Category: News and Opinion

Many on the left side of the spectrum have made the excellent point that most of the experts who were disastrously wrong about Iraq are still being listened to with respect despite their previous misjudgments.

Thursday’s Huffington Post has a column that makes that point.

And it pains me when the Kristols and Friedmans of the world, who were so wrong on Iraq, keep drawing pay checks (big ones), while other columnists — who got that story right and were brave enough to say so — have been sidelined by the mainstream media.

Bill Hammond of the Daily News writes in favor of capping the permitted increase in school property taxes in New York State, in order to prevent school districts from continuing to ramp them up no matter how much aid they receive.  I'm glad that someone is willing to concede that New York State school spending outside the city is too high, far higher than is needed for a superb education let alone an adequate one.  Hammond recommends capping property tax increases at 2 1/2 per year, as Massachusetts has.  As I've noted many times, however, a tax cap based on a percentage increase from the current level merely guarantees that those who have spent the most will continue to be permitted to spend the most, forever, while those spending less (admittedly a shrinking group) can never catch up, no matter what.  Worse, thanks to STAR, it ensures that those currently spending more will continue to receive more state education assistance than those spending less. 

In my prior post, I provided and discussed New York State’s overall Medicaid spending in 2005, and spending by category of service. In this post, I’ll briefly discuss spending by age of beneficiary — a spreadsheet is attached for your further review. As noted, New York State accounted for 6.5% of the people in the United States, 7.3% of the poor people (2006 data), 9.3% of poor Americans over age 65 — and 8.4% of Medicaid beneficiaries. But there is a group for which New York’s share of U.S. Medicaid beneficiaries is much closer to its share of the overall population — those 18 and under. And, for that same group, spending per beneficiary is generally 25% to 50% higher than then national average, a fact related to the higher cost of living here. For those in some other age groups, spending per recipient is 70% or more higher than the national average, and/or New York State accounts for 10% or more of U.S. Medicaid recipients. I don’t think anyone is prepared to concede that New York State is cheating its children out of required Medicaid-financed services. So perhaps the number of child beneficiaries, and spending on them, is what one has to expect given the state’s higher poverty rate, higher cost of living Downstate, and one would hope greater generosity. New York should expect to account for 8% to 11% of the nation’s Medicaid spending, despite accounting for just 7.6% of its personal income. For other groups, another explanation is required for higher spending.

The Medicaid by State data cube, published by the Center for Medicare and Medicaid, is only finished when the last state gets the required information in. Based on past experience I have learned to not bother looking for the data from two years ago until December, but in this case when I looked all 50 states had been in since early October. I have belatedly downloaded a couple of crosstabulations – one by type of service and state (attached), and one by age of beneficiary and state (next post). The patterns remain consistent with past years. New York State continues to spend a large amount overall, despite low spending in some cases. New York State accounted for 6.5% of the people in the United States, 7.3% of the poor people (2006 data) and 9.3% of poor Americans over age 65. The large share of older Americans in poverty is related to our large share of older Americans overall, an outgrowth of slow population growth that we share with the rest of the Northeast. New York State accounted for 8.6% of all U.S. Medicaid beneficiaries, somewhat above its share of the poor. Adjacent Northeastern states (New Jersey, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts and Vermont), on the other hand, collectively accounted for 10.7% of Americans, 8.9% of poor Americans, 10.3% of poor Americans over age 65 – and 8.3% of Medicaid beneficiaries, somewhat less than their share of poor Americans.

The New York Sun reports "a state-regulated insurance pool for high-risk physicians, the Medical Malpractice Insurance Plan, is currently $500 million in debt…The deficit has to go somewhere eventually, unless we turn lead into gold or print money." The article is here http://www.nysun.com/article/68523?page_no=1. The likely result is soaring malpractice insurance fees, therefore higher health care costs, higher deductables, higher copayments and out of pocket expenses, and more uninsured. This is yet another $500 million that someone else (depending on one's ideology) either should have paid or should not have received in the past. Regardless of ideology, those demanding good deals for themselves in the past have caused $500 million in additional harm to us going forward. The only question is who was to blame. I see a bipartisan arrangement that passes 212 to 0 every year.

Everywhere one looks, one finds the same thing. How many more $500 millions are there? And how is it that I and my children and their children are responsible for them? How is that those in the legislature who made the decisions are considered heroes for handing out benefits in the past, and will have guaranteed health care and tax-free pensions even after they stop "working" in the future? Is evil too strong a word for the unspoken values behind what has gone on?  The more I think about it, the more it seems reneging on debt and pension obligations is the only way out.  Because we don't have real elections for legislative office, and because the constitutional provision that debts passed on to the future must pass by referendum is a joke, it is the only defense we have.  Eventually they'll be nothing left to lose.  Any reasonable estimate of the future has to assume an ongoing degredation of public services and benefits with high and rising taxes. 

Last week I wrote about the theory of the two electorates. One point I was trying to make is that media coverage of politics is so often wrong because those in the informed electorate assume that the vast majority knows more than they do.

An article in Monday’s New York Times about how Rudy Giuliani has dropped in the polls is a good example of the media refusing to understand this.

From The Times:

Mr. Giuliani’s position has changed notably from even a month ago. For much of this year, Republicans had expressed admiration, and some surprise, at the extent to which he appeared to have dealt with concerns about his views on abortion and gay rights, as well as his private life. Mr. Giuliani showed significant leads in most national polls; he routinely drew warm and enthusiastic receptions from audiences more conservative than he. His advisers say that a recent run of negative news reports, focusing on an extramarital affair and his association with Bernard Kerik, the disgraced former police commissioner that Mr. Giuliani recommended as homeland security secretary, is beginning to take a toll. “I am a little disappointed with his personal life,” said Elisabeth Ackerson, speaking about Mr. Giuliani after attending a Town Hall meeting for Mr. Romney on Saturday evening in Londonderry, N.H. She said was trying to decide among Mr. Romney, Mr. McCain and Mr. Giuliani.

With a load of extra work, hurting fingers and wrists, and a schedule overload, I’ve haven’t been able to write much. So rather than a lecture, I’ll ask a question. If you could choose five questions for the Presidential debates (primary or general), what would they be? The questions actually asked tend to disappoint me, as they are either policy softballs or regurgitations of character assassinations that, given the character of many of the candidates, amount to beating dead horses. If I were asking the questions, they would be probes of the values behind policies, which is what I tend to write about.

Last Friday, I went to hear Charlie Cook, publisher of the Cook Political Report speak about the 2008 Elections at Fordham University’s Center for Electoral Politics and Democracy.

Among the smart and interesting things Cook said was that voters download information about candidates at different times – that people who follow politics learned a lot about the 2008 candidates at the beginning of campaigns and others learn later. Many, Cook said, won’t start paying attention until after the 2008 World Series.

I thought that was smart because it fits a new theory of mine.

I call it the theory of the two electorates and this is it:

Thinking of joining the exodus of people to more dynamic Sunbelt metros with lower taxes, better schools, and cheaper housing? Places where past generations haven’t already extracted all the benefits and left behind the debts? Places where a suburban lifestyle can still be had? Well beware, because as this http://www.charlotte.com/253/story/397430.html article shows, some of the problems that may be coming to a suburb near us have already hit one of the most prosperous metros in the country. And it makes one wonder how this country of hyper-mobile, non-citizen consumers will cope with a serious recession if it comes.

The first time I met NYC councilman David Yassky it was at a candidate’s forum at St. Francis College in Brooklyn. This was back in 2001; he was running against a quality field of democrats in a primary. He was quite impressive with his knowledge of political issues and public policy; but then, after all, he did work once with Senator Charles Schumer; just as Anthony Weiner-the current congressman and mayoral candidate- did at one time. These are two bright individuals folks; albeit, little cocky and arrogant at times (both of them). Yassky is much humbler than Weiner though, but they are both: smart, talented, educated and articulate.