Barbara Lee and the Congressional Black Caucus in Cuba

Ok I am just going to start with a couple of different posts tonight. They are a result of reading an article about Congressional Black Caucus members visiting not just Cuba, but with Fidel Castro.

So a quick recap. Did Fidel Castro murder people in his homeland with the help of Che Guevara to become the leader of Cuba? For those of you not very familiar with Cuba, the answer is yes. Nobody will argue this fact, yet we are suppose to cater to him.

This makes absolutely no sense to me whatsoever. Whats next? Visits to Kim Jong-il.

I did not know who this Barbara Lee woman was, so I looked her up. Turns out she is the Chairwoman of the aforementioned CBC and a member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. And again I did not know what these Caucuses were, so read up a little bit on them as well. (This is a very common theme for me. To read about something I am not familiar with and then to look it up to understand what it’s all about).

Wow, was I in for a treat. The CPC advocates “universal access to affordable, high quality healthcare,” fair trade agreements, living wage laws, the right of all workers to organize into labor unions and engage in collective bargaining, the abolition of significant portions of the USA PATRIOT Act, the legalization of gay marriage, strict campaign finance reform laws, a complete pullout from the war in Iraq, a crackdown on corporate welfare and influence, an increase in income tax rates on the wealthy, tax cuts for the poor, and an increase in social welfare spending by the federal government.

So let’s tackle some of these individually.

First: Universal access to affordable, high quality health care. This happens to be one of my favorite arguments from the left. I even have some pretty close friends that love this idea. Well I know it sure makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside when you say it or hear it. But the reality is it isn’t going to happen in this country, and that is a very good thing. Some people argue Canada does it, why can’t we. Ok, I will tell you why. Canada has about 25-30 million citizens, the US has over 300 million and increasing everyday. That means that our system would need to be at minimum 10X times larger than Canada’s. Have you ever gone to the ER in an emergency? Did you enjoy sitting there and waiting for hours to be seen. Now imagine that at your local doctors office for your regular visits. You think its crowded now, just wait till everyone can just walk in to your local Dr. office. In fact no one is currently turned away who can’t pay. Every city has at least one hospital that treats people without insurance. In Miami, where I grew up it is called Jackson Memorial Hospital. It partners with the University of Miami (a private institution). In fact my cousin Katie was born there in Feb of 1977.

So now you are waiting in long lines, well guess what they are going to get even longer. If the government runs essentially “free” health care, then what is the incentive for young people to go to medical school and become doctors? In an 100% altruistic society, nobody would be in it for the money. But they reality of it is most people are. So now less people are becoming doctors. So over time you end up with poorer and poorer health care, not better. In the long run, we all suffer.

Second: Living wage laws. This means that people with no education or no skill set should be paid a “living wage”. So imagine I own a small business with only 4 or 5 employees. A little storefront repairing appliances lets say. I employee 3 technicians and 1 person to do many arbitrary and non specific tasks such as cleaning up, and taking the appliances apart, to make the repair process efficient. Preferably this last job would be done by a teenager for minimum wage (currently $6.55), as no education is needed for this job. But now with a living wage law I would have to pay him $12 or $15 an hour depending on where we are located, since the cost of living varies by state to state. Well if I am paying my technicians $30 an hour, don’t I know have to pay them more since they have a skill set much greater than the non tech employee. So now all of my employees would need to be paid more. Before this scenario, I made a enough to be self sufficient, but now that I have had these additional costs, I am no longer profitable to continue my business as it was. I now have to either raise my rates to my customers which will inevitably cause me to lose business thus exasperating my situation or close the shop completely. Which not only puts me out of work, but my 4 employees as well.

Third: Labor unions. This is one of the topics I never understand why people are still promoting in this era of “Equal Opportunity Employment” and the vast amount of laws protecting the employed. Unions and their leaders are strictly interested in the power it brings them. So lets see, the US auto industry is failing and is run by unions. Is that a coincidence? Definitely not. That unions only now that they see the companies about to go under are finally interested in making concessions. Here locally in the Dallas area, AT&T is in the news with their employees considering striking. Unions are inherently flawed. Your wages increase based on years of service not merit. How is that american or fair in any way? Some will argue, well that way 2 people both with the company 5 years will make the same income. Well that’s like saying, 2 people taking starting college the same time and taking the same classes should end up with the same grades and GPA. The students are not, they are graded on their merit. Should businesses not have the same right to judge their employees on their merit. I worked for my last company for 8 1/2 years and received a review annually as did all employees. And we received increases based on guidelines that was the same for everyone at their particular position. None of this required a union to be involved. What incentive would I have had to do my job better if I was going to get a preset pay increase no matter what. None, it just breeds lazy employees. In the early part of the 20th Century, when the working conditions were horrible and there were much fewer laws to protect the employee unions made sense. But in our modern society they do no good.

Fourth: Gay marriage. I guess I will throw one in that I agree with. I don’t disagree with all of their ideals. Denying gays to marry, is like denying a black man and a white woman to marry. Some people argue that its a slippery slope and that next, people will be marrying donkeys and gorillas. First of all, in many countries that already happens. What is wrong if someone wants to marry a snake. How does that affect you? Personal freedom is the key here. The majority of people that have a problem with gay marriage are religious people. And it is based on their own insecurities and prejudices. It almost seems as though they feel that if it’s illegal than the “yucky” gays will all disappear.

Fifth: Increase taxes on the wealthy, tax cuts for the poor and an increase in social welfare spending by the government. Ok so this is sort of one big concept listed as three different topics. I have a much better idea. Tax cuts for everybody across the board and no social spending by the government. So lets go back to the living wage laws for a minute. This idea inevitably raises everybody income inadvertently and then we tax it back. Remember my employees example from earlier that would go from $6.55 to $12 an hour and the technicians from $30 to lets say $50, just to tax them more, so that we can give them “free” health care. Well obviously its not free if I am taxing you to pay for it. The reality is you are paying for it. What if instead of taxing you 30% or 40% of your income, you were taxed nothing. Now that original lower income is enough to cover your own health care instead of the government forcing you to pay for it by taxes. (Look for a later post about income tax and why it should be abolished completely.)

So Barbara Lee and her CPC sounds a lot like socialism/communism to me. I think I will have to pass on her and her ideas, since there is no example on earth where a socialist/communist society has made peoples lives better or won out in time over freer societies.

And one last note. The CPC supports campaign finance reform, yet their candidate (Obama) refused  public campaign finance when it came down to it. I am a firm believer in campaign finance reform. All candidates should have a cap on the amount of money they can spend, similar to the sports leagues and their salary cap to keep all teams competitive.

JW