Presto :
Suddenly I can see it, the reason for the loud
complaints about bloated government programs,
public sector unions that reward inefficiency,
dysfunctional community organizing campaigns,
and many other things.
Why could I suddenly see this obvious ? Because
Steven Malanga knows how
to communicate the problem. Or a major part of
it.
Here is a meta-problem, however, unwillingness of
the Right to admit something else
that is obvious, let's call it "Lifestyles of the
Rich and Famous."
Again and again there is the litany about how the
rich need their millions ( or billions )
in order to expand business and hire new workers.
To some extent this is true.
But what is also true is a fact of life pointed
out by Thorsten Veblen a century ago,
namely the overwhelming urge on the part of the
wealthy toward conspicuous
consumption of luxury goods, viz, yachts, private
jets, de luxe mansions,
vacations on the Riviera, $ 400 haircuts, evening
gowns that sell for $ 20,000
and a host of other things including spending as
much on one meal as
a middle class family of four spends of food for
a week. And , O yeah,
being able to brag to other rich sons-of-bitches
how you have most of
your money in Switzerland or the Caymans and have
outsourced
half of your work to Mexico or Asia.
As long as people insist on looking at the
problem in strictly partisan terms
we will be stuck in this morass, organized public
sector employees bilking
the public for huge amounts ( $ 150,000 salaries
for cops in Oakland,
$ 80, 000 to teach grade school in New Jersey ),
plus outrageous benefits.
Personally I am pixxed off about both these
phenomena. Really pixxed off
considering what I have gone through in life and
my compensation for a
helluva lot of hard work, a pittance compared
with an Oakland cop
or a NJ 3rd grade teacher with half my formal
education.
But one reason I have never given a rat's ass for
Republicans is the fact
that they prefer to be hoodwinked by the
financial elite, as if the elite always
deserve their riches, which is a ludicrous and
stupid way of looking at things.
How to the rich get their millions / billions ?
Several ways, starting with inheritance, but
extending to social connections
and pricey attorneys able to carve out special
breaks for favored clients
that grease their way to fortunes. But listen to
the Big Shots in the
Republican Party and 100% of the rich are hard
working entrepreneurs
who innovate, invest in employees, and are frugal
to a fault.
Such a viewpoint is pure crap.
What we need is a Radical Centrist approach which
takes both the
Left and Right to the woodshed. Well, thanks to
Malanga, I can now see
much better, in ways impossible to me before
hearing him on C-Span,
just how fiscally and otherwise immoral a good
number of public service
unions are, and how half baked are many social
service programs,
and still other things. But to claim that the
Republicans have
"the answers" is what is has always been, a sick
joke.
Yes, a war against government spending that is
unjustifiable is necessary.
Indeed, it has been going on for a long time. But
its like the old military
when generals didn't give a hoot about the
political side of things and
didn't bother to learn how to deal with the
civilian government. Again and again
perfectly sound military ideas went down in
flames on Capitol Hill. Since
the post Viet Nam era that has changed
drastically The generals, with
Petraeus as prime example, with Mc Crystal as
throwback to the "old style,"
now know how to communicate, and think is terms
of nuance not just
assertion and complaining, indeed, they are
damned smart and good at thinking,
and they usually are successful in their dealings
with government.
When is the GOP going to learn the same lesson ?
CAN the GOP learn this lesson ?
I really, really, really have my doubts
--because to have any credibility Republicans
would need to admit that Veblen was correct and
that Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous
is as much the problem as bloated gvt programs or
unethical unions.
Should I repeat this ? Maybe I should :
Veblen was correct.....that Lifestyles of
the Rich and Famous
is as much the problem as bloated gvt
programs or unethical unions.
"Communication," the word means a heckovalot more
than expressing one's self
or being accurate, if even these skills are
sometimes weak for politicians.
It means being convincing
through being honest and seeing both sides of an
issue,
and looking for remedies that take into account
everything that should be taken
into account. Yes, it can mean taking very strong
stands. It sometimes can mean
taking a partisan stand, but 100% of the time ?
Not a chance in hell unless you
don't care about credibility with anyone except
other partisans.
Being convincing is the key. That means,
more than anything, being objective
as much as possible, and being willing to drop
partisanship when called for,
which in my estimation is a minimum of 50 % of
the time on average.
Anything less is "politics as usual."
Billy
=====================================================
Washington Examiner
Steven Malanga: Politicians win, taxpayers
lose as government funds failed projects
By: Steven Malanga
from his book : Shakedown
OpEd Contributor
October 8, 2010
Part five in a five-part series
In 2005, the Bush administration proposed to
eliminate one of the last and least effective
vestiges of the War on Poverty: aid to cities
doled out in the form of community-development
block grants. The effort failed, even though for
30 years the program has expended some $120
billion in thousands of communities, with little
to show for the effort.
Over the years, officials have squandered
billions of taxpayer dollars by financing
unworkable projects that often went bust,
investing in new businesses that couldn't
survive in depressed neighborhoods, and funding
social programs with little idea of how they
might actually strengthen their communities. But
the block grant program has powerful friends in
Washington who continue to protect it.
President Obama, himself a product of
government-funded community groups, has promised
to vigorously expand block grants.
How has the program spent taxpayer money? It
has poured hundreds of millions of dollars into
businesses in poor communities, often financing
companies that had difficulty repaying their
debts, backing projects that went bust, and
rarely creating jobs in the distressed areas at
which they were targeted.
Nationwide, nearly 25 percent of
block-grant-backed loans wind up in default,
according to an analysis of dozens of
community-lending portfolios.
Shakedown: The Continuing
Conspiracy Against the American Taxpayer
Part 1: Obama’s
ascent heralded by government-funded
activists
Part 2: The
White House’s big payout to activists and
public-sector unions
Part 3: Public-sector
unions run amock in New Jersey
Part 4: California’s
cautionary budget-busting public-sector
union story
Part 5: Politicians win,
taxpayers lose as government funds failed
projects
In Los Angeles after the 1992 riots, for
instance, the federal government plowed an
astounding $430 million into a loan program.
Since its crime-ridden target area remained an
economically inhospitable place, the program had
trouble finding companies to lend to.
Criticized for not making loans quickly enough,
it then started pouring money into local
businesses which racked up big losses.
Eventually, the Los Angeles City Council shut
down the costly program, supposedly a national
model for lending in troubled areas.
Like Los Angeles, Buffalo has received huge
infusions of federal urban aid--more than half a
billion dollars in community-development
block-grant money alone in 30 years. If this
kind of urban aid truly worked, Buffalo would be
a shining star in the economic-development
constellation because it has gotten more
block-grant money per capita than any other U.S.
city.
But as a series in the Buffalo News revealed,
the city has almost nothing to show for its
massive block grant aid, having squandered it on
a succession of failed projects, including
nearly $60 million into trying to revive its
theater district, with numerous loans and grants
to private businesses that then defaulted.
Over time, local officials and Congress have
allowed billions in block grant aid to go to
politically connected groups--a far cry from the
original intention of using the money to revive
depressed neighborhoods.
In recent years, for instance, congressmen have
lavished millions of dollars for grants to zoos,
for opera houses in Connecticut, Michigan, and
Washington State, for the Southern New Mexico
Fair and Rodeo, the Alabama Quail Trail, and the
Iao Theater in Wailuku, Hawaii.
In addition, well-off municipalities have used
the program to build tennis courts, to finance
arts centers, or to pretty up their downtown
shopping districts. Bergen County, New Jersey,
where annual household income is 55 percent
above the national average, spent nearly
$280,000 in block-grant money to keep alive a
privately owned arts center less than half an
hour from Broadway.
The block-grant program is a tiny part of our
now huge national budgetary problems. But there
is a larger message in the survival of block
grants.
For 30 years, critics have been unable to
reform or eliminate a program that is
ineffective at best, with no clear goals, and a
clear patronage machine for politicians and
community groups at worst. The block grant
effort illustrates how difficult reform becomes
once a government program becomes entrenched.
Steven Malanga is senior fellow at the
Manhattan Institute and author of "Shakedown:
The Continuing Conspiracy Against the American
Taxpayer."
-- 