PBS Must Be Killed Because It Shows Government Works

 PBS is by far the most trusted TV news source, NPR listeners show up as the best informed or the second-best informed, and a majority of Americans watch or listen to PBS or NPR on a weekly basis. Americans, as is their habit, dramatically overestimate the amount of money public broadcasting costs them and yet remarkably still want that funding maintained or increased. Most importantly, PBS is not just the most trusted source of news, it is by one reputable study, repeatedly the most trusted institution in America by a country mile. This is a phenomenal success story. PBS and NPR are educating the public (their mission), the public trusts them, and for pathetically little money in both absolute terms ($1.35 per American per year) and in comparison to their international peers (most of whom get at least 10 times the amount of per-citizen funding, and some far far more).

This is not a fluke. Public broadcasting is a great success story of modern governance. Not just in America, but the public broadcasters in Canada (CBC), Australia (ABC), Britain (BBC), Ireland (RTE), the Netherlands (NPO) and many other nations are popular, informative and even entertaining. They bring programming that for-profit broadcasters do not. Off the top of my meagre head, I can name Doctor Who (BBC), Degrassi High (CBC), Little Mosque on the Prarie (CBC), Nova (PBS), Top Gear (BBC), Frontline (PBS), The Fifth Estate (CBC), The Nature of Things (CBC), Four Corners (ABC), Panorama (BBC) and of course Sesame Street (PBS) as internationally renowned and popular programs brought to the world by public broadcasting. I listen to a lot of podcasts on my MP3 player in the car and the ABC and Radio New Zealand put out some fantastic informative programming. Public broadcasting works well basically everywhere I have ever paid attention to it (admittedly I'm mostly limited to English speaking countries). All of this serves to explain why Movement Conservatives want to kill PBS, and so far as I am aware, want to kill public broadcasters in every nation where they hold power.

Conservatives cannot abide this lasting testament to the competence and workability of public institutions. It belies all their ideological predictions. "State" broadcasters (as they pejoratively call them) are supposed to behave like the Soviet Union's Pravda or North Korean television. Propaganda and lies, dated production values and bland, uninspired presentation. If their ideas actually reflected reality, there would be no need for conservatives to make a point of killing PBS, public opinion would have long killed off the public broadcasters in every free society. It defies them that this hasn't happened. Decades after Thatcher declared "there is no alternative" and Reagan said "government is the problem" these institutions remain, weakened somewhat, but still valued.

If you imagine the world today in some alternate universe where there were no public broadcasters, and you arrived there from here, and suggested that someone set one up, you would be laughed out of the room by the conventional wisdom. Again and again we hear how government cannot work, government is inefficient, bureaucrats just sit on their butts unless they have some hard driving greedhead flogging the whip of quarterly results to keep them motivated. People in that alternate world wouldn't believe that government could successfully operate national television and radio networks that were informative, popular and entertaining. I suspect many people in this universe believe government cannot do so, and yet right under their noses, they are.

It's obvious that Romney's glib and by-the-way remark to Jim Lehrer has touched a nerve in America. People don't think about public broadcasting very often, but here is the Republican nominee for President officially promising to kill public funding for one of the last few things (along with Courts and the Military) that a majority of them (76% in PBS' case) actually trust. If you think about the recent polls on public broadcasting government funding, the fact that maintaining or increasing that funding remains far more popular than cutting it should be remarkable, as these surveys take place in very tough economic times. America is not alone in this regard, Ireland, who have suffered far worse than the US in the economic collapse still maintain RTE with almost as much public funding as America gives its broadcasters (over $200M in 2011).

Don't let them get away with it. There's very little reason to believe PBS and NPR could survive the loss of their public funding in any worthwhile or recognizable form (if at all). America already grossly underfunds these broadcasters which already significantly reduces their effectiveness. I get as annoyed as any other liberal at "nice polite republicans" and their frequent forays into beltway conventionalism and "both sides do it" false equivalencies. Yet I see this as a consequence of NPR's inadequate public funding. Having to rely on various wealthy donors to survive, is it any suprise that the editorial slant of NPR skews towards the views of that class of people? For all that NPR is still far and away better than anything else on the average American's radio dial. I even include most progressive talk radio stations in that too. Sirius Left and whatnot are better than listening to Limbaugh or some overly excited Top-40 formula station, but generally nowhere near as informative or sophisticated as NPR. Even if you really like listening to liberals call in to grouse about conservatives on the air to an appreciative host, that is qualitatively different from what NPR does with its airtime. It's not a fluke that for-profit broadcasters do not do programs like Wait Wait, Prarie Home companion, Dianne Rehm or even Car Talk. Public broadcasting fills a different niche, one that is not fulfilled by for-profit operators. Conservatives try and say that if liberals like PBS so much, we should fund it out of donations from our own pockets. This defeats the purpose of a public broadcaster. A charity network is a qualitatively different creature, even assuming such a thing could survive.

To play off something a twitter wag dubbed, it isn't surprising that a Fat Cat wants to eat the Big Bird. Don't let Wall Street consume Sesame Street.

Torture: Another Liberal Cassandra Moment

Cassandra, the Greek figure tragically doomed to be right about everything and have no one heed her warnings:

It seems likely that a President Mitt Romney would rescind the executive order issued by President Barack Obama outlawing torture. His own policy advisers have told him to do so, according to a memo obtained by the New York Times. (Mitt Romney’s advisers are doing everything they can to encourage the liberal debate over the morality of supporting Obama in the face of his miserable civil liberties record.)

The memo was drafted last year by the Romney campaign’s “national security law subcommittee,” which is made up of 18 lawyers, 15 of whom are George W. Bush administration veterans. The lawyers call on Romney to “rescind and replace” the executive order banning torture and once again allow “enhanced interrogation techniques.” The lawyers also recommend that Romney first make a show of ordering a “review” of torture policy to help make the candidate look “open-minded and empirically driven.” (Jesus Christ.)

Pareene (who is really excellent and under-appreciated) goes on to speculate that Romney may try to spring torture on Obama in the debates.  May all liberals take a "we told you so" stage call.  Torture is now completely just another partisan issue.  Vote Team R if you like tax cuts and making the bad guys suffer like they deserve!  Vote Team D if you like to "coddle" terrorists.  It will even be something Republican candidates feel proud in raising in debates with Democratic opponents.  It gets worse:

In an October 2007 Rasmussen poll, 27 percent of Americans surveyed said the United States should torture prisoners captured in the fight against terrorism, while 53 percent said it should not. In my YouGov poll, 41 percent said they would be willing to use torture — a gain of 14 points — while 34 percent would not, a decline of 19 points.

Obama and Holder's refusal to prosecute the Bush administration war criminals should rightly haunt him.    Romney's likely going down in flames, so the people in Gitmo and Bagram are relatively safe from waterboarding, freezing rooms and prolonged stress position agony for another 4 years at least (not safe from being held without rights for absolutely no cause for those four years of course) but after that, President Christie can proudly announce the "adults" are back in charge as he cuts loose the CIA's best sadists to do what they love.  It's just one Executive Order away...

Yglesias Digs In On Tax Breaks For Idle Rich

I recently took issue with a Matt Yglesias piece purporting to demonstrate the supposedly socially beneficial economics behind giving preferential treatment to investment income (or "capital gains").  Yglesias has now replied to the critics of that piece but remains thoroughly unpersuasive.  He completely ignores several major points of critique around the original piece (such as the point that the one doctor is not "doubly" taxed) and starts by simply trying to change the subject into the desirability of some kind of progressive sales tax, which I'll address later, but on his previous post, this is about all he has to say:

Last I'll say that I was a bit surprised by some of the blowback simply because this is such standard practice. Not only have capital gains been taxed at a lower rate than ordinary income throughout almost all of American history (with the gap even bigger when you consider that investment income isn't subject to Social Security tax), but the gap was particularly large during the postwar decades that progressives often cite as an example of a time when high tax rates were compatible with strong economic growth. In European countries with large welfare states, similarly, there's a lot of reliance on consumption taxes as a finance base.

This is really sloppy and fallacy laden argumentation, in order:

1. "Standard practice" - so lots of orthodox neoliberal economists think this way.  So what?  Shall I start of list of things that the neoliberal economic consensus was wrong about over the past 20 years? Maybe Yglesias is right that most economists agree with this, but it's not hard to find dissenters.  One of them is the most famous (living) economist on the planet after all.  He's not alone either.  Krugman's problem with this policy is what I highlighted from Yglesias' last piece; the wafer thin nature of the evidence of the actual benefits we're supposed to realize.  
2. "American history" - most of American history has US federal policy largely controlled by wealthy interests, sometimes actually driving, other times using their veto on policy they don't like via the Senate (which was the explicit point of the Senate).  The period between The New Deal to the end of LBJ's presidency is about the only period where liberal policies designed to benefit the majority were somewhat dominant.   Even so, America didn't get universal health care in this period like so many other rich countries, so even then the rich still had outsized political influence.  It's not shocking that they managed to keep their cherished tax break afloat.
3. "Postwar decades" - Let's concede for sake of argument that progressives all think the postwar decades were utopia.  Does that mean lower capital gains taxation is good?  Or that this period was good despite this tax preference?  Isn't that a more likely interpretation of progressive views on the subject?  

Now, as to a progressive consumption tax, this strikes me as beside the point.  Yglesias set out to show why Mitt Romney's tax rates should be lower than those of working people, and having failed to persuade his readers of that (at least judging by the comments and my own reaction) he diverts to saying that a progressive sales tax could alleviate progressive concerns about growing inequality.  Well, maybe.  But in an America funded by progressive consumption taxes, then we're also not taxing income either, so the preference for investment income over labour goes away.  When and if a progressive sales tax is on some kind of plausible agenda, I might be persuadable that it is superior to raising the capital gains tax, but that's not the world we live in today. 

Nobody on the left gets out of bed every day on raising the capital gains tax.  If Yglesias has some vision of America where the rich pay their share other ways, then probably I and others wouldn't care so much about this tax break mostly benefiting the idle rich, but inequality is growing, various forces are trying to use government revenue shortfalls as an excuse to cut the programs most important to the bottom half of society, and in the absence of a strong case for the general benefits of this tax break, it should be "on the table" too.  If an increase in the capital gains tax rate would keep some number of the poor able to get Medicaid or keep the Medicare eligibility age from increasing then damn right it should go up. 

Actually raising the capital gains tax rate is not on any likely-to-pass agenda, but at least let's not help the 1% plead their case by claiming it's better for everyone that the Mitt Romneys of the world pay lower taxes than us working shmoes.  The last thing we need is smug conservative pundits citing "even the liberal" Matt Yglesias as being in favour of this tax preference for the rich. 

Yglesias' Weak and Incomplete Defence of Romney's Tax Rates

Slate's Matt Yglesias attempts to defend the fact that Mitt Romney generally pays a lower rate of taxation on his millions in income than many working people pay.  It's exactly as unconvincing as you might expect.  To summarize his case:

• Widely accepted economic theory states that lower (or zero) taxation on investment income incents aadditional investment by people who would otherwise not bother investing it (see his example of two doctors deciding what to do with the money they make being doctors)
• It's really a great theory but there's no clear proof of it in the data

No, really, he has no proof of this theory, quote:

That's the theory, at any rate. It's a pretty solid theory, it's in most of the textbooks I've seen, and it shapes public policy in basically every country I'm familiar with. Even researchers like Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez (see "A Theory of Optimal Capital Taxation") who dissent from the standard no taxation of investment income position think capital income should be taxed more lightly than labor income. Empirically, it's a bit difficult to verify that variations in capital gains tax rates and the like really are making a material difference to investment levels. But then again the data is noisy.

I can't help but snark here and express my utter surprise that the empirical evidence for the benefits of trickle down economics is thin.  I could stop right here as I think that alone disqualifies the piece from having achieved its aim, but there's a couple other things to say: 

•  Yglesias contends the doctor who invests his money is being "double taxed" on the money when he has to pay normal income tax rates on the gains he makes.  His commenters take suitable exception to this, even if investment income is taxed like regular, when you sell your $1M in stock, you only pay taxes on the gains not the amount you originally invested.
• It's bizarre to use an example of two upper-middle class professionals to justify the tax rates that Mitt Romney pays.  Romney is in the stratosphere of wealth, he can consume as much luxury goods as he can possible use or want and not have to make hard choices about whether to invest money.  Maybe it could marginally affect how much he invests or spends but Yglesias' example has the prodigal doctor who spends all his money on luxury vacations and such and invests none of it. 

Lack of evidence aside, the glaring logical flaw is that Yglesias is making a utilitarian argument in defence of an inherently unfair (I think he agrees it's at least prima facie unfair) tax preference for unearned income because it supposedly has some great pragmatic benefits, but fails to contend with the downsides of the policy.  This is a tax break that mostly goes to the rich, it has costs, like the direct increase of social inequality, and starving government of revenue or forcing it to get those revenues elsewhere.  A growing body of evidence shows that social inequality has real costs, in health, cohesion, happiness, crime, productivity, education and just about everything in society is affected. 

Even if Yglesias could prove some increase in investment because of lower tax rates, and further prove that additional investment leads to broad societal gains (something he doesn't attempt) - in a utilitarian argument you still have to show the gains are worth the costs.   I strongly doubt letting the rich keep all unearned income tax free (or significantly discounted) could survive that test. 

Finally, as several commenters point out, there's no reason that investment income cannot also be taxed progressively even if the rates are lower than labour income.  Maybe the doctor should pay 15% on his modest capital gains, but why can't Romney pay 25% or 28% on the millions he makes instead of 15%?  Even making the case for lower taxes on investment income in principle is not to defend America's crazy ultra low 15% rate on all capital gains. 

Let Them Eat 47%

The irony of this is that liberals have spent years tearing their hair out trying to figure out why so many people actually in the bottom half of the income spread vote for conservatives who promise to cut the programs they depend on for survival.  In 2008, McCain got 43% of the votes of people making $30-50K, 37% of those making $15-30K and even 25% of those making less than $15K.  Sure, he lost each voting bloc, but you can still win elections by taking substantial chunks of your opponent's most fertile voting ground. 

Romney didn't even try to make some kind of nuanced argument, that it was tougher for him to reach the 47%.  He outright dismissed them as flat out voting for Obama.  It's not even a case of the so called "classic gaffe" in DC where one tells the truth, the Tea Party is heavy with poor and lower-middle class people who are in denial about the fact that they're dependent on government for assistance.  I suppose the only hope for Romney in this fall out is along these lines as Salon's Alex Pareene tweeted:

good luck convincing any white american that they're in "the 47%" romney's talking about

Romney was talking about that other 47%.  The ones that think that being unemployed and living in a van puts you in the 53% of US federal income tax payers.

News for conservatives: Obama has been President for Four Years

I see via Twitter that conservatives are freaking out over these comments from Obama:

When some people question why I would challenge his Bain record, the point I’ve made there in the past is, if you’re a head of a large private equity firm or hedge fund, your job is to make money. It’s not to create jobs. It’s not even to create a successful business – it’s to make sure that you’re maximizing returns for your investor. Now that’s appropriate. That’s part of the American way. That’s part of the system. But that doesn’t necessarily make you qualified to think about the economy as a whole, because as president, my job is to think about the workers. My job is to think about communities, where jobs have been outsourced.

The common theme appears to be that Obama is resting his case for re-election on his past as a Community Organizer and Romney's experience as a CEO and Governor clearly outstrip that.  Sure.  Ok.  Except it's not 2008 and Obama now has four years of actual experience as President, which really has to count for something in the whole "does his past prepare him for the job" question. 

It's a small bit of stupid in the grand universe of right wing stupidity around Obama, but really, these complaints that he's never had executive experience, never run anything "bigger than a lemonade stand" really fall flat after spending four years actually in the job you're saying he's unqualified to hold.  Fine, argue he's done a shitty job, that's totally fair game, but he clearly has the stronger "job experience" resume for the job, like any incumbent running for re-election would. 

Billionaire Donors: Both Sides Not The Same

Rolling Stone has done us a nice service in providing 16 profiles of ultra wealthy backers of Mitt Romney.  While a few of them are apparently under the 10 figure net worth mark, the majority are north of it:

THE WASTE BARON: Harold Simmons
Position Traffics in toxic chemicals and hazardous waste as head of Contran; owns one of the world's largest producers of titanium. A former corporate raider nicknamed "Ice Man," he pioneered the leveraged-buyout tactics that decimated American industry.


[...] 

What He Wants Plans to store radioactive waste from 36 states in an underground dump in Texas; has been sued repeatedly by the Justice Department for failing to clean up contaminated Superfund sites. Calls Obama "the most dangerous American alive, because he would eliminate free enterprise in this country."

I'm always struck by how often the name Soros is invoked by right wingers to justify their fantasy of some global cabal of leftists trying to bring down society and form the New World Order or whatever.   The reason Soros' name comes up so much is there's practically no one else on the list of "left leaning billionaires aggressively funding left wing politics."  I guess Oprah probably gave some money to Obama's campaign, and Democrats have their set of millionaires who will attend a $30,000/plate dinner for the DNC, but all that pales in comparison to the way big old money has regularly and strongly funded the right.  All the people on RS' list have given at least $1M to Mitt (or his PACs) this cycle.  Some in the tens of millions. That $1M from Bill Maher barely even registers in comparison.

RS' list doesn't even include the more famous 2 Koch brothers, nor Rupert Murdoch, Sheldon Adelson or Richard Mellon Scaife, people much more famous for actually funding the machinery of the right the way Soros is frequently alleged to do on the left. 

As for RS' list, I was shocked how few names I recognized.  I shouldn't feel bad; there are a couple thousand billionaires out there, it's hard to really know all of them.  I guess they'd best keep working on becoming the world's first trillionaire.  It seems ludicrous now, but the way things are going we should have a pool going.  How does 2025 sound as the year of the first trillionaire?