Constant Conservative

When I saw the article with the headline “Workers Bear Larger Share Of Health Premium Costs” I wondered if it was going to make the same faulty statements about who pays for what. It does:

Total premiums rose a modest 3 percent for family coverage and 5 percent for single. But Kaiser Family Foundation Chief Executive Officer Drew Altman says companies passed most of those increases on to workers instead of absorbing them, as they usually do.

Did you know that it is technically impossible for a corporation to simply absorb increases in health care premiums? If a company  does not pass the cost directly to the employees, as this article would seem to define “absorbing,” then there is less money available for pay and other benefits.The employees are still being charged for the increase in cost, but it is happening indirectly.

If the company passes the cost of premiums directly to its employees, then the employees might notice it more quickly. The bottom line is that employees always pay for an increase in premiums. The only question is whether that increase is hidden or obvious.

Seems right to me. But that’s not the tone taken by this article from the AP:

Nebraska, South Dakota and North Dakota are the only states with unemployment rates that average below 6 percent, so those states qualify for only two of the four tiers of extended benefits.

State labor officials say they can’t do anything to change who is eligible.

Sorry, but why would one want more people to qualify for extended benefits if the real issue was getting folks back to work? We should be rejoicing that the unemployment rates are so low, instead.

Well, well:

Democratic Rep. Stephanie Herseth Sandlin of South Dakota says she will not vote for a bill that would extend unemployment benefits and some tax breaks because it would increase deficit spending.

Is this from principle or a desire to be re-elected in the fall? We may never know, but if enough of her fellows start feeling blue then perhaps this will not happen at all–and that would be a very good thing.

Saw the following and immediately thought of a sandwich:

The five worst states were Michigan (14.1%), Nevada, (13.4%), California (12.6%), Rhode Island (12.6%), and Florida (12.3%). Of those five, Michigan and Rhode Island experienced job growth; the other three endured more job losses. North Dakota, South Dakota, and Nebraska remained the only three states with unemployment rates below 5%. North Dakota actually saw its rate decline by 0.1% to 4.1%.

I’m glad we are the protein, though. Those carbs will kill you.

Ran across this piece from the AP:

South Dakota’s Labor Department is hiring three investigators to help look for fraud in what it says is an “extremely high number” of unemployment claims.

A few questions come to mind. How do we know the number is extremely high? Compared to what period in South Dakota’s history? Or are we comparing to other states? Inquiring minds would like to know more than “extremely high.”

Further, how many investigators currently exist to ferret out this type of fraud? Are all of these investigators full-time positions or are the new ones only going to last as long as the “extremely high” conditions continue? What is the workload of the fraud investigators?

How are the investigators paid? Is any of their remuneration tied to the number of fraudulent claims they expose?

Later on in the article it says that the investigators will be state employees but funded by the federal government (that is, you and me). How long does the funding last?

Perhaps the AP could perform a bit of investigative journalism to answer a few of these questions in a follow-up piece.

I was previously unaware that a sitting member of the US Senate had been inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame. It would appear that Senator Bunning of Kentucky is such a man. He came under fire this week because of his refusal to let an extension of unemployment benefits be voted on unless the cost of the bill was to be offset elsewhere.

Some folks are quite unhappy with his actions:

Sen. Jim Bunning (R-Ky.) should be ousted from the Baseball Hall of Fame because of his block on extending unemployment benefits, according to a group that advocates for the unemployed.

The benefits expire Sunday.

“The most obscene thing he can do is prevent jobless Americans from getting their $350 a week unemployment check,” Rick Sloan, acting executive director of Ur Union of Unemployed, a grass roots organization for unemployed Americans, told The Hill.

Hear that? The senator is “preventing jobless Americans from getting their … check.” It would appear that the speaker of the particular quote does not understand that there is no ownership in the equation. If the employers paid unemployment insurance premiums (taxes by another name) to cover those who became unemployed, it was done so with the understanding that the benefits would expire after a given time (and generally at the point where the premiums dollars were used up).

Now, while I may object to the means by which unemployment payments are made, I understand that they are done so in accordance with current law. There is, however, no requirement that the payout term which is to expire tomorrow be extended.

All of that aside for a moment, there is this little thing called “paygo” which is short for “pay as you go.” You and I understand it in the context of spending the money which we have. Congress is to do the same based on some rules on which the members recently agreed. Therein lies Senator Bunnning’s  argument. He believes that this bill could be passed–as long as the money for doing so is found elsewhere and the paygo rules are followed. The sticking point–there are a number of exceptions to paygo. One simple one (by comparison with some of the other exceptions) is that the rules may be suspended in an emergency.

Of course, this means that all one has to do is wait for anything to become an emergency and then paygo is bypassed and spending continues without regard to actual funds on hand.

Everyone has known for months that the unemployment benefits–which have already been extended once or twice–were to run out tomorrow. Why is the vote on this only coming up now? Couldn’t one see a few weeks ago that the economy was unlikely to make itself so much better in the short term that unemployment numbers would drop precipitously–negating the basis for more benefits?

So, keep in mind as you read about the heartless Senator Bunning that he is trying to (much like years ago) play by the rules. Here is hoping that some of his fellows will follow his lead in this regard.

Because y’know, South Dakota jobs simply don’t pay anything:

The business-friendly tax climate of South Dakota may lead a Fairfield jewelry company to leave for the Great Plains.

Bergio International Inc. announced Thursday morning that it is considering moving business operations to South Dakota.

Berge Abajian, chief executive officer and designer, said in the announcement that South Dakota’s Office of Economic Development has presented Bergio with an opportunity.

“This opportunity would enable Bergio to consolidate the back office while providing a savings to our bottom line of 30 percent to 40 percent in labor and tax costs,” Abajian said in a press release. “Not only would this have a positive impact on Bergio’s goals for 2010 and beyond, it’s a great opportunity for South Dakota’s economic development as well.”

The nice thing about the jewelry business? You can do it indoors when the visibility drops too much.

Over the last few days, I’ve come across the following images (the first from the American Enterprise Institute and the second from Paul Kedrosky):

I know that there is much more to it than this, but I find it interesting that DC has so few job seekers vs jobs (including both public and private sector jobs, one would suppose) at the same time there are so many people in the President’s cabinet who have never worked in the private sector. We don’t need a jobs summit, just the ability to expand the cabinet to millions of needy job seekers across the country. Detroit in particular would benefit.

Update

I would suppose (making it pure supposition) that the number of people without private sector experience is skewed by the sheer youth of many of Obama’s appointees. I would be unsurprised to find that the average age of his cabinet may be as much as 10 years younger than say Reagan or Ike at the same point in their presidencies.

Word is that the US Post Office lost $3,800,000,000 in FY 2009. Based on the latest numbers I could find (from June 30 of this year) that is a loss of just over $6100 per employee. Further, we are told that this was true even though the men and women in blue worked fewer hours to compensate for less mail. Did I mention that:

The loss would have been worse except for legislation which allowed the agency to postpone the recognition of billions of dollars in prefunded retiree health benefit payments.

So, the loss might have been $12,000 or greater per person except they will take the hit for half of that next year. Of course, no money was actually lost since this is a taxpayer underwritten enterprise.

Via Jammie Wearing Fool (who does a better job of the numbers than I do)

The good professor who is funding his own Legal Insurrection is spot on:

There is one supreme Democratic idiocy in the health care debate which has not received enough attention. The entire focus of the Democratic proposals — whether HR3200, the Senate HELP Committee bill, the Baucus Concepts, or the Obama non-plan — is to increase the cost of private health insurance.

Of course, this increase is not the public focus because this whole “reform” is about decreasing the cost, right?

[P]rice competition through consumer choice should be encouraged, not eliminated. To eliminate such insurance completely, and to refuse to consider alternatives such as national insurance markets which lower private coverage costs, shows that something else is at play.

When will more people understand that it is not about the cost? It has always been about the power. Today’s vote by the panel in the Senate seems to reflect that. As the professor notes elsewhere, the Baucus bill isn’t even something which can be properly quantified, yet it can be voted upon? If the issue were truly of facts and figures, then why do we need a vote on something which is not even factually figurable?

I suppose, given that the President is beyond partisanship, the Senate has finally found itself beyond language. In keeping with such beyondness, how long will it be before you and I are beyond feeling?

If you have not participated in a town hall meeting within these last several months, you have at least had the opportunity to observe footage from one or another of them via YouTube or your regular evening news channel. Following is an example video of such a gathering:

I had the opportunity the other day to lunch with a friend who brought up an excellent point. Why are we (the constituents) going begging to our senators and representatives within the context of town hall meetings? Why are these individuals, elected to represent our interests (not theirs, not the party’s, not Wall Street’s–ours) running the meetings as though they are in charge, and we are little more than powerless supplicants?

Most of you over the age of 16 have at one time or the other answered to someone who employed you. Strangely enough, this sort of thing has been going on for centuries. I am reminded of Dr. Luke, who documented the following statement from a Roman centurion:

For I also am a man set under authority, having under me soldiers, and I say unto one, Go, and he goes; and to another, Come, and he comes; and to my servant, Do this, and he does it.

Ever hear the term “public servant” used for elected officials? Hmm.

We have a form of government not shared by many other nations. Some call it a democracy. Others say it is a republic. For purposes of this article, let’s call it a democratic republic, or a representative democracy. I know, I know, some purists would have a fit that I’m not including all the caveats and modifiers, but this is a usable definition.

(For those of you who wish to have a pure democracy, consider American Idol. I’ve only seen a few clips of the show online, but my understanding is that the audience (both physical and virtual) vote for their favorite performers directly. The one (or ones) with the most votes stay on and go to another round. Over the years that this show has been broadcast, people have been “elected” for a variety of reasons, some of them having nothing to do with their actual musical ability.)

But, back to the main issue. My employer (and yours) hires us to do things that he or she is unwilling or unable to do for a variety of reasons, permitting me to act on my employer’s behalf in pursuit of certain tasks. Likewise, as a voter, I “hire” a representative or senator to act on my behalf. Granted, a single employer usually hires a number of employees. A senator, on the other hand, is the employee who has been hired by a collective employer. Since the employer is often a diverse collective, other matters come into play than one has in a regular employer/employee relationship.

All of this does not do away with one fact: I am the employer. As the employer, should I not know what my employee has done to further my interests? Should I not receive regular reports regarding ongoing issues, concerns, roadblocks, etc which bear on tasks at hand? Should I not be told when my assistance is required to get the job done? Should I not have access to my employee’s time when I make reasonable request for an update or meeting? Should I not even have the right to keep my employee from getting his or her work done so that I can deal with a more pressing concern? Should not all of these things, and more, be part of the contract which I have with my employee?

To those who would say, “But that’s why we vote. It’s a performance review for politicians” I have only this: Has it been two years (or six) since your employer last sat you down and talked about what you were doing right and not so right? If so, I daresay you are in a minority. Not to mention the weekly/biweekly or other reviews which generally occur throughout the course of a year.

Here’s the proposal (with credit to my lunchtime friend for many of these thoughts). We do not do away with town hall meetings, we just change them a bit. The public servant does not get to run the meeting, nor does he or she get to set the agenda. In fact, our servant gets to sit where you and I do now and listen as citizen after citizen goes up to the microphone and lets them know what is working and what isn’t working. At some point during the meeting, after all the citizens have had their say, the public servant may get up and address the issues which were raised, and only the issues. After all, patting one’s own back can be done with press releases. One shouldn’t waste the bosses’ time.

Further, what is it with elected officials telling us that they do not have time for town halls, or that they are too busy taking care of us, voting on bills, meeting with VIPs who are going to do great stuff for us? When the boss calls, the employee answers–or the employee isn’t the employee very much longer.

We have only ourselves to blame for the fact that we treat our senators and representatives as though they have power to do stuff for us if we are nice to them, instead of recognizing that their very jobs entail them looking our for our interests as free citizens of this country. I cannot but believe that Jefferson, Hamilton, Jay, Adams, et al would be mortified to know how much power we have given over to our duly elected representatives who then turn around and use that power to leverage even more.

Before I go, let me say that I fully understand that each of our elected officials cannot be available to each of us as though they were our employees in the commonly understood sense of the word. Similarly, when one person represents 800,000, it is not possible to have enough time in the day to personally listen to each voter’s concerns and act on them. Is that not why a senator or representative has staff (I like to think of them as subcontractors for my employees).

If our elected officials do not answer to us, are not accountable to us, do not respond quickly and comprehensively to requests for information, then we are not free men and woman and they do not serve us. Instead, they are become our masters.

Unemployment rates (state, regional, and national) are featured regularly in the news. We have all heard where the official numbers are right now (in the neighborhood of 9 percent nationally). I had not thought much previously about how that number was derived. Now, thanks to the following, I’m wondering if the official numbers are reflecting reality–or just numbers (kind of like the “jobs saved or created” numbers we are about to hear). From Forbes:

One recent example [of unhappiness with the President's financial policies] comes from a new report issued my old colleagues at the liberal-leaning New America Foundation called “Not Out of the Woods: A Report on the Jobless Recovery Underway.” It amounts to a blistering, if largely unintentional, critique of the administration’s policies, providing a sobering antidote to manufactured euphoria peddled by both presidential spin-meisters and some Wall Streeters.

[...]

Hindery [an expert cited in the above report] is no conservative. He was an adviser to John Edwards and, more recently, to the president himself. Yet his prognosis is grimmer than the ones offered by most right-wingers. He calculates that the real unemployment rate in the country last month was not 9.3%, which is the figure that was reported, but rather closer to an alarming 16.8%. By that measure, more than 30 million people are effectively out of work. That’s nearly one-fifth of the labor force.

30 million people? Wow.