A few suggestions for fixing U.S. financials

I sent this to Joe Nocera@NYTimes because I have a big mouth. He has a vehicle.

Having read the comments about your Aug. 2 column in yesterday’s paper (Aug. 14) I am disappointed that YOU apologized. Apparently truth-telling is unacceptable in a columnist. Well I have no such compunctions; I’m just a chemist who tries – with sometime success – to teach Environmental Science to art students. I teach at Pratt Institute. But I am a VERY ANGRY old person and old age it seems is the ONLY acceptable excuse for speaking one’s mind – and in many cases lots of this comes out of my husband’s mind. He isn’t known here as Great Mind for nothing. So!
Q1. The nonstop campaigning is a disgrace. Both parties are to blame. Untold piles of money are being spent on these endless and pricey campaigns which produce indifferent candidates of little or no administrative talent. How much did the Iowa straw poll cost? Don’t we have a real use for that kind of funding?
A1. Why not have 6-week campaigns? If they are short, perhaps they will attract more attention than the football strike. That was living proof that for most people is seems that football is more important than anything else including our national financial funk. Funding campaigns now means that anyone who is running is beholden to every donor, he/she has been bought and paid for by the biggest giver – whoever that might be. Calling such a person a candidate or worse yet a legislator is really an unacceptably high level of corruption. These ‘candidates’ are not running for public office, they are running for money, their money. OK, if donors don’t pay candidates to run campaigns, who does? Well media companies – see TV stations – get their licenses for practically nothing. If they were obliged to provide free airtime for a short campaign period, the real need for cash that candidates for ‘public’ office express is GONE. Anything they then get from donors is GRAFT. If you are only running a short campaign, there is no need for an army of staff, vehicles (including planes) to move them around in, and one needs far less moving around.
Q2. Why is Iowa important? It got rid of one of the would-be candidates but a low-population rural state is no indicator of anything other than the temper in that state.
A2. If some of the cornpone in Iowa feels that it doesn’t want Washington in their lives, then they should go off the grid, build a cabin in the woods and wave goodbye to Social Security, Medicare, farm subsidies, roads, airports, water and sewage treatment, and a few other things that come with living in a community. Thoreau was an early exponent of this: he brought his laundry to be washed by Emerson’s maid. So much for self-sufficiency.
Q3. Does the national government need more money and if yes, how does it get more?
A3. Some money saving/generating would be nice. Here are some ideas:
a. Drop Pakistan as a client. They are a failed state not likely to get better. Let China have them.
b. Drop the guns-for-hire forces in Iraq, Afghanistan and Somalia. We don’t even know how much they cost. We know what the U.S. military costs are, but these ‘private contractors’ fees are a large black hole. Since they don’t seem to be making any great difference in our move to democratize(?) the regions we are in –one way or another – why continue this obviously failed policy?
c. Listen to Warren Buffett – tax the rich more.
i. An easy start would be to REMOVE the cap on FICA. My husband and I both pay FICA because even together we don’t reach the relatively low level above which NO MORE FICA is deducted. WHY NOT? The removal of that ceiling would bring a lot more money into the Social Security pot. Why has that ceiling not changed with inflation and rising salary levels?
ii. Corporations that improve their bottom line by sending jobs out of the country should be super-taxed for out-sourcing not let off the hook. By firing whole work-forces they are enriching their shareholders AND adding to the unemployment rolls. The unemployed do not pay tax they scrape along on tiny checks. They don’t go shopping, or to the movies, or on vacations….. everyone gets less.
iii. Anyone earning more than….. choose a number i.e. $350,000 …..should be in a higher tax bracket. Look at the fraction of their income that this increase in tax would represent. It is tiny. Of course they will fight like hell to keep it; the alternative is to increase tax on the shrinking middle class. They are an endangered species! What will the super-rich do when the taxpayer base is tapped out? We have Mexico next door as an example of that kind of economy. Is that where we want to go? Mexico has the U.S. as a safety valve for excess unemployed people. Where is our excess unemployed population to go?
d. Fix the medical service. Doctors operate on a fee for service basis with a few startling exceptions. The exceptions, Kaiser, Mayo Clinic and other such organizations deliver better MEDICAL outcomes for less money. Shouldn’t we do that on a governmental level? Medicare/Medicaid is now administered by bureaucrats that make the ‘leaders’ of Fanny and Freddie look competent.
e. Fix the school system. The current fad of ‘little schools’ does not mean more schools or teachers for students but more administrators nagging teachers. Administrators cost more than teachers and produce NOTHING. Of the $13,000/student/year (see WSJ) an inordinate amount of that money is spent on administration. Balkanization is wasteful.
f. Fix the infrastructure. Yes in short term this costs money. There is nothing MORE unappealing as a campaign initiative than rebuilding dams or roads. Thus, politicians with their eyes on the next election are not likely to espouse these NECESSARY projects. Not only do they have to be done, they would also employ many people now unemployed who CANNOT do hi-tech jobs. They need to work. Should an example of the result of a large number unemployed and rather unemployable people be necessary, read the reports of Britain’s riot problems. It is less expensive to employ people of minimal skills to do something that needs to be done. It gives them a place to go, money, and no time or energy for rioting and/or looting. This also cuts down on police overtime, court costs and prison expenses. Almost nobody gets ‘corrected’ in jail; they improve skills.
g. Legislator recall??????
I could go on….and on……. but enough for one day.
Very truly yours,

Barbara Charton

Washington Follies

Watching the news is depressing. The Tea Party fools are demanding massive cuts – of course only if those cuts do not affect their voters. The left Left is still trying to construct the mythical ‘city on a hill’ a utopian paradise where everyone is civil and caring. It is easy to be a utopian if you never have contact with real people. Everyone else is trying the look solemn and hoping that that will impress the uninformed hoi polloi. This is a badly designed beauty pageant where the Congresspersons are the contestants; they don’t look too good but are obviously on the line. It is THEIR JOBS that they are defending. Listening to many of them boosts the image of the Miss America pageant. It also does nothing to remove the idea from my head that many of those in Congress wear loafers because they have to – they aren’t bright enough to tie shoes.

The whole debt crisis is a manufactured one. The debt ceiling has been raised many times before. How come it is now a national CRISIS? If Clinton and Gingrich could put a deal together why is it impossible now without this HIGH DRAMA? Is there a smack of racism in these dealings or are those heel-digging-in Congresspersons flirting with treason? A good look at the rating agencies that are threatening lowering of credit rating is called for. They are not without their own history of dirty dealing. They are the ones that gave great ratings to the banks who were bundling high-risk loans and sending them soaring in 2006. How much did their fictitious ratings contribute to the current ‘recession’? No one dares to use the D-word and call it a depression.

How would I fix this if I were ruling the world???
1. Electioneering can only go on for six weeks. All media are OBLIGED to provide free coverage to all qualified (a certain number of voter names depending on whether this is a local or national election) in return for the paltry sum they pay for licenses. This removes the need for massive amounts of campaign money, many lobbyists, 2-year long campaigns, and above all……special interests.
2. A Congressional pension is dependent on time served: just as a 401K is arranged.
3. Healthcare for Congress is the same as it is for the rest of the country..
4. FICA is a tax on ALL income – there is no upper-limit cutoff.
5. The medical system doesn’t work. It needs considerable fixing. The administrators of MEDICARE –MEDICAID are making the losers in FANNIE and FREDDY look competent. The whole agency needs careful scrutiny starting with a very basic question:
a. Does everyone deserve medical care or do we just let those who have no funds (insurance) die?

This brings up a whole other discussion and we can fix it but right now, it is not the right time. First get the financials in order, then do a longer-term fix. This is civic triage; first stop the catastrophe, then do repair work. Obviously the fools at both ends of the political spectrum have never tackled a multi-faceted problem before; they have no concept of priorities.

Social Security?

I am (as a theoretically old person) just so thrilled and delighted that AARP, the self-proclaimed spokesgroup for old people - is examining Social Security payouts. According to the latest from AARP, payments to some people - those with additional pension money - probably should be reduced. That would presumably also apply to Medicare  Since that includes me, I am not happy; in fact I am damn mad. Who said that AARP represented me? I didn't. Since I have been paying into FICA since I was 16, why should I lose what I haave contributed to it?
 
AARP is an insurance company. They are just flooding my mailbox with invitations to buy extra health insurance - and car insurance for my non-existent car. So their noise making to cut payments to 'rich retirees' is just a drum-up-business ploy for AARP.

If anyone is really interested in 'fixing' Social Security, why not listen to Warren Buffett who reasonably pointed out that FICA deductions STOP at what has become a relatively low dollar amount. Thus FICA is a regressive tax on the poor and middle class since the magic number is not much above $200,000. Any earnings above that DO NOT PAY FICA. WHY NOT? Write to your congressperson!