roundtable: Re: Federal Budget Negotiations

roundtable: Re: Federal Budget Negotiations

Re: Federal Budget Negotiations

Ted Kircher (kircher@bga.com)
Tue, 19 Dec 1995 08:44:14 -0600 (CST) 

Date: Tue, 19 Dec 1995 08:44:14 -0600 (CST)
From: Ted Kircher <kircher@bga.com>
Subject: Re: Federal Budget Negotiations
To: Vigdor Schreibman - FINS <fins@access.digex.net>
Message-Id: <Pine.3.89.9512190853.A8403-0100000@urchin.bga.com>


On Mon, 18 Dec 1995, Vigdor Schreibman - FINS wrote:
> ...
> I find it dishonest to
> approach that problem by giving further tax breaks to the very class of
> people in this society who already have an obscenely inequitable share of
> the wealth and who benefited most from the situation that brought about
> the current crisis.
> ...
>   Inequity is something that must be overcome if one expects a viable
> resolution of the existing situation, and squarely addressing that issue
> cannot properly be called dogmatic or characterized in some other
> derogative manner that have little to do with my comments. Nevertheless, 
> I take at face value your desire to put forward some constructive ideas.
>
>   Since you agree that the inequities of income and wealth distribution
> must be structurally remedied, perhaps you would tell us at the outset what
> your ideas are with regard to holding those people accountable who now
> hold an inequitable share of wealth--to help balance the budget ?

Vigdor,

You are intermixing what I consider to be three issues that I feel need 
to be dealt with separately for pragmatic reasons: 1) balancing the budget 
(w/ the most impartial economic forecast - CBO) 2) remedying the past 
inequities and 3) devising a plan that evolves towards equity in the 
future.

1) Balancing the budget - as I stated in an earlier note, I feel this is a
   must for reasons that go beyond those that the Republicans have stated
   because I am concerned with the long term economic viability of the US 
   in the global marketplace.

   Within that scope, I would acquiesce to your or 'Blue Dog' Democrats'
   priorities about how to partitioning of this pot of money (reduce/
   eliminate tax cuts, ...). However, I feel that this is only a relatively
   minor aspect of the overall inequity set of issues.

2) Remedying the past inequities - that you described so well in your
   article "Pay the Public Debt made by a Politics of Rich and Poor".

   However bad this was, it was better than earlier inequities against women
   (lack of suffrage), blacks (slavery) , ...., serfs, ...., Christians to
   the lions in the Roman empire, ... That is, the inequities of those in
   power have reduced over time - albeit perhaps they may have only gone
   from 1 to around 4 or 5 on a scale of 10, where 10 represented the goal
   of complete equity.

   Like all of the other inequities, one should not expect to get reimbursed
   for the past inequities - unless one lives in Bosnia where 'who's on top'
   constantly changes. This might be true in the US as well if there was
   very little hope for improvements in the future - and I believe there are
   as I outline in 3).

3) In order to have a chance of achieving equity in the future, I feel that
   the emphasis needs to be on moving from "all men are created equal" to
   "each individual has equal opportunity". The emphasis should continue to
   be on each individual to achieve the 'American dream', but this has to 
   be on a more level playing field so that a higher (natural ability)
   percentage of the average 'have-nots' can achieve it versus the small
   percentage of exceptional 'have-nots' that the Republicans point out.
   This, however, should not be an affirmative action program!

   One aspect of this is to fully exploit computer technology to provide a
   basic computer for every student in their home whose electronics and
   operation system would be upgraded every couple of years to allow access
   to the Internet and an extensive set of CBT (Computer Based Training)
   courses. This should not cost more than $25 per month.

   Another aspect is that the acceleration of computer technology is
   creating more opportunities for new people since 'experience equals
   scar-tissue' will be more of a reality. An individual only needs to
   learn the basis information of 'how to learn how to learn' - most of
   which was known at the beginning of the 20th century, and then have
   access to the latest information - which is equivalent to saying it 
   must be on-line.

   This is an extensive and complex topic which I plan to be discussing -
   and advocating - in a column in the soon to be started on-line
   'newspaper', the Austin Cyber Limits. This listserv exchange is not the
   time and means,for me at least, to do adequate justice to this issue.

Vigdor, I hope you will agree with my three-way partitioning of the issues,
and also agree with my summary of the first two issues on balancing the
budget and what to do about the past inequities. I look forward to your
response on these issues.

I also look forward, although not on a day-by-day basis, interacting with
you on how to achieve equity in the future, not only in the US, but
throughout the world.

Ted
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Theodore A. Kircher
Information Age Consulting	     "Exploiting Technology for Society"
6618 Lost Horizon Drive, Austin, Texas 78759-6117, USA	  (512) 335-1149
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