You cannot serve God and Ayn Rand - and Christians should decry Mr. Ryan's budget

Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), the Chair of the House Budget Committee, released a budget yesterday.

Budgets reflect the publisher's values. I don't specialize in budget analysis, but President Obama's first budget was one of the best I've followed (in overview, at least). It expanded assistance for the poor. It curtailed tax breaks that disproportionately benefited higher-income folks. That budget reflected good values. One could criticize its technical or political practicality. But it reflected good values. It reflected values that Christians can generally agree on.

Paul Ryan's budget does not reflect good values. I do not typically vet people for how compatible their budgets are with Christian values. But Mr. Ryan's budget does not, in my opinion, reflect values that are compatible with Jesus'.

The Budget
Mr. Ryan's budget would make large and severe cuts to most areas of government. Lay readers may think that there's a lot of waste in government - and they'd be right, just as there is waste in any large organization. But the U.S. government is essentially a large insurance conglomerate, protected by a large standing army. Its main insurance lines are health (Medicare, Medicaid) and income annuities (Social Security). It has a charitable foundation (Food Stamps, Temporary Aid to Needy Families, Earned Income Tax Credit - these all are subsets of 'other' below). And it runs miscellaneous stuff - unlike an insurance conglomerate, it tries to do things like make sure your houses are up to code (HUD), regulate the environment (EPA), other things like that. Hat tip to Ezra Klein for the chart below, and for the description.

Mr. Ryan's budget makes large and indiscriminate cuts to most government programs. He exempts the military. He lowers taxes on the wealthy. By a lot.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office projected how much the nation would spend on Medicaid, the Children's Health Insurance Program and insurance subsidies for workers under health reform under present law, and under Mr. Ryan's proposal. Medicaid and CHIP insure low-income folks.

Basically, Mr. Ryan's budget says that he would have the poor pay for his tax cuts and to maintain military spending. He would cap the Federal subsidies for Medicaid and CHIP at inflation - but medical costs have grown at 2 percentage points above GDP growth in the past, and GDP typically grows faster than inflation. It's likely that medical cost growth will slow a little in the future, but most likely not below GDP + 1.5 percent without additional government action. Mr. Ryan's actions on Medicare are less troubling than last year's budget. However, his proposal would likely weaken the program.  Medicare costs too much, it is true. But that is solely because medical care in the U.S. costs too much. Seniors and the disabled, who are Medicare's beneficiaries, have very high medical utilization. This should not be mistaken for waste, because commercial insurers too must deal with waste, fraud and abuse.  Mr. Ryan's would also harm many other important government programs, like education, social services and infrastructure spending.

He says that his budget will strengthen the safety net. Mathematically, this doesn't hold - the government would be forced to cut the money going to the safety net. That will weaken it.

I can specifically critique the aspects of his budget that deal with Medicaid. Mr. Ryan claims that allowing the states to run Medicaid will make it more efficient. In his world, Federal restrictions prevent states from organizing their systems more efficiently. He is completely and totally wrong. Medicaid covers poor women and children, it covers the disabled, and it covers seniors. For the latter two, it pays for long-term care services, which are personal care services like having someone come to help bathe and dress you, or paying for assisted living or a nursing home stay. In all cases, Medicaid covers health care services, unless the beneficiary is already covered by Medicare, in which case Medicaid will merely cover the copays and deductibles. The women and kids are actually fairly cheap to begin with. The seniors and disabled folks are very, very expensive. Even if they're eligible for Medicare, they're expensive to Medicaid because they need long-term care and sometimes mental health services that Medicare doesn't cover.

Long-term care services in nursing homes cost an average of about $60,000 a year to Medicaid, and probably a quarter of that for home-based care. Assertive Community Treatment, for mental illness, probably costs $9,000 to $12,000. Medical care would average upwards of $10,000 for disabled beneficiaries. All those numbers are per person. The numbers for medical care and institutions go up faster than inflation. In contrast, the average cost of medical care for an average family of four, two working adults and two kids, was about $19,400 in 2011. That's a bit less than $5,000 a person. 

There is no magic bullet that will make the cost of care for Medicaid beneficiaries go down. And yet if you ask Mr. Ryan, if you ask the people at the conservative Heritage Foundation or the National Center for Policy Analysis, or any of the conservative politicians, states and/or the private sector could somehow magically make do with less. A lot less. If you ask these so-called thinkers how exactly they would reform Medicaid, exactly how they would change the delivery and financing systems, they won't tell you because they can't, and they can't tell you because either they are lying or they have no clue about how health care works on the ground.

Mr. Ryan has cited the deficit as a national threat. In the long run, it certainly is. And yet, one could make the argument that his budget will force the poor to pay to reduce the deficit. 

I say, 'one could make the argument', because it is not clear how much his plan will actually reduce the deficit. Right now, Federal taxes are about 15 percent of our Gross Domestic Product, which is all that our economy produces. Because our population is aging, taxes will have to rise to maintain Medicare, probably to 22 to 23 percent of GDP. Mr. Ryan asked the CBO to assume that his plan would raise taxes to 19 percent of GDP. However, a tax plan with the outlines he proposed would collect around 16 percent of GDP in taxes. He still has a big hole to fill, then. He'd have to find $700 billion in 2012 revenues to fill the gap, and while he's said he'd close tax loopholes, he's not said which ones. Now, I would argue that we should gradually close the tax preferences for employer sponsored health insurance, for 401(k) retirement plans, and for mortgages. Closing them all tonight would probably do it for his plan. But he does not propose to do so, and closing those preferences immediately would be very disruptive to the economy. Mr. Ryan's budget assumptions, then, are unrealistic.

The Values

Mr. Ryan is not an overt Christian. Nonetheless, some conservative Christians who have flocked to him. Like this guy. And these guys.

Mr. Ryan is a devout disciple of Ayn Rand (pronounced Ann). Rand's seminal work, Atlas Shrugged, exalts selfishness. It exhorts the rich, allegedly the creative class, to take their money and run, and let society suffer. Rand herself scorned the poor as parasites, and she scorned compassion for the poor as weakness.

Ms. Rand also scorned Christianity and Christians. I actually don't care what Mr. Ryan and Ms. Rand think or thought of Christians. But the fact is that Mr. Ryan's Rand-inspired budget would cause significant harm to the most vulnerable among us. It would even cause significant harm to the middle class, who rely on Medicare to protect them from medical expenses and on Social Security as a significant part of their retirement benefits. I don't like to cast things in Manichean terms, but time and time again, Mr. Ryan has written budgets that would harm the poor, and he has advocated for policies that would harm them. He has advocated for budgets and policies that would direct wealth towards those who are already wealthy.

Mr. Ryan's budget, which the Republicans in the U.S. Congress have rallied around, is completely inconsistent with Christian values. Christians should oppose his budget unconditionally. Many of the Republicans above consider themselves to be devout Christians. They should be advised: fiscal prudence is a virtue, but so is care for the poor. It's not actually all that certain how fiscally prudent Mr. Ryan's budget is, and it is certain that it will harm the poor. Support Mr. Ryan and Ms. Rand, or call yourself a Christian - but not both.

God have mercy on Robert Bales' victims, and on Bales himself

This post discusses the shootings in Afghanistan that left 16 Afghans dead. I would like to make three points.

First, the Western media hasn't named the victims. When we pray for them, God surely knows their names, but it's a bit less personal. Now, the Afghan government might not have released their names. But journalists would do well to find out. It's harder for us to muster compassion for an abstract class of people. But, may God have mercy on the victims and on Bales himself.

Second, America has started to reflect on what may have driven Bales. This is good. But perhaps we should also reflect on what drives Afghans, and others, to kill in acts of terrorism. It is wrong to kill civilians deliberately, and Christians and Muslims have established criteria for just wars that al-Queda most emphatically did not meet. But we are occupying Afghan soil. We have killed civilians inadvertently - but that inflicts very real costs on Afghans. People lose their children. People are orphaned. Do we think it matters to them that the deaths were accidental? Would we like heavily armed men and women patrolling our streets, enforcing curfews and searching houses? To empathize with Afghans, and Iraqis, does not mean condoning acts of terrorism. But Christ would demand empathy. It would help us understand why some hate us. It would maybe get us to put more effort into non-military efforts in Afghanistan - not that that's a panacea.

Third, I do not believe that God can bless any wars. Even wars that are potentially justifiable. People die. People break, and they kill civilians. People are left broken, physically, mentally and spiritually by warfare. The sixteen dead Afghans should be playing in the fields, or caring for their children, or whatever - except that they were massacred. Bales should be able to go home and raise his own children - except that he killed wantonly, and will most likely face the death penalty (or maybe life in prison, and in the military that's probably going to be even harsher than in the civilian world). Bales still committed murder, responsibility falls on him personally, and he must pay for it. But political leaders who send their troops lightly into combat also bear responsibility. 

Too many politicians in the US make loose talk of war. They act as if belligerence is their core doctrine. They act as if God has given this country the right to do so, and they act as if God is sanctioning war. I don't mean to turn this into a partisan screed, but I think one can objectively say that a lot of those politicians in the US are Republicans, and that they are wrong.

Moammar Gaddafi is also dead

God have mercy on him, as well.

While I am not a peace Christian, I only support the use of military force as a last resort. Gaddafi's case would appear to be a last resort. However, military victory is absolutely worthless - or it can have a negative value! - without winning the peace.

So, prayers to the Libyan people for rebuilding their country, and for citizens of other Arab nations who seek democracy. They must win the peace, and we must help them where we can and where we are asked to.

As a follow up to the comparative analysis of criminal justice systems, I wanted to reiterate to Americans who criticized the Italian system's flaws that the U.S. has its share of crazy prosecutors.

For example, Cristian, a 12 year old boy got into an altercation with his 2 year old brother, David. David sustained a head injury - his mother's delay in seeking treatment compounded the injury and he died. Cristian is being charged as an adult with first degree murder. Cristian appears to have lived in an abusive household, and it's quite possible that he's abused his brother (although there's no discussion of that in the papers, and there's a gag order on the case). However, first degree murder requires intent and premeditation. It's hard to see how this could reasonably be true, and it's hard to see how this will benefit a child who could be rehabilitated.

Not to mention that this kid is a kid. At 12, he's 6 years short of the generally accepted definition of an adult.

There's a petition to the District Attorney below:

http://www.change.org/petitions/reverse-decision-to-try-12-yo-cristian-fernandez-as-an-adult?utm_medium=email&utm_source=action_alert&utm_source=action_alert&utm_medium=email&alert_id=EUajlIhDIm_aBaBeJpZFK

A Comparative Analysis of Criminal Justice Systems: Italy Versus the United States

Recently, the U.S. state of Georgia executed Troy Davis. While Davis had been initially convicted of murder of a police officer, the majority of the eyewitnesses who implicated him recanted their testimonies, indicating that they had been coerced by police officers. Davis managed to secure an unusual re-hearing of his case. However, in the U.S., appeals (i.e. anything after the first trial) generally center on narrow, procedural grounds. At his re-hearing, Davis' lawyers had to prove that no reasonable juror would convict him, which was a nearly impossible bar to clear - in contrast, at a criminal trial, the prosecution is supposed to prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt to all the members of the jury. It is very difficult to challenge evidence at appeals trials in the U.S.

 Several years ago, Amanda Knox and Rafaelle Sollecito were convicted in Italy of murder and sentenced to 26 years in prison. Since then, though, experts have argued that the investigation and the prosecution were flawed. In particular, forensic expert witnesses for the defense refuted the DNA evidence that Knox's DNA was on the murder weapon and that Sollecito's DNA was on the murder victim's clothing. It appears that the appeals trial did consider this new evidence - in contrast, Cameron Todd Willingham, who was most likely convicted of murder on the grounds of evidence of arson that was later disproven by experts, could not challenge the evidence at trial and had to resort to a direct appeal to the governor of Texas, who set up a commission (Gov. Perry later appears to have sabotaged this commission when they seemed to be leaning in favor of recommending a pardon. This commission was outside the regular judicial system, so they could not have overturned his conviction, whereas the Italian appeals court could, indeed, overturn Knox's and Sollecito's convictions.

 Some U.S. commenters have cast aspersions on the Italian justice system. However, I would urge U.S. analysts of legal systems to note an interesting structural difference between Italy's system and the American one: flawed evidence can be more easily challenged in the former on appeal. Given the number of acquittals of people on death row from DNA evidence, the U.S. should look into that. For the record, I am not absolutely against the death penalty in all circumstances - but I am absolutely against imprisoning or executing people who are not guilty as charged. The first line of defense does need to be ensuring that nobody is wrongfully imprisoned to begin with, but the above still holds. The Italian prosecutors said that Knox was lucky she was tried in Italy, as she would be given the death penalty in the U.S. - what's actually true is that had she been convicted in the U.S. on faulty evidence, she would most likely be screwed and be unable to reverse it on appeal.

PS - on the other hand, it also appears that the Italian appeals courts can increase a lower court's sentences, and that the prosecutors have requested that they sentence both Sollecito and Knox to life.

PPS - it appears that the appeals court exonerated both Sollecito and Knox. Our prayers should be with Meredith Kerchner, the murder victim, and her family.

Progressives Should Get to Know Monetary Policy

In sociology, conflict theory is an analysis that emphasizes the economic, social or political inequality of a particular social group. When some conservatives in the U.S. claim that there's a class war on the rich, they are applying conflict theory - albeit the inverse of their conclusions is correct. There's a conflict theory analysis to be made of inflation fears and Gov. Rick Perry's attack on the Federal Reserve. To be brief, one major thing the Federal Reserve, or the Fed, controls the money supply - basically, how much money is available to the entire U.S. economy. It does that by trying to set a certain interest rate on short term loans to banks - lower interest rates generally mean more money. General interest rates of various terms will track the short term rates to some extent (with longer loans almost always having higher interest rates than short term ones). This is a gross and inaccurate oversimplification, but you can think of it as the Fed setting a target interest rate. If you're interested in what the Fed actually does regarding the Fed funds rate, read this article and this one. I'll argue that the Fed should be going for higher inflation, which could help stimulate the economy - but that higher income individuals are more hurt by inflation than unemployment (whereas the poor are hurt worse by unemployment than inflation). That's the class conflict that's behind the crank monetary policy ideas that some on the American Right espouse. Note, though, that macroeconomics and monetary policy isn't my primary expertise, so I may be off on some descriptions - but I think the general thrust is consistent with what some progressive economists would believe. The Fed, and most central banks, has two goals: to control inflation and to minimize unemployment. When the economy enters a recession, the Fed reduces interest rates - this makes it easier for businesses and consumers to borrow money. Not that anyone should be doing so with wild abandon, but this makes businesses and consumers more likely to spend. When the economy heats up, the Fed increases interest rates, gradually. If inflation is too high, the Fed will also raise rates. Keynesian economists argue that a certain amount of inflation is consistent with an increasing level of aggregate demand - the more people who are employed and the more that they are paid and spend, the greater the demand for stuff, which causes inflation. If lots of people are unemployed, it's probably going to be difficult to have high inflation unless there's a different cause, like war in the Middle East causing oil prices to spike. On that last bit, there's an argument that higher inflation would reduce unemployment. Matthew Yglesias sums it up:

Higher inflation expectations would have a number of benefits. For starters, they would reduce real interest rates, mitigating the problem of the zero lower bound on nominal rates. They would also increase the cost of hoarding cash. This would encourage wealthy individuals and cash-rich firms to purchase real goods and services, or else invest in productive assets. Last, since mortgage debt is denominated in nominal terms, a faster rate of inflation would speed the deleveraging process and let households repair their balance sheet.

Here's an explanation of the bolded words, which are my emphasis - "Reduce real interest rates": Right now, interest rates on all sorts of debt are pretty low. As I said, they tend to track the rates the Fed sets in the Federal funds rate. Generally, you want to reduce rates to stimulate economic activity. However, the Fed funds rate, which is the only one the Fed directly controls, is just about zero - the "zero lower bound." The Fed can't reduce interest rates directly, but if they were to target higher inflation, it would have the same effect - if you're earning 5% in a savings account and inflation is 1%, you're doing pretty well, but if you're earning 5% and inflation is 4%, you're barely breaking even. Same thing if you're the debtor, rather than the saver. "Increase the cost of hoarding cash": Higher-income individuals save more than lower-income individuals. If the rich folks were to spend more, that would help the economy (all else equal), because businesses would hire more workers to meet the additional demand. It might not be immediately obvious, but if inflation is higher, you might as well spend, because your money will be worth less next year. That influences decisions at the margin. "Mortgage debt is denominated in nominal terms": One of our big problems right now is that lots of people have high amounts of mortgage debt, thanks to the housing bubble (i.e. thanks to the idiots on Wall Street). As I alluded to earlier, higher inflation erodes the value of debt. And it turns out it's a stealth way of reducing the burden of mortgage debt. Now, the Fed doesn't have any direct levers to cause higher inflation. To some extent, though, them just saying that they're targeting higher inflation may well work, as businesses and individuals anticipate higher inflation. They can also just go out and buy however much bonds or other financial assets they want to, a policy known as quantitative easing. The Fed won't actually be spending any taxpayer dollars - it will just be using its administrative authority to buy stuff, usually from banks. When it does this, it injects more money into the system. There are probably some less conventional policies they could do which I'm not familiar with, but that this Wikipedia article tries to describe. As I alluded to in the intro, the interests of the rich diverge from the rest of the country. Higher income Americans usually have a lot more financial assets, like stocks, bonds, money in the bank. They will just about always be less likely to be unemployed that the average American, and especially than the poor. However, most low- and moderate-income Americans have little in the way of financial assets. They're barely making ends meet - why do you think there's a payday loan industry? They're also more likely to be unemployed - much more likely, if they have less than a high school education or GED. In other words, the rich are more hurt by inflation than by unemployment. The poor are likely to be hurt more by unemployment than by some inflation. To be clear, I'm not arguing for hyperinflation. I'm saying, though, that we should be willing to accept higher but manageable levels of inflation, if they stimulate the economy. Unfortunately, the monetary cranks have the better of the monetary policy debate right now. They're accusing the Fed of "debasing the currency." They're arguing, as Gov. Perry did, that the Fed is rampantly printing money, as if that will cause government profligacy. They say that the Fed is hurting retirees on fixed incomes. The thing is, though, that we're not experiencing inflation. Having the dollar 'weaken' with respect to other currencies will increase our exports - if we have a 'strong' dollar, then it's harder for other countries to buy our stuff, and if they can't, then that's detrimental to the recovery. Inflation is not that high right now. And Social Security, which is a significant source of retirement income for most Americans, is inflation protected. In other words, there's significant reason to believe that the cranks are wrong: inflation isn't very high right now, and if we could probably withstand some inflation (in the 4% range), if it boosted the economy.

Sometimes, Life is Unfair

An acquaintance of mine is a musician, a cello player. He and his fiance, a violinist, were recently in an automobile accident and sustained severe head injuries. Severe enough that their rehabilitation involves their therapists teaching them how to eat and speak. Normally, speech therapists help you overcome speech and memory errors - if they actually have to teach you to speak because you can't, that's a bad sign.

It's more likely than not that they will never be able to resume their careers as musicians and that they will require long-term care for the rest of their lives, at significant expense to the state (or perhaps their families, but their folks aren't exactly loaded), and that their families will experience a significant burden in caring for them.

Not that this should happen to anyone, but why wasn't it the person who hit them who experienced this severe a head injury? Or why couldn't that driver have been paying more attention, or be going a few miles an hour more slowly?

Some Christians say that everything that happens is part of God's plan, and the parents of one of these folks asked, is this really God's plan for my kid? This seems so unfair.

My response is that yes, it is unfair. Personally, I don't believe that God plans for bad things to happen to people. But Christians of both strains of thought would say, I think, that God is with us always, and that God is especially with those who are suffering. God is taking special care of my friends and their families - even if it isn't obvious.