"Worse Than Jimmy Carter" Isn't That Bad

"Worse Than Jimmy Carter" Isn't That Bad

 

A few days ago Republican vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan took a swipe at President Obama by saying “When it comes to jobs, President Obama makes the Jimmy Carter years look like good old days”.  I'm sure that was well-received by his audience, but the statement gives us a clear insight into the reality-challenged nature of the Republican campaign.
During the Carter years 1977-1980 our economy added 10.5 million new jobs; this gave Carter an average of 2.625 million jobs per year. There is only one president in the last 30 years under whose leadership more jobs were created, and Paul Ryan apparently didn't realize his name was not Reagan or Bush. The closest any of the Republicans came as far as average annual job creation during his tenure was Ronald Reagan, who lagged 25% behind Carter at an even 2 million jobs per year. Neither Bush senior or junior managed even one million jobs per year average annual growth.
Of course there are other areas where Jimmy Carter outperformed other presidents on the economy. In the area of gross domestic product growth only Ronald Reagan among the Republicans managed to squeak out a 3.4 to 3.25 percent win over Carter, a mere four tenths of one percent difference. As before, the Bushes lagged well behind in the low two percent range.

It is only in the area of average annual unemployment that the Bush family managed to outperform Jimmy Carter, but his 6.5% annual rate is still nearly ten points better than Reagan's 7.2% average yearly jobless rate.

One of the most valued measures of the health of the economy is the amount of new housing starts, which gives a solid barometer of consumer confidence. In this area Jimmy Carter beats them all, with an average of 1.69 million starts per year. For once a Bush comes in second, with George W. pulling 1.66 million per year.

Now, you may be thinking that I'm trying to make Republicans look bad with these comparisons to Jimmy Carter but that is not my purpose at all. Obviously even the worst among the five preceding presidents had some good stats; what I am demonstrating is that the Carter years were nowhere near the economic train wreck that the Republicans would have you believe, and I should know because I lived through it. What this comes down to is the fact that, contrary to Paul Ryan's jobs comment, there is definitely room to be "worse than Jimmy Carter" and still be pretty damn good.

Wonky Means Crooked



Presumptive vice presidential nominee Rep. Paul Ryan has had to expend a lot of energy lately explaining how he and Mitt Romney can criticize President Obama's cutting Medicare costs while at the same time they plan on using those same cuts in their budget plan. 

The Affordable Care Act reduces costs to Medicare by $716 billion over ten years without reducing any benefits paid out to seniors on Medicare for services and uses those savings to pay for other parts of the health care bill. Ryan's budget plan counts on those savings in his budget plan, which Republican nominee Romney calls "marvelous". The natural question is how the two Republicans can praise and plan to use those cuts but then accuse Obama of "gutting Medicare" for doing the same thing. Paul Ryan dismisses it by saying it's "wonky". He states "It gets a  little wonky," but they can criticize Obama because he put those cuts "in the base line"; he states "We would never have done it (passed the health care law patterned after Romney's Massachusetts health care overhaul) in the first place", and because he voted to repeal the entire law it's OK for him to support the very same Medicare cuts Obama supported. But if the cuts are a good idea outside of the health care law why where they a bad idea within it? Notice they are not criticising Obama for what he's done with the cuts, but only the cuts themselves.

A google search using the terms "Paul Ryan" and "wonky" shows a plethora of articles that describe Ryan and his policies as "wonky"; one might assume they are saying that he is himself a wonk, a person who is very interested in a subject and has a broad knowledge of it.  But it should be noted that if you search for the definition of the word "wonky" the first word of the first result is "crooked", and after that you have terms like "shaky", "feeble", "whacked out" and my favorite "not working for no definable reason". Considering Ryan's establishment of this obvious distinction without a difference to explain his and Romney's attack on Obama for enacting a measure they intend to keep in force, perhaps these definitions for the term "wonky" are more apt after all.

Romney Concedes!

Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney made it clear to the entire world that he has no expectation of winning November's election by his naming Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin as his vice-presidential running mate.

The two main goals one hopes to achieve in a choice of running mate is either a widening of appeal for the whole ticket to a broader spectrum of voters or the addition of someone who can help make up for a perceived lack on the main candidate's part. Tapping Ryan for the job accomplishes neither of those goals. Romney's biggest deficit besides an almost complete lack of personal magnetism is the complete absence of any foreign policy experience. As a Congressman Ryan has had zero such exposure, having never even served on a committee related to foreign affairs. And while Ryan certainly has more magnetism than Romney, the only types of voters he tends to attract are those who should already be voting Republican.

This choice seems to scream that, instead of hoping to attract more independent and undecided voters, Romney is scared to death of losing the hard right-wing of the normally reliably Republican electorate. Ryan's appeal lies almost entirely among the Tea Party segment, who as a group care far less about what it takes to win an election, instead preferring neoconservative ideological purity above all else.  To be sure, if Romney had chosen someone  more palatable to independents like Tim Pawlenty there would probably have been some Tea Party party voters who would just opt out of casting any vote at all. Apparently Romney's advisers fear that level of abstention could be high enough to deny him victory in states that are usually considered comfortable wins for most Republican candidates.

Romney's choice of Ryan will seem to many people an act of capitulation to the hard right wing of the Republican party, and that translates to a perceived failure of leadership and an unwillingness to make a hard choice in the face of strong opposition. Surely his advisers must have realized that not only were the Tea Party activists championing Ryan's choice for running mate, but liberal Democrats as well were licking their chops at the prospect of such a dyed-in-the-wool ideologue as Ryan being chosen for the lower spot on the podium. In the final analysis choosing Ryan indicates Romney has given up going on the offensive against Obama and instead is playing defense to avoid an embarassing electoral landslide come November.

Chick fil-A boycott hypocrisy

Those who know me would not be surprised that I am a supporter of gay rights, nor would they be taken aback to learn that I am in favor of same sex couples being accorded the same rights under civil law as opposite gender couples to enjoy identical marriage rights and protections. Notice that I specified that they should be allowed identical rights to the civil institution of marriage and said nothing of religious sanctioning of the practice one way or another. There are aspects  of marriage that are entirely within the boundaries of civil law, such as property,  inheritance, tax status and decision-making prerogatives; there are also aspects that are strictly religious, such as whether  such a union is more or less “sanctified” under Christian, Jewish or any other faith or even whether it is allowed at all. I have no interest in interfering with any other person’s religious practices on the subject,  but my personal view as a Christian is that granting all aspects of the civil institution of marriage to same sex couples does nothing to endanger the sanctity of my own heterosexual union; I and my spouse are the only persons with any ability to damage that joining in any way.  If someone else’s religious view allows for the spiritual sanction of same sex marriage it likewise has no impact at all on any of the civil law aspects of that institution.

There has been a lot of publicity lately surrounding the public statements of Chick fil-A CEO Dan Cathy regarding his opposition on gay marriage and the fact that he apparently gives money to political organizations that seek to bar its acceptance.  A number of prominent voices on the political left have made statements critical of Cathy’s stance and have therefore stated that Chick fil -A’s values are not in sync  with certain geographical areas and sectors of our society.   Some of those statements have come perilously close to indicating that some persons in positions of civil authority might seek to discourage Cathy’s company from locating in their necks of the woods based on his outspoken position.

As I consider myself to be a  principled liberal I cannot support any efforts to bring any economic harm  to Mr. Cathy by way of an organized boycott of his company’s products.  Whereas Mr. Cathy and I disagree strongly on this subject,  I would not  dream of attempting to punish him in any way for exercising his God-given and Constitutionally protected right to speak his mind and follow his conscience.  I would instead say to Mr. Cathy, as Voltaire is reputed to have said,  “I disapprove of what you say, but will defend to the death your right to say it.”  I am certain that I am not alone among the liberal community in this position.

What pains me the most in this controversy is that persons in the gay community should know better than just about  any others what it is like to be punished for following their consciences. They have been beaten, arrested, fired from work and denied nearly every facet of human decency at one time or another because they followed the path they saw as what was right for themselves; how, then, can it be justified to enforce a similar type of punishment on a person who follows his own conscience in the same manner?  It might be different if Cathy were in any way discriminating against gay employees in his business regardless of their relationship status because then we will have gone beyond speech or political activism and into directly harmful behavior.  Now, if an individual chooses as a matter of personal conscience to refrain from doing business with Chick fil-A, that is one thing, but to attempt to use mass economic intimidation to punish Mr. Cathy and his business for his private behavior is about as hypocritical as it gets.

Debunking the Myth of Job Creation

An enduring myth of both economics and politics states that businesses, regardless of size, create jobs.  It is most often claimed that small businesses create the majority of jobs in our nation; it may be true that small businesses hire more workers than any other sector of the economy but it is easily demonstrated those businesses do not create any of those jobs.  If they did the solution to our current economic woes would be for more businesses to simply hire more workers, but that is an obviously unworkable idea.  If GM hired more workers to build more cars they could not hire enough workers for those employees to be able to afford to buy all the new cars the company would be producing and they would likely wind up having to lay off more workers than they had originally hired.

Businesses only provide jobs by hiring workers in response to consumer demand for goods and services.  Businesses do not create demand, they respond to it.  It is consumer demand that drives job creation, the more demand created for goods and services the more jobs will be created.  A business only hires a worker when it feels there is sufficient demand for the product that they will profit by hiring someone to do that job.

How do we increase consumer demand?  We find ways of putting more money in the hands of consumers, the majority of whom are wage-earning workers.  It should be obvious by now that continuing to give tax breaks or subsidies to businesses, while not entirely inappropriate in certain instances, will do nothing to spur job creation; and since wealthy persons on average spend a far smaller amount of their incomes on consumer purchases lowering their taxes will fail to provide any stimulus that would cause a sizeable increase in hiring.

The most direct way to increase consumer demand and create jobs is to increase wages.  The most famous example of the efficacy of this tactic is when Henry Ford instituted a five dollar per day minimum wage for his factory workers in the correct assumption that if they could afford to purchase the product they manufactured most of them would.  But his action went beyond that because the increase in their pay made it possible for them to buy other consumer goods, creating demand for other products, the producers of which had to hire more workers, again increasing consumer demand.  It is this cycle of increased wages creating greater hiring that is illustrated by the fact that at no time has there been a decrease in hiring concurrent with increases in the national minimum wage.  Whereas it would be preferable for employers to act in their own best interest and raise wages voluntarily, the fact that worker productivity and corporate profits have risen steadily over the last thirty years while wages have remained stagnant indicates this change may only be practically effected by federal legislation to increase wages.

Increasing wages is the primary means by which the private sector can increase consumer demand and it is by far the most effective, but there are other actions available to the government alone.  The first of these would be to lower taxes charged to low-and middle-income workers; this would have a similar effect on their disposable income as a wage increase, with the drawback that any resulting decrease in revenue would have to be offset by a similar cut in government spending or otherwise increasing revenue.

The most counterintuitive and therefore least popular means of increasing demand is to increase social spending on programs like food stamps and TANF.  This does create jobs because the persons to whom it is disbursed have little choice but to turn around and spend the money for food and other items that contribute to the creation of jobs for those who make the products and provide the services these individuals need.  An increase in social spending results in increased purchases, fueling creation of jobs; some of these jobs may be taken by benefit recipients, resulting in a simultaneous provision of useful employment and reduction in the nation’s social burden

The “businesses create jobs” idea is often used as a justification for either decreasing or refusing to increase taxes on higher income individuals who are assumed to be mostly business people and therefore “job creators”.  Now it has been demonstrated that it is the employees themselves who are the true job creators, and the most effective means businesses have to avoid tax increases is to pay workers more, every cent of which would be tax deductible for the employer; doing this would also increase the amount of revenue collected on the incomes of those workers, reducing any potential need to increase taxes on higher incomes.  By this process business owners do take an active part in the creating jobs and contributing to greater tax equality for all.

Indocumentados no quiere decir ilegal

En los últimos años ha habido una gran cantidad de argument gira en torno a lo que debería hacerse al respecto el problema de la inmigración illegal en este país.  Las principales propuestas que se han hecho ofrecería un vía a la ciudadanía para los inmigrantes indocumentados que han vivido pacífica y productivamente para un período de tiempo significativo., mientras que los opositores de las principales objeciones a esta propuesta puso adelante es que sería dando amnistía a los criminales.

Lo que asombraría a la mayoría de los estadounidenses es el hecho de que entrar en este país sin respetar las normas establecido por Inmigración y Aduanas no es una violación de cualquier ley federal. En todo el código de los Estados Unidos va a encontrar una ley que prohíba tal entrada. La ley sí declara que las personas que ingresen al país de esta manera son "deportados", pero aún así la deportación no es un requisito automático. La única vez que la residencia como una persona llega a ser realmente ilegal es si ha sido previamente deportados y dio instrucciones para no volver. (Cabe señalar que las normas del ICE que se ocupan de los inmigrantes indocumentados no son leyes, son las directrices de las agencias federales utilizan para llevar a cabo sus funciones legalmente dictadas, el Congreso no tiene ninguna parte en su formulación y la violación de ellos no puede ser perseguida como un acto criminal excepto en esos casos donde el Congreso ha promulgado una legislación específica a tal efecto.). Se existen leyes que hacen que sea un crimen para obtener documentos de inmigración o ciudadanía de manera ilegal, pero el acto de la entrar en el país sin respetar el proceso de inmigración formal no parece ser en sí misma una violación de cualquier ley.

Puede parecer irrazonable en un primer momento de no existir una ley que prohíbe la violación de la política de inmigración de tal manera, pero si usted mira más cerca que en realidad tiene mucho sentido. Si la entrada indebida fuera un crimen, sus autores tendrían derecho a todas las protecciones constitucionales que ofrece el acusado penalmente, incluido el derecho a un abogado y un juicio. El costo de la prestación de servicios jurídicos y de vivienda a los violadores acusados hasta que tuvieron comparecer ante un tribunal sería prohibitivo y no sólo eso, pero cualquier persona absuelta en el juicio, ya sea por la prueba de residencia legal o una cuestión técnica de procedimiento, sería un residente legal con elegibilidad total para el proceso de naturalización. En un escenario donde la inmigración inadecuado es un crimen, los agentes de la Patrulla Fronteriza que se encuentran las personas que realicen un cruce de la frontera inadecuado se vería obligado a informarles de sus derechos, la carga ellos y reservarlos para el juicio futuro en vez del proceso de deportación mucho más eficiente actualmente en uso . Esta disposición tiene la ventaja añadida de que los extranjeros indocumentados que son detenidos por menos de ofensas felones dar a los fiscales la posibilidad de elegir a entregarlos a las autoridades de inmigración para su deportación en vez de ir a la costa de la carga del infractor y la vivienda a él ya la realización de un juicio.

Si no es un delito para evitar el procedimiento de inmigración adecuada, sino sólo una infracción reglamentaria, la concesión de una vía a la ciudadanía para aquellos infractores que han estado aquí el tiempo suficiente para ser estable y miembros productivos de nuestra sociedad no puede en modo alguno ser considerado algún tipo de amnistía por un delito no cometido en el primer lugar. Por el contrario serviría para corregir una injusticia inherente al sistema actual. Tenga en cuenta que en la ley federal para la mayoría de ofensas federales que no son delitos capitales hay un estatuto de limitaciones en el procesamiento de cinco años, después del cual no se pueden presentar cargos contra un delincuente, en el caso de los delitos antes mencionados de la obtención de documentos de ciudadanía o inmigración fraudulenta de ese límite es aún más largo de diez años. Sin embargo, actualmente no existe tal limitación en materia de deportación en contra de alguien cuya entrada en este país no es en absoluto un crimen. En otras palabras, los violadores y algunos tipos de asesinos se les da un pase libre si se las arreglan para evitar ser procesado por cinco años, pero un inmigrante indocumentado que no ha cometido ningún delito y ha logrado hacer una vida para sí mismo en armonía con sus vecinos temen que la deportación a su país de origen durante el tiempo que él permanece aquí. Es difícil imaginar cómo alguien podría considerar que se trata de una situación justa y equitativa.

Si las autoridades de inmigración no son capaces de cargar por primera vez los violadores de la política de inmigración de un delito bajo la ley federal, entonces tampoco existe ninguna base jurídica para una entidad gubernamental estatal o local para detenerlos ante la sospecha de una infracción que no es un delito de cualquier jurisdicción. Leyes como las aprobadas en Arizona y otros estados que requieren los funcionarios policiales para detener a presuntos inmigrantes indocumentados son violaciónes de la separación de la cláusula de los poderes de la Constitución, así como violaciónes de los derechos civiles de los inmigrantes legales que están ilegalmente detenidos en virtud de sus disposiciones.

Hay una serie de elementos en nuestra sociedad, para quienes la existencia de inmigrantes indocumentados dispuestos a trabajar por menos de los salarios de pobreza es una cosa deseable, lo que les permite operar negocios a un costo mucho menor que si estuvieran usando regularmente los residentes estadounidenses, estos grupos tienen tienden a veces a tener amigos muy poderosos dentro del gobierno federal, que tiene muchas veces en los últimos años hizo la vista gorda ante la justa aplicación de las normas de inmigración. Es sólo por este tipo de negligencia oficial que alguna vez podría haber llegado a la situación actual donde no existe un estimado de 12 millones de inmigrantes indocumentados en este país. Si es así que muchos de ellos deben su residencia permanente a la omisión intencional del gobierno para hacer cumplir sus propias reglas, ¿cómo podemos entonces de buena fe, deciden que sólo ellos deben pagar por la aplicación laxa de nuestro gobierno, lo que probablemente fue una de las tentaciones que les llevaron aquí, en primer lugar?

Existen una serie de factores muy potentes para disuadir a una persona de intentar entrar en el país en violación de las directrices federales de inmigración. A menudo debe aceptar sueldos bajos y condiciones de trabajo inseguras, y ellos y sus familias suelen vivir en lo que la mayoría de los estadounidenses considera que la pobreza extrema. Sin embargo, todavía muchos de ellos logran construir vidas estables por sí mismos, convertirse en miembros productivos de sus comunidades, pero nunca pueden salir de su escondite por temor a la deportación inmediata sin importar el hecho de que no han cometido ningún delito y que al parecer no existe ninguna ley federal que incluso prohíbe su presencia. Pero incluso con estos obstáculos la vida en los Estados Unidos es a menudo una gran mejora sobre lo que dejaron en sus países de origen, y si esa persona es de algún modo capaz de manejar aún para hacer una vida estable para él y su familia aquí en esas circunstancias, sin violando ninguna ley ¿cómo se puede llamar cualquier cosa sino una injusticia que debe temer continuamente consecuencias punitivas de un acto que ni siquiera es técnicamente ilegal, mucho tiempo después de aquellos que han cometido ofensas mucho peores disfrutar de completa inmunidad de enjuiciamiento?

En consideración de todos estos hechos, parece más equitativo a permitir que aquellos que han logrado hacer una vida para sí mismos en este país por un período de cinco años sin violar ninguna ley a tener su residencia reconocido formalmente para que puedan comenzar a la ciudadanía proceso, aunque se reserva el derecho de revocar esa condición y procesar a nadie que se encuentre en ese momento para tener la ciudadanía falsificados o documentos de inmigración hasta el final de la ley de diez años de prescripción. Y si esa persona puede aportar pruebas de que ha mantenido residencia continua en este país durante ese período mínimo de cinco años que deben contar con la capacidad de oponerse a cualquier intento de deportación en una corte de ley en lugar de estar sujetos a un proceso administrativo arbitrario. La Decimocuarta Enmienda de la Constitución dispone la protección de la igualdad de todas las leyes, específicamente el sentido de aplicar dicha norma a las personas de raza negra que antes habían sido esclavos, ¿no es hora de que nosotros aplicamos el mismo criterio a los inmigrantes también?

Undocumented Does Not Mean Illegal

In recent years there has been a large amount of debate revolving around what should be done about the problem of illegal immigration in this country. The main proposals that have been made would provide a path to citizenship for those undocumented immigrants who have resided peacefully and productively for a significant time period, while the major objection opponents to this proposal put forth is that it would be giving amnesty to criminals.

What would amaze most Americans is the fact that entering this country without following the regulations set out by Immigration and Customs Enforcement  is not a violation of any federal law. In the entire United States code will you find a statute prohibiting such entry. The law does state that persons who enter the country in this fashion are “deportable”,  but even then the deportation is not an automatic requirement.  The only time such a person’s residency actually becomes unlawful is if he has previously been deported and instructed not to return.  (It should be noted that the ICE regulations dealing with undocumented immigrants are not laws, they are the guidelines federal agencies use to carry out their lawfully enacted duties; Congress has no part in formulating them so violation of them cannot be prosecuted as a criminal act except in such instances where Congress has specifically enacted legislation to that effect.)There do exist statutes that make it a crime to obtain immigration or citizenship documents illegally, but the actual act of entering the country without following the formal immigration process does not appear to be in and of itself a violation of any federal laws.

It may seem unreasonable at first for there not to exist a law that forbids violation of immigration policy in such a manner, but if you look closer it actually makes a great deal of sense. If improper entry were a crime, its perpetrators would then be entitled to all the constitutional protections afforded the criminally accused, including the right to an attorney and a trial. The expense of providing legal services and housing the accused violators until they had their day in court would be prohibitive; not only that, but anyone acquitted at trial, whether by proof of legal residence or a technicality of procedure, would be a de facto legal resident with full eligibility to the naturalization process. In a scenario where improper immigration is a crime, Border Patrol agents who find persons making an improper border crossing would be obliged to Mirandize, charge and book them for future trial instead of the much more streamlined deportation process currently in use. This arrangement has the added advantage that any undocumented aliens who are arrested for less than felonious offenses give prosecutors the flexibility to choose to turn them over to immigration authorities for deportation instead of going to the expense of charging the offender and housing him and conducting a trial.

If it is in fact not a crime to avoid the proper immigration procedure but instead only a regulatory infraction, the granting of a path to citizenship for those violators who have been here long enough to become stable and productive members of our society  cannot in any way be considered some kind of amnesty for a crime never committed in the first place. To the contrary it would serve to correct an injustice inherent in the current system. Consider that in federal law for most non-capital federal crimes there is a statute of limitations on prosecution of five years, after which no charges may be filed against an offender; in the case of the aforementioned crimes of obtaining citizenship or immigration documents fraudulently that limit is even longer at ten years. But there currently exists no such limitation on deportation against someone whose entry into this country is in no way a crime. In other words, rapists and some kinds of killers are given a free pass if they manage to avoid prosecution for five years, but an undocumented immigrant who has committed no crime and has managed to make a life for himself in harmony with his neighbors must fear deportation to his country of origin for as long as he remains here. It is difficult to imagine how anyone could consider this to be a fair and equitable situation.

If under federal law immigration authorities are not able to charge first-time immigration policy violators with a crime, then neither does there exist any legal basis for a state or local government entity to arrest them for suspicion of an infraction which is not a crime under any jurisdiction. Laws like the ones enacted in Arizona and other states which require law enforcement officials to detain suspected undocumented immigrants are a violation of the separation of powers clause of the Constitution as well as a violation of the civil rights of those legal immigrants who are unlawfully detained under their provisions.

There are a number of elements in our society for whom the existence of undocumented immigrants willing to work for less than poverty wages is a desirable thing, allowing them to operate businesses at much lower cost than if they were using regular American residents; these groups have tended at times to have very powerful friends within the federal government, which has many times over the years turned a fairly blind eye to the enforcement of immigration regulations. It is only by this kind of official negligence that we could ever have reached the current state where there exist an estimated 12 million undocumented immigrants in this country. If so many of them owe their continued residency to the willful failure of the government to enforce its own rules how can we then in good faith decide that they alone should pay for our government's lax enforcement, which likely was one of the enticements that brought them here in the first place?

There exist a number of very powerful factors to discourage an individual from attempting to enter the country in violation of federal immigration guidelines. They often must accept substandard wages and unsafe working conditions, and they and their families often live in what most Americans would consider abject poverty. Yet still many of them manage to build stable lives for themselves, becoming productive members of their communities, but they can never come out of hiding for fear of immediate deportation regardless of the fact that they have committed no crime and there apparently exists no federal statute that even forbids their presence. But even with these obstacles life in the United States is often a vast improvement over what they left in their nations of origin; if such a person is somehow able to still manage to make a stable life for himself and his family here under those circumstances without breaking any laws how can it be called anything but an injustice that he should have to continually fear punitive consequences of one act that isn't even technically illegal long after those who have committed far worse offenses enjoy complete immunity from prosecution?

In consideration of all these facts, it would seem more equitable to allow those who have managed to make a life for themselves in this country for a period of five years without violating any laws to have their residency formally recognized so that they can begin the citizenship process, while reserving the right to revoke that status and prosecute anyone who is found during that time to have falsified citizenship or immigration documents until the end of the ten year statute of limitations. And if such a person can provide evidence that he has maintained continuous residence in this country for that minimum five year period he should be afforded the ability to challenge any attempted deportation in a court of law rather than be subject to an arbitrary administrative process. The Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution provided for the equal protection of all the laws, specifically meaning to apply that standard to black persons who had formerly been slaves; is it not time now that we apply that same standard to immigrants as well?

Unconventional Conventions

Warren Buffett was recently quoted as saying he could fix the nation’s deficit problems in five minutes by enacting a law making all current members of Congress ineligible for reelection any time the deficit exceeded three percent of the nation’s gross domestic product. As attractive as that idea may be, making it law would be more than a five minutes undertaking. Even Congress would not have the authority of themselves to enact such a measure, as only the Constitution can dictate the conditions of terms of congressmen and senators. A further bar to such an idea is that in the 218 years since its ratification the only way amendments to the Constitution have been made is by Congress first submitting them to the states for their approval. In other words it has so far always been at the government’s discretion when it was time to change the rules by which the government operates. I think a lot of people could agree with Thomas Paine’s observation that "…it is repugnant to the principles of representative government that a body (Congress) should give power to itself."

It was apparently not the intent of the Founding Fathers for Congress to have the sole discretion as to what amendments will and will not be submitted to the states for ratification, as they allowed for one other avenue. The legislatures of the states can petition Congress for the calling of a Constitutional Convention for the purpose of proposing amendments, but it requires the requests of two-thirds of the states, or thirty-three of our current fifty. Thus far there have never been enough states to make such a request at the same time as to trigger such an event, which effectively leaves Congress in sole control of the means by which to make amendments, and if history is any guide there is little chance they would ever propose any changes that would substantially affect their status. So clearly another way is necessary if we, the governed, wish to take back a measure of our inherent power from the instituted government.

Thomas Jefferson felt it might be good for our nation to have a new revolution every twenty years or so, believing this would provide necessary changes in a timely manner; it would seem he was already familiar with the propensity of institutions, once established, to perpetuate themselves. But revolutions have the danger of getting rid of the bad as well as the good and often wind up replacing the old order with a similar proportion of good and bad. Perhaps, instead, we might find the will to cause the Constitution to be changed to provide for the calling of a Constitutional Convention every twenty years for amendments to be proposed. Over the years some have stated that, since such a convention would have no limit to what changes they might propose, including the entire dissolution of our current system, this is far too risky an option. To them I would respond that the convention’s authority only extends to proposing changes, they have no power to enact them; that authority is limited to the people of the states, where a majority vote in thirty-eight states would be required for the ratification of any such changes. Those kinds of odds would provide a substantial challenge to even the best of ideas, a truly bad one would surely face an even bleaker prospect.

As things stand now, however, we still face the difficulty of getting such an amendment requiring a bidecennial convention submitted to the states for ratification. It would likely require an all-out grassroots effort at all levels, with letters being sent to all members of Congress encouraging the amendment to be submitted to the states, and writing to legislators of the states asking for a petition to be submitted to Congress. One other option has never been tried on a coordinated basis. There are twenty-nine states which allow for referendums to be placed on the ballot for enactment into law. If each of these states passed measures instructing their legislatures to petition the Congress for the amendment to be submitted that would leave only four more necessary to require Congressional action; surely the popular pressure generated by the first twenty-nine states would be sufficient to spur the remainder necessary to submit such a petition. To date there has never been a successful grass-roots campaign to effect a change to the Constitution. Isn’t it about time for that to change?

Tax Reform for Dummies

A recent editorial in a major  newspaper put forth the idea of setting a target date of December 31, 2013 for the elimination of the current income tax code and replacing it with a more equitable structure.  Now the idea of setting such a date is a good one, but the author knows very well that expecting Congress to agree on a replacement in such short order is completely unrealistic.  There are too many varied interests to be represented and their views considered.  Due to the complex nature of our nation’s economy no system can be created within such a small window of action that most Americans would consider truly equitable.  But perhaps no system at all is precisely what we need.

It can be said that the cardinal rule of taxation is the broader the tax the smaller the burden on any individual taxpayer.  This was a primary motivation for the institution of the federal income tax early in the 20^th century.  At first the rate was uniform and applied only to the top one percent of the incomes in the US; but as the income tax began to be relied on for a greater and greater share of the government’s finances, in the absence of anything more equitable graduated rates and targeted exemptions were devised.  Now we have reached a juncture where a sizeable portion, if not a majority, of Americans feel that the current income tax code is unacceptably inequitable.  It seems nearly everyone has his own idea of what would be fairer, but those which would ease current burdens on the wealthy would place more of one on the poor, and those which attempt to make things easier for the poor wind up putting a heavier load on the wealthiest of Americans.

 With hundreds of millions of persons being taxed individually based on their incomes we have long passed the stage where there can be any hope of achieving equity in taxation through simplification of the income tax code; no matter which way you slice it some significant portion of those being taxed will feel they are being expected to shoulder more than their fair share of the burden. The idea of allowing large scale tax exemptions for investing surplus income into areas that would reliably encourage growth of the economy ended with the Reagan era tax reforms and no one has had the stomach to resume the practice since then. In order to achieve both simplicity and equity nowadays it will be necessary to abandon the taxation of individual incomes altogether and instead base our taxation on the broader base of the wealth of the nation as a single unit.

At the current time our federal government’s revenue from income tax amounts to just under ten percent of the gross domestic product. If we establish that as the single rate at which to tax the nation’s income everyone will share an equal proportionate burden on his income.  But if everyone were paying this amount out of his own pocket we would be back at the idea that the rich would be benefitting from a very low tax rate while most poor Americans would be unable to afford to pay such an amount.  The solution, then, is for no one to be required to pay anything out of his pocket to finance any of the government’s activities currently financed by income taxes.

In this day and age of computerized record keeping and regulated markets it is fairly easy to keep track of just how much income is derived from all the nation’s economic activity.  With this information our government can determine with great accuracy how much revenue it would have at its disposal if the tax rate for the entire nation were ten percent of the gross domestic product. Having this knowledge, all Congress need do is allocate the revenue to the various executive departments and allow them to write checks accordingly.  Considering that the vast majority of all financial transactions in this country are now electronic and do not involve any actual currency changing hands, this is not any great change in the way things are already done.  The main difference is that, instead of everyone having fewer dollars to spend after paying taxes, the dollars that that everyone has are reduced in value by a uniform amount.  In either case the government has effectively taxed everyone’s income by that rate of ten percent but because by simply writing the checks Congress is actually taxing the entire wealth of the nation by the rate of ten percent of only the GDP, the value of your money is not diminished by that same amount.  The net worth of all private assets in the US is approximately $55 trillion and the projected revenues for 2012 of federal income tax revenues is $1.4 trillion that works out to only a 2.5 percent tax on the entire economy as a whole. Since under this system you are not required to give any of your money to the government even poor people are unlikely to feel much of an adverse effect from such a small individual burden, especially since it is being applied universally to everyone.

As previously stated, the broader the base of a tax the smaller the burden on individual taxpayers, and there can be no broader base than the wealth of the nation as a whole unit.  Complete fairness and equity is built into this system as the richest American pays no more or less than the poorest; everyone pays an equal share, even he who has no income at all, since the tax is more against the value of what he owns instead of the amount of money he makes in a given year. It would be hard to imagine a simpler plan than having Congress set a percentage of the GDP to which they limit their spending; they would even retain the ability to borrow when necessary, so long as the cost of servicing that debt is incorporated within the spending limit.  Leveling the tax burden in this fashion would also limit the scope of debate in Congress from which groups' taxes need raised and which ones' lowered to whether or not to raise or lower them for all. It would eliminate numerous opportunities for the bitter, class-based, partisan rhetoric we have all become far too familiar with; that is a fringe benefit I believe most Americans would welcome with open arms.