Taxes as Fiscal Policy the First Issue

Taxes as Fiscal Policy

The first issue in all of these proposals is that they all talk first about cutting or raising someone's taxes, but the real impact actually centers on the budget cuts. The fact that so many of us count on these programs for our needs, to receive services, to ensure that we have buses, to keep parks open, etc., gets lost in favor of partisan disputes and the possibility that the systems we count on could get better if we had a smarter focus on letter our Commander in Chief also play the role of being an Administrator in Chief. Our founders created three centers of government, with the Congress writing laws and the courts clarifying what they mean. But the executive branch is supposed to execute not just have an agenda of its own (USA.gov).

The important issue that seems to be getting lost on many levels is how to return the government to the point where it can work -- where it is an effective and efficient deliverer of services and programs. Focusing instead on cutting budgets in general or which group pays more at a given point in time detracts from this fact. When the Social Security was created everyone likely assumed it would grow better over time. Adjustments would be made as we learned more about medicine to keep people alive longer and perhaps some would opt not to use the benefits because they didn't need them. Today, this is happening because of the Open Government Initiative. But the system is still being presented as being unable to grow intelligently even when there is evidence that it can work more efficiently for many decades (Washington Policy Watch).

The same can be said for healthcare. Our system of care was designed to use insurance instead of direct pay because of the supposed efficiency of pooling dollars. This process has been side-tracked by other political and corporate interests. Plus, as we change our relationships with our employers because we change jobs more often, as unions are weakened, as globalization has put great pressure on cost efficiency, the arguments have switched to profits and world economic pressures, not on how the system can work better based on what we've learned from programs like HMOs, Medicare, Veterans Affairs, etc. Each of these is becoming more efficient on some levels but collectively we are learning little because we don't focus on this factor.

What's interesting about healthcare is that we have an alternative. The trend is toward small, more local services. This should mean a greater focus on community clinics. While the Obama administration has incorporated this as a key factor in its healthcare changes, for the most part we have not opted to invest money wisely or our knowledge in making this work better. There are many indicators that having clinics in many neighborhoods could reduce costs and reduce the need for insurance because care would be the chief issue of importance.

To be fair, my criticisms aren't meant to imply that these systems aren't becoming more efficient in their own rights. But as a nation we are sidetracked by arguing about who pays what at a given time or about how big the massive cuts have to be to correct problems from the past. This is not an approach that highlights program effectiveness of administrative direction.