Sequestration and a Failure of Leadership | Capital Commentary

Sequestration and a Failure of Leadership | Capital Commentary by Aaron Korthuis.  MGB: From what I have heard during the Senate Budget Committee deliberations, the Appropriations Subcommittees will deal with the long term sequestration issues for next year.  It may be that an across the board cut, followed by supplemental appropriations if necessary, will take care of this year.  In the medium term, the big question is whether Obamacare will work - or more specifically if the subsidies for buying a policy are high enough for the uninsured to get health care or wait until they get sick.  If they are less risk averse than health insurance company investors, then this sector either march into a bankruptcy court which will set up a single-payer system out of the ashes or a deal will be made on a subsidized public option for the uninsurable, with the subsidy coming in the form of payroll taxes or some form of consumption tax, which will also take care of out year problems in Medicare and Medicaid.  The real long term problem is that we are constantly rolling over Net Interest on the Debt in order to have the dollar remain the defacto world currency.  We can't do that forever.  Either taxes have to be raised on wealthier citizens who hold the debt or our tax base needs to expand to include more of the world - which also means allowing them into our polity. Actually, I expect both to happen at some point.

Conservative Soul-Searching: The Time is Now | Capital Commentary

Conservative Soul-Searching: The Time is Now | Capital Commentary by Paul Brink.  MGB: I have actually offered the theory of how conservatives and libertarians can work together.  My proposal is to change the tax system to shift from personal taxation to a Net Business Receipts Tax (a Value Added Tax with offsets).  Under this tax, the employees of the firm would each get a vote on how to distribute the offsets to charities who provide social services.  While they could chose the government system, they could also choose their religious institution or a secular provider.  This will shrink the government sector, while still not abandoning the obligation to help those in need.  If everyone picked private institutions and individual retirement accounts holding employer voting stock (some of which is held in an insurance fund with all such companies), the actual tax collected would be zero, even as all needs are met.

Politics & Prose | Capital Commentary

Politics & Prose | Capital Commentary by Byron Borger.  About persecution.  I have two views on this.  One is that it is true that such persecution is awful.  The other view is that who are we to deny others the crown of holiness, freely chosen.

The Significance of the New Pope | Capital Commentary

The Significance of the New Pope | Capital Commentary by Michael Gerson

Disaster Relief, Climate Change and Fiscal Stewardship | Capital Commentary

Disaster Relief, Climate Change and Fiscal Stewardship | Capital Commentary by Ben Lowe.  MGB: While man does indeed affect climate change, sometimes it is a good thing. We are in a sun spot minimum where cooling would be predicted. Further, the US has actually become better and is leading the way in fighting warming. China, on the other hand, is a disaster - although we are supporting that disaster by making them our chief supplier of goods. Perhaps we can use that leverage to get them to clean up a bit. Christians should be involved in insisting that solutions be brought forward - indeed, Pope Emeritus Benedict was known as an environmentalist pope. Some of the solutions Christians should support can involve changing how companies are owned - moving them from stock ownership by investors to employee and retiree ownership. Such firms are less likely to foul the nest. Sadly, however, there is a point where we must realize that we cannot control the weather (at least not yet), and the best thing we can do, as both Christians and citizens, is move people out of low lying areas through better urban planning and give that land back to nature and God.

Christians Investing in Public Education | Capital Commentary

Christians Investing in Public Education | Capital Commentary by Stephanie Summers.  MGB: It is time for Christians in both the Evangelical, Mainline Protestant and Catholic worlds to rise up and abolish the Blaine Amendments to state constitutions which ban direct funding of religious schools.  While the Charter movement has been a good work-around, it would be better to deal with this anti-Catholic relic directly as a matter of justice.  Also, if we begin to fund more religious schools directly, we must also be ready to raise taxes to capture what would have been paid by higher income individuals for private schooling.

As to the question of community and family support.  In many households, parents are functionally illiterate and cannot help.  Justice demands that these be made whole.  Indeed, such individuals should be paid to become literate and receive full family support and health benefits while doing so.  The religious educational community should also focus on these students as well, rather than leaving it to the public system that failed them in the first place.  Additionally, vocational education should be taken on by such schools. There is no reason religion class need be left out of a culinary school.

Staying in the Political Game | Capital Commentary

Staying in the Political Game | Capital Commentary by Vincent Bacote.  MGB: I don't see a stronger, yet different, faith focus in politics evolving without some form of visible leadership.  Someone from the Christian Left or Christian Center will have to come forward eventually (whether he or she wants to or not - God has ways of bringing people forward).  If we do this, it must be with the entire Church, which means the Catholics must be involved too.

A New Season in Ideologically Driven Politics? | Capital Commentary

A New Season in Ideologically Driven Politics? | Capital Commentary by Timothy Sherratt.  MGB: It looks like the sequester is now built into the newest budget agreement.  Now the question will be whether it will have an effect on services to citizens, or will instead lead to buyouts of senior employees and a cut to the training and travel budgets.  I have noticed there is a sharp decline in government job announcements, so I think it may be absorbed.

As for the question of an identifiably Christian movement, I am entirely open to such discussions and have been having them with others.  If we insisted on proportional representation, we might even win a few seats in the majority coalition.  Without such a change, we would have to find some compromise between people who want to stop abortion with criminal law and others who would use economic incentives.  Perhaps we can come up with a marrying of both.  As long as the two parties have a duopoly, however, it is hard to see anything happening until the Republicans talk themselves out of existence on immigration and gender issues.

The Complexity and Urgency of the Problem of Gun Violence | Capital Commentary

The Complexity and Urgency of the Problem of Gun Violence | Capital Commentary by Ted Williams III.  MGB: As long as we treat gun violence as a crime, including possession, we leave it in the old and outdated Anglo-Saxon legal system.  Guns should be treated as a public health issue.  Quite simply, if an area is prone to gun violence, a state of emergency should be declared and every house searched for all firearms, legal or not. They should then be confiscated as a public health measure rather than a criminal one.  If a store consistently supplies the area, ATF agents should come in every week and buy out their entire stock, or just buy out the store and put in a monument to all the Chicago dead - something with their names.  Likewise, the mental health system needs to catch alcoholics, addicts and the mentally ill before they get to the point of criminality or suicide - although this should be done with better hospitals than Geraldo Rivera went after in the 70s.  I suggest contracting it out to Catholic Charities.  There will be plenty of money to do this once we transfer current prisoners whose main problem was mental or literacy.

Drone Strikes, ‘Imminence’ and the Need for Judgment, Part II | Capital Commentary

Drone Strikes, ‘Imminence’ and the Need for Judgment, Part II | Capital Commentary by Brad Littlejohn.  MGB:  I did not see anything in the text about internationality until the last paragraph, although I agree that a more unified allied government to bear the burden of dealing with terrorism would be helpful.  Be that as it may, there is no need for judgment in the face of continuing attacks or attempts at such things.  While in the US there seem to be a variety of people who were supposedly minding their own business or simply sharing their views who got caught in operations entirely made up in the Hoover Building, an American in an enemy camp which is the source of those attacks is committing treason.  If such a person returns and two witnesses can testify, he can be convicted.  If not, however, he or she mainly presents a danger to the United States and its citizens and should be treated like any other enemy combatant.  Thomas More argued that assassination is much more logical than full scale war.  He had a point.

The Reality of Our Debt Crisis: By the Numbers | Capital Commentary

The Reality of Our Debt Crisis: By the Numbers | Capital Commentary by Michael Gerson.  MGB: The reality is that the CBO report shows that the major driver in debt accumulation is letting net interest ride to meet the needs of the world's currencies and speculators.  Medicare and Medicaid as a percentage of the economy don't grow that much.  Indeed, as health care reform is implemented, it will require fixes that will also fix Medicare and Medicaid.  Getting Pentagon spending under control is vital, if only to remove all those obstacles to quick decisions on weapons that will help soldiers in the battlefield.  Sending the service department civilians to the Office of the Secretary of Defense while sending everyone in uniform back to the product commands, or better yet into active deployment or training will save money and end the war more quickly.

An important fact to note is that if net interest is not rolled over into borrowing, but instead paid down (especially the Social Security Trust Fund - which cannot be redeemed by cutting benefits already earned by those of my age), those doing the paying won't be the children and grandchildren of most citizens.  Truly, it is only the wealthier families who could be taxed enough to pay back debt without slowing the economy.  Indeed, removing these people from their money may actually result in growth for the economy, since the government will spend it or pay promised benefits.  If we ignore the problem, however, the people who are holding our debt and benefiting from our Pax Americana will start wanting a piece of the action in decision making.  The real argument, then, is not economic collapse but eventual political absorption.

The Troubled State of the Union | Capital Commentary

The Troubled State of the Union | Capital Commentary by Amy Black.  MGB: The White House actually has some concrete proposals that both add up and provide money for job creation.  They are mostly based on Simpson-Bowles and could be enacted in time (with the sequester delayed) if Boehner is willing to to take yes for an answer.  http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/docs/deficit_reduction_table_bucketed_r8.pdf  

Drone Strikes, ‘Imminence’ and the Need for Judgment, Part I | Capital Commentary

Drone Strikes, ‘Imminence’ and the Need for Judgment, Part I | Capital Commentary by Ben Littlejohn.  MGB: It is much more complicated in philosophical terms to justify a drone attack than to identify camps as being affiliated with some branch of al Queda and by nature dangerous to the United States.  If an American citizen is part of such a camp, he is committing treason against the Untied States and if he cannot be prosecuted, he can be killed as an enemy combatant.  On the more philosophical argument, such preventative action is the world, including the corporatocracy defending itself from revolution.

Deciphering the Administration’s New Proposed Rules on the Contraceptive Mandate | Capital Commentary

Deciphering the Administration’s New Proposed Rules on the Contraceptive Mandate | Capital Commentary by Stanley Carlson-Thies.  MGB: Religious employers who are not churches are, in effect, agents of the government seeking to regulate the right to use contraception freely.  That would be equivalent of trying to ban it, which would violate the whole privacy chain put in place by Grisswold v. Connecticut.  I doubt that this will happen.  This situation will be ended quietly, as the entire issue was meant to activate women for Obama for the 2012 election.  Now that the election is over, accommodations will be made.  Note also that contraceptive coverage has been mandatory on preventative policies purchased outside since December 2000. The only questions now are mandates and copays.  As for whether these procedures cause abortion, they don't.  Life does not begin until gastrulation, when the genes of both parents control development.  When only maternal genes control, the maternal soul is controlling as well - if you define the soul as the energy in the life force that keeps it from achieving entropy.  At gastrulation, a new energy takes over for a unique individual.  In other words, the Movement could win the issue by conceding this point.

Filling the Gap in Health Coverage Among the Poor | Capital Commentary

Filling the Gap in Health Coverage Among the Poor | Capital Commentary by Michelle Crotwell Kirtley.  MGB: Medicaid should be entirely federalized.  Indeed, if the mandates are not as strong as subsidies and pre-existing condition reforms, dealing with both Medicare and Medicaid, as well as uninsured adults (who are often treated in hospitals, as I was, for free), may be dealt with via a subsidized public option (funded by a payroll or consumption tax) or a full on single-payer system (with opt outs for employers who desire to do so).

From NIH to Nada? The Fiscal Cliff and Federal Research Funding | Capital Commentary

From NIH to Nada? The Fiscal Cliff and Federal Research Funding | Capital Commentary by Hilary Sherraft.  MGB: The reason this is not getting much press is that we have been through so many games of charade on the budget over the past two years that we know all sides are bluffing, have already worked out a solution and are engaging in histrionics to keep the peasants happy.  Government has become public relations, which is sad for those of us who really want progress and open discussion.  It is actually more troubling than thinking that there are those who would send health funding off the cliff.

The Impact of the Sequester on our National Defense | Capital Commentary

The Impact of the Sequester on our National Defense | Capital Commentary by Steven E. Meyer.  MGB: This story has two sides.  The first is that we seem to be the enforcers of a Pax Americana, which we are largely funding through deficit spending.  The CBO has released a study that shows, however, that defense is not what will grow in the future, nor will entitlements or discretionary spending.  It is net interest that is set to grow as we continue to borrow from the people who hold our debt as they continue to roll it over for their own reserve currency and fund management purposes.  One would think it would make more sense to seek a tribute payment for defending the world, include more international input into defense strategy and end our borrowing habits accordingly.

Politics & Prose | Capital Commentary

Politics & Prose | Capital Commentary by Byron Borger.  MGB: See these book reviews, especially the first on human trafficking.

Agreeing on Economic Opportunity? | Capital Commentary

Agreeing on Economic Opportunity? | Capital Commentary by Michael Gerson.  MGB: With one third of adults not functionally literate, there is quite a bit to do - more than the government can do alone.  Employers need to be brought into the act - funding either new employees or funding a charitable organization to do so in lieu of tax payment - with funding to include a stipend for the worker equivalent to the minimum wage (and $9 is not enough) and health insurance coverage with either the sponsoring company or the training provider.  The era of second class pay and health care needs to be ended, as its roots are deep in our racist past.

A Fitful and Timely Compromise? | Capital Commentary

A Fitful and Timely Compromise? | Capital Commentary by Perry Recker.  MGB: The simple fact that the EPA can act alone is incentive for the Republicans to finally come to the table.  Not much else will do so.

Disability and the American Way | Capital Commentary

Disability and the American Way | Capital Commentary by Holland Steward.  MGB: While I agree that the disabled deserve to be treated within the blessed community with love, there are some things that the government does not do - although individuals could do a better job in facilitating welcoming communities for those who need them, rather than rejecting them in fear.  That is especially the case with the mentally ill, even more so with the more severe illness.

Encouraging New Immigration Proposals | Capital Commentary

Encouraging New Immigration Proposals | Capital Commentary by Julia K. Stronks.  MGB: It would be better to eliminate all restrictions as well as right to work laws.  The market would then have the right number of immigrants enter and not one more, as if they are to be hired at a union wage, the advantage of employing a shadow economy is overcome.  The fact is, on the verge of compromise in 2010, the issue of birthright citizenship was raised loud and clear - and likely by the food industry.  I don't expect less this time and I note, rather cynically, that 55 Democrats and 4 Republicans does not overcome 60 votes.

Religious Liberty, Majority Rule and the Contraception Mandate | Capital Commentary

Religious Liberty, Majority Rule and the Contraception Mandate | Capital Commentary by Timothy Sherratt.  MGB: Making employer fiat the mechanism to prohibit private reproductive rights rather than the state would undermine the privacy decisions allowing them in the first place.  To replace the tyranny of the state with the tyranny of the employer is simply not acceptable.  Additionally, as life can be demonstrated as beginning at Gastrulation, there really are no moral issues to be addressed.  Until that point, the blastocyst develops under the guidance of only the maternal genetic code.  It is not an individual and may indeed twin.  That makes it a potential life, not an actual life.  Interestingly enough, if the Church would agree to such a dividing line, it would have a more compelling argument against abortion - although not enough to overcome the problems of turning miscarried embryos into legal individuals.

Serving Others: A New Lens for Political Engagement | Capital Commentary

Serving Others: A New Lens for Political Engagement | Capital Commentary by Dynan Crull.  MGB: In earlier days the  Church and Crown worked more closely to handle the needs of the poor, although the resources were not vast to do so.  It is not untoward to set up such systems now and include within them employers as well.  As for the super storm - some of this type of damage had been predicted before.  Indeed, on the History Channel just as Irene was coming up the coast, they aired a show about New York City experiencing a Category 3 Hurricane.  If this becomes the norm every few years, it may just be time for the state to use its power to declare some areas uninhabitable and pay the residents to live someplace else so that future instant charity can be avoided.  One wonders how many biblical disasters were really bad engineering.

Russia Blew Up the Adoption Bridge. Now What? | Capital Commentary

Russia Blew Up the Adoption Bridge. Now What? | Capital Commentary by Jedd Medefind.  MGBI often wonder how far foster care and adoption services go, especially when they act quickly, when it might be better to foster the entire family - including the parents (or at least the mother).  That would get rid of the impression that foster services are glorified kidnapping.:

Christians for Compromise | Capital Commentary

Christians for Compromise | Capital Commentary by Clay Cooke.  MGB: The fiscal cliff was about the budget basing of certain tax reforms.  It was a minor issue and all for show.  The real scandals in society where uncompromising leadership is needed and is sorely lacking is the problem of personal indebtedness where institutions have more rights than individuals.  This is closely followed by the subservient state of most of the workforce and the taking of a portion of their wages by the ownership of the enterprise.  In short, capitalism is the problem.  Where is the voice we need that will refuse to surrender?

Capitalism, Ideology and the Abortion Debate (after 40 years) | Capital Commentary

Capitalism, Ideology and the Abortion Debate (after 40 years) | Capital Commentary by Ryan McIlhenny.  MGB: I have been putting forth a proposal for over a decade to give each family a $500 per child per month tax subsidy payable through wages.  Sadly, those who are most against it tend to be pro-lifers.  Their opinion is that family limitation should occur through sexual control.  So much for their claim that the war against abortion is not about sex.

North/West African Conflicts and Interfaith Interventionism | Capital Commentary

North/West African Conflicts and Interfaith Interventionism | Capital Commentary by R. Drew French.  MGB: I went to school with two African tribal princes from Southern Sudan.  This was in the early 80s.  Islamic extremism is nothing new.  It killed Sadat and likely is not amenable to peace overtures.  If we really want to protect the human rights of those who resist it, it will be bloody - as it is in Afghanistan.

Roe Plus Forty: Where Now? | Capital Commentary

Roe Plus Forty: Where Now? | Capital Commentary by David Koyzis.  MGB: First, a correction - states had begun to legalize abortion, including California, prior to Roe.  Legalization was where momentum was heading until the issue was constitutionalized.  Second, in 40 years there has been no bill to implement the 14 amendment powers of Congress to enforce the amendment, which would include moving the start of life to an earlier point than birth or viability.  Extending it to the first trimester (where children are embyros, not fetuses, has legal problems in dealing with the criminal and tort problems inherent in granting legal status).  Without such status, privacy dictates that there is no third person.

Religious Freedom in the Next Phase of Health Care Reform | Capital Commentary

Religious Freedom in the Next Phase of Health Care Reform | Capital Commentary by Clarke E. Cochran.  MGB: The whole contraception fight was waged for political purposes and the Obama side won it.  The only thing the law changed was co-payments - all firms with third party insurance (including churches) already had this coverage due to a ruling by the EEOC in 2000 (as reported by Mother Jones).  Most of the lawsuits filed were to keep the issue in front of the public at election time.  It turns out not many people really cared.  These cases are mostly not ripe for consideration because the final regulations have not been issued - which is proof of their electoral nature.

A Healing Inaugural Address | Capital Commentary

A Healing Inaugural Address | Capital Commentary by Michael Gerson.  MGB: I agree with Michael that if Obama recognizes the need to unite the country and reaches across the aisle, while at the same time giving strong emphasis to raising up the disadvantaged, it would be a good speech indeed.

What to Watch for in the Next Phase of Health Care Reform | Capital Commentary

What to Watch for in the Next Phase of Health Care Reform | Capital Commentary by Clarke E. Cochrane.  MGB: Even more important is the prospect that health insurance company investors are more risk averse than the uninsured.  If this is the case, the health insurance market will crash long before 2014 begins, leading to quick replacement of the pre-existing condition reform with a tax subsidized public option or a full-on single-payer system.  Some  estimate that the real goal of reform was the latter.

A “Common Good” Prescription for our Political Malaise | Capital Commentary

A “Common Good” Prescription for our Political Malaise | Capital Commentary by Michelle Kortwell Kirtley.  MGB: In order to preserve lower income taxes, we have set ourselves on a road to either diminish health benefits (or force them to be more cost effective - an experiment that has never worked) or to set up a new tax system - such as an employer paid consumption tax - to fund them adequately.  Given that the prospects of health care reforms pre-existing condition reforms may yet bankrupt the entire health insurance industry, a few dollars in Medicare cuts seem like a small issue.

Understanding Upcoming Supreme Court Decisions | Capital Commentary

Understanding Upcoming Supreme Court Decisions | Capital Commentary by Julia K. Stronks.  MGB: Affirmative action cases are about balancing competing groups.  Marital rights are not.  The are about whether gays and lesbians are able to exercise the basic adult right to form one's own family, rather than being relegated under the law to eternal childhood - with their families of origin retaining their rights as next of kin.  Additionally, this cases illustrate the fact that marriages are not performed by clergy or state, but are instead a choice of the parties involved.  If this is the truth for Christian marriage for heterosexuals, it must also be true for homosexuals.  It the Center does not believe this, then the Center needs to rethink.

African-American Turnout and the Fate of the Voting Rights Act | Capital Commentary

African-American Turnout and the Fate of the Voting Rights Act | Capital Commentary by Timothy Sherratt. MGB: What is important is whether the election authorities are dominated by those who would suppress minority votes, not the population of the voters.

Can We Do Anything About the Sandy Hook Horrors? | Capital Commentary

Can We Do Anything About the Sandy Hook Horrors? | Capital Commentary I agree with Steven Meyer. The Church must lead on the issue of getting the guns.  It is the only authority some gun owners (or their mothers) will listen to.

Educating the Good Citizen | Capital Commentary

Educating the Good Citizen | Capital Commentary by Kevin R. Den Dulk.  MGB: Civic education has always come outside the educational system.  It comes in families, campaigns, union or non-union shops, churches and civic clubs. College level activity usually shows who will be the future leaders in this regard, but not all leaders have a B.A. degree or a J.D.  Had I gotten a J.D., I may have been in Congress by now, although none of my classmates in Pre-Law have so ascended.

In Search of Political Courage | Capital Commentary

In Search of Political Courage | Capital Commentary by Michael J. Gerson.  MGB: On Medicare, I have always thought that the best solution was to build measures to foster the birth of more children, thus ignoring the demographic certainty of catastrophe altogether. Short of that, consolidating health care taxes into a single employer-paid consumption tax (with offsets for those who wish to self insure or get their own outside coverage) would provide more than enough competition to lower costs - although single payer would be the west way to drive these down as well, if properly empowered to bargain.