WaPo: Lisa Miller on the Decline of Hell

Miller talks about the afterlife. She says that when you are motivating people to go fight in a war, promising them 72 virgins in heaven (an example from modern extremist Muslims) is a sensible thing to do.

However, in the US, belief in hell is declining due to increasing religious pluralism.

Michael Steele's flights of fancy

I normally don't discuss purely political matters. However, the Washington Post reports that Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele is in more hot water for profligate expenditures like private jets and expensive hotels ... and, apparently, a $1,946.25 visit to Voyuer West Hollywood, "a bondage-themed nightclub featuring topless women dancers imitating lesbian sex."

To which, one commenter posted, "You just can't trust Republicans. They say they love freedom, but they dream of putting everyone in bondage."

This review on Yelp by "Richard D" from Union City, NJ, has to be a joke (it's dated today, 3/29/2010):

Hi I really love this place its not only the new trendy place on the strip but offers a really kinky slant on nightclubs, The price is the real problem - My friend Michael and I spent $1946 dollars on bottle service and tips for dancers - lucky we were on an expense account !!!!!! We are from out of town and dont get to see this back east. We always new LA girls were hot and kinky but this was just too much. Its a great place to let loose when your on a business trip and no one knows who you are. Sometimes you have to drop your conservative ways and let loose - this is the perfect place - as long as its not on your dime!!

Steele denies making this particular expense.

The Roman Catholic Church, Pope Benedict XVI and the child sex abuse scandals

I would like to never mention the Catholic Church and child sex abuse again. However, the issue has thrust itself back into the limelight. While Joseph Ratzinger was Archbishop of Munich in 1980, there are reports from the New York Times that he received a memo recommending that a priest who had reportedly molested several children be transferred. Archbishop Ratzinger denies having any knowledge of the recommendation to transfer the priest, which was approved by his subordinates. Indeed, another NYT article describes him as a theologian more than a manager. He may not have paid attention.

This may illustrate a leadership problem with then-Archbishop Ratzinger, although he wasn't alone in not giving this problem the seriousness it deserved:

Andreas Englisch, a leading German Vatican expert and the author of several books on Benedict, said that Cardinal Ratzinger “was never interested in bureaucratic stuff,” and noted that when he was first asked to be archbishop of Munich, he considered turning down the post because he did not want to work as “a manager.” In his autobiography, Benedict described taking the post as “an infinitely difficult decision.”

That said, as Archbishop, he was ultimately responsible for his archdiocese, including the personnel matters of the priests under his authority. Instead, he arguably abdicated that authority.

Mr. Englisch, the Vatican expert, said that transferring a problem priest was “such a difficult decision” that it would necessarily have required his opinion.

“I think the guy who handled it would have gone to his archbishop and said, ‘This case of transferring a priest is not common, and we should really have an eye on him,’ ” Mr. Englisch said. Referring to Benedict, he added, “I don’t think that he really knew the details; I don’t think he was really interested in the details.”

“As they say in the legal profession, you either knew or you should have known,” said the Rev. Thomas P. Doyle, who once worked at the Vatican Embassy in Washington and became an early and well-known whistle-blower on sexual abuse in the church. “The archbishop is the unquestioned authority in that diocese. The buck stops there.”

The Archdiocese of Munich did as every other Roman Catholic diocese at the time was doing: they cloaked the problem in obscure language and transferred the priest quietly. In many modern churches, that priest would likely be defrocked. We already knew that sexual abuse by priests had been widespread and had been covered up. I would not have mentioned this, because I would like to give the Catholic Church the benefit of the doubt and assume that they are attempting to improve their safeguards of priests who are sexually abusive. However, what is galling is that the Vatican has offered apologies but no consequences. In a normal organization, heads would have rolled by now. Furthermore, the Pope has been on the defensive, saying that he won't be "intimidated". The Catholic Church is giving the impression that it is more concerned about people going after their money and about avoiding scandal.

Now, money does weird things to people. There will always be someone after the church's money. However, their first priority should be to fix the problem and to prove to the public that this will not happen again. The rest will sort itself out. What does it tell the public if they're more concerned about protecting themselves?

The Catholic Church needs to remember that priests, bishops, cardinals and the Pope are all accountable to lay Catholics, and in fact, to the general global public. Jesus did not lord it over his followers, he washed their feet instead. All churches and clergy have leadership roles in society, but they are not kings - and yet the magisterium is acting like they were crowned kings over humankind.

Health Reform Watch: AT&T takes $1 billion charge from health reform, files Chapter 11

The folks on the Wall Street Journal are starting to get hysterical over the $1 billion charge that AT&T took due to changes in health reform. What happened, exactly?

First, some accounting. AT&T took a $1 billion charge against earnings. This is not the same as the company writing the government a check for $1 billion. And the headline about AT&T going bankrupt is a joke.

The company, being heavily unionized, has many retirees for which it provides health benefits. In this case, it pays them some benefits for Medicare Part D, which is the prescription drug benefit. Previously, those payments were deductible, meaning that the company could deduct the value of those retiree benefits from its earnings when figuring its tax liability - just like a company can deduct the cost of its employee salaries from its earnings. Earnings, in the accounting sense, are what a company earns after its cost of doing business (like infrastructure, administration, etc), but before depreciation, amortization and taxes.

During the enactment of Part D, many companies threatened to drop drug coverage for their retirees, since they could then get the drug benefits through the public program. Congress then decided to give them a 28% subsidy to continue delivering the benefits - a significant subsidy. Corporations deduct salaries, retiree benefits and other costs like infrastructure from their revenue to figure their taxable earnings, and under the previous regimen, they were allowed to deduct the entire value of their contributions to drug benefits including the cost of the subsidy. Under health reform, companies are now not allowed to deduct the government subsidy from their earnings, which is what should have happened all along.

Ironically, this information comes from a WSJ article by David Reilly, Ellen Schultz and Ron Winslow.

At the time Congress granted the subsidy and allowed companies to deduct the subsidy from their taxes (and again, they should not have allowed companies to double-dip by also deducting the subsidy from their taxes), AT&T reduced its future tax liability by $1.6 billion. The charge they have taken for $1 billion affects their current earnings, but it is a non-cash charge. They will have to pay about $1 billion in extra taxes over a period of many years - basically, over the lives of their retirees. Due to accounting rules, they had to charge off the entire amount now.

A different WSJ article says that the impact to Caterpillar's bottom line, will be more like $7 million per year - in comparison, they took a $100 million charge, their retirees will receive $240 million in government subsidies from 2010-2019, and their profits last year were $895 million.

The companies probably correct in their accounting, but people should not be misled - AT&T is NOT out $1 billion in cash right this second because of health reform. Nobody is going to go bankrupt over this accounting change. In contrast, if we fail to control costs, the entire country is going to go bankrupt.

Health Reform Watch Post Mortem: Rep. Bart Stupak comments on why he wrote the Stupak-Pitts Amednent

Mr. Stupak, author of the infamous Stupak-Pitts amendment that would essentially have prohibited all insurance plans on the insurance exchanges from offering abortion services (although buyers might be able to shop for completely separate riders covering abortions), talks in a Washington Post op-ed about the flak he has taken from pro-lifers. Mr. Stupak and many of his original colleagues in the House dropped their earlier demands in exchange for an executive order.

His commitment to health reform as well as his pro-life principles seems clear to me. He even described the entire package, after his agreement with the President, as a pro-life bill, which was significant. In contrast, he says that many conservative pro-life organizations which rallied around him were doing so in hopes that the split on abortion would result in the bill's failure:

When I saw that Kathleen Parker's March 24 op-ed, "Stupak's original sin," defined me as a "backstabber," it reminded me of a Bible verse. Matthew 7:3 asks, "Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?"

The true motives of many blogs and organizations claiming to be pro-life have become clear in recent days: to politicize life issues as a means to defeat health care reform. One group even sent an e-mail to supporters saying they are "working feverishly to stop this legislation from going forward."

The pro-life groups rallied behind me -- many without my knowledge or consent -- not necessarily because they shared my goals of ensuring protections for life and passing health-care reform but because they viewed me as their best chance to kill health-care legislation.

He admits that an executive order does not quite have the force of law. However, while an executive order can indeed be overruled by legislation or by the judiciary, the order that the President signed will likely not be overturned.

Therefore, I and other pro-life Democrats struck an agreement with President Obama to issue an executive order that would ensure all Hyde Amendment protections would apply to the health-care reform bill. No, an executive order is not as strong as the statutory language we fought for at the start. We received, however, an "ironclad" commitment from the president that no taxpayer dollars will be used to pay for abortions.

Throughout history, executive orders have carried the full force and effect of law and have served as an important means of implementing public policy. Perhaps the most famous executive order was the Emancipation Proclamation signed by President Abraham Lincoln in 1863. More recently, in 2007, President George W. Bush signed Executive Order 13435, restricting embryonic stem-cell research. This executive order protected the sanctity of life and was "applauded" and "welcomed" by pro-life advocates. That these same people would now claim that President Obama's executive order maintaining the sanctity of life is not worth the paper it is written on is disingenuous at best.

Some, including Parker, have criticized Obama's executive order as unenforceable in the courts and therefore just a "fig leaf." Yet the language that critics point to is standard language with any executive order, including Bush's ban on embryonic stem-cell research. Again, many of these pro-life groups did not express concern over the Bush language but claim it is unacceptable under Obama.

To further protect against federal funding for abortion, during floor debate on the health-care reform bill I engaged in a colloquy with Rep. Henry Waxman to make clear congressional intent that the provisions in the bill, combined with the executive order, will ensure that outcome. Such colloquies are often referred to in court cases when an attempt is being made to determine Congress's intent. This, too, was no minor concession by those opposed to our efforts, and it is a tremendous victory for those protecting the sanctity of life.

I absolutely disagree with Mr. Stupak that an accounting segregation of funds was insufficient, as well as on the basic issue of abortion. While abortion is never good, because it ends a human life, it does not end the life of a human person. It is a terrible choice that should be left to parents, if they feel they need to make that choice. However, it should be emphasized that Mr. Stupak was committed to passing health reform. Speaker Nancy Pelosi said so herself in an interview with Rachel Maddow. Pro-choicers should cut him a break - we can live with the resulting legislation, and again, abortion deeply divides the American people and this uneasy cease-fire is something we have to live with. Furthermore, Mr. Stupak is to be commended for his willingness to abide by his principles and to be flexible in doing so. If the pro-lifers who thought that insuring all Americans was not pro-life want to take shots at him, let them do so on their own.

What progressives have to do to sustain health reform

Most readers in the U.S. will note that the U.S. has passed health reform. The Senate will soon vote on a package of fixes that take out certain parochial deals and make some changes, especially on the tax side, but it's basically done.

Public opinion is likely to shift in favor of the bill, and the bill does contain some good provisions that impact immediately, such as narrowing the donut hole in Medicare Part D (for non-US readers, the donut hole means that seniors buying prescription drugs have to pay the whole sum out of pocket between $2,700 and $6,100 - that may sound like a lot, but a lot of seniors fall into it), eliminating pre-existing condition exclusions for children, making funds available for a national high-risk pool so that adults with chronic conditions can get insurance, and a few others. However, the most disliked provision in the bill is the individual mandate - all adults will be required to buy insurance unless it costs more than 8% of income. Progressives will have to continue to make the case to the country that the bill is worth it, that the plan will not work properly without the mandate, and that the benefits are worth the cost. Additionally, the Federal government and the state governments will have to work very hard to implement the bill. Some state governments have passed bills purporting to opt out of health reform, and some Attorneys General (like my own state AG, Ken Cucinneli of Virginia) are filing suit against the mandate. Progressives will have to demand that their legislators implement the provisions, such as the Medicaid expansion and setting up the insurance exchanges. If legislators balk, heavy pressure must be applied.

There are two other priorities that are perhaps even more pressing: immigration reform and climate change. The immigration system must be reformed. Guest workers must be admitted on a reasonable basis, and they should preferably have a reasonable means to gain citizenship if they improve their skills here and develop ties to the nation and their communities. Furthermore, we seem to have punted on making sure that same-sex partners can receive full health care benefits, because at least people who aren't currently eligible for workplace benefits through their partner can shop on the exchanges and likely receive subsidies. However, we cannot punt on making sure that same-sex partners receive the same immigration benefits as everyone else - Canada, the UK, and most other OECD countries do this.

Climate change can start with government regulation of pollutants, but at some point either a cap and trade system or a carbon tax is vital. These, unfortunately, will be harder to sell to the American public.

NYT Bloggingheads: Mental Bandwidth Scarcity and Poverty

The New York Times Bloggingheads video section has a fascinating conversation between two economists on the effects of poverty on psychology. Basically, poor people have scarcer mental resources, as well as physical resources, to devote to raising their children well.