The IRS Star Trek Video: You're Just Doing It Wrong

The latest government waste outrage is the IRS Star Trek parody video.  The government spent $60,000 on this and another training video based on Gilligan's Island.  People are up in arms over the perceived waste of money.  But making a training video wasn't necessarily a waste.  The IRS just made one that was lousy and taught nothing of value.  I'm not really against making more entertaining training videos, as long as they actually train people to do something.

I've been forced to sit through various training videos made by the various companies I've worked for over the years.  Usually, the typical corporate training video starts with 2nd rate graphics and a corporate logo, with cheesy elevator music playing in the background.  Then a narration about whatever blah-blah corporate policy the video is about starts.  The voice talent is usually a person with a voice that's both sonorous and soporific, like someone who works for NPR.  Right off the bat, this video starts to sound like cheap propaganda.  It's groan inducing, eye roll inducing, and cringe inducing.  I've seen these on everything from "good corporate ethics" to "how to lift heavy things.".  But whatever the subject matter is, no matter how valuable, the message is lost because the watchers stop taking it seriously almost immediately.

Granted, the watchers stopped taking the IRS video seriously almost immediately, as well.  But not because it used a goofy story to get the point across.  When done right, the entertainment approach can be very effective.  It's not the first time the government has used the slightly silly for training.  In World War II, Walt Disney famously produced many training cartoons for soldiers, such as this one.  Okay, it's actually Canadian, but there are plenty of others that were made for the US.  They're just much more difficult to find on YouTube, apparently.  This sort of video would have been effective at both keeping the recruits' attention (many of them were very young, and probably had the attention span of young people) and actually training them.

I'm wondering if the military still does this.  Looney Tunes was always way better than Disney.  Some of them would make great training videos. 

Wile E Coyote would be extremely effective at training explosive ordnance disposal personnel on how not to handle explosives.

And he would also be effective at teaching them why one should properly pack a parachute. 

Elmer Fudd could train infantrymen on the value of checking the flanks so that rabbits or Taliban or whatever don't sneak up on them. 

And Pepi Le Pew would be perfect for teaching soldiers about sexual harassment.

I digress, but not too much.  An entertaining video can help make learning about an ordinarily dry subject more palatable, and therefore more effective.  And I can think of few subjects more dry than the internal revenue code or policies of the IRS.  Sadly, the Star Trek video taught nothing of value.  It made a few references to subjects of interest (identity theft, for example), but didn't go into any real depth.  This video looked more like the type of thing a really nerdy frat house put together after getting drunk on a Saturday night.

 

I'm not sure how someone would successfully combine Star Trek with an IRS training video.  Perhaps it would involve an intrepid away team of IRS auditors digging it's way out from under a mound of receipts.  But it's worth noting that the Gilligan's Island video was actually determined to have some training value, so it must be possible.  Too bad the Star Trek video was a total waste.  Granted, $60,000 isn't a huge amount when compared to most government spending.  But it does provide another example of the government's cavalier attitude toward spending public funds.  There is a culture of entitlement amongst bureaucrats that assumes that they can spend money budgeted to them on whatever they like.  Like extravagant conventions held by the GSA.  Or Joe Biden's hotel bills.

 

Goofy stuff isn't necessarily a waste, though.  The makers of these videos claim that they can actually save money.  I think that's true, since it's probably less expensive than printing loads of instructional materials and hiring instructors to teach long, dull classes that no one pays attention to.  That might be more expensive than even five or six videos.  But we need someone to ensure that the content actually does the job.  And doesn't suck.

 

So the government doesn't have to explain why the videos were made.  It only has to explain why it couldn't do better.  I'm all for training government employees in the cheapest and most effective way possible.  Videos can actually do that, like the WWII cartons.  And on that note, I definitely think the military should consider bringing the Looney Tunes in for training.  At least use Wile E Coyote as a drill instructor.  But maybe don't have him instruct on the things he's bad at, like explosives, engineering, or anything involving falling from great heights.  Maybe he should be a shooting instructor instead?

 

Trolling the American Randstand

On March 6th, in response to a wishy-washy position posed by Attorney General Holder, Senator Rand Paul threw down an old school move.  An actual filibuster.  Not the half-assed "don't have sixty votes" filibuster.  He hit the floor and said he'd talk until the president responded.  The point was simple.  Eric Holder wouldn't commit to saying that we would not use predators to kill Americans on American soil.  Rand Paul took a stand saying he should commit.  Demanding answers from the president.  He went on for hours lecturing about due process, the constitution, and any number of entirely relevant things.  Not the cheap type of filibustering where some douche just reads from the phone book.

Republican senators Ted Cruz, Mike Lee, Pat Toomey, John Thune, John Barrasso, John Cornyn, Jerry Moran, Jeff Flake, Mitch McConnell, and showed up.  Also, Senators Marco Rubio (MINE!), Saxby Chambliss (from my home state), and Tim Scott (my home state's neighbor to the north) participated.  One of the old guard, Mitch McConnell, also made an appearance.  And I've heard a lot of people call him Johnny-Come-Lately, but that's better than the twelve Johnny-Would-Rather-Let-The-President-Buy-Him(And One Her)-Dinner senators.  And Mark Kirk didn't participate (he is recovering from a stroke, after all), but showed up and deserves a shoutout for bringing a care package.

Even some Democrats were there.  Ron Wyden (D) participated in the filibuster.  Dick Durbin (Heavy D) was there too.  Granted, he wasn't participating, just asking questions, but he was Involved In The Democratic Process.  Not something that seems to happen very often these days.  And the questions he asked (confrontational, but not discourteously so), added to Paul's credibility.  Paul knocked his first two questions out of the park.  The last one (towards the end), was more of a single. 

For the most part, when the senators broke in for questions, they did so with pertinent questions that added to the debate, Dems and Reps alike.  But there was also a bit of fun.  Ted Cruz took some time to quote everything from Shakespeare to Patton.  Marco Rubio followed up by quoting Wiz Khalifa and Jay-Z.  It was all still relevant, though, as they tied the artistic references into the debate.
 
But the most epic part was when Ted Cruz carpet bombed the Senate with tweets from everyone who was supporting Rand Paul.  The twitterverse was alive with all things Rand Paul.  Around the world.  He did this twice, bringing thousands who were glued to C-Span (when's the last time that happened, ever) into the process.  Ted Cruz gets the Best Supporting Actor award for that.  But the MVP was still Rand Paul, because he suddenly energized the public about politics, for the first time in years.

Of course, it was only a matter of time until detracty detractors who detract started detracting.  The first salvo was the typical opening move of the radical left.  Articles, blog posts, and tweets starting referring to his RAAAACISM!  This was in reference to a series of interviews in 2010 where Rand Paul failed to properly bless and sprinkle and show proper deference to the Civil Rights Act.  Instead, he had the incredibly bad taste to note that other fundamental rights, like free speech and property ownership, are occasionally at odds with the CRA.  Instead of bowing and scraping before the almighty CRA, he actually had the temerity to suggest that the CRA and other fundamental rights might occasionally conflict with each other and need to be reconciled.  This is an obscure legal concept also known as: The Reason Judges Have Jobs.

Race baiting is all too common these days.  But it's a waste of time to obsess over this sort of thing.  Someone who fails to have even this rudimentary understanding of how the Constitution works is the posterchild for low information voters.  What this episode does is show two key things about Rand Paul.  He's willing to explore and debate the Constitution in a nuanced way, and he's willing to go where few dare to tread.

So when "Racist" doesn't work, go for "Irrelevant".  Various writers and journalists have decided that he was wasting time.  Debating a question that was already answered.  For example, I read a piece by Tommy Christopher on Mediaite pushing this point.  He believed that Eric Holder actually did answer the question.  But the fact is, Holder left the question open.  He used 9/11 and Pearl Harbor as examples of unusual circumstances where this might happen, but did not clarify explicitly what defines a circumstance where using a drone is allowed.

Of course, when "Irrelevant" fails, "Crazy" is always an option.  I saw Krystal Ball and Toure on the Cycle pushing this.  Apparently, Rand Paul was just a nut ginning up a silly, non-issue to pander to conspiracy theorists, anti-government nuts, and "savages" (Toure's word.  Stay Classy).  Notably, just as liberal Steve Kornacki took a different position (Not sure where S.E. Cupp was) from his two colleagues and upheld the need for exploring these points.  The relative newness of the drone program means there are lots of unanswered questions.

It's good that he did.  The attorney general's response was a tad vague, saying that use of drones on Americans on American soil would only happen in extreme circumstances, but not clarifying what criteria would be used to determine what those circumstances are.  And exploring unlikely hypotheticals is not something a crazy person does.  It's common practice in politics.

I'm reminded of the 2008 Republican presidential campaign.  In one debate, the various candidates were asked by Brit Hume about a highly unlikely, ticking time-bomb, Jack-Baueresque scenario.  Would they, in the wake of several damaging attacks against the US, torture someone who potentially had knowledge of another attack that was imminent?  Mitt Romney danced around it (shocking, I know. Kind of like an Eric Holder).  Rand's father Ron Paul was strongly against it.  So was John McCain.  Of course, McCain comes to that position honestly, and from personal experience.

Brit Hume asked a pertinent question about an unlikely, there-but-for-the-grace-of-God-go-we scenario.  This is because these highly unlikely scenarios are the ones where people and governments take the most extreme action and are at great risk for overreach.  To a libertarian type of guy like Rand Paul, government overreach is to be avoided at all costs.  So I find it odd that John McCain, who was happy to answer the question about the unlikely scenario related to torture, was so willing to dismiss the unlikely scenario that was proposed by Rand Paul.

Paul admits it's unlikely that Obama would ever do this.  And it's unlikely that anyone would do this.  But one unfortunate election could result in a nut who would consider droning Americans without due process of law.  So defining the laws clearly now prevents this scenario from happening.  Just as defining torture ensures we don't cross the line there.  I'm surprised that McCain would be willing to deal in hypotheticals in one case, but spurn the same thing in another.  Especially when the one he spurned is the one more likely to result in dead bodies, if it did ever happen.

Eric Holder did respond.  The answer was that we can't use drones against "non-combatant" Americans.  Plenty of Paul critics claim that the simplicity of this response (including two out of three Cycle liberals) makes Paul look ridiculous.  But it doesn't.  Paul got some additional clarification (his goal from the start), which isn't ridiculous.  The response also leaves questions open, suggesting that Paul is on to something.  What is a "combatant" American?  Holder's still missing a few details.  And if we don't define it, and we elect some nutjob in the future, that guy may decide to define it for us with executive orders.

Rand Paul took a stand to make the administration clarify how far it would go to protect itself.  He's seeking to set a standard that, even if it is highly unlikely we'll ever need it, is something that we must be absolutely clear about.  Because if we don't figure it out now, we may find ourselves figuring it out the hard way in the future.  This is not Rand Paul being an anti-government conspiracy nut.  Nor is he pandering to the extreme right.  He's a libertarian.  That's not a wingnut; libertarians tend to be moderate.  And the evidence of that is the support he got from the left.  From politicians (Wyden) to actors (John Cusack) to activists (Code Pink and more than a few Anonymous and Occupy supporters, based on tweets I saw) to left wing journalists (Cenk Uygur of Current TV.  That happened.), members of the left wing supported him.  He was able to unite disparate factions in a common cause.  It's been a while since a politician could pull that off.  No wonder #StandwithRand is still trending.

Christmas: An Excuse For Family, Friends, and Co-Workers to Slowly Poison Us

I was on my way to spend Christmas with my family in Georgia, and I stopped in a gas station not far from Savannah.  Given that I'd been on the road for over six hours, I felt an urge to use the facilities.  While performing the necessary tasks in the men's room, the janitor, who was busy cleaning, said "So, are you ready for Christmas, or are you ready for it to come and go?"  Initially, I was perturbed.  Problem one, the guy was being too damned happy.  I rarely approve of happy people, because I think they're unrealistic.  Problem two, he started a conversation with a guy standing in front of a urinal.  Major faux-pas.  Eyes forward, no talking, and tend to your business is proper bathroom etiquette.

But I overcame my initial annoyance with the guy, because I realized I had no idea how to answer his question.  After some thought, I answered honestly and said "That's not a bad question."  He thought this was hilarious.  I was somewhat disappointed in myself for unintentionally making a guy who was already unnecessarily happy even happier.  My inability to answer with a resounding yes was quite simple.  I'm not a Scrooge or a Grinch (although I am occasionally a grouch), but I have noticed a downside to the Christmas season.  Specifically 5-15 extra pounds.  It happens each year.

The evidence of this was confirmed earlier today, when my boss said "Hey, have you put on weight?"  If it's not already obvious, my boss has the tact equivalent of, say, Archie Bunker.  Or Oscar the Grouch.  Or Archie Bunker after he gets his ass kicked by Oscar the Grouch.  Or vice-versa.  The point is he has limited social skills.  But he's not afraid to speak his mind, and he wasn't wrong.  Still, I don't want to hear comments on my weight gain from friends, family, and co-workers.  This is like drug-pushers telling addicts they have a problem.  This was their idea.

Here's why it's their idea.  It starts in early December.  The biggest clients of my employer and the people who sell things to my employer (payroll provider, benefits provider, etc.) send us gifts for Christmas.  This usually means food, which is laid out in a common area to tempt all passersby.  Then the people I work with (including boss-guy) bring in leftovers from various Christmas parties.  The food in question is not exactly health food.  On the contrary, it tends to be assorted forms of sugar-coated lard drowning in cholesterol sauce.

Then I go home for Christmas, and it gets worse.  First step, dinner with the immediate family.  In Southeast Georgia.  Where the only thing we don't fry is the iced tea, and that's just because we haven't figured out how.  Yet.  Then the next day is dinner with the extended family.  Which is a potluck dinner.  In the South, that means a smorgasbord of waistline increases and myocardial infarctions waiting to happen.  Including ten different desserts covered in molasses or chocolate or both.  And iced tea.  Of course.  Sweet iced tea; loaded with sugar.  None of that pagan-style "unsweet" (shudder) iced tea.

As a parting gift, parents, aunts, uncles, etc. give me as much of their leftovers to take home with me as they can.  Old people are like that.  They pretend it's out of generosity, but they're really just jealously clinging to their remaining years of life.  They figure I've got quite a few more left than they do, so if lose a year or two I'll still have a few decades to play with.  Never mind that they're slowly poisoning me with the most unhealthy (but admittedly awesome) food on the planet.

So why not throw it all out?  Nuh-uh.  When you're raised in a culture that celebrates frugality (we use leftover pickle jars as drinking glasses), wasting all that food is sacrilege.  Besides, the food is just too good.  I can't resist, even though it could kill me.  Moth to the flame.  So Christmas alone results in double digit weight increase and multiple carb comas.  And it takes a week to go through the leftovers.

This means New Year's Eve is just insult to injury.  At precisely the moment I finish the Christmas leftovers, I'm beset by a holiday involving the eating of buffalo wings, fried chicken, barbecue, hamburgers, hot dogs, french fries, and onion rings.  Not to mention imbibing lots of alcohol.  No wonder so many people make a diet their New Year's resolution.  Our greatest dietary sins are committed just prior to the end of the year, so our penance begins in January.  Fortunately, the raging hangover on January 1st is a not so subtle reminder that I need to start behaving myself.

So, yeah, Random-Guy-In-Gas-Station-Bathroom.  I was ready to indulge in an eating orgy for a week, AKA Christmas.  But I was also ready for it to come and go, hoping that the damage wouldn't be too great.  Yeah, boss.  I did put on a few pounds.  Truth is, I don't really regret it.  It's ironic that I choose what's considered by most Americans to be the holiest time of year to indulge in one of my favorite sins.  Gluttony.  I know I'll have to make up for it somehow over the next few weeks or months.  Maybe I did take a year or two off of my life.  But it was worth it.

Jumping the Gun: Why Most of the Gun Debate After Newtown Isn't Helpful

Jay Carney got some flak after the Newtown massacre by saying "Today is not the day to talk about gun control."  Detractors almost universally said "if not now, when."  They were right.  We can say what we want, when we want.  But pushing for gun control immediately after the incident, before the facts come in, increases the chances that we'll just say or do something useless.

Many of the loudest gun control advocates are pushing for assault weapons bans, because a semi-automatic assault rifle was used to kill the children in Newtown.  Many gun advocates, including many pundits and politicians who have previously opposed these bans, are saying that nobody needs weapons like this.  I'm generally inclined to agree with this, but any time the government tells me what I do or don't need, the Libertarian part of my psyche cringes.  One thing they say that makes sense is that certain weapons only belong on the battlefield.  The trick is identifying what that means.

The definition of assault weapons is a bit vague.  Automatic weapons are always considered assault weapons.  Not all semi-automatic weapons are considered assault weapons, only ones with certain characteristics are.  The assault weapons ban defined an assault weapon as a weapon with detachable magazines and at least two other characteristics that were considered typical of assault weapons.  The problem is, a few of the things that potentially define something as an assault weapon seem mostly or entirely harmless.

Two examples are pistol grips and collapsible stocks.  A collapsible stock is a stock that can be shortened in order to be customized to the size of the user.  I don't see how this makes a gun noticeably more dangerous.  A pistol grip allows the user to control the recoil more easily.  One could argue that it makes a shooter more able to shoot people more quickly.  But it also makes them more able to shoot static targets more quickly or deer more quickly or whatever.  Typically, how quickly someone can kill targets has more to do with the skill of the shooter than the type of stock or grip that a gun has.  This ban seems to be designed to ban guns that look dangerous. They may like they belong on a battlefield, but many of them are no more or less dangerous than more ordinary looking weapons.

Another problem with fixating on assault weapons is the fact that they are not used in most murders.  Most murders are committed with pistols, which is probably why the last assault weapons ban had no noticeable effect on homicide rates.  The President echoed this in the presidential debates, noting that most murders involve "cheap handguns".  Even some mass killings are done with pistols.  The Virginia Tech massacre, the worst school shooting ever, was done with two handguns.  By focusing entirely on the specific circumstances of the shootings in Newtown, we risk ignoring most of the violence in this country. 

Another thing that has come to the forefront is a focus on mental health and identifying people with problems and treating them.  Many, if not all, of the mass murderers in recent years have had some kind of mental health problem.  Disturbing behavior by the Tucson killer was reported by many classmates at a local community college he attended and nothing was done.  The Aurora killer's classmates also reported strange behavior and nothing was done.  On the other hand, The Virginia Tech killer and one of the Columbine killers had been diagnosed with mental health problems prior to the attacks and had received treatment.  The Newtown killer was known to have some mental problems and some reports suggest his mother was about to have him committed.  These instances all suggest that more intervention is necessary and when it happens it needs to be more effective.  But what's also true is that most murderers are not crazy.  Most murderers kill for a relatively mundane reason: an argument, jealousy, revenge.  Angry results in more murders than crazy.  Focusing only on the mentally unstable ignores most of the problem.  It's always a good idea to improve mental health care (or any other health care), but this won't fix most of the problem.

As with every other mass shooting, the debate over the "culture of violence" has reemerged.  We are told that America has a history of violence and our culture glorifies violence and contributed to this.  But this actually doesn't make any sense.  The same violent movies and video games that are common in a America are equally common in other nations where murder is extremely rare.  American movies are commonly watched in Canada, the UK, France, Germany, and Australia.  They buy the video games too.  France, the UK, and Germany have far more violent histories than America.  Yet murder rates are low in all of these countries.  Not only would attempting to silence or deter these forms of entertainment be a violation of the First Amendment, it would be a complete waste of time.  Other countries are able to avoid real violence, despite the fact that they are exposed to the same amount of fake violence as we are and despite the fact that they have histories as violent, if not more so, than ours.

While I'm on the subject of foreign countries, it has to be mentioned that other industrialized nations have stricter gun control laws.  In some, like Japan and England, this results in low rates of gun ownership and low murder rates.  Others, like Canada or France, have relatively high numbers of gun owners (though not as many as us) but still have low murder rates.  And some others, like Brazil and Russia, have low rates of gun ownership but much higher murder rates.  What this means is the presence or lack of guns and gun control laws doesn't appear to predict a country's murder rate.  The source of the problem is something else.

This doesn't mean gun control is useless.  I think some gun control measures makes sense.  Smaller magazine size is fine.  I truly don't need a 30 round clip to defend myself.  If I need to defend myself from an attack and need more than six or seven bullets to do it, this is the sort of attack I should be running away from.  And limiting magazine size won't prevent me from buying more than one gun.  This won't stop people from producing homemade high capacity magazines, but I still think it will reduce the chances of mass shootings occurring.  Background checks should be required for all gun purchases.  Instant background checks should be available everywhere.  There must be a way to make background checks possible at gun shows.  This won't stop strawbuyers, but it will still prevent many felons and crazy people from getting guns. Lastly, one thing that often goes unmentioned is that many criminals acquire guns from licensed dealers who make illicit sales under the table. So another thing that must happen is additional enforcement.

But as for the rest of the debate, it's a hasty reaction which will have little or no effect.  We won't fix the problem by renewing an assault weapons ban that didn't accomplish anything significant the first time, other than boosting assault weapon sales before its passage.  And hand wringing over movies and video games is a waste of time.  This is a multi-faceted problem that will probably take decades or generations to fix.  We won't be able to control it if we only respond to the headlines.  We will not fix anything if we attempt to resurrect legislation that already failed once.  We must be willing to commit to rigorous analysis of all aspects of the problem and explore all possible solutions, while being mindful of the Constitution and its guarantees.  We must accept that this requires a prolonged effort at the grassroots level by all citizens who want the violence to stop.   If we want to prevent future violence and respect the memory of the victims of violence, we must attempt to find solutions that actually work and shake off the tired old rhetoric that solves nothing.

The Gun Made Me Do It

Bob Costas has been echoing the same tired old talking point that gun control advocates have been spewing for years.  On the O'Reilly Factor, Bob Costas said (paraphrasing) that if more people possess guns that it is more likely that a dispute would escalate because someone has a gun.  What he actually said is here, on the second clip at about the 1:30 mark.  This assumes that the possession of the gun is more likely to cause one person to want to kill another in a dispute.  This is false.  It's true that a person with a gun is more likely to succeed in killing someone else, but the gun does not magically cause someone to be more aggressive.

The problem is not the presence of guns.  The problem is that people in the United States are more likely to want to kill someone than they would be in many other countries.  Many of the highly publicized murders we've seen were preventable without taking away guns.  Kansas City Chiefs Guy had a history of problems in his personal life.  Crazy Guy in Arizona had been reported acting loony at his community college.  Nobody did anything.  If we had been more proactive about identifying and dealing with these problems, they never would have escalated into violence.

More recently,  Michael Dunn killed Jordan Davis in Jacksonville, Florida.  This was an escalation of a simple argument.  A motive for murder that is all too common.  This is the real problem.  People in the United States are willing to kill for stupid reasons.  Apparently, Jordan Davis and his pals were just playing their music too loud.  That's not a sufficient reason to kill.  We should be focusing our efforts on figuring out why people are willing to do things this senseless.

Instead, Costas and others simply fixate on the guns.  If two guys want to kill each other and we take away their guns, it doesn't suddenly make them not want to kill each other.  Disarming us isn't the answer.

Gun control advocates like to point to other industrialized nations which have strict gun control laws and lower crime.  But they always forget to mention Russia and Brazil.  Russia has extremely strict gun control laws, but twice the murder rate of the US.  Brazil is the most violent industrialized nation in the world, despite its gun laws.  Here in the US, gun ownership has been on the rise, despite the fact that violent crimes have been declining for years.  The presence or lack of guns or gun control laws isn't the problem or the solution.

The problem of violence is extremely complex and nuanced.  Simply demanding gun control every time a tragedy happens is a simple-minded solution.  Simple-minded solutions do not fix complex problems.  We need to make an effort to identify why we can't identify dangerous people in time and why ordinary people are so willing to kill for ridiculous reasons.  Until we accept that deeper analysis is necessary, this problem won't go away.

To Prevent the Country From Committing Fiscal Suicide, Congress Must Commit Political Suicide

Several of my bosses, past and present, have recently channeled Warren Buffett and told me they want the government to raise taxes on them.  This stunned me a bit.  Like many business owners they are all conservative.  Or at least conservative-ish.  Meaning they all fall somewhere between Dick Cheney and Ron Paul on the political spectrum.  These are generally anti-tax people.  They believe taxes should be kept as low as possible for the simple reason that they believe people should keep as much of their own property and income as possible.

So how do these guys finally arrive at a tax raise?  As conservative-ish people, they also believe in personal responsibility.  Therefore, these are not the type of people who are inclined to leave a mess behind.  Failure to handle the budget now just means they're dumping it on their kids, and their kids will have it even worse.  We've arrived at a point where it may actually make sense under the rules of conservatism (or at least conservative-ish-ness) to increase taxes.  Because somebody has to pay the debt, and true conservatives are not the type of people who pass on their problems to someone else.

The counterargument to raising taxes is that it removes cash from businesses that they could use to invest or hire more people.  This is not false, but not necessarily true either.  Most of the bosses and ex-bosses I talked to could hire more people, but they don't have enough work to give to new people.  Nobody hires people to do nothing.  Unless there's some wacky union contract involved.  They could invest in new business, but the market is uncertain.  They, like many people, are being cautious.  New investments are always risky, and when there are plenty of analysts foretelling of a double-dip recession, new investments are very risky.

Getting the debt under control would eliminate some of this uncertainty.  America's credit rating (recently downgraded) is one of the foundations of the global economy.  Until recently, treasury securities were considered the closest thing there is to a risk-free investment, and investors and analysts used it as a benchmark by which the attractiveness of other investments could be measured.  The downgrading of our credit increased the uncertainty, which is why investors are cautious.  That's partly responsible for the slow recovery.

Of course, Republicans always bring up cutting spending and possibly closing loopholes rather than raising rates.  And they're right.  But in order to cut spending in a way that actually brings the debt under control, significant cuts must be made in defense, Medicare, and Social Security.  In order to significantly raise revenue by closing loopholes, some of the more popular loopholes, like mortgage interest deductions, would have to go.

This is the problem.  Nobody wants to lose the things that they like.  Raising rates is more popular than removing the mortgage interest deduction, because raising the rates in the top tax bracket would only affect a few people and removing the mortgage interest deduction would affect many more people.  Cutting defense is more popular than cutting Medicare and Social Security, because most people currently or eventually will benefit from Medicare and Social Security.  Strictly speaking, everyone benefits from defense, but it's impact on our lives is not as tangible as entitlement programs are.  Because of this, defense cuts are more popular than entitlement cuts.

The problem with cutting popular programs is that politicians see value (Read: re-election) in defending them.  Anytime someone talks about Medicare or Social Security reform, politicians with no interest in reform and a great deal of interest in re-election dust off the same old tired talking points.  Gems like "Medicare is the most popular government program" or "Social Security is the most successful social program in the history of the world," are bandied about in order to prevent government from taking real action.  I think these statements are generally true (although talking points, by their nature, are always at least one part falsehood), but they are only true for the time being.  Once Medicare and Social Security become fiscal train wrecks (an eventuality we've seen coming for decades), they won't be considered popular or successful anymore.  We have to fix them now.

The solution is that everyone needs to give up something.  Something we like.  We can't expect someone else to take care of this for us.  We all have to be willing to give something.  If this means the rich pay more taxes, let's consider that.  If this means the payroll tax ceiling is raised or removed, let's consider that.  If this means benefits are reduced or retirement ages are increased (the latter is likely necessary, since we all live longer these days), let's consider that.  If this means cutting defense or removing mortgage interest deductions, let's consider that.  I know some rich guys who are willing to put up some money, the rest of us should think about ponying something up as well.

We should pass a bill that increases taxes and/or removes loopholes.  And the new revenue must be committed primarily to controlling debt. No earmarks or pet projects. These revenue increases must be married to spending cuts, including defense, Medicare, and Social Security cuts.  And there must be triggers in this bill that require that all of these things be done within one year of passing the bill, or else everything in the bill goes back to the way it was prior to the bill's passage.  This last part is critical.  Reagan raised some taxes in return for a promise to cut spending in the eighties.  The Democrats reneged.  This time, it can't be a bait-and-switch.

In order to accomplish this, everyone in congress will have to sign off on a bill that includes at least one thing that upsets their supporters.  This is the type of compromise we need.  Traditionally, politicians are only interested supporting bills that have negative effects on someone else's constituents.  This can't continue.  The members of congress may have to commit political suicide to pass a bill like this.  But it's better than the entire country committing fiscal suicide.

Egypt: Yet Another Revolutionary Screw-up

Grand High Douchebag Morsi of Egypt has declared himself Grand High Pharoah Douchebag of Egypt.  Apparently, negotiating a truce with Israel gains you the right to be God-King.  Because, nobody has ever done that before.  Except several ex-presidents. And Anwar Sadat, who they killed for it.  Now Egyptians are rioting in the streets.  Again.  While watching this, it occurred to me that too many revolutions go sideways like this.

Americans are fortunate that our revolution didn't go bad.  But ours was a little different from many others.  Our revolution was a colony demanding independence from an empire that treated us like second class citizens.  We were already independent in many ways, having our own governments at the city and colonial levels.  It was not difficult to translate that into a cohesive government once the British had been sent on their way.

Most other revolutions that happened in that time, like the French revolution, were popular revolutions where peasants who'd been forced to live in wretched poverty overthrew their elites.  They tore apart the fabric of their society in the process of revolting, resulting in chaos.  The French revolution went like this:  Kill the king.  Then go crazy with the guillotine.  Then go crazy with the Napolean.  Then, after a making a mess of everything, bring back the royal family.  Which is right where they were when it started.

Marxist revolutions frequently followed a similar pattern: Bloodbaths and dictators.  Stalin killed something like 20 million.  Mao killed anywhere from 30-90 million.  Pol Pot killed almost 2 million.  The list goes on.  The pattern is clear, though:  Overthrow the government.  Have some nut job take over. Kill everyone associated with the old government.  Then kill everyone opposed to the new government.  Then kill everyone who might be opposed to the new government.

This has me wondering if it's inevitable that these sorts of developments happen after popular revolutions.  They start out with good intentions, but end up getting hijacked by crazy people.  The Muslim Brotherhood hijacked the Egyptian revolution in the same way Maximilien Robespierre hijacked the French revolution.  And maybe they haven't started a full fledged Reign of Terror (yet), but there have been increasing attacks on Coptic Christians, amongst other atrocities.

Now Ramses the Umpteenth is declaring himself dictator of Egypt.  Seems like it happens every time.  I'm somewhat heartened to see that the reaction of the people was immediate.  Maybe the young kids who started this revolution will correct it's course and have real, modern democracy, not the quasi-theocracies the Middle East is known for.  But maybe we'll have another nutjob dictator birthed from a popular revolution that makes a mess of everything.