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Posts published during March, 2010

3 comments

11:19 AM

March 27, 2010

What is the Point of the Tea Party?

Emerging from the mist of a settled Health Care Reform, we’ve watched a movement get loud, angry, violent, and we’ve watched them get nothing done. I speak of the Tea Partiers, teabaggers and pseudo-populist rage-fomenters that comprise such groups as the Tea Party Patriots and Freedom Works. I speak of the same absurd minority protest group whose numbers are constantly dwarfed by immigration rallies, anti-war rallies and pro-health-reform rallies but whose media presence implies a greater significance than any other movement that exists, past or present.

At this point however, when the Tea Partier’s cause celebre – preventing America from obtaining democratic reforms to the health care system – has fallen flat on its face, it is hard to distract from the fact that these folks have no real influence on policy. I don’t know if this statement can be regarded as at all controversial though, considering that it is infinitely hard to infer the policy consequences of such rallying cries as “Say NO to Socialism” or “Keep Government Out of my Medicare”…

Never mind the glaring contradictions of such sentiments when one acknowledges that this movement is fueled by our bunk economy’s bad habit of bringing innocent, hard-working Americans down with it. It began with the bank bailouts, where the policy sell was tough regardless of the facts on the ground because when viewed in the abstract, who would honestly be in favor of the Federal government handing hundreds of billions of dollars over to corporate mega-banks? Obama had his work cut out for him in trying to sell that policy after the fact, especially when one considers the immediate recoil Republicans have at any fleeting mention of the consequences of George W. Bush’s 8 year debacle, but now that the taxpayer has recovered nearly all the money that was spent on the TARP bailouts of 2008, populism is in favor of the Obama administration.

Shortly after our country fully realized that we have a bona-fide Black President, we began to realize the political and legislative potency of that President with the passage of a historic economic stimulus package. The facts more than a year later reveal the positive impact of the stimulus, with hundreds of thousands of Americans put back to work, state governments helped to stay afloat, and tax cuts offered to 95% of Main St. America. Apparently this all threatened the egos of Republicans and Tea Partiers alike because nothing says I’m confident in the strength of my ideas like calling the opponent Hitler.

Then came Health Care Reform, the legislative priority that dominated the protest signs of teabaggers for the next year and will likely continue to exist at the forefront of anti-government activism in the year to come. All these agitations by the Obama Administration, these efforts to realign the priorities of the government from top to bottom, these audacious attempts to stave off the inevitable courses as set by the most powerful moneyed interests in the years prior, these actions incited the most virulent conservative activism in the last few decades.

The NYTimes profiles some connected figures in the Tea Party network, and the narrative that was sparked by cries against socialism and big government contrasting the ever present, supported, and oft-lauded role of government in these folks’ lives continues seamlessly. In my mind, one has no ground to stand upon to protest big government while accepting unemployment benefits, Medicare, Social Security or any of the other completely non-controversial, popular and necessary programs. This shallow margin by which Tea Party rhetoric has made its way into the halls of Congress is necessarily shallow. To delve deeper into the political discourse of the teabaggers, one must overlook the logical gaps of arguments that are created by the emotions of a populist reaction to economic uncertainty.

But that glaring hypocrisy is not a concern for much of the Tea Party movement. Principle and integrity of political arguments be damned, because these people are pissed! They are entitled to their government handouts, but fuck anyone else who tries to balance the scales. Fuck anyone else who has found themselves a victim of machinations larger than themselves. Fuck anyone whose woes lead them to vote for Democratic candidates or to support Democratic platforms. But to what avail is all this resentment being levied?

Rooting out government waste and spending taxpayer money more wisely is not some new idea that the Tea Party owns. Being against totalitarianism and facism isn’t new, but for christsake only the most paranoid and conspiratorial among us would actually buy into the notion that this Health Care Reform is even related to those despot regimens. Not trusting the notion of government is not an excuse for being completely and utterly irrational in one’s rhetoric. In fact, when such sentiments of paranoia and fear are allowed to prevail in political movements the result can be nothing but more paranoia and fear. As we’ve seen, the Tea Partiers and Republicans could not thwart the democratic will of the electorate or the administration to reform our health care system. But what have they done?

I can’t honestly answer that question. I can’t produce a single tangible result of this movement, beyond the ratings boost Fox News enjoyed by creating a fictional picture of America in revolt. The Tea Party movement really has no objectives beyond trying to elect Tea Party candidates and agitate for agitation’s sake. Does anyone really know what Tea Party candidates are for? What would a government run by Tea Partiers look like? Do Republicans really have to do much to convince the Tea Partiers that they are friendly? Would a Republican administration or a Republican congress just give in to the demands of this minute faction of the electorate simply because they are afraid of agitation from within?

I’m not trying to pose these questions or ruminate on this subject to salt the wounds created by Health Care reform becoming law, but because I think that any political movement needs to justify its existence in no uncertain terms. And they need to do it constantly. This isn’t a call for more delusional rhetoric to stir up the passions and prejudices of the tea-baggers, but a call for this movement to grow up and try to dispel the facts surrounding their inadequacy. I say this because I’m tired of the rigor that is applied to criticizing liberal politics and liberal movements not being applied to these Tea Partiers and the Republican/conservative ideologies that they push. This criticism is being levied not only at conservative outlets like Fox, but at similarly mainstream outlets like CNN and MSNBC who have dedicated countless hours of coverage to the Tea Party cohorts while unwaveringly ignoring other legitimate movements.

As a last aside, the Tea Parties are not doing themselves any favors by enlisting the inept former gov. Sarah Palin to be their poster child. Didn’t they get the memo that this person hurts things more than she helps things? Or maybe they really just want to ride the media coattails of a future reality TV star?

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1:43 PM

March 16, 2010

The Continued Expansion of American Waistlines

When the First Lady is trumpeting the tackling of childhood obesity as her cause celebre, it is hard to ignore the subtle wisdom of the Onion:

EVANSVILLE, IN—In an effort to keep pace with the rapid growth of American mouthfuls, flatware manufacturer KitchenMaster announced yesterday the addition of a fifth tine to its line of dinner forks. “These days, a traditional four-tined fork is just not enough to handle the quantities of food people shove down their throats,” said company spokesman Ken Krimstein, holding up a fork supporting six separate tortellini, two turkey sausages, and some mashed potatoes. “To stay relevant to our customer base and bring back some of those who have given up on using utensils entirely, this was an adjustment we just had to make.” Krimstein added that the augmented forks would soon be followed by 25 percent deeper spoons and 3-gallon gravy boats.(2/17/10).

Likewise, 7/11 will debut the Super Big Gulp this spring – the cup doubles as shelter for homeless children!

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10:55 AM

Geeking over Bicycles

For any bike enthusiast, be you a commuter, trail-rider, cyclist, fixed gearer or young one, the Independent has your Wednesday gawk-a-thon:

The 50 best bikes.

With a sleeker geometry and cleaner aesthetic than most folding commuters, this American-made, single speed, folding ride by Dahon caught my eye.

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12:36 PM

March 15, 2010

Restoring Van Gogh’s “The Bedroom”

The Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam is going to be blogging about the restoration process of one of Van Gogh’s most popular works, “The Bedroom”.

The above photo is how everyone would like to remember this painting of Van Gogh’s, but as is inevitable in nearly any work of art more than 110 years old, some unsightly things are to be found when looked at more closely. The following is an image obtained by using a light microscope (see below for a diagram of how this microscope functions):

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11:59 AM

Infrastructure FAIL: Water & Sewage in DC

“Today, a significant water line bursts on average every two minutes somewhere in the country, according to a New York Times analysis of Environmental Protection Agency data.”

This story popped up in the aftermath of a heavy Northeastern storm this weekend, one which also knocked out power to nearly 500,000 residents (which is another example of how our infrastructure fails us so often). But more to the point here, and this is one whose context extends beyond the shoddy line work of the Northeast, rainstorms have been backing up sewer systems and causing other infrastructural havoc for as long as such systems have existed. The consequences of these systematic inefficiencies are gross. The consequences of the inability of a system to handle the volume of precipitation is what caused the city of Chicago to raise its streets by more than 30 feet before the 20th century. The costs associated with fixing these problems are serious, but that is not surprising considering the scale upon which sewer and water systems exist, but also considering the degree of the consequences it is hard to imagine that people would not support a taxpayer investment into their infrastructure:

In Washington alone there is a pipe break every day, on average, and this weekend’s intense rains overwhelmed the city’s system, causing untreated sewage to flow into the Potomac and Anacostia Rivers. (3/14/10 NYT)

That is disgusting. Beyond disgusting. For those of us wishing to keep up the guise that we live in an advanced, modern society, this fact destroys any pretense of our modernity. Our own nation’s capitol cannot even prevent its shit and piss from coursing through its heralded, historic waterways.

But where there exists a shit filled river on the East coast, there exists a better solution on the West coast.

Oregon is no stranger to rain, and the fact that we get basically all of our annual precipitation in only 8 months, peak flow of waterways is a real problem. The Willamette river, traversing Northward to Portland through the valley below, once made new tracks through the valley each decade, but now as a product of our creation of cities and the ensuing desire to prevent those cities from flooding, the Willamette river has been entrenched in the same path for some time. This makes Portland a particularly crucial juncture in considering the health of this waterway, as Portland is the last stop along the way for the Willamette to the Pacific Ocean, before it meets the great Columbia. In Oregon, we protect our waterways, or at least try to be proactive in doing so.

That is why the city of Portland, much like Chicago a century ago, has been going through great pains to devise a city-wide plan for mitigating their stormwater and reducing the amount of polluted surface water that reaches the Willamette river (the river divides the city on its east and west, so nearly the entire city has the potential to drain into the river). And they’ve found a workable solution.

The creation of green streets and other low impact on-site treatment facilities such as green roofs:

A Green Street is a sustainable stormwater strategy that meets regulatory compliance and resource protection goals by using a natural systems approach to manage stormwater, reduce flows, improve water quality and enhance watershed health. (Portland Bureau of Environmental Services)

The city has endorsed pilot programs, drafted a city-wide resolution supporting their use and installation and is now tracking these facility’s impact on the city’s storm sewer system. The latest round of monitoring results (from December 2008) show that the existing green street facilities have reduced peak flow by a minimum of 80%. These results were gauged as being indicative of the facility’s ability to perform in a 25 yr. storm (the statistically worst storm that is likely to occur in 25 yr period of time).  That 80% reduction is significant enough to forever prevent untreated sewage from entering waterways, and they’ve done so without having to unearth ancient infrastructure at an enormous cost to the taxpayer, because green street retrofits consist of altering solely the streetscape at ground level.

When comparing these two historical solutions – Chicago’s lifting of its city by 30 feet and Portland’s installation of bioswales and strategic curb cuts that form Green Streets (because trust me, Portland’s program is becoming a model for how cities can deal with their water and sewer system problem), it is easy to see how much more realistic, implementable, affordable and inviting the latter is.

For what it is worth, there are obviously going to be detractors claiming that any municipality’s investment in such a project is wasteful, overstepping or inefficient. Especially if such a project was undertaken in DC, I can almost hear the lunatic reactionary Congress people of the GOP spouting off about government spending. But when you propose the two simple alternatives – shit flowing through the Potomac every time there is a bit of a rainstorm (the same Potomac that George Washington infamously crossed, mind you), or sidewalk planters filled with native grasses and beautiful tree-lined streets, I don’t think any rational human beings would opt for the feces river.

That said, this problem in Washington DC is being approached through a fairly narrow lens. The current head of DC’s Department of the Environment, George S. Hawkins (who is tasked with providing a solution to fixing the ancient infrastructure that courses beneath the city), is proposing a rate hike to replace the old pipes. That is his entire solution to the fact that raw sewage enters the Potomac when it rains, to the fact that the same sewage also appears in DC resident’s basements during those rains, and to the fact that during those times water service often is disrupted for most of the city: rate hikes. He is offering to allow residents to pay more for a service they already expect that currently and compulsively under performs, and his solution would provide no relief or benefits to any of the residents who would be effected by the rate hike – none whatsoever. Because when you boil it down to how these folks are really considering this issue, Hawkins’ plan is a 100 year plan to fix the infrastructure which should be translated into the perception that nothing will improve anytime soon. That is his solution.

Does this guy even know that there is more to water and sewer infrastructure than the pipes themselves? Does he realize that there are larger issues at play here, surface runoff and pollution, peak flows and volume retention, that have caused basements and rivers to be inhabited by raw sewage? New pipes sound nice, but the work involved with unearthing and replacing the miles and miles of piping would make the city’s residents lives inconvenienced, it would disrupt their service almost inevitably, and they would have no tangible payoff to their putting up with this plan.

If this Hawkins character was at all adept in his ability to get the people of the city behind his plan to fix the water and sewer infrastructure, he would have paid attention to how more than one thing can be accomplished through the city’s investment. He would offer better streets, safer streets, cleaner air, more shade, less urban-heat-island effect, less greenhouse gases, more jobs, and oh yes – no more shit in your river or basements.

Time will tell how his plan works out though, whether city residents will sit idly by while their rates increase by nearly 60% and they continue to experience the same service interruptions and sewage backflow or whether someone with a better idea and more support from the community will raise their voice and offer the residents of DC a way forward.

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2:52 PM

March 14, 2010

Economic Malaise: Merchants of Death

I think bankers have distracted some of the public from what used to be the cause celebre demon-economic-seed: the Military-Industrial Complex.

Obama says he wants to enter into a new era of arms reductions, specifically for nuclear arms, but what of the same Merchants of Death who were called out as the root cause for the first World War that continue to pump the world full of ammunition and instruments of death?

Every once and a while, we need a reminder of just how weapon crazy this world is, and just how responsible the United States of America is for perpetuating that reality. Thanks to GOOD:

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2:41 PM

Gray Walls v. Grafitti

Need I say more?

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2:06 PM

Passive House Boston

Boston, where the winters are cold and the summers are humid is a frankly unforgiving climate for passive design. But that hasn’t stopped design/build firm Placetailor from applying the same rigor to zoning, insulating, sealing and retrofitting this 1850s Boston home as is typical in Germany, where the original PassivHaus emerged.

Among the characteristics of this home that make it so energy efficient are concrete floors to provide thermal mass, extensive solar glazing on the south side, super-insulated 12″ panels comprising the exterior walls, heat recovery ventilators to re-use the heat that would otherwise be wasted in exhausting the interior air. To put it in simple terms though, the architects simply paid attention to reducing summer heat gains, reducing winter heat losses (through the lungs and skin) and designing to allow the sun into the building in the cold winter months to offset any energy needed to heat the home. All in all, the cost attributed to making these decisions while at the drawing board is greatly less than when trying to retrofit a conventional building, and the turn-around on the investment for higher-efficiency appliances/building materials is relatively quick. As such, the PassivHaus standard tends to result in a significant 90% reduction in energy use for heating and cooling the building.

Without fail, when designs are held to the rigorous standard of the PassivHaus Institute, the result is an incredibly efficient building. The only downside to such a building standard is that it imposes severe constraints on the architect because of the need for super-insulated wall construction, typically only accomplished by use of SIPs (structurally-insulated panels) or cross-laminated timber that tends to be more than 12″ thick. These are minor things though, when you consider the end result and compare it to the typical American home. Such building methods are typical in Europe though, and the materials to do so are more readily available and therefore cheaper, so this building type has become more of a standard than an exception.

Realities such as this one make me question exactly what values of Americans led to the preponderance of McMansions while all across Europe homes were becoming more efficient and livable and they continue to have a viable housing stock. In America there is no such thing as a starter house anymore. The majority of new development are either suburban single family home developments where each home is confusing, illogical, wasteful, expensive and unwelcoming or urban multi-family housing developments that disregard the need for community, limit the choices of the occupant and whose goal is maximum density for maximum profit; none of these can be considered starter homes. By starter homes, I am referring to something on par with those Sears-built homes of the early 1900s or those found in Levittown, NJ around the same time – homes that are affordable, expandable to fit the user’s needs (think of a young family with children), and create a sense of community which places an otherwise missing value on the preservation of these buildings. “Affordable” homes nowadays are either shitty and rundown, in bad neighborhoods, or just plain old non-existent.

That is why the PassivHaus actually offers a viable alternative that would satisfy a need present in our country for decades. The PassivHaus standard emphasizes compact footprints and efficient building systems, which have the potential to, when applied to larger developments, result in higher densities and cheaper housing stock. This is a bit of conjecture on my part, but nothing close can be said of our current modes of development so I feel appropriately confident in making these claims.

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2:06 PM

March 12, 2010

Energy Innovation – Thermopower Waves

The folks at MIT bring us the latest in electricity production, heavily endowed with nanotechnology. The discovery, of a previously unknown phenomenon, is yet to be harnessed into a practical application, though its potential is great for changing the way electronic devices are powered.

The phenomenon, described as thermopower waves, “opens up a new area of energy research, which is rare,” says Michael Strano, MIT’s Charles and Hilda Roddey Associate Professor of Chemical Engineering…

…the key ingredient in the recipe is carbon nanotubes — submicroscopic hollow tubes made of a chicken-wire-like lattice of carbon atoms. These tubes, just a few billionths of a meter (nanometers) in diameter, are part of a family of novel carbon molecules, including buckyballs and graphene sheets, that have been the subject of intensive worldwide research over the last two decades.

In the new experiments, each of these electrically and thermally conductive nanotubes was coated with a layer of a reactive fuel that can produce heat by decomposing. This fuel was then ignited at one end of the nanotube using either a laser beam or a high-voltage spark, and the result was a fast-moving thermal wave traveling along the length of the carbon nanotube like a flame speeding along the length of a lit fuse. Heat from the fuel goes into the nanotube, where it travels thousands of times faster than in the fuel itself.  As the heat feeds back to the fuel coating, a thermal wave is created that is guided along the nanotube. With a temperature of 3,000 kelvins, this ring of heat speeds along the tube 10,000 times faster than the normal spread of this chemical reaction. The heating produced by that combustion, it turns out, also pushes electrons along the tube, creating a  substantial electrical current.

In the group’s initial experiments, Strano says, when they wired up the carbon nanotubes with their fuel coating in order to study the reaction, “lo and behold, we were really surprised by the size of the resulting voltage peak” that propagated along the wire.

After further development, the system now puts out energy, in proportion to its weight, about 100 times greater than an equivalent weight of lithium-ion battery.

The amount of power released, he says, is much greater than that predicted by thermoelectric calculations. While many semiconductor materials can produce an electric potential when heated, through something called the Seebeck effect, that effect is very weak in carbon. “There’s something else happening here,” he says. “We call it electron entrainment, since part of the current appears to scale with wave velocity.”

The thermal wave, he explains, appears to be entraining the electrical charge carriers (either electrons or electron holes) just as an ocean wave can pick up and carry a collection of debris along the surface. This important property is responsible for the high power produced by the system, Strano says. (3/8/10 MIT News)

Since this is such a new discovery, the practical implementation of it is probably still a little ways off. Among the possible uses, as envisioned at this young stage of research, include “enabling new kinds of ultra-small electronic devices — for example, devices the size of  grains of rice, perhaps with sensors or treatment devices that could be injected into the body. Or it could lead to “environmental sensors that could be scattered like dust in the air’,” says the Strano.

1 comments

1:01 PM

A Beautiful Thing…Catholics on Gay Rights

From a Q&A session at Princeton University following a speech by Andrew Sullivan:

I am not a Catholic, nor a religious man, but far be it from me to say that the social and political influence of religion (‘The Church’ so to speak) has waned. In the recently despicable efforts undertaken by those in power in Uganda to criminalize and punish (execute) homosexuals we’ve seen the way religious arguments can utterly shift a person’s and an institution’s consideration of an issue (I’m speaking of the American evangelicals…C street/’the family’…whose influence in Uganda is overt and documented, but also the singularly religious framing of homosexuality among those in Uganda pushing for the legislation). In America, the issue at hand does not bear such obviously extreme consequences but, as it should be obvious by now, the issue of gay marriage and equal rights bears extremely personal and existential consequences for those who are not granted equal protection under the law. This disparity in understandable consequences of the particular form on discrimination, in my opinion, is the reason why so many religious establishments in American have spoken out against the “kill the gays” bill in Uganda, but have remained steadfast in their opposition to gay marriage.

The notion of love, not orientation or gender, being the deciding factor in marriage is not anything new to me. Nor should I have any reason to think that it is anything new to anyone else. The injection of politics and hate into the discussion of love and marriage is truly disgusting to watch and it is impossible to reconcile within any conception of America as just or as “the Land of the Free”. Keep Reading »

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12:28 PM

March 11, 2010

Paul Ryan’s Wishful Budgetary Thinking

Eclipsing Sarah Palin as the GOP’s go-to media figure, even securing himself a seat at the much coveted bi-partisan health reform summit, Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin has outdone his party this time.

The budget of legend, released shortly after Obama’s State of the Union address, promised to eliminate deficits, lower the national debt and “rescue and strengthen Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security,”. It even came with a cool interactive graphic showing just how wonderfully awesome this shadow budget is and just how miserable the Obama administration’s budget is.

The problem though, as was alluded to a month ago by a host of news sources and bloggers, is that Ryan himself provided the numbers upon which the CBO estimate of the long term effects of the budget was be scored and these numbers were just assumed to be 100% correct by the CBO. It is worth noting that the whole composition of this budget basically exists as a manifestation of all the extremely unpopular conservative pet policies of the past decade including, but not limited to privatizing social security, privatizing and raising the eligibility age and premiums of Medicare, all while simultaneously freezing discretionary spending for a decade. Oh, and don’t forget that in tackling this tough problem of debt and deficit, Ryan elected to eliminate the Childrens Health Insurance Program and Medicaid in favor of “vouchers” and “credits” to force low-income people buy the same private insurance that these children and families aren’t being offered.  So despite Ryan’s valiant effort to take radical GOP policy projects and implant them into the mainstream of 2010, we find now that indeed Ryan’s budget proposal wouldn’t even fulfill the outlandish promises it holds so dear – not raising taxes and decreasing deficits and debt.

[The Tax Policy Center] estimates that even with its middle-class tax increases, the plan would reduce federal revenues to 16 percent of GDP in 2014. Because the tax cuts for the wealthy would dwarf the tax increases for the middle class, the Ryan plan would allow the federal debt to continue growing for a number of decades to come, despite its steep cuts in Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. (Center on Budget and Policy Priorities)

Compare these deviously disparate charts showing (1) projected government spending as a percentage of GDP (as crafted by Ryan after blindly assuming what revenues would be) and (2) projected debt as a share of GDP (as crafted by the Tax Policy Center after actually trying to calculate what revenues would be under the changed tax structures).

(1)

(2)

I’m all for trying to rectify our federal government’s long-term fiscal outlooks, but not at the cost of dishonesty in the way we consider our government’s responsibility to govern. As such, Ryan’s proposal undermines every substantial policy achievement in the last 100 years without just cause. Social security, Medicare, Medicaid and other entitlements need reform, that is without doubt, but the Republican supposition that reform in 2010 means elimination (think about what their health reform plans are…) is completely absurd. On top of that, the Ryan proposal seems to ignore the immense fiscal problems still facing most of our 50 states, problems that threaten to even further undermine the structures upon which our nation has grown in the past, including unprecedented cuts to public education. When looking at the graph created by Ryan, it seems so wonderful to see that red line just magically drop away from the rampant spending of the Democrats as represented by the blue line, but you can’t have that magic diversion without completely ignoring the fact that we haven’t fixed the problems that led to or resolved the consequences that ensued from this, the largest depression since the one we call “Great”.

As just one example of precisely how cavalier the Ryan budget’s attitude toward pragmatic governance in the face of economic realities is, take the potential consequences of his Social Security privatization:

Under the Ryan plan, individuals who divert a portion of their payroll tax contributions to private
accounts would be guaranteed that they would receive back in retirement at least as much as they
contributed, plus an adjustment for inflation.  In essence, they would be given a federal guarantee against
stock-market losses. The chief actuary of the Social Security system has estimated that, on average and
adjusting for market risk, an earlier version of the Ryan plan’s guarantee would cost the government
$2.9 trillion in present-value terms (although the actual cost could turn out to be higher or lower,
depending on actual bond and stock returns).25

This guarantee could require a major federal bailout of private accounts during periods when the stock market
performs poorly. The cost of this guarantee, unlike that of traditional Social Security, could escalate
rapidly and add suddenly and unpredictably to the federal deficit.  Providing a federal guarantee for
stock-market investments also could encourage risky investment decisions by individuals, as well as
misguided attempts by policymakers to shore up weak or falling stock prices in response to pressures
from constituents who are relying on these accounts to support them in old age.  [emphasis original]

Yet, Ryan claims in his response to the TPC’s rebuke of his budget’s infallibility that he is not privatizing social security:

“The Roadmap makes no change for those 55 and older. It provides future retirees with the option to either stay in the traditional government-run system or to enter a system of guaranteed personal accounts. Neither option is privatized. In the personal-accounts system, the accounts are owned by the individual, and managed and overseen by a government board — not a stockbroker or private investment firm.” (3/11/10)

But he chooses to not answer the concerns of guaranteeing the personal accounts which are encouraged with high incentives in Ryan’s budget, specifically for those with the most to lose from allowing their Social Security contributions to be taxed (the rich), which are the overriding issue of concern. It isn’t a question of correct terminology, “privatization” or “guaranteeing of personal accounts” result in the same forlorn conclusion about the solvency of Social Security and its effect on future governance.

Rep. Ryan’s plan would provide a further incentive for upper-income beneficiaries to divert their
Social Security contributions into private accounts.  Most of their traditional Social Security benefits
would continue to be counted as part of their taxable income, as they are today.  But benefits
generated from their personal accounts would be entirely exempt from the income tax.

The result would be a system in which Social Security is very unattractive to affluent people. (CBPP 3/10/10)

The result would also be a system in which all the radical changes to tax structures (which pass burden from producers to the consumers),  and social benefits such as Social Security and Medicare (ie their outright disenfranchisement from government responsibility in favor of private, tax-exempt, guaranteed account and “vouchers” for some other service respectively) that ends up continuing to cost the tax-payer and government more than it promised and in return the tax-payer gets hit with heavier taxes and diminished social returns. That is, the disenfranchisement of the tax-payer from the incentive to encourage good governance.

This budget, if enacted, would prove to the taxpayer and average American that our country in ungovernable. Unrest would ensue from the slashing of Medicare benefits and rising of premiums, from the uncertainty involved in upending the Social Security system with no potential benefits for those who pay into the system, and future administrations would be bound by arbitrary “spending freezes” while dealing with the consequences of a permanently diminished tax revenue.

It is a Republican ideologue’s dream though, is it not? I mean, they’ve been saying all along that the government simply can’t solve the country’s problems, so why not just let everyone fend for themselves in an even more embattled century?

0 comments

9:40 PM

March 10, 2010

Predators of Student Loan Reform

In the latest update to the fate of HR 3221, The Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act, we see the Senate is toeing the inertia line.

While plans to include a version of HR 3221 as part of a reconciliation package alongside health care reform are indeed being discussed among Senate leaders, 6 Democratic senators seem willing to continue allowing private lenders suckle at the tit of the federal government and have expressed their intent to do so in a letter to Majority Leader Harry Reid. These 6 include: Jim Webb (D-VA), Mark Warner (D-VA), Bill Nelson (D-FL), Ben Nelson (D-NE), Blanche Lincoln (D-AR), and Thomas Carper (D-DE). Many of these jobs that the 6 senators claim to be concerned about as a product of this bill’s passage would actually be untouched, as many of these lender’s employees do work for the federal government originating and servicing loans from the Direct Loan program. So the concern for jobs as elucidated by the senators of 6 should be read as concern for the profits of those big lenders.

With the House bill slated at reducing federal direct spending by more than 13$ billion in 2014, it is somewhat understandable that the private student lending industry has spent so many millions of dollars lobbying the Senate to protect their profits. But they still are a source of government waste. They are middlemen profiting off of the government’s investment in higher education, middlemen which rationally and demonstrably have no reason to be a part of the investment.

Those 6 senators acquiescing to the desires of bank executives aren’t the end of this bill though. They leave 53 more Democrats and Independents who can hopefully think for themselves and do whats right for the future of higher education in this country.

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