Obameter #24: Income Taxes for Poor Seniors

This was posted a day late. Sorry.

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Obama promised to "eliminate all income taxation of seniors making less than $50,000 per year." But since his election... nothing. It wasn't part of Obama's budget proposal. It wasn't part of the stimulus bill. It wasn't part of his tax-day speech that was specifically about his tax policies and ideas. It's not anywhere. Promise broken.

Little question, though: why only seniors? Why should a young adult be paying more taxes than a senior if their incomes are the same? Seniors already have Social Security, so they should be less poor than the young person of the same income. This change would only deepen that inequality.

The Tax Policy Center ^[W] has similar questions, declaring that the policy conflicted with "fair, simple and efficient" tax policy. It seems to me that the fairest, simplest, most efficient tax policy would be a universal tax rate without credits, options, or exceptions. Why is no one proposing that? Actually, someone did, but it never took hold and was criticized as being too easy on the rich.   <sarcasm>Remember: all men are created equal, but the more money they make the less they deserve equality.</sarcasm>

(I have no special love for the FairTax plan. I'd also be fine with a universal income tax rate, or a income tax rate that increases as a function of income, or even the current tax bracket system so long as there are not 10,000 credits, exceptions, loopholes, incentives, and other complications.)

Anyway, as previously discussed, I oppose tax credits because it is paying people to obey more government rules. In other words, because it requires the complexity of tracking behavior and creates a line across which there is inequality in taxation. There is a suggestion of authoritarian government in that criticism, but also of ineffectual government. This example of ending income taxes for seniors circumvents the authoritarian accusation (there is no way that this could become an incentive for people to choose to be old), but the accusation of ineffectiveness remains. Rather than aiding the poor generally, this merely divides people yet again.

It's possible Obama recognized the inequality he was proposing and silently recanted. It is also possible that he was persuaded by the Tax Policy Center's reasoning. Either of those would be good things. But it's also possible he simply broke a promise to do something he thought was right, either forgetting about it entirely or judging it to be a lesser priority. I'm not very inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt on this without some statement from the White House. Pretending he never said it is not an acceptable policy.

In all, he proposed a broken, hobbled tax cut, failed to deliver, and failed to explain why. That does not show good character nor good judgment. Thumbs down.

The 10 Commandments for the Atheist

A quick note before I start: I tend to write these posts about a week before I publish them, giving me a buffer in case I get in a lazy mood (which happens often). With the exception of this paragraph, I wrote this post after barcode9588 mentioned she was making a video on the topic, but before I saw her video. It's only a happy coincidence that our views are almost identical. I can't prove it, though. Hopefully you'll see enough difference in styles to believe me. Anyway, here goes.

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Christian and Jewish adherents find the 10 Commandments to be the beginnings of written, objective law and a divine tool for bringing about peace, law, and morality (though, I understand the 10 Commandments do not have any special authority over any other commandments in Jewish circles). Non-religious people find the 10 Commandments to be a means of control by an authority with little or no objective benefit to the running or quality of a society. Obviously there's a severe disconnect between these interpretations, an almost utter lack of common ground. Since they are written down in black and white in languages we can all read, it seems bizarre that such different interpretations arise. Clearly, something in the context changes dramatically between believers and non-believers.

After considering these things, I think the difference in context arises from what the word "God" represents. Yes, the Judeo-Christian tradition sees some thinking being behind the name, similar to a human (at least in the sense that humans were created in His image). Atheists point to this human interpretation of the Lord and see the resulting commandments as a kind of authoritarian government, comparable to a demands of a dictator to obeyed no matter how intrusive his edicts. But this ignores the subtler and more important aspect of the traditional definition: God is good. Literally.

To the adherent, "God" is symbolic of righteousness and morality first and foremost and symbolic of governing authority only in the sense that government tries to imitate divinity. Obeying the commandments is precisely doing the right thing, not because obedience and submission are especially moral but because the behaviors commanded are right in themselves. If commandments seem to be immoral, the mistake is not in the Lord but in the phrase "seem to be". By definition, either it is not divine or it is not immoral. Considered in this light, the first commandment (no other gods or idols or whatever before the great I Am) is not of authoritarian dictatorship ("Obey me above all others.") but of personal morality ("Do the right thing above all else.").

But, a skeptic might ask, if it's not about obedience why should it be stated as a commandment, an order from a Lord? Consider the timing. The Hebrews had just escaped generations of chattel slavery in which obedience was the only law. So soon after their escape from the Pharaoh and his nearly-godly authority was to throw a huge, violent, naked, drunken party that seemingly included human sacrifices. They had freedom, but no concept of how to use it to preserve themselves or establish a society. So the Lord gave them a guide to morality in a form they could understand: orders. The underlying meaning is universal, but the delivery is customized for the audience. It offered them a transition from being told what is right to understanding for themselves what is right.

I've covered the first commandment. How do the others translate through this lens?

Do not take the name of the Lord in vain. This is often taken as a commandment against swearing in the modern sense, not just referring to God casually or disrespectfully but also not referring to His powers or to private parts of the body or bodily functions in crude ways for their shock value. An older interpretation is not to use God as the basis of an oath or promise, especially one that you do not fulfill. Taking the Lord to be symbolic of morality, this commandment becomes "Take morality seriously." Do not indulge in any habits or philosophies that claim the expectation to do the right thing is silly, irrelevant, or unreasonable. Continue to believe that right and wrong matter.

Later on, several of the commandments use the word "covet". I understand "covet" to mean more than "want" but less than "steal". It is the urge to have, the temptation to take. It is the motivation to improve your situation by making someone else's situation worse. Maybe you don't actually have to steal to be covetous, but you're willing to manipulate events to encourage them to give it up. Maybe you'll screw them over for it, convince them it's broken so they give it away, or guilt them into thinking they owe it to you. Even planning stuff like that is covetous.

Thus, my 10 commandments translated for the atheist are:

1. Do what's right above all else.
2. Take morality seriously.
3. Take time to rest and think things through one day a week.
4. Do your parents' proud. Obey them unless they ask you to do immoral things, and always live so that people respect your parents because they know you.
5. Promote life, not death.
6. Take others' romantic feelings seriously. Don't abuse their trust.
7. Respect others' stuff and their right to control it's use and condition.
8. Don't try to convince people of things you do not believe.
9. Don't lust after people who will never be with you, or who can only be with you through violence or heartache.
10. Don't cheat, manipulate, or con things away from people. Don't even indulge the urge to.

That's what the 10 commandments mean in the Judeo-Christian tradition, translated from scripture-speak into the vernacular for an atheist or secular audience. That's why we consider it the origin of modern law. If everyone followed those ten rules, would we even need laws and governments to keep the peace?

Hopefully this explanation will bridge the culture gap between adherents and atheists a little and help us all to get along a little better.

"Luther" (2003)

In the 1500s lived a German monk named Martin Luther. He, one man alone, took a stable and united Europe and shattered it. By his own admission, tens of thousands died as a result of the revolution he began, the face of western Religion, economics, politics, and culture were forever shifted. For these reasons, every American, every German, every Canadian, Mexican, Latino, European, Christian, everyone should be eternally thankful.

A dramatized biography of a monumentally revolutionary man, this movie is awe-inspiring. Justice and mercy, tradition and revolution, religion and reason, politics and plain truth all shattered and melted together. Everything that's happened in the Western world in 500 years was influenced by this one man.

Given this glowing review of Luther, both the man and the movie, I should make it clear that I am not Lutheran. I don't consider him infallible (far from it, actually), I just recognize a revolutionary, a pivotal identity in history, and respect him accordingly. If you are so supremely anti-Christian as to be unwilling to watch this movie, you can find movies about Ghandi, Emperor Qin, or Buddha. But, without an outline of knowledge of the influence of Martin Luther you remain intellectually crippled, unable to understand why and what Western Culture is.

Obameter #5: the Earned Income Tax Credit

The Earned Income Tax Credit is a complicated, rather obscure aspect of tax law that generally tries to reward low-wage workers or workers facing unusual challenges for being productive members of the workforce to the tune of several thousand dollars each. Wikipedia estimates the total cost at something like $36 billion (in 2004). It's pretty complicated, though, with various fade-ins and fade-outs for taxpayers meeting various criteria. One of the unintended consequences of the EITC is the so-called "marriage penalty" wherein two single people filing taxes separately will pay less in taxes than if they marry and file jointly. This is because being an unmarried worker was once considered a hardship, so they increased the EITC for single people.

During his campaign, Obama made a three-part promise relating to the EITC:

1. To remove the marriage penalty.
2. To expand the credit for taxpayers with more than 3 children.
3. To expand the credit for taxpayers without children.

The stimulus bill he signed in February accomplished the first two points, but ignored the third.

I've addressed tax credits before, concluding that "With a tax credit, you're paying less money because you're conforming to more governmental rules." I remain wary of tax credits as a way for government to buy obedience from us taxpayers but, just as before, it's hard to criticize government for creating an incentive to work. Maybe it's a little easier now, since it's the second tax credit doing that exact same thing.

One risk of government paying low-wage workers to work is that it makes low-wage work seem better than it is. It's better than paying people to quit, as a badly designed unemployment program potentially could, but I continue to favor tax rate changes rather than rules and regulations regarding how you live your life. How much simpler it would be if all these eligibility programs with their complicated qualifications and dependencies were replaced with a negative income tax rate on the lowest tax bracket! But government continues to favor complicated systems of eligibility as though more laws means better laws.

And for them it does. Job security for Washington insiders, IRS agents, private accountants, and other experts on the unnecessary complication legislators create. They promise to simplify the tax code to get elected, but it keeps getting more complicated. Plus, again, they're buying your obedience. There's something creepily authoritarian about that.

$3,600b 2009 Federal Budget

Previously discussed wasteful spending

Previously discussed worthwhile spending

Earned Income Tax Credit (total cost)

Given the ugly, complicated system Obama inherited, though, he did act to simplify it by removing the marriage penalty. I suppose that deserves my tentative, cautious approval. But this is the last government-paying-people-to-work tax credit that I'll be supporting. Employers are supposed to do that, not government.

A little reminder: every pixel on that dollar bill graphic stands for $150 million dollars -- about 40 times as much as the average American makes over the course of an 80 year career.

Great Comic Strips

I love comic strips. I wholeheartedly believe that the downfall of comic strips are the reason print newspapers are failing. And yet, like so many other things, 90% of them are crap. Ziggy, The Born Loser, F Minus, Bo Nanas, Rubes, Doonesbury, anything about superheros or soap operas... how did Ripley's Believe It or Not get a comic strip!? It's astonishing that anyone reads comics anymore with some of the crap out there.

But there are some diamonds in the sewage out there, some truly great reads. I'm sure I haven't found everything good out there, but I read a lot of comics and these are the ones I'll always remember. Hrm... how about alphabetical?

• Bloom County - It's about a Nancy-boy liberal and his conservative newspaper writer best friend (they're both in elementary school). And his pet penguin, Opus. And the lech of a chain-smoking trial lawyer, the wheelchair-bound Trekkie, a fanatically Republican rabbit, nuclear war, dandelions, rock 'n' roll, Tammy Fae Faye Baker clones, and all the insanity of life, politics, and artist Berkeley Breathed. It's like snorting a line off a nuclear warhead to the sound of a Reagan speech: there's nothing else quite like it.
• Calvin & Hobbes - Calvin and his stuffed tiger Hobbes have crazy childhood adventures and philosophize about things that are way too grown up for them. It's flatly beautiful, ironically silly, and, at times, deeply moving. Bill Watterson is a genius. The Best Comic Strip Ever. By far.
• Dilbert - The first openly nerdy comic, I think, and the breakout star of the technology age. The cast includes Dilbert, Dogbert, Catbert, Ratbert, Dilmom, Wally, Alice, the PHB, Ted the Generic Guy, Asok the Intern, and Phil The Prince of Insufficient Light who darns people to heck for minor sins. No comic strip has killed as many characters off as Dilbert, and when you meet the dysfunctional cast you'll cheer it on. The art sucks, but the sense of humor is golden.
• The Far Side - Single-panel surrealist weirdness, courtesy of creator Gary Larson. Includes such timeless classics as God at His Computer, finger hovering over the "Smite" button. Or cows yelling at people who aren't smart enough to answer. Not really available online; go buy the collections.
• Peanuts - The soft-spoken classic and origin of Snoopy, the best character in anything ever. Every cartoonist calls Charles Schulz a major inspiration, and reading the early years of Peanuts proves why.
• Rose is Rose - Rose is a calm, quiet, typical housewife. And sometimes a little kid. And sometimes a tattooed, motorcycle-riding rebel. Other characters include her husband, her son, and his guardian angel (both in cherub and archangel modes). It's sweet and cute and wistful and better drawn than virtually everything else out there. Creator Pat Brady was fantastic, but has turned over the strip to the capable Don Wimmer. I miss Pat, though.
• Sherman's Lagoon - The undersea adventures of talking aquatic life, including a fat, lazy shark, his controlling wife, a nerdy turtle, and a scheming hermit crab with a beer can for a shell. Creator Jim Toomey is a very creative guy.

Some honorable mentions include The Boondocks, Cul de Sac, Foxtrot, Get Fuzzy, Mallard Fillmore, and Sheldon. Bill Watterson (of Calvin & Hobbes) recommends Krazy Kat, which I've always wanted to read haven't ever had the chance.

Obameter #3: Capital Gains Tax on Small Business

My last few posts have been slightly huge, so here's a tiny one for a change.

Everything you own is capital. If you buy something then sell it for a profit it's a capital gain, and the IRS taxes you for it. Obama promised to completely eliminate the capital gains tax for small and new businesses. Buried deep within the Stimulus Bill is some text that reduces the capital gains tax on small businesses. The tax used to apply to 50% of capital gains. Now it only applies to 25% of them. That means investors can invest more money into small businesses without losing as much of it to taxes.

It's not everything he promised, but it's a beautiful thing.

"Dragonfly" (2002)

When atheist and emergency room doctor Joe Darrow loses his beloved wife, he is devastated that she is gone forever. But then, slowly, he starts seeing things, witnessing things, that insinuate that she's still around and trying to communicate. Is he going mad, or is his wife trying to speak to him from beyond the grave? If the latter, what is she trying to say?

This is a cool movie, romantically portrayed and intelligently written. It studies the gray shades between the white and black of life and death, it considers the idea of an afterlife analytically, and it does my favorite thing a movie can do: show the gray shades between sanity and madness. Aside from these rather commonly good traits, it was brilliant at two points. First, the conclusion fit together and made sense. There was a message worth declaring from beyond the grave, and it was effectively (though not efficiently) delivered. So many paranormal movies end with a special effects sequence or with anti-climatic answers. In this movie, the answers fit. Second, it is a study of the idea of the afterlife with an entirely religiously-neutral point of view. It's not considered a binary choice between Christianity and Atheism, but a complex question with a vast array of possible answers.

I respect and enjoyed this movie. It was dramatic, analytically paranormal, and worth seeing.

Obameter #240: Seperation of Lobbyist and State

It started out looking good. Presidential Candidate Obama called for ethics reform and a two-year waiting period between employment for special interest groups and employment for the state. Special interests had corrupted government policy for decades, and he was trying to fight it. No one from any political background could help but admire it. As soon as he was elected he issued an executive order demanding that federal appointees not deal in any issue for which they had lobbied within the past two years. It was an open-and-shut case: Obama had made good on his promise.

But the case wasn't closed. The executive order included a waiver clause, wherein government officials could waive certain of the order's rules based only on the claim that it is against the public interest or against the spirit of the executive order. There's no appeal process, so the mere claim that a waiver is justified is also the final word that the executive order does not apply to that appointee. The rules only apply if and when the Obama Administration says they do. PolitiFact reclassified the promise as a compromise. After all, the executive order was still a step forward.

Then more information came out. Often former lobbyists do work for the Obama Administration but are "recused" (ie prevented) from discussing the topics they used to lobby for. Thus, the judgment of whether the executive order applies or not does not even necessarily require the formality of a waiver. The people present can decide at the time whether a lobbyist is acting ethically or not, and their decision is above appeal. A rule that can be excepted on demand is not a rule at all. This evidence was enough to turn one of the most attractive of Obama's campaign promises into a substantial mark against him: promise broken.

Here is an incomplete list of former lobbyists working for the Obama Administration. According to the Obama Administration, only three waivers have been issued. Unless explicitly stated otherwise, these former lobbyists do not have waivers. They are sorted roughly by the likelihood of conflicts of interest, with the most obvious temptations for corruption listed first.

• William Lynn used to work for defense lobbyist Raytheon, and now works as the top operations manager over the Pentagon -- a job which entails contracting out to private defense contractors such as Raytheon. He received a formal waiver.
• Jocelyn Frye lobbied for National Partnership for Women and Families until 2008 and is now director of policy and projects in the Office of the First Lady. In 2008 she lobbied for the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act (which deals with gender equality in regards to executive pay), the first law Obama signed into law after becoming president. She also works for President Obama’s domestic policy team and is an old college buddy of Michelle Obama. Jocelyn received an official waiver.
• Cecilia Muñoz, former lobbyist for National Council of La Raza (a Hispanic civil rights' organization), is now the administration's principal liaison to the Hispanic community and the director of intergovernmental affairs in the Executive Office of the President, managing the White House’s relationships with state and local governments. She attained a formal waiver.
• Mark Patterson, the chief of staff to Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, was a lobbyist for financial giant Goldman Sachs in 2008.
• William Corr, anti-tobacco lobbyist until last year, was nominated to be deputy health and human services secretary.
• Melody Barnes lobbied in 2003 and 2004 for liberal advocacy groups and is now domestic policy council director.
• David Hayes, lobbyist for clients including San Diego Gas & Electric until 2006, was nominated as deputy interior secretary.
• Ron Kirk, Austin Texas lobbyist for Merrill Lynch until 2008, is Obama's nominee for U.S. Trade Representative. Obama's executive order only applies to federal lobbyists, which he is not.
• Eric Holder, lobbyist until 2004 for his client, the now-bankrupt telecom company Global Crossing, was a nominee for attorney general.
• Patrick Gaspard was a lobbyist for the Service Employees International Union. Now he is the White House political affairs director.
• Mona Sutphen was registered to lobby for various clients including London-based conglomerate Angliss International in 2003, and is now deputy White House chief of staff.
• Tom Vilsack, National Education Association lobbyist until 2008, was nominated for secretary of agriculture.
• Dan Turton was a lobbyist at Timmons & Company in 2006. He was briefly on the House Rules Committee before becoming a White House’s legislative affairs aide.
• Sean Kennedy lobbied for AT&T in 2006 and is now a White House legislative liaison.
• Ron Klain lobbyist until 2005 for such clients as Coalition for Asbestos Resolution, U.S. Airways, Airborne Express and drug-maker ImClone, is currently Joe Biden's chief of staff.
• Richard Verma, a lobbyist for Steptoe & Johnson, is rumored to be in line for the post of assistant secretary for legislative affairs at the State Department
• Mark Gitenstein, former lobbyist for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce who left the massive international law firm Mayer Brown last summer, is said to be Obama's choice to head the Justice Department's Office of Policy Development. He is also a long-time senior aide to Vice President Joe Biden.
• Emmett Beliveau, former lobbyist for the mega-firm Patton Boggs, is the White House’s director of advance and was the executive director for the presidential Inaugural committee.
• Tom Donilon, lobbyist for Fannie Mae until 2005, is a senior aid to Joe Biden.
• David Medina was a lobbyist for the AFL-CIO and worked for the U.S. Global Leadership Campaign in 2008 and is now the first lady’s deputy chief of staff.
• Michael Strautmanis lobbied for the American Association for Justice (a plaintiffs' lawyers' lobby) until 2005 and is now chief of staff to the president’s assistant for intergovernmental relations.

Though most of the above jobs for lobbyists do not obviously result in conflicts of interest, some obviously do. It is crystal clear that the real state of things does not match Presidential Candidate Obama's campaign promise nor President Obama's executive order.

But there is a more important question here: should Obama have ever made this promise at all?

The objective of all these appointments and this hiring is to get the most qualified people possible into positions that make the best use of their qualifications. The side effect of that is that the most qualified people often come with personal or professional biases which are detrimental to good government. Obama's promise, in essence, is choosing to abandon a certain amount of ability in order to minimize these biases; that is, to throw out all the bathwater and as few babies as possible. The obvious fallacy of throwing away parts of what you need is expressing itself in the Obama Administration's need to appoint some qualified lobbyists in order to keep the qualifications up generally.

Government needs able people, and the more able the better. The distortions of bias are contrary to good government, but so is tying an appointee's hands. Ignoring conflicts of interest is bad, but banning thousands of able people is bad, too. There's a third, better way. Rather than banning the bias, counter the bias. Rather than banning William Lynn from the Defense Department, team him with, say, a former lobbyist from another defense contractor and an Eisenhowerian critic of the military-industrial complex, all experts in the field and under orders to proceed officially only when largely in agreement. Thus, their biases defy each other, leaving only the quality of their arguments and their professional expertise to break the tie.

I'd love to say this was my original idea, but it's not. It is based on the ideas of James Madison from Federalist Paper #10, wherein he argues that the dispute of a great many factions results in policy congruent with the liberty and best interest of the whole; that is, that a great mass of respectful disagreement is more effective at producing good policy than is one or two overwhelming views. To summarize the summary, diversity is good.

It is abundantly clear, both by his promise and by the exceptions to it, that Obama is not pursuing plurality in this sense. Worse than breaking his promise is his failure to pursue at all the means with greater potential than those he promised.

Obama was right to try to prevent conflict of interest from driving Washington. In every other respect pertaining to this issue, his plan, his execution, his philosophy, he was wrong.

Reason and Faith

This post was inspired by two YouTube videos. The first was an interjection into a discussion of Myers-Briggs personality types in which a heartfelt man was very soberly questioning how a Intuitive Thinking personality type (in other words, one who strongly values rationality and intellectual reason as the means of decision-making) could believe religious tenants without proof.



I hope I respond with the same heartfelt honesty and compassion as the personality type hostess. In summary, she articulated that religious-based reasoning was just as logical as science-based reasoning or any other "factor X" that one might use as one's basis of reasoning.



I feel a responsibility to respond because I am a Intuitive Thinking type personality (INTP, to be specific) and also a deep, heartfelt believer when it comes to religion. When he says, "I do not understand how you can push the 'believe' button when there are no facts to back it up." it sounds very much like he is addressing me specifically.

There is a distinction that needs to be made right off the bat: there is a difference between logic and empiricism. Logic dependably leads from conclusions that are accepted ("givens" formally) to conclusions that are at least as true as the givens. If your givens are false, your conclusions can only be true by coincidence despite the best logic. Empiricism is the belief that anything not physically demonstrated true should be considered false. Logic alone does not dispute faith, but logic plus empiricism largely does.

Empiricism is a philosophy from which logic can begin. It is a possible "factor X", to borrow barcode9588's term. Religious faith is another. Agnostics often argue that empiricism and Christian faith both make unprovable claims, and thus it is irrational to trust conclusions derived from either.

Consider this: there is a planet orbiting the sun between Mars and Jupiter called Ceres. (Technically it's designated a dwarf planet, like Pluto.) It has existed at least as long as mankind has looked at the sky, but it was not identified until long after man invented telescope (1801, specifically). If someone had declared there to be more planets than were yet known in 1700 he would be just as right as a man claiming so today. But he would have no empirical proof. There is a hypothetical example of faith justified and, thus, an example of the fallibility of empiricism.

But I think your deeper question is "What reasonable way is there to choose the best philosophical basis for me to adopt?" I don't think any method is perfect and one-size-fits-all, but there are some things you may try.

Benjamin Franklin considered utility to determine which philosophy he should follow. In his young adulthood, he chose an atheistic, hedonistic philosophy of his own design. After betraying a friend over a girl, he was stricken with guilt over what he had done and blamed his atheism and hedonism. Thereafter he professed belief in God and tried to live by Biblical virtues (with limited success). You need not necessarily come to the same conclusion, but you might consider using the same means: which way of life makes you a happier person and best frees you from regrets? This could be termed the "lifestyle experiment."

In the 1830s, a young farm boy had a similar religious uncertainty on his mind read these words in the Bible: "If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him. But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering." (KJV James 1:5-6) He was convinced that God would answer his question if he both asked and fully believed it possible the answer could come. He asked and, so his story says, God answered his question in person. That is a unique and dramatic example, but testimonies of the general premise of tangible answers to a prayer are numerous and widespread. It may be considered an empirical experiment, though it is one that provides the answer to you alone. If there is no answer, only you can know for certain that you were open to the possibility at the time. If there is an answer, only you can know for certain that the touch you felt was real. This could be termed the "prayer experiment."

Either of these experiments are rational, arguably empirical ways to have faith (if the results support the faith). But, as I said, I assume the responsibility to answer your question personally.

I believe in God and the Bible not because morality and rationality dictate their truth but because they promote rationality and thereby promote morality. The internal logic of the Bible is such that it invites critical thinking, demands serious study for comprehension, and encourages the investigations of the motives of man and God. The Bible is a grand treatise against easy answers and bumper sticker philosophies. For every obviously moral commandment ("thou shalt not kill") there are exceptions and counter-arguments (David kills Goliath) which, in context, often seem moral. And a few (God commands Abraham to sacrifice Isaac) which do not. The intellectual action of trying to determine right from wrong given such a set of examples is an exercise in the same moral thinking that has been so necessary in helping moral philosophy keep pace with physical philosophy. If one were standing outside of the world looking down, watching humanity struggle toward civilization and morality, I can think of no action that would do more to persuade them to attain the psychological tools they need than to provide them with something very much like the Bible.

To me, at least, that logic fits enough to support sufficient faith to pray in earnest and to try to live by the morality I derive from the scriptures. These things, little by little, have built themselves into a rational basis for faith in something I cannot prove to you but which I know beyond my capability of doubt is true.

I see no failure of logic in saying "God lovingly watches over us." Nor do I require you to agree with me without the evidences I have known. I respect both logic and faith and cannot tell you whether, when, or which to choose between them.

I hope this testimony helps you in your search for comforting rational truth. I assure you, in the name of my savior Jesus Christ, that these things are as true as I know how to express. Or, as they would phrase it in church, Amen.

Obameter #177: Close Down Gitmo

Now here's a famous one: one of Obama's biggest campaign promises was to close the Guantanamo Bay Detention Center, which he saw as a symbol of injustice and a recruiting tool for the enemies of America. Since his election, this has proven easier said than done.

Technically, the office of President does not have the executive power to close Guantanamo. It costs money to close it, and thus it takes a vote of the legislature to provide the money. And the legislature has a major concern: where are the 240 remaining Guantanamo detainees going to go? Without some concrete plan from President Obama, even Democratic Majority Leader Harry Reid opposed the bill. Reid opined, "Democrats under no circumstances will move forward without a comprehensive, responsible plan from the president." Senator Daniel Inouye (D-HI) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) have also stated their opposition to the bill.

This could be a political play. It seems many politicians want credit for closing down the controversial prison, but none want credit for releasing it's detainees or putting them somewhere else of dubious security or justice. The detainees have seemingly become 240 hot potatoes that no one wants to touch.

Personally, I'm opposed to closing down the detention center until more substantial proof of wrongdoing to it's detainees is revealed. Despite events moving my way in that respect, I'm irritated that people are playing politics with such a dramatically important issue. On the one hand, there are 240 lives hanging in the balance and which deserve some planning on their behalf. On the other, many or most of them are dangerous enemies of America and of law and order generally. It was wrong for Bush to postpone any decisions until the next administration, and it's similarly wrong for Obama to plan so poorly for their post-Gitmo future.

I would strongly respect any politician who took this issue as their own, who made it their business to do the hard thing, to propose a system to judge the dangerous from the peaceable, and to send these detainees through such a judicial process to determine whether to release them into accepting countries or to sentence them. The problem since the Bush Administration has been that there was no appropriate jurisdiction for these detainees. So make one! You're the government. That's your job.

This issue is not Obama's finest hour.

Obameter #134: Send two brigades to Afghanistan

Since early in the campaign, Obama has maintained that George W. Bush's focus on Iraq has distracted from and crippled the military objectives in Afganistan. In his own words, "Our troops have fought valiantly there, but Iraq has deprived them of the support they need — and deserve. As a result, parts of Afghanistan are falling into the hands of the Taliban, and a mix of terrorism, drugs and corruption threatens to overwhelm the country. As president, I would deploy at least two additional brigades to Afghanistan to reinforce our counterterrorism operations and support NATO's efforts against the Taliban."

I don't believe that Iraq was a distracting or weakening influence on US endeavors in Afghanistan, but I do believe it is largely stabilized and well-in-hand. My reasoning for why to send troops to Afghanistan more closely matches McCain's, wherein he argued that counterterrorism strategies developed in Iraq would help win on the Afghani front as well. In either case, sending additional troops to Afghanistan, which has lost ground in the past two or three years, seems perfectly reasonable.

According to PolitiFact.org, Obama announced in February that he would send a Marine Expeditionary Brigade and a Army Stryker Brigade to Afghanistan. They called "promise kept" at that point, but I was interested to see if the troops actually arrived in Afghanistan. BBC reports that the Marine Expeditionary Brigade certainly did, while the AP reports that the Army Stryker Brigade has been hastily retrained for deployment in Afghanistan any day now.

I could make a big deal about the hasty retraining of an Army Stryker Brigade that has months of preparation and training for work in Iraq and how that contrasts with Obama's 2002 claim that he opposed "a rash war". Why is Bush's rush to Iraq bad, but the Strykers' rush to Afghanistan solid policy? But I trust the troops to adapt quickly and do a good job, so it's a minor quibble.

File this under "Good job, Mr. President."

---

On another note, I did the math and I need to do 5 Obamameter posts every 2 weeks to cover them all before Obama's first term ends. So I'll be stepping up the pace on these to about 3 a week. I should also explain my methodology: I've been running through the promises listed by PolitiFact, addressing promises with definitive conclusions first, and "Top Promises" first among those. After those distinctions, I've been running through them in number order. If I run out of promises with conclusive results, I'll cover "In The Works" promises, and lastly "No Action" promises (which currently constitute over 70% of the promises made). Promises covered as "In The Works" and "No Action" may be revisited later to note new progress. Now you know the plan, and knowing is half the battle.

"Fly Away Home" (1996)

Amy's parents split up a decade ago and she followed her mother halfway around the world to New Zealand. Now her mother has died in a car accident and she's staying with a half-crazy inventor father she barely remembers in southern Ontario. She has no reason to get up in the morning until she finds and rescues a nest of goose eggs. Now that they've hatched, she's mother to 16 feathered, honking babies. But geese learn to migrate from their parents, and these geese have none. How can a fourteen-year-old girl fly 500 miles?

This is a flat-out fantastic movie. The characters are a blast, alternatively fun and profound. They interact believably with each other and with the overall plot. There's a little family-movie cheese in the recipe, but it blends well with the unique and bizarre parts to feel mature and smart all around. Besides, it's a young Rogue from X-Men playing Amy, and the teaching-geese-to-migrate plot is based on an actual scientific experiment. What isn't cool about that?

Fact-Checking Ann Coulter

I often support right-wing pundits who are widely considered to be thoughtless radicals. It is a coincidence of perception; I don't support them because they are considered thoughtless radicals, but because I judge them to be inaccurately considered thoughtless radicals.

One such pundit is Ann Coulter. She says plenty of things that are inflammatory, so many people who are passingly aware of her work consider here solely inflammatory. This is not so. She says inflammatory things because many of her right-wing readers find them funny. Thus, her rhetoric attracts readers. But behind these shallow-but-effective marketing tricks stand her solid political analysis. She really is a smart political analyst looking for correlations and patterns that she believes have been largely ignored by the press for the past 40 years. Though she and I have approximately zero rhetorical style in common, I do relate to and respect her underlying analytical style.

Here's an example of a Coulter argument. Parts I believe to be ignorable rhetorical marketing are in blue, and her overall thesis is in red.

Every presidential assassin in the history of the nation has been a liberal—or has had no politics at all. None were right-wingers.

Actor/Activist John Wilkes Booth shot President Abraham Lincoln on April 14, 1865, because he was opposed to Lincoln’s Republican war policies. Booth, the Tim Robbins of his day, left a letter with his family explaining his actions, saying he loved “peace more than life” and denouncing Republicans for foisting the war on the South. He may have even used the word “Quagmire” to describe Gettysburg.

Charles J. Guiteau, who shot President James Garfield in 1881, had a long relationship with a utopian commune called tThe [sic] Oneida Community, where free love and communal child-rearing were practiced.

Leon Czolgosz, who killed President William McKinley in 1901, was a socialist and anarchist (okay, that’s redundant) who was captivated upon hearing a speech by radical socialist Emma Goldman the year he shot McKinley. If memory serves, Goldman’s inspirational speech had something to do with “hope” and “change.”

John Shrank, who shot and wounded Teddy Roosevelt in 19212 [sic, correctly: 1912], seemed to have no political beliefs other than a strong opposition to third terms, —which Roosevelt was then campaigning for.

Giuseppe Zangara, who narrowly missed shooting President-elect Franklin Roosevelt in 1933, was consumed by envy of the rich and sought to assassinate “all capitalist presidents and kings.” Earlier, Zangara had plotted to kill Republican President Herbert Hoover, because both Hoover and Roosevelt were “capitalists.” Yes, you heard me right: This would-be assassin was to the left of FDR.

Lee Harvey Oswald, who shot President John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963, was a stone-cold Communist ever since he read a Communist pamphlet about Julius and Ethel Rosenberg as a teenager. Incensed by racial discrimination in America, he defiantly rode in the black sections of buses as a child. Oswald studied Russian and moved to the U.S.S.R. in his late teens, hoping to avoid the rush. When his application for Soviet citizenship was declined, he slit his wrists. Oswald eventually returned to the U.S. with his Russian wife and child, where he continued to plot an escape to a socialist paradise such as Cuba or Red China.

Ginned up by publications of the Communist Party and Socialist Workers Party—, “The Worker” and “The Militant,” respectively—, Oswald first tried to kill Maj. Gen. Edwin A. Walker, a John Bircher. Ten days before shooting at Walker—and missing—Oswald had posed for a photograph holding his guns and copies of the socialist publications denouncing Walker. Some of you will recognize this photo as Randi Rhodes’s screen saver.

Oswald next plotted to kill former Vice President Richard Nixon, but got distracted the day Nixon was in Dallas. He spent the next several months passing out “Fair Play for Cuba” leaflets he had written himself. In between “You never take me anywhere!” arguments with his wife, Oswald tried to talk her into helping him hijack a plane to Cuba, so he could fight in defense of the revolution.

When he was arrested for shooting Kennedy, Oswald immediately placed a call to John Abt, lawyer for the American Communist Party, planning to ask Abt to defend him, so he could use his trial to showcase his Marxist beliefs. He never got the chance, thanks to Jack Ruby.

Sirhan Sirhan, who shot Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Robert Kennedy on June 5, 1968, was a Palestinian extremist angry with Kennedy for his support of Israel. For more on this worldview, see the works of Noam Chomsky.

So how much of this analysis is legit, how much is cherry-picking, and how much is outright crap? Go ahead and put the blue sections in the "outright crap" category right away.

Is there any dispute she was right about Leon Czolgosz, Lee Harvey Oswald, and Giuseppe Zangara being leftists? Or about John Shrank being crazy rather than political?

As a Know-Nothing, a slavery promoter, and a Confederate patriot, John Wilkes Booth was primarily motivated by racism, not peacenik leftism as Coulter subtly suggests. But his neutrality on the left/right scale is not enough to dispute Coulter's overall point: she allows for the possibility of non-leftists as assassins, just not right-wingers.

Charles J. Guiteau was indeed a member of the Oneida Community and it's "complex marriage" free love experiment. That community also performed a kind of ritual birth control that draws a lot of parallels with the sex ed/condoms/abortion policies of the American left, though it was not so high-tech. Guiteau was only awkwardly connected to this society, but I think it's fair evidence of "leftism" by modern standards.

Duran Duran Sirhan Sirhan acted as an Arab Nationalist first and foremost. While it is not necessarily required for one to support Israel to be a right-winger, Americans leftists who support Israel tend to be called "neoconservative" or "Joseph Lieberman". Yes, the mention of Noam Chomsky is a cheap joke, but the anti-Israel parallel is real. He's doesn't really fit into the American left, but he fits even less into the American right.

Perhaps the biggest criticism of Coulter's analysis, though, is how few assassins are on the list. Even Reagan's would-be assassin, John Hinckley, wasn't mentioned (though, by reason of insanity, he doesn't dispute her thesis either). Richard Lawrence, who attempted to shoot Andrew Jackson and got beat with a cane for his trouble, was also motivated by madness rather than politics.

Oscar Collazo and Griselio Torresola attempted to assassinate President Truman in the name of Puerto Rican independence. This instance, like John Wilkes Booth, has more to do with disputed sovereignty than with political partisanship. Unlike Booth, Collazo and Torresola were considered heroes by Fidel Castro and Cuba's communist government. Also, the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party split up in the 60s and many factions joined up with various socialist movements. That suggests that this is a left-wing nationalist movement, though I admit ignorance on much of this history.

Formal postal employee Richard Pavlick was going to ram his bomb-laden car into Kennedy's out of a kind of anti-Catholic paranoia, later saying "Kennedy money bought the White House and the presidency." However, seeing JFK saying goodbye to his wife and two little kids gave him a pang of conscience that prevented the attack, and getting pulled over with explosives still in his car ensured he'd never have another opportunity. He spent most of the rest of his life in mental institutions. I think Pavlick is the origin of the "disgruntled postal worker" stereotype and the related phrase "going postal". File him under C for Crazy.

Samuel Byck believed the US government was conspiring to oppress the poor, and thus hoped to crash a commercial airline into Richard Nixon's White House. It never took off, and Byck committed suicide rather than be brought in. Half crazy half leftist, then?

Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme of the Manson Family cult pulled a gun on President Gerald Ford at point blank range. I don't think she ever intended to hurt anyone, but rather to be sent to jail to be with the rest of the Family. A free love hippy commune clearly qualifies as left-wing. Also, she's the origin of the phrase "squeaky clean" because she had no real connections to the Manson Family murders, just to the murderers.

Frank Corder, who crashed an airplane on the White House lawn during the Clinton Administration, is widely believed to have been just plain drunk. No politics here.

Francisco Duran fired 29 shots toward the White House at a man he believed was President Clinton. It wasn't, and no one was hurt. In court, he argued alternately that he was trying to save the world from aliens and that he was incited by talk show host Chuck Baker (whom Wikipedia describes as "ultraconservative" but who sounds just plain violent by this description). I've gotta concede he's a right-wing nutjob, though he's more nutjob than anything and no kind of right-wing I support.

Former IRS agent Richard Pickett fired shots from a pistol at the White House while it was occupied by George W. Bush. White House security fired back and nearly killed him. He was on 24 different medications at the time and had been in psychiatric care for the 15 previous years. It is considered by many to be a textbook example of a suicide by cop attempt. (Apparently, violent hatred of George W. Bush is so commonplace that Robert Pickett is not considered noteworthy enough to have his own Wikipedia page.)

All in all, I count 5 clear leftists, 6 clear crazies, 2 political neutrals, 1 leftist/crazy tossup, and 1 right-wing/crazy tossup. Obviously and unsurprisingly the most common reason for an assassination attempt is "crazy". But left-wing politics are the second most common reason, and right-wing politics are least common. Coulter's claim that no assassins are right-wingers may not be precisely true, but there is a pattern in that direction. Could there be a reason?

Perhaps a quote from Oscar Collazo (the Puerto Rican Nationalist would-be assassin) sheds some light on the subject. When asked why he targeted Truman, a very pro-Puerto Rico President, Collazo said Truman was "a symbol of the system. You don't attack the man, you attack the system." Murderous right-wing crazies, like Timothy McVeigh and Ted Kaczynski, obviously had no problem attaching the system directly while ignoring symbolic figureheads. I wonder if the prioritization of symbolism over practical effect corresponds more to left-wing ideologies, whereas giving the practical higher priority than the symbolic fits better with right-wing politics. Or perhaps that's only true when plotting the downfall of institutions.

All in all, though, Ann Coulter's descriptions of the various assassins seems largely (though not entirely) in line with the facts, and her thesis seems statistically true (though, with one semi-right-winger on the list, not universally true). It's an interesting take on things, and leads to a reasonable analysis of reality that might otherwise not be had. Things like this are why I remain a fan, despite her heavy-handed hyperbole.

Random Silliness

I'm not in the mood for a serious post. So, instead, here's Adam from Mythbusters making an idiot of himself for your amusement. Enjoy!

Obameter #32: Making Work Pay

When Obama said he was offering a tax cut to 95% of American families, this is the program he had in mind: the Making Work Pay tax credit. According to a recent CBS editorial, 43.4% of the population pays zero (or less) in taxes. This exposes a mild deceptiveness to the idea of a "tax cut" for 95% of people, but it's a negligible complaint. In the sludgy pool of ineffective welfare ideas, paying people to work is one of the better ones.

The way Making Work Pay works is that the government pays you 6.2% of what you earn until you've earned $8,100. 6.2% of $8,100 is about $500. The House of Representatives proposed a bill that matched Obama's plans, but the Senate was worried about the cost of the bill and cut it down to a maximum of $400 per person. Obama signed it into law on 17 Feb. 2009. PolitiFact calls it a compromise, and such it is.

There is a fine distinction between a tax cut and a tax credit that this analysis ignores. A standard tax cut involves lowering the percentage of your income you're paying to the government; for example, dropping the tax rate on the first $8,350 from 10% (where it currently is) to, say, 3.8% would be a tax cut. A typical tax credit reduces your taxes by some specific dollar amount for doing something the government likes at an income level the government approves. For example, the US child tax credit program gives a $1,000 tax credit per child to families making under some specific income threshold (it's a complicated math equation to determine the exact threshold).

It is often mistakenly said that a tax cut can never produce a debt from the government to the taxpayer while a tax credit can. An obvious example of a tax credit creating a government payout to a "taxpayer" is a single parent making $8,100 a year. The tax rate declares that they owe $810 in taxes, but the child tax credit ensures at least a $1,000 credit from the government. The "taxpayer" in this case is making at least $190 from the government. However, a negative tax rate would produce a welfare program, too, and has been recommended by such great Republican capitalists as Milton Friedman. There is not really a distinction between tax cuts and tax credits on that point.

The real distinction is why you're paying fewer taxes. In a tax rate cut, you're paying less in taxes because the government is simply taking less money. With a tax credit, you're paying less money because you're conforming to more governmental rules. The former is an increase of freedom, whereas the latter is not. Usually the rules aren't very controversial things (having children, being gainfully employed, starting a small business, etc), but the government programs are potentially paying people for things that are not necessarily helping anyone be better off. The classic criticism along this line is the example of a welfare mom, a hypothetical woman who refuses to marry and has another kid whenever her budget doesn't quite stretch far enough. Not every taxpayer is delighted with the idea of their money being used to motivate single mothers to get pregnant again.

$3,600b 2009 Federal Budget

Previously discussed wasteful spending

Making Work Pay tax credit program

But how does this relate to Obama's MWP program specifically? After all, he's merely paying people a little to be gainfully employed. The final price tag on the program was $116.2 billion, which is about 3 cents on the dollar of Obama's budget for the year. The worst abuse of the system I can imagine is someone making exactly $6,451 a year in order to maximize the benefit from MWP. I don't expect the program to be hugely effective, but I've seen no way in which it's a horrible idea or open to severe abuses. If the Obama Administration would call it a tax credit and a welfare program, I'd have no criticism of it at all.

The Four Gosples of the New Testament

The thoughts and actions of Jesus of Nazareth are the most important teachings in the Christian tradition, and the most intimate accounts of Jesus' life are given in the four canonical Gospels of the New Testament: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. But on many simple points these Gospels seemingly disagree. Many stories appear in only one or two of the gospels. Some of the events happen in different orders, or are described differently. But unlikelier still is the exactly identical wording sometimes used in multiple gospels to describe the same events. Outside of scripture it is radically uncommon for two eyewitnesses to describe the same occurrence in exactly the same words.

Sometimes the differences in content but similarity in wording is explained by historians of early Christianity by the theory that one or two original documents served as source material for the gospels as we have them today. I'm inclined to believe that in their close association and intimate discussion of these events, certain word patterns became customarily used by the apostles (presumably authors of the gospels) in describing certain events and teachings of Jesus and his life. Having heard an emotionally striking description of some event, they then associate that exact wording with that event. Such lingo is typical among any group that frequently discusses a topic together or who have all heard the same stirring speech. As influential as he was on world history, I assume Jesus of Nazareth was an emotionally powerful speaker.

The Gospel of John especially is the testimony of a believer rather than the argument of a historian. It seemingly references the stories of Jesus without telling them, expecting that the reader already knows them. It tries to explain the meaning of many events taken together rather than describing the physical events themselves. That the Gospel of John is not strictly chronological or literal makes it difficult to compare to the more straightforward gospels, but it's style (like all good poetry and art) suggests a deeper, more substantial meaning is contained within.

It would be extremely interesting to see a set intersection gospel, so to speak; a story of Jesus' life that contains only events depicted in all four canon gospels. I wonder whether it would depict the core of Christian beliefs succinctly and simply, or merely surprise us with it's brevity.

Personally, I find the diversity of the gospels symbolically important. When God provided the most important doctrinal information ever assembled, he offered it not as a monolithic, indisputable authority but as a diversity of views. Thus, perfection is not in plainly stated fact, but in the motive and activity necessary to seek pure truth from a diversity. It is not knowing but learning which is divine. That could be a major motivating factor in the elevation of plurality and mutual tolerance to their modern lofty status among social virtues in western culture.

God is good.

Presidential Humor

As impressed as I am by jokes told by occupants of the Oval Office, it bothers me how few Presidents were genuinely funny. Lincoln was renowned for his bottomless supply of funny anecdotes, and Reagan was an entertainer even in his Presidential years, but most of the other Presidents fall a little flat. Nonetheless, here's a little sampling of the humor of our Presidents.

When Abraham Lincoln contracted a mild case of small pox, he said of it "Yes, it is a bad disease, but it has its advantages. For the first time since I have been in office I have something to give everybody that calls."

Calvin Coolidge was known for how little he actually spoke. "Silent Cal" was typically content to appoint experts to their posts and trust them to handle things well, and he rarely contributed substantially to social events. At once such social event, a woman approached him and begged him to talk to her. "You see," she told him, "I have a wager with a friend of mine. She says I can't get you to say three words to me." President Coolidge replied, "You lose."

Franklin Roosevelt became dissatisfied with the official housekeeper for the White House, a Mrs. Nesbitt, and the boring, bland meals she prepared. "I'm getting to the point where my stomach positively rebels," he complained, "and this does not help my relations with foreign powers. I bit two of them today."

Ronald Reagan told this one: "It is said that Castro was giving a speech to a large assembly. And he was going on at great length, and then a voice from the crowd said 'Peanuts, popcorn, crackerjack.' He went on speaking, and again the voice said 'Peanuts, popcorn, crackerjack.' And about the fourth time this happened, he stopped in his regular speech and he said, 'And the next time he says that I'm going to find out who he is and kick him all the way to Miami.' And everyone said, 'Peanuts, popcorn, crackerjack.'"

Media coverage and security concerns had virtually eliminated any sense of privacy within the White House long before Bill Clinton was elected. When President Clinton gave him a tour of the White House, political consultant Paul Begala was overwhelmed by the grandeur of the place. Upon entering the Oval Office, his knees nearly buckled. "Don't let it get to you," remarked Clinton dryly. "This is the crown jewel of the Federal penal system."

"Sneakers" (1992)

In 1969, Martin Brice (Robert Redford) and his buddy Cosmo (Ben Kingsley) were cracking into Richard Nixon's personal checking account and donating his money to left-wing causes. Cosmo tricks Martin into braving the icy weather to get some pizza, but the police show up and arrest Cosmo. Martin escapes and spends the next 20 years hiding his identity and assembling a crack team of crackers-for-hire, running security tests on banks by breaking into them and such. But now the NSA has discovered his identity and is requiring him to pull a heist for them -- find Professor Janik's little black box, an electronic device that can crack computer encryption in seconds instead of decades. Anybody wanna black out New England? Crash a few passenger jets? There isn't a government in the world that wouldn't kill them all for that thing. And, as it turns out, the guys that hired them are a front for the mob. Too many secrets.

Sneakers is a terrific heist film from 1992. It has perhaps the most polished writing in any movie, terrific tension, a great sense of humor, an all-star cast (I especially love Dan Aykroyd as the paranoid conspiracy buff "Mother"), and a sense of same-as-life-size realism (rather than larger-than-life) that is sorely missing in more modern movies. And it does it all within the confines of a well-deserved, family-friendly PG-13 rating. It is an absolute joy, a treat for the geek, spy, wonk, or sneak-thief in all of us.

Obameter #15: Foreclosure Prevention Fund

In late 2006, the misses and I were considering whether to buy a house. We could afford to get a loan only if we paid interest and ignored the principle for a few years, then paid a much higher payment later. We decided it was too much of a gamble, assuming that we'd be financially well-off later without any clear plan how to make it happen. Thanks to some bad employment decisions, I now make less than I did then. If we'd decided the other way, we would very likely be among those losing their houses today.

Back in 2008, Obama promised a $10 billion program to help people facing foreclosure to refinance and probably keep their homes. Shortly after his election, he released the details of his plan. It doesn't affect investors, people who obtained their loans by fraud, and people who cannot afford their mortgages even with refinancing; assuming government had to do something, it's a well-aimed plan. The price tag jumped to $75 billion plus an option for $200 billion more for Fanny Mae and Freddie Mac (the government-backed, recently bankrupted morgage companies of Federal takeover fame). Says PolitiFact.org, "Obama exceeded the terms of his campaign promise."

That is not "keeping his promise" from all perspectives. To those who worry about government spending too much money, promising 7 to 27 times as much as originally promised looks like tens or hundreds of billions of dollars in wasteful spending.

Can saving people's homes really be a waste? If I had chosen the other way and was in an unaffordable home today, wouldn't I be first in line to get any help I could to keep my home? Yes, I probably would. Even though the decision to buy a home I couldn't afford was a bad one, I imagine I'd want to keep the home.

But the bigger concern is whether I'm entitled to that money. Making a bad decision does not earn me entitlement to other people's money; on the contrary, I should be less trusted with money due to my mismanagement of it. The Obama Forclosure Prevention Fund has promised an average of $1,250 from every adult in the USA to people who made similar risky decisions. $275 billion / 220 million adults = $1,250 per adult.

But maybe I'm being extreme. The $200 billion promise to Fanny Mae and Freddie Mac probably won't be needed. $75 billion / 220 million adults = $341 per adult. Futher, that number is an average; people who have more paid more, and people who have less paid less.

I made the right decision when I didn't buy a house I couldn't afford. Why am I being deprived of hundreds of dollars for making the right decision, which money goes to fund those who made the wrong decision? Aren't we promoting exactly the wrong behavior when we take personal consequences away from personal decisions?

$3,600b 2009 Federal Budget

$75b Foreclosure Prevention Fund

$200b option for Fanny Mae/Freddie Mac

It's a small example, though. The Obama's 2009 Federal Budget is in the neighborhood of $3.6 trillion dollars. The Foreclosure Prevention Fund is only about 2 cents per dollar of that budget. If the other 98 cents are well-spent then I have no overall criticism.

Introducing, Your Host and My Close Personal Friend...

Hi there. I'm Psudo. There's no 'e' in my name.

My blog is titled "Psudo Scholar" because it's a pretty good description of myself. I'm not really a scholar, but I'm interested in learning and often very thorough in my studies of various topics. I don't have any impressive degrees nor have I been to any impressive universities, but I'm pretty smart and spend a lot of my time studying topics that interest me; things like politics, religion, TV shows and movies, and interesting bits of history.

In the coming days, I'll be trying to create a habit of daily blog posting on whatever topic interests me at that moment. The following are a few of my goals. We'll see how well I achieve them.

• One post per week will pertain to religion, typically on Sunday. I'm LDS.
  
• One post per week will pertain to the White House, starting with analysis of the issues surrounding Obama's various campaign promises.
  
• One post per month will be a short biography of a historically important figure, typically an US founding father or similar American hero. I may eventually revisit the same heros a few times in order to cast them in a different light or tout different achievements.
  

I'll probably also rant about video games (typically very old ones), movies (of all ages), work stuff (I currently work at Walmart), and other assorted debris of dubious interest. I hope you enjoy it, but even more I hope you'll dispute me when I'm wrong.