Over the last three to four years, but most especially the last couple of years, there has been an outcry in this country to both increase security and to resolve the financial problems of this country. Lately, I have read both a story and seen reports that make me sigh. As expected, people are quite happy to reclaim that something should be done, uhm, until that something is done. But, let’s look at a couple of the stories.
First, there has been a constant drumbeat in this country that security needs to somehow be increased, and lately it has risen to a crescendo with the findings of the bombs in packages from Yemen. Well, that is, until that security is put in place:
WASHINGTON — Stepped-up security screening at airports in the wake of foiled terrorism plots has provoked an outcry from airline pilots and travelers, including parents of children who say they are too intrusive.
With the busiest holiday travel season nearing, fliers face long security lines and new rigorous pat down checks begun in recent weeks aimed at discovering hidden explosives. As a result, some travelers are questioning whether to fly at all.
The Transportation Security Administration has ramped up airport security after two plots by al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula. A Nigerian man hid a bomb in his underwear last Christmas and the group tried to send package bombs via U.S. cargo carriers but none of the explosives detonated.
Let me imagine a possible conversation with some folk. Yes, yes, we need tighter security. Oh, what, you mean that this results in increased inconvenience for me? Well, then, that is horrible security. Oh, you mean it is more intrusive? Well, then, it cannot be right, there must be some other way to do this. You stupid security people must be making a mistake. Just because one person tried to sneak explosives in his underpants, another person in his shoes, and someone tried to use a package delivery service, does that mean you have to inconvenience me. You are violating my rights when you pat me down and put me through a full-body scanner (both of which were approved under President Bush, by the way). What do you mean that I gave up my rights? I never gave up my rights, other people justifiably had their rights taken away but not me.
And, then there are the just released proposals by the bi-partisan leaders on how to reduce the deficit. In fact, a preliminary analysis of the proposals shows that just within 15 years, our deficit would be essentially a thing of the past. Of course, that means that there would need to be wage freezes for some groups for a couple of years, that some taxes would increase, that the retirement age would have to increase, earmarks would have to be made illegal, and that certain IRS deductions would have to be diminished or done away with. Needless to say, the groups coming out against such proposals have been loud and virulent.
You see, the argument being made by every group that has come out thus far is that they should not be “penalized” in order to reduce the deficit. Uhm, so everyone else but your group deserves to be cut back. I am sure that every group will have an argument as to why every other group is an unnecessary waste of money. Interestingly enough, you can read an article in which there is already an internal argument going on among the Republicans themselves over the subject of earmarks. And, you will just love the argument of the pro-earmark Republicans.
But, while DeMint and other Senate fiscal conservatives argue that so-dubbed “pork barrel spending” wastes taxpayer dollars and facilitates fishy political back-scratching, other Republicans say that a ban would do little to curb government spending and would put more control into the hands of government agencies rather than lawmakers who best understand their constituents.
Yes, just think, lawmakers understand you better than government agencies. So, they should be allowed to get around any law that is about to be passed by including earmarks and exceptions. And, if you do not give them the right to have earmarks, then somehow this will increase government control over your life. I am quite underwhelmed by that argument.
Here is the reality. We do need to cut spending and raise income. And, the leaders of the bipartisan commission agreed that regardless of ideological arguments, that the reality is the same reality as in a home budget. You balance a budget by matching income and spending. And, they found that the only way to reduce a deficit is to decrease spending and–hopefully–increase income. And, in government that means that increase in income means increased taxes. It is interesting to see that both leaders placed no credence in the idea that lowering taxes on businesses, the middle class, and the investor class would some how magically raise income. They also did not buy the idea that the government should prime the pump by increasing spending. That is like maxing out your credit cards in order to pay off your deficit. No, it does not make sense, does it?
So, the more security you want, the more you must give up some of your rights to privacy. The more you want to balance the budget, the more you must give up some of your entitlements and some of your income. For you to be surprised when both things happen is to admit that you were living in a dream world of unreality, rather than in the actual world of intrusive security and financial tightening of the belt.
The primary problem with the intrusive techniques TSA is using is that they are security theater designed to appear to be doing something about security (increasing feelings of security) without actually doing anything to noticeably improve security in reality. Bruce Schneier is one expert in the field of security I find interesting. He recently did a TEDx talk that summarizes one piece of the puzzle.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CGd_M_CpeDI
As far as the commission plan goes, there’s plenty for people to hate. I would buy it being a “balanced” plan if it didn’t reduce the top income tax rate from 36% to 23% while eliminating tax breaks and benefits for the middle class and poor. It also includes $3 in proposed cuts for every 1$ in overall tax increases (almost entirely either regressive or on the middle class so the top of the bracket could get a huge tax cut). And even with that, it would fail to balance the budget. Even if all their projections are accurate there would still be a $400 billion dollar deficit in 2015. As far as I’m concerned, a plan that cuts benefits to the poor, raises taxes on the middle class, cuts taxes on the wealthiest and doesn’t even accomplish the assigned goal deserves to be dead on arrival.
Besides, the way we have gerrymandered our congressional districts we’ve reduced the House almost entirely to a collection of ideologues on one side or another. Unless we fix that problem, nothing meaningful like this can be accomplished. When designing the makeup of the House, the authors of our Constitution argued over whether or not 30,000 constituents per representative was too many. At this point, since the size of the house hasn’t been adjusted to our growing population since the early 20th century, I would be happy with a House in which each person represented no more than 100,000 people. That would pretty much solve the gerrymandering problem and give us representatives that actually represent us. But it would also dilute power. And having allowed power to concentrate the way we have, they naturally won’t want to give it up. Hmmm. It would also reduce the influence of corporate money. It’s a lot harder to buy enough representatives to make a difference when there are 1500 of them or so.
You make some good points. However, GRIN, you also admirably make my point that the minute that someone comes up with a plan someone or another promptly destroys it. I am sure that the plan is flawed, but, uhm, are you willing to block it so that no plan is passed? You see, part of the problem is that various constituencies, by their opposition to plans that are never perfect, make sure that no plan is ever passed, and the problems only get worse. Even if the rich get away with some stuff, I would rather have the deficit lowered.
And, the TSA plans are also our fault. We have set the standard that not only can no terrorist act happen, but that no terrorist could even get past our first line of defense. If a terrorist makes it to the second line of defense, we claim that somehow our security has failed, even though the threat has been stopped. As a result, we force security agencies to increase security EVERY TIME A THREAT IS SUCCESSFULLY STOPPED. As long as we insist that a threat be stopped immediately, at the first line of defense, so long shall we be tacitly approving more and more intrusive and “showy” security. In passing, I agree that the security is showy, but we set ourselves up for that.
“both of which were approved under President Bush, by the way…”
BTW, this seems almost snarky. No one has ever denied Bush was a big spender/gov guy.
Actually the reason I put that phrase in has to do with comments that I get on my blog. There seems to be a total absence of historical knowledge among some folks. And, had I made the comment without the “Bush” addition, I would certainly have received some very snarky comments about President Obama and how this somehow proves that he is a socialist who wants to control us. It was important to point out that the TSA and the body scans were developed and had their initial testing under a Republican administration. The current administration is simply finishing the policies begun during that time.
Both Democrats and Republicans have previously agreed on the necessity of these policies. Civil rights groups have been warning about just how invasive it was all going to be. But no one was listening because those groups had been slammed over and over with the claim that they were leftist. Now those groups are being seen as prescient and folks are calling for deliberate boycotts of the full body scanners even if it throws airports into chaos. Perhaps folks will begin listening to the civil rights groups again.
Well, I know plenty of people who said that Bush was not as bad as Obama but that’s a retroactive sliding scale. But the snark is warranted because during the Bush years there were people in the conservative wing who reasoned that the new measures for national security were good who flip-flopped no sooner than Democrat had executive office. And there are people who, not incorrectly, point out that Obama capitulating and approving most of the things his predecessor did vitiates all that he said about doing things differently. This isn’t new, though, as American history has a few strict constructionists who jettisoned strict constructionism once they actually had the job responsibilities
An example I can think of from my own circle of friends and family is that one of my friends was happy about the health care reform happening but felt insulted by the specificity of questions asked by state health care workers about his personal life. I mentioned gently and in passing that that’s the flip side of getting more state administered health care. We can’t hope to get better state-given health care if we need it unless it happens that the workers get an even more intimate portrait of our day to day lives. I think this fits in with the observation that we can get what we want and then be unhappy with it. But then getting what we thought we wanted and finding out it’s not as cool as we hoped it would be goes back to Genesis 3.