Our government spends your tax dollars to attack various problems. Below you will find two budget initiatives.
Comment to identify which you feel is more deserving of your money, and please say why.
Strategic nuclear defense
or
Reducing the National Budget Deficit
Few care about these two issues. One possibility could be that these are not issues, not problems at all. Another possibility is that the two issues are cryptic, hidden from the public. A third possibility is that with enough information, the public has rationally evaluated the information and judged it according to wise and moral criteria. Here is a story about issues.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/the-majority-of-americans-tend-to-agree-with-democrats-on-top-issues-polling-shows/ar-BBVIN3x
Thank you for the informative article that delineates current opinion shifts among voters.
WinLoseorDraw believes that the first issue discussed (environmental concerns) has shifted slightly towards the Democrat stance due to the divisive nature of the current political debate on that issue. When people fly in the face of the facts by claiming that climate change is a hoax, that has the unintended consequence of driving opinions the other way. Climate change has been well documented since WinLoseorDraw wore short pants.
WinLoseorDraw attributes the shift in opinions towards the idea that wealthy people should pay more in taxes to desperation. That idea would in fact put a dent in the horrendous national debt and put more money in the national coffers. However, WinLoseorDraw prefers equitable and across the board belt tightening/budget cutting. The government must not be in the business of designating economic winners and losers.
Climate and Public Policy
The dominant media repeatedly say that human-caused global warming has produced recent record high temperatures and abnormal hurricanes while raising sea levels 20 centimeters since 1880. They say attempts to slow greenhouse gas concentrations are obstructed by anti-science climate change-denying Republicans. I will comment on parts of the previous statements.
Some people have left the dominant media for media of agreeable opinions. All institutions have biases shared among their members. Media strive for audiences and crises are attractive stories.
Humans produce a significant amount of greenhouse gases; one estimate is that around 3% of the annual atmospheric carbon dioxide production is from industrial sources. I think the best conclusion is that human activity affects world-wide climate, but predictions of future effects are highly uncertain, and this uncertainty is not well publicized, therefore not well-known. Good science requires vigilant retesting of methods, measurements, estimates, assumptions, and conclusions. Evidence is supposed to be the final judge, not “consensus.” Politicians and voters get most information from a crisis-mongering media.
Much of climate science is publicly funded via politicians who “never let a good crisis go to waste” which biases funding. Climate scientists self-select their careers, some, perhaps many, with a mission to “save the planet,” a bias that affects assumptions and decisions. An email hack of East Anglia University, source of a United Nation’s political climate document, revealed true anti-science where contrary evidence was suppressed by credentialed “scientists” to support their client’s wishes, an actual hoax. Other allegations of fraud abound, and it takes time for information-overloaded citizens to objectively and systematically evaluate contrary claims, so we judge mainly by intuition. For example, an online search to compare the number of glaciers that are retreating vs those that are growing has contradictory results. Politicization of science is a serious issue.
“Anti-science” is a slander on those who object to the corrupting politicization of science. “Climate change deniers” is a slander that equates climate skeptics to holocaust deniers. It is true that some skeptics, such as Rush Limbaugh, mistakenly think that the atmosphere is too big for people to affect, but a 3% per year increase from industrial carbon dioxide is indeed significant. This denial is like those who do not understand biological evolution but are otherwise pro-science. There is a similar phenomenon in the social sciences: Centuries of history leads reasonably to the conclusion that societies with free markets and free minds produce the greatest good for the greatest numbers of people in those societies, but many deny this conclusion and prefer political control of society.
Opponents of increased government control of greenhouse emissions are biased by their own crisis, the growing politicization of everything, with healthcare as a recent example on top of automatic massive growth of unsustainable entitlements exacerbated by demographic changes, illegal immigration and growing anti-Occident rhetoric. Rising Democrats promise universal daycare, “free” college, basic income, health insurance for all, economic “justice,” reparations for slavery, higher income taxes, higher corporate taxes and a new federal wealth tax. Political control of greenhouse gases will mean more political control of industry and the people.
Recently a pro-smaller government congressman was narrowly elected Governor of Florida and one of his first acts was to take steps to deal with rising sea levels. We can do both—effectively deal with an uncertain future climate while shrinking an over-sized government. If government intervention in one area increases, we can offset it elsewhere.
Many economists argue that a simple carbon fuel tax is much more effective than a costly bureaucratic “cap and trade” political regime. Indeed, we can trade a carbon fuel tax for abolition of all federal income, payroll, business and estate taxes. We can end the taxation of wealth production by enacting the Fair Tax, HR 25, a simple progressive retail consumption tax which will provide large economic, social and environmental benefits as a result of lowering the costs of employment, earnings and savings. Overconsumption along with consumer debt will decrease in favor of increased household wealth. Expanded aggregate wealth provides the means to solve environmental problems and many other problems as well.
China produces 87% more greenhouse gases than does the US. The Fair Tax does not preclude tariffs which could be set based on the human rights practices of other governments: High tariffs on dirty tyrants and free trade with clean free nations.
Jim:
WinLoseorDraw agrees with you that the Media (all Media on both sides of the aisle) have bias and consequently exaggerate coverage and slant presentations to appeal to their perceived constituencies.
WinLoseorDraw also agrees with you that predictions of future climate changes are highly speculative and uncertain. Climate is, and has been, changing; but the sky is not falling.
WinLoseorDraw agrees with you that politicization of science is a dangerous thing, and we should stop doing it. There does seem to be some disagreement as to where the greatest danger lies. You, presumably, feel that the greatest danger lies in ill-informed over-reactions. Others feel the greatest danger is the Dodo bird reaction. You say that calling someone a “climate change denier” is slander, and that is true when thoughtful objections, like yours, are met with people shouting derogatory labels instead of listening.
Thank you for pointing out that Rush Limbaugh has exaggerated badly on at least one aspect of the climate change issue. WinLoseorDraw believes that Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity are a big part of the politicized media you have so correctly complained about. They would tell their perceived constituency that mis-guided intellectuals, including scientists, are the real problem.
Over-reactions in either direction are the real problem.
Climate policy skeptics are anti-pseudoscientific socialism.
And that’s a good thing?
WinLoseorDraw is quite accustomed to people acting pseudoscientifically on both sides of the climate change argument, but how does socialism factor into the equation?
Alan Greenspan is in the second group. I hope he tells Howard Schultz.
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/04/12/alan-greenspan-says-economy-will-start-to-fade-out-because-of-growing-us-entitlement-burden.html
Thank you, Taxpayer:
1. Greenspan for President.
2. Five percent Across the Board budget cuts.
3. Begin work on the Balanced Budget Amendment.
3. The New Balanced Budget Amendment. The one without the loopholes and work-arounds of the old one.
Walter E Williams wrote, “The bottom line is that spending is not our basic problem. We’ve become an immoral people demanding that Congress forcibly use one American to serve the purposes of another. Deficits and runaway national debt are merely symptoms of that larger problem.” The rest of his article is worth reading.
http://walterewilliams.com/spending-and-morality/
Jim:
Thank you for the very interesting opinion piece by Walter Williams.
WinLoseorDraw agrees with 99.9 percent of his essay. The government should be strictly impartial and even handed as to its citizenry. The government must not be in the business of picking economic winners and losers.
However, Mr. Williams did make one comment with which WinLoseorDraw would quibble. He asked if the legality of an action establishes the morality of that action. Mr. Williams asks that as a rhetorical question, intending for us all to shake our heads in disbelief and mutter, “No.”
We live, thank God, in a National of Laws. As the march of time and history proves our laws to be mis-guided or ineffective, we change them.
In a sense, our laws are one and the same with our morality; not perfect but becoming more and more so.
If I had to choose between the two, I would rather be bankrupt than dead.
The quickest way to either bankruptcy and/or death is to continue to ignore the national debt.
Both. Spend the same amount on defense but shift defense spending to strategic improvements. Deeply cut the rest of the budget, abolish all subsidies and pay off the national debt and never have a deficit and debt again.