PastorShawn

Actually, employers have moved over the years toward cafeteria-style benefit plans that provide various options that employees can opt into or opt out off. There are different costs associated with various benefits and employees will tend to choose the mix of benefits that best fit their own preferences. The reason companies do this is because each employee's personal preferences will vary, and offering choices allows the company to more finely tailor benefits to meet the preferences of the most employees. Unfortunately, these concepts of freedom and flexibility are under assault with ObamaCare.

Now, here's a little lesson on freedom and choice. You get more freedom and choice in a private, free market than you do from the public sector (i.e., in the private sector people/firms must compete with one another for your business). In the public sector, you have greater control when the public sector decisions are made closer to home. You have greater control if laws are made locally than you do if they are made at the state level, you have more control and better responsiveness at the state level than you do at the federal level.

No, single payer isn't the only option, other countries (e.g., Netherlands) are moving away from centralized one-size-fits-all health care toward more market based approaches (i.e., high deductible, catastrophic coverage that is portable). Republicans and conservatives proposed such approaches (John McCain had a proposal like this in his Presidential campaign), the Obama administration pursued a partisan approach to healthcare that rebuffed any competing ideas.

Oh, regarding your statement "Republicans could care less if one has a pre existing condition", perhaps you ought to reread the Sojourners posting guidelines, "I will not exaggerate others' beliefs nor make unfounded prejudicial assumptions based on labels, categories, or stereotypes. I will always extend the benefit of the doubt."

"You don't determine what's in your health care plan-your state insurance commissioner does"

Actually, I currently have choices of five different plans, from lower cost/catastrophic coverage, to more expensive all-inclusive plans. When I was first married we were young, without kids, healthy, and chose a higher deductible less expensive plan (among about three options; ObamaCare wouldn't have given us that choice). Yes, state commissions do set minimum requirements, which is why insurance can be as much as three times more expensive in states with ObamaCare type regulations than they are in neighboring states with greater freedom. That's one reason I favor allowing people to shop for coverage across state lines, greater choice, greater competition, lower costs, better service.

"the simple reasoning of look for another job if you don't like the health care package is short sited...Just imagine if one could change jobs without worry about pre existing conditions, health care coverage"

Agreed, this is why Republicans/conservatives have promoted reform plans aimed at decoupling health insurance from employment (i.e., portability). ObamaCare essentially doubles down on what isn't working in the current system.

"What if the Catholic hospital could dictate what was in the plan to such an extent that half of it was gutted?"

There is an incentive for employers recruiting and retaining talent, to provide compensation packages that reflect employee preferences. But under the ObamaCare model you still have the same issue, you just politicize what is covered and not covered at a national level. At least at an employer level, if you don't like your compensation package, you have the option to move. Or if at a state level you don't like that state's treatment of healthcare, you can move to another state (i.e., Oregon not covering some cancer treatments and instead sending patients information about euthanasia). But if we federalize these decisions, you are stuck with the dictates, hence the consternation over the present issue.

"Kathleen Sibelius (Kansas ex insurance commissioner) has decided that providing contraceptives is in the best interest of everybody. Get used to it!"

And in a country founded on principles of freedom, get used to people resisting totalitarian authoritarianism. If this stands, get used to the idea of others making medical decisions for you that you don't like. At least the lie that if you like your existing healthcare plan you can keep it, that lie has been widely exposed. And that is why there is resistance to this infringement on the 1st amendment by even those like me who have no problem with birth control.

"So they have carefully reframed the issue as a fight for religious freedom...perceived infringements on religious freedom"

It is about religious freedom, that is simply a factual reality. You can argue that religious institutions shouldn't be allowed to exercise their religious freedoms and not fund services or products they oppose. You can argue that the government has the right or obligation to infringe on religious freedom. At least those are honest arguments. But to infringe on religious freedom and then say that you aren't, is dishonest.

"if outsiders are seen as attacking the church, Catholics can get defensive"

If someone is using the term "attacking", that is probably overstating things. "Forcing" or "coercing" are more accurate.

But the reason this has such widespread opposition from those who have no problem with birth control is because there is a more fundamental problem... coercion period. ObamaCare significantly increased the politicization of health care. When a central government mandates in a top-down manner the type and scope of products and services that every person must purchase, that politicizes activities that would normally resolve themselves in a free market.

Is it that birth control is unavailable prior to ObamaCare? No, there are essentially no limits on the purchase of contraceptives. Is it that companies and health plans are barred from providing coverage for birth control prior to ObamaCare? No, 9 out of 10 plans already cover them. Are employees of Catholic institutions barred prior to ObamaCare from purchasing birth control themselves? No, they are free to purchase it themselves. If they want a health care plan that covers that service, they could choose to work elsewhere. Employees make employment decisions every day based on the total compensation packages provided by prospective employers, they factor in salaries, fringe benefits, etc.

At its core, this present kerfuffle simply illustrates the significant failures of ObamaCare. Namely that the legislation doesn't reform the U.S. health care system, but actually exacerbates the worst parts of it. Rather than making health care plans less expensive, it increases costs by increasing mandates. Essentially it's a Ma Bell approach to health care in a Facebook age. In an age in which people expect choice and freedom, it says that "we know what is best for you." These are the true reasons that Obama is losing the contraceptives fight.

Actually, this isn't about insurance. Insurance is the protection against significant catastrophic loss by paying a comparatively small premium. This is actually prepaid healthcare (which honestly, is most of what people tend to call "healthcare insurance" today). And this is requiring Catholic institutions that disagree with birth control to pay for it. On the converse side, if this rule were not in place, nothing would prohibit those who work for Catholic institutions from accessing birth control, they are still free to purchase it. The reality is that people want others to pay for their purchases...

Good points Don... additionally we could note that Campolo makes a false comparison using the shibboleth that the Clinton impeachment was about sex (the entire line of reasoning assumes that we are comparing sexual dalliances). In fact, the Clinton impeachment was predicated not on sex, but on perjury, false and misleading testimony before a grand jury, influencing/encouraging others to give false testimony, concealing evidence, etc.

Hey I'm fairly optimistic and like idealism (as long as it's tethered to reality and logic). You and I might define "thoughtful" differently: the definition I used was engaging in a dialogue rather than a monologue (i.e., actually responding to someone else ). Logic and rationality also helps ;)

I'm not sure whether civility in politics is at a low, there's a tendency to view our generation as unique, but politics has always been vicious... campaigns in the 1800's were hardly nice or civil. Yet Milton Friedman predicted greater levels of divisiveness in the case of an ever expanding government (i.e., the marginal benefit of politicking is greater). He also predicted more divisiveness when a political party would implement significant legislation without bipartisan support and with substantial public disproval. So, I'm not ready to grant the assertion of increased divisiveness, but if it exists, it's explainable.

Thanks for your input... Clearly I'm the contrarian on a blog that doesn't appreciate the contrary. I'm okay with that, though as you maybe gathered, I appreciate a healthy debate, regardless of whether someone agrees with me. On the old system there was the means of rating or liking posts, and I always did well on likability. ;)

Squeaky: Thank you for your thoughtful post; I probably won't surprise you if I don't end up entirely agreeing, but you were the only person on here to respond to what I wrote and whether I agree with you or not, your response was one of the few thoughtful posts on here. I appreciated the quality and character of what you wrote.

I'll respond to what you wrote, but I have to note from the beginning that you did end up changing the subject. The blog to which I originally responded bemoaned the fact that those who have wealth could become more wealthy, this was described as "criminal — sinful I would argue". The implication was that we ought to keep the wealthy from becoming more wealthy, or if people are wealthy, we ought to take it away from them. That was the context of my responses (and big question), namely tax policy. You ended up going into budgetary policy (i.e., questions of how much the government spends, and on what should the government spend). I'll respond to that, but recognize that we are talking about two different subjects.

Yes, taxes reduce trade. There are areas of economics where there are diverging opinions and uncertainty, but this is not one of them. That's why in public policy debates if we want less of some type of activity (smoking for example), we tax it. If we want more of something (e.g., home ownership, charitable giving, etc.) we subsidize it. That's the reason I used what should have been an uncontroversial illustration in prior posts, to illustrate how taxes reduce trade. If I'm willing to sell a house for as low as $120,000 and you're willing to pay as much as $130,000, we should be able to negotiate a price somewhere between those prices and we will trade (assuming no taxes, no information asymmetries, and no transaction costs). But if we assume that the transaction is taxed at 10%, we won't consummate the transaction.

Taxes decrease economic trade, this isn't really debatable. The tax debates reside elsewhere. All economists would tend to agree that a certain amount of taxes are necessary from an economic infrastructure perspective (and you noted some of them, and I'll respond to your thoughts), but even while saying that some level of taxation is necessary, there is a recognition that those taxes will reduce economic growth because they will reduce economic trade. Sensitivity to taxes (i.e., price elasticity) will vary, and some forms of taxation are more efficient than others, and I'm not debating any of this because there are diverging points of view. What I took issue with was the thesis that somehow intentionally inflicting harm on one group of people helps other people (e.g., intentionally keeping Steve Jobs from expanding Apple following its initial successes).

Perhaps this is pedantic, but taxes don't "go out", taxes come in (i.e., the government extracts taxes, it doesn't give or provide taxes). But ignoring that technical definition, you gave some good examples. Generally, even the most conservative of economists would tend to support taxation to provide for public and common goods. Your examples included some common goods (infrastructure like roads, bridges). I'd include public goods like our legal system and national defense/security. You note another common good, education, and while I think some of the claims made as part of arguments about educational funding are semi-dubious, I'm willing to cede any arguments about education as a common good. In fact, the general tenor of your "more wealth, more commerce, more trade" comments are essentially the argument that I was making and with which others on this forum took issue.

All of the programs that you cite, could have benefits, I guess the point of my posts was to respond to the original blog, not get into a larger public policy discussion of spending priorities.

You note that corporations haven't used profits to create jobs, which is a misunderstanding of how/why jobs are created. My wife has a small business that has full time employees, part time employees, and seasonal employees. Whether they hire new people or not has nothing to do with profits. They hire people if they have products and services they need to deliver to their customers, and they are unable to deliver them with their current workforce. Namely, if her business grows, then she will add to her workforce. Whatever profitability she may have had this year is irrelevant to the question of whether she needs to hire another employee. The principle is the same without regard to the size of a firm; companies modify inputs that create products or services for customers, this involves tasks that translate into jobs.

I'm not sure what "expectations" people have for companies (large and small) creating jobs. We will tend to generate more net jobs in an expanding economy; this recovery has been what I've termed an "L-shaped" recovery, anemic, sluggish, and flat. The questions of how to address these challenges from both monetary and fiscal perspectives are complex and there are ranging opinions. But in my original question to which you thoughtfully responded, it isn't at all clear how increasing taxes helps.

On job reductions. I remember a CEO commenting a number of years ago about a competitor company laying off something like 5,000-10,000 employees. He noted that the competitor was still providing the same products and services that they did prior to the layoffs, which meant that the company had become bloated over time until they reached the point where they had more employees than they needed. He pointed out that his goal was to manage his company so they woul never get to that point. While we regret the layoffs, should a company keep on its payroll employees that it doesn't need? Even in a more robust economy, in the U.S. we have tended to shed between 4 and 5 million jobs per month, and we tend to add between 4 and 5 million jobs per month (i.e., the economic is dynamic, we create and lose a lot of jobs over time). When you see job reports that we added 200,000 jobs last month, what that means (and I'm just making up data at this point for illustration purposes, though the data is essentially realistic) is that we might have lost 4.3 million jobs but added 4.5 million jobs.

The impact of taxation on these levels of job creation depends. There are other fiscal policies that impact this as well as monetary policies. Economically there are debates and discussions about the degree to which the current employment trends are structural. And with taxation, the impact of tax policy depends on the type of tax. In terms of the "myth" you address, most policy proposals in the area of taxation (both past and present) have tended to look at tax policy across the board (i.e., at all income levels, not a small subset of the population). I'd also note that there is essentially no one who argues some type of "trickle down" theory, that particular term is used as a pejorative and a straw man.

Finally, I do like your question about wealth creation and worship. To a certain degree I've been wrestling with this in a working paper. To respond to the question I go back to my original question and Steve Jobs/Apple as an example. If my arguing that Jobs founding Apple, creating products people want to buy, etc. was a good thing, and if in defending that I'm "defending the wealth creation of the 1%", I guess I'm guilty. I still don't see how reducing Jobs' wealth as a public policy goal is positive. If we don't like layoffs, which of Apples 60,000 employees do we want let go in our zeal to reduce someone's wealth? I'm for wealth creation of the Steve Jobs variety because it does reduce poverty, homelessness, etc.

Where does worship come in? It could come in many forms. I need to resist the temptation to envy those who have what I don't (worshiping what others have). If I have more than others I need to resist the temptation to pride (worshiping what I have). I need to recognize that people acting in their own economic self interest can create positive economic benefits for other people (worship that recognizes God's provision of common grace). But I need to recognize as a Christian that I do not act out of unilateral self-interest, but I need to ultimately devote myself to the self interest of God (worship that comes from a renewed mind and renewed priorities).

That is certainly a possibility that I've considered. However, two realities mitigate against it. First, my students grasp these concepts without the struggle I've seen here. Second (and the most consequential consideration), the responses to my posts have been glaring in ignoring what I wrote, this speaks to an unwillingness to engage in a dialogue or listen. But yes, I did seriously assess the possibility.

Kansas, I responded and demonstrated the veracity of the data provided, merely calling something deceiving doesn't make it so. Note that I've been civil and haven't raised loaded charges of "deceiving" or "misrepresenting" (suggesting some intentionality), in my response to you on the data I merely noted the incompleteness and lack of relevancy of the data you presented. Essentially I charitably noted that you were mistaken, I didn't question your motives or integrity.

Once again you raise a new topic that deflects from the question I've raised in response to the original blog (which you haven't yet responded to); the new topic is, "How many jobs are created by X, Y, and Z?" But in the interest maintaining some continuing in my posts, I'll go back to the Steve Jobs/Apple illustration. I think we can stipulate that Jobs was in the top 1%. Apple currently has about 60,000 employees. Now I'm not sure about your definition of "major job creators", but 64,000 seems major to me. But even if you were to suggest that 60,000 isn't "major", going back to my original question, how would reducing Steve Jobs' income/wealth or how would reducing the number of people employeed by Apple help anyone or make the poor better off?

For those trying to figure out the posts here, I did provide a couple of detailed responses to "kansas" with IRS and CBO data, but apparently Sojourners pulled this data from the blog. "Curiouser and curiouser." Interestingly, that was my most "factual" set of postings that had the least "commentary" (i.e., there was nothing particularly controversial, unless reality is controversial). Without that context, some of the remaining posts may make less sense.

Scat, admittedly I have less patience when people seem unwilling to engage ideas in a thoughtful, logical manner. It's a flaw, I'm not perfect... I'll also blame typing a long post on an iPhone as a contributing factor (no really, I love the iPhone, but I can't stand typing extensively on it). But, you will also see in my posts that I acknowledged ranges of opinion (something I don't see in the original blog post to which I responded, nor do I see that level of openness in response to me), and I even acknowledged agreement with an aspect of a response to my post.

I actually do not assume that money is the primary motivator of people's decisions. In economic terms (and borrowing from Jensen and Meckling's classic "The Nature of Man") people seek to maximize utility, and in doing so they are resourceful and evaluative. But utility isn't merely financial in nature (in fact, I had a colleague refer to "utility" as "jollies", a decidedly unfinancial term that I like because utility is more expansive than simply money). I agree with Jensen and Meckling that people are motivated by a wide range of things: knowledge, independence, the plight of others, the environment, honor, interpersonal relationships, status, peer approval, group norms, culture, wealth, rules of conduct, the weather, music, art, respect, power, love, the welfare of others, and so on.

I simply reject the asinine (that's blunt, not condescension) notion that people (at any income level) ignore financial tradeoffs. Yes, people care about many things and money is not necessarily the primary motivator, but that doesn't mean they ignore it. Demand curves are downward sloping and supply curves are upward sloping no matter how much you might wish it were otherwise. If Coke is priced 25 cents higher than Pepsi I will only buy the Coke if I think I get 25 cents more value out of it (which I might, I prefer Coke, but the point is that from small decisions to large, we make decisions that balance financial impacts and our preferences).

Perhaps my frustration stems from the fact that the original blog post to which I responded indicated a desire to address joblessness and poverty, two things I'd like to see in shorter supply. But then there is a suggestion that somehow if we take people who are wealthy and make them less wealthy, that action will magically alleviate poverty and somehow provide people with jobs. That is the primary point to which I've responded, and I haven't had a single response, not one, to the question, "if we harm those who have more wealth, how does that help those who have less?" Everything else I've written is essentially a footnote to that question.

Let me add another "footnote" by way of practical illustration. This is an actual illustration from an actual business decision facing my wife. She has a small company and they lease some office space. The owners of that space want to sell it, so they have a lease versus buy decision. Economically there wouldn't necessarily be a rationale for buying, except that if they don't and the owner sells the space to someone else, they'd have to move. There is economic value in keeping their location, so there is some incentive to pursuing the purchase option. But, they are almost fully utilizing the existing space and there is no option to expand it. However, down the hall there is another space available that is larger, but it is more space than they need presently with their current volume of business. The business decision is whether to take the risk and expand into new space and work to develop and grow the business. If that expansion worked financially, it would mean hiring more people, and yes, my wife would make more money.

So I go back to the original question (which I assume no one will respond to, no one has yet), how is it that people get jobs and rise out of poverty when we punish, prohibit, or create a disincentive that keeps my wife from engaging in this "criminal — sinful I would argue" activity of adding to her income/wealth through a risky expansion of the business?

To your other questions (see, I actually respond to questions, perhaps I'm condescending because I actually bother to respond, while others ignore my own questions), I'm neither defending the 1% nor attacking them, I'm merely asking rational questions to which I have yet to get a rational response. On the question of tax burden, nothing in my posts dealt with the question of whether people who currently pay no federal income taxes is a good thing or not. That could be an interesting question and debate, but I haven't gone there (and the fact that you have, illustrates my point of ignoring what I actually wrote and pursuing unrelated tangents instead).

The reason I cited actual tax data is because a claim was made, let me quote, "There is concerted effort on the gop part to tax the poor more and the rich less. Where have you been?" I cited statistics that show the exact opposite, that's all I did, nothing more nothing less. Nor did I bemoan people who don't pay federal income tax, again, I didn't address that question at all.

And note, I was careful with my language, I did not say that people who pay no federal income tax, pay "no tax". In fact, if you read one of my prior posts, I noted that I'm not a huge fan of sales or property taxes (also noting that arguments for and against each of these forms of taxation aren't tightly correlated to political ideology, there are arguments for and against taxation methods that span the ideological spectrum). I would put social security and medicare taxation in a different category since as dedicated taxes they are conceptually different from some of the other tax examples (i.e., in a general sense you are in theory expecting to get out of those programs what you paid in; for social security that has generally been true historically on a 1:1 ratio; medicare is more problematic because the benefit to pay-in ratio is closer to 3:1).

You focus on an illustration and miss the larger point. The point is, demand curves are downward sloping and supply curves are upward sloping (people respond to pricing mechanisms, marginal cost, and marginal benefit); economic trade creates wealth rather than reducing it. Reducing economic trade and voluntary transactions is wealth reducing, it may make you feel better (for reasons that escape me) but it doesn't help alleviate poverty.

Economic disincentives reduce economic development and lower (rather than raise) incomes (see for example the index of economic freedom, if you buy Anne's and your argument, explain to me how people are better off in countries that are lower on the list than they are in countries that rank higher on the list).

What Steve Jobs would have down under an economic system that created a greater disincentive for economic productivity is unclear, but what we do know is that these disincentives will in aggregate reduce national wealth. Economic transactions that would have occurred with fewer disincentives don't occur. Let's assume that I have a home for sale and I'd be willing to sell that house for as little as $120,000. Assume that you would be willing to pay as much as $130,000. In the absence of taxes, information asymmetries, or transaction costs, we should voluntarily transact with a price somewhere between $120,000 and $130,000. Assume we agreed on a price of $124,000. In that case you realize an economic gain of $6,000 and I realize an economic gain of $4,000, our voluntary transaction creates $10,000 of economic wealth and no one is harmed (i.e., the transaction is pareto efficient).

But let's say that I'm part of the evil 1% (like Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob) and someone deems it "evil" for me to add to my wealth. So we impose a 10% tax on the transaction. You can argue that "passion" or something like it might cause some people to go ahead with the economic transaction, though I'll suggest that our trade would no longer occur, destroying economic value. Again, I'm not sure why we want to unnecessarily discourage or demonize trade, or how limiting or discouraging or creating barriers to economic trade helps any percentage of the population.