Pay Czars And Public Service
The role of the Pay Czar, according to Obama, is to have the government beat up and chop up the (large) compensation practices of the companies whom the government bails out, under the guise of fairness and necessity. In truth, the companies have almost all paid the bailouts back and it hasn’t cost the government too many millions except, perhaps, with AIG who hasn’t returned all of their funds. Nonetheless, we were told it was essential to have this agent put in place to handle this dire problem.
This begs the question: if the government is so intent on bullying the compensation of those “overpaid” for their services, why then are they not doing the same for the public sector? Now there’s a real place which could stand more than a mere trimming. Such cuts, in the form of reduced compensation and decreased pension plans, would serve to keep our government and public service unions at least a little less bloated.
Certainly, if the Obama administration were to follow its self-avowed principle to scale back organizations that are overcompensated, they should look no further than the government itself. Considering our staggering deficit situation, as stewards of the taxpayer’s money, the public arena should be — must be — drastically reduced to be in line with the private service sector.
Obama’s Businesses and Wealth Redistribution
It is truly embarrassing for the businessmen in this country to have a president who makes such economically incompetent statements and gestures. Speaking to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce a couple of months ago, our president effectively rebuked business success. He suggested that “if we’re fighting to reform the tax code and increase exports to help you compete, the benefits can’t just translate into greater profits and bonuses for those at the top. They should be shared by American workers”. This is a blatant example of wealth redistribution.
In a free economy, employee wages are such that an employer willingly pays whatever it takes so that the amount paid to an employee is less than what can be earned from them – i.e. they have to be able to produce. Take, for example, someone who sweeps floors. If you are in need of a floor sweeper and the benefit of sweeping is worth more than the sweeping costs, then you hire the floor sweeper. If not, then you leave the floors dirty.
The same principle has always applied – albeit on a grander scale– in the United States. We see this currently in manufacturing which is at an all time high, but the number of manufacturing employees is a lot less. Workers are so productive with technology and capital, they can be – and it’s worth it for them to be – paid more.
On the other hand, if a company pays its worker more than the worker is actually producing, then the worker will become wholly uncompetitive. It is not better for a worker to be paid more than he is worth, because at some point, he loses the capability to independently support himself. The scenario becomes not what his labor is worth – but instead that he has been given a gift. This takes away the incentive to produce and earn. It goes against what has made our country thrive, which is hard work and an investment of time and talent.
By publicly and strongly suggesting that employers unfairly and extraordinarily compensate their workers in an attempt to level the playing field, Obama has effectively shown his true colors regarding his attitude toward businesses and their operation. Private businesses in the country, unlike the government, do not have the luxury of spending without consequences. Attempting to coerce fairness instead of cultivating a free market, Obama has strongly disadvantaged this country to the rest of the world.
Meet the Bias
With all the pressing issues of the day, it is outrageous that the moderator of Meet the Press, Mr. David Gregory, spent so much time last week badgering House Speaker John Boehner about President Obama’s religious beliefs and citizenship status. Even though Boehner continuously stated he believed the President was a Christian and a citizen, Mr. Gregory was clearly disturbed with the fact that Boehner had not used his position as Speaker of the House to issue or enforce some sort of official statement. When Boehner replied that it was not his job to tell Americans what to think or believe, Gregory question his leadership capabilities.
Contrast Mr. Gregory’s attitude toward Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid during an interview a few weeks ago and the bias is quite apparent. Harry Reid actually proclaimed on Meet the Press that we are not in a crisis in Social Security, that the Social Security system is “arithmetically sound” and that the problem of Social Security was merely fiction — perpetuated by people who do not like government! Yet, on an issue of such monumental factual error, Mr. Gregory left the Senate Majority Leader’s gross distortion of facts completely unchallenged.
The bias and misinformation continuing to be disseminated by weekend political talk shows is deeply infuriating.
Thoughts On Quantitative Easing
Something about Bernanke’s speech today at the National Press Club regarding QE2 struck me.
Administrative support for quantitative easing is just another blatant example of political hypocrisy. The rationale behind quantitative easing – that it would spur investment – was vilified by the Democrat leadership when the same strategy was applied to “tax cuts for the wealthy”.
Bernanke, Geitner, the Fed, and the liberal members of Congress all support and push QE2. They argue that purchasing huge amounts of Treasury securities will reduce long term interest rates. The effect will be stimulative because this action forces the other potential buyers to do something else with their money – invest in higher risk and more economically stimulative activity.
Yet aren’t these the same people who were against tax cuts for the highest-income earners? Their argument then was that those higher income earners would not put their tax savings for economic stimulative use. Though this is not correct (as a CPA financial and tax advisor to that very segment of the population, I can assure you that large portions of tax savings are invested), the hypocrisy here is quite staggering.
The supporters of QE2 praise lower interest rates but not lower tax margins? They laud investment as a key strategy for economic recovery – but only when it is artifically and unconventionally controlled by the government? This dichotomy is both calculated and conniving and ultimately endangers the economic future of this country.
UPDATE: THE WASHINGTON TIMES PRINTED MY LETTER TO THE EDITOR ON THIS VERY TOPIC
Is There a Double Standard on Ethics in Congress?
Mark Hemingway at the Washington Examiner raises an important question: Is there a double standard on ethics in Congress? I weigh in on the discussion.
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An upcoming trial for Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., on 13 charges of financial and other misconduct highlights a double standard between regular citizens and members of Congress, congressional ethics experts say.
“Generally speaking, Congress is much more deferential to their fellow members than, say, an Internal Revenue Service agent is to a member of the general public,” said Bill Allison, editorial director at the Sunlight Foundation. “Imagine if instead of the IRS, it’s your neighbors who will say, ‘You know, you’re a good guy, we’re not going to charge you for your taxes’ — that’s really the way it works.”
Allison noted that statements by at least one member of House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct, which brought the charges against Rangel and will conduct his trial later this year, seem to bolster the impression that members of Congress are inclined go easy on their colleagues.
“One of the most difficult tasks assigned to a member of Congress is to sit in judgment of a colleague,” Rep. Gene Green, D-Texas, chairman of the subcommittee investigating Rangel, said last week. “The task is even more difficult when the subject of the investigation has befriended and mentored so many new member of Congress.”
Green also told reporters the subcommittee was recommending a reprimand by the full house — a vote by the House in which members would either approve or disapprove of Rangel’s behavior. Other than public shaming, a reprimand imposes no concrete penalty on the erring congressman.
Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., for example, has been previously reprimanded, but is currently chairman of the powerful House Financial Services Committee.
Rangel is accused of using his congressional authority to solicit donations and to enrich himself personally, but the 13 charges he now faces from the House panel do not address media reports that he failed to report income and failed to disclose assets properly on his congressional financial disclosure forms.
Last year, the Sunlight Foundation claimed to have documented 28 instances in which “Rangel omitted assets worth between $239,026 and $831,000 that were either purchased, sold, or held from his financial disclosures.”
Though evidence of Rangel’s tax evasion has been highly publicized since 2008, the IRS has taken no action against Rangel. “I help people every day fighting the IRS on circumstances much less compelling than those of Mr. Rangel,” Alan J. Dlugash, a partner in the New York accounting firm Marks Paneth & Shron LLP, recently told the Hill.
According to Ken Boehm, chairman of the National Legal and Policy Center, a lack of IRS action is no excuse for Congress not taking the accusations of tax evasion into account.
“Their argument is the typical argument of the ethics committee. ‘Well, we’re here to enforce House rules, not every law of the land,’ ” he said. “That is why I believe this is turning a blind eye to sweeping House rules with requirements that you conduct yourself as a member of the House, and in such a way that you obey the law.”
Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/columns/Is-there-a-double-standard-on-ethics-for-Congress-1007045-99888759.html#ixzz0vfMgrfAe