Imagining the Worst at the Worst Time

Not wanting to be outdone by Rush earlier today, Mark Levin decided to take his turn thrashing the Speaker of the House of Representatives, and added the Senate Minority Leader to the heap, imagining Speaker Boehner and Leader McConnell as colluding with Harry Reid in the Senate and the President in a concert of priorities with regard to the debt ceiling and budget.

The plan put forth by the Speaker in the house is certainly not palatable as it unfortunately does not do enough to challenge the spending problem the federal government has. And with that the Senate Leader has promised to kill the plan in favor of his own that was scored as cutting more by the Congressional Budget Office because it assumes a budget that dishonestly spends on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan at their respective peak levels over the next ten years. With no chance of passage anyway, it’s no doubt tempting to just send a dream bill that slashes as much as can be justified. Unfortunately that would only serve as a tantrum of sorts, what the Speaker has tried to do is submit something of unfortunately limited substance.

In addition to a Senate Majority leader promising to never allow even a vote on anything that can pass the house, the house minority leader incoherently accuses Republicans of wanting “to destroy”, the President lectures about dire consequences and brags about willingness to compromise while offering no plans whatsoever. In what way is there to come to an agreement with people like this? There just isn’t.

This is what a divided branch of the federal government tastes like. At his age and after winning reelection with minuscule approvals, the Senate Majority Leader probably feels invincible. The House Minority Leader comes from a district in which Republicans are outnumbered by thriving Borders stores. The President is in reelection mode and is only concerned with the public relations aspect of every machination. As a community organizer, the President thrives on public fear and anxiety of constant crisis used to force elected officials to grant favors. This successful tactic has led to amounts of debt and government bloat that is simply unsustainable.

It may be therapeutic to voice frustrations with the Speaker of the House because his bill is unpalatable but it is ultimately counterproductive. Because the Republicans only control one-half branch of the federal government and one and one-half of the branches of government are conspiring against them they have almost no leverage. They are working with unserious legislators that can only denounce opponents and promote public anxieties towards imagined chaos. The point is, when the bad is as good as it gets is no time to cannibalize.

A not so Random Traffic Hazard

This morning as I was riding my bicycle to work, just as I turned from a side street onto San Pedro I encountered an Albuquerque Bernalillo County Water Utility Authority late model Chevy Pickup driving northbound in the southbound bicycle lane. City of Albuquerque guidelines for the width of a bicycle trail on a street such as San Pedro (according to the Albuquerque Bikeways and Trails Master Plan Design Guidelines) is 5 feet or 60 inches. According to Edmunds.com the width of a 2011 Chevrolet Silverado regular cab work truck is 79.9 inches or nearly 20 inches wider than the likely width of the bicycle lane. Even if the lane is the widest recommended length (for a bicycle trail parallel to a street with traffic traveling greater than 40 MPH) of 6 feet the truck is wider by almost 8 inches. This means that the northbound utility truck in the southbound bicycle lane that I encountered this morning not only took up the entirety of that bicycle lane, it also obtruded an appreciable distance into the actual automobile travel lane.

The driver of the truck had what looked like a dustpan affixed to a handle sticking out of the window with the dustpan looking device placed just above the sidewalk. With the device sticking out of the window taking some attention it wasn’t apparent that the driver even saw a bicyclist in front of him. As the truck approached at uneven speed I noticed in my rear view mirror southbound traffic approaching at an almost perfect trajectory to pass the truck at the same time as I would imparting visions of doom comprised of me as the meat in an automobile bread sandwich. A few hundred feet in front of the approaching truck I went right on to the sidewalk, careful not to rack myself as my rigid steel fork traversed the steep incline at the end of a driveway, at what I thought would be a safe distance and moved as far right as I could as to avoid the dustpan device and passed the truck as the driver momentarily acknowledged my existence with a surprised expression, confirming my suspicions in regard to his attention level.

What in the world was that driver doing? I have made apathetic attempts today to learn if the driver’s actions were legal and cannot find anything even pretending that it’s ok for a Water Utility Truck to travel in the opposite lane so long as they are in the bike lane in traffic. I called the utility to complain and unfortunately was not able to collect my thoughts quickly enough to record any identifying numbers from the truck, only the time and the location so that led nowhere and was not given an explanation or recognition of wrongdoing.

In my own, decidedly-not-infinite-wisdom, I have a theory as to what happened. I think that the utility employee was collecting some kind of information with the dust pan device and that the probable policy involves getting out of the truck and walking the sidewalk but this employee was so lazy that instead of walking a short distance decided to drive it, no matter the hazards, in order to save time. Time that would be wasted later anyway as it isn’t hard to believe that this employee would take those savings, compared to what was allotted for the task, and use them to nap. Likely, most employees of the utility are hard working and do not take dangerous shortcuts but those employees are transparent to most people, which is by design. The employee that I had an unfortunate encounter with this morning ruins the reputation of the utility by taking special, and very dangerous, traffic privileges in a very nontransparent way. My only regret is that I did not record any identifying information nor use my cell phone video recorder to capture the moment. If there is a next time I will be better prepared.

What Will Pass Then?

Senator Jim DeMint has for many months advocated a return to the budget baseline of 2008 which would reduce outlays this year, 2011, by 1.1 trillion dollars. The deficit this year is roughly 1.6 trillion dollars, meaning that if DeMint’s plan were to be enacted the deficit would then be reduced to about 500 billion dollars, a deficit that would still be one of the largest in history and larger than any yearly deficit enacted during the last administration. Yes, every yearly deficit record now belongs to the current administration. In two budgets and counting the stimulus bill, this administration has already increased the deficit by more than a trillion dollars more than the prior administration’s eight years of budgets combined.

Most concerning, for all this spending what exactly has been gained, anything at all? Persistent unemployment currently past 9% and in reality much higher as the government decides how many people have given up and doesn’t count them, has lasted longer than at any time in history since the great depression. Roughly 40% of every federal dollar spent this year is borrowed; essentially spending 67% more than the government takes in. And nothing is better. It is baffling to understand exactly how there is nothing to show for that level of spending. It is logically and eminently reasonable to conclude that this insane level of spending provides strong proof that increased government spending probably harms and does not have beneficial effects on the national economy.

Reality is apparently of no use to the current administration. In a petulant speech last week the President blamed every spending problem on his predecessor, completely ignoring the spending of the last three years. The political party that holds a majority in the US House was identified as obstinate for being unaccommodating of the President’s plan for the debt ceiling. A plan that is not known to be recorded anywhere and when details are requested, the administration’s press secretary mocks the requestors. The President has acted as an autocrat, summoning the representative leaders of a co-equal branch and demanding unspecified concessions from an out of power party, and the only branch that has submitted an actual plan and passed actual legislation only to be refused akin to a jester delivering an ill-received routine.

This administration refuses to flatly state what it is that they want, demonizing make believe ogres of society, the so-called millionaires and billionaires, really anyone who earns more than $200,000 a year singularly or $250,000 as a couple and whom already pay a vast majority of taxes collected by the government. The opposing party is badgered as not willing to say yes, to what no one knows and nothing they do is deemed good enough. One is left to wonder, what will pass then? What plan is good enough to deal with spending that is absolutely untenable? Reality simply cannot sustain what has seemingly become the spending status quo of late and phony proposals, such as that of the senate majority leader which “saves” nonexistent future allocations. The opposition party is credited with fiscal sobriety but find themselves in the unenviable situation of having just enough power to share responsibility while being incapable of actually passing anything. Future elections have suddenly become ever more important. The current administration deserves to be passed back into private citizenship.

Simple Debt Understanding

In various bloviations regarding the approaching debt limit of the United States the president has at times mentioned that Americans can’t or don’t understand it because they just can’t contemplate all the complexities and has also mentioned that his desire for greater government revenues is supported by the American people because they understand the importance of the debt limit. Being American and all, let’s take a look at my understanding of the debt limit and see if we can put it in context, in a way in which I can understand.

The current national debt is roughly 14.5 trillion dollars. This year’s budget consists of revenue, almost all from a myriad of taxes, which amounts to about 2.4 trillion dollars. The government plans to spend about 4 trillion dollars which means that 1.6 trillion, about 40% of that spending number, must be borrowed. For this understanding, the most common asset in a person’s typical portfolio is made up of real estate. For the United States, real estate estimates are all over the place and the government maintains a Federal Excess Properties web page but no prices are listed, most guesses place land values (almost half of many western states and less in eastern ones) of about 250 billion dollars and let’s value each of the 12,000 excess federal buildings at generous 2 million dollars each and add a billion dollars to be round, leading to a government saleable holdings assessment worth roughly 275 billion dollars.

For the sakes of translation to the limited mind like mine we’ll compare the government’s accounting to a typical household. This household has a combined income of 100,000 dollars. If this household would manage their finances in a manner similar to the federal government they would spend 166,667 thousand dollars. Basically they spend every penny of their income and then buy an Audi A7 after they run out. Their shiny new Audi A7 is in addition to the 604,167 dollars in debt that they have at the beginning of the year. Think of it this way, they bought houses and things amounting to about $600k over the years to this point. But, they bought in a bad neighborhood or something and that $600k in debt led to a valuation in assets of only $11,500. So, for all their debt this household basically has nothing to show for it. If that isn’t a definition of untenable, then the dictionary is lacking in specificity.

Presented to advocates of big government no doubt the example above would be dismissed as simple, unserious and illogical. This is because of the fact that the example is entirely logical and easy to understand. And because of that, those who dismiss only it can only disparage in an attempt to discredit it or the person who made it. A smug response mentioning an absence of fancy words doesn’t mean anything other than lacking a need to hire an accountant or attorney at several hundred dollars an hour to explain the exact same thing.

Damned lies and Political Contortions

It’s certainly annoying that every vote taken by the United States congress seems to be taken at the last minute, up to the deadline and described by an Executive administration as the result of some kind of crisis and that if the vote is not favorable towards the President, then some kind of catastrophic disaster will be unleashed on our country. Unfortunately, this is where we are as a country and this kind of cycle should have been expected following the election of a community organizer as President.

Perhaps most trying within this ridiculous cycle is the constant adjustment of the message as stated and re-stated breathlessly by our self-considered bettors in the political class. The thinking behind the constant adjustments is based on the premise that the problem with the message isn’t the idea behind it but that the interpreter, the ignorant citizenry, just doesn’t understand then therefore the message must be contorted for the benefit of the unsophisticated. In reality, the problem is the message and the citizens of this country are not as crude as many politicians seem to think.

Examples of contorted messages describing nonsense abound in regard to the raising of our country’s debt ceiling. First, whatever the merits of the debt ceiling, it’s basically pointless as evidenced by the fact that the debtors are actually voting on its increase. Real people know that isn’t how it works in the real world. A normal person must request a increase in their own debt ceiling from a creditor and the creditor determines if an increase is warranted based on the worthiness of the debtor. The real debt ceiling will be reached when there is no longer anyone for the federal government to borrow from.

Advocates of big government are correct when they make the statement that our country is not bankrupt. It’s worse than that. A definition of bankrupt is an entity that cannot pay their debts. This country is 14.5 trillion dollars in debt and has many trillions more in future unfunded liabilities owed to unsustainable so-called entitlement obligations for future “benefits”; obligations that are almost always end up larger than estimated. It has been more than ten years since this country took in more in tax revenues than it spent. With that kind of discipline there can be no confidence in lawmakers to change, or demonstrate the necessary capabilities to change course on extreme spending.

A default will not necessarily occur if the debt limit is passed and not raised. A default will occur if creditors are not paid following the debt limit not being raised. The US government will take in more than enough tax revenue to service existing debt. It is at the prerogative of the executive branch to determine who gets paid and who doesn’t. Only if the President decides that social programs should be paid at the expense of debt service will there be a default. Imagine a real person, if they decided to flush a large sum of money down the toilet every month from now that they know will cost more than they have considering all other financial obligations. Will that person be able to still flush the money down the toilet when they run out of money or will they pay the mortgage and have to stop flushing the money?

Raising taxes does not necessarily increase government revenue because the tax base of a country made up of three hundred million people is not static. Theoretically, all things being the same, if the tax rate is changed then there is more tax revenue, if nothing else changes within an economy. But that nothing else changes requirement is a farce. The government should raise revenue by growing the economy by encouraging business, by actually cutting corporate taxation and eliminating needless regulations, which will increase the tax base by virtue of the enlarged employment base that comes with increased business.

Unfortunately the Republicans have begun to play the role of creating a plan that satisfies democrats and the President’s idea of a shiny “grand bargain” that he can describe a thousand different indecipherable ways but refuses to write down exactly what it is, refusing to sign anything but what is his idea but not telling anyone exactly what ‘it’ is. We’re doomed.