Howard Dean Is Right On Healthcare

I have been been a fan of Howard Dean since he ran for President in the 2004 race. He would have been a better candidate than John Kerry. He had good ideas. Unlike Kerry, he spoke his mind, which may have been what killed his campaign. Since he's a doctor, he's seen he's seen this country's healthcare system close up.

When he says the lobbyists and special interests, working through the last must-have votes in the Senate like Joe Lieberman, have made this bill worthless, or even making the healthcare system worse rather than better, I believe him.

It's time to put a public option or Medicare expansion option back in. If the bill won't get 60 votes, get 60 votes to bring cloture and cut off a Republican filibuster. Then go for a vote that only requires a majority of 51 Senators.

If such a plan fails, and the Senate passes something that it total garbage like the present bill, hopefully, they will be forced to revisit the issue and clean up healthcare in the coming years. But the Medicare Part D legislation, creating the doughnut hole that funnels money to the pharmaceutical industry while benefiting few people who can figure out the arcane rules, is not a good precedent. It is speeding the bankruptcy of the US, providing nothing like the benefits that it should for such huge costs.

Give Obama a Chance on Afghanistan

The fact that Obama is taking flack from both the Left and the Right indicates that his policy on Afghanistan is probably about right. The Democrats are complaining that he is the tool of the generals. If he were a Republican, I would worry more about this argument, but I believe that Obama's natural tendency would be to not to go with the generals' recommendations. That means that they must have some good arguments and that they will have to produce results or he will turn against them. Furthermore, I have more confidence in Bob Gates and Hillary Clinton than in most politicians or bureaucrats and am encouraged that they are on board.

I am not personally convinced that we currently need to be fighting in Afghanistan. I think that Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld gave the Afghan war short shrift. They didn't really care about it; they cared about Iraq. The troops who died there were not appreciated, starting with Pat Tillman. Bush, Cheney and company were cowards; they were draft dodgers during the Vietnam War, and they hid during the 9/11 attacks. They felt they had to do something in response to 9/11; so, they sent troops to Afghanistan, but their heart was not really in the war, which is why all the troops, equipment and money went to Iraq.

Now that Obama is in office, Afghanistan if getting the attention it deserves for the first time. It deserves attention because Americans are dying there and we are spending billions there. Basically, I think Obama is saying to the military, "Okay, you've been in Afghanistan for eight years, but you've never had the manpower and resources to do the job. And you've never really been told was your mission was. Now, we are going to give you the men and resources to carry out a limited mission. You have 18 months. At the end of that time, if you've succeeded, or if it looks like success is impossible, we'll pull out. If something unexpected happens, we'll reevaluate then." So, the military has a chance to prove itself, after being given just the back of Bush's hand for eight years. We owe it to those who have died over the last eight years, and perhaps to the 3,000 who died on 9/11.

Time To Change Recession Strategy

It's time for the US to spend its money where it's needed, for the common people. The NYT article on debt repayment points out the problems facing the US if it borrows a ton more money for another stimulus or further bailouts. The main beneficiary so far of the taxpayer largess has been Wall Street, which got us into this fix in the first place. It was initially necessary to save the banks and the financial system, but now the idea seems to be that if we make the Wall Street financiers insanely, obscenely rich, some of that wealth will trickle down to ordinary people. It's not happening, as the 10% unemployment rate demonstrates.

Everybody says we need more jobs. So, why doesn't the government create jobs, rather than throw money at the banks and the Wall Street fat cats? It could do this more or less the way FDR did, just create make-work jobs. Construction projects only go so far, since we now have a lot of women and older men in the work force. One office version of make-work would be data entry. The government must have tons of data that it would like to have, or it could get started on computerizing medical records.

Another helpful step would be to impose a year or two of compulsory public service on all young people when they finish their studies, or when they are 18. We wouldn't need to impose a military draft, but military service would be one way to fill the compulsory service requirement. We need more soldiers, and we need fewer people entering the labor market. The compulsory service could be in the US, working in slums, or doing menial work in hospitals, or doing environmental conservation work, or many other things. They could also serve in the Peace Corps, or in the military. The military claims they prefer the all-volunteer Army, but these people could be cooks, or clean latrines, or do other menial work that the military now contracts out for much higher fees that the young people would get. They could get something like $10 per hour, and if they are married and have children, one spouse could be paid the same amount to stay home and take care of the children, thus doubling their income. They would generally live in barracks or group housing and eat in group cafeterias or mess halls, but in some cases could get food stamps or other subsidies as needed for a family living alone. Some young people would opt to serve in the military, thus easing the recruiting strain created by fighting two wars.

We needed Geithner and the bailout when we were on the verge of going over the financial cliff at the end of 2008. But that's over according to the economists. We're growing again. So, let's break up the banks that are too big to fail, raise taxes on the rich, give jobs to people who need them, and prevent young people from entering the labor market immediately by requiring a yar of two of public service.

One other thing -- raise interest rates. Everybody says that raising taxes and interest rates will kill the recovery. Okay, but save the ordinary people by giving them government jobs. Then let the rich fend for themselves if the recovery stumbles. They might have to sell one of their four houses. Good!

The perverse effect of keeping the recovery going is that it is creating the same asset bubbles that got us into this mess in the first place. Low interest rates are a primary culprit. We at least need some minimal interest. It's ridiculous that banks can borrow from the Fed at zero percent and then charge 25% or 30% to their credit card holders. There should be some cost of money to discourage the creation of new bubbles by the greedy barons of Wall Street. Ask Paul Volker!

Wall Street Salaries Are Too High

Everybody is talking about Wall Street salaries being too high, but this article in the Washington Post by the organization that runs the Rhodes scholarship program is what put me over the top. He says that the huge differential between business salaries and public service or academic pursuits is pushing more and more Rhodes scholars into the business and financial world, which means that a big percentage of the America's best talent is going to one place, and areas that need the best people -- to keep us out of war for example -- don't get any.

Something needs to be done. I don't see how you can regulate salaries in general to get at the huge salaries in business and finance, although a very few are being regulated under the bailout program. The problem is really the huge gap between them and everybody else, even including doctors and lawyers, according to the article. So, I propose a huge tax on huge incomes. It could start at say $1 million annual income. Increase the marginal tax on income over $1 million at something like 50%. Then maybe tax income over $10 million at 70%. Annual income over $100 million at 90%. These rich people will have so many loopholes, deductions, credits, etc., that the actual net tax on them will be much lower.

In addition, to level the income gap, there should be less preference for income generated from financial transactions and activities. Capital gains and dividends should be taxed at a higher rate. One old justification for lower capital gains taxes was inflation, but there is no inflation anymore. Another argument is that low capital gains taxes encourage innovation and entrepeneurship. Okay, but limit that advantage to income that actually comes from innovation. Give the break only to those who fund startups. There shouldn't be a lower tax for people who buy IBM or Walmart today and sell it for a profit in a week or even many years later; they didn't create IBM or Walmart.

Similarly, an argument for dividends is that corporations already pay income tax, and thus dividend income is taxed twice. But like rich individuals, few corporations pay anything like the full corporate tax (35%?) on their full gross income. They have many credits, deductions, writeoffs, etc. You could also tax the first relatively small amount of dividends at a lower rate, to encourage investment by individuals, but tax dividends at a higher rate for individuals who receive more than $10,000 or $20,000 annually in dividends.

It's easy to tax people who earn a salary, but difficult to tax people's income from business and financial activities. Thus, you can be pretty sure what an average worker's gross income is, but it's much more difficult to know for someone involved in business and finance. That argues for even higher taxes on the rich, because they will evade taxes anyway.

The recent dust-up about people who were hiding money in secret bank accounts overseas and not paying taxes on the income is just one example of the problem.