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."
