So glad you pointed this out.

The Republicans have figured out that there are two ways to get rid of something: call it welfare or call it a tax. And here we have welfare paid for by taxes...Oh My!!

But never fear- personal private tax-deductible interest-bearing individual accounts will save all!

Napablogger

Ok, how about welfare for the rich then? My step father gets medical from his employer that he retired from, veterans medical, and medicare. And he could easily afford to pay his own insurance himself. And most of the people who get social security and medicare can afford their own insurance, so why are we paying for all this? We are busting the budget, taking money from people at the bottom of the work scale to give free medical to mostly people who don't need it. The people who do need it don't get enough. These systems are absurd and have to change. I believe that is a lot closer to Samuelson's point.

recognize them for what he says they are: welfare...

I have no issue with this... of course, there is "corporate welfare" too... The problem, mostly-- I think, is greed because, "as long as it's for your welfare," it's good welfare.

Politicians tell us: "don't talk about classism..." That's the bigger issue I think.

Samuelson represents Social Darwinism at its most vicious. 

He certainly doesn't represent the sense of community which stretches back at least as far as Plymouth and Boston in the early 17th century.  Nor does he represent the values embedded in the preamble to the United States Constitution:

We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

John Winthrop, way back in 1630, explained that our differences in means and capabilities worked for the common good:  that

...every man might have need of others, and from hence they might be all knit more nearly together in the bonds of brotherly affection

So let me propose a novel approach...stop running from the term "welfare".   We need to recognize that belonging to a community means caring for each other...in every meaning of the verb, care.  Samuelson's approach foreign to the best instincts of the American community, period.

aMike

Robert Samuelson can go to hell. Let's add universal single-payer health care to the list also and end the disgrace of so many Americans not having medical care while we spend billions on unnecessary wars.

Tom

Some thoughts in no particular order --

As a comment on our political culture Samuelson's criticism of the annual Kabuki-like debate over the budget and its deficits is probably fair; as a comment on macroeconomics it is intellectually suspect.

Each party, promising to "eliminate" the deficit, plays to a substantial part of its base -- Republicans railing about "spending" and Democrats about "unfair taxing." And as a Democrat I fault my party. Why?

Because deficits, as Cheney once pointed out, "don't matter" -- not, as Darth Vader himself would have it, because they're not a winning political issue (they're not) but because at any reasonable level they are good for the economy. Note: 41 deficits in the past 47 years and the American economy performs quite well, thank you.

Americans should be given to understand that deficits are 1) insurance against deflation and the depressions that follow as night follows day and 2) a principal support for the United States dollar in its role as the world's reserve currency by providing secure investments for non-US surplus trade earnings (Treasury bonds). End deficits and we lose these two great economic benefits.

Democrats should stop complaining about deficits and learn to love them because they are truly lovable.

Each time I see someone having to respond to some Republican talking point I'm reminded how the most damaging aspect of America is the loss of independence of the public dialog - the press and media. We got into a war based on massive and obvious lies because no one in the public square was allowed to point out the lies without having themselves and or their careers threatened or destroyed. Everything repeatedly seems to come down to that.

So Greg Anrig, Jr. here deconstructs the Republican lie that's just another regurgitation of Ronny Reagan's "Welfare Queen" racist fantasy spread over America. How many people read Anrig? How many people will hear and read that Social Security and Medicare are welfare?

Ian Welsh at "The Agonist" had an excellent post the other day daring to point out an obvious fact. The return on investment in the American military is a travesty. I'll put it in even simpler terms. Since World War II, how many wars has America been in and how many has it won? How much money has that cost? Without doing a google search I can think of Panama and Grenada as two wars that maybe America won. The others? At best a draw and at worst a humiliating defeat. All at costs and prices that would make even the gaudiest Reagan fantasy welfare queen seem the bullshit that it was and is.
http://agonist.org/ian_welsh/20070212/the_us_military_american_boondoggle

The Iraq war is the glorious extension of the welfare queen war. It's been largely privatized. Much of the military welfare funds go directly to the Republican military industrial welfare queens. And they wouldn't be caught dead in something as gauche as a Cadillac. Buy American? That's more hype for the rubes.

Look at the military budgets since World War II. Look at the funds those budgets represent. Look at what America has gotten for those funds. The ROI. Compare the value to America that those funds have generated to the value that the Social Security and Medicare funding has generated, especially prior to the recent corporate welfare add on brought in by the Republicans. Which one is more like welfare? Which one is the real welfare queen?

Yet one can never ever question the defense budget. The immaculate welfare queen.

Up to a point. As long as the deficit growth rate is no higher than that of the economy ,OK. And if it does increase at a more rapid rate, as long as the absolute level does not exceed some proportion of the GDP-say 100%,OK .

But if it exceeds both criteria for some time investors would decide not to buy the bonds we issue to cover it. So interest rates would go up and employment down . And traders would stop holding $s so import prices would go up .

And we'll have achieved an unlovable stagflation.

Brad,

You write, "But as a general rule, if conservatives are open to a reasonable discussion of taxes, liberals ought to be open to a reasonable discussion of who should get entitlements."

Can you name a single conservative in federal office who has been 'open to a reasonable discussion of taxes' since the H.W. Bush administration? --Greg

I've read the article three times and I can't figure out what Samuelson proposes as an alternative. Well, I can guess, but (like him) I know it's completely stupid and politically inviable to propose a return to the Colonial Era economic system.

The reason he mislabels the phenomenon he sees in formation is because he realizes that it already has a proper name and The People are close to accepting it. It's called social democracy. And every Modern Age society concludes it to be the most adequate solution.

That leaves us with some room to speculate about Samuelson's motivations, but it's too simple- he's just a reactionary.

Can you name a single conservative in federal office who has been 'open to a reasonable discussion of taxes'...

And how many conservatives would give up their federal pension and benefits?

I heard that many "red states" were against ending "social security" because they're in states like Idaho, etc... which aren't like NY or California where people make money hand over fist...

In those areas, without social security and other cash infusions, the people would suffer mightly.

Re: Same with Medicare: Increase the premiums of those with higher incomes; increase their co-pays, but don't leave them at the mercy of Anthem, or the many other insurance companies which penalize those who actually, um, get sick.

The elderly still have to buy supplementary polices ("medigap") to cover what Medicare doesn't. I think there must be some kind of federal regulation that requires the insurers to use group rating, since my father's policy, despite major health problems, was quite reasonably priced (for health insurance that is). This is NOT an argument for abandonning Medicare, just pointing out that it is possible to cover people with group policies that are not issued thru an employer.

"Social Security is "welfare" in some sense because, if you are disabled, you can collect it." --> Only if you contributed to it during the time you were working. It is still very much more like insurance, because you can get the benefit if you are unlucky enough to require a disability benefit at a younger age. Still NOT welfare.
"I think that some children can also collect social security." --> Only if their parent contributed to it and died when their children were minors. Sounding more and more like insurance, and less and less like Welfare, eh?

And by the way, doomkoff, you either rate a comment negatively, or reply to it.

Jan Knaus

I don't know. Why don't you look it up? Jan Knaus

George W. Bush - mega-rich and mega-stupid.

Tom

Say It Loud.  I'm Liberal and I'm Proud!

As Orwell observed, adding or subtracting from a language increases or decreases the concepts you can form in it. References to Africa, or indirect usage of things from African languages, are a good case in point.

I have a clan of close friends, who range from immigrants from Sierra Leone into the second generation. Some have intermarried with people who have been here for generations, and others have stayed within pedigrees in which all people can directly and recently can point to all blood relatives having been born in Africa.

They've told me that they dislike African-American, because they feel the term has been taken from them: Americans who actively remember Africa.

OTOH, there are some less-than-obvious contributions to our language that are relegated to being called "inner city" or "ghetto" language. If you listen closely to the usage, there are verb tenses that exist in this dialect, common in certain African languages, that simply do not exist in standard American English -- yet are compact ways to express certain ideas.

Languages often have unique words or language structures that reflect culturally important things. Russian, I understand, has more vernacular ways to describe states of of depression than many American psychiatrists have in technical language. Finnish is rich in ways to express complex familial relations. Arabic, I am told, has a range of words to describe the state of camel dung. English, especially American English, has an unusual range of words to describe kinds of laughter.

Apropos of perverting, I'm reminded of Robert Heinlein's 1956 novel, The Door into Summer, which, without too many spoilers, describes time travel between 1970 and 2000. It's especially interesting since we can see the results of some of the predictions, some being quite accurate, others missed either because we found another way to solve the problem, or the particular technology hasn't been implemented, or we did it much earlier.

Heinlein's protagonist mentions one word from his 1970 vocabulary that nearly got him punched in 2000. Remember, the book was first printed as a serial in 1956, so it must have been written a year or two earlier.

The word is "kink". Now, in 1970, I think I heard it with sexual connotations, but I suspect it came into more general use that way a while later. How did he predict that word for perversion?

For that matter, I was remodeling a house built just after WWII, with an addition put on about 1952. Tearing down the badly built addition, we found where newspapers had been stuffed into the walls, presumably for insulation (and tinder). One, which I wish I had saved, was from a New York City tabloid, covering the triumphant return of Douglas MacArthur from Korea. The headline? Mac Returns. NYC Gives Gay Welcome.

--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

A favorite American indoor sport.
--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

Well, one or two other indoor sports do involve mats...mattresses...couches...

--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

Re: Medigap is great, and treats the elderly like a group. I'm talking about taking them off Medicare, which was what I was responding to. That is when the feces hits the fan.

True, with one objection: if seniors are placed in a risk pool with everyone else (i.e., younger, healthier people), it would be possible to eliminate Medicare (though this would end up being something very much like single payor since the risk pool and the payment pool would include everyone). Medigap covers about 20% of the medical expenses for seniors who have such policies. Even with group rates those reasonable premiums would be impossible for many if multiplied by a factor of five.

Let's call rePublicans what they are, GREEDY BASTARDS.

Nah, it would be a a "Jump to Conclusions" mat. You see, it would be this mat that you would put on the floor... and would have different CONCLUSIONS written on it that you could JUMP TO.

Liberals cannot bring themselves to admit that taxes need to be raised on more than the rich.

The root of Social Security's problems are in the funding decisions in the 1980s that transfered huge portions of low and middle income payroll taxes to the General Fund of the United States, thereby reducing the tax burden of the wealthy.  This is the simple truth.

The constant defense of the wealthy as not being able to pay their fair share is the most ridiculous line of argument in public debate today. 

"...Even counting Social Security and Medicare, the U.S. ranks well behind other industrialized countries in the share of GDP it spends on social programs – nudging out only Ireland...".

Ireland is in an economic boom and Western Europe is stagnant relatively speaking. The eastern Europeans are also enjoying 7%, 8%, 9% growth in the last full cycle.

Whats your point Greg in comparing us in being behind other nations on welfare? France is now offering guaranteed housing to all, and how many months of guaranteed vacation....and oh, now the latest is the right to sleep at work.

Let's race to the bottom of that heap.

Your mention of how generous they have been and how as a percentage of GDP we are so stingy,...Would sure be nice if we didnt have to first liberate their enslaved butts, then pay for their rebuilding of an entire nation and then for half a century tax our own citizens that were wounded fighting to free their soil in order to defend them from the Soviet threat.

Then when they complained we wouldn't really come and defend them if the Soviets did invade, the other half of the society lead the anti nuke movement to tell us that the Soviets would play nice if we lay down first.

In the mean time without a defense budget they could squabble over who could sleep at work and the tourist dollars were not worth the trouble of giving directions to visitors.

Finally our protection and leadership paid off and after 50 years the Soviet threat disappears...magically. Now the vacations and brie and low birth rates has created a aging popualtion that requires young workers to sustain their bloated socialist utopia. So they import the abundant youth of the Islamic world. Now the French are suffering from an intifada that has created more Police casualties than an average day in Baghdad.

Thats the model you want to imitate? If they want to race to the bottom of the heap, why should we try to beat them to the bottom?

For a quarter of a century, in peacetime, we have enjoyed non stop growth, with the exception of the brief Clinton recession which in fairness followed the Kosovo war, and we have had continued growth, cut taxes, while waging a multi front war and still are beating the crap out of the lethargic western Europeans economically.

We defend them, we give to Africa, we financially host the corrupt money pit at the UN and we still walk all over the Industrialized world in general. Because we are bullies? no because we do it better....everyday. So again, why should we race to the bottom of the heap?

Samuelson is right.

A quarter century... back to 1982... Including the Regan-Bush recession of 1989?

The race to the bottom is the race to the SOCIAL bottom, led by the US.  Others trade with us without penalizing us for our irresponsible social policies.  Consequently, they find themselves economically disadvantaged.

King, you are so full of so little but what you have failed to expell over the last quarter century.... I cannot think how to finish this in decent company... 

Here's the link...
ABC News Video

First impressions: You are incorrectly conflating two different populations and two different statistical analyses in your characterization, rich/poor and conservative/liberal. Even Stossel didn't go that far, he just presented the two different sets of statistics with no explanation of how they were actually unrelated sets of numbers.

The only place anything even approaching actual values were given were in the rich/poor graph, and even those "appeared" to be based on percentage of income, though that was not made obvious. The SCCBS survey referenced apparently included both religious and non-religious giving in the total, as well, which seems a bit at cross-purposes to the focus of the video report. (I believe the survey data they used for the graph in the report is the one at this site, c. 2000, tho it is not specified in the video...)

SCCBS data sets

(not the easiest link to find, btw... went through 2 intermediate reports/sites before I finally got to raw data)

My take: This was a typical John Stossel production, long on theatrics and rhetoric, short on actual analysis. Don't be too impressed. The book being sold by the video may have better data behind it... if I can find a copy to review (without explicitly supporting conservative causes monetarily), I'll check that out as well.

Other potential factors not explicitly presented:
Charity can often have a local focus: do wealthier communities give less percentage-wise because there is less of a perceived local need?

What is the breakdown on charitable giving for local causes vs. remote?

What is the breakdown on religious vs non-religious giving? What types of giving if any are included/excluded?

John, Keep in mind that neither Medicare nor Medicaid existed until 1965. Also Social Security was expanded enormously from the 1960s onward, particularly by gradually including broader classes of workers to make it virtually universal and by indexing benefits to inflation. Both those changes greatly increased the size of the program but also significantly enhanced its effectiveness as well. --Greg

I rated this a 4, because there was only a 0 rating. While I disagree with a good deal of it, I can't call it trolling. It's a reasonably literate presentation of memes. I can answer some of these, as opposed to more trollish posts that are fairly incomprehensible.

From what I read, one of the core premises seems to be that the US spent huge amounts to defend Europe, which is largely true. My initial caveat would be that some nations of Europe spent significant amounts on defense, with economies in varied shape after WWII.

There appears to be another premise, however, with which I disagree: that the US gained no benefit from funding a forward defense, of which the front lines were in Europe, and for that matter in Japan and Korea. For a good deal of the Cold War, there were large numbers of military professionals that expected, with little warning, the Eighth Soviet Guards Army to start pouring through the Fulda Gap into Germany. While I am not certain how much we knew about it at what time, it is clear from fUSSR released documents and declassified US intelligence documents, that the Soviets expected to make routine use of chemical weapons. The big question was whether they would use tactical nuclear weapons from the outset.

Western strategists disagree as whether or not Soviet (and possibly NATO) tactical nuclear weapons would escalate into a full-scale exchange between the US and USSR. I believe it was in the world's interest to try to contain the Soviets to Europe, blunting their penetration as fast as possible.

European countries vary to the extent they have created "socialist utopias". I find it a dubious proposition that they consciously invited Muslim guest workers to prop up the tax base. TJ, are you serious that the French intifada has killed as many daily as in Baghdad? For that matter, what about civilian deaths?

--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

Re; Others trade with us without penalizing us for our irresponsible social policies. Consequently, they find themselves economically disadvantaged.

Huh? why should others care (from an economic perspective not a moral one) about our social policies and how are they economically disadvataged? This sounds like a hyper-moralistic sermon that (if were just talking about sex instead) would resonate quite well in the mouth of Jerry Falwell.

Brad,

I think you agree with him more than you realize.

Basically borrowing from the Trust fund is what has allowewd the taxes on the wealthy to be cut.

My friend Blueslord from Actual Jihad has translated an article from the French paper Le Figaro which indicates that this year police casualties will reach 15% of the total police force:

"Violent acts are rising in an exponential proportion", says a speaker from the Police. "If this tendency continues, we will have 15% of the policemen hurt in a year".

The two paras conflict. The first says "will" reach 15%, but the quote says "if the tendency continues...".

And the two jobs--US forces in Iraq and French policing, are about as different as can be.  The police can't sweep a neighborhood preemptively, do not drive in armored vehicles, and have to expose themselves (properly) to the crush of life. Can we assume that French police inuries will consist mostly of bruises and cuts from thrown objects? (Not that it's any fun to catch a thrown rock; it can be lethal.) I don't think they face IEDs and rifle fire.

There are no Islamo-fascists. There are Islamists. What they want is not the same as what Mussolini, Hitelr, and later, Stalin imposed. You are trying to muddy the rhetorical water.

And since all states follow their interests, and do favors only in the expectation of return favors (like most people), it is not accurate to maintain we liberated France out of Mother Teresa saintliness. We felt it was in our interest to defeat Germany.

Don't believe the French have forgotten that we came to their aid, but we can't live on that. And since they can claim some credit for helping us achieve independence, let's call it even.

job loss and job insecurity are HUGE understudied health care issues

Dr. Rick Lippin

Tom, You and I have been over some of this ground before, but lets hit some of these again.

Taking a single component out of history to predict what would have happened is an inexact science, but I think your last point is an old canard and can not be even considered "even".

Having naval support from the French was indispensible. This is definitely an example of the French acting out of selfish interest against the British. Nonetheless, it can be argued that without the French ships, the insurgency could have hobbled along or even faltered, but would have been revived at the very least by the end of the century when the British were tied up with Napolean. If you want to argue that he also was helping us, then remove the french from the historical picture and there would have been another European power for Britain to contend with. As your friends on the left often contend, fighting a determined insurgency long distance is a long war and can only be acheived if you are not challenged at home, which Britain was and would have been. Americans had become irreconcilably different from the Distant British and the distance and philosophies would have ensured their separation. Do I appreciate the French ships during our Revolution , yup.

WWI and WWII, the amount of deaths, the degree of slaughter, the size of the risks, there is no comparison. The French were negligent in their apathy going in to the war and their loss of their own territory in WWII. They fought against us on many occasions and put our men at risk as we fought to save them. We didn't just supply a naval blockade, we waged the most ambitious amphibious invasion ever and fought mile after mile to win their country back...TWICE! It is not even. And their current irresponsible and criminal behavior in the UN is more evidence of their not realizing that we will have to save their butts again, ...this time though, it might already be over for them.

Fascists? Stalin was not a fascist. A definition of fascism became confused in the 1960s when people started referring to President Johnson, Scoop Jackson and Bob Hope as Fascist. Fascism as it refers to socialist movements in Italy and Germany refers to the concept that the Individual exists only to feed the State. The State is a living entity whose existence supercedes in importance all other entities including Individuals, the Church and any corporation. Where as Communisim insists on state ownership of the means of production, fascism could best be described as Radical regulation, where corporations need not be owned by the state, because they can be commanded to serve the state. The brutality and chauvenism of the state and the compulsion to worship the state is a common trait of Communist and National Socialisim or fascism, but these are byproducts of the primary dogma of destroying the primacy of the individual. Any movement that promotes excessive regulation or excessive nationalizing of private property will eventually tend towards Statism such as Fascisim or Communism. The other obvious byproduct is the ever expanding state. Another byproduct of the three states mentioned is a hatred of American values such as, the primacy of the individual, the concept of a state that exists by the consent of the governed, bill of rights, Natural law or absolute truths such as inalienable rights endowed by our creator, representative government, etc. These rights are abhorrant, disgusting and threatening to the primary dogma of fascism and must be destroyed.

Islam is not inherently hostile to America and its way of life. There are Wahhabist, Islamic Brotherhood, Al-Qaeda, Hojjatieh, and a number of other radical misinterpretations of Islam that have generally expanded in the last 200 years. The reason they are Islamo-fascists is because they share all the same traits of the Fascists, with the minor exception of the authority by which they call for the supremacy of the state and degradation of the individual.

Al Qaeda, proposes an ever expanding worldwide Jihad that through Sharia, will install a brutal state centered regime that will manage every imaginable detail of peoples lives. Corporations will exist only to serve the state. The brutality, chavenism, and hegemony of fascisim are integral components of their shared goal of destroying the central pillar of Western culture and that is the Idea of Liberty and the primacy of the Individual.

I really don't care whether Hitler used a cross in the Nuremburg rallies or if Mussolini wanted us to admire Roman symbols, because when their Warriors come over the hill, it just doesn't matter. When the Jihadis come over the hill or in our case run into our buildings, I don't want to understand their feelings or why they hate the constitution or want the Jews dead, I only want more ammunition to kill them for as long as it takes to make them stop coming over the hill. Its fascism and you want to make them seem like a minimal threat or a benign entity on the world stage, because you fear that someone will want to kill them. Too Late! When people said, "Remember 911", I remembered. Trying to soften their image is the wrong direction to go.

Regarding the paragraph, you quoted, read the two sentences, they are not conflicting. One says "Le Figaro...indicates...will reach 15%...". It refers to Figaro indicating. It does not mention the conditions Figaro is including in its predictions or whether Figaro is correct. Then it goes on to make its own statement that includes a caveat, and that is the "tendency continues". I hadn't read into it as deep as you did, but they do not conflict and I honestly think you are scraping for a reason to minimize the significance of the French intifada. I don't know why you want to consider it insignificant, but I don't think it is productive.

"Means-testing Social Security" is just another way of saying, let the rich who have benefited from the regressive overcharge in payroll taxes get away with not ever reimbursing it. 

It is exactly like trading with countries that put children in sweatshops.  The only way you can compete is by putting your OWN children in sweatshops.  The only way Europe could have protected its higher standard of living for the middle class would have been to establish tariffs equal to the benefits we failed to provide the middle class.

Regarding your salad bowl remark, having the different cultures and traditions is great, but there are certain American ideals about our government and how we view each other that many assume are organic and obvious concepts. These basic precepts of Western thought and American culture are not negotiable. They include the dignity of the individual and the importance of personal Liberty. Call that the dressing if you like, lol.

By the way, I forgot to mention earlier that I had not intended to imply that the French intentionally decided that their welfare state would be sustained by young muslims. Their low birth rate, the aging of their population the cultural characteristics of their former colonies and the close proximity of the Islamic states are all contributing factors to thier filling the demand with a willing supply of young labor. With the hostility towards assimilation that is so common with European immigrants, I have often pointed out how blessed we are in the United states to enjoy an immigrant population that relatively speaking assimilates rather easily. I think our people and our newest arrivals deserve credit for that.

"...To borrow from Laurel & Hardy, "This is a fine fix you've gotten us into, George!" I distinguish the contribution of Laurel & Hardy from the speechwriting done by Abbott & Costello, and the dynamic between the President and Vice President brought to you by Faust & Mephistopheles...."

If someone compared one of my most disliked politicians to Satan, I usually raise red flags that they are unserious about politics, unless it is done with enough humor to make it entertaining. This paragraph of yours, although I disagreed with the premise, it was crafted in such a creative way that I literally burst out laughing. Well Done.

That's true.

Following Ellen to keep the thread straight. 

We can find common ground on a couple things. I emphasized the percentage because it seemed you were exaggerating for effect.

I think we can agree that most European old cultures have trouble assimiliating immigrants. I read a version that goes like this: The British issue is that while they proclaim immigrants to be British, the immigrants can see they aren't accepted, while the French offer lots of services but let them know they'll never be French.

But in both cases the answer would be internal politics and/or cultural evolution.

I also exaggerated for effect in mentioning the Revolution. States have interests, not principles, because they are organizations, not individuals. The individuals within them can apply moral principles, just like a given coproration might respond to the CEO or board applying them.

In any case, the French can be annoying, but I love them anyway. Here's a howler I just heard: At Agincourt the French announced they would cut off the long finger of English archers after the French defeated them. Unfortunately for the French, they lost, and were treated to the English holding up said finger and saying "Pluck you!"  Which later became "F*** you!"; easier to say.

If this story isn't true it should be.

I have heard that story and agree even though it is sometimes challenged, it makes for a good story.

I liked this paragraph of yours:

"...States have interests, not principles, because they are organizations, not individuals. The individuals within them can apply moral principles, just like a given coproration might respond to the CEO or board applying them..."

I understand what you are saying, but it should be emphasized, that a nation whose founding principle is that a state exists by the consent of the governed is going to have its principles flow through its government to a greater extent than a state with no liberty. (I think we are talking about the same thing). The notion that democracies tend to wage war less often is based on that idea.

Regarding having no principles, only interests, Margret Thatcher once said [paraphrasing] her admiration for America is that Europe and the rest of the world had governments based on bloodlines and lineage or common culture or race, but America was unique in the fact that it was based on philosophy and anyone that believes in that philosophy is welcome to be an American. I can see why the French might struggle with this, where we, although imperfect, are more likely to assimilate easier.

I understand what you mean by the machinery of the state having interests, but "We the people" consent to a government based on principles. I think we agree on this, but just wanted to emphasize for clarity.

While Stalin was not an ideological fascist -- Stalin was less ideology and more thug -- Stalin, Hitler and Mussolini, and to a lesser extent some Latin American leaders, do fit the leader-state definition originated by Hegel and refined by Nietzsche.

As far as a direct, major Jihadi threat, the potential threat is small at present, regardless of media and politician hype. The long road is to reduce the conditions from which the Jihadis recruit, taking targets of opportunity in the meantime.

There are any number of surgical procedures -- and by this I refer to things done by physicians with sharp little instruments, not "surgical strikes" -- where you must wait for a defect to "ripen" before a definitive repair is feasible. Such a model, in the past, has applied to guerillas when they make the mistake of confronting conventional forces before they are really prepared to do so. Iraq was not the place to force battle against conventional forces, but there will continue to be opportunities to deceive and attack terrorist infrastructure and command.
--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

Overheard at the annual meeting of the church building fund committee --

"I tell you, Miss Harkins, that '55 Chevy of Grandaddy's we donated? Why that was a classic, worth at least the $25,000 we claimed. We didn't even include those two banty hens that refused to come out of it when we pulled it out of the barn."

I have very little interest in jousting with statistics

with someone whose social philosophy is so divergent from mine.  If you want to prowl around a little Statemaster is probably the best place to locate statistics of all sorts:

Welcome to StateMaster, a unique statistical database which allows you to research and compare a multitude of different data on US states. We have compiled information from various primary sources such as the US Census Bureau, the FBI, and the National Center for Educational Statistics.

I'm willing to grant that there's a degree of coercion in democracies--the majority does rule.  But I'm not willing to concede that it is any more coercive to vote taxes and bonds for schools, museums, public health and other things I call the "common good" than it is to pay for a bloated and inefficient military.  Promoting the general welfare is as much a Constitutional obligation as providing for the common defense or ensuring domestic tranquility.  I vote to educate the children I don't have because it is in my enlightened self interest to live in a well-educated community.  The states you seem to think are so terribly oppressed also happen to be the states with the highest percentage of voting age population registered to vote and the highest percentage of eligible voters voting.  The states you laud as models of charitable giving are consistently among the lowest. 

If we take Massachusetts and Mississippi as benchmark states.  Here are few comparisons:

• Per Capita Spending on Education
• Massachusetts, #7 - 1,606.85 per capita  
• Mississippi, #47 - 976.87 per capita  
• 8th Grade Students above "proficient" in writing
• Massachusetts #2 - 42%
• Mississippi #41 - 13%
• Proficient implies solid academic performance for each grade assessed. Students reaching this level have demonstrated competency over challenging subject matter, including subject-matter knowledge, application of such knowledge to real-world situations, and analytical skills appropriate to the subject matter.
• Best Educated Index
• Massachusetts #3 +14.18 above median
• Mississippi #49  - 14.31 below median
• DEFINITION: "This fourth Smartest State designation is awarded based on 21 factors chosen from Morgan Quitno’s annual reference book, Education State Rankings, 2005-2006. Featuring four new factors, this year’s award de-emphasizes spending for public schools and instead measures states based on student achievement, positive outcomes and personal attention from teachers." - Morgan Quitno Press
• Best State to Live 
• Massachusetts #7
• Mississippi #50
• DEFINITION: Livability Index by state. "To determine a state's 'Livability Rating,' each state's rankings for 44 factors were averaged. The scale is 1 to 50, the higher the number, the better. Data used are for the most recent year in which comparable numbers are available from most states. All factors were given equal weight. States with no data available for a given category were ranked based only on the remaining factors. In our book, data are listed from highest to lowest. However, for purposes of this award, we inverted rankings for those factors we determined to be 'positive.' Thus the state with the highest median income in the book (ranking 1st) would be given a number 50 ranking for this award." - Morgan Quitno Press
• Massachusetts Top Rankings (1-5)
• Mississippi Top Rankings (1-5)
• Massachusetts Bottom Rankings (last-6th last)
• Mississippi Bottom Rankings (last -6th last)

There are, of course, historical reasons for all of these things dating to the era of slavery.  My contentions is this:  That there is a correlation between public expenditures for the common good and the general welfare.  This shows in everything from the quality of the cultural life to mortality statistics. 

I'm not at all saying that people in Massachusetts shouldn't be more generous in the private sphere.  I am saying that given my choice, I would rather live in a state with Massachusetts profile, and there seems to be little evidence from any of the statistical tables that persons elsewhere "have been more than responsible with the money they have been allowed to keep".

aMike

Post Scriptum

An article in Forbes Magazine challenges the methodology used by Catalogue for Philanthopy's Generosity Index--the original source for the idea that Mississippi is the most generous.  The article is worth a read.

Paul Schervish, director of the Boston College Center on Wealth and Philanthropy and head author of the study, explained that the study, entitled as "Geography and Generosity," sought to find a new way of measuring charitable donations relative to income.

Schervish, and his colleague, John J. Havens, at the Center on Wealth and Philanthropy, used three measures of income: gross household income, gross household income after taxes and gross household income adjusted for the income tax and cost of living of each state. The result presents a very different picture of the country's charitable giving by state.

"The Generosity Index is inherently biased against high-income states like Massachusetts and Connecticut. We think our methodology is a lot fairer," commented Schervish. In fact, using his methodology Massachusetts leaps from 44th place on the Generosity Index to 11th on the Boston Foundation's list.

OK. Well my choice of the word stingy I hadn't intended to mean greed. Stingy is somewhere between thrifty which is positive, greedy which is negative. I intended it to mean, for whatever reason, they are not given it up. So greed I hadn't intended to direct at them, but hypocrisy I do.

I'm not sure why you say "likely reasons". That implies that it is a given that people would assume that Liberals would give more or at least equal to conservatives. That the idea that it is a given might be so for those on the left but not on the right. The point of the 20/20 piece and the Albert C. Brooks book, "Who really cares" is number one to give the facts, and second to point out surprises. The reason it is a surprise because Liberals are always shouting for people to be more compassionate like them and not greedy and selfish like Republicans. Most people on the right have always considered that rhetoric to be all talk and no action unless it is being generous with the money you take from someone else. To see it proven out in such extensive scientific studies is no surprise to those on the Right. They have always considered conservatives focused on personal responsibility for action, not as much focused on being an activist that convinces others to action.

Here is a very brief review on Brooks book by Thomas Sowell

Thanks for your response.

After I read your header that said "you have very little interest in jousting with statistics", I was someone disappointed because usually you have such a nice layout with nice numbers and plenty of sources. As I said before, I would have expected Ivy League Massachussets to blow doors on graduation rates on a state like Mississippi after seeing your previous link.

Then I scrolled down and you had all kinds of good stuff about how Massachussets gives almost twice as much money to the kids for education and they are so highly educated and not only that they call it a smart index. You also have a scientists from Boston College defending his states honor with more statistics to prove they give more than people say. And you show how Mass. is a better state to live and richer. They are really living well in Massachussets.

Great statistics. I am still wondering though. How is it that a wealthy state with an aging population of well educated 90% white Liberals ranks near the bottom for charitable giving, but a poor Red state with a very young 38% black population and relatively low historical wealth to reinvest in education donates what little they have and ranks near the top in charitable giving.

I'm glad you cleared up my misunderstanding of your previous link. You are right they rank very high on the rich and educated list.

Churches are not charities.  They are scams.

Brad, Of course, Social Security already is means tested in the sense that higher earners have a lower share of their past incomes replaced, with a cap set on the maximum level anyone can receive. Most liberals are amenable to adjusting those levels downward somewhat, though those kinds of changes don't save all that much because the share of elderly people with high-incomes is relatively low.

When some people talk about means testing SS, they are suggesting that upper-income people shouldn't get anything at all. That approach, though, raises big problems in that it would undercut political support for the program by making it more like welfare than social insurance. If some people pay a lot in but get nothing back, it would become more difficult to sustain. So there's a balancing act.--Greg

Re; It is exactly like trading with countries that put children in sweatshops. The only way you can compete is by putting your OWN children in sweatshops. The only way Europe could have protected its higher standard of living for the middle class would have been to establish tariffs equal to the benefits we failed to provide the middle class.

Um, American children are not in sweatshops. And in fact, the American standard of living is quite comparable with that in European countries (where do you get that Europe has a higher standard of living??!?!?), so there's no way you can say that America is some sort of "cheap labor" country with so that the Europeans have to cut their own workers' wages to equal ours. And don't forget that American social benefits are usually provided through employment in America-- a dumb system, I agree!-- (and why sdo you assume that our people do not have such benefits; most do, but pricately not publicly provided!) and that these benefits add directly to the cost of our goods, which actually puts us at a competitive disadvantage in trading with countries which provide health insurance etc. through public funding instead. America is not China, and we are not undercutting anyone by skimping on social benefits: quite the contrary, since our system is so inefficient (compare per capita health costs among major countries!) we are really shooting ourselves in the foot.

And the higher the Social Security recipient's taxable income, the higher the share of receipts returned to the government in the form of income taxes -- IRS F.1040, line 20b.

TJK--you said, When the Jihadis come over the hill or in our case run into our buildings, I don't want to understand their feelings or why they hate the constitution or want the Jews dead, I only want more ammunition to kill them for as long as it takes to make them stop coming over the hill. [emphasis added]

What if killing them is not the best way to stop them from coming over the hill?

Most of the the military experts in the US are quite clear that killing them is not the best way to stop them.

War does not determine who is right - only who is left. Bertrand Russell

Nahh. "Kill them all; God will know his own." (Arnaud-Amaury, Papal Legate during the Albigensian Crusade)

--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

Brad,

Social Security is NOT an insurance program.  For the past 70 years Americans have understood that they are entitled to a benefit of a fixed amount based on their contributions to Social Security.  Older fixed-benefit retirement programs were often carved around the Social Security benefit.  (401-K's, on the other hand, are simply slapped up in the air on a wish and a hope).  You cannot insure against getting old because their is virtually no risk involved, it is going to happen (this is a bit of an exaggeration, I admit).

The insurance label is part of the congressional bait and switch that has been going on over the years.  Social Security is a promised retirement benefit that is no different than any other retirement benefit promised to any other beneficiary group, EXCEPT in the way it is funded.  In this respect, its funding is MANDATORILY concurrent.  Because of the size of the program, it CANNOT be prefunded.  So called "prefunding" simply distorts the economy twice, once during prefunding and again when the prefunding is recovered.

Your idiotic view is based on the ENTITLEMENT view of the rich.  The RICH are NOT entitled to every dime they ever squeezed out of everyone else.  They are, at most, caretakers of funds that happen to become lodged in their possession for a short while.

The shortcoming of the SSA's T-bills is that there is no clear end point where the bills must be repaid to SSA.  Your so called "insurance" notion delays that moment indefinitely, thereby converting the "loan" from payroll taxes since the 1980s into a GIFT.  The working and middle classes do not have any reason to support such a retroactive regressive tax grab.  It is time to demand that taxes be made more progressive. 

Re: You cannot insure against getting old because their is virtually no risk involved, it is going to happen

If that's true then why is it we have life insurance since it's 100% certain that everyone is going to die.
For that matter your chances of being involved into an auto accident (assuming you drive regularly) approach certainty too, over teh coyrse of a lifetime; and ditto for your chances of getting ill, which makes health insurance alos questionable.
The reason we can isure these things is not that they are uncommon events, but that they do not happen to everyone simultaneously: there is always a larger pool of people who are not sick, in traffic accidents, on their deathbed, or retiring due to age.

Very good points. There are ways of figuring out how far to go with continuing medical care with a particular patient. My former husband actually developed a scoring system that originally was designed to evaluate only critically ill patients to allow them to be compared. The comparisons were for the purpose of evaluating patients' responses to therapy; to evaluate who needed intensive care the most (such as when there are 6 critical patients in the ER but only 5 ICU beds, for example); and also to compare one ICU's against another based on how sick the patients were to start with, rather than simply death rates, for example. [A tertiary hospital ICU will have a higher death rate than the community hospital ICU because their patients are sicker to start with, even though their care may be more efficatious]

It turned out to be such a sophisticated way to compare and evaluate patients that it is now the world standard for research and testing drugs and other therapies.

The nice thing about it is that it can predict with reasonable certainty WHO CAN MOST LIKELY BENEFIT FROM A PARTICULAR THERAPY. That is what should determine who gets care. In your scenerio, a 92 year-old who is active and healthy would receive acute care for an injury. A 32 year-old with alcoholic liver failure who has been bed-ridden for 2 years most likely would not. Why? Not because of a value judgement, but because the likely outcome would benefit the first, and would not benefit the second.

That should be the gold standard, in my opinion, in terms of treatment efforts and moneys. Not all agree with me. But they are wrong.
Jan Knaus

Re: 1. I assume you have completely forgotten the many clothing boycotts of the early 1990s, all involving sweatshops and children.

Those sweatshops are not in the US. If you Euroepans have a problem with sweatshop labor undercutting you, the US is not at fault. Talk to China et al.

2. We do not successfully compete in textiles any longer.

Neither does the US. We have the same problem that Europe does. Don't blame the fellow victim.

3. Ask your European acquaintances if their social benefits have been cut and which they might have been. It is a lot of work to educate you navel gazing wingers.

Benefits are being cut in the US too. Again, the problem is competition from low wage, low benefit countries. America, again, is not to blame.
PS: I am not a "winger". Certainly not a rightwinger. Get your facts straight about people, 'K? I haven't voted for a Republican for national office since 1994, and not for state office since 1996. I think that disqualifies me from that group.

For both of these, the moment is highly variable, so there is risk.

Hello, open your eyes.... I mentioned Europe from a normative view, not because I live there.  Thus, your comments 1 and 2 are very odd sounding.

As to 3, I voted once for a Republican back in 1980s as a protest against Chuck Robb (who is for all practical purposes a Republican himself) because there was no 3rd party.  I have carried that burden ever since, but know I will never do it again.  When I lately protested Hillary (because she is a Republican), I just refused to vote in that election.

You are a reformed winger, still talk'n the talk.  I'm what NOT a winger looks like.

May I remind you that the rating system is about the expression of a post, not whether you agree with its substance?

Let's assume you have 200,000 people do this. How will the providers be paid? Will they bill you, or must the covered people pay and you will reimburse? The latter is much simpler from an administrative standpoint, but the former is the sort of thing sick people would rather have to reduce the worry in the middle of an illness.

I'm not arguing that your continuing administrative costs can't be lower than a for-profit insurer, but setting up the administrative machinery is going to be time-consuming and expensive. If some foundation would jump-start that, it would be a big help.

Healthcare providers aren't going to be eager to work with a new payor, and the insurers will do everything they can to interfere. Are you going to be able to have covered people in one geographic area, so you have a reasonable number of providers to familiarize?

With the investment, you might be able to create a HMO, which would simplify outpatient expense. Still, in that case, unless you convince providers to contract with you (network model), you'll have the capital expense of a facility (staff model).

I don't say it can't be done, but it would not be simple. You would probably need some start-up help.

How quickly, after investing deductibles, will people be able to get benefits?
--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*