Politicians need a paradigm shift

I don't care what tribe you come from.  What all Americans want is to dramatically lower their healthcare cost and have the freedom of choosing their care.  For this to happen politicians need a paradigm shift away from lower health care insurance premiums to simply lower healthcare cost.  There is a big difference there, and I think someone should be speaking out about this aspect of cost control.  

Originally insurers were there to keep cost low.  For the past several decades, insurance providers (government included) have exercised the practice of paying whatever cost providers demanded then passing those cost along to consumers.  The result was skyrocketing premiums at over twice the inflation rate.  

Insurers and providers have tried to justify these cost as necessary to pay for government regulation, new technology and R&R.  But you have to question the validity  of that when considering technology advances in almost every other industry brings cost down.

Focus on the Economy and Jobs

I think Republicans are over confident about winning the White House this fall.  Here is a current  Gallop poll showing President Obama’s lead increasing and Governor Romney’s drop in support.  With the ruling today from the Supreme Court, I believe Romney support will continue to decrease while Obama support increases.  Currently, Gallop sees the race as dead even.  

With all the controversy around Eric Holder, Immigration, Health Care, White House leaks you might think President Obama should be doing worse than he is, but as this week’s poll shows, his support has increased, not decreased.  I suspect next week will reflect the Supreme Court’s ruling and we will see Obama’s numbers increase again.  That’s not good news for Republicans.

Current news, is working in Obama’s favor because it is causing voters to take sides on issues they really don’t feel that strongly about.  For instants many are ambivalent about healthcare.  If you look at the table below you will see that only 6% of voters view this as a "most important problem."  Republicans, had hoped this would be ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court but as we learned today, the ruling was otherwise.  Still Republicans maintain ObamaCare will be thrown out.  They claim they will replace it with new legislation that truly reforms healthcare and lowers cost substantially but currently, they have no plan on the table.  

I believe the Affordable Healthcare Bill is a bad bill and it should be dismantled and replaced with more responsible legislation.  But for whatever reason,  Republicans are mum on what "responsible legislation" means.  With Congress approval rating at 17%, this leaves an awful lot of uncertainty in the minds of voters who are worried how it will effect them and their pocketbook.  

Illegal immigration is another issue that for many voters think is irrelevant.  Because of the poor economy here there are a million fewer illegal aliens in our country than 2007.   It is on the top ten list according to Gallop, but only 3% of Americans think it is significance.  


So when Republicans make a big deal about Attorney General Eric Holder involvement in illegal gun-running or vow to stop President Obama directive to not deport illegal children who came with their illegal parents to this country, you might guess this doesn't build trust among Hispanic voters.  Hispanic registered voters, by the way, are more concerned about the economy and jobs than they are about illegal immigration. 


If the Republicans are to win the presidency and a majority in the Senate they must focus on the economy.  Currently, the polls show Romney is ahead of Obama in the economy, in jobs and leadership.  Persuading independents, women, minorities, union members, and almost any other group you can think of that Romney would be better for the country because he understands the economy and how to create jobs would be an easier task than trying to win by discredit the president.   

Gallop Poll

A Simple Solution for Our Woes

I posted to a blog last week by Michael Brown, a columnist, radio talk-show host and credentials far greater than mine.  

Mostly, his blog was devoted to explaining all the problems in America are not the fault of any one person, certainly not any one president, rather it is the fault of a nation that has lost it’s moral compass.  Brown, discouraged himself, says he will vote for anyone but Obama, but divulged that Mitt Romney isn’t exactly his cup of tea either.  

I’m sure many Americans share his lack of enthusiasm with Romney.  Personally, I look forward to Mitt Romney’s leadership bringing our nation back to greatness.  But that’s fodder for another blog.  

What made Brown’s blog noteworthy was at the end of his essay where he writes, “...the answer to America’s greatest problems is looking in the mirror [to see] if we align ourselves properly with God and with our neighbor.”   He concludes “...if we have messed things up, then by God’s grace, we can turn them around.”  But he fails to mention our role in recovery is repentance.

From a biblical world view, there are three institutions ordained by God - Biblical family, the Church and Government.  These institutions represent the framework in which we are to live and relate with one another.  Studying scripture one could conclude that we are to respect, honor and devote ourselves to these institutions as an act of reverence to our Creator.  Disregard the institutions and we become disconnected and our of sync with our fellow man and with God Himself.

Our disregard for the family is evident in the divorce rate which has steadily climbed since the 1950‘s. Today, at 50% it stands as a glaring reminder of our neglect.  The Church, once the center of our society, is now irrelevant to most Americans.  Nine in ten believe in God but only 18% honor God by attending church regularly.  Our growing disrespect for government is at an all time high.  Our views of President Obama and Governor Romney are more strongly negative than positive.  Congress approval rating is at 20%.  

Could it be that the Bible is right after all?  God lays out a simple solution.  Maybe it’s time we gave it some thought.

“If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land.”  2 Chronicles 7:14

Scandals Serve to Polarize

Since retirement, my morning routine consist of pouring a cup of coffee and turing on the TV to watch the news.  I had hardly awaken this morning when I heard Nancy Pelosi accuse Republicans of attacking Attorney General Eric Holder for preventing voter suppression.  With my mouth hanging open I tried to connect the dots.  How could Eric Holder’s contempt of Congress have anything to do voter suppression?  I was about to declare this Pelosi craziness, when I realized it was actually pretty crafty.    

Following the Bush-Gore debacle in Florida, states have been cleaning up their election systems.  State legislatures have passed laws that have been very effective in eliminating voter fraud.  In my home state of Washington, Attorney General Rob McKenna has done a traffic job of getting rid of corruption and restoring confidence in the system.  

Attorney General Holder, on the other hand, has been fighting to overturn many of these laws for political purposes.  Why?  Very simply, voter fraud benefits Democrats more that Republicans.  Voting in the U.S. is a privilege reserved for the citizens of this country - not Chinese tourist or illegal Mexicans. 

Pelosi doesn’t see it that way.  In a way, she was right when she said Republicans are trying suppressing the votes.  They do.  They suppress illegal votes.  Unfortunately, Pelosi would rather have us believe this is all some dark mysterious plot.  All that stuff about lying before a congressional committee, withholding evidence, and being in contempt of congress - that’s nothing.  According to her, this is really all about punishing poor little Eric for doing his job. 

While none of this helps Obama, I maintain it doesn’t hurt him either.  It only serves two purposes, 1. It eclipses Romney.  Instead of hearing his message on how we are going to turn the economy around, we’re focused instead on the scandal.  2.  It makes a mockery of our government.  We need leadership we can trust, but all we get is mud wrestlers   No wonder America disrespects Congress.  

Scandals serve to polarize, they don’t persuade.  They provide division instead of vision.  A congress caught up in squabbling isn’t going to give us solutions for the problems we care about most.  If this flap continues through the summer, Obama will be re-elected narrowly in November.  

Misinformation Frustrates Americans

Misleading information is the number one reason I get angry over politics.  Ideologies differ, I understand that.  I don’t have problems with a emotional debate on an issue.   I think that is healthy.  It’s when the arguments deteriorate from facts into deceptions that really irritates me. 

Republicans are just as guilty as Democrats spinning the facts to fit their arguments.    

President Obama’s June 8^th press conference on the economy was a good example of using deception instead of facts to support his arguments.  Now before you get your tail in a knot and call me an ideologue, please hear me out.  In less that a minute into his speech he made several startling claims.  

First, “...after loosing jobs 25 months in a row, our businesses have created jobs 27 months  

in a row.”  I suppose he said this is to show that the economy has been positive more months than negative.  That may be his opinion but after looking at the data it isn’t true.  

Incidentally, the  numbers I am using comes from the U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics.  I use the number to make my point (boring, I know) because it is hard to refute a reputable source.  I also use charts as a visual representation but because they can be deceptive when used without numbers.  Mine will always accompany the numbers.

Anyway, the total time period (25 months of job losses plus 27 months of job growth) equals more time than President has been in office.  The table below shows the unemployment rate for each month going back through 2002.  Since the President didn’t say when the two periods started or ended, I am making a guess as to when his periods started.  I chose January 2008 and highlighted the period in red.  I’m assuming the twenty seven month period of job growth start February 2010.  

  

			Bureau of Labor Statistics Data
Year	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec	Annual
2002	9051	8823	8776	8255	7969	8758	8693	8271	7790	7769	8170	8209	8378
2003	9395	9260	9018	8501	8500	9649	9319	8830	8436	8169	8269	7945	8774
2004	9144	8770	8834	7837	7792	8616	8518	7940	7545	7531	7665	7599	8149
2005	8444	8549	7986	7335	7287	7870	7839	7327	7259	6964	7271	6956	7591
2006	7608	7692	7255	6804	6655	7341	7602	7086	6625	6272	6576	6491	7001
2007	7649	7400	6913	6532	6486	7295	7556	7088	6952	6773	6917	7371	7078
2008	8221	7953	8027	7287	8076	8933	9433	9479	9199	9469	10015	10999	8924
2009	13009	13699	13895	13248	13973	15095	15201	14823	14538	14547	14407	14740	14265
2010	16147	15991	15678	14609	14369	14885	15137	14759	14140	13903	14282	13997	14825
2011	14937	14542	14060	13237	13421	14409	14428	14008	13520	13102	12613	12692	13747
2012	13541	13430	12904	11910	12271

This data is in thousands. 

Now before I go any father, you astute reader will notice that this table is unemployment not job loss or creation as the President referred.  Well, it makes sense that if you are talking job loss unemployment increases.  And if you talk job growth unemployment decrease.  Below there is another table on employment but unemployment is the best tracked and therefore the most accurate representation of the work force.  

It may be possible to see using the chart the increase in unemployment (the red months), but it very difficult to determine when the actual decline in unemployment begins - if at all.  To better display the date I created a chart (below) using the numbers from the table to represent my point.  As you can see, there isn’t much change from January 2009 (each bar represent one month) to May 2012.  I couldn’t see anything that would indicate the high unemployment was ending.  

Second, “Job growth in this recovery is stronger than the recovery following the last recession a   

decade ago.” 

Whether the recovery is stronger this time as compared to 2002 - 2004 period is highly subjective so I’ll concede and say the President is untitled to his opinion.  But it is worth noting this because, as I said when I started, statement without fact are deceptions.  And this is a great example of non-factual spin.   

Third,  “...4.3 million new jobs in all have been created.”  The President doesn’t go into much detail here either about those 4.3 million jobs.  Others have suggested these jobs exist only because of accounting gymnastics - such as when contracts are renews, those retained employees are listed as “new” jobs.  But I don’t know that so why speculation.  

The U.S. Department of Labor’s, Bureau of Labor Statistics does track employment so if those jobs exist then they should show up in those figures.   Below is a table I created from data on employment and overall workforce.  The labor market is growing at about a million new people per year.  Which was something I did not know and may be a comfort to all of us if the workforce is growing.  We just need to get them all jobs. 

	2006	2007	2008	2009	2010	2011
Total U.S. Labor Force	142,345	143,927	144,724	142,972	142,342	143,050
Average  Annual Employment	136,086	137,589	136,790	130,807	129,874	131,359
Unemployed	6,260	6,330	7,933	12,165	12,468	11,690
Unemployment Rate	4.60%	4.60%	5.80%	9.30%	9.60%	8.90%

The President said there were 4.3 million new jobs and 800,000 jobs were created this year (2012).  Subtracting 800,000 jobs from 4.3 million jobs lives us with 3.5 million jobs created from 2008 to 2011.  The average employment in 2008 was 136,790,000. Adding 3.5 million to that figure would be 140,290,000 for the average annual employment in 2011.  Unfortunately, that is not the case.  Instead, employment is only 131,359,000 in 2011 which is 5,4 million fewer jobs than there were in 2008.  Frankly, I am at a loss to find where the President came up with 4.3 million jobs.

Lastly (and this will conclude the first 57 seconds of the Presidents speech) “...Europe is our largest economic trading partner.”  Europe is an entire continent.  I know this may seem petty but when someone makes an unfair comparison to substantiate there point it adds to the confusion.  It also renders the person less credible.  In this case, the President was trying to show that the financial crisis in Europe was responsible for our poor economy here.  I don’t believe that but that was what he was trying to say.  

For the record, our largest trading partner is Canada.  Total trade in 2011 was 596.2 billion, followed by China with 503.3 billion, and third is Mexico with 461.3 billion dollars.  If you group Canada and Mexico to form the “North American Continent” it totals 1.057 trillion dollars.  By comparison the EU (which is what President Obama meant when he included the entire continent) is 636.8 billion dollars.  In fact, if you include all 46 countries of Europe it won’t equal what our NAFTA trading partners produce.   (This information was found at the U.S. Census Bureau.)  

Whether it is the EU or the entire continent, Europe isn’t the reason for our lethargic economy. It’s bad policy, plain and simple.