december If the state of NJ needed to set environmental policy, they could include these two women on a committee, and I believe they would match any federal experts.
Swell, but if the state of NJ decided to set environmental policy to the extent that would be required if the federal government weren’t doing so, a lot of those committees would be necessary to do work that would be duplicated by similar committees in other states, not all of which, of course, would have similar expertise available. Centralization does have its uses.
*“Speaking as an actuary, can you tell me what is factually incorrect in the specific claim made in my quote above, and what your evidence is for saying so?” [The quote was, “Well, according to the Century Foundation’s Social Security site, about half the elderly in America would fall below the poverty line if they didn’t have their Social Security benefits.”
Good question.*
I’ll keep waiting, then.
I’m not an expert here, but the quote is spin. What jumps out is the ambiguity of the phrase, “…if they didn’t have their Social Security benefits.” I assume that the Century Foundation intend this to mean, “If SS benefits were suddenly taken away and not replaced by anything.” In other words, the CF subtracted the amount of SS benefits from the total income and say that the remainder would be below the poverty line for half the elderly.
Right, I presume.
*However, if SS had never existed, then retired people would be financially better off in three respects: *
But this hypothetical situation doesn’t answer my question about how you go about reconciling the Century Foundation’s “spin” comment with your own “spin” comment about the average SS recipient being richer than the average SS contributor. If over half of America’s elderly are above the poverty level by less than the amount of their SS benefits—which is not really a big heap of money—then that sounds to me like quite a large group of elderly people who are very far from rich. So once again, what exactly do you mean by saying that the “average” recipient is richer than the “average” contributor?
*“Are you recommending an end to the federal oversight of banks, then?”
Banks have had the option of being regulated by the state or the federal government.*
Is that an answer to my question? If so, I’m afraid I don’t understand it; would you kindly explain it more clearly?
*“as jshore pointed out, they’re [the states] also more vulnerable [than the feds] to pressure on the score of their local economic interest.”
All levels of government are vulnerable to pressure groups.*
True, which is one reason why I think it’s important to have different levels of government involved in many of the same issues, so they are more effective at covering one another’s vulnerable spots.
Sam Stone: *That’s why I said, “If the FDA acted in an advisory capacity, instead of making law”. Sure, use the federal government to fund research into universally important things, but then give the information to the states and let them decide how to use it. *
I agree that there’s a role for purely research-and-advisory federal agencies that don’t actually create regulation. But I can’t agree that it would make life simpler and better if the FDA were one of them, and that all the regulations it now promulgates should be at the discretion of the individual states. Once again, centralization has its uses: will it really be more efficient and cost-effective to have fifty separate organizations banning, say, toxic food additives, rather than just one? There are a whole lot of health and safety issues out there for which a “one size fits all” policy does indeed work well, and it would be pretty wasteful and redundant to put them all on the table fifty times over.
*Another argument for separating the people who do the science from the people making the laws. If the EPA will get a big boost in funding if it turns out that compound X is bad for you, does it seem smart to have them do the research to determine whether or not it is? *
Aren’t we getting off track again here? If the federal government were still funding the EPA as a purely research-and-advisory non-regulatory agency, and all regulatory powers were left up to the states, we’d still have the potential for abuse of this kind.
If you don’t like a state’s laws, you are free not to travel there. If enough people feel that way, the state will feel the crunch and amend its laws. This is the way the marketplace works, both for companies, states, and countries.
This argument still presumes that people are wealthy enough to have realistic choices in terms of their mobility, and still relies on what I criticized as an inadequate “market model” for policy determination.
*That is exactly my argument. States should only do what municipalities can’t. Municipalities should only do what local zoning boards and community associations can’t. And they should only do that which the individual can’t.
But this involves a huge amount of duplication. Sure, each individual can dispose of his own wastes, say, but why should s/he? It’s more efficient to have a community disposal system. And each municipality can have its own water quality testing institute, say, but why should they? It’s more efficient to have statewide or regional institutes to work with a number of municipalities. And so forth; that’s how centralization grows, and while it’s true that it’s frequently clumsy and inefficient, it also frequently avoids a lot of redundancy.
And the individual is contrained by the rules of the market.
And IMHO, one of the important functions of government is precisely to counteract the constraints of the market, because of the existence of market failures.
Any time you want to increase the scope and impact of government, the burden of proof should be on you to show why it must be so.
That doesn’t sound unreasonable. Of course, I’m not arguing to increase the scope and impact of government; I’m merely arguing against reducing its scope and impact by knocking off the regulatory agencies.
My point with this [air traffic safety regulation] example was to show that regulations intrude on a complex interplay of forces and distort them, usually in unpredictable ways.
I agree that that’s a problem in general. But I think the example you came up with is one which actually illustrates the advantages of not devolving regulation to the states. Regulation is certainly not an unmitigated good, and often smaller-scope regulation works better than the larger-scope kind, but I don’t think that air traffic safety regulation is a good example of something that works better on a smaller scale.
No, I’m saying that the state is better able to determine what the PEOPLE of the state want.
And the people of the nation are better able to determine what the people of the nation want. That’s why, as I keep saying, when it comes to some of the major issues whose effects have comparable impact on human beings no matter what state they live in, it’s efficient and sensible to have the people deciding what they want as one nationwide body instead of fifty statewide ones.
You seem to be forgetting them in all this. The way you are talking it almost sounds like you favor technocracy, in which an enlightened ruling class applies their knowledge and tells the people what they need and what they can have.
Pooh, more conservative/libertarian scaremongering about those awful liberals who don’t trust the PEOPLE. I say that if the people have paid good money for scientific expertise, we should get our money’s worth out of it.
*But some laws should be left to the federal government, for exactly the reason you state - sometimes leaving things to the states will simply cause too much hardship for the nation as a whole, or be inefficient, or result in one state damaging another (like New Jersey pumping pollutants into rivers which feed into other states). In those areas, the Federal government has a role. *
? Okay. Is it just me, then, or did our basic debate just vanish?
Why shouldn’t local economic interests have a say?
They should and they do. As I pointed out above, though, it’s important to have countervailing forces to ensure that their say isn’t the only say, because they’re usually the forces with most clout at the local and state level.
*“This is why nobody supports having the federal government regulate everything. But it is not a valid argument in favor of not having the federal government regulate anything.”
Keep setting up those straw men, and I’ll keep knocking them down. I’ll repeat for about the 10th time: I’m not advocating the elimination of federal government.*
Then maybe this debate wasn’t ever relevant to your views in the first place? The reason I started talking about the topic of the scope of the federal government back on the previous page was in response to B’s much more radical suggestion that the federal government should play no role in social programs or in anything but basic military, civil and criminal justice, and infrastructure issues. It sounds as though that’s not where you’re coming from, so maybe I wasn’t ever actually arguing with you.
I’m saying that Federal laws should be the LAST resort, not the first. This concept seems to be lost in modern political dialogue.
No, we live in a pretty pro-devolution environment right now; consider the massive transfer of federal welfare programs to the states, the repeal of the federal speed limit, etc.
*Someone comes up with the idea that, say, prescription drugs should be free to seniors, and the debate seems to only revolve around whether or not we can afford to do this, and whether the government in Washington can muster the votes to pass it. No one seems to be pointing out that the states are perfectly free to come up with their own prescription drug plans, and that maybe they are the best ones to decide. *
Probably because health benefits for seniors (i.e., Medicare) is already a federal program, so it’s more efficient to deal with drug benefits at the same level, possibly even in the same program.
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