April 11, 2011 -- The revival of the 1961 musical “How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying” that is popping up on Broadway now with Daniel Radcliffe of Harry Potter fame as the leading character has one of the most rousing finale numbers ever heard in the theater, “There’s A Great Big Brotherhood of Man,” sung with great gusto by a stage full of powerful voices. Or so it was in the original and must be so in the revival. The Brotherhood of Man.
With that musical number in mind we might have thought it was an out-of-town tryout in Washington this weekend as congressional Democrats, Republicans, and the White House reached a Perils of Pauline last second budget compromise that avoided a government shutdown a little after 11 pm on Friday, midnight being the deadline. We could hardly call it “Brotherly” I suppose, although would it were so, and any agreement at all between these forces seems unusually so. A featured player in that original production was Rudy Vallee and for some reason I see his resemblance to present day Speaker of the House John Boehner.
So what was the deal? Cuts of about $38 billion from federal spending this year. And just as important or maybe more so none of those nasty Tea Party riders delivering major blows to the Planned Parenthood and environmental regulations. It is an agreed upon deal, not a done deal. They voted to extend the present budget one more week to give them time to do the legislative paper work to put it into law.
The President put it this way, “Programs people rely on will be cut back.” And “Needed infrastructure projects will be delayed,” but he expressed hope it was the beginning of bipartisan cooperation. Tea Party members of the House are not happy with it. But John Boehner said it will “help create a better environment for job creators in our country.” While I hope so I wish I could understand it. By cutting spending on programs you cut jobs which makes business so happy they hire people for positions they’ve been able to do without which we assume they no longer need until the demand for their goods or services grows which happens when more people have jobs with money to spend. Say what?
The federal budget is like this country’s owner’s manual. By how it allocates funds it lays out how we citizens will live and interact with one another. And as House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) said on Fox News Sunday that last week’s budget deal was just “the first bite of the apple.” This isn’t really about money. As Rep. Mick Mulvaney (R-SC) is quoted as saying, “We want to see real structural, cultural-type changes tied to this debt ceiling. We're not interested in a one-off kind of savings, or anything small.” Structural and cultural changes means he and his cohort want us to live different lives, kind of as in South Carolina, the state that ate the nation. Next he will be telling us we all have to eat grits. It’s like religion. I like grits, but I don’t want to be compelled to eat it.
Dana Milbank in the Washington Post was disgusted with what he saw as political theater. The big brouhaha involved a fraction of one percent of the federal budget but all parties involved fought to see who could best stir the pot. Felicia Sonmez of the Washington Post counted seven shutdown-related news conferences in seven hours on Friday. About the only government figure not to call a press conference was Abe at the Lincoln Memorial.
The Republican blueprint for how we should be living our lives is now out in the form of a proposed budget by the new star on the G.O.P. horizon, Paul Ryan, the Republican chairman of the House Budget Committee. He is the newest figure for media figures to fawn over, less that he is making a wonderful proposal but more that he actually made one. It reminds me of a gag Ellen DeGeneres used to make before owning up to a difference in gender. She praised a live-in lover as being special because he actually took out the garbage. “Anyone,” she said, “could (perform sexual intercourse) but HE put out the GARBAGE!” Anyone can talk about a cut to smithereens budget but Ryan actually made one.
There is something to be said for that although even many conservatives admit it is flawed but at least we know what the conservative blueprint for our future looks like. In the coming weeks and months up until the 2012 election is over and done with this will still be roiling along. Last Friday columns by two New York Time writers appeared basically side by side; from the left, Paul Krugman, on the right, David Brooks, each, of course, with a different take.
Brooks: Ryan’s “bold proposal” has “moved us off Unreality Island.”
Krugman: Ryan’s “plan isn’t remotely serious; on the contrary, it’s ludicrous…and it’s also cruel.”
Brooks sees flaws. It “does not address the structural problems plaguing the American economy: wage stagnation, inequality, declining growth rates. It doesn’t have an answer to rising health care costs. Nor does it leave room for future policy creativity; there’s no money to allow future generations to rise to unforeseen challenges.” It is, “unacceptable to moderate voters.” It needs to “generate tax revenues equal to 20 percent of G.D.P., not the 18 percent he proposes. This would allow us to preserve some of the discretionary spending programs that Ryan cuts.” That’s all, David? That’s like a switch on the old joke, other than that Mr. Lincoln how did you enjoy the play?
Krugman says the numbers used in the plan are bogus stemming for the most part from the Heritage Foundation and don’t stand up to those generated by the Congressional Budget Office. “The Heritage Foundation set off a gigantic boom, lower taxes mean higher revenue” Krugman reports while the “Congressional Budget Office concludes over the next decade the plan would lead to bigger deficits and more debt than current law.”
“Privatizing Medicare” (with a voucher system to buy insurance policies) “does nothing, in itself, to limit health-care costs. In fact, it almost surely raises them by adding a layer of middlemen.” According to the CBO ‘by 2030 the value of a voucher would cover only a third of the cost of a private insurance policy.”
And, the “$4 trillion in spending cuts he proposes over the next decade, two-thirds involve cutting programs that mainly serve low-income Americans. By repealing last year’s health reform, without any replacement, the plan would also deprive an estimated 34 million nonelderly Americans of health insurance.”
Well, Paul, not to worry. Your cohort Brooks says: “With a few straightforward changes, his budget could be transformed into a politically plausible center-right package that would produce a fiscally sustainable welfare state while addressing the country’s structural economic problems.” Little Miss Sunshine Meets Chicken Little.
Count me as one who believes short-term stimulus combined with long-term trims that take effect when the economy is healthy again is the way to go. But that is not going to happen. And the radical right will have another opportunity for holding the government at ransom later in the year when it is time to vote again on raising the ceiling on the deficit. Social conservatives will again flex their muscles. Nicholas Kristof in the NYT had some thoughts on one contentious issue that will always be with us.
Take the cuts to Planned Parenthood. Kristof writes: “publicly financed family planning prevented 1.94 million unwanted pregnancies in 2006, according to the Guttmacher Institute, which studies reproductive health. The result of those averted pregnancies was 810,000 fewer abortions.”
Guttmacher found that every $1 invested in family planning saved taxpayers $3.74. Guttmacher Institute calculates that a 15 percent decline in spending there would mean 1.9 million more unwanted pregnancies, 800,000 more abortions and 5,000 more maternal death. But a lot of those “social conservatives” believe as Bill Maher put it, life begins at erection.
To what degree they will go after the gay community is not yet clear, but go after them they surely will. Odd news items in the gender-bender world. Many people in India protested at a publicized suggestion that revered Mahatma Gandhi had an intimate relationship with another man. So what if those robe he wore looked a lot like dresses. And so what in general since it would not alter all that he accomplished. In another report the remains of what is believed to be a homosexual male Neanderthal has been found. Poor guy didn’t have a closet he could out of. And it does make you wonder what caused the species to die out.
On the subject of Neanderthals, the compensation of CEOs at 200 major companies has been published. They received, on average, a $9.6 million paycheck last year. Viacom's Philippe P. Dauman, who made $84.5 million for nine months of work. Now there is a tribute to How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying. J. Pierpoint Finch would be envious. I don’t believe you can make that kind of money even from a Harry Potter movie. If you would like to run down the list to see what your favorite CEO earned, or what the company in which you own stock generously gave the top dog instead of distributing it to stock holders, click on this link to coverage in the New York Times.
http://projects.nytimes.com/executive_compensation?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha25
A government shutdown, had it occurred, would not have meant much to those two hundred citizens. And in case of a government shutdown not all government employees would go on furlough. Many of them, like congressmen and air traffic controllers, are considered too essential, in the one case to prevent catastrophic crashes of airplanes and in the other to cause catastrophic crashes of government. Congressmen who caused the shutdown which would cost millions of furloughed workers pay would still get paid in any case. While a shutdown seems to have been averted this time (it is still tentative, for one more week) emergency plans were made.
In the spirit of David Letterman we might consider top ten things furloughed and otherwise affected federal workers might consider doing to stay up to while off should that yet come to pass.
10. Workers from the National Zoo could practice keeping their hand in by sitting on park benches and feeding the squirrels.
9. It’s an opportune time for employees of our National Parks to take a trip to Disneyland.
8. Members of the F.B.I., with time on their hands, could profit by reading a novel by John le Carré.
7. Since the Internal Revenue Service will not be able to issue refund checks they could take the time to figure out what to do with the interest those idle funds will accrue and who should declare it.
6. Smithsonian furloughed employees will have an opportunity to see what the contemporary world looks like.
5. Lawyers forced to suspend work on federal cases would find time well spent reviewing episodes of the Law & Order series.
4. While Passports will not be issued, employees could take this time to seek advice on how to avoid corporal tunnel syndrome from doing all of that pounding and stamping.
3. As it happened thousands of government-issued BlackBerrys will be ordered turned off in a shutdown leaving thousands with a good opportunity to clean out ear wax.
2. Environmental Protection Agency staff whose job it is to supervise cleanup of toxic waste, with time on their hands, will feel right at home hanging out at Marie Calendar restaurants.
1. Those on furlough from answering medical emergency hot lines? Just follow Charlie Sheen on Twitter.
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