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All three branches of government are making things worse
Michael Swickard
So what was sown by these U.S. Supreme Court decisions that we may as a nation harvest? The one thing we know is that there will be more lawsuits and more uncertainty.
It was not just me; many people were unhappy when the U.S. Supreme Court last week made things worse in our country rather than better. The thing we wanted about health care and the Arizona law regarding people in our country without legal status was clarity. They did not provide it.
Instead, they made the situation worse. The laws are less understandable with their rulings that satisfied no one and only stirred the political pot.
In health care, the decision was that Congress called the law a mandate, which would invalidate the law but that it is not a mandate at all, it is a tax, and therefore, the law stands. The rub is Congress and the president said it was not a tax when the law was passed. So we have Congress and the president saying it is not a tax and the Supreme Court saying it is. Two branches of government say it is not, one says it is. No clarity there.
It would appear from the ruling that the Supreme Court is saying the citizens were fools to believe it was a mandate when it was so obviously a tax as the opponents of the law had maintained. Then the Supreme Court roiled things by saying it is not the role of the court to delve into lying or to protect citizen from lies by Congress and the president.
Rather than clear up the health-care issue, the Supreme Count invited more lawsuits so the health-care law can spend longer in court. Just what we need, eh? What about the exclusions the president has granted to the mandate, er, the tax? Can the president give exclusions from taxes? We know less now than before.
More lawsuits and more uncertainty
Likewise, the Supreme Court decision on Arizona’s attempt to deal with people in our country without legal status was equally flawed. Arizona wanted to question people that law enforcement suspected might be in the country without legal status and then expel them. The court said it was fine to question them but Arizona could not take action upon receiving the answers from the questioning. Then why question them?
So what was sown by these decisions that we may as a nation harvest? The one thing we know is that there will be more lawsuits and more uncertainty. The economy is suffering and has been suffering for several years. Unemployment is up at a time when interest rates are very low. Businesses could expand but do not.
In short, the business climate is very bad and in need of a change. To make a change would require new initiatives by private business. Government can spend money but it will not rescue the economy because it takes money from private business to use as the stimulant. The overall effect does not lift up all boats, so to speak.
The government sets the landscape and businesses either increase or decrease. Example: businesses could go borrow money and increase employment, which would help our economy, but there is this uncertainty hanging over the heads of business owners such that they are reluctant to invest in this economic climate. The fastest way to the poor house is investing in things that the government relegates to the unprofitable heap. So businesses are sitting on their wallets.
No predicting the policies of our nation
What is government doing to send a clear signal? First, Congress has not passed a budget in three years. No budget means that there is no real way of knowing what Congress intends to do when they finally decide to do a budget. Without a budget the government lurches from one crisis to another. What does that signal?
Then the Supreme Court does not give any real guidance on the law. Normally the role of the courts is to clarify laws. But we are not experiencing clarity now.
Finally we find the president saying one thing and doing another, as he has with energy issues. “I am for oil drilling but not for the Keystone pipeline.” With all of that, businesses are thinking that there is no predicting the policies of our nation. Lacking a sense of what policies are coming, businesses sit on their money. Who has the nerve to look surprised?
Swickard is co-host of the radio talk show News New Mexico, which airs from 6 to 9 a.m. Monday through Friday on a number of New Mexico radio stations and through streaming. His e-mail address is michael@swickard.com.
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I have money out on loan to a variety of governments, Skeptic.
Hmm… sounds similar to the businesses you want to take money from.
I say we take yours first.
I have money out on loan to a variety of governments, Skeptic.
Schneifer,
…
By the way, do you advocate the government taking all your bank account holdings? After all, that money’s just sitting there,
not doing anyone any good, right?
It was just sitting there doing very little, so I lent money to California; Grant County, NM; Lindsay, CA; Los Angeles, CA; Melbourne FL; New Jersey; New Mexico; New Orleans LA; Puerto Rico; Rhode Island; Rio Rancho NM; UNM; West Contra Cnty CA. The money is lent to build sewer and water systems, for schools, for government buildings, and for all kinds of other government purposes. That’s what it means to buy municipal bonds.
I have also lent money to banks. I have money on loan to banks in NM; Jackson County, somewhere; McLean VA; NY NY; Salt Lake City UT; and Puerto Rico. I assume they’re lending it out to people and businesses for whatever purposes they think good. That’s what it means to buy Certificates of Deposit.
I haven’t lent money directly to the Federal Government – I haven’t bought any Treasury debt instruments directly – but I’m fairly sure I have money lent through the money market and mutual funds I own.
I have no problem with lending money to governments – and that’s what it means to talk about deficit spending. It means the government borrows money I have lying around, and uses it to build sewers and schools and other things that help make everyone richer and thus help increase tax revenues. No problem.
Of course, I also pay taxes to some of those governments to help them pay off their debts to me and others. That’s no problem, either, because I’ve gotten richer not only from the interest the various governments have paid me, but also from the increased economic activity resulting from having better roads, schools, sewers, etc.
“The Congress and the President have both been failures and need to go” – um, I don’t think bin Laden would agree with you, or the gay American population, or the auto industry workers, or anyone else that has been paying attention.
The failures have come from the no no Republicans, banking industry, the tea party induced credit downgrade, and Australian owner Fox News.
Skeptic:
I think you need to look up the definition of “corruption”. And “fairness”. Also “most”. And “society” come to think of it…
Here’s a hint: they do not respectively mean, “Things I don’t like,” “Only what I want to happen happens,” “<20%,” or, “Every man for himself.”
Also, the numbers on the exemptions are from the Dept of HHS.
I would say that I miss the days when the debate with conservatives was over how we should manage this country’s affairs rather than whether we should be bothering to manage our affairs at all, but it is becoming harder and harder to recall such a time.
Au Contrare – the exemptions, just like tax deductions and any number of corrupt government practices very much ARE a debate about how we should be managing our ( society’s affairs ). I would like to see fairness, not corruption. And expansion of government leads to corruption, not fairness.
Skeptic:
Quoting from ultra-conservative party broadsheets like the Washington Times that are notorious for their questionable accuracy and selective reporting doesn’t actually demonstrate a firm grasp of the issues, particularly when you magnify the sins of noticeably poor math and unsupported implications in the articles you reference with demonstrably frantic overstated hyperbole of your own, such as, “…most of the exemptions went to businesses in Nancy Pelosi’s district.” Just under twenty percent is a remarkably large number, but it hardly constitutes “most”. You further demonstrate your remarkable lack of understanding in how a free society actually works with your rather strange closing statement: “Regulation breeds corruption because the government imposes a burden, then selectively lifts the burden to cronies.” This last is also demonstrably untrue, since 90% of all requested waivers have been granted, which would certainly not be the case were such things only going to “cronies”. As for your belief that regulation breeds corruption, that is a statement that manages to be impressive only in it’s status as a shining example of Orwellian falsehood; if there is anything that this country’s history has shown, it is a lack of regulation by the people’s government that breeds corruption. The distopian vision you seem so remarkably dedicated to has thankfully been dismissed as no more than an interesting philosophical exercise since the seventeenth-century writings of Thomas Hobbes.
I would say that I miss the days when the debate with conservatives was over how we should manage this country’s affairs rather than whether we should be bothering to manage our affairs at all, but it is becoming harder and harder to recall such a time.
Let’s legalize slavery again.
Denying Canadian companies from hiring construction workers and making employees more expensive to hire are
great job killers.
If slavery were legal we could solve the whole poverty problem just by letting rich people buy poor people. We know that people tend to value what they’ve paid for, and rich people always take good care of their possessions, so I’m sure that the private initiative of rich slaveowners would be so much more efficient than the government at taking care of poor people.
Or, you know, we could decide that some things just shouldn’t be allowed in a decent civilized society. Things like uninsured people dying sooner than insured people, or poisoning the earth by extracting tar sands, or slavery.
Just because something is called a “job killer”, to use the Republican talking point label, doesn’t mean that it’s a bad idea.
If you want to see some things that really have helped keep unemployment high, go here: http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2012/07/06/511940/5-ways-republicans-sabotaged-job-growth/?mobile=nc
If you want to learn why political polarization, and the extermism of Republicans, is caused by income inequality and the increasing wealth of the super-rich, go here: http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/2012/07/polarization-of-american-politics.html
Or, you know, you can just keep repeating Job Killer!!11Eleventy-One!! at every opportunity
No where have I seen any exclusions that the president has granted to the mandate or tax.
Consider if you were paying attention.
The left wing media tended to gloss over it, and the right wing media made it red meat.
But the numbers are from the Department of HHS, and most of the exemptions went to businesses in
Nancy Pelosi’s district. That’s in addition to the big businesses and religious groups that were exempt from the start:
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/may/20/obamacare-waiver-corruption-must-stop/
http://washingtonexaminer.com/article/140112
http://cciio.cms.gov/resources/files/alw_hra_05132011.pdf
Regulation breeds corruption because the government imposes a burden, then selectively lifts the burden to cronies.
Schneifer,
It doesn’t sound as if you’ve ever run a business or hired anyone.
Yes business is slow to begin with, but the government piling on is worse and preventable.
Why can’t people understand that the reason we supposedly tax tobacco is to make it more expensive, and thus dissuade consumption?
If they can understand that, why can’t they understand that if we tax employment making it more expensive, we will dissuade employment?
The broken Congress of both Ds, and Rs, is as culpable.
By not having a tax code, businesses can’t know how much their costs will be starting in January.
But they can’t estimate how much consumers will have to spend, either.
I don’t expect government to fix the economy, just don’t screw it up more.
The Congress and the President have both been failures and need to go.
By the way, do you advocate the government taking all your bank account holdings? After all, that money’s just sitting there,
not doing anyone any good, right?
“Denying Canadian companies from hiring construction workers and making employees more expensive to hire are
great job killers.”
What bizarre chain e-mail did you cull that particular wild conspiracy theory from, Skeptic? Do you have an actual source, or did you just hear it somewhere and decide it must be true?
Mr.Swickard says ” Lacking a sense of what policies are coming, businesses sit on their money. Who has the nerve to look surprised? ”
Nonsense. As has been said by others and many economists, businesses do not sit on their money when there is demand for their product or service. Period. If people are coming through the door buying the business is providing. Period. It’s too bad Mr.Swickard does not grasp the most basic of business and economic facts. If he did, he would not simply pass along some re-hashed talking points. I’d ask him this-If someone came to him and asked him to produce consultation services for education would he hesitate because he isn’t sure of what the government policy will be in the near future? Of course not. He’d do the work. Same with every other business. If someone comes to a cake shop and asks for a few dozen cakes for an event does the shop say “No, we don’t know what the future holds so we won’t spend the money to buy the ingredients.” Of course not. Mr.Swickard knows, or should know, that business operates on demand and when there is no demand there is not business. It has very, very little to do with government policy. American business did not reach such a pinnacle in commerce by not being able to navigate the vagaries of government policy and bureaucracy. For Mr. Swickard to suggest American business is too stupid or frail or timid to take the bull by the horns and provide goods and services in spite of government rules is for Mr. Swickard to say he has no faith in American business and he believes the partisan nonsense designed to deflate our spirit and national confidence. To hell with that attitude. That attitude belongs to losers, not Americans.
Incoherent again.
Businesses could expand but do not
True. Businesses could expand, but as long as sales continue to be slow, no business in its right mind will expand. There’s no point producing more if you can’t sell more.
Government can spend money but it will not rescue the economy because it takes money from private business to use as the stimulant.
No. Taking money that’s sitting around being useless – because businesses are choosing not to expand, as noted just above – doesn’t reduce business investment. On the contrary, if government starts buying more things then it necessarily follows that someone must start selling more things – and if businesses start selling more things they’ll hire people to increase production.
Example: businesses could go borrow money and increase employment, which would help our economy, but there is this uncertainty hanging over the heads of business owners such that they are reluctant to invest in this economic climate.
Businesses could – but we all agreed just a moment ago that businesses are choosing not to. They’re making that choice not because of uncertainty but because they’re seeing sluggish sales and low demand. What’s really holding our economy back is that government spending and investment has fallen dramatically, which is a big drag on the economy. http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/2012/05/government-spending-sometimes-things-are-not-what-we-think-they-are.html
No where have I seen any exclusions that the president has granted to the mandate or tax. Could you be referring to the pace in which the ACA is being implemented or perhaps the experimental implementations of a merger of single payer with private insurance as seen in Vermont?
I also have not read anything about “lying” by the congress or president regarding the ACA.
Also, this.” The court said it was fine to question them but Arizona could not take action upon receiving the answers from the questioning. Then why question them?”
Well, that is because the it is the federal government’s responsibility to “take action” and the only action a state can take is to turn alleged illegal immigrants over to the feds. The court was clear enough in re-enforcing the righteous laws that put immigration matters under federal jurisdiction.
Why question brown looking people indeed. Good question.
The government does not “take money” from “private business”, the government rightfully taxes everybody according to their ability to pay for civilization and the well being of citizens.
“Then the Supreme Court does not give any real guidance on the law. Normally the role of the courts is to clarify laws. But we are not experiencing clarity now”
Well, let me clarify for you. The health care reform will proceed as specified in the ACA and the federal government will remain the agent of enforcement of immigration laws. Perhaps your lack of clarity is really a lack of acceptance of the court’s clear rulings. Just because you do not agree with the court doesn’t confuse anybody except you.
Obama is clearly making the economy worse than it otherwise would have been.
Denying Canadian companies from hiring construction workers and making employees more expensive to hire are
great job killers. He does not deserve another term to continue such harm.
For its part, Congress, both Ds and Rs, are helping destroy jobs also -
how could a business or company have any idea how many employees they
could afford to pay with no tax code six month from now?
I’m more inclined to give the SCOTUS a break – Roberts is right,
if the people can’t hold this government accountable and through it out,
we deserve what we get.
Yes the US Supreme Court really did make an endless mess of things when they selected George W Bush to be President. It lead to economic ruin and a bogus war in Iraq which we now owe the Chinese billions for… Duly elected President Obama has done better than any other person could in resurecting the Nation but with the Republicans saying no to anything that could help the citizenry is left wanting.
Truly, it is time US Attorney General Eric Holder charges Dick Cheney and George W. Bush for internation war crimes. This may prevent the US Supreme Court from making decisions on behalf of the Republican party while similtaneously exposing truths in regard to the Bush Administration, 9/11, and other crimes.
Meanwhile let us hope and pray that taxes start being collected from the ultra rich since trickle down ecomomics has been proven not to work.
Congress has not passed a budget in three years.
Facepalm.