Global Warming and the Consumer

While the debate on global warming is a contentious one, with some people claiming the whole thing is a fabrication, I do personally believe it is a serious problem. Weather is certainly complicated and affected by many factors. Even though some of the warmest years on record have occurred very recently, it's not unusual for temperatures to drop on a year to year basis -- because the trend isn't always consistent, global warming doubters often dismiss the whole thing as some sort of grand conspiracy. I personally like how the temperature graphs on NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies web site's paints the global warming picture; both sides could find fuel for an argument in the data provided there, but it reinforces my feeling that we can't ignore rising temperatures. What is uncontroversial is that greenhouse gases trap heat and thus that increased levels of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases caused by human activities will trap more heat. The ultimate question of the global warming debate is a matter of timing: is there really a crisis NOW that must be dealt with immediately or has the issue been overstated by those with political and economic agendas of their own?

Those who see the world as running out of time are pushing for climate change legislation such as the cap and trade bill that passed the U.S. House of Representatives. It's fair to call cap and trade a tax on emissions, designed to make polluting more expensive and "going green" less expensive. So long as burning fossil fuels is less expensive than investing in alternative forms of energy, fiscal prudence limits the number of companies that will actively choose to pollute less. Cap and trade creates an incentive to reduce emissions and punishes those who continue to pollute. However, even if over the long-term companies will cut back on emissions in response to the legislation, in the short-term they will likely try to place as much of the financial burden of cap and trade as they can on the consumer. That's not ever going to be good for the economy, though it's reasonable to hope the economic situation in the country will be much better before the effects of cap and trade will really be felt.

What bothers me about cap and trade the most is that it will certainly hurt the consumer to a certain extent even though the consumer hasn't had that much chance to change things on his or her own yet. Fluorescent bulbs have become common place, it's true, but electric cars aside from the expensive dream machines sold by Tesla Motors are still on the way. In the next few years, there'll be more choice in the car market in terms of low emission vehicles as several automakers are planning to unveil electric vehicles...the Nissan Leaf is one that's getting a lot of attention now. Many consumers leaped ahead of the trend by buying hybrids like the Toyota Prius, but electric vehicles are emission free and represent another big step forward for green autos. How green they truly are depends on how your electricity is produced, but even in the worst case scenario they're far greener than the best gas-powered car. Another emerging technology is solar power for small scale uses, such as for recharging cell phone batteries or powering a netbook. There are a number of advantages to these emerging technologies that aren't even environmental. For instance, electric vehicles should require considerably less maintenance than their gas guzzling cousins and they can be fueled at home -- while there are concerns over the lack of a charging infrastructure (this limits long range travel) and the longevity and expense of EV batteries, electric vehicles are a triumph for convenience. The new breed of solar power uses makes it easier than ever to go off the grid but still stay connected to the world. It's a bit more controversial about whether you'll actually save money by going green (no more gas bills for electric cars, reducing your electricity bills by using solar power) but in some cases you certainly will. My solar calculator definitely saved me money on batteries during my college years (and it's still my favorite calculator to this day)!

Basically, there are plenty of reasons for consumers to lead the green revolution. They stand to benefit from green technologies. If they feel they can help save the world in the process, that's an added incentive at the very least...for some, it'll be the dominant reason for making the initial purchase. It will be harder to make companies to change their polluting ways without something like cap and trade(though the consumer can have a big impact here as well) , but at the end of the day even they have every reason to want to preserve the world, too. Black marketeers are the only ones who make money in an apocalypse. Cap and trade isn't necessarily a bad idea, but I think the government could promote energy alternatives more benignly by continuing to make green investments and evangelizing all the positives (not just environmental) emerging technologies that are just now becoming widely available bring to the table. Taxing consumers isn't exactly the best way to create a new breed of environmentally responsible citizens...it will spur resentment to one degree or another and create suspicion that the whole thing is a scam designed to draw big profits. Nobody wins if cap and trade is passed under the current administration and shut down under another. Ultimately, though, we must return to the issue of timing. Cap and trade supporters don't think we have time to let the country voluntarily go green. I personally think they just might be selling the consumer short, however.

In Search of a Reasonable Opposition

There are many reasons why someone might feel skeptical about Barack Obama's political agenda. Health care reform and cap and trade are not pedestrian measures -- they will change how this country works and affect everyone in it to some extent. I would frankly be concerned if everyone was on board with such dramatic change...they're the type of issues that we need to have a national debate about. Perhaps the largest issue facing the United States that both parties tend to pay only lip service to is our national debt which continues to balloon wildly. Truthfully, it has been huge for a long time -- as long as I've been alive certainly-- but recently there have been rumors of revolt by our foreign creditors, with China among other nations suggesting the need for a new reserve currency and overall less global dependence on the already battered American economy. To me, at least, the debt and our general economic situation is the main thing that prevents me from supporting health care reform enthusiastically. I loathe the failings of the present system, but sometimes I wonder what the point of reform is if our economy is in danger of a total collapse. How can we build a stronger country on an increasingly unsteady foundation? Don't we need to fix the foundation first?

My main point here is that I think the Obama administration should be questioned and challenged where it matters. Unfortunately, though, I can't help but feel dismayed at the way the political discourse over the past few months has been conducted. The fight for health care reform has by some been framed as a fight for or against "death panels", as if that is an outcome anyone in the administration really desires. Focusing on rationing is reasonable because that's a real consequence of the shortage of resources that government health care programs tend to run into. However, trying to make it seem like the president and other Democrats want to kill people -- to portray them as being essentially evil -- is a hideous distortion designed to scare rather than inspire thought. Even something as insignificant as Obama's speech tomorrow to school children -- basically a glorified pep talk -- has been blown out of proportion and portrayed as a form of intentional indoctrination. The critics were right that the suggested activity for teachers that involved asking students how they could help Obama was inappropriate, but the speech itself is harmless and uncontroversial and totally undeserving of such hype. I honestly don't really LIKE the idea of politicians making speeches directly to children myself. We shouldn't inject politics into the classroom. Still, we shouldn't act like words are poison that children need to be protected from, either. Obama is hardly the first president to address the nation's youth, and for many of the children listening to the president it will probably be a positive and encouraging experience. Hysterical reactions to a pretty innocent matter just make it seem like people will attack Obama for any reason...which they in fact will, for that's how the game of politics is played by both sides in 2009's America.

The most regrettable aspect of not having a reasonable opposition is that it allows hysteria to replace thoughtful debate. Reasonable people who've studied health care reform can't be blamed for deciding, "This death panel stuff isn't in the bill. The Republicans are just making stuff up." The core fiscal issues have been obfuscated by the exaggerations and the theatrics. It may be even worse that energy is being wasted on an issue like the school children speech for that just emboldens supporters of the president who will decry that the president is being unfairly targeted. I've noticed that many people simply see much of the criticism of Obama as being motivated by race -- that's what happens when you put forth silly arguments lacking in substance. What has really been accomplished if health care reform is defeated, the underlying problems with the present system remain unfixed, and the debt to GDP ratio continues to rise unabated due to other government spending (you know, the trillions that Democrats and Republicans can both agree on)? If the fundamental issues aren't addressed when they are most relevant, I doubt they ever will be.

The Mystique of an Unbreached Republic

There's nothing quite like the unfiltered view of politics you can get through the Internet. No other medium lets you see how people actually feel about things better. Views brushed aside by the mainstream as inconsequential are loud and seemingly rampant online. The discourse can get a little crazy, but so can politics. One of the more fascinating trends I noticed online last year during the election was how paranoid some people were about the transfer of power from President Bush to his successor, especially when Barack Obama emerged as the leading presidential candidate. Bear in mind we've had an awful lot of peaceful transfers of power in the United States -- it's not like every now and then we elect some stick in the mud who refuses to vacate the office when he's voted out. It just hasn't happened, not even in times of crisis. Nonetheless, some of the Founding Fathers were extremely concerned that that just might occur, that a dictatorship would take the place of the democratic republic they were creating. I love the fact that there are people who are still concerned about the prospect of a dictator emerging despite America's history to this point...it's not like it's impossible for it to occur. Dictators have indeed been the death of many a democracy; just imagine how different Africa's modern political history might have been had its nations experienced more peaceful transitions of power.

Anyway, there were two main conspiracy theories I noticed emerging during the election. The first was that George W. Bush would NOT leave office. I think history will remember Bush as a not untypical wartime president in that he did trample on individual liberties (Lincoln and FDR did as well), but trampling on individual liberties is something dictators also do a lot of. The fear was that despite the election Bush would declare a state of emergency, hold on to power, and rule the country as president for life, perhaps in the name of fighting terrorism. The second theory emerged strongly once Barack Obama started dominating the polls. Suddenly people started to fear that, if elected, Obama would declare martial law and emerge as a tyrant like America had never seen before. Now, you might well wonder what Obama had done during the campaign or as a senator to incite such fear, but, to be perfectly honest, we should probably be afraid that any president we elect might try to do something of the kind no matter how cherub-faced their visage. So far, at least, these two conspiracy theories seem to have been without merit. The transfer of power went smoothly, George Bush trotted merrily off to Texas, and Barack Obama began the struggle of getting his agenda enacted. It's been business as usual so far -- no power grabs, no tyranny established. We can all breathe a sigh of relief...for now.

It's an interesting question, though: why hasn't America had a tyrant yet? The obvious answer might seem to be the firm foundation of the American republic. The balance of powers among the three branches of government is designed to prevent a single all-powerful leader from emerging. However, I think it's indisputable that we've had presidents who have overstepped their powers. From John Adams' attempts to silence political opposition to Andrew Jackson's support of Georgia over the Supreme Court in Worcester v. Georgia to FDR's unprecedented expansion of government intrusion into individual Americans' lives, we've had a lot of "strong presidents" who wielded power all too freely at times. Not one of them was a tyrant, though. Not one dissolved America's fundamental institutions or rewrote the Constitution to suit their whims. FDR did seem to be basically president for life, given that he was in office for longer than any other president and even died in office, but he was really popular and as far as I know won each of his elections fair and square. The checks and balances proscribed in the Constitution undoubtedly make it harder for a dictator to emerge, but I definitely don't think they are the only reason we haven't had one, especially considering how hard it's been to impeach presidents once they are elected. The fact that the United States is a well-armed nation with gun rights protected under the 2nd Amendment also makes establishing a tyranny more difficult, though I don't think it answers the question entirely either...after all, a popular dictator would have a lot of people with guns on his side as well.

Instead, I would say that the main reason America hasn't been ruled by a dictator yet is deceptively simple: no one in a strong enough position to try to seize that power has really wanted to do so. This doesn't mean that all our prominent political figures were saintly people, of course -- some might well have liked the idea of absolute power but just not wanted to risk everything to seize it. Still, I think there's a reason people generally don't grow up wanting to become the dictator of America. Simply put, if America ever has a dictator, it will cease to be America -- the United States is a very strange country in that our particular political system is uniquely tied to our identity. We're not like the Roman Republic, which acknowledged that dictators had their uses in times of crisis. For Americans, having a dictator in charge would be like the end of the country, the death of America. Dictators typically come to power much like democratically elected leaders, with promises of glorious days ahead. An American dictator couldn't say, "Well, I know I just killed America and all, but things are going to turn out GREAT for us!" When politicians in the United States want more power, they take it surreptitiously whilst piously proclaiming devotion to liberty.

The Health Care Debate That Hasn't Happened

Even as someone who generally prefers private solutions to problems over governmental, taxpayer-funded answers, I have to admit that the Democrats, who are largely in favor of health care reform which gives government a larger role in providing coverage to all, have well-beaten the Republicans, who largely favor less of a government role, rhetorically speaking. While support for Barack Obama's approach to health care has been dropping among the public according to some polls, I think that's more because of the economic situation the country and perhaps even more importantly the government is facing. Expecting the government to help fund a universal health care system seems a bit like relying on a homeless guy to help you pay your mortgage. The thought is lovely, but you kind of have to stop and ask yourself, "Can he really afford to do that?" I think there's a lot of skepticism about cost projections related to the various health care reform proposals floating around the Congress -- well-warranted, in my view, considering we've heard for years that Social Security and Medicare are underfunded. Still, if more people had the unlimited faith in the government's ability to fund everything through taxation and inflation that all politicians seem to have, I think the poll numbers would lean more heavily in favor of President Obama and the Democratic Party's approach to solving health care simply because people know the system is broken and want SOME solution -- even a thoroughly imperfect one -- that works for everyone.

Ideally, from my point of view, the solution wouldn't come from the government but from the private sector. Thus far, though, the private sector's solution has sucked. The health insurers have already had a shot to provide health care to all, but it hasn't worked for a couple of reasons. The first is that one's need for health care has little to nothing to do with one's ability to pay for it (or for health insurance). That makes health insurance unlike auto and home insurance right off the bat -- if you can afford to maintain a car or a home, you can likely also afford insurance so that system basically works for most people. Because of this basic fact about the costs of health care, we already have heavy government involvement via Medicaid and Medicare to essentially insure those who cannot insure themselves. Secondly, the insurers have failed the customers they do have by making it hard (if not impossible) for some to get insurance and sometimes denying coverage when it is needed. Technically, the insurers may well be justified from a business point of view for their actions (and, indeed, some might not even be able to stay in business were it not for those actions!), but these practices hurt too many people. Health care is a life and death matter; unethical business practices may always be bad, but when it comes to health insurance their consequences can utterly ruin finances and end lives. If health insurance is all the private sector can offer, then the private sector has failed insofar as health care is concerned.

However, there is another private approach to health care that gets scant attention. Free clinics have long provided free or extremely cheap care to the poor uninsured, and Shriners Hospitals provide free health care to children with specific conditions. Neither solution is universal, but the fact that both exist show the potential of health care as charity. The free clinic model basically requires the existence of a parallel health care industry because the doctors and nurses who volunteer at free clinics get paid for their work on paying customers elsewhere. Simply turning every hospital into a free clinic isn't acceptable -- doctors, nurses, and other health care professionals do some of the most important work in our society and deserve to be well paid for it. However, with a massive infusion of private money in the form of donations and endowments, it is conceivable that health care could become much more a nonprofit service. Sadly, though there are plenty of nonprofit hospitals that exist today, they tend to do very limited amounts of charity care and aren't necessarily cheaper than for-profit hospitals. Still, if enough people got on board with such an idea, health care could be changed fundamentally. Imagine, for instance, that in order to receive profits from an endowment a hospital would have to reduce the average costs per patient per procedure or treatment year over year. Slowly, costs would come down if the endowment's profits were large enough (the endowments would have to be massive and likely heavily weighted towards reasonably safe, fixed-income investments...stock market fluctuations have been the bane of even the large university endowments at institutions like Harvard lately and the Shriners' endowment has also been severely affected). As I see it, there would also need to be a move towards making other aspects of the health care industry nonprofit as well as part of keeping those overall costs down. This revolution is, alas, quite unlikely to happen now simply because health care is too big of a business, but it probably could've occurred earlier in our nation's history. I definitely feel that the private sector "dropped the ball" on health care long ago by foisting the health insurance non-solution on us all; the likely consequence of our collective decision is more government involvement in health care funded by compulsion rather than voluntarily.

Even so, I can't help but feel we haven't really explored the possibilities of private solutions to the health care crisis. For instance, I wonder why sports stadiums often bear the name of sponsors but hospitals don't. Soft drinks may not be the healthiest thing in the world for you to drink, but who wouldn't want to get treated at Pepsi Memorial if you knew your treatment was being partially subsidized by some corporate overlord intent on spreading good will? Given that we have peer-to-peer lending that lets people loan small amounts of money to regular folks through sites like Prosper (unfortunately, federal and state government regulations have really hurt sites like these), why don't we have sites for peer-to-peer health care or even health insurance funding to help those in need bear the costs of the present system? I hate that the health care debate has been reduced to private health insurance vs government interference...there could be all kinds of solutions being proposed and attempted. I wonder if part of the problem is that a lot of people feel that health care SHOULD be a government thing. Henry Ford, for instance, wanted publicly funded roads and refused to support private roadbuilding initiatives though he certainly had the dollars to make a big impact if he had wanted. Major philanthropists may be reluctant to invest in health care knowing that the poor and needy in other countries tend to be considerably worse off than in America -- there's some truth in that, but ultimately suffering needs to be addressed wherever it exists. Hopefully, any health care reform that does occur, be it a private or a public initiative, will effectively reduce suffering...that is the most important thing at the end of the day.

Obama's Brand of Pragmatism

I never expected Barack Obama to be the type of president who would sit on his hands once elected into office. Still, I didn't quite expect him to be as active as he has been. Compared to the G.W. Bush and W.J. Clinton administrations, the pace the Obama administration has set thus far has been downright frenetic. To be fair, I think most administrations tend to be more active in their first year, but I think it's safe to say that Obama has been trying quite hard to follow up on the issues he campaigned on and to deliver at least some of the change he spoke so much about last year. That's honestly commendable -- he is doing the job the voters sent him in to do -- but at the same time I have to admit I've been surprised to find out that Obama is pragmatic in a different way than I had anticipated.

Here's what I expected to happen after last year's election. Following the transition of power, I felt the president would focus squarely on the most pressing issue of the day which was and still is the economy. I expected other projects -- especially expensive projects -- to be pushed to the background while the government tackled the crisis at hand. To an extent, that did happen as the president crusaded for a large stimulus package which Congress passed despite some Republican opposition. Strangely, though, after the stimulus was passed, the government turned its attention to other things. In my view, this was premature...you can't build a house on an unsteady foundation. With the markets still in chaos, massive numbers of people out of work, and foreclosures rising, I'm not sure the country is really ready to absorb the costs of cap and trade and health care reform. President Obama seems to take a very long-term view of things; he has seemed to me to have anticipated the end of the recession from the very start of his administration. Even the stimulus package was full of long-term investments in things like education and green energy. Politics, however, is often a short-term game. Obama's poll numbers have been going down of late as it has became apparent that the economy isn't going to improve quickly. The extent to which any government can really turn around an economy is limited, especially in a quasi-free market economy, but I wonder if we wouldn't have been better off had Obama followed a different course and played the role of cheerleader more, reassuring the American public, businesses, and investors that everything was going to be better soon and giving them concrete reasons to be optimistic. Instead, the new initiatives Obama has supported have actually scared a lot of people -- there's a great deal of concern about the government's ability to pay for health care reform, about new taxes, and about rising utility costs in response to cap and trade. Of course the opposition would always foment fear no matter when these drastic changes were proposed, but I think the fear effect has been magnified due to the timing. So Obama hasn't quite been as pragmatic as I expected with regards to the economy.

On the other hand, the president has shown another type of pragmatism which has helped make him an effective leader so far. Obama by nature is a negotiator, someone who wants to hear different points of view and who is open to at least listening to others' ideas. He might not necessarily be a politician who can bridge the gap between the two major parties, but he has shown a lot of ability to work with Congress. In his eagerness to collaborate with legislators, though, Obama has also shown a willingness to abandon some positions he embraced during his campaign. For instance, he hasn't been been strongly advocating against making health insurance compulsory for all Americans or against taxing health benefits, both things Congress is considering. His motives may be pure -- he really wants health care reform as soon as possible and so is willing to compromise in order to get things done quickly -- but he's also abandoned a lot of voters who expected him to stand up for the vision for health care he laid out during the campaign. Not keeping your word isn't exactly admirable in my book. If Obama didn't really believe health insurance shouldn't be forced on anyone, he should never have differentiated his position from Hillary Clinton's (an open supporter of compulsory insurance). If Obama didn't think taxing health benefits was unacceptable, he shouldn't have differentiated his position from John McCain's. Probably the majority of voters just want health care reform and don't care about these details -- they'll judge Obama on his effectiveness at getting things done. Ultimately, it IS up to Congress to do the legislating anyway. Still, I expected Obama to use his influence to shape the process and debate more. In the end, he does have to sign the actual piece of legislature that reaches his desk; it doesn't appear that Congress has any concern that he won't sign whatever they deliver, however. I'll certainly take any specific positions Obama endorses during the next election with a giant grain of salt -- clearly, Democratic members of Congress' views are far more important when it comes to actually implementing change.

Should Everyone Vote?

Democracy and freedom don't always go together well. Many believe that a government of the people, by the people, and for the people must make demands of its citizenry if it is to be truly fair and representative. Thus, there are those who support mandatory conscription so that the burden of defending the country falls on everyone, there are those who advocate forced community service so that everyone shares the work of improving their local communities, and there are those who believe voting should be compulsory so that every citizen plays an active role in selecting the government. On the other side of the aisle, there's the "fun and games" crowd who don't see democracy as a bringer of burdens but instead as a bringer of opportunities. I'm an irresponsible member of this latter group, I must confess. I'm not so extreme that I would call for the end of all taxation, but in general I prefer the government to refrain from ordering its citizens around if it is at all possible. The cost of freedom is that there will be both "good" citizens who take their privileged position in a free society very seriously and "bad" citizens who do not spin, weave, fight, volunteer, or vote. Could this freedom that allows some to opt out of some of the "duties" of citizenship be harmful for democratic countries?

Of the three possible duties of citizenship that I mentioned earlier, compulsory voting is the least demanding. While forced service typically requires a serious time commitment that will necessarily disrupt lives, forced voting merely requires the citizen to take some time on the day of an election to cast a vote. At most, this action will disrupt the citizen's day, not his or her entire life. Although a burden, it is not a particularly noxious one and I do not consider it as morally questionable as many other intrusive government mandates. Still, that doesn't mean it is the right thing to do -- there should be a very good reason for forcing people to do anything.

The obvious benefit of compulsory voting is that it strongly encourages people to participate in politics. Democracy can give people a voice in determining how their country's affairs are run, but if they never use that voice to express their opinions they can't help shape their nation. Indeed, these silent citizens may ultimately find themselves entirely at the mercy of an unfriendly yet duly elected government -- that's not necessarily a better thing than living under a tyrant! In countries where voting is not compulsory, like the United States, people may opt out of voting for reasons some would deem frivolous: "I don't want to face the crowd at the voting booth." "I'm tired and just don't feel like it." "My DVR is broken and I'll miss my favorite TV show if I go vote." Still others may not vote because they are unsure of how the system works or feel too intimidated to vote due to racism or other discrimination. In compulsory voting countries, not going to the polls likely means paying a fine at a future date or facing some stiffer penalty -- perhaps even imprisonment -- so it is not a decision to be taken lightly. In Australia, well over 90% of the electorate votes. In the United States, the percentage is more like 60%...still a majority, though!

Even if we do grant that the reasons why some people do not vote might indeed be frivolous, we should consider the possibility that there are some perfectly valid reasons not to vote. For instance, what if you simply don't have a preference for a particular candidate? In Australia, voters without a candidate they can in good conscience support must make mandatory appearances at the polls but may submit blank ballots. That's a waste of both time and paper, but it is certainly preferable to being forced to actually cast a binding vote. Mandatory voting may also lead to people completely uninterested and uninformed about politics to cast blind votes for candidates they know little about. When it comes to voting, I think ignorance definitely is an excuse not to vote -- I know when I wasn't really following politics I didn't have a clue as to the policies of various politicians. I couldn't have made an informed decision in the booth, and at the time I wasn't really interested in devoting the time necessary to get informed. Once again, the proper action of the uninformed and uninterested would be to simply submit a blank ballot in a compulsory voting nation, but it seems like that doesn't always occur -- "donkey votes" in Australia seem to be an example of what can happen when disgruntled and uninterested voters participate in elections. (Of course, disgruntled voters are allowed to participate in noncompulsory voting countries as well, and often do!) There's another group of people who I also personally think should consider not voting even though they are some of the most informed people around: journalists who try to report the news in an unbiased fashion. Of course, journalists are first and foremost citizens who have just as much right to vote as anyone else, but I would definitely respect the journalist who chooses freely to refrain from directly participating in politics so as to better report the news "purely." I've noticed with alarm that increasingly even reporters show political bias and seem to be willing to try to twist the news in order to support a certain political outlook -- journalism is a profession that needs to stive for purity on the reporting side of things if it is to keep the nation informed. Ideally, one should be able to balance one's journalistic ethics and one's personal political beliefs, but if someone senses a conflict between the two and decides to opt out of voting in order to be a better journalist, I think that person has made a noble decision.

I've basically used Australia as my example of a compulsory voting nation throughout this post. It is a country where compulsory voting has been in place for a long time and the practice seems to have both governmental and widespread popular support there. Many in the United States, the UK, and other countries look at the Aussies' voter participation rates with envy, but it isn't necessarily easy to pinpoint how this increased participation has actually changed Australian politics relative to other democracies. For instance, I long thought that one bonus of forcing everyone to vote would be the rising of many smaller parties to cater to the desires of the enlarged electorate. Australia, however, pretty much has a two-party system though the Greens are more successful there than any third party in the United States and they also have some regional parties who are active in local politics. Compulsory voting also doesn't seem to have led to political disaster -- while I'm no admirer of Prime Minister Rudd's Internet filtering scheme, Australia remains a relatively free and first world country. Even if compulsory voting does happen to encourage more uninformed people to vote blindly, it is quite possible for the uninformed to vote for different candidates...they won't necessarily all veer towards the demagogue, for instance. So, when it comes to Australia, I'd like to see voting made noncompulsory there more for the sake of individual freedom -- the state shouldn't be ordering people to exercise their rights as citizens and inconveniencing the lives of those who don't want to vote -- than because it has been politically harmful.

It's worthwhile to note that compulsory voting doesn't necessarily always take the form it does in Australia. In 2002, for instance, Saddam Hussein claimed to get 100% of the Iraqi vote with 100% voter participation. If you can neither choose whether or not to vote nor choose a candidate to vote for, then that is the result -- a meaningless election that people participate in essentially for ceremonial purposes. Granted, voting in Saddam Hussein's Iraq was more of a sham than a compulsory affair, but compulsory voting means absolutely nothing if there isn't also free choice. Up to this point, Australia has done a good job of protecting the freedom of the vote even as it has denied the freedom of the voter; its elections are still free. In other countries, however, compulsory voting is used to disguise the fact that elections are anything but free and fair. The Iraqi experience is not reason enough to absolutely condemn the Australian system, but one of the reasons I feel the way I do about the government making actions compulsory is because I know that the most brutal governments routinely treat their citizens like pawns.

To Spend or to Cut

As governments around the world struggle to deal with a global recession, a pressing decision must be made. It's not the decision to intervene or not that I'm speaking about -- if governments completely ignore serious crises, I don't know why they even need to exist. Even the most laissez-faire of elected governments are reluctant to play their fiddles while Rome burns, and authoritarian governments must fear popular uprisings when economic times grow difficult. From the Netherlands to the United States to China, governments are trying their best to rescue their economies from the hell of recession. Their most troubling decision is how to go about "fixing" economies normally (even in China) powered by a more or less free market. One way to go about this is to embark on ambitious stimulus spending programs designed to create short-term jobs, boost struggling economic sectors, and spur economic growth; another way is to cut taxes to put more money in people's pockets so that they may spend, save, start businesses, and invest on their own. While it is certainly possible to both spend and cut, there is a great deal of disagreement as to which policy is better for the economy.

Spending has the most positive immediate impact but also the most negative long-term impact. It is a double-edged sword that should be used carefully; I personally tend to think the stimulus bill being debated in the U.S. Congress has a little too much spending in its present form. While a well-run stimulus program can immediately put people back to work especially in areas like construction, the bigger it is the bigger the deficit that future governments will have to heal with either inflation or higher taxes. The money that flows freely today from government coffers comes with a price tag. On the other hand, it is irresponsible and cruel to ignore the sufferings of the people. To not spend in the name of fiscal conservatism as unemployment rises higher and higher would deservedly destroy confidence in government. Confidence is actually a key factor when we talk about stimulus spending. It's not like the government is going to permanently employ all the people it plans to put back to work in the short-term via stimulus spending; to do that, it would need to start nationalizing businesses and move away from a free market economy. Rather, what capitalist governments hope to do through stimulus packages is to give their economies a nudge so that private industry can ultimately take over again. Government just needs to get the ball rolling so that banks will feel more confident about lending, capitalists will feel more comfortable starting businesses, existing businesses will feel reassured enough to start rehiring and expanding, the labor force will not grow hopeless, and savers and investors will not utterly forsake the financial system. The danger here is that government will try to push rather than nudge. It's practically impossible to draw the line on "too much stimulus spending"; there's always someone else who needs a job, someone else whose living conditions could be improved, some other business that needs to be propped up, someone else who needs a loan or needs help making payments on one. Still, that line must be drawn somewhere, and it should be drawn at a point where the costs of the stimulus can be borne without unreasonable hardships being placed on future generations and administrations...I suspect even the current generation and administration will have to deal with inflation. On the flip side, the government could spend so little that there is no increase in confidence and no cascading effect, but I think it's wiser to err on the side of caution and start out small. If one conservative stimulus plan fails to have the desired effect, then pass another one that incorporates what worked from the first plan and expands it. Although the situation is dire, rushing to push a plan "too huge to fail" doesn't seem wise to me.

Republicans in both houses of Congress have opted to rally around the banner of cutting taxes to encourage growth. Though Democrats overwhelmingly support stimulus spending as well, there is also some bipartisan agreement that tax cuts and credits could be desireable as well. Much like spending, cutting taxes can be done in rather targeted ways. For instance, senators Boxer and Ensign want to cut corporate taxes on American businesses who are willing to reinvest their earnings "back home", an idea that President Obama also voiced support for during his presidential campaign. Mikulski and Brownback (yes, the former presidential candidate) want to give American buyers of new cars in 2009 a one-time tax deduction on their purchases -- a blatant attempt to prop up a struggling industry that is vital to the American economy. I kind of like both these ideas, but Boxer and Ensign's plan provides a good example of one advantage of the tax cutting strategy. Ultimately, private businesses are going to lead us out of recession -- encouraging companies to start reinvesting in their businesses now can create permanent jobs as opposed to the temporary jobs created by infrastructure stimulus spending. Another nice thing I like about tax cuts is that they can always be reversed back to their previous level; for instance, Mikulski and Brownback's plan specifies up front that the new car deduction is a one-time only deal. With stimulus spending, the government takes on a mountain of debt instantly and must carry it around indefinitely, dealing with it only at some unspecified moment in the future. That said, not all tax cut proposals are nearly so targeted as the two I just mentioned. Reducing taxes on individuals is also a popular idea at the moment, but it puts the onus on the public to stimulate the economy on their own. They have to spend more to encourage businesses to hire more, they have to save more to encourage banks to lend more, and they have to buy homes and stocks to reverse the deflation that has been evaporating wealth so rapidly of late. It's a more indirect way of doing things, and, although I approve of the government empowering individuals to make their own decisions with their own money, I think it's a slower approach that won't provide the same confidence boost that stimulus spending will.

It's easy to be seduced into thinking the differences between spending and tax cutting are more profound than they really are. Both can easily lead to huge deficits because tax cuts can reduce future government revenues. It's probably more important to use both tools wisely than to favor one tool over the other. I personally think some stimulus spending is definitely needed but that targeted tax cuts should probably be emphasized more. Obviously, the global economy is scary right now and I think the governments of the world have an obligation to at least try to do something. I have a feeling I'm going to think the stimulus plan that will ultimately be enacted in the U.S. isn't cautious enough, but I'll be as happy as anyone if it really truly does help the situation. The mountain of debt we are likely to have to deal with in the future will be a lot easier to handle if the future economy is prosperous.