89 responses so far ↓

• 1 Aroundtheblockafewtimes // Aug 26, 2009 at 9:39 am

  This reads like typical libertarian propaganda
  (not that I don’t agree with it). But it is preaching to the choir. For the general public, it needs citations from “reputable” sources, footnotes, etc. The old “Talking Points” column in the LP News gave the reader quotes from academic, think tank, and MSM sources that allowed letter writers and speakers to be credible instead of “hurling wild accusations.”
  The other side kills themselves with their own words, the government kills itself with its inefficiencies. Use it against them in citations, not emotional overstatements like “Obama’s policies are wiping out small business…”

• 2 Michael Seebeck // Aug 26, 2009 at 10:14 am

  Does anyone but me seem to know that Root was actually on Thom Hartmann on Air America yesterday morning?

  I gotta him credit for doing that, but Hartmann was an ass on the air and kept interrupting him.

• 3 paulie // Aug 26, 2009 at 10:32 am

  Does anyone but me seem to know that Root was actually on Thom Hartmann on Air America yesterday morning?

  I gotta him credit for doing that, but Hartmann was an ass on the air and kept interrupting him

  I’d give him credit for it too.

  My advice for Libertarians being pigeonholed as rightwingers on left wing shows is to find a way, early on if possible, to outflank the host from the left. That upsets the script and forces the host to engage the guest’s ideas rather than repeating yet again oft-repeated talking points used against Republicans.

• 4 Michael H. Wilson // Aug 26, 2009 at 10:45 am

  I didn’t read this entire piece because once again I found Wayne to be off the mark. His comments about the well to do paying the bulk of the income taxes may be correct, but he left out the payroll taxes. Those are the taxes that go to support Social security, Medicare, etc. Fact is I can claim that the average worker in America is getting screwed and the fat cats are getting a pass on Social Security with the income cap at somewhere around $108,000 anything you make over that isn’t taxed and thus your percentage goes down.

  Once again Wayne slaps the voters we need to kowtow to the well to do you receive much, if not most, of the government’s benefits.

  Wellfare for the well to do seems to be okay with him.

• 5 Michael H. Wilson // Aug 26, 2009 at 10:48 am

  OOps. This “Once again Wayne slaps the voters we need to kowtow to the well to do you receive much, if not most, of the government’s benefits.” should have read “who receive much, if not most, of the government’s benefits.”

• 6 paulie // Aug 26, 2009 at 10:59 am

  My advice for Libertarians being pigeonholed as rightwingers on left wing shows is to find a way, early on if possible, to outflank the host from the left. That upsets the script and forces the host to engage the guest’s ideas rather than repeating yet again oft-repeated talking points used against Republicans.

  Good example was Steve Gordon on Maddow’s show:

  http://www.independentpoliticalreport.com/2009/04/libertarian-party-of-alabama-chair-steve-gordon-discusses-tea-parties-on-msnbc-with-rachel-maddow/

• 7 Michael H. Wilson // Aug 26, 2009 at 11:32 am

  I’ll do some more on Root’s comments later. Need to cool down first.

• 8 Thomas M. Sipos // Aug 26, 2009 at 12:02 pm

  give away trillions of taxpayer dollars in entitlements; welfare; bailouts; stimulus; union payoffs (legal ones of course); tax cuts to people that never paid taxes in the first place; and most importantly pay raises (in the middle of a depression) to local, state and federal government employees.

  What about Pentagon spending? The military industrial complex? War and empire? Foreign aid?

  It’s obvious that Root’s “passion” does not lie in cutting foreign aid or military spending.

  He might make some brief nod in that direction, if pushed, but he has to be pushed. By contrast, he has no trouble letting loose a tirade on non-military entitlement spending.

  Yeah, he might mumble on occasion that the Iraq War was a “mistake.” So do a lot of conservatives by now. Al Rantel and Doug McIntire on L.A. talk radio, for instance.

• 9 Thomas L. Knapp // Aug 26, 2009 at 12:38 pm

  Thomas,

  You write:

  —–
  What about Pentagon spending? The military industrial complex? War and empire? Foreign aid?

  It’s obvious that Root’s “passion” does not lie in cutting foreign aid or military spending.

  He might make some brief nod in that direction, if pushed, but he has to be pushed.
  —–

  Actually, he brings “defense” spending up several times in his book, and so far as I can tell he characterizes it as corporate welfare every time he does.

  I agree, though, that this is an area we should be pressing on.

  The Obama regime asked for more, not less, “defense” spending in the next budget. The outside most radical proposal I’ve seen from anyone in Congress was for a 25% cut.

  Libertarians should be pressing a proposal that’s within the bounds of political reality, but still radical per the conventional wisdom.

  I’d love to see Libertarian candidates out there pushing for a 75% cut over X years in “defense” spending (with X being somewhere in the range of 4-10 years). That would still leave the US as the single greatest military power on the globe, but it would hopefully force the US at least nominally into a focus on defense instead of aggression.

• 10 Michael Seebeck // Aug 26, 2009 at 1:33 pm

  Paulie @3:

  I give him credit for it because I was one of the ones harping the loudest for him to do it, and he put up.

  My advice for Libertarians being pigeonholed as rightwingers on left wing shows is to find a way, early on if possible, to outflank the host from the left. That upsets the script and forces the host to engage the guest’s ideas rather than repeating yet again oft-repeated talking points used against Republicans.

  Agreed, but in this case it wasn’t possible, mainly because Hartmann would ask him a question and before Root could answer it, Hartmann would interrupt him with demagoguery and spin, cutting him off. This is typical Hartmann’s (lacko f) interviewing skills with someone he disagrees with. That’s not Root’s fault in the slightest, either. Hartmann never figured out that in radio it’s better to let the guest talk and create question opportunities rather than be a bombastic and rude prick. had I been in that studio chair (and I have done that in the past), I would have done the interview far differently (and more than one segment, too!).

  Really, the gist of the interview was based on one single question that Root tried to answer but was unable to do so. The question was along the lines of why is health care not considered equivalent to government military, police, or fire protection. (Hartmann calls all of those “rights” when in fact they are “services”, but like most progneocons he gets it wrong.) The only answer Root could get out before he was interrupted was that it was because government doesn’t work right, and he was unable to continue or elaborate because on the interruption. It went downhill from there, and the pattern continued. But Root tried, he really did.

  All in all Root could have done better had he actually had a chance to talk, but Hartmann in his usual style wouldn’t let that happen. He really did nothing to damage the LP, but he was also handcuffed from doing better as well.

  Yes, I am defending him here, and in this case he deserves to be defended.

  The only constructive criticism I would offer is to practice dealing with lefty questions in advance for these things to get more comfortable in dealing with them, and some exposure to other interview styles.

  But again, I most definitely give Root credit for jumping out of his comfort zone. He will grow more rounded into the libertarian role as he continues this instead of just being perceived as working on only the right, and that can only help him.

• 11 Michael Seebeck // Aug 26, 2009 at 1:39 pm

  Tom @9:

  I’d love to see Libertarian candidates out there pushing for a 75% cut over X years in “defense” spending (with X being somewhere in the range of 4-10 years). That would still leave the US as the single greatest military power on the globe, but it would hopefully force the US at least nominally into a focus on defense instead of aggression.

  The problem is that most libertarians don’t have a clue on how to do the details on that–how you would restructure to lean out the fat to meet the threats, how to make sure there’s enough tail to go with the teeth, what the true threats are, etc. Just calling for a reduction will always be met with the usual snorts of, “Where? How? Why do you want to leave our national defense at risk?” (Yeah, it’s boilerplate junk, undoubtedly, but the critics asking that question don’t know the answer either, and probably don’t know fourth and fifth-generation warfare from a hole in the ground.)

  I’m not saying it’s a bad idea to do that, but I am saying there better be some real details behind the proposal.

• 12 Aroundtheblockafewtimes // Aug 26, 2009 at 2:29 pm

  LP should have competent writers producing white papers on all the major issues (or find ones already written by think tanks.) None of our candidates should go out there “naked” in the 2010 elections, having to do their own research.
  Surely among the 10,000+ members there are researchers, retired or working experts, with strong credentials? Do we really know how naive and unrealistic we appear to non-libertarians when we are unprepared??

• 13 Thomas L. Knapp // Aug 26, 2009 at 3:41 pm

  Mike,

  You write:

  “I’m not saying it’s a bad idea to do that, but I am saying there better be some real details behind the proposal.”

  And you’re very right on that. I didn’t intend to say that such a proposal should lack details. I’ve been part of developing more detailed proposals in the past. Offhand, here’s where I’m at now:

  1) Reduce the Navy from 11 to 4 Carrier Strike Groups. This would allow for one to be on active deployment at any given peacetime moment, with two others in various stages of workup/trainup for such deployment, and a fourth in longer-term reserve (drydock repairs, etc.). I don’t have exact statistics, but credible anecdotal claims have one CSG disposing of more firepower than the entire WWII US Navy, and of more firepower than the rest of the world’s navies combined. Eleven CSGs is clearly far more than required for reasonable “defense” purposes. This would also, of course, imply a drastic manpower reduction in the Navy.

  2) Freeze transition (scheduled for 2011-2025) of military aircraft to the next generation (F-35 and F-22) and instead continue production/deployment of the cheaper, proven F-15, F-16 and F-18 aircraft at a cost savings of tens of millions of dollars per plane (actually closer to $100 million per unit for the F-22 — it costs $137 million; an F-16 costs less than $20 million; the F18 tops out at about $60 million).

  3) Change the “defense” procurement process so that contractors bear their R&D expense and aren’t given an effectively limitless cost overrun leash. The government issues a requirements doc that says how much it will pay for a prototype that meets such-and-such specs. First firm to deliver gets the prototype fee and the contract to produce X units at Y cost per unit — non-renegotiable, if they can’t do it for the price they set, they eat the loss instead of passing the plate back to the taxpayers.

  That’s a start, anyway.

  “Defense” expenditures have long been increasingly disconnected from accountability, and “defense” requirements from reality, and even more so since 9/11.

• 14 Aroundtheblockafewtimes // Aug 26, 2009 at 3:58 pm

  Tom, that is a start. Don’t forget bringing troops home from Germany, Japan, Korea, Philippines, etc. (except for embassy guards). If what you posted was included in a white paper, then assertions need to be backed up – e.g.
  “A study, published July 5, 2009, by the Defense Policy Research Foundation, with input from retired military personnel engaged in strategic planning, concluded that ‘four carrier groups are sufficient to defend the coasts of the United States…..’”

• 15 Aaron Starr // Aug 26, 2009 at 9:19 pm

  Michael @ 2

  I’m REALLY, REALLY glad you got to hear Wayne Root on a liberal talk show.

  Wayne has told me that this is his typical experience on a liberal talk show. He doesn’t get invited very often, and when he does, he gets filibustered and denigrated.

  It’s not much fun for him, but Wayne has stated to me that he’ll go on as many liberal talk shows that want him, though he admits it’s still quite a frustrating experience to be treated so poorly and have almost no opportunity to respond to an attacking host.

  If I were in Wayne’s shoes I’d be sorely tempted to write off the unfriendly shows; life is short! But Wayne’s a real trooper and he keeps on trying, no matter what. I’m amazed at how he keeps up this pace.

  By the way, here’s some inside scoop. Thom Hartmann’s producer called Wayne Root’s publicist after the show and said that Thom liked having Wayne on and wants him to come back.

• 16 Thomas M. Sipos // Aug 26, 2009 at 11:39 pm

  The problem is that most libertarians don’t have a clue on how to do the details on that–how you would restructure to lean out the fat to meet the threats, how to make sure there’s enough tail to go with the teeth, what the true threats are, etc. Just calling for a reduction will always be met with the usual snorts of, “Where? How? Why do you want to leave our national defense at risk?”

  Which is why retired Air Force Lt. Colonel (and former Pentagon employee) Karen Kwiatkowski would be an excellent LP presidential candidate.

  Aaron Starr: Wayne has told me that this is his typical experience on a liberal talk show. He doesn’t get invited very often, and when he does, he gets filibustered and denigrated.

  No problem. All Root has to do is come out swinging against the war, and focus his attacks on Bush and the GOP, with maybe an aside on how Obama is continuing “right-wing, conservative warmongering” policies.

  If Root did that, using words like “right-wing warmongers” then liberal hosts would stay quiet, stunned at this unexpected rhetoric.

• 17 libertariangirl // Aug 27, 2009 at 12:05 am

  awesome …!

• 18 mdh // Aug 27, 2009 at 12:12 am

  Tom S,
  What? How is it right-wing conservative war-mongering? I’d say that the war-mongering has been a classic feature of both “progressive Democrat” and “conservative Republican” administrations for many decades. Consider Clinton’s excursions is Africa and Eastern Europe, and just keep going back through history prior to Bush II.

  We need to oppose fascist policies and war-mongering no matter who is responsible. Right now, it’s Obama. In 4 or 8 years, it’ll be another Republican.

• 19 Michael H. Wilson // Aug 27, 2009 at 1:08 am

  In response to Root’s comments regarding small bidness may I suggest that folks and Root take a look at this info. Go to the graphs in the article.

  “We have a long tradition in the United States of seeing small business as the driving force behind
  our national prosperity. An important part of our national identity is built around the idea that –thanks to low taxes, limited regulation, unfettered labor markets, and a national spirit of
  entrepreneurship – the United States offers an environment for small business that is unmatched anywhere else in the world.

  The international economic data, however, tell a different story about the state of U.S. small
  business. By every measure of small business employment, the United States has among the world’s smallest small-business sectors (as a proportion of total national employment). The lower taxes, less stringent regulations, and freer labor markets in the United States, it appears, have not yielded greater small-business employment here than elsewhere.

  In this report, we review internationally comparable data on the size of the small business sector in 22 rich countries. Across the full set of countries, for every measure we examine – including selfemployment rates and the share of total employment in small enterprises – we find that the United States consistently has the lowest or among the lowest proportions of employment in small businesses.”

  http://www.cepr.net/documents/publications/small-business-2009-08.pdf

• 20 Michael H. Wilson // Aug 27, 2009 at 1:18 am

  Root writes;”The facts above are only referring to income taxes. Yet it is important to note that this same group of high-income taxpayers pays the freight for most of America’s other taxes too.”

  I doubt that many other Ameicans will agree. Here is some info from the hated New York Times that helps in explaining this issue.

  “The federal government’s two main revenue sources are the individual income tax and the payroll tax. The more rapid growth of the payroll tax (which includes Social Security and Medicare taxes) relative to the individual income tax may be one reason politicians increasingly call for “taxing the rich.”
  Officially known as a “contribution,” the Social Security tax brings in almost as much revenue as the individual income tax, and is catching up. By June 2009, annual revenues for the payroll tax collections had reached almost 90 percent of individual income tax collections.
  The Social Security part of the payroll tax is about 12 percent of the first $106,800 of employee earnings in a year. The Medicare part is about 3 percent of all payroll earnings (regardless of whether and how much employees make over $106,800).
  As a result, people earning over $106,800 pay a lesser percentage of their earnings in payroll taxes than do people earning less than $106,800.
  The highest-earning third of United States households pay more individual income tax than payroll tax. But the other two-thirds are paying more payroll tax than income tax.”

  http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/22/the-regressive-tax-that-does-the-work/?scp=2&sq=payroll%20taxes&st=Search

• 21 Michael H. Wilson // Aug 27, 2009 at 1:40 am

  One final comment. Mr. Root is an odds maker in Las Vegas. He is also often critical of those who receive benefits from the government.

  So for the purposes of argument let me suggest that Mr. Root is also on the receiving end of the government handouts, all though maybe not directly.

  I have been to a number of casinos in my life. There are three within a thirty minute drive of my house. All with great buffets.

  Walk into any casino and look at the people. In most cases you will find that many are over 65. I’ll suggest that they are collecting Social Security, which is probably true. Now take away that Social Security check and see how long these casinos stay open.

  It wasn’t Bugsy Segal and Howard Hughes who built Vegas baby. It was Social Security.

  Does Wayne benefit from this? You tell me.

  Next Wayne makes odds on football. But how would football get along without the government? Most of the state run colleges and universities in the U.S. are football schools. And look at how many of those make it to the bowl games. Not too many of the private schools do. Maybe Boston College, Stanford, etc., but it is mostly UF, FSU, Alabama, Ole Miss, Oklahoma, Texas. The list goes on.

  And then there is the NFL. A paragon of the Free Market if there ever was on. Right? Wrong!

  Between the state schools developing the NFL’s talent, or shall we say traning the NFL’s employees and the handouts the NFL gets from taxes to build new facilities no one group could be more of a bunch of freeloaders than the NFL.

  Now these are the people that Wayne depends on to provide his daily bread.

  Now what is wrong with this picture? In my eyes Wayne is criticisizing those on welfare, but he is benefitting from the government’s handouts himself.

  Okay maybe I’m wrong. Go ahead fill me in as to how.

  BTW if a peabrain idiot such as myself can see this what is going to happen when Wayne gets called on it by some hotshot talk show bigmouth?

• 22 Thomas M. Sipos // Aug 27, 2009 at 2:41 am

  mdh, I didn’t say there isn’t left-wing warmongering. I was only suggesting how Root could silence liberal talk show hosts. By attacking “right-wing warmongering.”

  If he wants to attack “left-wing warmongering” on Fox News, that’d be great.

  But Root mostly wants to talk about taxes. One may find morsels on foreign policy if one digs through his book or website, but it’s clearly not his flagship issue, or the issue he’s comfortable with.

• 23 Andy // Aug 27, 2009 at 2:54 am

  “Okay maybe I’m wrong. Go ahead fill me in as to how.”

  You are wrong because gambling and sports would both exsist in a free market. It is not Wayne Root’s fault that we live in a mixed economy where the government sticks its nose into everything.

• 24 Steven R Linnabary // Aug 27, 2009 at 3:40 am

  In my eyes Wayne is criticisizing those on welfare, but he is benefitting from the government’s handouts himself.

  Well, I suppose he ( and most of us) drive on government roads, too. And probably use the USPS.

  And as his campaign progresses, he’ll be traveling from government airports on government regulated airlines. Hopefully, his campaign will eventually be covered on NPR.

  Yeah… the gall of Libertarians to criticize government!

  PEACE

• 25 George Phillies // Aug 27, 2009 at 8:42 am

  Concrete details on defense and other — see my press releases and position papers last year before the nominating convention. Tom and I came to the same conclusion about carrier groups. I also proposed several other changes, notably closing the service academies–a brilliant idea of the early 19th century, and as up to date as other 19th century weapons systems. I also did serious analysis of several other departments, based on the important challenge that most departments have many activities that have nothing to do with their name.

  For example, which department builds and maintains our nuclear weapons and the cleanup programs for the prior weapons programs (hint: not Defense)? Which Department handles K-12 schooling for military dependents overseas?

  Root’s lack of competence to serve as our candidate is shown by his book, for example his global warming denialist chapter and his foreign policy chapters. (There is an in-group joke here. The in-group is the people who have read the book and paid attention.)

• 26 George Phillies // Aug 27, 2009 at 8:44 am

  Actually, his book does have several references to foreign places in it, references that establish that when he is not thinking about what he is saying he reveals himself as a Bush/Cheney conservative.

• 27 Aaron Starr // Aug 27, 2009 at 9:15 am

  Michael Wilson @ 20

  When you examine the Social Security taxes, you should look at it on a net basis. That is, you should consider the taxes paid, reduced by the amounts returned during retirement.

  Also, you need to take into account that the payouts are not in proportion to the taxes you pay. It is tilted greatly toward giving those who are poor a disproportionate share share of the amount collected.

  In other words, Social Security is a wealth transfer scheme where those who earn more are taxed to give those who earn less — with the government taking a chunk out to pay for bureaucrats, of course.

  Medicare might be even worse, as far as a transfer schemes goes. Unlike Social Security, there is no upper limit where the tax no longer applies and the medical requirements of someone who used to earn $250K per year are not likely to be ten times someone who earned $25K per year.

• 28 paulie // Aug 27, 2009 at 9:24 am

  Also, you need to take into account that the payouts are not in proportion to the taxes you pay. It is tilted greatly toward giving those who are poor a disproportionate share share of the amount collected.

  In other words, Social Security is a wealth transfer scheme where those who earn more are taxed to give those who earn less

  That’s a new one for me. As far as I had always remembered reading, SS payments are based on the 40 highest quarters of reported earnings. Is that not correct?

  Also, wealthier people tend to live longer, and SS payments are for life.

  The working poor person paying SS taxes is more likely to die and never see a penny than a wealthy person.

  Also, I’ve read that SS taxes are how the elderly went from being the poorest age cohort to being the wealthiest, and that now a person is more likely to be well off the older they are, with children being the group most likely to be living in poverty.

  Add the plausibility of the SS system collapsing completely when the baby boom generation retires en masse, 2011-2030 or so, and it seems to me that it is an upward redistribution of wealth.

  Admittedly, you know much more about this than me.

• 29 Michael H. Wilson // Aug 27, 2009 at 9:55 am

  Last time I looked the LP is trying to sell a messsage. The way Root critisizes a particular group of the electorate in this article does nothing to get the LPs message across to them.

  Expecting people to vote for him when he has critisized them in this manner is a bit much.

• 30 Michael H. Wilson // Aug 27, 2009 at 10:01 am

  Andy @ 23 writes; “You are wrong because gambling and sports would both exsist in a free market. It is not Wayne Root’s fault that we live in a mixed economy where the government sticks its nose into everything.”

  Yea I’m wrong, but what is it going to sound like if a talkshow host says much the same thing to him on the radio. As I wrote two paragraphs below; “BTW if a peabrain idiot such as myself can see this what is going to happen when Wayne gets called on it by some hotshot talk show bigmouth?”

• 31 LandShark Beer // Aug 27, 2009 at 10:39 am

  George Phillies for LP Chair!

• 32 Michael H. Wilson // Aug 27, 2009 at 10:50 am

  Aaron since you have Root’s ear, so to speak, may I suggest that you point out to him that the money created by the Fed flows to Wall Street first and then thru the system. The Wall Street bankers get fisrt shot at it. This is something many Libertarians have pointed out over the years. The Federal Reserve Banking system is a wefare project for Wall Street. If Root had kept to that he would have been on solid ground. Instead he goes on to bash the people whose votes he needs.

  Here are a couple of points for you. There is a federal government study I have stored somewhere that points out that housing costs consumed 24% of family income in the 1920s. By 2000 housing costs consumed 35%. Those are rough numbers, but the increase is because of the increase in building codes, zoning laws and other restrictions.

  Transportation costs have gone from 8% of family income in roughly the same period to over 15% and more for those lowest on the wage scale. Thanks again to government regulations.

  Maybe Wayne should be trying to get the word across that government helps cause poverty in the first place instead of hammering those getting a government check.

• 33 Michael Seebeck // Aug 27, 2009 at 1:24 pm

  Tom @13:

  Excellent points, but not completely accurate.

  1) Reduce the Navy from 11 to 4 Carrier Strike Groups. This would allow for one to be on active deployment at any given peacetime moment, with two others in various stages of workup/trainup for such deployment, and a fourth in longer-term reserve (drydock repairs, etc.). I don’t have exact statistics, but credible anecdotal claims have one CSG disposing of more firepower than the entire WWII US Navy, and of more firepower than the rest of the world’s navies combined. Eleven CSGs is clearly far more than required for reasonable “defense” purposes. This would also, of course, imply a drastic manpower reduction in the Navy.

  A normal CSG has a carrier, a pair of Aegis destroyers, 2-3 missile destroyers, 1-2 attack subs, and the support oiler and supply ships, including amphibious assualt ships on occassion, and probably in the future the new refitted multiplatform Special Ops Ohio-class SSGNs.

  We need only 6 of them, 3 for the Atlantic, 3 for the Pacific–two at sea, the third in drydock service rotation (Pearl Harbor or San Diego in the Pacific, Hampton Roads in the Atlantic. It could be possible to work it with 5 if we only had 1 at sea in the Atlantic, but that is stretching it some. You could double up carriers in a CSG, but that has tactical issues.

  But we also need a pair of attack sub squadrons for coastal defense, and a couple more Aegis as well for coastal BMD (which works but is not fully deployed yet) as we need that until the day the damn ICBMs are all gone–plus the MD there also works on theater missiles as well. Not to mention the boomers (Ohio-class missile subs, SSBNs, but that’s a different story.)

  2) Freeze transition (scheduled for 2011-2025) of military aircraft to the next generation (F-35 and F-22) and instead continue production/deployment of the cheaper, proven F-15, F-16 and F-18 aircraft at a cost savings of tens of millions of dollars per plane (actually closer to $100 million per unit for the F-22 — it costs $137 million; an F-16 costs less than $20 million; the F18 tops out at about $60 million).

  Agreed on the F-22, but not the F-35, which can be reduced to simply the VTOL version (F-35B; we don’t need the runway and carrier versions (F-35A and F-35C) with the VTOL, as the Brits have shown with their Harriers for decades.) The problem with the F-15, F-16, and F-18 is after-production costs, mainly in fuel economy and range, and also detectability, although even a “stealth” aircraft can be detected by its Doppler wake. That and the newer technology on the F-35 makes combat a lot simpler. (Yeah, I know I sound like and F-35 commercial!)

  3) Change the “defense” procurement process so that contractors bear their R&D expense and aren’t given an effectively limitless cost overrun leash. The government issues a requirements doc that says how much it will pay for a prototype that meets such-and-such specs. First firm to deliver gets the prototype fee and the contract to produce X units at Y cost per unit — non-renegotiable, if they can’t do it for the price they set, they eat the loss instead of passing the plate back to the taxpayers.

  No defense contractor will ever buy into that one, because it means they will eat megabucks they don’t have on their IRADs. It also takes an act of Congress to change the procurement law, so that won’t happen anytime soon since there’s too much district money in it for them. Besides, the system now is that the government issues a RFP for the desired device and the contractors have X days in which to prepare and submit a bid, including proposed specs, and then the government decides who gets the bid. What you’re really complaining about is the post-bid development and expense overruns that happen there (which is not true in all cases, just most of those run by Lockheed Martin). Not unjustified, either, but there are times when cost overruns are determined by unknown-at-the-time-of-bid factors like technology roadblocks, personnel switches, ITAR restrictions, political considerations, and other such elements that the short RFP process doesn’t allow time to accuratley consider in the development. The better way to do this is to extend and expand the RFP process to include these important details and include a working prototype.

  (As an aside, this is one of the hearts of the matter surrounding the KC-X tanker controversy–NGC/EADS had not only working prototypes but delivered production models to other nations (Australia, UK) while Boeing had nothing but paper airplanes and still hasn’t delivered it version to its international customers (Japan, Italy), but the politics got in the way of the right call on that one.)

  But also agreed that reducing our international interventionist presence can make all of that feasible. Bring back the Monroe Doctrine, then reduce it to our continent, and we’re getting somewhere.

• 34 Michael Seebeck // Aug 27, 2009 at 1:42 pm

  Aaron,

  I’m REALLY, REALLY glad you got to hear Wayne Root on a liberal talk show.

  It was an accident that I heard him, really, since AFAIK there was no advance publicity.

  Wayne has told me that this is his typical experience on a liberal talk show. He doesn’t get invited very often, and when he does, he gets filibustered and denigrated.

  Yeah, those hosts tend to do that because they think that if they can get the guest riled up and lose it they’ll look bad. Some conservative hosts do that, too. Best case I ever heard was Medved trying that on Judge Gray, who simply waiting for him to run out of gas and calmly told him to knock it off. Made Medved speechless.

  It’s not much fun for him, but Wayne has stated to me that he’ll go on as many liberal talk shows that want him, though he admits it’s still quite a frustrating experience to be treated so poorly and have almost no opportunity to respond to an attacking host.

  That’s something that I would hope he can sort out in advance. Sure, there are always hard breaks to worry about in radio, and I know from my own experiences on both sides of that mike the best way is to have a conversation, but the key is to get control of the interview and keep it. In this particular case Root was not able to do that, but it also takes a lot of practice to do it regularly and successfully. I much preferred interactions with callers and guests over monologuing when I was hosting, as it made for better radio and better conversation, and any moron can monologue talking points, while the real sign on intellect is the ability to have that conversation intelligently.

  If I were in Wayne’s shoes I’d be sorely tempted to write off the unfriendly shows; life is short! But Wayne’s a real trooper and he keeps on trying, no matter what. I’m amazed at how he keeps up this pace.

  As I said before, credit to him for doing it, and I hope he does continue to do that work on the left. It helps him personally develop a more-rounded appraoch to libertarianism and and helps the LP as a whole. If he wants to be our nominee in 2012 he needs to continue to expand his comfort zone and show he’s not just a converted conservative, but that he has grown into t a full-spectrum libertarian. This is one positive step in that process.

  In Colorado we had a rule of thumb: outreach in the philosophical direction opposite of the party in power, yet always towards liberty. That means with the GOP out there, we focused more on the social stuff, and with the Dems we focused more on the fiscal stuff, but we didn’t abandon the other part either. It was effective in its results because it appealed to people already unhappy with the status quo, that status quo was in power and didn’t care about us anyway, and it made us doing the outreach more rounded and seasoned in the message tailored to that audience. And yes, the radio and TV is part of that outreach.

  By the way, here’s some inside scoop. Thom Hartmann’s producer called Wayne Root’s publicist after the show and said that Thom liked having Wayne on and wants him to come back.

  Hopefully the publicist can arrange a return with multiple segments to have a real debate rather than a 10-minute demagogue-fest. Time limits on radio segments is always the largest problem behind host demagoguery.

• 35 Michael Seebeck // Aug 27, 2009 at 1:43 pm

  Sorry, dunno what happened on the formatting there…

• 36 Michael Seebeck // Aug 27, 2009 at 1:43 pm

  Ah, I see it now, I forgot to close the first blockquote…

• 37 Andy // Aug 27, 2009 at 1:48 pm

  George Phillies said: “I also proposed several other changes, notably closing the service academies–a brilliant idea of the early 19th century, and as up to date as other 19th century weapons systems.”

  This probably is a good idea (I mean probably a good idea from the standpoint of incremental cuts in government – from a purist standpoint it is obviously a good idea), however, I bet there would be MAJOR resistance for closing the military academies, even more so than cutting some other areas of the military budget.

• 38 Andy // Aug 27, 2009 at 1:56 pm

  Aaron Starr said: “I’m REALLY, REALLY glad you got to hear Wayne Root on a liberal talk show.

  Wayne has told me that this is his typical experience on a liberal talk show. He doesn’t get invited very often, and when he does, he gets filibustered and denigrated.

  It’s not much fun for him, but Wayne has stated to me that he’ll go on as many liberal talk shows that want him, though he admits it’s still quite a frustrating experience to be treated so poorly and have almost no opportunity to respond to an attacking host.

  If I were in Wayne’s shoes I’d be sorely tempted to write off the unfriendly shows; life is short! But Wayne’s a real trooper and he keeps on trying, no matter what. I’m amazed at how he keeps up this pace.”

  After over 13 years as a Libertarian activist, and with over 9 years of expierence gathering petition signatures and registering people to vote (in 26 states plus Washington DC), I have no problem talking to anyone of any political persuasion be they on the left, the right, or all points in between.

  I’m glad to see that Wayne is coming out of his right wing comfort zone box. Maybe one day he’ll be able to feel just as comfortable talking to people who are the rest of the political spectrum as he is talking to right wing conservatives.

• 39 Andy // Aug 27, 2009 at 1:59 pm

  Michael Wilson said: “Yea I’m wrong, but what is it going to sound like if a talkshow host says much the same thing to him on the radio.”

  Wayne should respond the same way I did, by pointing out that unfortunately we live in a mixed economy where the government sticks its nose into everything and that gambling and sports would still exsist in a free market.

• 40 libertariangirl // Aug 27, 2009 at 2:21 pm

  @21 wow what a stretch.

• 41 Michael H. Wilson // Aug 27, 2009 at 2:36 pm

  lg Wayne wrote;
  “Obama’s voters don’t pay the taxes in the first place, so of course they gain the benefit of government spending and handouts, without any of the responsibility.”

  You gonna tell me that this is a true statement? Are you gonna tell me that this is going to go over well with the working public?

  Talk about a stretch!

• 42 Thomas L. Knapp // Aug 27, 2009 at 2:37 pm

  Michael,

  You write:

  “We need only 6 of them, 3 for the Atlantic, 3 for the Pacific–two at sea, the third in drydock service rotation”

  If you’re wanting to keep one Carrier Strike Group at sea at all times, you need four Carrier Strike Groups: One at sea, two in different stages of workup/trainup to go to sea, the fourth in long-term port (dry-dock repair, mounting new weapons system or working old vessels out of and new ones into the group, etc.). A standard float is six months. Workup/trainup for that float is 12-18 months.

  So, if you’re positing keeping 4 CSGs on float at a time, you’re looking at 16 CSGs (half again as many as the US Navy already has) altogether. I propose to have one CSG on active float at any given peacetime moment, and believe I can defend that proposal in strategic terms (as a matter of fact I did, but then decided to try to keep this comment short).

  Anyway, the purpose of my little piece wasn’t to set some sort of LP policy recommendation in stone as regards the specifics of US military size and structure. It was just to demonstrate that yes, some of us (including, obviously, you) are in fact thinking about details rather than painting broad policy strokes and leaving it at that.

  On the defense contracting end, I think you’re being too timid. When you say “no defense contractor will ever buy into that one,” what I hear is “no existing defense contractor will buy into that one as long as they have the political pull to avoid it.”

  I consider defense contracting to be the elephant in the room. For the last 60 years, the primary function of the federal government has been to funnel money from our pockets into defense contractors’ bank accounts. Everything else it does either funnels into that, or is marketing overhead to let it get away with that.

  If the government switches its protocol to positing a necessary system and offering a price for prototype, one of three things will happen:

  1) An existing company will decide that it can profitably produce the prototype and do so; or

  2) A new company will decide that it can make that happen, raise capital to do it, and get it done; or

  3) No company will decide that it can profitably produce the prototype, and the government will have to go back to the drawing board on the specs or on the price.

  Regardless of which one of these things happens, the taxpayer wins, if for no other reason than that actual costs are known in advance instead of a number being thrown out and then quickly changing due to cost overruns. The risk gets shifted to the market, where it belongs.

  Yes, it will be extremely hard to put that one over, because the defense contractors are happy to shovel a bunch of the money they make from the current corrupt system back into maintaining that system. But it has to be done … and sooner or later it will be. The question is whether it will be done within the current political system, or whether the current political system will drown in its inability to get it done.

• 43 Michael H. Wilson // Aug 27, 2009 at 2:45 pm

  Here’s a url from the Heritage Foundation with info on the deployment of U.S. troops. It also comes with charts and some background info. maybe it’ll be useful.

  “Global U.S. Troop Deployment, 1950-2005″
  http://www.heritage.org/Research/NationalSecurity/cda06-02.cfm

• 44 LandShark Beer // Aug 27, 2009 at 2:49 pm

  Wayne Root will be LIVE on The Jerry Doyle Show at 5:30 PM
  EST TODAY!

  Four million listeners!

  Station finder:
  http://www.jerrydoy le.com/stationfi nder

• 45 Steven R Linnabary // Aug 27, 2009 at 3:25 pm

  @ Michael # 33 & Tom # 42:

  I’ve always considered carriers and their associated groups as offensive in nature, rather than defensive. Carrier groups are totally inappropriate for defensive actions, appropriate ONLY for empire building.

  Shouldn’t Libertarians be proposing a defensive coastal navy, rather than an offensive blue water navy?

  PEACE

• 46 Thomas L. Knapp // Aug 27, 2009 at 4:46 pm

  Steven,

  There are two types of “defense” and “offense” — the strategic and the tactical. It is entirely possible to be tactically on the offensive in support of a strategic defense.

  Carrier Strike Groups are useful for the extension of force over the horizon. That force can be used for the strategic offensive (“we’re going to tell the world what to do and we have our CSG to make them do it”) or the strategic defensive (“if you attack us, there’s NOWHERE you’re safe” / “you have attacked us, and we’re going to defend ourselves against you where you live rather than just where we live”).

  Saying that CSGs are appropriate “ONLY for empire-building” is like saying that if someone starts lobbing mortar shells into your house, you must stay in your house and try to shoot the shells down rather than going out, finding the mortar and destroying it.

• 47 Steven R Linnabary // Aug 27, 2009 at 6:28 pm

  Saying that CSGs are appropriate “ONLY for empire-building” is like saying that if someone starts lobbing mortar shells into your house, you must stay in your house and try to shoot the shells down rather than going out, finding the mortar and destroying it.

  Like when we used our carrier forces to conquer Iraq and Afghanistan, purportedly in response to the 9/11 attacks? How’s that one working out?

  Perhaps when the US starts electing angels, then we can think about giving “over the horizon” force extension to them. Until then, Libertarians should be proposing a coastal navy to protect us from that “someone (who) starts lobbing mortar shells into your house”!

  And electing angels might not be good enough. We recently elected the Messiah, and he continues to “tell the world what to do and we have our CSG to make them do it”

  PEACE

• 48 Michael H. Wilson // Aug 27, 2009 at 7:29 pm

  here’s another issue to consider in the same vein.

  “Abolish the Air Force

  What it does on its own — strategic bombing — isn’t suited to modern warfare. What it does well — its tactical support missions — could be better managed by the Army and Navy. It’s time to break up the Air Force. ”

  http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=abolish_the_air_force

• 49 Bill Wood // Aug 27, 2009 at 8:24 pm

  I agree with Landshark! We need George Phillies to run for Chairman of the Libertarian Party. What about it George?

• 50 paulie // Aug 27, 2009 at 8:38 pm

  Maybe Wayne should be trying to get the word across that government helps cause poverty in the first place instead of hammering those getting a government check.

  http://www.thefreemanonline.org/featured/scratching-by-how-government-creates-poverty-as-we-know-it/

• 51 Michael Seebeck // Aug 27, 2009 at 8:41 pm

  Tom @42:
  

  If you’re wanting to keep one Carrier Strike Group at sea at all times, you need four Carrier Strike Groups: One at sea, two in different stages of workup/trainup to go to sea, the fourth in long-term port (dry-dock repair, mounting new weapons system or working old vessels out of and new ones into the group, etc.). A standard float is six months. Workup/trainup for that float is 12-18 months.

  Under the current global OpsCon, yes, but if that OpsCon is reduced to simply being a ocean-going defense force for CONUS and our Altantic and Pacific protectorates (including AK and HI), then the OpsCon changes as the ships are more easily replenished and kept in closer to base. In that scenario the standard float can be increased beyond the six months. Under that scenario we’d need 2 in the Pacific (it’s a big ocean) and at least 1 in the Atlantic (maybe a second in the Caribbean) and a refresh in the docks. Most workups take so long because of the overhauls they require otherwise are not as feasible when the group is on the other side of the globe, so they do more at any given time. Closer-to-home deployments mean closer-to-port as well, which can allow for faster workups more often. IOW, a non-interventionist policy with a self-defense enutrality base improves deployment times as well as cutting costs and improving upgrade times, while increasing defensive flexibility because it uses CONUS resources as well instead of an isolated CSG point. CONUS BARCAP can also be done from land in that situation as well.

  Anyway, the purpose of my little piece wasn’t to set some sort of LP policy recommendation in stone as regards the specifics of US military size and structure. It was just to demonstrate that yes, some of us (including, obviously, you) are in fact thinking about details rather than painting broad policy strokes and leaving it at that.

  Noted, and agreed. But it does make for a very interesting discussion all around.

  On the defense contracting end, I think you’re being too timid. When you say “no defense contractor will ever buy into that one,” what I hear is “no existing defense contractor will buy into that one as long as they have the political pull to avoid it.”

  Only partially right. The current procurement system is designed to keep Lockheed, Northrop, Boeing, Raytheon, GD, and the rest of the big fish in the bigger contracts while blocking smaller fish from getting nothing but samller contracts to make a political statement about supporting smaller businesses. Those smaller fish have even less IRAD cash to function in a revamp of the system, which is why they’d be unhappy with it as well.

  Steven @45: Tom @46 is right. Each boat in a CSG has a specific purpose. A carrier projects power. A sub projects fear. A battleship, when we still used them, projected intimidation. Aegis provides SA information. Cruisers and Destroyers and Frigates provide the missile and battery muscle, and the CAG provides the air superiority and group defense. How those pieces are used is a political function, not a technological one. A CSG can easily be used as a coastal navy (in fact, the Coast Guard isn’t suited to it properly, even with land-based air support from the Navy or Air Force.)

  Michael @48: No for now. The idea in that article is flawed because they misunderstand and misstate the USAF mission. Only part of it is strategic bombing, and even that is minisucle to the rest. They provide global airborne refueling support for all branches, they provide a lot of airborne intelligence assets, both manned and unmanned, they handle all military space operations, including satellite ops, and they also serve as a land-based BARCAP when needed. Most recently they’ve added cyberspace warfare to their arena as well.

  Now, if you were to break that up, and you could, you could easily move the BARCAP to the Navy, and cyberspace to the NSA (yeah, I know, but the other choices are CIA and NRO, who have other missions). But who handles the space operations like BMD? Until there is no need to have them, who handles the ICBMs, and who drives the military satellites? The Navy is not suited for those tasks, and neither is the Army. Who does the refueling operations (The Navy *could* do it, but they are wedded to their CSGs and you can’t land a KC-10, KC-135, or KC-X on a carrier. The Army uses KC-130s to refuel their choppers becasue of airspeed diffferentials, but that’s a very limited-use mission.) and airborne intel operations (NRO could do it, but it’s not their expertise either)? My point is that it’s not as easy as it sounds, from a pure mission standpoint, bureaucracy and politics aside, especially in the modern era where the USAF mission provides support and information to the other branches, the intelligence world, and runs most of the comms we depend on.

• 52 paulie // Aug 27, 2009 at 8:43 pm

  Ah, I see it now, I forgot to close the first blockquote…

  Fixed.

• 53 paulie // Aug 27, 2009 at 8:49 pm

  I agree with Landshark! We need George Phillies to run for Chairman of the Libertarian Party. What about it George?

  He has. More than once, if I remember correctly.

  Might again for all I know, but I haven’t asked.

• 54 Michael Seebeck // Aug 27, 2009 at 8:54 pm

  Thanks, paulie.

• 55 Michael H. Wilson // Aug 27, 2009 at 11:50 pm

  paulie @ 50 that is a good article and we need more like it.

  Libertarians also need to read Walter William’s book, “The State Against Blacks” and one I had forgotten I had titled “The Rule of Experts”. Of the bat I’m not sure who wrote it, but when I read it years ago I found it quite interesting.

  MW

• 56 Thomas L. Knapp // Aug 28, 2009 at 2:11 am

  MW,

  Mike Seebeck makes some good arguments against just dissolving the Air Force. At one point — it may have been for Badnarik’s campaign, which is definitely where I first pushed the reduction of Carrier Strike Groups, but I’m not sure — I also suggested rolling the strategic bombing and ICBM maintenance functions of the Air Force into a reorganized Army, and any close air support and tac air into Navy/Marine aviation.

  I’d still like to see a lot of consolidation (among other things, making the Marine Corps the RDF, reducing the Army’s size considerably and making it effectively a small group of active divisions oriented toward an “activate, equip, train up and deploy the militia in case of war” operation), but Seebeck’s obviously put a lot more study into the matter of the Air Force.

• 57 Daddy Bush killed the Kennedys and Che Guevara // Aug 28, 2009 at 7:26 am

  MHW @ 55

  http://www.amazon.com/Rule-Experts-Occupational-Licensing-America/dp/0932790623

• 58 paulie // Aug 28, 2009 at 9:11 am

  I shouted out,
  Who killed the Kennedys?
  When after all
  It was you and me

• 59 paulie // Aug 28, 2009 at 9:12 am

  Rolling Stones, Sympathy for the Devil, for those who don’t know.

• 60 Michael H. Wilson // Aug 28, 2009 at 10:30 am

  @ 57 Daddy Bush killed the Kennedys and Che Guevara. Thanks. I was too lazy to look it up. Here’s hoping other will read it.

• 61 Michael H. Wilson // Aug 28, 2009 at 10:39 am

  @56 Tom I hadn’t thought much about the issue until I read a piece suggesting it last month. Frankly I doubt we’d get far with it in the next twenty years

  I do think we should point out that the Department of Homeland Security should be abolished since that is what the DoD should be doing in the first place.

  Then work on pointing out the high costs to the American economy that keeping all those troops abroad has on the average worker here at home. After all this time I find it frustrating that the LP sits on its collective ass regarding this issue, or is afraid to get serious about it. (poorly constructed paragraph)

• 62 Michael Seebeck // Aug 28, 2009 at 12:49 pm

  I do think we should point out that the Department of Homeland Security should be abolished since that is what the DoD should be doing in the first place.

  Absolutely and then some, and the airport security etc if it has to be government should be a law enforcement activity, else a function of the airlines or airports themselves.

  Seebeck’s obviously put a lot more study into the matter of the Air Force.

  I’ve worked alongside them for a large chunk of my career. You pick up a few things here and there doing that.

• 63 Michael H. Wilson // Aug 28, 2009 at 5:29 pm

  One little thing I think we should do is to get snarky and call the DoD the Department of going Abroad to Defend Other Nations in media releases and letter to the editor.

• 64 Michael Seebeck // Aug 28, 2009 at 9:29 pm

  Michael,

  “Department of Offense” is shorter for LTEs.

• 65 George Phillies // Aug 30, 2009 at 9:59 am

  @6

  I do this with occasional frequency in posting to DailyKos, a site whose viewers are far more open to libertarian views than the sorts who watch television shows of the deranged right.

  George

• 66 Aaron Starr // Aug 30, 2009 at 10:03 am

  Folks,

  For those who didn’t hear Wayne Root on the Thom Hartmann show, here is the transcript.

  http://www.thomhartmann.com/2009/08/29/thom-asks-wayne-root-why-distribute-risk-with-military-police-fire-departments-but-not-for-health-25-august-2009/

  I found it frustrating to read, because I was imagining myself being in the position of guest.

  With the benefit of being a Monday morning quarterback, I’m curious how others here would recommend Wayne answer these questions in the future.

  Keep in mind the rules of the radio medium here though. You only have time for a sound bite answer — maybe 15-20 seconds. And it’s got to be entertaining to people not familiar with us, so that you’ll get on a future radio show.

  The way your answer reads is very different from how it sounds, so please be sure you read your answer out loud before posting it here.

• 67 mdh // Aug 30, 2009 at 11:11 am

  15 to 20 seconds if the host is being friendly. Keep in mind that with a hostile host you will probably have less than 3 or 4 seconds. You need to be able to deliver the goods in 3 seconds if you want to be really successful at this game.

• 68 Paulie // Aug 30, 2009 at 11:30 am

  I’m sitting in a hostel common room so I’m not going to read anything out loud. I’m also waiting on a ride so I’ll get through as much of this as I can.

  Thom Hartmann: Yes, the failures of government. The ways that government competition, now let me get this straight. Does government competition put private enterprise out of business, or is government just completely incompetent?

  Paulie: Government is competent at only one thing, taking money from people under the threat of force and wasting it, like they are doing on the unconstitutional wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the war on some drugs and the militarization of the border with Mexico. It’s an unnatural monopoly, and it’s not good at efficiently delivering any service that people actually want.

  Thom Hartmann: Ok. The way that public libraries, where you can get a book for free, put out of business our bookstores?

  Paulie: No, and file sharing and before that casette-to-casette copying didn’t put record companies out of business, but then again that did not require a government monopoly either, so I’m not just going to assume there wouldn’t be any libraries if they were not being funded by unwilling taxpayers. But at least libraries are a service people actually have a use for, unlike, for example, putting cancer patients in jail for marijuana.

  Thom Hartmann: Ok, so that’s a public option.

  Paulie: Is there anything you don’t want a public option for? Food? Clothing? Transportation? Life insurance? Where does it end?

  Thom Hartmann: Ok, Paul. In the Constitution, in the preamble of the Constitution, the Founders talked about both the general welfare, and the common defense, and the Libertarian position, as I recall, is that the primary function of government should be to provide, you know, basically, protection. Police and military.

  Paulie: If we could get government down to doing only those things, I’d call that a big step in the right direction. But there isn’t any part of the government monopoly that I wouldn’t cut as much as possible. If we could stop the police from being militarized, harassing and arresting people for victimless so-called crimes, and go back to being peace officers, that would be huge. Ultimately, maybe that could be done by a volunteer neighborhood watch. And I want to get away from using the military as the world’s police force.

  Thom Hartmann: Why would the Federal government provide military?

  Paulie: You know, that’s a good question. I think the founders had a good idea when they talked about having a volunteer militia of all the citizens, with armies only being raised in times of war. But I’m not here to talk about utopia; in the real world, I’d be happy to bring the troops home from around the world. That would make my whole year, Thom. How about you?

  Thom Hartmann: No, no. Because, come on, Paul. If you got enough money, you can have your own private army.

  Paulie: Sure, maybe you could. But that’s not the real world we live in. I’ll get back to discussing things we can actually hope to accomplish in the next few decades whenever you’re ready, Thom.

  Thom Hartmann: No, I’m very serious. I’m absolutely deadly serious about this thing. The same thing with the police. Why would the government provide police?

  Paulie: Well, you know, that’s a good question too. For anytime in the near future, I don’t think we’ll get enough people to seriously even consider it, so let’s talk about reality. How about we stop cops from acting like robocops on steroids, tasing people left and right, shooting people’s dogs on a regular basis, carrying out 100,000 SWAT raids a year? That would be a good start. Then maybe we can talk about more radical theoretical questions. Can we deal with reality here, Thom?

  [more later....]

• 69 Michael H. Wilson // Aug 30, 2009 at 12:25 pm

  Thom Hartmann: Great promotion. Yes, the failures of government. The ways that government competition, now let me get this straight. Does government competition put private enterprise out of business, or is government just completely incompetent?

  MW: Government competing isn’t the problem. We got into this situation in the first place starting with licensing laws and then when government used those laws to restrict midwives beginning years ago. Of course they restricted midwives at the request of the MDs. I can go one about how midwives do a better job at lower costs if you wish Thom with lower mortality rates for both mothers and newborn infants. Shouldn’t that be our goal? Better care at lower costs?

• 70 Michael H. Wilson // Aug 30, 2009 at 12:43 pm

  Thom Hartmann: “Why would the Federal government provide military?”

  MW: Thom does the government, or anyone explain to your listerners that we have 700 to 800 bases in over 130 around the world? Has anyone explained to your listerners the costs of keeping those bases scattered all around the world? Has anyone asked whay we have 10,000 troops stationed in England? Are we there to keep the Normans from invading again as they did in 1066?

• 71 Michael H. Wilson // Aug 30, 2009 at 12:54 pm

  Aaron one can argue with the source of this story that I link to below, but it suggest the Wayne needs to question his comment that tort reform and the lawyers are the problem with healthcare.

  “Medical malpractice premiums are less than
  one-half of one percent of overall health care costs, and medical malpractice
  claims are a mere one-fifth of one percent of health care costs.”
  http://www.reuters.com/article/pressRelease/idUS179235+22-Jul-2009+PRN20090722

• 72 Aaron Starr // Aug 30, 2009 at 7:53 pm

  Michael @ 71

  I’ve heard that statistic thrown about, but it ignores the costs of what is known as “defensive medicine,” where a doctor will order expensive tests to cover the 1:1000 chance events, just to protect himself from the lawyers.

• 73 Aaron Starr // Aug 30, 2009 at 8:04 pm

  I hope someone at IPR will create a separate thread for this.

  Here’s the scoop. Wayne Root tells me there’s a 50:50 chance that Thom Hartmann will have him back on his show this week.

  The question Wayne will be required to address is as follows:

  Is Obama really “socializing” America?

  You are now part of Wayne Root’s kitchen cabinet.

  What would you have him say to convince Hartmann’s audience that what Obama is doing is socialism and that this is bad for our country?

  Think of short, punchy responses. Make it informative, convincing, and most of all, entertaining.

  Remember, you’re not allowed to deviate from the topic, if you want to be invited back.

• 74 Michael H. Wilson // Aug 30, 2009 at 8:11 pm

  Okay Aaron is it really defensive medicine, or is it more that someone needs to fill their bank account? Maybe just a turn of the phrase for sone’s PR advantage aka spin!

• 75 Michael H. Wilson // Aug 30, 2009 at 8:12 pm

  Gotta learn how to spell someone. Someday maybe.

  MW

• 76 paulie // Aug 30, 2009 at 8:15 pm

  Continued from #68

  ……………

  Thom Hartmann: No. It’s to distribute the risk over a broad base. The amount of money that it would cost to have a private security firm, let’s say that you wanted to hire Blackwater. And somebody was breaking into your house, and Blackwater comes over to your house, and shows up with two or three of their commandos, and they chase the guy down the street, and they capture him, and they put him in their private prison. That would cost you hundreds of thousands of dollars, right? It costs thousands, tens of thousands of dollars, when police actually protect an individual citizen.

  If there’s a car wreck out there, cost of all the emergency services, the fire trucks, the police, all that kind of stuff, it could be a million dollars at the end of the day, if two or three people are killed and there’s a real, you know, a huge traffic pile-up. The reason why the government provides police, fire and military is because none of us can afford the individual risk, or very few of us could. Maybe Warren Buffet could, but the rest of us can’t, and so we distribute that risk over a wide number of people. That’s why it’s an appropriate function of government. Now, tell me why we should have health insurance companies operating on a for-profit basis, when the whole purpose of health insurance is to distribute risk that protects our lives the same way the military protects our lives from being murdered, and the police protect our lives from being robbed.

  Paulie: Nobody said people can’t get together
  to distribute risks, Thom. Insurance companies do that. Mutual aid societies. All sorts of both for profit and non profit organizations. So why do we need a coercively funded monopoly in the mix? Let me give you a quick example here. As recently as 1920, over one-quarter of all adult Americans were members of fraternal societies such as the Shriners, Elks, Masons, and similar organizations. Fraternal societies were particularly popular among blacks and immigrants. A group of working-class folks would form or join an association and pay monthly fees into the association’s treasury, and
  members would then be able to draw on the pooled resources when they needed to. The fraternal societies operated as a form of self-help insurance company. The government actually stepped in to get the cost of medical care UP!

  Thom Hartmann: You’re not answering my question, Paul. You’re not even addressing the issue, and the President is saying that this is going to be revenue neutral. And frankly, if we just roll back the Bush tax cuts, or even better, roll back the Reagan tax cuts, you’d have a budget in balance.

  Paulie: Well, first of all, it’s not going to be revenue neutral. That’s ridiculous. As a matter of fact they are already hedging on that. And the Reagan and Bush tax cuts are a misnomer. Most people, especially blue collar, pink collar and working poor folks, are paying more taxes than before Reagan and Bush. And the budget is never going to be balanced as long as we keep having these so called “bailouts” and “stimulus packages,” waging war all over the world, and now Obama wants to play doctor with the whole country…we’re going to bankrupt ourselves if we keep this up, Thom.

  Thom Hartmann: Yeah, things were really terrible during the Eisenhower years, and during the Nixon years, and during the Johnson years…

  Paulie: Well, yeah, Thom, it took us a while to get into the mess we’re in. Even the Soviet Union didn’t collapse right away, it took them 70 years. The presidents you mentioned got us into some real messes, like the war in Vietnam and the war on drugs. I wouldn’t hold them up as such great examples if I was you.

  Thom Hartmann: But, back to the original point, Paul. Why is it that you want to distribute risk? Why is the Libertarians want to distribute risk of the cost of protecting us from terrorism and foreign governments, military, and protecting us from robbers and car accidents and drunken drivers, police, and protecting us from fire, fire departments, and not protect us from cancer?

  Paulie: Thom, have you listened to anything I said? It’s not distributing risk that I have a problem with, it’s a coercively funded monopoly government. If it really provided the services that people want, it would not have to demand money under the threat of force or tell people where they can compete and where they can’t.

  Thom Hartmann: Small businesses in America have been wiped out. Back, twenty, thirty years ago, you walked into a strip mall in America, it was all locally owned businesses. Now, you can’t find one. But that’s not the point. We’re talking about healthcare here.

  Paulie: Well, let’s back up, since you brought that up. Do you know why that is? With all the taxes and regulations that we have now, small businesses get drowned in a sea of red tape, and big corporations have a much easier time with their armies of lawyers, accountants, lobbyists – that’s why small business is having such a hard time keeping up. We are moving to a corporate system with big government and big business lining up on one side, and small businesses and independent workers getting squeezed out, Thom. What were you going to say about health care?

  Thom Hartmann: My blame is the non-enforcement of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act. But that’s, again, got nothing to do with healthcare.

  Paulie: OK, but as long as you brought it up, a trust is a monopoly, that is what government is and does. What about an anti-monopoly act for government, Thom?

  Thom Hartmann: We have a minute left, Paul. Tell me why we shouldn’t distribute the risk of healthcare the way we distribute the risk of the military and the police. Why not?

  Paulie: The problem is it fails in everything it does. You don’t want the Post Office…

  Thom Hartmann: So you don’t want to have the military and the police any more being run by the Socialist government?

  Paulie: Well, if I had my perfect world, probably not. But I’d settle if they stopped acting like fascists at home and imperialists abroad. That would be a good start, don’t you think?

  Thom Hartmann: How do you know that, Paul?

  Paulie: Well, I look at how the US did before all that happened, it went from being a tiny backwater to having the world’s premier economy. But now we’re being outpaced by countries in East Asia which are more economically free. We’re paying to defend Europe and Japan, which is a big part of why they caught up to us economically after they were wiped out after WW2. I could go on but you said you only had a minute.

  Thom Hartmann: That’s nothing to do with this. How do you know that the private health insurance does better when we’re thirty-fifth in the world in infant mortality, and twenty-ninth in the world in longevity? All the countries with nationalized healthcare services are beating us.

  Paulie: You don’t even have to go to other countries, Thom. Look at the mess that the VA system is. All veterans are legally entitled to free health care in the VA system, and yet every veteran I know who can afford it pays money to get treated elsewhere. Why do you think that is, Thom?

• 77 Aaron Starr // Aug 30, 2009 at 8:17 pm

  Michael @ 74

  I’m sure there is a bit of both.

  However, if patients had more of a financial stake in the choices being made about their health, they would be the ones to decide whether they really wanted to bear the cost of the additional test.

  If the marginal cost of the test to the patient is very little or nothing and the marginal cost to the doctor of being wrong is very high, any rational doctor would order the expensive test or procedure.

• 78 Michael H. Wilson // Aug 30, 2009 at 8:31 pm

  Aaron @ 77 writes; “I’m sure there is a bit of both.

  However, if patients had more of a financial stake in the choices being made about their health, they would be the ones to decide whether they really wanted to bear the cost of the additional test.”

  I agree. If you go to your auto mechanic and he says you need a brake job when you just need brake fluid you might have a case for fraud. Can’t do that with a doctor. Maybe we should be asking why not

• 79 Michael H. Wilson // Aug 30, 2009 at 8:39 pm

  Aaron @ 73 ask; “The question Wayne will be required to address is as follows:

  Is Obama really “socializing” America?”

  America has been on that path for years and Obama is just continuing what has been going on. Now though the costs are getting out of hand. When medicare was created the estimate was that it would cost $12 billion, or there about by 1990. By that time the costs had risen to 1$107 billion. Almost 9 nine more than the estimate. (NOTE: I will have to dig for the correct numbers!!!! but that is close.)

  More later. Guess I have to quit reading the newspapers for today.

• 80 Michael H. Wilson // Aug 30, 2009 at 8:47 pm

  Per Reason: “The cost of Medicare is a good place to begin. At its start, in 1966, Medicare cost $3 billion. The House Ways and Means Committee estimated that Medicare would cost only about $ 12 billion by 1990 (a figure that included an allowance for inflation). This was a supposedly “conservative” estimate. But in 1990 Medicare actually cost $107 billion.”
  http://www.reason.com/news/show/29339.html

• 81 Aaron Starr // Aug 30, 2009 at 8:54 pm

  Michael @ 78

  I have some passing familiarity with those in the medical field (Father is a pharmacist; Mother, nurse; Uncle, urologist).

  I would be surprised to learn if there is some law prohibiting you from suing a doctor for fraud, much like any other individual. To the best of my knowledge, none exists.

  Drawing an analogy with the auto mechanic, I’m sure it’s quire rare for a doctor to want to take out your appendix, when it’s perfectly fine. Doctors who conduct themselves in such a way would soon find themselves without a medical practice.

  I believe the situations we are writing about here are the expensive diagnostic tests being conducted to confirm that a patient does not have some rare ailment, rather than the doctor suggesting some invasive medical procedure.

  If your auto mechanic didn’t bother to run a diagnostic test on your vehicle, chances are he won’t get hit with a multi-million dollar lawsuit in front of a sympathetic jury. Doctors are especially at risk; auto mechanics are not.

• 82 Michael H. Wilson // Aug 30, 2009 at 9:01 pm

  Well I won’t argue the point now. What we should be looking at is alternatives to the present system.

  Here is a url on midwives that might be of benefit since in many states it is still difficult for midwives to practice and thus denying mothers a choice.

  “WERE TRADITIONAL MIDWIVES DANGEROUS?
  According to data available in the 1920s, traditional midwives’ outcomes were as good as or better than those of physicians. Julius Levy, director of New Jersey’s Division of Child Hygiene, recognized the value of the state’s highly educated immigrant midwives and in 1919 developed an extensive program to identify, further educate, supervise, and regulate them. According to his data, traditional midwives managed 38% of births in Newark in 1921, and their patients had a maternal mortality rate of 22 per 10,000 live births, while the rate for physicians’ patients was 87 per 10,000. Notably, in Boston, where midwifery was illegal and only 2.5% of births were attended by midwives, the overall maternal death rate was one of the highest in the country: 77 per 10,000 live births.13 In 1979, Neal Devitt analyzed Levy’s data and found that the incidence of maternal mortality among cases in which a traditional midwife had any involvement was significantly lower than among cases managed by a physician only (p = < 0.0005).14″

  http://journals.lww.com/ajnonline/Fulltext/2000/10000/The_Campaign_to_Eliminate_the_Midwife.54.aspx

• 83 Michael H. Wilson // Aug 30, 2009 at 9:58 pm

  Here’s another point that should be made. Repeal the McCarran-Ferguson Act. See this url

  “Private competition may have more to offer than currently realized in the McCarran-Ferguson environment. Repealing the Act coupled with increased antitrust enforcement would seem a relatively affordable first step if competition, with the ultimate goal of benefiting the consumers/patients, is the goal.”
  http://www.healthreformwatch.com/2009/06/21/health-insurance-competition-the-mccarran-ferguson-act/

• 84 Michael H. Wilson // Aug 30, 2009 at 10:04 pm

  Aaron here’s my last point. We need to get the various states to repeal their Certificates of Needs laws. All three of these points can be brought together with others to make a halfway decent promo piece.

  While I am reluctant to quote anything from the Bush DoJ I think this piece may have some truth to it.

  “The Antitrust Division’s experience and expertise has taught us that Certificate of Need laws pose a substantial threat to the proper performance of healthcare markets. Indeed, by their very nature, CON laws create barriers to entry and expansion and thus are anathema to free markets. They undercut consumer choice, weaken markets’ ability to contain healthcare costs, and stifle innovation. We have examined historical and current arguments for CON laws. They do not provide an economic justification for depriving consumers of the benefits of free markets. To the extent non-economic goals are pursued, the use of CON laws to help pursue them imposes substantial costs. Those goals can be better achieved through other mechanisms. I will explain our reasoning in more detail in just a moment; but first allow me to respectfully suggest to you our bottom line — we hope you will carefully consider the substantial costs that CON laws impose on consumers as you evaluate whether to reform those laws in your state. ”
  http://www.usdoj.gov/atr/public/comments/223754.htm

• 85 Michael H. Wilson // Aug 31, 2009 at 12:17 am

  Aaron here’s an article from Atlantic magazine that is quite interesting on healthcare. Lots of folks are impressed with an article in the New Yorker that looked at the medical practices in two Texas towns. This article is more detailed in my opinion. Wayne will find it useful I am sure.

  “Almost two years ago, my father was killed by a hospital-borne infection in the intensive-care unit of a well-regarded nonprofit hospital in New York City.”
  http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200909/health-care

• 86 Michael H. Wilson // Aug 31, 2009 at 12:22 am

  The New York Times has an op-ed by Bill Bradley today, Sunday, that discusses the effort to reform healthcare. In it he mentions that liability and defensive medicine costs the system 10% of all dollars, or words to that effect. That raises a question. If the patient had to pay for those defensive test would the even be preformed. The article from The Atlantic that I have linked to above discusses issues related to this.

  Enjoy, but keep in mind that lots of people die from medical errors. Maybe 100,000 every year and more are injured.

• 87 Robert Capozzi // Aug 31, 2009 at 6:56 am

  My swing at talking points:

  Thom Hartmann: Great promotion. Yes, the failures of government. The ways that government competition, now let me get this straight. Does government competition put private enterprise out of business, or is government just completely incompetent?

  SUGGESTION: Neither. Government doesn’t “compete.” The notion of “government competition” is an oxymoron. Government forces people to do things they don’t want to do. I’m a libertarian, so I’m a peacenik…I’m for anything that’s peaceful.

  Thom Hartmann: Ok. The way that public libraries, where you can get a book for free, put out of business our bookstores? …The way that public libraries have put bookstores out of business?

  Suggestion: Book stores SELL books. Libraries LEND them. Apples and oranges.

  Thom Hartmann: Ok, so that’s a public option.

  SUGGESTION: All due respect, but, ah, no.
  Thom Hartmann: Artificially low. Ok, let’s get right to the essence of this, Wayne. In the Constitution, in the preamble of the Constitution, the Founders talked about both the general welfare, and the common defense, and the Libertarian position, as I recall, is that the primary function of government should be to provide, you know, basically, protection. Police and military.

  Wayne Root: Right.

  Thom Hartmann: Why would the Federal government provide military?

  SUGGESTION: Why WOULD the Federal government provide military? Last I checked, Thom, they already DO provide quite a bit of military…way too much for my tastes. Id’ say TEAM AMERICA: WORLD POLICE is not the way to go. I’d like to see the military function shrink MORE than any other government spending program in the short term.

  Thom Hartmann: No, no. Because, come on, Wayne. If you got enough money, you can have your own private army.

  SUGGESTION: Oh, you want have a theoretical conversation, I get it. OK. As a libertarian, I had no problem when Ross Perot engineered the release of his employees from Iran. I’m OK with private security services like Brinks. Aren’t you?

  Thom Hartmann: No, I’m very serious. I’m absolutely deadly serious about this thing. The same thing with the police. Why would the government provide police?

  SUGGESTION: Again, government DOES provide police. Some of the things that the police enforce is counterproductive. It’s one thing to keep the peace, another to create havoc. Do you realize that __% of this country is in jail, and __% of them are in jail for drug prohibition? That costs taxpayers an estimated $__ billion a year. We need to stop the madness!

  Thom Hartmann: I know you want government to provide military and police. I get that. My point is that the reason why government provides military and police is…..

  SUGGESTION: …is to keep the peace.

  Thom Hartmann: No. It’s to distribute the risk over a broad base. The amount of money that it would cost to have a private security firm, let’s say that you wanted to hire Blackwater. And somebody was breaking into your house, and Blackwater comes over to your house, and shows up with two or three of their commandos, and they chase the guy down the street, and they capture him, and they put him in their private prison. That would cost you hundreds of thousands of dollars, right? It costs thousands, tens of thousands of dollars, when police actually protect an individual citizen.
  If there’s a car wreck out there, cost of all the emergency services, the fire trucks, the police, all that kind of stuff, it could be a million dollars at the end of the day, if two or three people are killed and there’s a real, you know, a huge traffic pile-up. The reason why the government provides police, fire and military is because none of us can afford the individual risk, or very few of us could. Maybe Warren Buffet could, but the rest of us can’t, and so we distribute that risk over a wide number of people. That’s why it’s an appropriate function of government. Now, tell me why we should have health insurance companies operating on a for-profit basis, when the whole purpose of health insurance is to distribute risk that protects our lives the same way the military protects our lives from being murdered, and the police protect our lives from being robbed.

  SUGGESTION: Oh, I see where you’re going now. You’re trying to make an economic efficiency argument. But you’re making a false analogy. The military and the criminal justice system are simply NOT designed to provide protection for individuals. Instead, their job is to keep the peace in a defined territory, in this case, the US. As individuals, we each are responsible to keep ourselves safe. Warren Buffett may hire security. Others may bear arms. Others may avoid high-crime areas. Etc. Different strokes for different folks.

  Thom Hartmann: You’re not answering my question, Wayne. You’re not even addressing the issue, and the President is saying that this is going to be revenue neutral. And frankly, if we just roll back the Bush tax cuts, or even better, roll back the Reagan tax cuts, you’d have a budget in balance.

  suggestion: Obama is telling us his health plan is revenue neutral. Bush told us that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

  Thom Hartmann: Yeah, things were really terrible during the Eisenhower years, and during the Nixon years, and during the Johnson years…

  suggestion: Thanks for bringing that up. There is SO much confusion about tax RATES and the overall tax BURDEN. So, here’s the big picture: Government spending at all levels takes – by force – over 40% of our hard-earned dollars. During the Eisenhower years, it was 20% [est.]. Yes, I’d say the Eisenhower years were more peaceful.

  Thom Hartmann: So you, wait a minute. Wayne, your argument is incoherent. You’re saying on the one hand you’re in favor of progressive taxation, things worked rather well during the Eisenhower, Nixon, Johnson etc administrations, when the top tax rate was ninety-one percent, that that was fine, but now because there’s not as many rich people, which I would challenge, and they don’t have as much money, which I would challenge, because there’s more rich people, and there’s more money among the rich than there has been since 1928, that we can’t do that, and that would be socialism.
  But, back to the original point, Wayne. Why is it that you want to distribute risk? Why is the Libertarians want to distribute risk of the cost of protecting us from terrorism and foreign governments, military, and protecting us from robbers and car accidents and drunken drivers, police, and protecting us from fire, fire departments, and not protect us from cancer?

  suggestion: Government spending TRILLIONS on cancer NOW. Medicare and Medicaid are MASSIVE government programs. The National Institutes of Health spends billions on cancer research. And what have we gotten from all this spending? Well, cancer RATES have increased.
  But let’s not oversimplify complex social trends. Cancer rates have gone up for a lot of reasons. One of the biggest reasons is that people are making poor health and wellness choices. I’d ask what is the peaceful solution to this problem? For starters, I’d like to see people keep more of their hard-earned money, and not have the government take – by force – 40%. If we rolled it back to, say, 20%, we’d see a lot people spend it on better food, better, more personalized health services.

  Thom Hartmann: Small businesses in America have been wiped out. Back, twenty, thirty years ago, you walked into a strip mall in America, it was all locally owned businesses. Now, you can’t find one. But that’s not the point. We’re talking about healthcare here.

  suggestion: Yes, health and medicine are small businesses as well. Through government manipulation of the tax code, we’ve seen a massive shift away from the family doctor to HMOs and hospital emergency rooms and “urgent care” facilities.

  Thom Hartmann: My blame is the non-enforcement of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act. But that’s, again, got nothing to do with healthcare.

  SUGGESTION: The biggest monopoly is government. Government is not only a monopoly, but it enforces its monopoly through force.

  Thom Hartmann: We have a minute left, Wayne. Tell me why we shouldn’t distribute the risk of healthcare the way we distribute the risk of the military and the police. Why not?

  SUGGESTION: Because government distributes risk very poorly and through violence and force. In the name of “distributing risk,” we got the Iraq War. In the name of “distributing risk,” we have millions in prison for victimless crimes. Peaceful and voluntary transactions are the BEST way to distribute risk, at least for most specific services. I have a lot more faith in a free people making choices for themselves than I do with some faceless bureaucrat imposing that on us. My message to liberals is that the free market is the best form of democracy there is.

  Thom Hartmann: So you don’t want to have the military and the police any more being run by the Socialist government?

  SUGGESTION: The military and police are NON-SPECIFIC services. And, yes, I’d like to see them as small as possible.

  Thom Hartmann: That’s nothing to do with this. How do you know that the private health insurance does better when we’re thirty-fifth in the world in infant mortality, and twenty-ninth in the world in longevity? All the countries with nationalized healthcare services are beating us.

  SUGGESTION: You misunderstand. I am for health care reform, REAL reform. I’m for empowering the people, not bureaucrats, government bureaucrats OR health insurance bureaucrats. [need to research] Look at the immigration patterns, Thom. The US is STILL experiencing NET immigration, even from countries that have nationalized healthcare. The people speak with their feet!

• 88 Wayne Root on Thom Hartmann show | Independent Political Report // Aug 31, 2009 at 8:53 am

  [...] Starr writes, With the benefit of being a Monday morning quarterback, I’m curious how others here would [...]

• 89 paulie // Aug 31, 2009 at 8:59 am

  Robert, good answers for the most part…I liked some of them better than mine.

  New post:

  http://www.independentpoliticalreport.com/2009/08/wayne-root-on-thom-hartmann-show/

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