The Sovereign Mind

The LDS (Mormon) Church recently shocked almost everyone (except for Mormons) when they announced that they would support a Salt Lake City ordinance protecting housing and employment rights for homosexuals. After last year’s battle over Proposition 8 in California, some in the media are calling this a “huge change” and indicative of the church wanting to get Mitt Romney elected.

Let me be clear: As a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, I support my church’s position on the matter. However, I wouldn’t necessarily be disappointed if this did really represent a change. But the truth is that this is not a change from any previous policy, and the fact that so many think it is indicates the success of the smear campaign that has been waged on the church since its involvement in Proposition 8.

At the time that the church was involved in Proposition 8, it issued a statement which included this:

The Church’s opposition to same-sex marriage neither constitutes nor condones any kind of hostility towards homosexual men and women. Protecting marriage between a man and a woman does not affect Church members’ Christian obligations of love, kindness and humanity toward all people.

In 1999, the late President of the church, Gordon B. Hinckley, said this to all the members of the church during its bi-yearly conference:

We believe that defending this sacred institution [of marriage] by working to preserve traditional marriage lies clearly within our religious and constitutional prerogatives. Indeed, we are compelled by our doctrine to speak out. Nevertheless, and I emphasize this, I wish to say that our opposition to attempts to legalize same-sex marriage should never be interpreted as justification for hatred, intolerance, or abuse of those who profess homosexual tendencies, either individually or as a group. As I said from this pulpit one year ago, our hearts reach out to those who refer to themselves as gays and lesbians.

Any opposition to gay rights expressed by the church has always been targeted specifically at gay marriage, not other protections. This has not changed. What has changed is that apparently some, swayed in some measure by the attempts to paint Mormons as the poster-children for bigotry, assumed these statements were just lip service. But they now are finding out that the church actually meant what it said. This comes as no surprise to most Mormons who were paying attention to the counsel of their church leaders.

I have to give credit to Andrew Sullivan. Although he has not been kind to the LDS Church in the past, he respects its (perceived changed) position:

They have made a distinction – and it is an admirable, intellectually honest distinction – between respecting the equal rights of other citizens in core civil respects, while insisting – with total justification – on the integrity of one’s own religious doctrines, and on a religious institution’s right to discriminate in any way with respect to its own rites and traditions….

And what I have long observed among Mormons – unlike some other denominations – is also an American decency that tends to win out in the end. I’ve never met a nasty Mormon. They put many Christians to shame in their practice of their faith and the civility and sincerity with which they live their lives. And this decision in Salt Lake City – not an easy or inevitable one – to make a clear distinction between civil marriage and other civil protections is one worthy of respect.

Gee thanks, Andrew.

As a supporter of the free market (although not a purist), I tend to prefer a solution to our country’s health care problems that enhances the advantages of the market, rather than places more government bureaucracy on top of it. But a bill that decreases government involvement in health care, rather than increases it, is about as likely to get passed as a white male was likely to have been nominated for Justice Souter’s seat on the bench. So that begs the question: if the conservative approach to health care reform is not viable politically, what is the next best thing we can hope for?

What about the much maligned status quo? Even critics of the reform proposals agree that our current system has problems, but would doing nothing be better than the current proposals? Even if some believe that to be the case, few politicians would admit it for fear of being labeled a defender of a broken system. But is the best option on the right to try to block reform and stall, in hopes of gaining political power in future elections, thus making a more conservative approach more viable? That might be tempting, but given the track record of Republicans on getting any major reform done in our health care system, I wouldn’t bet on that approach working out. A few of us are in the unfortunate circumstance of needing the liberals’ zeal to get something significant done and the conservative ideas to get the right thing done. It’s tough to have both at the same time.

What about a compromise approach? The Senate finance committee has recently come out with a bill that it believes to be more moderate than its counterparts. No public option. Less harsh mandates. Almost universal disapproval. Does compromise mean pulling in all of the best ideas from all sides, or the worst ones? In this case, we have none of the cost controls and all of the government bureaucracy. In an attempt to find common ground, it appears the finance committee has found no-man’s land. Worse still, if something along those lines passes, it is likely to give the impression that something has been done, when in reality nothing has been done except complicating the system even more. This impression is likely to cause real reform to be significantly delayed as we have an endless debate about whether the plan is really working or not (see the current debate about whether the stimulus is working).

How about this for the Next Best Thing for conservatives? Let the liberals’ plan pass. Yes, that’s what I said. Put in that strong public option and individual mandates. Punish those greedy private insurance companies and those evil employers that don’t provide insurance to their employees. Why might that be The Next Best Thing? Because when someone asks, “Why can’t I find a plan a low-premium catastrophic plan?” We can tell him that the government didn’t think that would be good for him. And when someone says, “I got laid off because my employer couldn’t afford the health insurance he’s mandated to pay for.” We can say, “Thanks for taking one for team.” Or when someone on Medicaid Advantage reports that their plan has been discontinued, and they are now forced to find another, we’ll just tell them they were part of the waste in the system that had to be jettisoned. Maybe then there would be more pressure to consider more conservative-minded approaches. (Or, maybe it would actually work. Either way, the American people win in the end.)

There was nothing like prohibition to solidify the idea that alcohol ought to be legal. Nothing like Vietnam to make the public wary of the casualties of war. Nothing like repealing Glass-Steagall to remind us of why it was there in the first place.

Does this idea sound good to me? No. I don’t want to see people in our country suffer. And it would likely take decades to undo the programs that would be put in place. I didn’t say it was The Best Thing. I suggested that maybe it is the Next Best Thing. If conservatives believe that liberal health care reform would be a harmful to our country, should they let the liberals prove it? Just a thought.

What was John Boehner thinking?

Here’s the “wha-what?” quote:

George, the idea that carbon dioxide is a carcinogen, that it is harmful to our environment, is almost comical. Every time we exhale, we exhale carbon dioxide. Every cow in the world, you know, when they do what they do, you’ve got more carbon dioxide.

George was kind to interrupt him before he dug the hole any deeper, but then he goes on to answer every “what is your plan?” question with “well what we can’t do is…”. SNL could pretty much repeat this word for word and get plenty of laughs.

I do believe that there is still scientific debate to be had in regards to how much climate change is caused by man’s activities, however the argument that carbon dioxide can’t be bad because cows emit it is insulting to our intelligence.

One word: “and”

To understand my point, imagine that you wake up one morning to the sound of rushing water. You find that your basement is quickly filling with water, coming from somewhere that you can’t identify. In a panic you call the number for the first plumber you can find in the phone book, and he agrees to come immediately.

After the plumber inspects the situation, he said, “Well, this is serious, but I think we can fix it and find someone to clean everything up.”

“How much is that going to cost me?” you ask nervously.

“Well, I’d say around 900 billion dollars,” he responds.

“What?! For a flooded basement?”

“Yes, and a few other things that need to be taken care of.”

You watch as a roofer truck drives up, followed by a delivery truck for the local appliance store, followed by a few other trucks, and lastly comes a sodding company.

“What are they doing here?” You ask.

“Well, I noticed that your shingles are looking pretty old. I wouldn’t be surprised if you have some leaks up there, so we’ll have to redo the whole thing. And your furnace is not Energy Star compliant, so we’ll be replacing that. And you must be loosing a lot of heat out of those old windows. The new ones you’ll be getting will save you a lot of money on your utility bill, along with the new lighting we’ll be putting in. And, your lawn could use some help. It’s very unsightly. The sodding company will take care of that.”

“But I don’t want any of that!” You respond angrily, “I just want the water to stop and my basement cleaned up!”

“Sorry pal, this is a package deal. Do you want your basement fixed or not? We don’t have much time.”

I probably don’t have to explain what I mean by that analogy, but I will just to belabor the point. As the title of the stimulus bill states, there are two purposes to the bill:

1. Stimulate the economy to help us recover from the recession we are in
2. Make other investments designed to help us in the long term

Stimulus must be fast. We have to inject enough money to create jobs and jump start the economy. The main measure of success is how many jobs are created, and how quickly.

On the other hand, investment implies a long term outlook. Just as you would with any of your personal investment, smart investors will take the time to do their homework. They want to be sure the investment will pay off in the long term, and that they will be getting the most bang for the buck. Most of the time, the short term gain from investing is small, so there is usually not a sense of urgency.

So how can you do these two things at the same time? They are counteracting. The result is a bill that is too watered down to stimulate, and too hasty to be a good investment for the long term.

The logical conclusion is to separate the two. Let’s pass the Recovery/Stimulus portion of the bill now, and then hash out the Reinvestment portion when we have time to debate and consider our options more carefully.

So what should we put off until later? I’ve analyzed the information from the Congressional Budget Office, a non-partisan office intended to give law-makers feedback on the budget consequences of bills. Their analysis is that only 65% of the money in the bill will be spent in the next two years. Even with that broad definition of stimulus, there is a lot in the bill that is not stimulus, but is being pushed into this bill as an attempt to get it passed quickly, without much debate. Some of these measures might be worthwhile, just as the new roof might be worthwhile for the poor guy with a leaky basement. But we should make sure these investments are the best they can be, and that means a separate bill that does not have the urgency attached.

So what can we get rid of from this bill? I looked at the CBO report, and specifically targeted any portion of the bill which does not cause at least 30% of so to be spent in the next two years. After removing those parts, we can decrease the cost of the bill by 112 billion dollars, but only decrease the amount of spending in the next two years by 20 billion. That would significantly increase the percentage of the bill that is actually stimulus. Here are the pieces I’ve identified:

Some might argue that in a bill this size, why make such a fuss over a mere 112 billion? If your sympathetic to that argument, please read the question again a little slower. However, my number is only obtained by assuming we can either leave in or remove entire sections as they exist now. We could save even more by looking at each section individually and seeing what sub-parts we could leave for later, and which parts are truly stimulus. Lastly, we can look at what parts of this bill will be spent soon, but not on creating jobs. Considering that as the bill exists currently, each job will cost us over $200,000 to create each job, there ought to be some of that in there as well. That number has been attacked as “Limbaugh math”, but I have yet to hear the argument for why we should be OK with spending so much money on each job.

David Axelrod, advisor to Obama, responded to that number like this on This Week with George Stephanopoulos:

He’s missing the fundamental point. We’re not just spending money to create jobs; we’re investing money to strengthen this economy. We’re investing in areas like energy independence. We’re investing in creating the classrooms of the 21st century for our kids to give us the kind of education system we need. We’re investing in computerizing the health-care records of this country so that we can reduce costs and improve care. These things will pay long-term dividends to this country, and we’ve been very careful about that.”

Agreed, but if we want to be careful about that long-term investment, why try to push it through on the back of short-term stimulus?

Answer: because they know that if they don’t milk the current crisis for all that it’s worth, they might have a tough time getting these programs through later, when everyone’s thinking more clearly.

But there’s still hope. The bill has to get passed the Senate, and I hope is will be passed… without the “and”.