Narrow Interests

Yesterday’s posting focused on international balance of power. Defense or Offense?

Today I wish to focus on national and regional matters within the USA. I am compelled to do this because we are in a season of politics. In 30 days every seat in the House of Representatives is up for election or re-election. The Constitution favored this frequency of elections to keep the Peoples’ Legislature current, fresh, and focused on the People’s Work. The thinking was then that if a congressman wasn't very good or responsive, voters could replace him quickly. The Senate, however, is focused on broad national concerns and as such one third of Senate seats are up for election or re-election every two years. Their terms are for six years.

Besides issues of regional concern – agriculture, water resources, large storm responsiveness, economic pressures, energy, etc. – bi-annual Congressional elections raise issues related to ideological divides.  Big or small government is one such ideological divide. Another is candidate reputation – corrupt or not, trustworthy or not – you get the idea.

Ideological divide issues are often misplayed. Big government or small is shorthand for non-interference by government control. Many people overexcite themselves over this issue when the actual issue does not apply.  For instance, religious freedom is yours to exercise or not. No one confounds that for you. Abortion regulations, educational freedoms, or taxation of religious institutions really are not the point. Those freedoms are there to exercise as you see fit in America. No one tells you to have an abortion. It is allowed as a free choice. So why the outrage over abortion issues? Simply because those aligned with religious causes feel no government involvement ought to be allowed in such discussions. It is only to guarantee access to healthcare in such circumstances. And too, to fight discrimination against mothers and families who wish access to abortion.

So stop the noise on this issue, please. If you don’t believe in abortion rights, then don’t have one. If you continue to press laws against abortion, you are really pressing your religious views on everyone else. Enough! Same for gay marriage. You and your religious institutions are free to live your beliefs as you see fit. Just don’t impose your beliefs on those who don’t agree with you.

Big government versus small government.  Small government units exist at the township, village, town and city levels of community life. So to county governments. Also library, park and school districts abound throughout the land. As we move up to larger regional government entities, state governments for example, it is clear that state governments do for the entire state what the local units of government cannot do. In the same manner, the federal government coordinates and manages issues the states alone cannot handle.

Can you imagine each state creating its own pension program and oversight regulations? Many have dilly dallied in this issue and huge financial debacles have resulted. Look no farther than my own state of Illinois for that! The state is in debt for $100 billion of pension obligations. Illinois is not alone. Many other states are in serious financial trouble over pensions as well.

Also, just imagine the hodgepodge of environmental protections for air, soil and water if each state had no external standards to follow. The same is true for health and safety standards, educational systems, and the criminal justice system.

We have states rights in America, but long ago we learned that all states are not equal in their effectiveness. Social discrimination under those circumstances grew large. 

You might recall President Ronald Reagan’s pledge to downsize the federal government.  He did so but he mandated the programs to continue under state authority. No money was transferred to pay for it so state and local taxes soared to fund those mandates. The same ‘interference’ or standards were continued, just at lower government levels. And the costs continued just the same.

Free markets is the battle cry of conservatives who feel government should leave markets to private investors. That’s how the mortgage mess of the 1990’s and the first decade of 2000 arose. The Glass-Steagall Act was removed and banks, mortgage companies, real estate moguls and investment bankers went hog wild. The boom’s bubble eventually burst and left everyone holding the costly bag!  Even our friends in foreign nations paid the price of our debacle because we packaged mortgage debt as investment packages and sold them to the international banking community.  What a disaster!

It turns out that investors avoid risk. They say they take on risk but only ones they feel comfortable with. If we left it to them there would be few mortgages made to people of lower wealth levels. Pension benefits would be nowhere, same with compensation and labor conditions. Those standards remove risk from many markets and make them more manageable. So the ‘free market’ is a term that involves little freedom and even less risk.

While these issues are argued in political circles a great game of terminology emerges. The conservative position is X while the liberal or progressive position is Y. Actually both positions sound very different but when measured they are not very much different.

While arguing these meaningless points, however, each side refuses to work with the other and gridlock results in our legislative processes.  That has become the great problem in America.

Rather than voting for one party or the other, or a person with a specific party label, let’s resolve to vote for the person who spouts a program that makes sense and is realistically possible for passage in Congress or the State House.

We will have our chance to express ourselves in less than 30 days. So prepare for it!

October 3, 2014