Month: August 2008

The VP Picks

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Now that both running mates have been announced I can share my reactions. In both cases I think that the candidate made a good pick for their individual positions. I have previously written positively about both of the running mates. I said that Sarah Palin, with a record of standing up to politics as usual, was the kind of candidate I would like to back (even though she was not among the presidential candidates). I said that Joe Biden had proposals that showed pragmatism and promise of rational thought.

Biden offers an image of experience for Obama. Palin offers an image of youth and augments the faded image of independent thinking that McCain once had. Some people complain that Palin is too inexperienced to be in line to succeed an aging president – that line of reasoning backfires on the Democrats since Biden is not at the top of their ticket.

The fact is that Obama and Biden appear to be well suited to each other and to complement each other in their individual strengths. Likewise, McCain and Palin appear to be well suited to each other and to fill the gaps in their respective resumes. Truthfully, by June of next year both the President and the Vice President (whoever they are) will have more experience in foreign policy than any of the candidates do now.

I agree with what some analysts have said – that the VP selection is more important in this election than in most – but even so I don’t vote for the vice president unless I can support the president.

Tags elections, McCain, Obama

National

Obama’s Words

If Obama becomes president I will measure his presidency against his own words – starting with his acceptance speech. (I will measure a McCain presidency against his own words as well.) I caught parts of the speech while I was driving a moving truck last night and though I did not hear every word, there were a couple of parts that were noteworthy.

What — what is that American promise? It’s a promise that says each of us has the freedom to make of our own lives what we will, but that we also have obligations to treat each other with dignity and respect.

It’s a promise that says the market should reward drive and innovation and generate growth, but that businesses should live up to their responsibilities to create American jobs, to look out for American workers, and play by the rules of the road.

Ours — ours is a promise that says government cannot solve all our problems, but what it should do is that which we cannot do for ourselves: protect us from harm and provide every child a decent education; keep our water clean and our toys safe; invest in new schools, and new roads, and science, and technology. (p. 3)

Businesses have the responsibility to play by the rules of the road – what he left unsaid is that he believes that government has the right/responsibility to define the rules of the road. While there may be some rules that government should define, most of the rules of the road should be left to the market.

Perhaps more disturbing to me is that third paragraph which starts promisingly with the admission that “government cannot solve all our problems,” and that it should stick to doing things that we cannot do for ourselves. I’d like to know why we cannot “{keep} our toys safe, invest in new schools, and new roads, and science, and technology.” In the short term and on specific projects it may make sense for the government to make those investments, but we do ourselves a disservice if we learn to expect that government should be respoonsible for all those things that we can do for ourselves.

If Obama becomes President I will weigh what he does against these words:

And, Democrats, Democrats, we must also admit that fulfilling America’s promise will require more than just money. It will require a renewed sense of responsibility from each of us . . . each of us must do our part . . .

Yes, we must provide more ladders to success . . . But we must also admit that programs alone can’t replace parents, that government can’t turn off the television and make a child do her homework, that fathers must take more responsibility to provide love and guidance to their children.

Individual responsibility and mutual responsibility, that’s the essence of America’s promise. (p. 4 to p. 5)

Those are wonderful and true words but if his policies do not support that requirement for individual responsibility his will be a failed presidency – regardless of his popularity. (I’m confident that the mutual responsibility aspect will not be ignored under Democratic leadership.)

Tags 2008, government, Obama, parties

National

Enumerated Powers Act

If the United States is truly a nation that is ruled by law then the Enumerated Powers Act should be a no-brainer. When the Constitution was adopted it laid out the specific powers of the various branches of government. As the supreme law of the land and the document defining what Congress is meant to do, it should be a simple thing to require that each bill cite the section of the Constitution granting authority for the bill in question. The Constitution is short enough that our congressional representatives should be able to quickly find the applicable section. If the authority is not specified in the Constitution there is a means in place to acquire that authority if it is warranted – that is the amendment process. This limitation to the codified law was so important to our founders that they specified in the Bill of Rights that any power not specified in the Constitution was to be reserved to the states.

When Congress felt it was necessary to levy an income tax the appropriate steps were taken to amend the Constitution to allow for such a tax. That is an example of the rule of law. Unfortunately, most of our Congressional leaders do not care if they have the authority to do what they are doing – they only care if doing what they are doing will jeopardize their chance for re-election. Maybe Congress should try to repeal the Tenth Amendment.

If the Enumerated Powers Act were passed it would enable people to verify the authority of Congress on any bill they passed and it would highlight any passages of the Constitution that were being used to justify excessive or undesireable legislation. If such passages were identified, the people have the ability to clarify those specific passages of the Constitution – through the amendment process.

Tags change congress, Downsize DC, EPA, government

culture

Funding Fire Departments

As we drove through heavy smoke that seemed to be blowing north from the fire in Draper last night, our girls started asking about firefighters and how we (as a society) support them. It got me thinking about firefighters as a service of government. Although they are every bit as legitimate and important a service as police, I rarely think about the Fire Department in relation to government.

Since my brain was chewing on the subject it apparently decided to throw me a what-if to consider. I wanted to share here to see what others thought.

Virtually every structure is insuread against fire – this means that insurance companies are highly interested in the work of firefighters. Would it make sense to privatize the fire department by having insurance companies be in charge of funding them? If so, what kinds of changes in service would you expect to see?

I’m not trying to suggest that our fire departments need to be privatized or that they should be. I just wanted to get some feedback on that random idea.

Tags children, fire department, government, insurance, money, questions, services

culture meta State

Public Discussion

Obi wan Liberali recently asked others if he was considered liberal. Apparently some of his liberal friends thought he was not liberal enough because he is not inflammatory. The discussion that followed in the comments got me thinking about different sites that I have visited and my perceptions. I try to follow sites across the spectrum of political thinking. In doing so I have found some sites (liberal and conservative) where I cannot bring myself to follow closely. In my case, most of the ones I avoid are liberal. I suspect that a reasonable liberal, such as Obi wan, would find that there are more conservative sites he cannot bring himself to follow closely (I am not suggesting that he does, or should, read across the spectrum – only guessing about what I would find if I were liberal like him). That got me thinking that public discourse could be measured along two axis – liberal/conservative and reasonable/unreasonable.

I believe that reasonable discussants find it easy to read other reasonable discussants across the spectrum and less than reasonable discussants who match up with them ideologically. I also believe that unreasonable discussants provide fuel to other unreasonable discussants who are ideologically opposed to them. In other words it is probably fairly easy to follow those in adjacent quadrants, but unreasonable contributors tend to drive away reasonable contributors who are ideologically opposed to them. (Reasonable contributors probably bore unreasonable contributors who are ideologically opposed to them.)

It’s time for another grid:

I have tried to depict who would be alienated by a person who fell at various positions on the grid. For each dot, those on the other side of the line matching the color of the dot would be alienated (according to my theory).

By way of experiment, I am cross posting this at One Utah to see how the discussion differs since that site attracts a very different set of commentors.

Tags discourse, theory

meta State

Regions for BNN/Utah

It’s been a busy month for me personally since I asked about implementing regional classifications for Utah blogs listed on BlogNetNews. I am finally ready to implement regional categories. The options are going to be:

- Salt Lake
- Utah Valley/Happy Valley
- Weber/Ogden
- Cache Valley/Logan
- Davis
- Dixie
- Tooele

The classifications will be self-selection – if you want to be identified in a particular region you just email me or leave a comment with the region(s) you want to be listed in. Please only request to be listed in regions where you have an interest (that would generally be living or working in that region). Please do not choose Salt Lake if your only interest is that you follow the legislative session.

If you are going to be listed in a region with two names, please vote on which name you prefer to use. (We’ll use straight democracy – I’ll break any ties.)

As an example, I could be listed in the Davis (live) and Salt Lake (work) regions – in the past I could have been listed in Utah Valley (before I moved).

Update 8/28/08: The names of the geographic categories have been settled. Only Utah Valley has more than the basic name attached to it (valley) because “Utah” might appear to be general for the whole state (even though that would have been redundant).

Tags BNN, questions, Utah

culture National

Why We Vote “No”

Two weeks ago I suggested that our tendency as voters is to vote against the subject of any given election. This morning my brain supplied me with a possible explanation as to why that might be. Scott Hinrichs has written on various occasions about the fact that we expect more from our president than could ever be met by one person. When my brain connected those two ideas I began to wonder if the reason we tend to vote against whoever is in our focus is because the more we focus on someone the easier it is to see that they could never do all that we expect of them as President.

Thoughts?

Tags connections, elections, government, voting

State

Doug Wright – Stuck on the Freeway

Post author By David
Post date August 21, 2008
12 Comments on Doug Wright – Stuck on the Freeway

I rarely listen to the Doug Wright show. When I do, I generally wonder afterwards how I am any better off than if I had simply listened to the fuzz between stations. Today I happened to hear Doug when I turned on the radio and he was speaking on a subject I care about – tolling in Utah. It did not take long to conclude that Doug must have been stuck on the freeway when the discussions of tolling were starting – because he’s behind the times on the debate. Doug talks as if the tolling were going to happen only on the Mountain View Corridor and that planners were suggesting that it would only last until the bonds were paid off. I think it’s time that Doug caught up to what’s really being discussed more recently.

First, nobody is pretending that tolling is a temporary measure, so Doug is right that once that door is opened it won’t be closed again. Doug also fails to recognize that we already have a toll lane on I-15 with the possibility of other lanes starting to be tolled in the future so the door has already been opened to tolling in Utah.

Second, as cars get better fuel efficiency the government (State and Federal) receives fewer tax dollars per vehicle mile traveled to maintain roads. Regardless of how innovative our ancestors were, we have to find more revenue to maintain that transportation infrastructure. Perhaps Doug would like us to raise the gas tax – as if that would not disproportionally hit the poorest people (the same complaint he makes against tolling). That option fails to address the possibility of a future with other fuel alternatives and the fact that we must find a way to generate revenue in a way that is fair according to use regardless of other factors such as what fuel one person’s vehicle uses or how efficient the vehicle is. Fair revenue would be based on usage (miles traveled being the best measure of usage in my mind).

Third, Doug is referencing revenue projections on toll roads that were built for the purpose of generating revenue. The Mountain View Corridor needs to be built regardless of what revenue it might generate. Any revenue it generates is better than not generating any revenue. Also, lower revenue is an indication of lower usage which results in lower maintenance costs. For a road that is already necessary the risk of low revenue is minimal and tolling a necessary road is a totally different situation than adding new road capacity in order to generate revenue.

Let’s review what’s really being discussed.

- Simple tolling is being less talked about than congestion pricing – which is even more fair because the cost is adjusted based on the usage levels when the driving is happening and it means that people can plan most of their trips at low-toll or no-toll times.
- Calls to include similar tolling options on I-15 and the Mountain View Corridor are increasing. There is no reason that tolling should favor one area over another.
- Electronic tolling would prevent the sitting in line using up gas that Doug complains about. Anyone who was using a toll road regularly would be getting an electronic monitor. Only those who are passing through or who use the roads infrequently would ever have to be stopped at a toll booth.

There are arguments against tolling that deserve consideration, but Doug missed any of those. My conclusion is – if we get congestion pricing as I envision it and I had to listen to Doug Wright I can promise that I would pay the highest toll rates to get off the road as fast as possible in order to minimize my listening time.

Tags congestion-pricing, KSL, Mountain View Corridor, Salt Lake Tribune, tolling, Utah

Local State

My Utah Lake Perspective

I obviously ruffled the feathers of one commenter when I wrote a post in support of a bridge over Utah Lake. He argues that those who want a lake bridge hate the lake and that we should instead be working to restore the lake to its natural beauty. I argue that building a bridge and restoring the lake are nearly independent issues and to that end I decided to share my position on what we should do to restore the lake.

First, I think that Utah Lake would be a great natural resource for the county and the state if it were restored. In its present condition it is little more than a big puddle interrupting our transportation and growth.

There are currently efforts to rid the lake of the carp that were introduced to the lake a century ago. I believe that is a crucial step to improving the beauty of the lake and I think the Department of Wildlife Resources should take every possible step to make that happen – some suggestions they could consider include offering a bounty to fishermen for every carp caught (and kept), making it illegal to release carp (like they have with burbot), or even trying to host a tournament for carp fishing as Texas has done. I’m not sure what the effects on other animals and plants of the ecosystem would be if they try poisoning the carp (as has been suggested).

When the carp have been contained we should be able to reintroduce cutthroat trout and nurse the June sucker populations back to sustainable levels. This would both improve the beauty of the lake, and increase the opportunities for tourism and recreational use of this natural resource.

None of this depends, or is hindered, by a lake bridge as far as I can see. Some have even argued that a lake bridge could be a toll road and that the tolls could be used to fund other lake improvements. The only conjunction I can see between the two issues is that the specific placement of a bridge might influence the recreational activities available on the lake.

Tags fishing, planning, recreation, transportation, Utah County, Utah Lake

culture National

American Debt is No Accident

Post author By David
Post date August 19, 2008
7 Comments on American Debt is No Accident

The fact that Americans have allowed themselves to be led down the rosy path of false economic hopes for a rosy tomorrow – where we can borrow now for anything we want with no thought for the fact that we are paying more by mortgaging our futures all the time – is not surprising. What caught my attention are the actual statistics of this fiscal malpractice and the stark proof that our financial institutions are trying to profit by keeping us individually on the brink of financial ruin.

Since the early 1980s, the value of home equity loans outstanding has ballooned to more than $1 trillion from $1 billion . . .

However, what has been a highly lucrative business for banks has become a disaster for many borrowers, who are falling behind on their payments at near record levels and could lose their homes.

The portion of people who have home equity lines more than 30 days past due stands 55 percent above its average since the American Bankers Association began tracking it around 1990; delinquencies on home equity loans are 45 percent higher. Hundreds of thousands are delinquent . . .

None of this would have been possible without a conscious effort by lenders, who have spent billions of dollars in advertising to change the language of home loans and with it Americans’ attitudes toward debt.

Aside from the precise numbers listed above, none of that information should surprise anyone with their eyes open to the economic situation of the country.

It might seem hard to believe, but not long ago people borrowed money to buy a home with the expectation that they would eventually pay off the debt. A mortgage had a finish line. . .

The newly mortgage-free even used to throw mortgage-burning parties to celebrate their financial freedom. . .

Now the idea of paying off the mortgage and owning a home outright is disappearing. . . banks now enable homeowners to keep borrowing. In fact, they encourage it. . .

As a result, the United States has become a nation of half-home owners. For the first time since World War II, the portion of home value that Americans own has fallen to less than 50 percent. In the 1980s, that figure was 70 percent. (emphasis added)

Let me translate that – we now own less of our own homes as a nation than we did 20 years ago. We have sold majority interest in the most valuable piece of property we have to our bankers for the sake of extra stuff which, while often nice to have, does not provide any of life’s necessities (shelter being a necessity while wave-runners, trampolines, nice furniture, and timeshares are not).

If the majority of our citizenry acts that way with their own money, it should not be surprising that our government does the same with public funds. (In the last 40 years, the only time our deficit spending has even tapered off was from 1998 to 2000.) Our public financial blinders have brought us to the attention of Nouriel Roubini:

After analyzing the markets that collapsed in the ’90s, Roubini set out to determine which country’s economy would be the next to succumb to the same pressures. His surprising answer: the United States’. “The United States,” Roubini remembers thinking, “looked like the biggest emerging market of all.” Of course, the United States wasn’t an emerging market; it was (and still is) the largest economy in the world. But Roubini was unnerved by what he saw in the U.S. economy, in particular its 2004 current-account deficit of $600 billion. He began writing extensively about the dangers of that deficit and then branched out, researching the various effects of the credit boom — including the biggest housing bubble in the nation’s history — that began after the Federal Reserve cut rates to close to zero in 2003. Roubini became convinced that the housing bubble was going to pop.

By late 2004 he had started to write about a “nightmare hard landing scenario for the United States.”

Anyone who is uncomfortable with the fallout of private homeowners beginning to default on their mortgages is going to be aghast at the results of the government declaring bankruptcy – and unless we change our thinking we’re going to have to declare bankruptcy – already we are faced with a debt that we are going to hate paying off. If we kept paying our current taxes and the government did nothing but pay debt at 0% interest it would take four years to pay it off and if we kept paying our mandatory spending programs it would take 10 years.

It’s about time our nation put both our public and our private financial houses in order.

Tags economics, fiscal restraint, government, national debt, New York Times