An Announcement – Discussion II

On November 8, 2011 I posted "An Announcement – Discussion" that set forth the comments and my responses with respect to "An Announcement" which was posted on November 4, 2011.

Since then I have received some additional input, which I would like to share with you. Paul Negri of Clifton, NJ the former President of Dover Publications and the editor of more than two dozen books made this comment:

Satire is, I think, one of the most difficult genres to write and you've done a good job with it here. The trick is expressing what you want to say by preposterously advocating the opposite. I think you do that well, particularly with Cain and Romney and your treatment of Obama. Perry and the others get rather short shrift here. I do think Perry and Bachmann make even better targets for satire, as they are truly ridiculous figures (frankly, I think Cain is ridiculous too). 

My taste in satire runs to the absurd, to an even more overtly over-the-top humor and a more poisonous wit. So I've edited the first several paragraphs of your piece to show you what I mean. It doesn't mean that my edits are better, just illustrative of a more absurdist satirical style (see attached).

I'd love to see you skewer Perry and Bachmann in more detail and deflate that windbag Gingrich too. Of course, none of this will convert the conservative faithful, but may tickle the fence-sitters into thinking a bit more.

Had fun with this and only wish American politics was not, at heart, so sad.

 In addition he lent his editing skills to my efforts in "An Announcement" His revisions with his additions shown in blue and his deletions in red can be found here.


Albert Nikemkin of Vienna, Virginia sent my essay to a friend, Benjamin A. Feinberg and shared his exchange, as follows:

I take it that Scheller is kidding or not feeling well?

To which Nikemkin responded:

It's a satire, of course! He anticipated that it would be a risky initiative and, as your response proves, he was right!!

Nikemkin then added this observation directed to me:

I like your foray into satire, especially your willingness to take the risk that some readers might think you serious--which is always the risk of satire. Nevertheless, I hope you will forgive me for not making a campaign contribution, at least for now. Your approach was to push the envelope and exaggerate what we are actually hearing from the Republican candidates--a risky venture since what they really say is veering closer as every day passes to your intended exaggeration!

Next time I will continue with my discussion of, “What can and should we do about the deficit… Where can we and should we cut?” which I started in my post "The Deficit – One Big Hoax (Part VI)."

An Announcement.

After long and careful consideration and extensive discussion with my family and my dog, and with an abiding faith in the greatness of America, I hereby announce my candidacy for the Republican nomination for President of the United States.

I have made this decision, not out of any desire to advance any self–interest for me or my friends or supporters, but out of a deep conviction that I may be the only one who can save this country from the decline, which everyone agrees it is in, and to save it from the fascistic, socialistic Nazi who now occupies the White House.

At a time when our economy is in a funk, when our working people are unable to find jobs, and the world has lost respect for our leadership, I intend to turn that around and bring back the America that our founding fathers knew.

Now I don’t intend to waste my time talking about the present incumbent, who has given up America’s world leadership and after three years has left the Nation with unacceptably high unemployment, slow growth, and has allowed between 11.5 million to 12 million criminals to live among us. Let me be clear, the undocumented among us, have broken our laws and therefore are criminals and even their children, their anchor babies, have not been admitted legally and are therefore criminals.

What I do want talk about are my opponents for the Republican nomination and why I am better suited to be President of the United States than any of them.

On the domestic front the leading contender right now is Herman Cain. Now my good friend Herman has promised that if elected he will abolish the income tax as we know it and give us a 9-9-9 plan which he assures us will increase our growth of our GDP from the present anemic 2.5% to 5%. I say that isn’t good enough. Now my plan is 4.5-4.5-4.5, which will be a much lower burden on the American Taxpayer and will increase our growth rate to 10%. The trouble with Herman and the rest of the field is that they just are not ambitious enough.

I recognize that there will be many among the elite and pointed headed economists who will say that this is pie in the sky. But I tell you – don’t listen to them- they are the ones who have brought us to the fix we are in. We don’t need, and don’t want a lot of Ivy League graduates dictating to us. Most of us have never gone to any college and we have more common sense than the elite pointy headed fools, many of whom spend their time teaching, and have never learned how to make real money.

Now let me talk about my good friend Mitt Romney. He wouldn’t even say how much his tax plan would increase our economic growth. He put out a plan that he calls “Believe in America” that is 85 pages long. Now anything that long is obviously not something most Americans are likely to read and that’s the way he wants it. Because he doesn’t want Americans to know that he plans to only increase the growth in GDP By 4%. 4%! That just isn’t good enough. I say vote for me and get a 10% increase in GDP and full employment.

Now Romney wants to eliminate taxation on capital gains, dividends, and interest for any taxpayer with an adjusted gross income of under $200,000. That is nothing less than class warfare. Why should we tax capital gains, dividends, and interest on any one? I propose eliminating this tax all together, so that it can be used to invest and create jobs. My 4.5-4.5-4.5 tax will do that.

Now on defense, I believe that we must regain our leadership role in the world. We have to stop allowing other countries telling us what they want. We need to give them their marching orders and demand they get in line. That is leadership and we are not going to get that with Namby Pamby diplomatic negotiations.

Now my friend Herman doesn’t think he needs to know the names of the heads of state, or the names of a bunch of countries, and I agree with him. There are 193 countries in the UN. I bet even that pointy-headed Obama doesn’t know them all and forget about knowing their heads of state. Who cares?

But I do think it is important to know who has the atomic bomb. Herman said about China, “They’ve indicated that they’re trying to develop nuclear capability.” Herman, they did that in 1964, and our then Democrat President let them.

Now Romney said: The choice facing Americans is “very simple,” “If you do not want America to be the strongest nation on Earth, I am not your President. You have that President today.”

Now I agree with him about Obama. But Mitt and Brother Herman wouldn’t be much better. Where were they when they let our Congress agree to a deal with Obama that cuts defense spending by $600 billions, on top of cuts already agreed to, if the super committee doesn’t reach agreement, and I bet they wouldn’t? We need to increase defense spending if we are going to be the leaders of the world that I want us to be.

I am outraged that Obama is pulling our troops out of Iraq and getting ready to pull out of Afghanistan. If we are going to protect our vital interests in that part of the world we have to dominate it and we can’t do that with namby pamby military policies.

We have the atomic bomb. It is time we used the power that goes with it. We need to tell Iran stop your atomic program or we will stop it for you, by dropping the bomb on you. That will solve that problem. We need to have a similar approach to Pakistan. They have the bomb but they don’t have a delivery system that can reach the US. So we are safe from their atomic bomb. Tell them to cooperate in fighting terrorist groups, or we will drop the bomb on them. I bet we will get cooperation and the rest of the world will get the message. That is leadership.

We need a President who does not believe in half measures. Half measures will not get us there. I am the only one who has the will to do what is necessary to return America to greatness.

And I am the only non-politician in this race. I never ran for or occupied any political office and never ran for one till now. I spent my whole life in the private sector.

Romney was the governor of that Democrat-Socialist state of Massachusetts, where he gave us Romneycare, and where he was for babykilling. I wouldn’t trust that guy. And how can he say he is not a politician?

My brother Herman ran for the Senate from Georgia in 2004 and he was a lobbyist. He also lost his race for the Senate, which makes him a loser. We don’t need that.

Perry, who has made a fool of himself again and again in this run for the Presidency, is the Governor of Texas, where he set up a huge patronage machine. I think that makes him a politician.

And on and on. Bachman and Paul are in Congress now, and Gingrich even used to be Speaker until he got kicked out in a scandal.

So there you have it. Vote for Scheller for President. Contributions to my campaign are urgently solicited.

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The Deficit – One Big Hoax (Part VI)

In my last twelve posts I departed from my discussion of the deficit in order to focus on the columnists of the media and the media in general, with special emphasis on the New York Times.

However, it is now time to return to the subject of the deficit, the last part of which was posted on July 30. I suggest that you re-read it and if you can possibly find the time read all its parts. You can find the last post here and that post will give you links to all the others.

At the end of my last post on this subject I said:

Next time: What can and should we do about the deficit and the imminent insolvency of Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid? Where can we and should we cut?

I will address this here, but before I do so let me return to the subject of this series, namely The Deficit – One Big Hoax. I called it a hoax, not because I don’t think that it is a serious problem, I believe that it is, but because the Republican Party is using it as a hoax to justify its primary aim, which is to destroy all that we have built over the last half century and even before. To not only repeal the Presidents greatest achievement in passing Health Insurance Reform, but to repeal Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and even to destroy the agencies that safeguard our health and our well being, including the minimum wage and occupational safety, and I kid thee not, if they can get away with it, our system of free public education.

Their lack of concern with the deficit can easily be seen in that not one of their proposed “reforms” decreases the deficit. The Ryan plan, which has passed the House with almost unanimous Republican support (four Republicans voted against it and no Democrats voted for it) would, according to Representative Paul Ryan himself, add $6 trillion to the national debt over ten years as reported by the Economist, hardly a left wing source, and as far as I can find nowhere else in the media.

The same goes for all the proposals for “tax reform” touted by the Republican Presidential candidates. Whether we are talking about the famous (or infamous) 9/9/9 plan or the newly touted flat tax plan of Rick Perry, each one would increase the deficit that they are so ostensibly worried about that they threatened to put the country into default. Yet the media, not even the so-called liberal media, has bothered to point this out. E. J. Dionne Jr. writing in the Washington Post said:

What struck me about Rick Perry’s unveiling of his flat tax proposal is how little attention most of the coverage paid to the massive increase in the deficit it would cause – or the enormous cuts it would require… But the will-o’-the-wisp quality of the Washington conversation is underscored by the fact that when anyone proposed new and temporary spending to boost job growth a couple of months ago the avatars of the conventional wisdom kept asking, “But what about the deficit?” But when Perry proposes his big tax cuts, such questions are nowhere to be heard – except in the 10th paragraph of some news stories. (And that includes Dionne’s own Washington Post’s news reports.)

It is in that sense that it is a hoax, but one that our media fails to call attention to.

But as I have said, while the deficit in the short run, is of secondary importance, while job creation and our infrastructure are of immediate concern, and the two are related, we cannot afford to have only a short-term outlook. The long-term economic future of this country depends on our having the infrastructure to compete. As just one example that has not been discussed, but that is of vital importance is the enlargement of our ports, particularly the port of New Orleans. The Panama Canal is being enlarged to accommodate the larger vessels of the future, but the Port of New Orleans, and our other ports, do not have the capacity to accommodate such vessels. The sooner we address such problems, the better for the future of our economy, and the deficit, which ultimately will be controlled by a robust economy.

But at the same time there is enormous wasteful spending by our government. To the extent that we address such spending, we will reduce our deficit and free up money to do the things that need to be done.

We keep being told that the elephant in the room is entitlement spending and this is true, but in my view this should be addressed, not as a budget issue, but as a sustainability issue.

According to the Social Security Administration (I urge the reader to read this report in full.):

Projected long-run program costs for both Medicare and Social Security are not sustainable under currently scheduled financing, and will require legislative modifications if disruptive consequences for beneficiaries and taxpayers are to be avoided. The long-run financial challenges facing Social Security and Medicare should be addressed soon. If action is taken sooner rather than later, more options and more time will be available to phase in changes so that those affected have adequate time to prepare. Earlier action will also afford elected officials with a greater opportunity to minimize adverse impacts on vulnerable populations, including lower-income workers and those who are already substantially dependent on program benefits.

Both Social Security and Medicare, the two largest federal programs, face substantial cost growth in the upcoming decades due to factors that include population aging as well as the growth in expenditures per beneficiary. Through the mid-2030s, due to the large baby-boom generation entering retirement and lower-birth-rate generations entering employment, population aging is the largest single factor contributing to cost growth in the two programs. Thereafter, the continued rapid growth in health care cost per beneficiary becomes the larger factor.

I intend to discuss this vital issue at length at a future time but allow me to here at least begin a discussion of wasteful spending and I will not attempt to address this in the order of importance, but rather as issues come to my mind. Following this model I address first the so-called Drug War.

I can think of no area where we have done more damage to our economy and to our society than in this area.

The incredible thing is that it should have been obvious from our experience with prohibition. While I am sure that differences between them can be found, the results in the two cases are so parallel that it is an inescapable comparison.

In addition, there is an incredible agreement across the political spectrum on its wrong-headedness. The people who have spoken out against it include: Milton Friedman, the supply side economist, Walter Cronkite, the beloved journalist, George Shultz, Secretary of State in the Reagan Administration, Walter F. Buckley, Jr. founder of the Right Wing National Review, and Jimmy Carter the 39th President of the United States. For the exact quotes from these people, see below. To enlarge for legibility click on it.

Once again, in order to limit the post to a reasonable length, I will defer further discussion to the next post.

Comments on this and other posts are invited and should be sent to es628@columbia.edu.