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Obamacare: Welcome to Neo-Feudalism

Obamacare: Welcome to Neo-Feudalism

obamacareIt is axiomatic in history that the new worlds of the revolutionaries tend to resemble the social systems of the past. Tsar Alexander II freed 60 million serfs with the stroke of a pen, and seventy years later Joseph Stalin would re-impose serfdom under the guise of collective farms. He used bullets instead of ink. Similar stories can be told of the French Revolution, the Chinese Civil War, Oliver Cromwell, and probably all revolutions in some respect.

Alexander Hamilton wanted America to copy the British system, complete with political elites, state-supported monopoly corporations like the British East India Company, and all-powerful central government. It took two hundred years to overcome Jeffersonian resistance, but Hamilton finally won when TARP was implemented.

Perhaps it is no surprise that Barack Obama’s career-building commitment to the rhetoric of egalitarianism would lead to a stratified-by-force society resembling the old feudal model.

Get Fewer Hours, for Less Pay, and No Benefits

A friend of mine is facing the situation that has been making headlines lately; employers are cutting hours and eliminating their existing health care programs. Her employer (a farm-and-country retail chain) currently provides their employees with monthly cash payments earmarked for employee healthcare needs.

The company has been considering eliminating the cash payment, because paying the Obamacare penalty will be cheaper. Now, let’s examine this with the incredulous and caustic clarity that is my trademark – the company will stop giving money to employees for their healthcare needs, and give it to the government instead.

The employees lose their health program and are now individually liable for the Obamacare penalty if they fail to obtain health insurance on their own – fewer resources and greater obligations, a pincer strike on their standard of living.

FTE’s

Obamacare minstrels have been pointing out that the law goes into effect for companies with over 50 full-time equivalents – or “FTE’s,” so a company with 10 full-time employees and 100 part-time employees would have 60 FTE’s and would have to provide insurance but only for employees that work over 30 hours a week – in this case, 10 employees.

Fewer benefits, fewer hours, less income, and more obligations; employees lose at every bloody turn. To make up the difference, employees will scrounge for second and third jobs, as well as government support.

It used to be that you found a job and worked hard, so you would not have to rely on public support. Now, you will be dependent on the government whether you have a job or not.

We’re All Day Laborers Now

Corporate America is in a process of firing all of their employees and replacing them with temps. Much like some serfs were Villeins and some were Cottagers (the difference was that some retained land and others were landless laborers providing service to the lords for subsistence), there are several types of temp employee.

Some are just like standard employees, except that they have to reapply for their job every 3 to 6 months, while others are full-fledged employees of a temp agency, and are sent out on contracts to whatever employer has engaged them.

Check the job boards for your home town; temp agency jobs might be the bulk of what is available.

Revolutionary Destruction

Causing strain on social and economic relationships has been a tactic of ideological struggle between countries, factions, movements, religions, and all radicals since the beginning of time.

Causing stress within families can justify enormous social work bureaucracies; causing stress within the workplace can break down the economy and make employers and employees view each other as enemies and potential litigants; and so on with teachers and students, citizens and police, and any thing else you can think of to insert more arbitrators, sensitivity counselors, HR consultants, labor activists, and social workers into the workings of the nation.

I haven’t even included the doctors opting for early retirement. So, what will the part-time employee with no health coverage whose tax refund was eaten up by the Obamacare penalty and has no spare cash because scheduled hours were reduced do for healthcare? There will be Medicaid, and emergency rooms – but hospitals will be understaffed.

Perhaps you should become good friends with your local veterinarian; it helped on “The Walking Dead,” and it might come in handy as we slide into post-industrial feudalism.

How A Libertarian Would Rock The Primary…And Why I Think One Will

How A Libertarian Would Rock The Primary…And Why I Think One Will

ballot boxI have heard from three separate sources in recent days that former SCC member Drew Ivers is leaning toward a Senate primary run.  Many have speculated that an Iowa libertarian would enter the race at some point—and as the Iowa Chair of Ron Paul’s 2012 presidential campaign Ivers certainly would fit this bill.

Whether this is true or not is unclear at the moment, but what is clear in my mind is the impact Ivers or any other legitimate Libertarian candidate would have on the race.

Besides the obvious—that the other candidate’s ability to pitch to and draw in Libertarians would be greatly diminished—there are many other ways this would shape the contest.  Setting these aside for now, specifically from the Libertarian movement’s perspective there are 3 possible outcomes…and even the least desirable one would be a heck of a consolation prize.  Here’s a brief look at the three things that could result should an Iowa Libertarian enter the contest:

 

Winning Outright

Though extremely improbable, in a large field of slightly lesser known candidates and with a solid pre-built network of passionate supporters that actually go vote…anything is conceivably possible.  Iowa witnessed first-hand last cycle that Libertarian candidates can do well—this showed locally in Statehouse races and in the fact that Ron Paul finished a very close 3rd in the caucuses.

The hurdle in imagining a Liberty candidate winning outright—and why no one, including me, will ever predict it—is one of them would have to garner 35% of the statewide vote.  You hate to say anything is impossible, but envisioning this is bordering on it.  I will tell you this though, if someone was to make the argument, a semi-plausible case could be made with the numbers and by evoking the “Christopher Reed path” to victory—that is to say just nudging past your opponents while also rising above the 35% needed to avoid convention.

I’m prefacing this with the fact these situations aren’t analogous to 2014, but the case on the numbers could be made as follows:  Two of the last major statewide Republican events in Iowa were the Iowa Caucuses and the U.S Senate primary that took place in 2008 for this same Senate seat.  In the 2008 Republican Senate Primary a 3-way race yielded a total of 70,672 votes.  Christopher Reed won with 24,964 votes and barley escaped a nominating convention by .32%–getting 35.32%.  The 2012 Caucus set a record with 121,501 Republicans voting—Ron Paul got 26,036 of them.  This means that Ron Paul received more votes in Iowa last year than the Republican Senate nominee in 2008 won by.  So hypothetically if turnout is low and hovers in this 70-75,000 range and everyone who voted for Ron Paul votes for the Liberty candidate—they would win.

Of course turnout is expected to be much higher since the seat is now an open seat—gee where have we heard that before?—but even still, as an exercise let’s say the eventual turnout splits the difference between the 2012 Caucuses and 2008 primary and is 90,000.  35% of 90,000 is 31,500 votes to win, and again, if all the Ron Paul 2012 voters vote for one candidate in 2014, they would already have 26,036 of them…only 5,464 votes away from a small lead and a shade over 35%–meanwhile the others candidates split the vote (see 2008 Iowa Senate Primary).

Though most will reject this out of hand, you have to at least admit it’s interesting and mathematically a case can be made for it.

Nominating Convention

The far more probable path to victory would be via a convention—let’s not forget that Steve King won his initial primary via this route.  If the field expands to 5 or 6 and both the Republican establishment and the “Conservative outsider” vote are split between multiple candidates, the chances of anyone reaching the 35% threshold are significantly reduced.  Geography plays in here as well as this scenario becomes even more possible if the candidates hail from different population centers in separate parts of the state.  If the race is trending this direction I’d bet that the non-Libertarian candidates would meet and attempt to consolidate the field by trying to convince one another to drop out and throw their support to whoever is further ahead in the polls, but maybe not.  If this fails to happen and several candidates stay in splitting the vote, a convention is a real possibility—in which case the Libertarian candidate would have to think they have a shot.

The Consolation Prize 

Even if a Libertarian candidate fails to make an impact directly in the polls or in the vote count their presence in the race would accomplish two significant things—they could work to move the field slightly to the libertarian right as the year goes on and, more importantly, they would have a large platform to spread their message while drawing more people into the network and keeping them active.  The growth of their network not only means a larger impact in future Iowa legislative races— but they also know it will be needed for Rand Paul’s inevitable 2016 presidential run.

 

Prediction Time

Of these three, winning outright is frankly pretty hard to fathom and a convention is unlikely but technically possible—there’s no question however that this last reason creates an opportunity that would be foolish to turn down.  This open Senate primary provides Iowa Libertarians something that all political movements need—publicity and relevance.

Given that expectations wouldn’t be extremely high and thus underperforming them is unlikely—strategically there is simply no downside to competing and there is plenty to be gained even in defeat.  For this reason I would be shocked if we don’t see Ivers or another Liberty candidate in the fray before it’s all said and done.

Though maybe not sending earth-shattering shockwaves through the race…this would certainly have an impact on the other candidate’s strategy and math.  I suspect in this climate of intense government distrust, and with the Republican base significantly fractured—the Libertarian movement in Iowa will hear opportunity knocking.

DM Register Bias In Senate Race Already In Full Bloom

DM Register Bias In Senate Race Already In Full Bloom

Metal trash canThough the U.S. Senate race in Iowa is only in the pre-natal stage the Des Moines Register hasn’t wasted any time in displaying the partisan favoritism it has become infamous for—an impressive feat given the race is only a few months old and has only a combined three candidates declared.

The Evidence

In the last month they have run two stories solely based on Democratic talking points, a practice they have failed to reciprocate for the other side, and flat-out offered no coverage of a significant Republican event.

The first instance occurred almost a month ago when, days after candidate Matt Whitaker announced on The Simon Conway Show, the Register’s Jennifer Jacobs published verbatim a full press-release from the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee attacking Whitaker for comments he made on the program (http://blogs.desmoinesregister.com/dmr/index.php/2013/05/08/democrats-criticize-whitaker-for-pledging-to-vote-with-extremist-senators/article).  In theory this practice is fine by me—provided of course that as a “reputable” statewide news organization they follow suit when the releases come from the other side of the aisle…I haven’t seen this yet.

What makes this so damaging is that there is no shortage of releases from the DSCC’s counterpart in Washington—the National Republican Senatorial Committee—but they seem unable to merit the same ink.  I routinely get these releases from the NRSC and if they are well sourced and fact based I occasionally run them.  An example would be the following from yesterday:

June 5, 2013

Lawyer Speak: Braley Misleads Iowa Students…Says Student Loan Rates Must be Kept from Doubling, But Votes Against Legislation to Extend Lower Rates for Iowa Students

Bruce Braley isn’t fooling anyone. The slick former head of the trial lawyers association and liberal loyalist to Nancy Pelosi – in true trial lawyer fashion – is trying to fool Iowa voters yet again, this time about the rising cost of student loans.

Less than two weeks ago, Bruce Braley voted AGAINST a bill on the House floor that would have extended a lower rate for Iowa students’ loans. Bruce Braley might be able to fool a jury, but he can’t fool Iowans.

SHOT: @TeamBraley – Help @BruceBraley’s effort to keep college affordable by adding your name here…. #DontDoubleMyRate #IAProblemSolver

CHASER: Bruce Braley Voted Against A Bill To Extend A Lower Rate For Student Loans. “Passage of the bill that would tie student loan interest rates to the 10-year Treasury note rate. Interest rates on all federal student loans (except Perkins loans) issued on or after July 1, 2013 would be set each year at the 10-year Treasury note plus 2.5 percent. Rates for graduate and parent PLUS loans would be set at the 10-year note plus 4.5 percent. Overall interest rates would be capped at 8.5 percent and 10.5 percent, respectively.” (H.R. 1911, CQ Vote #183: Passed 221-198: R 217-8; D 4-190, 5/23/13, Braley Voted Nay)

If Bruce Braley was actually worried about student loan rates, why did he oppose a bill to prevent the rates from doubling for Iowa students in less than a month?  Why is he hiding from his vote?

“Preventing student loan rates from crushing Iowa students who are already struggling should be an issue of bipartisan agreement in Washington, but Bruce Braley would rather politicize the issue than actually help the struggling middle class.  Braley’s misleading trial lawyer speak is just the latest example of his slick attempt to fool the jury – Iowa voters.  Iowans are too smart for that.”said NRSC Press Secretary Brook Hougesen.

 

The second example of this behavior—also from the aforementioned Jennifer Jacobs—came just yesterday via a story on a “snarky” website just launched by the Iowa Democratic Party.  The website makes a pretty juvenile attempt at poking fun of newly declared Republican candidate David Young.  You can check it out here if you wish (http://welcometoia.com/), but I’m not going to give it any more play.  The point here is the story published by the Register gave this Democratic effort everything it wanted—publicity and exposure.

What’s Not News?

A further slap in the face to Republican candidate David Young was the paper not even covering his official campaign announcement last Saturday at a restaurant in Van Meter—this is inconceivable.  So to recap here—the Register can’t find the time or personnel to cover the announcement of a serious Republican candidate for the United States Senate…but they have the time and space to promote a Democrat website created to mock him.  It’s just ridiculous.

This is merely a continuation of blatant bias—my all-time favorite was the Republican presidential endorsement debacle from 2008, which if you haven’t seen you need to click the link.  The Register’s economic struggles of late have been well documented.  Though I concede much of this is due to the struggle of integrating a web-based model, it’s hard not to assume a portion of the problem is their distinct and continuing partisan slant.

What kind of business model rejects and insults the sensibilities of what amounts to nearly half of their potential customer base?  Answer: A struggling one that will continue to be further marginalized unless they change course and offer some balance.

 

Local Economic Development Through Youth Entrepreneurship

Local Economic Development Through Youth Entrepreneurship

business start-upWell, another class of high school graduates are killing time until they begin their college experience. In four, five, or six years, many of them will graduate from college, and move to Dallas County so they can work as temps at Wells Fargo.

Meanwhile, town squares across Iowa are emptying out. I’ve spent some time exploring small towns in rural Iowa, and there are common threads that threaten to further damage the prospects of the young, and may even threaten the existence of many towns across the state.

And so it goes; young people leave to try and buy jobs that don’t matter (and often don’t exist in large numbers), buildings stand unused, and eventually the towns just collapse into stagnant malaise.

What Muscatine Has To Say

Muscatine is a unique town; the downtown fell into disuse as businesses moved to the ring road, but Muscatine kept some relatively large manufacturing and agribusiness installations, as well as banking and insurance industries. This meant that there was cheap, unused store space downtown, and a population with enough disposable income to support a restaurant culture which is unique in my experience.

Italian, Mexican, and Korean (called the Yakky Shack, it was a personal favorite of mine) can be on the menu for any given meal. Avenue Subs, just around the block from my former law office, is truly unique. Their sandwiches cost more than the chain sandwich restaurants, but the place was always busy at lunch time.

If you can re-create their menu reasonably well, you could open up in any mid-sized Iowa town and I’d bet you would do very well – if you can keep start-up costs down.

What Can Communities Do?

I am often accused of “having no answers,” and “being negative and critical,” and “being mean.” Well, I am an intensely unpleasant person in many ways, pessimism is the lubricant of victory, and I don’t believe in the government’s ability to solve social or economic problems – which translates into “having no answers” when you live in a society enamored by Statism.

In towns and counties across the state there are established businesses, and many of them have working relationships with chambers of commerce or local economic development corporations.

Some of these business interests and organizations have either direct control of vacant retail space or contacts with property owners with retail, warehouse or light-industrial space to offer but with no available takers.

So, how about a community-level angel investor network? Why don’t we put young entrepreneurs together with established business owners or property owners to help them raise start-up capital – cash, space, or equipment – for their own small businesses.

What businesses? That’s the beauty of it – I don’t know. I think the sandwich shop idea would work well in any town of about 5,000 + people, especially if you can get space within walking distance of the largest employer in town, the school, or the college.

Maybe internet commerce, custom clothing, fresh foods, computer game design, who knows.

But, College is Important for Jobs Skills…..

No, it is not. The idea that your young go-getter will be more entrepreneurial after spending half a decade with tenured academics is laughable. If you need to learn accounting, take accounting at community college part-time for a fraction of the cost.

Why can’t Iowa become the youth start-up capital of the country? Why must we continue to shuffle the young and the (presumably) ambitious into expensive colleges only to graduate with the pressure of debt and depleted financial resources pushing them towards the work-a-day life that could disappear in the next round of layoffs?

I’m Just a Lawyer, but…

Now, I am perfectly willing to admit that I am not the exemplar of my own advice – think of me as the desert hermit the protagonist seeks out for guidance. That is probably why I was attracted to the law, and most of  my legal career has involved debtor-creditor law, so I know how debt can screw up a life or a business venture.

This is how the Chamber of Commerce can help. They can assemble angel investors with cash, equipment, or space available. They can arrange discounts for accounting and legal services for things like taxation and payroll. They can send experienced businesspeople into the schools to speak on business creation, promote self-employment, and whatever else they can think of to encourage young Iowans to consider independent livelihoods without the need for debt financing.

If you fail, then start over with a different idea. If you succeed, then you owe me lunch.

 

Ed. Reform Bill: A Failure of Policy & Politics

Ed. Reform Bill: A Failure of Policy & Politics

Iowa HouseSoon after the final votes of the Iowa legislative session were taken late last week, many legislators from both Parties took to multiple media platforms trumpeting the “historic” and “sweeping” positive reforms they had just passed.  I would love to fully concur—and if I happened to be a Democrat I certainly would—but as a Conservative Republican I am less than impressed with some of these “achievements”.

Of the three major compromises reached I believe, at the most, Conservatives should be “somewhat satisfied” by the understandable terms reached on tax reform and health insurance coverage.  However, I am deeply disappointed by what has passed as “reform” in Iowa’s K-12 education system.  The following will focus on education reform and later in the week we will deal with the tax and health insurance issues.

Making Appropriate Distinctions

In general I believe House and Senate Republicans grossly misread and under-valued the strength of their hand—particularly in dealing with education reform.  In all fairness, the tax reform and health insurance issues had different dynamics surrounding them and this criticism applies less in these areas.

The reason for the differing standard in my mind on the tax and health insurance issues was that in these two areas inaction would have resulted in direct negative consequences for Iowans—higher taxes and un-insured citizens.  However, when it came specifically to public education reform the status-quo would not have concretely damaged anyone—a point made more painful by the likelihood the reforms that were passed will have no positive impact.

Just to be clear, I am making a key distinction between the public education reforms and the home schooling reforms contained in the bill.  I strongly support any action that makes it easier for homeschoolers to operate and expand—and I do not necessarily begrudge them for supporting this reform as a means to achieve it.  The real tragedy here is the sad construct in which this group has to “buy” these reforms by supporting increased money for an ever-expanding and shamefully ineffective education leviathan.  The truth is the vast majority of home schooling families pay taxes to support a system which they often-wisely opt out of—and then ironically proceed to outperform while simultaneously funding.

Public Education Reform

The best way to go about exposing this bill as the completely ineffective piece of legislation I believe it to be is by asking 6 simple questions.  Since we as taxpayers will be spending an additional $160 million dollars a year, answering these questions shouldn’t be too much to ask—unfortunately I have a strong suspicion that even those who voted for it can’t provide many answers.

1.  How and when will we know this reform has worked?

By this I mean what specific metric or metrics can be looked at to prove this reform has or hasn’t worked?  Additionally what date on the calendar will we be able to make this assessment?  At a minimum Republicans should of asked these questions and demanded the answers be written into the bill. Surely this isn’t too much to ask for.

2. Why didn’t the 35.4% increase in K-12 education spending (an additional $650 million) that we have had since 2002 produce any positive results?

A seemingly common-sense question to ask I would say.  It would be one thing if this reform came on the heels of us having starved the system of money for decades—but this simply isn’t the case.  What specifically did this massive increase (including 4% allowable growth every year under Gov. Culver) in spending since 2002 go to?  Was it supposed to raise test scores?—I hope not because if so it clearly didn’t.

3. Are we to honestly believe that every member of the Iowa House (91-0) and 80% of the Iowa Senate (40-10) looked at this legislation and all independently concluded it would deliver fantastic results?  And further that these results would justify spending an additional $160 million a year?

I fully understand the concept of compromising, and that doing so will deliver a more bi-partisan roll call—but let’s be serious here.  Anytime Ako Abdul-Samad and Tom Shaw are voting together on a major reform that spends hundreds of millions of dollars and affects every child in Iowa we have to be skeptical.  Unless I’m missing something I see only two possible reasons for this—and neither are good.  One is that many out of town members just wanted to go home (which I doubt), and two is that so many random offerings were made by both sides it was just palpable enough for each caucus to vote for (which I believe).  If so, this approach will never result in a meaningful, affordable, and wise solution.

4. Why does it continue to be acceptable not to evaluate teachers, at least in part, by the actual results they achieve in a classroom over the course of a school year?  And what kind of people refuse to stop the practice of passing 3rd graders on to the next grade when they can’t even read?  And whose interest are they honestly serving in doing so?

The answers in order are: the teachers union, disgraceful ones, and their own.  This is where true education reform lies and the fact Republicans can only get a “study council” on teacher evaluation is absurd—too mad to expound on any further.

5. How were teachers able to have such high-performance in the late 1980’s and mid-90’s and not in the 2000’s and beyond?

In the early 90’s Iowa led the nation in reading and math scores—but those days are long gone.  Today we face disturbing realities like this one—only 3 other states in the nation (2 of which are in the Deep South) have less 8th graders enrolled in some form of advanced math by grade 8.  Furthermore, the performance of minority students in math at this level is alarmingly low and trials other students by up to 30%.

During this debate we have heard a lot about starting teacher pay in Iowa.  While this is an important number, lost in shuffle is the fact that the average teacher salary in Iowa has increased from $36,480 in 2001 to $49,622 in 2010.  The teachers union will say this steep increase was due to the fact Iowa teachers were among the lowest paid in the late 90’s-early 2000’s and this in part is true.  But then I ask: if they were among the lowest paid and salary equates to performance—how could they possibly have had Iowa kids achieving at such a high level?  Also, the fact remains they saw a large increase in pay and responded with flat-lining and worsening performance.  By the way, if the teacher’s union is ready to start blaming the kids or their parents for worsening test scores I’m ready to listen.

6. Why does “reform” always mean spending more money?  Why can’t it ever be spending the same amount of money but in a smarter way—or even (gasp) spending less?

Maybe someday we will try it…I bet it would be just as effective if not more so.

Final Thoughts

Though controlling only the Senate and not having the House or the Governor’s office—Democrats got well over half of what they were after with this bill and have to be privately ecstatic.  They managed to get additional money both for 1st year and veteran teachers, 4% allowable growth this year and next, and have again avoided being evaluated on their actual results.  Republicans should and could have done much better—and if they couldn’t they should have done nothing.

And the final insult—I can’t be the only one who sees the irony that we apparently have to create “career pathways” with increased pay for our not-so-good teachers to be taught by other teachers how to teach better…and this is after the not-so-good teacher already graduated from a college that apparently did a not-so-good job teaching them how to teach in the first place.  A sign of the times I guess…

 

 

 

 

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