…still there…fight on Aids, Malaria, Cancer….not going so well…war on drugs…failure…Medicare…complete failure…food stamps…spotty record at best..

Yes the mind boggles that people still look to the government to solve problems that have nothing to do with government…liberalism/socialism/communism has been a complete failure wherever it has been tried. Yet people still want to try it. That is what boggles the mind…

Jun 22, 2007 - 3:27 pm John M:

I understand the basic economic theory behind birthrates, it’s just that the theory doesn’t always apply with 100% certainty. If rich nations stop having kids, the poor nations should be having lots. That’s why I mentioned China which will become old long before it becomes rich. Russia’s birthrate continues to plunge even though it’s poor. Italy may be a bad example of my point, but I don’t consider that country to be an economic miracle (1% GDP growth) and it’s birthrate is dropping. On the other hand, the U.S. has been profitable for decades, yet we have experienced only a slight drop in birthrates. Birthrates are as much about optimism in the future as they are about current per capital income. By that measure, Europe as a whole, is committing demographic suicide because their birthrates are below replacement rate. I “ascribe that to socialism” with as much empirical data as you did when you stated that Europe does liberalism well.
If I “assumed that Europe spent as much money as the U.S. does … that they would still have more left over”, is, I believe, an argument that you would have a difficult time proving because you would have to make it apples to apples which we don’t have the time or space to do here.

I never said anything about our helping France in WWII. I said we paid for European defense after WWII. Why the sarcastic comment about the “glorious revolution”? Was that necessary?

Jun 22, 2007 - 4:28 pm venividivici:

The whole “Europe does liberalism well” thread is outdated. The smartest Europeans I know have come to the US to pursue their interests, knowing that Europe offers nothing but mediocrity.

I’ve been to Europe on multiple occasions and except as a place to visit, it’s pathetic. The people are surly losers and they are just starting to realize that. As much as I can’t stand Muslims, I forsee they will be picking the carcass of European liberalism soon.

Europeans who aren’t retarded should make their way to the US ASAP.

Jun 22, 2007 - 5:37 pm Miracle Max:

John M — “Slight drop” in U.S. birthrates? Check the link I supplied.

You could compare U.S. apples to Europe apples in terms of percent of GDP. Euro countries spend 35, 40, even 45 percent of GDP in the public sector. U.S. (Fed, state & locals) is close to 30. Subtract our defense (5, 6 or more depending on how you measure) and they still have more left over). They did not build big Gov ONLY by not spending on defense.

I don’t see the decision to have three rather than two children as a matter of optimism. My income is well above median (far from rich) and one offspring is quite enough for me, thank you very much.

If you want to start unwinding history, sure the U.S. saved Europe from Hitler. But if there had been no Hitler Europe would have developed some other way, maybe well, who knows.

Bill - no question, our military is very good at death & destruction. But to me ‘defense’ is about positive goals of peace and security. Much of the d&d has not contributed to our security. Nor in my view was it a factor in the fall of the USSR, unless you think communism works just great without military threats from outside.

I disagree with most of your other ‘failures’ too (was the war on drugs a ‘liberal’ failure? Haven’t Reagan and the Bushes waged war on drugs?), but that will have to wait for another day.

Jun 22, 2007 - 6:56 pm Bill:

Max,

Has your home been invaded or bombed lately by any other country’s army? Your security and peace comes through strength. If your military is very good at “death and destruction” not too many people are going to be stupid enough to attack you.

USSR fell for many reasons. Reagan’s buildup was just one but a big one. The Pope had as much influence in events as Reagan. Communism/socialism/liberalism by its very nature needs to expand or die. You can not support an economy by destroying the wealthy or destroying the incentive to work.

So if those liberal programs are not failures why are we still paying out billions of dollars for these programs? How do you define success for your liberal programs? If the government would invest $5,000 for every baby born in a private account, everyone of those children would be financally secure come retirement time. They would not “need” the government to “give” them a check every month and the government would not need to take 15% of our LIFETIME income to do it either. Same goes for Medicare.

The war on drugs was a liberal program used by conservatives to look tough on crime. And for the record the Bushies were not conservatives. GWB is more liberal than Clinton ever was (esp where spending is concerned)

And did I understand you correctly you want to have the government take another 15% of GDP from our pockets to support these programs?

No wonder you don’t care about earmarks with that mindset.

As far as children go. Large birth rates are as much a function of education, women’s rights, tax codes, and welfare states as income.

Jun 23, 2007 - 4:31 am John M:

Yes Max, I checked the link. The average birthrate since 1949 is 2.5. Today it’s 2.0. Ok, so it’s not a slight drop, but it is not below replacement rate, which was the point of my using it to highlight the failed nature of the European social democratic state. The decision to have 1 child versus 2 or 3 is personal, sure, but there are massive demographic consequences when society as a whole makes that choice, as Europe has done. Part of that consequence is that you no longer have the population growth (read:tax base) to support the social demographic state. That requires a much higher birthrate than Europe has. We can argue about it, but I believe when an entire society makes the conscious choice to commit demographic suicide, it’s about much more than per capital income.

What is with you ascibing WWII comments to me? I said nothing about Hitler, or protecting Europe in WWII. Stop writing as though I did. Let me repeat myself for the third time, to which you have yet to provide a response that did not involve some kind of redirection. What I said was that if Europe had been responsible for its own defense POST WWII, they would never have been able to construct the social demographic state that they have now. And you cannot use % points representing percentages of current GDP to make that argument either. For Europe to have provided the SAME level of defense in absolute $$, or pounds, francs, whatever, that we provided them for 50 POST WWII years, I repeat my assertion that Europe would not have been able to become the social democratic state that it now is. What they have constructed today is as a result of U.S. largesse. If Europe “does liberalism well,” as you say, they have done it with someone else’s money.

Jun 23, 2007 - 6:48 am Miracle Max:

Sorry if I mixed up the remarks of the dynamic duo of John & Bill. What is relevant to both their remarks is the question of whether or not U.S. defense spending was way more than necessary. I think it was excessive, boosted by a string of unnecessary military operations. Europe could have replaced it at much lower cost. In fact, you could argue that all our installations in Europe were not the real deterrent. It was our nukes, a relatively cheap part of the arsenal.

Europe’s low defense spending and aid from the U.S. was intertwined with U.S. interests. The U.S. did not want Germany to rearm, at least not until recently. It’s not clear how much more defense spending in Europe was desired by Washington. There was never much of a fuss about it, just a sideshow debate about ‘burden sharing.’

Aid to Europe of course financed U.S. exports. That was a mutual deal as well.

I don’t think it works to imagine some kind of isolated Europe and claim its social-democratic policies would not have worked. It’s like speculation about if the south had won the Civil War.

There’s a lot of fuss about aging Europe, not much hard facts about its problems in that vein. Of course, as I wrote in my previous PJ column, immigration will help Europe in this regard, as it helps the U.S.

Jun 23, 2007 - 2:40 pm Bill:

Max,

I guess all those SOVIET tanks on the border, the EAST GERMAN wall, all those Soviet divisions massed on the border were a figment of the West’s imagination.

No need to match their strength. We would have just nuked all of Europe to stop the Soviet advance. Yeah right.

NATO was formed because Europe was unable to defend itself after WW2. Britain had lost or was in the process of losing large sections of its empire due to its inability to fund its army, France lost it’s empire in North Africa and was in a bloody civil revolt in Indochina. History always trumps economics’ theory.

To secure the world peace the USA was FORCED to stand up and become the world’s policeman for freedom. Due to the USA’s military might, the world peacefully (more or less ) changed hands from colonial powers to that of self rule in most parts of the world. Korea and Vietnam were the exceptions. India, Japan’s former colonies, North Africa, the Middle east etc were the rule.

But this spending was “excessive”. Maybe we should have just stood down and let the world fall into chaos and regional wars so your liberal buddies could gain more control over the pocketbooks of Americans. After all, the army isn’t in the liberal camp so why give them money? Because you know, that money can be given to the poor so they will vote more often for us liberals, right?

Jun 24, 2007 - 7:54 pm Fred Beloit:

Max, I wasn’t making an argument that required a backup of facts. I was merely making an observation about humankind.

Jun 25, 2007 - 7:32 am

Write a Comment

Name:	(required, displayed)
Email:	(required, not publicized)
URL:	(optional, displayed) remember personal info?
Comments: