Fiscal conservatives haven’t had much to crow about from the Bush Administration. Despite Bush’s policies of lowering the tax burden across the board, in terms of fiscal policy he’s governed like a Democrat. Under Bush we’ve seen a massive increase in wasteful farm subsidies, we’ve seen the creation of a new and fiscally damaging Medicare prescription drug benefit, and the energy and transportation bills have been stuffed with enough pork that copies of it would be banned in British offices less it offend Muslims.
In short, Bush may be good on taxes, but lower tax rates aren’t fully effective unless they’re accompanied by reductions in spending, and Bush has not only failed to deal with runaway entitlement spending and pork, but he’s expanded both.
It’s time that the GOP rank and file said “enough is enough.”
And thankfully, they are.
The Coburn Amendment would take money to build a wasteful multimillion-dollar bridge in Alaska where it is entirely unneeded and use it to rebuild a bridge battered by Hurricane Katrina. Mike Krempasky calls it “a hill to die for” and that statement is dead-on for fiscal conservatives. It may not mean much in the grander context of the national budget, but it’s a powerful sign that conservatives are no longer going to sit around and let Congress spend willy-nilly while the US budget deficit skyrockets.
It’s about time. Non-defense discretionary spending under the Bush Administration has skyrocketed at unprecedented rates. Spending on education at the federal level under Bush has outstripped even Clinton-era spending increases, despite the fact that Bush campaigned as a proponent of local control and school choice. The Medicare prescription drug benefit was a clear political move designed to win over senior voters – and it wouldn’t seem as though it achieved that goal. The number of seniors who have an actual need for such a benefit was and is small enough to have been dealt with by existing programs, both public and private. Instead of having seniors utilize those resources, the Bush Administration created a monstrosity that will add nearly $700 billion in unfunded liabilities to the already failing Medicare system.
It’s time for fiscal conservatives to make themselves heard. The Bush Administration has ignored the most basic principles of fiscal conservatism for too long, and in a time of war and natural disasters, it is simply intolerable that American taxpayers are being asked to foot the bill for bridges to nowhere and other pork projects. The most basic tenet of the modern Republican party since the days of Reagan has been that government is not the solution to every problem. In fact, more often than not, it’s the cause of many of them.
Expanding government by necessity limits individual autonomy, and tax cuts are only half of the equation. Government spending must be restrained. We don’t elect Republicans so that they can govern like Democrats and continue to expand the size and scope of the federal government at alarming rates. Fiscal conservatism can and should make a comeback, but the only way to do that is to show that fiscal irresponsibility is a losing proposition. A massive groundswell of grass-roots support for the Coburn Amendment is an ideal way of telling Congress that it is time to put America’s fiscal house in order.
You really wanna see government spending go down? Then vote straight-ticket Democrat in the 2006 midterms. With the extreme partisanship in Washington right now, Bush will go from not vetoing any spending bill in his first six years to vetoing virtually all spending bills in his last two if Democrats take over Congress.
The Coburn Amendment failed 82-15. Looks the comeback of fiscal conservatism lasted one day.
Mark, the party of defict spending has now found its hidden fiscal constraint. Wow were was it all those pork laden years ? I think that West Virgina is on the verge of being called Robert F Byrd ville or some such thing.
But it makes the point, they are politicans and they will spend our money on anything and everything to get elected. So, they can go back to their constituents, both dem and repub Mark so don’t get your knees in a knot, and say see this is what I got for you…The only way to get politicans to stop spending taxes on pork and other non-essential appropreations is to stop sending so much to Washington. That means TAX CUTS, TAX CUTS, TAX CUTS.. How do you stop a politican from spending money, you keep it from them ! TAX CUTS
I’m sure that this is were Mark was heading as well.
Ray M, I’m aware of the “starve the beast” theory constantly flaunted about by you wingnuts. I have to give you props for being one of the few righties willing to admit that your endgame is bankrupting the Federal Treasury. The only problem is that Americans want and depend on the Federal spending that would have to be withdrawn if the conservatives’ Somalia-style “ownership society” dystopia were to ever be realized. And that will NEVER happen. Keep in mind, that Robert Byrd’s WV is a RED state….as is Ted Stevens’ Alaska. If the form of conservatism you and Tom Coburn want practiced comes to fruition, those two red states along with several others would turn blue faster than a corpse in a freezer.
Ray, buddy, we’ve already cut taxes in the last five years by how much? $2 trillion? $3 trillion? Yet through all this, non-discretionary spending not only hasn’t slowed, it’s doubled. Your theory has so many holes that it can’t even come close to holding water. The only thing tax cuts are doing is deferring crushing tax increases on future generations and forcing an even higher share of the federal budget to be allocated to national debt interest than the current 22% we pay…..or as I prefer to call it, the Ronald Reagan legacy tax. I hope for your sake that you’re old enough that you won’t be forced to pay both Ronald Reagan’s legacy tax and George Bush’s legacy tax a generation from now like I’ll have to.
As I stated earlier, those who really want to see spending go down will vote for divided government. One-party government means like-minded priorities, and given that the GOP is just as wise as the Dems to the fact that truckloads of pork are necessary to maintain the allegiance of the electorate, Republicans have proven to be just as incapable of controlling spending than that Great Society Democrats of 1965-66, the last time non-discretionary spending was as high as it is now.
I’d agree, but not even tax cuts are enough when you can just run up a deficit.
The only way to fix the problem is to make structural changes. John Kerry’s single good idea was reinstating PAYGO budgeting rules – that should be combined with private accounts in Social Security, strict budgetary rules, limitations on earmarked spending, etc. So long as Congress can spend, they will. I believe it was Pope who observed that democracy died when people discovered they could vote themselves money from the treasury – which is why it is imperative we make sure that our Congresscritters can’t get their grubby little paws on it.
And vote Democratic to cut spending? There’s a laugh!
Jay quoting Alexander Pope I like it, I like it. Talk about taking the discussion a little higher, I recognize the quote but am unsure of the author but it could very well be Pope since he was such a prolific author.
I hadn’t heard too much more since Kerry’s proposal of the Paygo but it sounds good if it requires that type of accountability. Reform would be greatly needed. I would also like to see term limits, but am unsure of the constitutionality and it doesn’t seem like anybody has really brought that up in an eon. Those who voted with Coburn (R, OK)as follows:
Allard (R-CO)
Allen (R-VA)
Bayh (D-IN)
Burr (R-NC)
Conrad (D-ND)
DeMint (R-SC)
DeWine (R-OH)
Feingold (D-WI)
Graham (R-SC)
Kyl (R-AZ)
Landrieu (D-LA)
Sessions (R-AL)
Sununu (R-NH)
Vitter (R-LA).
But to be sure Landrieu (D-LA) and Vitter (R-LA) have been speaking of not so much to cut the pork but to give all the pork to them. Slim pickens though.
Mark: Call someone a “wingnut” again, and it’s a disemvoweling…
“How do you stop a politican from spending money, you keep it from them!”
Too bad our congresspeople have credit cards, with an upper limit determined only by when the Chinese, Japanese, Saudis and EU say “uncle”…
I’m not sure there’s any stopping it now- our economic stability could already be past the “tipping point”. With the GOP gerrymandered and propagandaed into a lock on the House for the next few decades, and the Dems ineffective (and unwilling to do what it would take to turn things around), I think were headed for economic implosion. There’s no stopping the giveaways now- pork barrel spending is like a drug, and with over 30,000 lobbyists now in Washington, it’s one that congress won’t go cold turkey on any time soon.
Get your money out of the U.S. as soon as you can. Foreign resource stocks would be a good choice- gold and foreign oil are probably going to do especially well…
That’s a great way to lose a lot of money. Anyone dumb enough to bet against the US deserves what they get.
In the next 20 years, it’s not a question of whether or not the EU’s share of the world ecomomy will shrink, but by how much. The demographics of Europe are dismal at best, and the levels of economic growth aren’t much better.
Asia’s financial strategy is mercantilist – they depend on strong trade ties to the US for their economy. If the US stopped buying Chinese goods, China would face economic collapse. Before China can become remotely self-sufficient, they’d have to assimilate 300 million peasants into their economy who are barely literate and live a subsistance lifestyle.
Everyone said that the US was going to go down the tubes because the Japanese were buying up all our debt in the 80s – and by the mid-1990s our economy was soaring while they faced depression. China’s economic problems are worse. In 30 years China could be a major economic powerhouse or it could be in a state of collapse. No prudent investor would take that kind of risk over the long term.
The US’s debt is high – but as percentage of GDP (the value that actually matters) it’s not close to the highest in history.
An investor looks at the fundamentals of an economy when they decide to put their money somewhere. They look at productivity, GDP growth, fiscal transparency, and the other most basic factors that decide whether an economy can grow in a sustainable manner over the long term. The reason why so many Chinese investors are investing here isn’t because they’re betting on an economic crash, but because they know that in 20 years the value of US investments will steadily increase.
Predicting the demise of the US economy isn’t a bet that a smart investor would be willing to make at this point…
No tax cuts ever!! because that miniscule fraction given back to people is all of a sudden “fiscally irresponsable”. I am gladdly a wingnut because I don’t think the government should have unfettered access to your wallet. Mark you do sound like a socialist, lets sing “International” together. Tax cuts are gonna starve the trillion dollar beast give me a break, the budget is HUGH every year trillions and trillions of dollars are spend. Just look at this years budget, how much was ear marked for pork projects, the agiculture bill, the highway bill, which bill makes you proud of your governement. Which can you point to that says there is a good use of money, not saying all aren’t, just the majority are just that pork. So when I suggest that they send the money back to the people all of a sudden the fed is gonna go broke ? Its govenernment by the people, for the people, and of the people. Not so the governement can spend its way to happiness. Your side loves taxes and they love that your tax system can destroy things and people. The power to tax is the power to destroy, so I find your love of the taxing power more disconserting ? Why does the economy respond everytime the tax cuts are tried ? Tax cuts account for a miniscule percentage of the overall, but it is true now that money will not be spent. The idea was originally that the tax cuts would be assosiate with spending restraint, but we never got the restraint because congress NEVER keeps it side of the arguement. They NEVER take a paycut, they NEVER do with less money (its only a cut in growth) they NEVER are fiscal responsable. If anyone played by the rules of the governement we would all be in jail. The reason that a larger percentage want the tax code and the pork to continue is that a large percentage of the population pays no income tax, large percentage has no vested interest in changing a broken system, and the wingnuts on your side (and on my side) like it that way becasue it gives them unfettered campaign dollars to buy their constituentcey. we now have a debt that needs everyone in this country; man, women, and child to pay 26,000 just to clear it up.
The endgame is too starve the beast hahaha, wish that we could. Mark I think you need a lesson in economics, the governement doesn’t create wealth, so the money needs to go back to the people who do. To say that those “tax cuts” are a legacey tax (hence the money was the governments not the peoples) admits that according to peopel like you the governement will NEVER give money back to the people who earn it. NEVER makes an error about the rate.
You buy a piece of bread the gov’t gets a cut, the idea is to make more transactions and thus have more cuts for the treasury. Not tax the poop out of people and then sit on your pile of money and divy it out to
Ray M, your model of government is completely incompatible with our representative democracy system, where doing something for “my district” requires doing something for “your district” in return. He may be the most dangerous man in the Senate, but I have to applaud Tom Coburn for not wanting to be part of that game even if it means his state takes it on the chin because of it.
I don’t know where you live Ray, but if you’re like most red-state voters, it’s probably in a place where what you receive in Federal outlays exceeds what is collectively paid in taxes. This has been going on for decades. Cowboys in the American Southwest have always HATED government, but their ability to exist on the land where they chose to settle was made possible by the billions of dollars government invested (and continues to invest) in the sophisticated CAP irrigation system that keeps the land from being lifeless desert. West Texas cotton farmers probably voted for Bush by a margin of 25-1 or more last year, largely on the basis of the “limited gov’t” you people practice but don’t preach……meanwhile these same cotton farmers have never been more dependent on gargantuan subsidies from Uncle Sam. South Dakotans went for George Bush by more than 60% and replaced Tom Daschle with John Thune last year, largely due to a mutual understanding that these “limited government” types would continue to receive disproportionately high federal highway funds each year.
And these are just a few examples of the “spoiled brat syndrome” that plagues most modern righties. No matter how much taxes fall, you people continue to bang your spoons against your high chairs demanding more under the context of “it’s my money” at the same time as you demand the federal giveaways that make your very existence possible in America’s most isolated and gov’t-dependent enclaves known as red states. If you want to shoot the goose laying all the golden eggs, be my guest. I’ll be more than happy watching befuddled red-state voters turn blue when they get the Somalia-style “ownership society” government they claim to want that couples endless tax cuts with corresponding spending cuts.
Bottom line: If you really find taxes to be so oppressive, you should consider moving to one of the swell and prosperous nations of the world that have lower tax rates than America does. Oh that’s right! There aren’t any of those. I wonder why?
I had a person tell me once that all people who receive money or compensation from the government should not be able to vote. Why? If you get something from the Government you will always vote in people that will give you more money. It only makes capitalistic sense. Of course this policy is neither possible nor realistic but it does point out the problem with our pork system. Until there comes a time when the people of Alaska complain about their new bridge being a waist and people of other states follow, this will always be a problem.
And this is why the Democrats are giving the GOP a 270 electoral vote head start for 2008.
South Dakota has fewer than 750,000 residents. You’re damn right they’re going to get more in highway funding than they put in – there isn’t enough of a tax base to support a highway system. And if you want to argue that South Dakota should pay its own way, fine. Every Minnesota plate gets stopped at the border and turned back unless they want to pay to use our roads. Want pasta? Too damn bad, because that durum wheat is ours.
Want Texas beef for dinner? Too damn bad then, because you want to play class warfare with the red states.
When the blue states are starving to death under Mark’s Stalinesque plan, perhaps then they’ll understand why the paltry amount spend on red states compared to the hundreds of billions spent in blue states actually goes towards the common good.
It’s ignorant and idiotic class warfare at its finest – apparently Mark is perfectly content to eat Texas beef and South Dakota grain, but when those areas demand a pittance of what the blue states get, it’s time to get on the high horse and demand that they pay through the nose.
Apparently the concept of federalism is lost on some people…
“And this is why the Democrats are giving the GOP a 270 electoral vote head start for 2008.”
Where did that number come from? The GOP candidate does have 200-220 EV head start in the current alignment, but the 270 number was pulled out of your ass.
“but when those areas demand a pittance of what the blue states get, it’s time to get on the high horse and demand that they pay through the nose.”
I’ve gone through this with you before. First of all, the red states get substantially more per capita than do the blue states….a direct consequence of their living in uncivilized territory that they expect to be made civilized by the very government they despise. Secondly, I don’t object to their receiving disproportionate government money to finance their way of life….I object to their complaining about taxes and government when they feed off of other people’s taxes and depend upon the government for their financial survival. The livestock raised by red-state farmers aren’t stupid enough to demand that the trough they feed from be emptied….if only the people raising the livestock had the common sense not to demand their own feed trough be emptied.
And I’m confused about something. I’m the one who has defended farm subsidies on the basis of them being preferable to the alternative….a corporate oligopoly of agriculture. You’re the one who as recently as last week called for dramatic rollbacks (if not outright retraction) of agriculture subsidies because they don’t concur with your sophomoric “free market” worldview.
“You’re damn right they’re going to get more in highway funding than they put in – there isn’t enough of a tax base to support a highway system.”
Precisely why you should stop whining about the Federal government. If you really wanted less government, you’d move to a place that does have a local tax base sufficient enough to support a highway system. You can’t have it both ways….even if you’re a feeble-minded Republican.
“Want pasta? Too damn bad, because that durum wheat is ours.”
You’re really drifting to the outer fringes to defend your position here. Blue states grow crops as well….probably enough to be self-sufficient considering how much of our annual harvest in both red states and blue states is exported. On the other hand, red states wouldn’t be self-sufficient financially, and even when you did construct your own government, the aversion to all taxation would leave your drum wheat rotting in the fields because the spoiled drum wheat growers would be unwilling to pay for a highway system adequate for them to deliver it to market without those nasty New Yorkers graciously footing the bill.
“Want Texas beef for dinner?”
No thanks. For the last decade or so, nobody in my family has eaten factory-processed beef, instead opting for beef raised locally and processed at the local meat markets. Why? Because my family worked in the meatpacking industry for decades and watched first-hand the steady deterioration of quality of factory-raised beef, the 85% decline in USDA inspectors during the 1980s and 1990s, the unimaginably disgusting conditions where sewer pipes drip onto the assembly line and where fresh-off-the-boat immigrant workers who don’t understand the concept of running water in bathroom sinks don’t bother to wash their hands after taking a potty break. The reason for this return to the Upton Sinclair in the meatpacking industry…..greedy red-state barons in the Texas beef industry decided the best way to maximize their own profits was to bust the unions, cut real wages by 65%, and quietly fill their slaughterhouses with a revolving door of low-wage immigrants who are quickly disposed as soon as crippling assembly line conditions injure them, a process that takes two weeks on average. Hence, “The Jungle, Chapter II” brought to you by trusty red state robber barons. By all means though, I encourage as many red-state voters eat Texas beef as possible. 😀
“Apparently the concept of federalism is lost on some people…”
Apparently the concept of integrity is lost on some people. When you’re sucking on the Federal teat as a means of financial survival, have the integrity not to spew venom about the cow constantly giving you her milk.
Bush got 271 electoral votes in 2004.
Now I really feel like a Browncoat…
The idiocy and the arrogance of such a statement is so blatant it really goes without saying. We suck on the Federal teat? Give me a fucking break. The Dakotas combined get a pittance compared to other states. The per-capita measurement doesn’t mean a bloody thing, except in Mark’s little class warfare world where he wants to piss over anyone who doesn’t live in his way. Next he’ll be demanding force labor repatriation just like his ideological forebearers…
Thankfully, the Founders created a system that doesn’t let the urban areas run amok over everyone else – predicting exactly the kind of snide arrogance of people like you.
To think I bothered to fish this comment out of the spam trap. Oh well, next time I won’t bother.
I’ve lived in rural areas my whole life. I have no problem with the Dakotas’ disproportionate consumption of Federal tax dollars. I do have a problem with them having a problem paying the insufficient level of taxes that they do when the take in so much per capita compared to blue states.
And by the way, didn’t Bush get 286 electoral votes in 2004? Whatever the case, you’re assuming the 2004 alignment will hold up indefinitely. Take a look at Survey USA’s state-by-state approval rating data for Bush taken just last week and see if you still feel that way.
And once again, you fail to reconcile your support for rolling back farm subsidies with your suggestion that you have red-state America’s interests at heart. Don’t you see a little hypocrisy there?
“That’s a great way to lose a lot of money. Anyone dumb enough to bet against the US deserves what they get.”
Jay, Jay, Jay, you’re stuck in the 20th century. Wake up and smell globalization. Increasing free trade is taking the U.S.’s industrial base out from under it, while the country is only continuing to hemmorhage it’s scientific and technological lead. China graduated over eight times as many engineers as we did last year- and they only have four times our population. South Korea, with only a sixth of our population, could easily become a greater scientific power by midcentury. Our population is aging almost as rapidly as Europe’s- and with no Social Security reform in sight, we’re just going to continue to hemorhage dollars. Dollars that we’re going to be forced to borrow at increasingly higher interest rates from increasingly stingy creditors until the day comes that we wake up and realize that we’ve run out of economic steam.
Our national debt isn’t our only debt- household and corporate debt are out of control as well. The U.S. has a negative savings rate. The monster of hyperinflation is the only thing awaiting us at this rate.
Answer this: how are we going to bring pork spending under control when our congress is owned by lobbyists, given a blank check, and “elected” into offices that are all but guaranteed sinecures due to the gerrymandering (by both parties) of congressional districts nationwide? When the “party of fiscal responsibility” has proven to be more irresponsible than their “tax and spend” opponents?
I already know the answer. We won’t. As of this year, the combined deficit and interest on the existing debt are greater than the gross GDP growth of the entire country. And it’s not going to go down. The national debt will soon hit a “point of no return”, past which the growth of interest payments will outstrip our rate of economic growth, which will decline with the retiring of the baby boom generation and the loss of our technological edge. Multinationals will dump money into up-and-coming nations with less costly workforces, which will devalue the dollar as minimum wage laws artificially advance inflation, and the “world gets slathered with a Pakistani bricklayer’s idea of prosperity”*. We’ll continue to pay out massive amounts of money to maintain an overextended legacy millitary with a poorly defined mission, while entitlements and bureaucracy bleed us dry. America won’t turn into a dystopia run by jackbooted thugs, but it will slowly dwindle to a second-rate power as we lose every edge we once had and a corrupt congress, owned by elites of both “right” and “left”, sells our birthright.
All because idiots on both sides of the political spectrum thought that playing silly left/right playground games was more important than minding the store.
Get a rainy day fund of foreign investments before this house of cards comes crashing down. It happened to the French, the British, the Spanish and the Dutch, and it’s going to happen to us sooner than you like to think. I hope I’m wrong, but I wouldn’t bet on it.
*Ten points if you can tell me where the quote is from…
Nicq don’t go to the dark side with Mark let him rot in his anti-anti-anti rants. The ideas of fiscal disapline are good ones go with that sentiment, but don’t bet against the USA on the economic front or any other for that matter, let me cite some info from other sources and not
just my opinion. The beginning is from the McKinsey report (management consultants) and then from the DLC (Democratic leadership council), Clinton brought them to prominence and they are rabidly hated by the KOS crowd and the Deaniacs, but are trying to bring the party a little more to the center.
“What is going on in the global economy and what should corporate leaders do to respond? When the clients of management consultant McKinsey & Co. were asking that back in 1990, McKinsey realized it did not have an answer. So it embarked on an in-depth research project on major business sectors around the world to find out what was going on. The result, written by William W. Lewis, is The Power of Productivity, now out in paperback.
There is an excellent interview with Lewis by TechCentralStation.com editor Nick Schulz here.
Lewis’s findings are startling. His team found that the United States is the most productive nation in the world in almost all sectors, and likely to remain so. For sure, in steel, autos, and consumer electronics the Japanese are marginally more productive. But the big global industries in Japan contribute about 10 percent of GDP. The rest of the Japanese economy—retail, construction, food processing—operates at half the productivity of the US. It is “inefficient, subscale, fragmented.â€
What is the difference? Wal-Mart, for a start. Over the last generation Wal-Mart has driven a huge increase in retail productivity that has forced the rest of the retail sector to reinvent itself or die. In the late 1990s during the great tech boom, half of US improvement in productivity was in humble retail. In Japan, mom-and-pop stores are protected from competition by law. The result is higher prices and a large subsidized labor force working at low productivity, dragging the rest of the economy down.
It is
“the productivity of every worker that matters… [It’s] the productivity of the massive number of workers in retailing, wholesaling, and construction that give the United States the highest GDP per capita in the world.â€
You can see the problem for the Democrats. Their progressive political faith is based on protecting American jobs, on favoring workers over businesses, on manipulating the economy with targeted subsidies, tax cuts, and credits. They think that Wal-Mart is a problem, not an inspiration. William L. Lewis says that the way to prosperity for the ordinary American is through global competition. “The more intense and evenly balanced competition is, the faster the process works.â€
Galston and Kamarck (these guys are from the DLC, or the democratic leadership council, Clintons group) tell us why the Democratic political offering has ceased to work. Most ordinary Americans, even conservative Democrats, “believe in the politics of personal empowerment and that most people can get ahead with hard work.†They have lost the fear their Depression-era parents experienced when the progressive suits wrecked the economy with Smoot-Hawley tariffs, high government spending, high income-tax rates, and fixed wages and prices; they believe that they can thrive in the creative destruction of the market economy. So they stop voting for Democrats.
For Democrats to do well the American people need to lose their faith in personal empowerment. Short of that, Democrats need to lose their faith in “progressive economic prescriptions.â€
Ray, any economic case study that wants to be taken seriously should avoid reminding us about the fact that our biggest employer is now Wal-Mart, a company where the average wage is $7 an hour, more than 60% of the workforce is uninsured, and whose aggressive cost-cutting efforts have pressured hundreds of thousands of manufacturing jobs overseas. As much as you rail about taxes and government spending, it’s curious that you endorse Wal-Mart by proxy, seeing as how they collect hundreds of millions of local government subsidies every year and actively direct their uninsured workers towards Medicaid and other public assistance programs. Chalk this up to another example of conservatives not thinking their position through and ultimately contradicting themselves. That’s probably example #3,745 of conservative ideological contradiction I’ve encountered….and that’s just this month!
The Democratic Leadership Council has destroyed the Democratic Party. Far as I can tell, their agenda amounts to little more than unlimited abortion rights, expansive restrictions on gun laws, and maybe trying to talk Republicans into occasionally trimming down one of their trillion-dollar-tax-cut-of-the-month fantasies. On everything else, they concur with Republicans, thus providing no alternative to socially conservative working people who respond by voting for the party who at least shares his views on abortion and gun rights. Since 1992, the Democratic Party has followed the DLC playbook for the last six election cycles and have been roasted in five of them. If Galston and Kamarck’s advice is heeded and the Democrats lunge even further to the right in 2006 and 2008, they’ll lose both of them too.
Evil evil Wal Mart the are forcing their employees to work for them, funny when I went in there they din’t have chains on their employees. They seemed to me to be actually walking around on their free will. Funny how you unionists cite all the concessions they get from state/local/federal governments, have you tryed to get a carpenter job in NYC or any union city (i.e. all the major cities) without a union card ? How about an electrican, plumber, laborer, hmmm. No problem when you are allowed to extort the local officals only when an employer comes in and does it. In fact I see WalMart employeeing the unemployable, older workers, younger workers, workers who may not be able to get a competative job if your model was enacted.
Hey Mark did you hear that Walmart is now going to offer their employees HSA (health saving accounts) so that for as little as something like $11 a month employees (unsure of that exact figure) will have insurance. How’s that for innovation, while keeping their cost down. Allowing poorer people to shop and save money, forcing the prices down what a concept, must really be a bad thing.
Yeah I see that the DLC is caustic to the democrates cause, almost as bad as, I don’t know, Howard Dean, maybe George Soros, Moveon.org
Ray, once again you have nothing to offer but boilerplate talking points from the robber baron wing of the Republican Party. Since you don’t have any answers to the points I raised showing how Wal-Mart business practices completely contradict your utopian vision of an America with relentlessly declining tax rates and ever-shrinking public spending. How is that vision possible when Wal-Mart won’t even consider building in most towns without hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of tax-financed freebies (in my town, they even wanted their own personal freeway exit constructed for them)? How is lower public spending possible when Wal-Mart directs its low-wage employees into every public assistance program on the books? No answers Ray? I’m shocked.
I’ll be interesting in hearing how you or Wal-Mart thugs expect their $7 an hour employees living paycheck to paycheck to start contributing to their own health savings account. HSA’s are worth about as much as Enron stocks even for someone with a decent imagine. An $11-per-month HSA funded by a Wal-Mart employee would be an even bigger joke…..and would continue to require the exact same percentage of Wal-Mart employees eligible for Medicaid as are today.
You know, Ray, if America’s ticket to greatness really comes from declining wages, rising rates of poverty and a smaller safety net as you say it is when Wal-Mart “offers lower prices” by engaging in the business practices it does, I sure hope you’re doing the same in your workplace. Just think how much more competitive your place of work could be if you forfeited a portion of your income and your health benefits for the benefit of the bottom line! Or even better, imagine how much consumers of the product or service your employer specializes in could save if your job was outsourced to the lowest bidder on the globe the way Wal-Mart pressures its suppliers to do! Conservatives have a long tradition of wishing poverty upon the guy across the tracks for their own selfish, piggish interests, but rarely do they personally practice the brand of lowest-denominator financial measures they insist upon for everybody with a smaller paycheck than their own.
Where is that rising level of poverty ? where are the workers lineing up for the soup kitchens Mark, IS this the worst economy since herbert hoover ? Has the depression started and I missed it. Gloom and Doom Wow were did it go, whats the unemployment rate again ?I can just pile on the platitudes as well. You want me to address these mythical indicators let me know where they are so I can read them myself. If the workers of the USA are doing so bad why are housing starts doing what they do why are all the indicators trending up. How is it that real earnings are up, how is it that even after a hugh gas shock the dow still stays the same, where is that big let down. Could it be that the ressesion inherited from the Clinton administration is actually a good sustainable economy, have the tax cuts worked yet again ? Do you know the fed will probably raise the rates another three times, why are they doing that if its all going to hell in a hand basket. I know to pay off their cronies in the “robber baron” republican party. Where are you getting this data, Kerry’s old talking point page ? Mark it didn’t work back then either.
What did we see in NO, what were they talking about 38% unemployment do you think that it had something to do with the 60 some years they were under democratic leadership (I beat they never got any tax cuts either), old ways of thinking making a population the wards of the state. Now the libs are bemoaning that once the people have fled their now flooded homes and see places like Atlanta or Houston that they will not come back. Nagin wanted them to come back and ride out Rita so the voter base wouldn’t be devastated. You know who is gonna employ those people, I beat you WalMart is probably right in the front trying to get them. Whats the alternative, return to the ward status so they can live in misery for another few generations, while you libs sort out the “living wage” and how much a worker should get paid. Will you let us know when you come up with something, how about everybody earning 100,000 a year would that do ? how about 200,000 ? Whats the rate that you liberal elites be satisfied with, and then how would you pay for it ? Would the market bear the cost of this addition or would we see like in europe that new hire would sink to 1.2 % for a few years, hey but they get 6 weeks of vacation and they send all their employees to their fed gov’t for health care, cradle to grave baby. Its a great deal if you can get a job or know somebody (hey sounds like a union), unfortunately they are squeezing their economies to accomplish that which your asking for.
You cite all the things that Walmart demands before opening a store, how do you think Boeing gets seattle to do all there bidding, why does BMW build in Alabama, why does Mercedes build in NC, I know that this may be a shock but those states were actually offering these incentives to attract these employers. Are you saying that they shouldn’t, then you need to take it up with your local officals as they probably think they are investing in their infrastructure as you demand . Isn’t that what your asking for in the “ever-shrinking public spending”. Public spending to attract employers, Tax base broadening, so the home owners don’t have to foot the entire bill. Funny thta a liberal wouldn’t want an evil employer to provide jobs and tax base, if only so you can tax the be-jesus out of them. You can’t have it both ways.
You think HSA’s are a bad thing whats the solution, how will you reign in the cost of health care, by taking market forces completely out of the process. More third party payer systems, thats working real well. According to your guys we have had a crisis in health care since the ’80’s and they have only offered a complete socialisation of the system or nationalising 1/6th of our economy. Is that the way you want to go ? Or should we let the government be the third party payer and we’ll see how broke we can go and how fast. That system up in Canada is really doing great, isn’t it. Find me a solution besides tax us plebs into submission, or get more people on the dole so the misery can be spread out further. All under the guise of doing whats best for us out here in fly-over country.
Ray, like most modern conservatives, my opinion of you drops a little further with every molotov cocktail of contradiction and idiocy that you splatter across my computer screen. Since you’re incapable of addressing my questions regarding your conflicting pro-Wal-Mart and anti-government spending worldview, you try to bait-and-switch me with another round of assembly line GOP talking points (stupid Republican statements are about the only thing being “manfactured” in America anymore…..and supply vastly exceeds demand!).
It’s funny that you admit that hundreds of millions of dollars worth of corporate welfare finances nearly every job “created” in America today, particularly manufacturing jobs in the South. Again, how does that fact concur with your tireless pleas for lower taxes and less government spending? Likewise, how does Wal-Mart’s well-documented practice of directing their workers towards public assistance programs concur with less government spending? And if the Wal-Mart model of lower wages, no benefits and pressuring its suppliers to outsource good jobs to China is such a wonderful system, why is it that you aren’t forfeiting a portion of your own income and all of your health benefits, and encouraging your employer to locate overseas to maximize profits and “provide lower prices to consumers”? I’ve asked you these questions three times and you haven’t responded. It’s almost as if you haven’t thought things through that far! How unlike a conservative!
Ray, and allow me to clear up a few more of your silly suggestions….
“where are the workers lineing up for the soup kitchens Mark,”
Go to a soup kitchen or food bank and you might find out. In nearly every population center in America, demand for food vastly exceeds supply and is quickly on the rise, as is poverty…..of course you wouldn’t know anything about that because it’s not reported on Fox News and occurs across the tracks from your enclave of privilege where America’s biggest problem is “oppressive tax rates” that are at their lowest point in more than 50 years.
“how is it that even after a hugh gas shock the dow still stays the same, where is that big let down”
The stock market is in negative territory for 2005.
“Do you know the fed will probably raise the rates another three times, why are they doing that if its all going to hell in a hand basket.”
Uh, the same reason they always raise interest rates….to combat potential inflation. And in case you haven’t heard, rising interest rates are not a good thing…lol.
“What did we see in NO, what were they talking about 38% unemployment do you think that it had something to do with the 60 some years they were under democratic leadership ”
I read an article on RealClearPolitics by Nicole Gelinas just today showing that New Orleans’ unemployment rate in August 2005 was 5.5%. Did you just pull that 38% unemployment number out of your ass? The vast majority of the city’s poor people worked….many at the very low-wage, no-benefit, part-time Wal-Mart jobs you claim are improving America’s quality-of-life. There was no “ward” status in New Orleans, or at least none that merits discussion. My guess is your “38% unemployment” was a creation of wishful thinking on your part….a typically ham-handed attempt to blame poor people for their own distress and another failed effort to breathe life into the long-ago discredited theory of economic conservatives that lawless market forces obliterate rather than expand poverty.
“You think HSA’s are a bad thing whats the solution,”
National health care….like every other civilized country in the world has in some form or another. And the dirty little secret about Canada is that their health care costs are going DOWN while ours are rising so fast that they’re pricing America right out of existence in the global marketplace. Perhaps if you read up on policy matters from venues that aren’t tailor-made to validate your current worldview, you’d realize just what a crisis our health care system is in….a crisis vastly exceeding anything we saw in the 80’s or 90’s.
Now, here’s the funny part of all this:
Since when is supporting Wal-Mart conservative? In fact, it seems anti-conservative to me- the Republican base in the upper midwest has long been made up of the main street, small town businessmen who are being driven out of business by Wallyworld. It’s these people who are the backbone of the community, the basic unit of social support; not the imported managers of the big-box shops. To some extent, there is a thinly veiled struggle these days between Midwestern and Southern conservatives: family farmers, small store owners and mainline community churches vs. the old “plantation” aristcracy, big-box stores and evangelical megachurches. Community values vs. top-down, government imposed morality. Leave-us-alone libertarianism vs. mass populism & government socialism. It seems like the latter camp has won the GOP- the former camp hasn’t woken up and smelled the BS yet (except, to some extent, in Montana).
Nicq, interesting point. I was raise the suggestion of how Wal-Mart’s movement towards monopoly of the retail sector jives with conservatives’ long-standing pleas for “increasing entrepreneurship”.
I think you have some competition from Target and Kmart on that “monopolistic” front. KMart was the big kahuna and now its not had to close some stores etc. etc. now trying to get back into the game. Thats the nature of the game. But the idea to be anti-Wal Mart is a conservative idea Nicq really isn’t the case, I think what Wal Mart reflects is a consolidation and shaking out the inefficentcies of the retail market place. Wal Mart is the effective player in that arena for now, kind of like the Japanese automakers where in the ’80’s with their Kaizen quality engineering and the just in time parts supply, reducing inventory levels. Its market efficentency, building a better mouse trap and then leveraging the crap out of it to gain the market. Thats not to say that every retailer has to compete with WalMart on the level of what WalMart does best. And thus we have a reshuffleing of the market to accomidate the Wal Marts. Wal Mart owns a lot of the market in the low end product, but you don’t have the malls going out of business or some of the other retailers in the midrange or high range retail collapsing, they have had to get more efficent at what they do but I just see the same thing that happened when KMart coming on to the scene and when the Super groceries displaced the mom and pop grocer. Its called competition and it is what keeps us on the cutting edge. Its not a social statement on who the GOP is by any strech, but I like your analogy, crude but funny. I think your assumption that all conservatives are sheep or asleep and will mindlessly follow anyone who places a R behind his name is maybe a little bit of a strech. Maybe I just haven’t woken up and smelled the BS yet.
5.5% unemployment in NO are you sure Mark ? I was just factoring in “those who have stopped looking for work and have just given up” isn’t that the mantra from the left in this , so I guess yeah I got those numbers from my ass or some double secret conservative rag site, just like the liberals get their numbers from their ass or the KOS site when they talk about jobs. I was looking for a number that was bigger than the great depression (I think it was 25% back then) and then extrapolating on that. The actual number for unemployment in NO is around 11.4 % for the month of September primarily from the effects of the job loss due to the hurrican. Which will no doubt go down as the construction and infra structure starts up. But I’m encouraged that you had enough where with all to put a couple of the hate the poor talking points. But the point is you cite the $7/hr as too low and as if everyone is now having to work for that rate. “Yes, evil WalMart your paltry check will never cover my expenses but I must work for you..” Why not open up the discussion to Supermarkets how much do they pay the check out counter people, probably not more than that or maybe $8/hr. Gas stations what about them ? What about other entry level jobs how much should we pay them, how much should we bring that rate up ? Who’s gonna make the call ? the fed, more legislation to make sure that these low paying jobs are not available. Centralized planning, associating pay rates for job classes is that what you are looking for. If WalMart isn’t competative with their salaries how could they attract associates, they would have to increase their salaries to get employees, isn’t that the way. So your arguement is a strawman, the fact that you think its too low makes me say why do you think its too low, do you know the market for that type of worker. The beauty of capitalism is that if there is a demand in the market place, there becomes a subsequent value associated to that demand. 2000 workers in a particular market and you need some you have to price yourself in the hunt to get them, if $7/hr nets you the workers you need then $7/hr it is. Can’t get your workers and guess what you have to pay more, offer more incentives to work for you and then you have an increase in the salary. Wal Mart cannot conspire with say Target to set the pricing for labor, they cannot conspire to set the pricing for product. Simplistic but generally what is happening. The market deciedes.
Canada’s cost in health insurance is going down Mark because you have to wait 6-8 months for any of the larger procedures. So I guess to increase the cost savings Canada places a longer waiting period for say open heart surgery, bypass operations, MRI’s, cat scans then they only have to wait long enough for their people to expire to get a better return on their investment. Nes Pa ?
Ray,
“5.5% unemployment in NO are you sure Mark ? I was just factoring in “those who have stopped looking for work and have just given up†isn’t that the mantra from the left in this ”
It came straight an article in the Autumn 2005 City Journal by Nicole Gelinas (who I believe is a conservative) that just came out today. Here a couple excerpts from the article that completely discredit your imaginary thesis that New Orleans was a vast welfare state:
“Despite the images of collective helplessness broadcast after Katrina, New Orleans does not have a stratospherically high government-dependency rate. In 2002, it had 6,696 families on cash welfare, or 3.6 percent, compared with New York City’s 98,000 families, or 3.2 percent. In 2000, 7.8 percent of New Orleans households received Supplemental Security Income, compared with 7.5 percent in New York.”
Hungry for more discreditation. Here’s another gem:
“the city’s unemployment rate was 5.2 percent during 2004, lower than New York’s 7.1 percent.”
The only thing I was wrong about was that I overstated NO’s pre-Katrina unemployment rate of 5.2%. I said it was 5.5%. With luck, you’ll think twice about spamming the board with false information the next time you decide to try to debate politics with adults. 😀
“The actual number for unemployment in NO is around 11.4 % for the month of September primarily from the effects of the job loss due to the hurrican. Which will no doubt go down as the construction and infra structure starts up”
In all likelihood, it will go up. Perhaps you haven’t heard, but Bush waived prevailing wage standards for Gulf Coast reconstruction, enabling no-bid contractors to truck in tens of thousands of mostly illegal immigrant workers from Mexico to work for minimum wage, thus maximizing profit margins for themselves at taxpayer expense. Louisianans aren’t getting jobs to rebuild their city…they’re sitting on the sidelines watching the busloads of illegals pour in. With your “less government spending” drumbeat, I’m curious to whether your indignance extends to getting fleeced by no-bid contractors charging FEMA $20-an-hour for jobs being done by braceros for $5 or $6 an hour.
Ray, you’re such an easy foil I just have to keep filling in the hole you won’t stop digging for yourself….
“I think what Wal Mart reflects is a consolidation and shaking out the inefficentcies of the retail market place.”
Consolidation of the retail market place? Again, how does that comply with your party’s alleged goal of expanding entrepreneurship and making more Americans business owners? Wal-Mart creates fewer entrepreneurs….and those who shop there enable the trend. Nicq’s point was spot-on, while you’re twisting in the wind trying to defend the indefensible after getting caught in another of the seemingly endless contradictions of modern conservative ideology.
“but you don’t have the malls going out of business or some of the other retailers in the midrange or high range retail collapsing,”
Wrong again. The vacancy rate in malls across the country is on the upswing. Even the Mall of America here in Minnesota is seeing more empty indoor storefronts than it has since it opened. Wal-Mart’s “consolidation of the market” is hurting everybody that’s not Wal-Mart.
“Its called competition and it is what keeps us on the cutting edge.”
It’s called corporate consolidation and it is what’s driving entrepreneurs into bankruptcy….the very small businesspersons that the GOP waves around as bloody T-shirts every time a proposal is made that could be remotely contrued as “anti-business”.
“Why not open up the discussion to Supermarkets how much do they pay the check out counter people, probably not more than that or maybe $8/hr.”
Unionized grocery chains pay well above $8 an hour. The commercial workers unions wouldn’t have fought Wal-Mart’s arrival in California if Wal-Mart would have paid prevailing wage rates for the region. Even among non-union grocers and retailers, Wal-Mart’s ruthless and relentless push to reduce labor costs in anyway possible forces the competition to follow them in the race to the bottom.
” If WalMart isn’t competative with their salaries how could they attract associates, they would have to increase their salaries to get employees, isn’t that the way.”
Exactly the opposite. Wal-Mart’s low prices are possible through a combination of lower-than-market-average wage levels and pressuring the manufacturers who fill their shelves to lower costs by whatever means necessary as well, often demanding they move their operations to China. The ensuing race-to-the-bottom drives other area retailers into bankruptcy and shuts down the local factories, raising local unemployment rates, saturating the local labor pool, and forcing the beaten-down peasants to get jobs at the only game left in town….Wal-Mart, who now has so many applicants that they can pay whatever wage level they want.
Ray, I have posed three questions to you in the last two days that you just can’t seem to figure out an answer for. I can understand how the contradictory conservative logic has presented you with a real quagmire in responding to these questions, but perhaps after more than 36 hours of ignoring them, you’ll finally figure out an adequate response the next time you log in, so here they are again….
1) How does the common practice of subsidies and other assorted freebies and giveaways to Wal-Mart and other American business concur with your tireless pleas for lower taxes and less government spending?
2) Likewise, how does Wal-Mart’s well-documented practice of directing their workers towards public assistance programs concur with less government spending?
And 3) if the Wal-Mart model of lower wages, no benefits and pressuring its suppliers to outsource good jobs to China is such a wonderful system, why is it that you aren’t forfeiting a portion of your own income and all of your health benefits, and encouraging your employer to locate overseas to maximize profits and “provide lower prices to consumers�
“Canada’s cost in health insurance is going down Mark because you have to wait 6-8 months for any of the larger procedures. So I guess to increase the cost savings Canada places a longer waiting period for say open heart surgery, bypass operations, MRI’s, cat scans then they only have to wait long enough for their people to expire to get a better return on their investment.”
Canada’s system is not perfect, but the dirty little secret is that Canadians are happier with their health care system than Americans are with ours. And don’t you think it’s strange that American automakers are building plants in Canada despite higher labor costs and substantially higher taxes? If the choice boils down to Canadian taxes or footing the bill for our hopelessly dysfunctional employer-funded health care system, America’s on the losing end of global market forces. If you could move past 1994 and warp into the new dimension known as the present, you’d realize that even your beloved business community is balking at the prospect of maintaining our current health care system….the worst in the civilized world by far. Every nightmare scenario conservatives predicted during the HillaryCare debate has come to pass under HMO’s, which basically amount to corporate socialized medicine. I only hope your party continues to ignore this pressing issue….because it spells certain defeat for you in coming election cycles.
Sorry haven’t been able to get to the coputer for a few days but enjoyed the debate. Sorry work gets in the way of so much enjoyment.
You probably heard Mark that Bush recinded the ban on Davis-Bacon Act, must have heard your adult like staement to the Halliburton trucking in thousands of illegals, in front of the unemployed NO populace. but here is my objection to it.
“The Davis-Bacon Act of 1931 forces contractors on all federally-funded contraction projects to pay the `local prevailing wage,’ defined as `the wage paid to the majority of the laborers or mechanics in the classification on similar projects in the area.’ In practice, this usually means the wages paid by unionized contractors. For more than sixty years, this congressionally-created monstrosity has penalized taxpayers and the most efficient companies while crushing the dreams of the most willing workers. 61-year-old relic of an era during which people actually believed Congress could legislate prosperity. Americans pay a huge price in lost jobs, lost opportunities and tax-boosting cost overruns on federal construction projects every day Congress allows Davis-Bacon to remain on the books.
Davis-Bacon artificially inflates construction costs through a series of costly work rules and requirements. For instance, under Davis-Bacon, workers who perform a variety of tasks must be paid at the highest applicable skilled journeyman rate. Thus, a general laborer who hammers a nail must now be classified as a `carpenter,’ and paid as much as three times the company’s regular rate. As a result of this, unskilled workers can be employed only if the company can afford to pay the government-determined `prevailing wages’ and training can be provided only through a highly regulated apprenticeship program. Some experts have estimated the costs of complying with the paperwork imposed on contractors by Davis-Bacon regulations at nearly $200 million a year. Of course, this doesn’t measure the costs in lost job opportunities because firms could not afford to hire an inexperienced worker.
Most small construction firms cannot afford to operate under Davis-Bacon’s rigid job classifications or hire the staff of lawyers and accountants needed to fill out the extensive paperwork required to bid on a federal contract. Therefore, Davis-Bacon prevents small firms from bidding on federal construction projects, which, unfortunately, constitute 20 percent of all construction projects in the United States.
Because most minority-owned construction firms are small companies, Davis-Bacon keeps minority-owned firms from competing for federal construction contracts. The resulting disparities in employment create a demand for affirmative action, another ill-suited and ill-advised big government program.
The racist effects of Davis-Bacon are no mere coincidence. In fact, many original supporters of Davis-Bacon, such as Representative Clayton Allgood, bragged about supporting Davis-Bacon as a means of keeping `cheap colored labor’ out of the construction industry”
So to get this straight you don’t have a problem with freebies given to unions,what are unions now as a precentage of the population 12%, so you have a problem with them giving freebies to the unions but you have a problem with them giving it to corporations ? That is a better use of the tax payer funds ? What does the government have a piggy bank and is giving its own money or does the money come from the tax payer, so your argueing from one side of the pork that benefits the few but have a problem with them giving the same treatment to the evil corporations. Do you think that corporations really pay taxes or do they mark up their product to have the consumer pay ? Your argueing the same side of the coin, where do all thes dollars come from if not from us in the tax base.
Here’s a good arguement for WalMart:
Wal-Mart is an employer that pays relatively low wages compared to most jobs or careers, and that engenders a sense of loathing from people getting paid those wages. But Wal-Mart is not unlike any other retailer in the respect that it, for the most part, provides jobs and not careers. Other gigantic corporations such as General Electric or General Motors, on the other hand, employ executives, college graduates, and skilled laborers, so they avoid much of the wage-related scrutiny given to retail employers. Add to that the labor union organizers’ inability to unionize Wal-Mart and you have the perfect recipe for resentment and scorn.
The overriding charges one comes across amid the many Wal-Mart rants are “too large” and “too powerful.” Thus it’s just more anti-industry, anti-free market claptrap. Along with that are the hoots and hollers about this great chain “destroying small towns” by way of buying property in rural areas and opening its doors to townsfolk so they have access to convenient, one-stop shopping, an ample supply of products, and unbeatable prices.
However, there is one prevailing phenomenon that makes Wal-Mart a unique target for contempt and that is its “bigness.” Americans, generally speaking, like to attack bigness. There are things associated with bigness that Americans aren’t keen on, like clout and domination.
In fact, the favorite indictment of Wal-Mart is that they dominate the market wherever they go and sell goods at prices that are too low (gasp!). This in turn—say the naysayers—drives small, local competitors out of business because they can’t compete with Wal-Mart’s pricing or product selection.
Suppose it’s true that Wal-Mart went around opening giant stores in small towns, pricing goods below their own cost long enough to drive local stores out of business. Even if this were correct, Wal-Mart would only be selling its own property. Suppose you want to sell a house you inherited, and quickly. Should you not be allowed to set the price as low as you want?
The theory goes that Wal-Mart could then set prices high, and make monopoly profits. How plausible is this, really? First, Wal-Mart executives would have to be able to see the future—they’d have to know about how long it would take to drive everyone out of business in advance, and know whether they could afford to price goods below cost for long enough to corner the market. Then, through trial and error, they’d have to find the point at which they could set prices low enough to keep customers from driving to another town, but high enough to recoup the losses from the earlier below-cost pricing.
It gets less plausible the more you think about it: The smaller the town, the easier it would be to drive competitors out of business. Then again, a town small enough for this would be small enough to have bitter memories of the pricing strategy and small enough to boycott Wal-Mart before the strategy succeeded. And a very small town would not support a giant Wal-Mart anyway. The larger the town, the less feasible it would be to drive others out of business in that town—Wal-Mart would have to drive their prices far below those of large grocery and department stores, which would be much more difficult.
Further, where is there evidence of Wal-Mart ever driving up prices after becoming established in a market? Wal-Mart has indeed set prices low enough to drive mom & pop stores out of business all over the country and kept the prices that low forever. Yet a journalist for the Cleveland Scene said about Wal-Mart’s pricing policy: “That’s 100 million shoppers a week lured by ‘Always Low Prices.'” Lured—as if consumers really don’t want low prices; they are just tricked into thinking they do!
In a free market, large suppliers of nearly everything will drive most small suppliers out of business. The only people who can afford to do business on a small scale are people at the top of their fields or in a niche: McDonald’s has to keep prices low, and economies of scale do this, while Brennan’s restaurant in New Orleans can keep prices high. People who produce house paint and wallpaper must compete on price with other suppliers, while famous artists can keep their prices high. General Motors must keep prices low, while Rolls-Royce doesn’t have to.
Nobody complains that there aren’t family auto manufacturers, but the powerful farmers’ political lobby makes sure we pay inflated prices to keep inefficient farmers in business. Of course, giant agribusinesses don’t complain that their weaker competition is kept in the market, because the giant agribusinesses enjoy the inflated prices just as do the family farmers, some of whom are paid to leave their fields fallow.
Nobody complains that there aren’t family pharmaceutical manufacturers, but people complain when Wal-Mart drives a corner drug store out of business. Yet if the corner drug store owners had the same political lobbying power farmers have, you can bet we’d be paying $20 for Q-tips.
If the truth be told, Wal-Mart improves the lives of people in rural areas because it gives them access to a lifestyle that they otherwise would not have—a gigantic store showcasing the world’s greatest choice of products from groceries to music to automotive products. When it comes to prices and service, try finding 70% off clearances at your local mom-and-pop store or try going to that same store and returning shoes you’ve worn for three months for a full-price refund with no questions asked.
On the whole, if one doesn’t like Wal-Mart and finds it to be of greater utility to support their local mom-and-pop stores for an assortment of cultural and non-economic reasons, then they may do so. If consumers wish to obstruct the development of a Wal-Mart store in their small town, they have scores of non-bullying options to pick from in order to try and persuade their fellow townsfolk that a new Wal-Mart is not the best option.
Still, it is not always easy to convince folks to eschew ultra-convenience for the sake of undefined, moral purposes. Consumers most often shop with their wallet, not with political precepts. For that reason, the anti-Wal-Mart crowd uses political coercion and an assortment of anti-private property decrees—such as zoning manipulation—in order to stave off the construction of a new Wal-Mart store in their town.
Hating Wal-Mart is the equivalent of hating Bill Gates. Sam Walton had a grandiose vision for himself, and sought to realize that vision by providing something people want—low prices. He has done every bit as much for your lifestyle as Bill Gates.
Families who shop carefully at Wal-Mart can actually budget more for investing, children’s college funds, or entertainment. And unlike other giant corporations, Wal-Mart stores around the country make an attempt to provide a friendly atmosphere by spending money to hire greeters, who are often people who would have difficulty finding any other job. This is a friendly, partial solution to shoplifting problems; the solution K-mart applied (“Hey, what’s in that bag?”) didn’t work as well.
It’s interesting to observe that the consumers who denounce Wal-Mart are often the same folks who take great joy in reaping the rewards of corporate bigness, such as saving money with sales, clearances, and coupons, being able to engage in comparative shopping, and taking advantage of generous return policies.
When all’s said and done, Wal-Mart employs lots of people; provides heaps of things you need in one place at the lowest prices you’ll find; and gives millions to charities every year. Add up the charitable giving of all the mom & pop stores in the country and it probably won’t equal that of one giant corporation.
To be sure, if Americans didn’t love Wal-Mart so much it wouldn’t be sitting at the top of the 2002 Fortune 500 with $219 billion in revenues. And we do love Wal-Mart. We love it because it gives us variety and abundance. We love it because it saves us time and wrangling. And we love it because no matter where we are, it’s always there when we need it.
As for Candian style healthcare:
But the dissatisfaction in Canada goes beyond venting in surveys. Since the 1990’s, Canada has experienced an exodus of physicians. Their number one destination? The United States and its much maligned healthcare system. At last estimate, there were over 8,000 Canadian physicians practicing in the United States. The vast majority have let their Canadian licenses lapse, indicating no desire to return.
The plight and flight of Canadian doctors reached its peak in the mid-1990’s when the government tightened its healthcare budget and physician reimbursement declined dramatically. And yet, although the Canadian government has tried to reverse the trend by committing more tax dollars to its healthcare system, physician emigration still jumped by 68% in 2001. According to Dr. Hugh Scully, co-chair of a Canadian task force on physician supply, the equivalent of two or three medical school classes are leaving the country each year. It’s a not a situation that a country with too few medical students can afford to maintain.
This medical brain drain is not inconsequential. Although 100% of Canadians have healthcare insurance, it does no good for the 18% of them who have trouble finding a doctor. Contrast that with the United States where 15% may be without insurance, but only 6% go without needed care as a result. Our system may have its problems, but access to care isn’t one of them. At least not when compared to Canada’s.
And why are Canadian physicians leaving their patients in the lurch? Not for the money. They leave for better research opportunities, for greater professional and clinical autonomy, better job choices, and better medical facilities. They leave, in other words, for all the advantages conferred by a free-market healthcare system — the same advantages that we American physicians take for granted when we yearn for a Canadian-style system.
We should look to Canada, all right, but not as a role model. We should look to them instead as a warning. There but for the grace of God — and a strong independent streak — go we
Did I forget anything ?
Ray M,
Hiding behind manipulations and outdated rhetoric pertaining to Davis-Bacon is insufficient political cover for the abomination going on in the Gulf Coast rebuilding process right now. The travesty of the reconstruction process is so wrong at so many different levels it’s hard to know where to begin attacking it.
Let’s start with the poverty issue, however. The Gulf Coast of Louisiana and Mississippi has some of the highest poverty rates in the nation as is, so even the “prevailing wage” level for the region provided insufficient income for residents to rise above Third World living conditions. By lifting the prevailing wage rate, no-bid contractors will pay even less money to the imported labor force, not only perpetuating the poverty of the region, but kicking it up a notch. It should crystallize the perception among anti-immigration constituencies the fact that the country club Republicans running government’s ultimate goal is to use immigration as a tool to artificially expand poverty rates in this country for the purpose of micromanaging wage levels into the sewer. The “liberal media” and Democratic Party should hang their head in shame for not focusing more attention on the abuse of taxpayer dollars down there.
No-bid contractors are being paid up to $20 an hour by FEMA for jobs these braceros are doing for as little as $5 an hour. This provides a very large margin of straight profit for the no-bid contractors, thus negating your desperate argument that paying prevailing wage rates “artificially inflates construction costs.” If locals were doing the job for $10 or $12 an hour, FEMA would be paying the no-bid contractors the same stipend…and they’d still be turning a tidy profit.
Your other shallow arguments about prevailing wage rates under Davis-Bacon “discriminating against small and minority-owned contractors” don’t float either. The vast majority of the no-bid contracts went to Bush’s cronies in Texas. Right out of the gate, local contractors (particularly those that are minority-owned) were vocal about be denied the contracts to rebuild their own cities. And how can you even suggest that it’s Davis-Bacon that discriminates against black laborers when those who insisted on suspending Davis-Bacon trucked in their labor from both sides of the Rio Grande River Valley rather than employing blacks? Jay tried to make the same flimsy arguments early on when Bush waived the prevailing wage rates, but even he seems to have abandoned the absurdity at this point.
I hope you guys are held to account and forced to stand in front of the American people, twisting in the wind trying to desperately defend what’s going on in the Gulf Coast right now. Unfortunately, the Democrats’ apparent fear of offending Hispanic voters and the media’s preoccupation with more frivolous political issues will probably get you off on the hook again. But the bottom line is this: you and Jay are in an EXTREME minority who are likely to approve of lifting prevailing wage rates during the reconstruction of the poorest region of the country to maximize profits for no-bid contractors from Texas….and especially the importation of tens of thousands of illegal aliens into New Orleans which will only expand poverty in the area. How are you guys’ gonna explain this to the already angry anti-immigration wing of your party?
Ray, the reason my replies are fragmented is that Jay has some sort of spam trap that obstructs lengthy posts, so I’m shortening each post and dividing them up to avoid delays. Without further adieu, allow me to rip to shreds your latest defense of Wal-Mart….
“Further, where is there evidence of Wal-Mart ever driving up prices after becoming established in a market?”
That’s a good question which has yielded conflicting data, but suffice it to say that Wal-Mart’s pricing is inconsistent from store to store. And furthermore, what is Wal-Mart’s long-term incentive towards low prices as they continue to consolidate market share? Their short-term endgame is to snuff out K-Mart, Target, Sears, Costco and every small grocery chain around. Once that happens, will low prices still be a priority? Hard to imagine that they will be if past experience is any indication.
“In a free market, large suppliers of nearly everything will drive most small suppliers out of business. The only people who can afford to do business on a small scale are people at the top of their fields or in a niche:”
This premise wholly contradicts the Republican Party’s recurring “ownership society/culture of entrepreneurship” campaign motif. Having said what you just said, are you prepared to inform the small business owners of America that your party always cozies up to that they are destined to be the carnage of “larger suppliers” who will inevitably drive them out of business? And that your real allegiance is not to helping small businesses, but to the survival-of-the-fittest orthodoxy of unbridled free markets?
“but the powerful farmers’ political lobby makes sure we pay inflated prices to keep inefficient farmers in business.”
Again, please make sure you publicly state this as the Republican Party platform, showing the reliably Republican-voting farm community exactly what your party thinks of them.
“Nobody complains that there aren’t family pharmaceutical manufacturers, but people complain when Wal-Mart drives a corner drug store out of business.”
Again, how does yours desire to use Wal-Mart’s strength-in-numbers to leverage as many small businesses into shutting their doors concur with the Republican Party’s tireless claim to expanding entrepreneurship in America? In your world, Wal-Mart and a handful of industrial giants would be America’s only tax base. It’s almost as if you’re stuck in the 80’s–the 1880’s–when the domination of Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller forced anti-trust legislation to avoid economic meltdown.
“If the truth be told, Wal-Mart improves the lives of people in rural areas because it gives them access to a lifestyle that they otherwise would not have”
It’s far more likely to vastly reduce their standard of living by insisting that the factory that has served as the community’s largest employer for decades move to China so that Wal-Mart can keep product prices low. Again, it’s curious that you can’t even address the hundreds of thousands of quality manufacturing jobs Wal-Mart has single-handedly exported overseas in its ruthless pursuit of low prices.
Furthermore, Wal-Mart is subsidized through the nose in nearly every community they build, and their “low prices” fail to account for the public assistance programs their low-wage employees have to go on to survive. Analysts say that when you look at your receipt after an afternoon of shopping at Wal-Mart, add 20% to the total bill to get the “real cost” after factoring in the costs of all their subsidies and the increased poverty that they create.
“Sam Walton had a grandiose vision for himself, and sought to realize that vision by providing something people want—low prices. He has done every bit as much for your lifestyle as Bill Gates. ”
The Wal-Mart of today is far different than the Wal-Mart started by Sam Walton. Walton was a 20th century robber baron to be sure, but the company’s claim to fame was “American pride” as evidenced by all their “we buy American when ever we can” populism in the 1980s. After Walton died and Wal-Mart’s market share dipped in the mid-1990’s, the new ownership adopted the current strategy of ruthless micromanagement of pricing and extermination of competition by any means necessary.
“Wal-Mart stores around the country make an attempt to provide a friendly atmosphere by spending money to hire greeters, who are often people who would have difficulty finding any other job. ”
Actually, they are mostly people who would otherwise be enjoying their retirement had their pension not been stolen from them….often during the bankruptcy of companies that relocated to China at Wal-Mart’s insistence.
“Add up the charitable giving of all the mom & pop stores in the country and it probably won’t equal that of one giant corporation.”
Charitable giving is a tax writeoff, meaning Wal-Mart doesn’t pay for their charitable giving, taxpayers do…..while Wal-Mart gets a free advertisement out of it.
“To be sure, if Americans didn’t love Wal-Mart so much it wouldn’t be sitting at the top of the 2002 Fortune 500 with $219 billion in revenues. And we do love Wal-Mart. We love it because it gives us variety and abundance. We love it because it saves us time and wrangling. And we love it because no matter where we are, it’s always there when we need it”
Throughout human history, we’ve been compelled to engage in foolish behavior as a means of instant gratification….ever since Eve took a bite of the poisoned apple at the request of the snake. And despite constant warnings and overwhelming evidence of the harm they induce, we continue to smoke, drink, use narcotics and gamble, among many other things….all for instant gratification. Shopping at Wal-Mart is just another example of people behaving in a way that gives them instant gratification but will destroy them in the long-term. Wal-Mart is today’s poisoned apple….and people like you are the serpents tempting us with it.
Ray, regarding health care, you’re missing the big picture. Our system is teetering on the edge of insolvency, a fact now realized by the same business interests that campaigned so ferociously against HillaryCare. In a post-globalization era where every major employer has the option of relocating their facilities to a country where health care costs fall squarely on their backs, an OPTIONAL employer-funded health care system is doomed.
Gone are the days of a self-contained American economy where employers had no choice but to offer health insurance to their workers (and had strong unions ensuring that they did). After metamorphisizing into a global economic player as the majority of the left and right insisted we had to do, our long-term disdain for enacting national health care and depending upon employers to forever foot the bill has caught up to us in a globe full of nations where employers don’t have to foot their population’s health care bill. We’re losing competitive advantage at an alarming rate with the stratospheric rise in health care costs that will only increase further as our population ages. Your premise of “15% of our population being uninsured” is seriously lowballing the long-term consequences of sitting on our hands while employers choose to set up shop in high-tax Canada to avoid carrying the cross of employee health insurance costs on their backs.
“Did I forget anything ?”
Uh, yeah, actually. Once again, you failed to answer these pointed questions……
1) How does the common practice of subsidies and other assorted freebies and giveaways to Wal-Mart and other American business concur with your tireless pleas for lower taxes and less government spending?
2) Likewise, how does Wal-Mart’s well-documented practice of directing their workers towards public assistance programs concur with less government spending?
And 3) if the Wal-Mart model of lower wages, no benefits and pressuring its suppliers to outsource good jobs to China is such a wonderful system, why is it that you aren’t forfeiting a portion of your own income and all of your health benefits, and encouraging your employer to locate overseas to maximize profits and “provide lower prices to consumers�
How is the evidence so stacked against your asine staement that the healthcare in this country is doomed doomed doomed. Its been tettering on the brink for decades according to your guys and as such they have offered only the compltete socialization of the system. That is to get the 68 % of the population that has some form of emplyer based healthcare to flip over to a form of nationalized plan. We would then bring along with it a host of problems. First the cost of the system would be astronomical and would we be getting at best, care of that soviet styled clinic just like they get now in you highly vaulted Candian system. Tere would be(just like there are in this socialized systems) a two tier system. You don’t think that the head of Siemens in Germany goes to the local clinic do you ? How about the head of Labor in Britian, or the head of the Diet in Japan ? How about those filthy rich people in any or all of those countries, where do you think they go, to Cuba ? Will that controlled access be acceptable to the US great unwashed ? I know you want your guys to control every aspect like some bad Orwellian novel but just think a little past the talking point. I heard Hillary railing aginst the voter card requirment because it intimidated voters and yet you and her have no problem with medical cards for everyone, having the governement have access to all your healthcare doesn’t intimidate any one now does it ? Its on the premise that the government is now going to nationalize 1/6th of our economy all under the gusie that they will what do it better, have you been to motor vehicles lately ? Have you been to any of the government “work programs”, oops departments that you so love, great for the unemployed not so great for thos who require it. Since the employment rate is @ 5.0% you think that the employers in this country are now going to stop offering insurance to try and attract workers ? Why do we have all the H1 visas and the illegals coming streaming over the boarder, becasue the system is broke or going broke they have socialised healthcare in their countries.. In France the hosptice care kills 15,000 seniors for a damn change in the weather, In canada they need to wait for essential healthcare or die waiting same for the rest of europr. I had an aunt in Ireland that died waiting for what in this country is routine a bypass surgery, have you not heard the horror stories over there in the quasi-white tower union hall where everything can be solved by some government intervention and a higher tax rate for the unacceptable Americans, you know the rich or the non-union or the non-democrat or maybe the WalMart employee.
As for your gloom and doom economic story all just socialist crap, I was looking at the census date for that big spike of poverty you are so fond of citing, you know the race to the bottom fro the middle class, I just don’t see it Mark could you be embellishing that little peice there as well ? I see the resession and I see strong growth, in fact they just came out with the gdp @ 3.8% how is that possible ?
As for your question regarding corporate welfare let me say that I am opposed, I am always opposed to the corporate welfare scheme for corporations. But thats staus quo for the staet local and federal governments. You single out WalMart as being the worst, hey wait how about your NYT they bought up a city block from the city of Ny after the city excercised the right of eminent domain. from CBS
“And this isn’t happening just in small towns. In New York City, just a few blocks from Times Square, New York State has forced a man to sell a corner that his family owned for more than 100 years. And what’s going up instead? A courthouse? A school? Nope. The new headquarters of The New York Times.
The world’s most prestigious newspaper wants to build a new home on that block, but Stratford Wallace and the block’s other property owners didn’t want to sell. Wallace told 60 Minutes that the newspaper never tried to negotiate with him. Instead, The Times teamed up with a major real estate developer, and together they convinced New York State to use eminent domain to force Wallace out. How? By declaring the block blighted.”
Look at Kilo vs.New London. There is something you liberals could stand up against you know unfair advantage to all that corporate welfare. Saving the working guy, blue collar dems wouldn’t let that happen your the party of the working man. oops, liberals on the supreme courts unanomousily FOR the ruling, Nancey Pelosi stuttered about the Supremies decision being gospel were was Harry Reid, can we get Howard Dean on the line. Wait you guys are for the little guy, but the only ones who stood upa gainst it were that evil Tom Delay/and Scalia and Thomas and the now deceased Chief Justice. You guys scream about the WalMarts while your preferred companies get the beneies.
2. Are you kidding, why wouldn’t they, there not offering any insurance why wouldn’t they direct them to the government. Are you now argueing against your entire Canada style health care system, you should be celebrating the “progressive” think of WalMart to know that just like you say the healthcare system in this country is in “crisis’ and they should be going to the government in the first place. So am I to understand that your aWalMart supporter ?. Its a job, not a career don’t take the job, go join the union !!! And what your missing Mark is that the decision to be employed by WalMart is a choice made by the employee. Let me go slow, they offer the person a job at such and such a rate with this or that or no benefits. The person at that time can say NO and walk away to get employed somewhere else. Its different then the Union model ’cause with you your workers vote one way for something, the elites in your pampered leadership ignore them, take more of their dues and do what they want anyway and you better do what they say..
3. Let me say this I have yet to see your evidence that this is happening, I look at the census bearu data to see if that hugh dip is there to back up your claims but you refute that with saying that I have to wait a while cause its gonna happen. When, to take your view I would have to ignore the the recovery and have to isolate the discussion to segments of the country or industries to come out with such a bleak outlook. Thats okay for your economists like Krugman but its not what I see and its not true. You have some empirical evidence bring it ! And as for the asine comment that I send my earnings and health beneifit to whomever to support the liberals agenda for shutting down unacceptable Americans such as WalMart is that what you have to resort to when you have nothing to convince us out here to vote for your guys. You support the war why don’t you go fight it, you support the capitalist system why don’t you send your money to China, let me ask you Mark you don’t like the tax cut send it back ! Send it back ! I choose to earn money, work hard and care for my family ’cause I know that the government cann’t do it I know that the Unions can’t do it, and I am not waiting for handouts from the rich and the pampered and not whine about getting more of somebody elses money.