Planet Utah

Respect for Paul Ryan

Think about what Paul Ryan is getting ready to do...again. He's getting ready to produce and pass a House budget that deals with the long-term debt/entitlement problem. He knows it has no chance of becoming law. He knows, too, that Democrats--including President Obama--will use the budget proposal as a cudgel against Republicans this fall. 

So why on earth would Ryan go ahead with it?* Because the guy who's supposed to be offering solutions to our debt/entitlement problem--President Obama--is refusing to do so. That means that if Congress doesn't advance the ball on this issue, another year will pass with our country no closer to a long-term solution. Amazingly, therefore, a single House member--a breed of politician infamous for caring about little more than reelection--is filling the leadership vacuum left by the president. 

If we lived in the republic our founders sought to create, President Obama would be shamed out of office, and Paul Ryan would be a leading candidate for president.

*Some would argue that Ryan and the GOP have to deal with these issues, lest they be bounced out of office by angry Tea Party voters. But passing a DOA budget is not the only way of educating the public and shaming the Democrats (which are the only positive outcomes you can hope for from a Ryan budget).

Here's another way, which I recommended last year in a blog post: Every day in every way, the House and Senate GOP leadership should say, "Mr. President, we are ready to work with you to achieve a long-term solution to our fiscal problems. We're not talking about shaving a trillion dollars here or there. We're talking about addressing this issue once and for all...producing 50 years' worth of fiscal stability. This needs to be done. It's GOING to be done, sooner or later. The longer we wait, though, the more painful it's going to be. We're ready to do it now. Are you?"

Footnote: He's not.

Anklenote: You might argue that the GOP isn't really ready either, in that Republicans are only willing to solve the long-term problem if they can do so through spending cuts alone--something they know President Obama will never agree to.

I'm not so sure, though. The only thing we've had on the table thus far is tax increases + spending cuts in exchange for minor downward adjustments in the long-term trajectory of our debt. I don't blame Republicans for rejecting that; after all, the beating they'll take on tax increases is hardly worth the minor progress they will have made on the long-term problem.

But a tax hike + spending cuts that SOLVE the long-term debt/ entitlement problem? That could be a different political calculation entirely. (As I noted in a tweet a while back, even the editors of National Review seem prepared to accept this kind of deal.)

Thoughts on The Politician

I finally got around to reading The Politician, the memoir by Andrew Young, longtime aide to John Edwards...better known as the guy who initially took the fall for impregnating Rielle Hunter.

Considering that this book was supposed to be payback, I was surprised by the relatively gentle treatment of Edwards. He doesn't come off as any more narcissistic or spoiled than your average U.S. senator; really, until he's in full scandal-containment mode, he seems like a pretty ordinary guy. I suppose that's the problem, though, for people like Andrew Young, who devoted their lives and careers to a man they thought was extraordinary.

Then there's Elizabeth Edwards. You have to give her a pretty wide berth, considering that she was dealing with a cancer diagnosis and marital infidelity at the same time. But WOW, can she be cruel, and petty, and vindictive. She definitely has a gentle, compassionate, generous, loving side too, but flip the switch and she will shoot you in the gut and relish the sight of your slow, painful death.

Finally, let's talk about Rielle Hunter...ugh. She's a selfish, rude, immature, flaky, New Age moron. You read about women like her, or Monica Lewinsky, and you wonder, why would guys like John Edwards or Bill Clinton choose them? Then you realize that while most political groupies are just offering sex, women like Rielle and Monica are offering adoration. Rielle, in particular, treated John as if he were a god. And that, presumably, is why he picked her, despite a personality that would be unappealing on a 13-year-old girl, let alone a grown woman.

Mitt wants to do WHAT?

Apparently I missed the story earlier this week that Mitt Romney wants to index the federal minimum wage for inflation. This is SUCH a lousy, unconservative idea, it's finally caused me to ask a question a lot of other conservatives have been asking for months: "Is this guy really one of us?"

Let me tell you why I oppose the minimum wage, and why, therefore, I think Mitt's proposal takes a bad idea and makes it worse.

First, and most important, employers are the GOOD GUYS. They're the ones who provide jobs, and health care benefits, and retirement funds, etc., for tens of millions of people. They're also providing valuable goods and services to customers, and trillions of dollars in tax revenue to various levels of government.

In light of this, setting a wage floor and indexing that wage floor to inflation sends entirely the wrong message to employers: "If you risk your capital to do good, socially desirable things for individuals, for the economy at large, and for government at all levels, we're going to impose significant costs on you, just because you've got deep pockets...and because we can (what are you going to do about it?)."

Second, apart from punishing desirable behavior, the minimum wage is really just a lazy, cowardly, unrepublican trick. Like annual budget deficits, minimum wage laws allow the public at large to enjoy certain benefits without paying the full costs associated with those benefits. The minimum wage is basically our way of saying, "As a country, we've decided that we want to set a floor on wages, but we don't really want to pay the tab for that. So, we'll just make employers pay it."

How ridiculous is that? Here's what we should be saying instead, "As a country, we've decided that we want to set a floor on wages. We feel so strongly about that, we're going to guarantee a federal wage subsidy, paid for out of tax revenues. That's right--we're all going to kick in a little to achieve this important public policy objective." (Not, "Yup, we're all going to agree to squeeze employers even beyond the taxes they pay so that we can achieve this important public policy objective without having to reach into our own pockets.")*

Third, the minimum wage is very poorly targeted. The struggling single mom at an entry-level job gets paid the minimum wage, and we think, "We're doing this for her." But what about the kid working part time in a family business? The retired senior citizen who just likes to get out of the house and be around people? The second earner in a household that isn't relying on the extra income?

You don't need a minimum wage for these people (and you certainly don't need one indexed to inflation). You don't need a minimum wage for anyone, in fact. You need to let the market set wages at the intersection of the supply curve and the demand curve. If that results in lower wages than we're comfortable with, then we, as a people, can pay for a direct federal wage subsidy out of our taxes. We can target that subsidy as broadly or as narrowly as we want, so that we are subsidizing the wages of say, full-time workers, and/or heads of households in single-income families, and/or people working their way through college, and so on.

THAT's as conservative an approach as you're going to get to a subject as unconservative as a guaranteed wage. That's the approach Mitt ought to embrace...not his mind-boggling suggestion that we take a bad idea and make it 3% worse each year.

*I'm genuinely offended at the idea of politicians, who produce nothing, expropriating the proceeds of other people's risk, investment, and labor, and redirecting those proceeds to the politicians' own electoral benefit.