Low Hanging Fruit - Thoughts on a Legislative Agenda
By Paul Silver | Related entries in Ideas, Legislation, NewsLow hanging fruit are those policies in which the party leaders are closer together than further apart.
- Raise the minimum wage
- Give middle class families a tax deduction for tuition offset by increasing the tax on the rich.
- Allow Medicare to negotiate bulk purchase of drugs
- Senate Immigration plan.
- Redirect Energy industry tax breaks towards renewable energy methods.
- Implement the 9/11 Commission recommendations.
- Restore Iraq contract oversight
- Reduce corporate subsidies not in the national interest.
- Ethics reform. More transparency.
- Limit earmarks.
- Redistricting reform and more open primaries, move election day to Saturday.
- Remove barriers to competition in the Health Insurance industry.
- Remove ideological restrictions on sex education and access to day after pills.
- Concede that the country is not yet ready for Gay Marriage but is for civil unions.
- Set a threshold for Estate Taxes and move on.
- Simplify Taxes - combine a flatter tax with a higher consumption tax.
- State Children’s Health Insurance Program
- No Child Left Behind
- Social Security adjustments: raise retirement age, remove tax cap, Means testing.
- Set up standing bipartisan teams to work out the more controversial issues.
It would be reassuring to hear of a steady stream of policy reconciliations over the next few years until we get to the really hard stuff like a flag burning amendment. ;-)
This entry was posted on Thursday, November 9th, 2006 and is filed under Ideas, Legislation, News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
November 9th, 2006 at 1:01 pm
Beware of the mixed metaphors in terms of “low hanging fruit.” The Dems will have proven themselves congenital idiots if they try this - talk about handing someone like me a gift. Note to Dems: Stay away from all sex issues and you might do alright in 2008. If you get cocky on the social progressive side, you will have squandered your chance.
November 9th, 2006 at 2:07 pm
I’m afraid the dems consider low hanging fruit as those items which only please their base regardless of the impact to national interest. Take minimum wage - a bunch of middle class teenagers will get a raise for nothing. That has the potential to clobber small business and increase inflation and then push interest rates up, hurting everybody. It won’t impact the majority of big corporations such as Walmart since they already pay above the min.
Then sex and gay marrige - that would be stupid. Remember Clinton and gays in the military? What a mess that was.
Social security - What about private accounts? Great for the younger generation. Also the defacto business model now. Look at US auto companies to get a clue about the disaster waiting to happen with guaranteed benefits.
Tax breaks for renewable energy - Better look at what happened in the seventies and not repeat that stupid mistake. A bunch of money went up in smoke with almost nothing gained.
No child left behind - I know several good teachers that left the profession because of the huge increase in government paperwork plus loss of teaching “freedom”. They weren’t being allowed to teach. It’s a mess.
I say think first, then act. The dems want to do everything in 100 days. That allows about zero time for thinking. Stupid things will happen as a result. But the base will be pleased, at least at first.
November 9th, 2006 at 2:16 pm
Lewis,
There are a lot of things wrong with what you just said, but here are just a few rebuttals.
1. Minimum Wage - If you live in an urban area, there are very few middle-class teenagers working minimum wage jobs and a great many single moms and other adults who are trying to put food on the table.
2. Gay Marriage - It’s only stupid if you think all citizens in this country do not deserve equal rights.
November 9th, 2006 at 2:30 pm
My criteria for including an item on the list was whether there was meaningful sympathy for a certain remedy in both parties. It was not a “Democrats wish list”.
November 9th, 2006 at 3:14 pm
Out of curiousity - what are the Dems defining as “rich” these days?
November 9th, 2006 at 3:30 pm
I dunno, Dos? How much you making?
Dems probably won’t raise taxes for fear of a Bush veto but they certainly won’t renew the Bush tax cut. I’m not a tax cut absolutists but before I support a new tax I always like to know why no current expenditures can be cut instead. I find it hard to believe that nothing can be cut out of the current federal budget–Dems should start there.
As for the minimum wage, what was the economic effect on small businesses the last time the wage was raised? I think the answer to that question is important. It’s one of those issues that my heart says “yes!” but my mind wants to know a lot more facts. Unfortunately, when it comes to the minimum wage, most discussions are full of political bias and theory.
November 9th, 2006 at 4:57 pm
Alan - on paper - I make almost nothing. In fact, I go out of my way to lose money. I consider breathing a tax deductible activity. I lease everything I own to my business and I take a W2 with a piss ant salary and give myself my vehicle and my house as a fringe benefit. I am constantly deliquent to myself and find myself writing demand letters to me. In short, I take a loss at every conceivable turn and a few I just create.
The problem is Mrs. DosPeros who has her own business and is successful. She is annoyingly honest with the government and despite my best efforts, she refuses to be…creative.
So back to my question: I want to know what the Dems consider to be “rich”. It should be a simple question to answer for all you little Trotskyites out there with your clearly defined class lines. There are two Americas, right — I want to know which one I fall in.
November 9th, 2006 at 5:04 pm
And the “asshole side” does not count as an answer, Sleipner.
November 9th, 2006 at 5:18 pm
“meaningful sympathy for a certain remedy in both parties.�
I don’t think so. Half this stuff would get you burnt at the stake here in Alabama. Here is my take on the list.
Probably will fly:
- Allow Medicare to negotiate bulk purchase of drugs
- Raise the minimum wage
- Restore Iraq contract oversight
Only if you give the other side something of equal value:
- Remove barriers to competition in the Health Insurance industry.
- Set a threshold for Estate Taxes and move on.
Liberal dreams that are D.O.A:
- Give middle class families a tax deduction for tuition offset by increasing the tax on the rich.
- Remove ideological restrictions on sex education and access to day after pills.
- Concede that the country is not yet ready for Gay Marriage but is for civil unions.
- State Children’s Health Insurance Program
Nice ideas that are just to hard for spineless greedy politicians to implement:
- Ethics reform. More transparency.
- Limit earmarks.
- Redistricting reform and more open primaries, move election day to Saturday.
- Simplify Taxes - combine a flatter tax with a higher consumption tax.
- Set up standing bipartisan teams to work out the more controversial issues.
- Reduce corporate subsidies not in the national interest.
Intractable problems with no viable political solution:
- Redirect Energy industry tax breaks towards renewable energy methods.
- Implement the 9/11 Commission recommendations
- Social Security adjustments: raise retirement age, remove tax cap, Means testing.
- Senate Immigration plan.
- No Child Left Behind
November 9th, 2006 at 8:40 pm
Meredith,
My comment on sex and gay marriage or civil unions was just an observation about what happened to Clinton. It really tripped him up right at the beginning, which was a shame. American society hasn’t progressed all that far since then so it’s logical to assume that the results today would be similar. But dems can knock themselves out and discover that the hard way. Lets see, was it 1 out of 7 where the ban on gay marriage didn’t pass on Tuesday?
On minimun wage, I set that one up assuming someone would remember earlier debate concerning the “teenager exception”. That proposal would set up a sub-minimum wage for teenagers just working summer jobs for spending money. That is an idea worth considering, especially if you care about the survival of small business, the engine of job creation in our economy.
November 9th, 2006 at 10:12 pm
I’m going to debate with myself. The problem with the teenager exception is that small business will naturally try to hire teenagers who they can pay less rather than poor single mothers trying to earn a living wage. Or they just won’t hire anybody.
So now what? Well the point is that government can’t cover all the bases. Business people are just too smart. Their primary goal is to reduce costs. Maybe the government should go after all those deadbeat dads who don’t pay child support. Make it very painful for young men to irresponsibly father children. That I think has a better chance of success with helping unwed mothers while not upsetting the business environment.
I had an interesting discussion with a businessman from the Netherlands. He hates the European system and wishes it was more like ours. Get this - if the fire any employee, even a lazy deadbeat one, they have to pay their full salary plus benefits for 18 months. Consequently, they are very reluctant to hire new employees. This makes their businesses less innovative and very sluggish to respond to the constantly changing and very competitive global business environment. The result is sluggish economic growth and high unemployment. We should thank our lucky stars that we don’t have a mess like that in our country, at least not yet.
November 10th, 2006 at 12:00 am
DosPeros said:
“Beware of the mixed metaphors in terms of ‘low hanging fruit.’ The Dems will have proven themselves congenital idiots if they try this - talk about handing someone like me a gift. Note to Dems: Stay away from all sex issues and you might do alright in 2008. If you get cocky on the social progressive side, you will have squandered your chance.”
Dos, we don’t necessarily agree and certainly don’t seem to be on the “same side”…. but I had to laugh - because my first thought upon seeing the “low hanging fruit” phrase was “Oh my goddess - no one would have REALLY said that, would he?” and my second was - no one besides me would get the sexual - gender specific connotations, would they?
Heh.
November 10th, 2006 at 12:16 am
That is what I’m here for Deirdre: To bring the sides together in mutual admiration for off-color, below-the-belt, lowbrow humor.
November 26th, 2006 at 10:34 am
I am about half way through Thomas Friedman’s book The World is Flat. However it has already dramatically changed my thought on minimum wage. There is a direct correlation between Cost of doing business and companies looking at Outsourcing. While MacDonalds and Berger King are not going to outsource jobs flipping bergers in Topeka, or Grand Junction, Colorado and those service jobs are the main focus of minimum wage, the effect accross the spectrom could definately be to cut jobs in the manufaturing sector.
One of the issues that might be considered separate than this but in fact is directly effecting the labor scenerio in Ameria is illegal immigration. In my part of America, these folks provide a much needed aspect of ag production, and keeping the cost of ag products such as Palisade peaches low depends on cheep labor. A local Republican political yahoo, Josh Penry, who radically wants to expell all illegal emigrants from America, and those like him in Colorado are making it very difficult for these Ag producers to process their crops. When a Palisade peach costs me $5.00 apiece, I am all for calling it Penry Pricing.
Major Question: How do you separate labor costs for these folks from minimum wage for the service sector?
George got one thing right. The guest worker program, complete with one hour proceesing centers in Mexico, where a worker can get all requisite credentials, including a SS card, green card, and a catastrophic health care card allowing the person to enter the US for a initial period of three months.
All the 12 million existing non US citizens should be ushered to a processing center in the US. Then most of them should be allowed to go back to work. Deportation should not be based just upon presence, but upon non work activity and or activity that is illegal for other reasons. If the person has not worked a requisite number of weeks per quarter, then they are not paying their way and they should be deported.
What sould be demanded from employers is that these folks have Green Cards and SS cards, and that they are paying income taxes, as well as the sales taxes that are a given just for them to survive here. They should be participating in health care costs by having requisite catastrophic health care coverage. Entry to the US economic system, should be viewed as a priviledge, with costs. School and education costs need to be explored in a humane way that pays these costs while honoring the labor potential these folks have and provide to the economy of the United States. No these folks are not paying property taxes. Let’s figure it out.
The new Iron Curtain that is being built between the US and Mexico is only a good idea, if and only if, the gates are left open and people can freely go through them with the requisite credentials. Bus lines and trains should be legally channeling folks to these gates at all times from throughout Mexico to remove the illegal underground movement of people. But these people need to be able to access the credentials with a one hour stop. Rapid credentialling is absolutely mandatory to illiminating most of the issues involved.
So what I am saying here is screw the low hanging fruit idea. We need a conprehesive measure that approaches these labor issues with some careful thought or the Democrats will wind up just compounding what is already likely to doom American workers to a second class scenerio as China and India and the rest of the world climbs aboard the economic band wagon.
C. F. Pittenger
Grand Junction, Colorado
April 11th, 2007 at 7:23 pm
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