Category Archives: U.S. Congress

Seek first to understand, even in politics

Inspirational, Politics, State government, U.S. Congress

By Steve Brawner
© 2015 by Steve Brawner Communications, Inc.

The fifth of Dr. Stephen Covey’s “Seven Habits of Highly Effective People” is “Seek first to understand, then to be understood.” Could that apply to politics, even today?

Covey taught that being understood is such a fundamental need that it is impossible to influence another person until that need has been met. He compared it to air: Remove it from a room, and nothing else would matter to the occupants.

Unfortunately, understanding is in short supply – in Washington, D.C., of course, but also outside the Beltway. Americans are divided ideologically, culturally and even geographically. We live in red and blue states and in safe Republican and Democratic congressional districts. Even our neighborhoods and churches are largely politically segregated. As a result, we’re far more likely to talk about people on the other side than with them. Now we’re entering another campaign season where billions of dollars will be spent to disunite us. Didn’t we just have an election?

Seeking first to understand, then to be understood is important politically for three reasons: because none of us knows everything (except radio talk show hosts and TV pundits, of course); because most of us have something to offer; and because the stakes are too high not to try.

The issues that we argue about usually involve competing worthwhile values that are difficult to balance – what government should do to help the needy, for example. Few Americans, including conservatives, want the government to do absolutely nothing to help those who truly need it, and most of us, including liberals, agree that too much government dependence is bad both for society and for dependent individuals.

What’s the exact dollar figure that perfectly balances those two competing values? No one can know. Thank goodness we don’t have to hit that sweet spot perfectly. Just getting reasonably close and governing responsibly is good enough.

In a country with 300 million people, you don’t reach that point by digging ideological trenches and shooting at each other across no man’s land. That kind of thinking just perpetuates an unsustainable status quo.

So how about seeking first to understand? What if we humbly acknowledged that, because we don’t know everything, the greater good is accomplished by combining our ideas with others’? It’s good that liberals warn of the dangers of capitalism degenerating into a survival of the fittest mentality, and it’s good that conservatives voice their concerns about government’s inefficiencies and its capacity to restrict freedom.

By valuing both points of views, and others across the political spectrum, we can get to Covey’s sixth habit: Synergize. That’s the idea that individuals can come together from different places and create something better than what either would have created on their own. It’s much better than compromise, where no one walks away particularly happy. Compromise is better than continued fighting, and in politics, it’s often the best possible result. But synergy happens, too. It’s how we got the Constitution. These days, a framework might be created that better addresses human needs without increasing dependency and adding to the $18 trillion national debt.

Covey also taught that each of us inhabits two circles: a circle of concern where we have no control, and a circle of influence where we do. Focus on your circle of influence, he said.

I can’t create synergy in Washington, but I can seek first to understand, then to be understood in my own life. I’ve decided to learn to avoid fruitless political debates, online or in person – the kind where two people are concerned only with scoring points and not considering the other’s ideas. Nothing productive happens when two people are emotionally invested in a political argument and motivated by pride and fear of losing face. I’ve wasted my time on several of these lately. In the end, all I accomplished was become frustrated and lose 45 minutes that could have been spent more productively.

Instead, I’ve determined to treat these discussions as opportunities for partnership rather than competition – to seek first to understand. I expect I’ll learn something actually listening to others. Maybe we’ll create a dialogue that enriches us both. Maybe I’ll influence the other person, and if I don’t, I certainly wouldn’t have done so by trying to debate them into submission.

And if I’m caught in a conversation with someone who’s not seeking to understand? Hopefully, I’ll be wise enough to get out of it, go somewhere else, and get some air.

Christie, doc fix: A little honesty in the national debt debate

Debt and deficits, Elections, Politics, U.S. Congress, Uncategorized

By Steve Brawner
© 2015 by Steve Brawner Communications, Inc.

Uncle Sam hangs on for webA couple of things happened this past week that are worth noting because they concern senior citizens (today’s and tomorrow’s) and taxpayers (as usual, mostly tomorrow’s).

On Tuesday, the Senate sent to President Obama the long-awaited and much-discussed Medicare “doc fix.” Each of the past 17 years, Medicare payments to physicians have been scheduled to be cut automatically under something called the sustainable growth rate formula, and each of those years, Congress has suspended those cuts for one year. It’s been a charade, but one with real consequences because Medicare payments to doctors are low, and some doctors routinely threaten to stop treating those patients. Those who still do would like more certainty than these one-year fixes provide.

Now there will be no more last-minute reversals of the pretend spending cuts. The problem, as is usually the case, is that Congress did not offset the costs of the doc fix, either with spending cuts or higher taxes. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the legislation will add $141 billion to the national debt through 2025 – money that almost certainly would have been added anyway, just one year at a time.

Arkansas Sens. John Boozman and Tom Cotton voted for the doc fix, which passed 92-8. Earlier, they voted for an amendment that would have required Congress to offset the bill’s costs. That amendment failed, 58-42.

So we’re still burdening future generations with more debt, but at least we’re being more honest and transparent about it. Unfortunately, that qualifies as progress.

On the same day that the Senate passed the doc fix, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, a probable presidential candidate, proposed in a speech a number of meaningful reforms to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. Generally speaking, Medicare serves seniors, and Medicaid also serves seniors along with poor people and the disabled.

Christie’s proposals would affect Americans of all income classes. The retirement age would be raised to 69 very gradually (for Medicare, it would reach that age in 2064). Future senior citizens earning annual incomes above $200,000 from other sources no longer would receive Social Security benefits. Wealthier recipients would pay a higher percentage of Medicare premium costs than they do now. Christie would reform the qualification process for Social Security Disability Insurance, which has become a welfare program for younger recipients. Medicaid recipients above the poverty line would be required to pay co-pays rather than basically receive their health care for free.

Why is he talking about those popular programs? Because they are important contributors to the national debt, which has grown from less than $1 trillion in 1981 to more than $18 trillion today. According to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, $24.11 of every $100 the federal government spends goes to Social Security, while $14.42 goes to Medicare and $8.60 goes to Medicaid. That’s $47.13 of every $100, an amount that will grow as the baby boomers age.

What’s important about Christie’s speech is not whether he’s offered the right answers, but that he’s talking about the subject at all. Social Security has long been called the “third rail” of American politics: Like the electrified third rail on a subway system, if you touch it, you die. Politicians would rather talk about lowering taxes and increasing spending now because the young and unborn who will pay for those decisions don’t yet vote.

Hopefully, Christie’s plan will at least start a real discussion. A government that is $18 trillion in debt and adding more every year must cut spending, increase tax revenues, or do some combination of both. Other potential presidential candidates – including the two with Arkansas ties, Hillary Clinton and Mike Huckabee – should offer their own concrete proposals, not poll-tested platitudes. Those who want to keep the status quo, or increase spending, or cut taxes should show how they will make the numbers work.

At least then we’d have an honest debate – not just about how big the government should be, but also about how today’s taxpayers pay for the government we already have.

If Christie can’t win that debate, then hopefully someone else can with their own plan that preserves an appropriate social safety net without adding to the debt. We can’t just keep passing government’s costs to our children and grandchildren – like the doc fix does, albeit transparently.

Bumpy ride on highways may continue

State government, U.S. Congress

By Steve Brawner
© 2015 by Steve Brawner Communications, Inc.

On Interstate 40 near Brinkley a couple of weeks ago, I drove past a sign reading something like, “Caution: pothole ahead.” I can’t recall ever before seeing a road sign like that on an interstate, but it was certainly accurate. Actually, “crater” would have been a better word.

These roads are a mess. They may stay that way for a while.

The Arkansas Highway and Transportation Department this week announced it was suspending 50 planned overlay projects. In fact, it has cancelled its entire $50 million annual overlay program, which extends the life of highways. According to the Highway Department, an overlay project costs $200,000 a mile. Reconstructing a highway costs $1.5 million a mile.

The department made this decision because it doesn’t have money for the overlays and doesn’t know when it will. Highway programs are funded mostly through federal and state motor fuels taxes, plus, since 2008, money shifted from the overall federal budget (with part of that bill handed to our kids and grandkids). Seventy percent of Arkansas’ highway construction money comes from the federal government. To collect it, Arkansas bills the government weekly for projects it’s doing.

Unfortunately, the department can’t be sure the government will pay up. The federal Highway Trust Fund, which nearly ran out of money last year until Congress replenished it with one-year gimmicks, will run out of money again May 31. That’s two months from now.

The problem is that highways are funded mostly through a declining source of revenue. The gas tax has not changed since 1993 at the federal level and since 2001 at the state level. Cars use less gas than they did back then, so drivers buy fewer gallons and therefore pay fewer taxes per mile. Meanwhile, roads have become more expensive to construct and maintain.

Yes, there’s waste in highways just like there is in every other government program, but even the most ardent anti-tax Republicans agree there’s a funding problem. However, members of both parties either oppose or are afraid of raising the gas tax. So at the state level, legislators offered some suggestions during this past session, none of which passed. Rep. Dan Douglas, R-Bentonville, tried to transfer money from the general fund to highways. That bill died because Gov. Asa Hutchinson was opposed, along with other groups that get money from that same fund. Rep. Prissy Hickerson, R-Texarkana, filed a bill that would have allowed the Highway Commission to reduce the size of the state’s highway system – the nation’s 12th largest – by dropping off little-used miles. Presumably, the counties would have been responsible for them, but they didn’t want that responsibility. Rep. Mat Pitsch, R-Fort Smith, filed a bill to create a pilot program where Arkansas would study a vehicle miles traveled tax, where drivers pay taxes based on how many miles they drive. It’s been withdrawn.

There is some movement, at least in Arkansas. After opposing Douglas’ bill, Hutchinson agreed to appoint a task force shortly after the session to study highway funding. Hutchinson said the task force’s work could lead to a special session. It’s not clear what the task force will recommend that hasn’t been recommended before, but it’s a start. As Douglas told me before he pulled his bill, “We’ve shaken the tree. The coconuts have fallen, and now we need to figure out how we’re going to make coconut cream pie.”

At the federal level? Congress needs to do what it used to do, which is pass a bill that fully funds highway projects for five or six years, so state highway departments can plan, and to fund it transparently, not with funny money. What will probably happen is that Congress will wait until the last minute and then throw together a stopgap measure to buy time and avoid making hard choices. Which is what it did last year.

“Everybody’s coming up with options, but the options seem to be more of the same,” said AHTD Director Scott Bennett, who is clearly frustrated. “We’re going to find a way to shore up the trust fund for a year, and that will give us time to talk about a real solution. And the time to talk about a real solution is now.”

If they pass only a one-year measure, then the next time the subject comes up will be in the middle of a presidential election, when not much constructive happens. Looks like it’s going to be a bumpy ride, in more ways than one.

Starving the beast only made it hungrier

Debt and deficits, Politics, U.S. Congress

By Steve Brawner
© 2015 by Steve Brawner Communications, Inc.

Some time in the 1970s, the Republican Party pledged allegiance to a strategy known as “starve the beast,” which said that the way to reduce the size of government was to reduce the taxes going into it. President Reagan in 1981 used another metaphor: reducing children’s allowance. Democrats, happy to increase government without paying for it, largely acquiesced.

That gentlemen’s agreement has led to a sustained period where government has collected much less in taxes than it’s spent. In 1980, the national debt was less than $1 trillion. Today, it’s more than $18 trillion.

The strategy obviously didn’t work. In fact, starving the beast has only made it hungrier, for two reasons.

One is that government is not a child, and it’s not bound by the same rules as the rest of us. It does not need an allowance because it can always forcibly borrow from the future – until that day, which is coming eventually, when something will happen so that it no longer can.

It also didn’t work because of a fundamental principle of economics those starve-the-beasters should have known, which is that people typically buy more of something when it’s cheaper, and less when it’s more expensive.

Since 1980, the United States government has outspent the Soviet Union to win the Cold War and has fought many other “hot wars,” including the unending ones in Iraq and Afghanistan. Spending on Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and other government health care programs has ballooned.

As a percentage of gross domestic product, government spending is about the same as it was in 1980. But that’s a mirage. Very expensive, unbreakable promises have been made to seniors, federal pensioners, and health care recipients that will cause government to grow. Money that should have been invested in the Social Security and Medicare trust funds to prepare for the retirement of the baby boomers instead was spent elsewhere. Meanwhile, important investments in other areas have been delayed, such as maintaining the nation’s highways and bridges.

Why did the American people allow all of this? Because we haven’t felt the costs of our decisions enough to demand change. In fact, we’re the ones who demand that the status quo continue, and why wouldn’t we? Year after year, we’re getting government at a huge discount at our kids’ expense. We don’t want to pay full price, and we punish those elected officials who ask us to do so.

“Starve the beast” doesn’t require hard choices or ask Americans to take responsibility for their actions. Just cut taxes (“Yippee!) and the government will sort of lose weight on its own. It works for everyone: Republicans, Democrats, and average Americans – everyone, that is, except future taxpayers.

Unfortunately, “starve the beast” is not only alive and well, but it remains Republican Party orthodoxy. Many Republican elected officials, including many Arkansas state legislators and the state’s entire congressional delegation, have signed the Americans for Tax Reform’s “Taxpayer Protection Pledge” stating that they won’t raise taxes. Meanwhile, they did not sign a corresponding “No more spending pledge.”

In other words, we do not promise to keep government from growing, but we do promise not to pay for it when it does. See the problem?

The only way the government will stop growing is if we actually start paying for it. No one wants to pay more taxes, including me, but – and it will probably take a balanced budget amendment to make this work – we should pay for the full cost of the government we have chosen to create. We also should start paying down the debt we’ve already accumulated.

The thing about taking responsibility for your actions is that it makes you change your actions. We should feel the effects of big government every time we collect a paycheck and every time we go to the store. Never again should a war be fought where civilians pay no extra cost. If taxpayers start paying the full cost of government, then it almost certainly will shrink. But If we decide we like big government, at least we’ll admit it and pay for it honestly, without all the debt and hypocrisy.

It’s time to finally realize, after all of these years, that WE are the beast. We’re the ones getting fatter, at our children’s expense.

When will we realize it? When we actually pay for our government – and give ourselves a chance to start feeling full.