Pay-As-You-Go-Government

With the debt ceiling crisis behind us, at least for now, perhaps it is time to consider a really radical idea to set the nation’s budget—pay-as-you-go government. You’d be taxed (sorry, I couldn’t avoid the word) only for those programs you want or use.

For sure there would have to be some universally subsidized programs. Everyone would have to pay for national defense. But only so far as our national borders go. Any troops sent overseas would be paid for just by those willing to shell out for shells on the front lines of our war on terror.

You might think the Federal Highway System is another universal program, but you’d be only partially right. Since so much of our food is trucked on our interstate highways, you’d have to pay your fair share for their upkeep. Perhaps those in the Government Accounting Office can come up with a more equitable plan, but for now I would assess people based on their weight. For those hefty souls who would pay more than us skinny folks there’s added incentive to lose those pounds.

The rest of the cost of building and maintaining roads would come from fees based on usage. All vehicles would be equipped with E-Z Pass-type tags to monitor road use and charge accordingly. Since not everyone has a vehicle, small chips would be implanted under our skins to process passengers—even babies— who otherwise would be freeloading rides (to prevent scofflaws from purposely and knowingly covering their chips as they pass through sensors, chips would be randomly implanted in our bodies. You’d pay a premium to have this done while under anesthesia. Right-to-lifers would agree to have chips implanted in their fetuses).

If you haven’t been mugged lately, not had a fire in your home, or didn’t need emergency medical care, perhaps you’d be willing to cut back on these essential services. No problem. Your ID would be on record so police, fire and EMT personnel would know there’s no rush should you ever call.

If you’re a couch potato with no intention of ever visiting a national park, maybe you’d prefer to skip a tax to upkeep Yosemite, Yellowstone, Acadia, the Everglades, and the Statue of Liberty, et al. Of course, you couldn’t deduct the full cost of the Parks Department as you do derive some benefit from trees that regenerate the air we all breathe. I’m sure scientists can compute how much new oxygen is placed back in the atmosphere by public trees. From there it’s simple arithmetic to figure out each person’s share.

Maybe you’d like to stop funding stem cell research? Okay, but be prepared to forgo any benefits or treatments for yourself and three generations of your immediate family that may result from scientific breakthroughs.

Not happy with Medicare? Opt out. Just be sure you’ve socked away enough money to pay for medical bills in your old age.

Perhaps you think social security is a socialist scheme? Drop out, but don’t expect the government to support you in retirement.

Government is just too involved in people’s lives, in telling business how to run companies, some believe. Who needs OSHA if you don’t work in a mine or a chemical treatment or meat processing plant, or a data processing center where repetitive motions result in carpal tunnel syndrome? Big Business wouldn’t hurt its workers, would it?

Do we really need a Product Safety Commission looking over every manufacturer’s shoulders? What’s a few baby heads stuck between slats of a crib in a nation of 300-million, anyway? Do we really believe suppliers would harm their customers, just to earn a few more dollars of profit?

With some old-fashioned Yankee ingenuity we can devise a federalist system that goes beyond returning power to the states. It will give power back to the people, just as the Framers of the Constitution envisioned. Have faith in the people. They are, after all, the ones who elected our current Congress. And see what a good job it already has done.

Amalekites Among Us

Though posted today, I was inspired to write this blog entry while attending Sabbath services yesterday, the day before the Jewish holiday of Purim which commemorates victory over Haman, an evil minister of ancient Persia who sought to annihilate the Jewish people some 2,500 years ago. Haman is thought to have descended from the nomadic tribe of Amalek, a people reviled for their unprovoked attack on the vulnerable rear phalanx of the Israelites as they made their way through the desert to the promised land after the exodus from Egypt.

Each year, the Saturday before Purim is called Shabbat Zachor, the Sabbath of Remembrance. Congregations read a Torah portion commanding Jews to remember Amalek’s treachery: “Remember what Amalek did to you on your journey, after you left Egypt—how, undeterred by fear of God, he surprised you on the march, when you were famished and weary, and cut down all the stragglers in your rear. Therefore...you shall blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven. Do not forget.” (Exodus 25: 17-19)

Listening to one of our temple members expound on the need to safeguard the disadvantaged and vulnerable in our society against both outside attackers and complacency from the more strong and fortunate, I couldn’t help but think we have in our country present-day Amalekites. They’re people who would turn their backs on the infirm, the uninsured, the jobless, the dispossessed, the homeless, the hungry, the needy, in short, the less fortunate. My first instinct was to label all of them Republicans. But that would be too easy, and, in truth, not inclusive enough.

Disregard for one’s fellow human knows no ideological bound. No religious border. No political persuasion.

Who has not been rightly moved by the tragic pictures from Japan, or from Haiti, or New Zealand? In an instant, the forces of nature overturned societies. Americans opened their hearts and wallets to the victims.

But why does it take a natural disaster to make us emote and care for the downtrodden, either here or abroad? How is it the citizens of the richest country on earth tolerate poverty in our midst? How is it some don’t accept it is not Christian charity to deny anyone a living wage, that it is within our depths of compassion and resources to provide sustenance and shelter for the needy? I’m not advocating a welfare state of handouts. Anyone receiving public assistance should be required to compensate the government for it by working on community projects or the like.

By virtue of luck, we were either born or emigrated here. We enjoy a standard of living married to institutional values second to none. Judeo-Christian precepts underpin our national psyche. Those precepts are imbued with concern and care for the poor and disadvantaged. They cherish learning and tolerance. Anyone with even a passing knowledge of the Bible knows it is not a libertarian treatise. There are codes of law that define proper personal and public behavior, by the individual and state.

Yet, while so many of our citizens espouse religious values, they fail to live by them. We have allowed our educational system to backslide. Infant mortality has risen. Some promote the right to life for the unborn but turn their backs on public support of the young once they breathe their first. Health care increasingly is reserved for the elite, and the battle is joined when proponents advance the idea of coverage for all. Driven by the pursuit of profits, corporations shut down domestic employment in favor of foreign workers, leaving individuals and communities forsaken.

Through the centuries Jews cast anyone who sought their destruction as an Amalekite. Today, an Amalekite has a more universal inhumanity. Our hope, as one biblical commentator put it, “is to blot out from the human heart the cruel Amalek spirit.”