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Show 5 Wednesday, January 30,2008 OPINION www.dailyutahchronicle.com SUCCESSION... JAMES SEWELL Obama is our best option It won't help us to recycle a Clinton A RYAN COLLETf/ft*Dm!y tftab Oawwit Stimulus package is ineffective Price control on gasoline would solve America's economic crisis T he fact that it took seven years of George Bush's dangerous and reckless policies to kill the economy President Clinton left us is a testament to its strength. But now the "Dubya Recession" is on our doorstep, and everyone at both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue is suddenly panicked and scrambling to cobble together a speedy, election-year, economic stimulus package. What is emerging is a completely misguided scheme to mail so-called rebate checks to more than IOO million American families—with instructions to go shopping. Combined with an assortment of business tax breaks, the total cost of the plan to Uncle Sam is at $150 billion and growing. The Senate has yet to lard it up for its final trip to the White House. Members of Congress and the president seem so proud of themselves, patting each other on the back for working so quickly together. We are, you could say, witnessing a touching moment of bipartisan stupidity. I suppose a lack of common sense in Washington, D.C., is not . surprising anymore—it's the new norm—but I can't begin to grasp the logic of what Bush, Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Majority Leader Harry Reid are thinking. Where are they getting the money? They don't have any left. If I understand this correctly, they are giving us money they have to borrow, and then our grandchildren get to pay it back to...whom? The Chinese? The Kuwaiti? On a purely practical level, this hare-brained scheme prom- ises to be a cumbersome, costly, bureaucratic nightmare and a completely inefficient way of doing what they claim to want to do. The logistics of sending out millions of individual checks are daunting, and the potential for fraud and corruption is massive. DAVID Worse is that it simply SERVATIUS isn't going to work. The stated goal of the rebate is to get people spending, to get the good, little consumers doing things and buying things. Close to 70 percent of the American economy is dependent on this type of compulsive spending. Now, it's obviously not a scientific sample, but out of curiosity, I've asked about a dozen people what they would be doing with their money. Not one said they would be buying anything. Most are going to pay down debt. Some are going to bank it for the rainy days they feel are certainly coming. That's great for these individuals, sure, but it does nothing to ease a recession. If the geniuses in Washington really wanted to shoot a magic bullet into the U.S. economy and stimulate growth instantly, they would control the price of gasoline. Period. Temporary price rollbacks and firm caps could be put into place immediately, in a matter of weeks rather than months, and would be a simple and effective way of doing exactly what we all claim to want the stimulus package to do. The best approach would be to would inject about $110 billion repeal some of the taxes that acinto the most productive and account for a large part of the cost tive parts of the economy in just of every gallon, then simply make one year. Problem solved. it illegal to sell gasoline in the Of course, you will not hear United States at the retail pump anything like this mentioned as level for more a solution in Washington. The than, say, $2.25 phrase "price control" is probably a gallonthe most taboo thing any person still higher could dare to utter inside the than the cost beltway. There is a good chance a year ago. that the corporate puppet-masWhat are the ters in the energy industry won't oil.companies allow our elected representatives going to d o to so much as whisper the words stop selling to each other when they are in the market alone together in the cloakroom. that accounts for a third of their But, it can be done. Don't let business? anyone tell you otherwise. The The benefits would be prousual cries about "destroying found and immediate. Every mid- the industry" ring pretty hollow dle-class American is straining when you consider that most of under the burden of keeping the the executives at these oil compafamily vehicle fueled each week. nies make in 10 minutes what the Ease that burden, and that family average consumer of their product will spend a few ^ _ _ _ mam makes in an entire more dollars year. at the clothing America has If the geniuses in store and have been good to dinner out more these companies often. Just about Washington really and their execuevery business tives. Our governwanted to shoot a magic ment has has transporhanded tation costs. them no-strings, bullet into the U.S. Lower those cash subsidy payeconomy, they would costs, and that ments. We have business will offered the lives control the price of lower its prices of our soldiers or hire another to ensure their gasoline. Period. worker. continued profits. — It is time for them According to the US. Energy to give a little Information Administration, back in a time of need and be we gu2zle almost 400 million part of the solution. They can put gallons of gasoline each day in off buying that new, gold-plated this country. The savings genertoilet seat for their fourth manated by mandatory 75-cent price sion until next year. rollbacks on each of those gallons letters@chronicle. u ta h.edu LETTER TO THE EDITOR Privatize universities; > I — 0.—"-•, . '11 weed themselves'out read the following last Say, for example, that such rather than being large, monorequirements of industry. As N paragraph in Dustin Garfunding was removed. Then all lithic do-it-alls (unless they had it is, this gap is being met by- ,. diner's column ("Knowuniversities would be privately the resources to provide such many community colleges. ing the real Ron Paul," Jan. held, and a market economy . services). Supply would meet The only people I see 28), which made me think for for providing education would true demand. suffering—and one should not a couple of ' be in place. At This would start to hurt art take this pool lightly—are the , minutes: "But — •: ;;. that point, what history majors, as they*d realize professors who spent many : would Paul's Would likely that they have to pay a lot for years of their life specializsame fervent happen is the their education but can't find ing. But then why should they If schools were supporters following: jo,bs later. That, in turn, would be any different from other still support privately funded, it First, yes, reduce the number of people humans? •'.**(* him if they it would cost wanting to study art history Finally, there would be even ,-realized that would be in the interest money to get and-woukLthen reduce the more scholarships in place for removing an education. number of institutions providdeserving students. It is in our %f those who graduated government How much ing it—everything would boil nature to help the needy. If we would it cost? down to those students who feel that we are paying taxes Who knows. truly care about art and bxsr / and that they should be doing 1.4*1 j would and not the ones, who are }• the job, then why;should we 4heschools themselves. Currently, there tory 'dramatically ___ are a handful of looking to get an easy degree. have to pay twice by donatAnd of course, to meet their de- ing; to a cause? If schools were ' increasethey . >/ ^ ^. private univermand, you'd have a handful of tuition costs?""^ -*_ sities. Students privately funded.it would be universities that cater to such I think removing federal who can afford them go there. in the interest of those who students—and their economic funding for state programs, If all universities were private, graduated from those schools situation. n such as publicly funded univer- they would all be in competiand the schools themselves sities,'overnight would result in tion with each other to provide Art history is only an /./ jji to attract the highest-caliber massive chaos. I highly doubt the best education at the best example. The same can eas? .'/ students—and nor just the richany^government would be so price. Universities would start . Uy apply to different types of est ones. stupid. So let's speak slightly to specialize more in providengineering. Basically, educaVisual Patel [more long-term than overnight. ing certain types of education tion woukLadapt faster to the? •-.?••'• n apocryphal anecdote about the English wit Douglas Jerrold has it that he once said of Thomas Carlyle, a Scottish satirist of some repute, that he was "a man who beats a big drum under my windows, and when I come running downstairs, has nowhere for me to go." The story brought to mind the incandescent if still undefined senator from Illinois, who is being pressured—and will be even more so in the coming months—to start providing concrete policy details to soothe the apprehensions of general voters and special interest groups. Of course, Cdrlyle was not a politician, and Barack Obama represents (I hope) the prototypical face of NeuPolitik. He is, unlike Carlyle, at some point responsible for providing a concrete place for us to go. I want to know more about Sen. Obama's views regarding our withdrawal from "Iraqistan," because, after all, the lack of a plan is more or less responsible for the course we've stayed for five years now. I'd also like to know more about his specific plans for health care reform, social security, homeland security and economic policy. The environment in which our political battles are fought these days is fraught with dangerous traps that I hope the senator from Illinois can avoid. His election to our highest office is dependent upon our willingness to take a chance. The more he is required to disclose about specific policies, the more ammunition is provided his foes, and the more his elegant, inspiring message is ground up as grist for the mill of modern, American political warfare. Do people really expect that if he's elected, he'll transform from cool cat to alley rat? .That he'll come out of the Muslim closet and forge a new world order with the sworn enemies of the West? If you get your information from the right-wing blogosphere, you might suspect so. His policies are likely not yet fully formed, but he has shown himself to be a man who values cooperation, contemplation and negotiation. These are qualities that'll be far more important than the policy-wonkishness and managerial acumen on which "Biliary" has founded its candidacy (whose ability to inspire dismay, disdain and disgust in the minds of both the opposition and voters feeds the cynicism Obama is trying to quash). Obama has so far been able to keep his cool and deflect criticisms of his alleged lack of experience, which is being compared to a somewhat specious claim by Clinton that she has 3^ years of experience in public service. If being handsomely paid for your services as a partner at a prestigious law firm can be called public service, words no longer mean anything. The fact of the matter is Obama's platform is a wholesale rejection of all the petty deeds and transgressions that infect the political discourse. His call for change has been co-opted by every single candidate, on both sides of the aisle, which is still standing after the brutal early primaries and hence has been drained of meaning. His earnest desire has been supplanted by the cynical irony of the Republican political machine and his fellow Democrats. Edwards' populist campaign is partially bankrolled by his lucrative career in malpractice litigation, which itself contributes significantly to the health care crisis. Redistributing wealth from corporate insurance behemoths to private citizens who have experienced complications because of an error is not a step toward economic equality—it is a step toward more fierce opposition to our right to health care access. Granted, patients who've been wronged have every right to legal recourse, but the threat of multi-million dollar lawsuits inspires out-of court settlements, not universal care. Change, indeed—in the lawyer's pockets, not yours. I will admit to being at the very least intrigued by a Bloomberg candidacy— however, he will have to justify his run on grounds other than being able to manage New York City. Giuliani ran the place, by many accounts, fairly well, but it still gives me nightmares to think about a Rudy Whitehouse that feeds off frothy Sturm und Drang rhetoric and fear mongering. Like Kenny Rogers once sang, "Now every gambler knows that the secret to surviving is knowin' what to throw away and knowin' what to keep." Let's throw the Clinton Restoration out with the trash (we can put it in the recycling bin) and double down on an Obama presidency. Who's with me? letters@chronicle.utah.edu |
