Healthcare meltdown

John McDonough (Globe, December 27th, 2005. page A 15) does not really offer any alternatives to the current system except to say that people favor a "shared solution involving government, individuals and employers."

Why should employers be involved? Why shouldn't decent health care be an entitlement for every person in Massachusetts (and even America)?



The solution should lie with government and with individuals through the tax system. The income tax should be increased from 5.3% of income to 20.3% of income with the extra 15% being used to buy health insurance for every resident of Massachusetts, employed and unemployed, income tax payer and those too poor to pay income tax. That should be revenue neutral because current insurance fees, as Mr McDonough correctly pointed out, cover the costs of providing health care for the uninsured as well as for the insured.



The burden of health insurance will be taken away from the responsible employers and they will enjoy a level playing field with their less responsible competitors. And that has to be good for the Massachusetts economy

Impeach the President

December 20th. 2005
Sent to but not published in the Boston Herald

The President has violated the law. The President has made a large number of disastrous decisions. The only way to prevent future problems is to impeach the President.

Do it now.

Rationale for War

December 19th. 2005
Sent to but not published in the New York Times

The President in his recent speech claimed that Iraq was a threat to America prior to the invasion even if there were no weapons of mass destruction and even if there was no link between Iraq and the terrorists..



I don't understand. There were no weapons of mass destruction. There was no link to the terrorists. So where was the threat? Will someone please explain.

Testing Voting Machines

December 16th. 2005
Sent to but not published in the Boston Globe

You report (Voting system said to fail test, Globe, December 16th., page A44) that the Diebold company suggested that testing a voting machine to see whether it could be hacked was "a very foolish and irresponsible act." Why is it irresponsible to check whether a supplier's product works as advertised? It would be irresponsible not to do so.

Does that mean that Diebold's manufacturing plants do not test or inspect the inputs they receive from their suppliers? I hope not!, test, unp

Decision Making

Date: December 14th., 2005
Sent to but not published in the New York Times

To: The Editor, New York Times



I was horrified to read in Maureen Dowd's column (Times, December 14th 2005, A35) that according to Jack Murtha "when they were planning the invasion [of Iraq], the administration wouldn't let one of the primary three star generals in the room."



When I was teaching MBA's in 1973 (the year George W. Bush entered the Harvard Business School) my colleagues and I taught, among other things, that in complex situations and if managed properly, group decision making was superior to individual decision making because the variety of points of view expressed by group members would result in a decision that better reflected the facts of the situation. We also taught that having the people who were going to execute the subsequent actions participate in decision making had two useful consequences: as already mentioned  increasing the relevant knowledge brought to bear; and  increasing peoples' commitment to the decision.



Excluding a key group member violated both those recommendations.



George W. Bush must have skipped classes at the Harvard Business School on those days.

Q&A The ethicist, New York Times Magazine

Reading for the Blind

Politically Blind

Universal Health Care

Date: December 8th., 2005
Sent to but not published in the Boston Globe

One of the major reasons given for not adopting a universal coverage health care system such as that currently enjoyed by Canada, the UK and many other western democracies is that the cost of a universal system is that patients have long waiting times to see the doctor of their choice.



Your story "Long waits for Doctors targeted" (December 12th 2005, page A1) suggests that we already have the long waits --- so we might as well adopt the benefits of tax payer supported universal health care. Why not let Massachusetts experiment by giving it a state-wide try out?

Date: December 6th., 2005
 Sent to but not published in the Boston Globe

I was heartened to read your headline "House Republicans quietly pushing for new leadership" (Globe, November 7th., page A 4). I thought this meant that the right wing were now pushing for regime change in Washington with a focus on President Bush, Vice-President Cheney, and Secretary Rumsfeld.



It was only when I read deeper in the article that I found you were referring to the leadership of the House, not the leadership of the country.



Pity!

Why did we go to war?

Date: December 1st., 2005 Sent to but not published in the New York Times


Despite President Bush's upbeat assessment yesterday, every step we take in Iraq is a mis-step.



The latest to come to light is the possibility that the Army has been "placing" positive stories in the Iraq press. These showcase the good things that America is doing in Iraq.


The problem is of course twofold. First, that is the kind of thing Saddam used to do, so our protestations of a higher morality, like the case of Abu Ghraib ring hollow in the ears of the Iraqis. We need to demonstrate and act out that higher morality not just talk about it. Second, those are probably the stories that President Bush and his inept intelligence suppliers used to provide the underpinnings of yesterday's speech. We have come to belive our own propaganda!



Everything we touch in Iraq turns to dust. It is time to withdraw.

Apt Words

Date: November 18th., 2005
Sent to but not published in the New Yorker

George Packer (The Spanish Prisoner, New Yorker, October 31st, 2005: 84) quotes Dos Passos' 1927 lament "America our nation has been beaten by strangers who have turned our language inside out who have taken the clean words our fathers spoke and made them slimy and foul."
How apt those words are today. The strangers are us. We have allowed the administration to lure us into an unjust war. We have allowed the administration to evade accountability for flawed intelligence, for torture (and the torture memos), for inadequate armor for vehicles and people, and for the big lie, currently in progress, of attacking the Iraq war's critics.
We truly lament for the nation.

Shared Sacrifice

Date: November 16th., 2005
Sent to but not published in the Los Angeles Times

The president calls for shared sacrifice. Many commentators and letter writers have pointed out that only one group is sacrificing – members of the armed forces, their families, and, in the case of national guard members, their employers.

In the current Iraq war, America is sacrificing  three things: the lives of its young men and women, its money, and its honor.

Right now, the young are paying or potentially paying the cost of all three. The youth are those dying and maimed in Iraq. With deficit financing of the war, the young will have to pay for it in the next twenty years. Only the privates, specialists, and sergeants of Abu Ghraib have had their honor tarnished while Donald Rumsfeld continues as Secretary of Defense and John Yoo teaches at Berkeley Law.

This cannot to be allowed to continue.

As in all wars the young men and woman will have to continue to do the fighting.

We, the public, must take up the challenge of paying for the war now. It would be unconscionable to leave the financial payments to today's youth. We must devise a pay-as-you-go scheme. Inevitably this will mean raising taxes which will be anathema to the anti-tax Republican conservatives – but it is their war and our war and we and they must pay for it.

Finally, it is the administration that must pay the cost in dishonor. I think we are stuck with the President, a weak but charming fellow, who was at the mercy of his entourage. Vice-President Cheney who promulgated so many of the half truths that brought us to this war and who continues to press for CIA torture despite overwhelming evidence that torture is ineffective in eliciting accurate and timely information should do the honorable thing and resign. Resignation is also required of Secretary Rumsfeld who administered a Pentagon where with a wink and a nod torture of prisoners was countenanced, who planned an invasion with insufficient troops to stabilize a post-war Iraq, and who continues to mismanage the logistics of the war and its strategic goals. Secretary Rice who was unable to get the holidaying President to take notice of the 9/11 intelligence should also step aside.

This is what America needs, this is what our troops deserve: a shared sacrifice where the non-combatants pick up the cost and where the administration oligarchs pass out into the wilderness to help America restore its "sacred honor."

Petition Deadline

Date: November 16th., 2005
Sent to but not published in the Boston Globe

Massachusetts stands at an important threshold: next Wednesday is the deadline for the submission of Petitions to Town Clerks across the Commonwealth. From the western marches of the State to downtown Boston, volunteers are busy planning hand-in routes, arranging drivers, sorting petitions by town, counting signatures, and estimating what the yield will be – that is how many of the signatures will be deemed valid by the Town Clerks of the 351 cities and towns in Massachusetts.
There are eleven petitions registered in Massachusetts but only ten of their sponsors are actively seeking signatures. They range from animal welfare, through family, healthcare, politics to the  the great issues of war and peace.
I have been working on the Common Cause (and allies) sponsored petition for Redistricting Reform. We have a network of volunteers all across the State. In Union halls across the state, signatures are being gathered. At Republican and Democratic district meetings, signatures are being gathered. At town or council meetings from Truro to Williamstown and from Salem to Fall River we are gathering signatures. At parades and Fall Fairs we are gathering signatures. In the valleys of the Berkshires and on the mudflats of th Essex marshes, we are gathering signatures. In the great shopping malls around Boston, signatures are being gathered. We even had signature gatherers at the opening to the New Ikea store at Stoughton!
We are down to the wire. At the Common Cause office on Temple Place in Boston there is anxiety masked with cautious optimism as we hope that  we'll get 100,000 signatures by the end of this coming weekend.
But we are not yet sure. We need every signature we can gather so, if you want to sign the petition and haven't done so yet, get in touch with Common Cause [617-426-9600;  http://www.commoncause.org/site/pp.asp?c=dkLNK1MQIwG&b=192849} and they will get you a petition in time for you to return it to the office by November 19th. And if you would like to gather additional signatures from your neighbors, that would be even better!
Time Sensitive. Must appear on or before Saturday, November, 19th. 2005.

Still Looting in Iraq

Date: November 13, 2005
Sent to but not published by the Washington Post

What poverty of imagination bedevils our leaders. Even today more than two years after the end of the Iraq war important archaeological sites are left unprotected (Looted Iraqi relics slow to surface, November 8, 2005, A01). Looters continue to despoil the world's heritage.

We have talked often about winning the hearts and minds of the Iraqis. What better way of showing our contempt for Iraq's history and demonstrating the uncultivated, unthinking preoccupations of the occupying forces than to ignore the country's cultural heritage.

What better way to show our concern for Iraq's history and its present welfare than to deploy a force of unarmed watchmen to all the Mesopotamia archaeological sites. With the high rates of unemployment in Iraq, I am sure that there would be many recruits for such positions; almost anyone would be hireable; and the sites would represent a beginning of law and order and of cultural appreciation in the region.

Alas our leaders did not have this insight, so  the insurgency grows and the looting continues.

Date: November 12, 2005
Sent to but not published by the Boston Globe

President Bush sometimes speaks the truth, but he rarely speaks the whole truth. Yesterday's Wilkes-Barre address (President steps up attack on war critics, Boston Globe, November 12th. 2005, A1, A12) was correct that early in the run up to the Iraq war everyone believed that the Iraqis had weapons of mass destruction. Everyone was basing their beliefs on the same information.
But that "everyone knows" level of confidence was undermined by the reports of the UN Weapons inspectors between October 2002 and the first days of war. They reported finding no significant WMDs.
It is worthwhile examining the time line very carefully because it puts the Senate War resolution of October 2002 in a very different context than it is usually provided. On September 16th 2002, Iraq accepted the return of the inspectors; this followed by four days G. W. Bush's speech to the UN laying out the case for war. By September 30th, the Iraqis were dragging their feet and proposing unacceptable (to the US) conditions for the return of the inspectors including the exclusion of eight Presidential sites from their remit. On October 10th. The War Resolution passed Congress. In the weeks that followed, Iraqi recalcitrance collapsed and by November 18th. the inspectors were on their way to Iraq with no restrictions on their activities. The War resolution was just what was needed to get the inspectors into Iraq. As such it was a brilliant piece of realpolitik. Over the next four months, the inspectors did their work in Iraq. On February 14th., Hans Blix the chief inspector says that Iraq is in compliance with the disarmament agreement that ended the first Gulf War. March 20th. The War begins.
Yes, up until February, it was plausible to claim that we all knew that Iraq had WMDs; after February, no one could claim that position. The UN inspectors suggested that there was no causus belli. That should have been enough to derail the juggernaut. Alas it did not.
Men and women are dying in Iraq today because we failed to hold the administration accountable for the truth. We must not allow George W. Bush to continue with his misleading half-truths today.

Redistricting

Date: November 11, 2005
Sent to but not published by the New York Times

Mr Sam Hirsch and Mr Thomas E. Mann show their right wing ideological colors early in their piece (Op-Ed Nov 11, 2005, A25) when they say "to 'reform' the way in which ... districts are drawn" (quotes in original). They confirm this bias when in excoriating Ohio and California's desire to bring about a between census redistricting, they fail to mention the problems Texas had with between census redistricting that was engineered by the Republicans. I agree with them that redistricting should only take place after the census, but surely what is sauce for the Democratic goose is also sauce for the Republican gander. Hirsch and Mann let your readers down
Here in Massachusetts, the birthplace of gerrymandering, Common Cause and its allies are putting together a movement to take redistricting out of the direct control of the legislature and into the hands of an independent commission. This is supported by a bipartisan group of sponsors including the Republican Governor and Lieutenant Governor, both Democratic Candidates for next year's gubernatorial election and a host of state senators and representative from both sides of the aisle. There is no expectation of a between census redistricting because the appropriately long winded procedures for Constitutional amendment will unroll over the next four years
______________
PS Sorry to push my luck here but I think a correction is in order. Perhaps it belongs in the Correction or Ombudsman section of the paper.
Thank you for your consideration.

Date: November 9th., 2005
Sent to but not published in the New York Times

Patricia Skalka (Letters, November 9th. 2005) asks what she should do to change the administration's course on the war in Iraq. First, she should be clear that she is not alone in wanting to bring about change. There are millions of us out there but we have to act.
E-mailing and petitioning is not enough (the right can wield the delete key as easily as the rest of us -- as was pointed out in an Op-Ed earlier this week in your sister publication, the Boston Globe; Victoria Bonney, November 7th, 2005).
The peace movement is alive and well. It lives all across this country in church basements and community centers. Perhaps because of the evident injustice of the current war the peace movement flourishes. Find your local peace groups and plan and undertake peaceful protest on the streets of AMerica.
Once this administration sees the swelling stream of protesters in every state, red, blue, and every shade in between, it will change course.
We have nothing to lose by action. Bush and his team have everything to lose by our actions. Bush only wins if we fail to act.

Peace Movement

Date: November 7th., 2005
Published in the New York Times

Your columnist Paul Krugman (Pride, Prejudice, Insurance, November 7th. 2005, page A 25) is correct in his appeal for single payer health care.

While employment changes are important drivers of this, the most compelling reason for moving quickly to a form of single-payer health insurance is the advancement of science.
Once genetic screening techniques are perfected, so that each individual's propensity for each and every disease is known from an early age, the only form of health insurance that makes sense will be the single-payer form. The private health insurance industry will go the way of the dodo, as no responsible U.S. Government will allow an unregulated market in which Insurance Companies can cherry pick for coverage those with a low propensity to get sick while excluding those from coverage who are likely to do so.
We had better start right away to develop a Health Care system that takes account of these evolving technologies.
See the on-line version in the New York Times.

At the Voting Station

Date: November 7, 2005
Sent to but not published by the Boston Globe

Thoughts on signature gathering.
As part of my commitment for Common Cause, I offered to do a couple of hours of duty gathering Petition signatures outside our local voting place –  the National Guard Armory on Concord Avenue.
I'd not been inside before though my wife had and she told me of the impressive interior – and it was. The Drill Hall had a highly polished parquet floor – I couldn't imagine raw recruits marching up or down on it in their hobnailed boots. But I could imagine the officers' ball with sleek dress blues on the men and some women and silk and satin on the ladies as they glided across the parquet to old show tunes of the 1940's. The piece de resistance was the roof: all wood and kind of arts and crafts curved rafters keeping the wood in place. Very impressive.
My wife and I went into the gym where 15 voting booths had been set up. She immediately went over to chat with a former co-worker who was acting as some kind of observer or official. I tried to follow, but an official by the door took one look at my Common Cause buttons attached to my macintosh and said "No buttons in here. Out you go!" I slunk out and waited in the Drill Hall until my wife had voted.
We then went out and I joined the group of candidate standard-wavers a full 150 feet from the entry to the building. There were a couple for Fittini, one for Sampson, and one for a school board member whose name I forget.
I was very apprehensive about gathering signatures. I am not one to accost people on the street and ask for their help – to my wife's despair when I get lost driving somewhere. However, asking for signatures on a political, albeit non-partisan issue, just outside a voting place seemed more appropriate than setting up in Harvard Square to ask people for their support. So I was able to screw up my courage and ask people for their help – often I could barely get the words out of my mouth before they swept by, but others did stop and listen to my script.
There were four of us there: a big fellow with one of the Fittini signs and the school board candidate's sign; a grey haired older man with the other Fittini sign, and a young woman with a Dorothea Sampson sign. They were all chatting and after a couple of my attempts to get interest or signatures from folks walking in to vote were rebuffed, I joined the conversation. I started by asking for their signatures. The young woman had already signed; the grey haired man allowed that he didn't see much wrong with a little gerrymandering but he did agree to take an information sheet. The big fellow had stuck his sign in the fence and had wandered off with a couple of his friends who had come by and I did not see him again during my stint at the Armory.
After chatting for a bit, it turned out that the other two knew each other. The older man was a 70-year old retired Cambridge cop who lived near Tory Row - a very tony neighborhood. He had bought his house there for $27,000 in 1964 and sat there watching the neighborhood change from one housing cops and firefighters to a neighborhood filled with professors and architects -- just like our street thirty years later.
During my time on the line, about 15 people walked by – a lot more drove to the voting station and were inaccessible to me as the parking lot was off limits to be-buttoned folk and they entered the voting station at the back instead of coming round to the front door where I could have buttonholed them. A couple of people brushed me off on their way into vote, but on the way out asked what the petition was about and readily agreed to sign. For one of the people who signed, I puzzled over his attire. He was wearing a Harvard bow tie, but the little "Veritas" crests woven into the fabric were upside down. Did that signal that he was a chronic liar, or was it a distress signal (as is the case with national flags), or had he merely been inattentive when he dressed that morning. I didn't dare ask.
My other companion on the line turned out to be Dorothea Sampson's daughter. If the parent is like the daughter, she'd be a good candidate. I was glad to hear later that my wife had placed her among the eight candidates that she had voted for. Cambridge has a bizarre form of Proportional Representation, probably devised in the 1940's by a Harvard political scientist and an MIT mathematician. It is much too complex to describe (you can read about it here: http://www.newrules.org/gov/camp.html); but I guess it gets the job done.
During my couple of hours on the line, SUV's came by from three or four candidates. Each were loaded with coffee, sodas and muffins. Supplies were handed out indiscriminately, you didn't have to have a Fittini sign to eat at the Fittini wagon. That was a nice sign of cooperation between the rivals. My favorite candidate came by in his wackily decorated car but didn't have any goodies to hand out! A big mistake.
A couple of footnotes:
        - Crossing Harvard Yard this afternoon I ran across people selling T-Shirts that said "You don't have to be smart to go to Yale" followed by a picture of GWB, Class of ‘68. I (Ph.D., Yale, 1968) felt badly until I remembered that he learned his managerial skills at the Harvard Business School.
        - In Harvard Square near the subway I saw a girl with six clipboards that looked like they contained petitions. I wondered whether she was gathering signatures for one campaign and had six clipboards for different towns or whether she was a signature collector for six different petitions. Again, I did not ask.
And a final point
        - Common Cause is sponsoring a petition to reform redistricting by taking the responsbility out of the hands of the legislators and giving it to an independent Commission (albeit with members selected by politicians). If you have not signed this, please do so by contacting Common Cause:  http://www.commoncause.org/site/pp.asp?c=dkLNK1MQIwG&b=192849

Selective Memory of David Brooks

Date: November 5th., 2005
Sent to but not published by NewsHour

Comment on Brooks and Shields, November 3rd. 2005
Your commentator, David Brooks, did us all a disservice in his, almost hysterical, diatribe against Democrats for their insistence that Bush led us into a war under false pretences. He said that everybody -- former President Clinton, the French, the Germans, etc --knew that Saddam had Weapons of Mass Destruction.
That was true in September-October 2002 when negotiations for the return of Weapons Inspectors to Iraq were under way. The Iraqis were stalling and proposing unacceptable exceptions to the reach of the inspectors until the passage of the War Resolution by Congress on October 10th 2002. That gave the President the leverage he (and the United Nations) needed. Within six weeks the inspectors were in Iraq on the ground with no restrictions on their movements. By February 2003, the inspectors reported that they had found no evidence of a large scale WMD program. The causus belli was shattered.
That did not impede the Bush administration's inexorable rush towards war and hostilities began on March 20th.
Mr. Brooks failed to mention this complex exercise of realpolitik. Nor did Mr. Lehrer or Mr. Shields point out this omission. They should have.
The American (and British) mistake was not to call for a second Congressional (Parliamentary) resolution about Iraq once it became clear from the weapons inspectors that the initial intelligence was probably incorrect.
NewsHour owes us an amplification.

Date: October 26th., 2005
Sent to but not published in the Boston Globe

So Tom Birmingham wants to reduce Massachusetts Income Tax rates to 5%. He is living in a fool's paradise if he thinks that the current economic good times can last. With appallingly high deficits (both internal and international, the U.S. is going to face a recession fairly soon. That money in the rainy day fund will be needed to maintain public services.

I have an alternative suggestion, let us simplify the Massachusetts tax code. That would add three or four days of productive work to every Massachusetts tax payer and much more to companies that prepare tax slips for their employees.

What I have in mind is relating the Massachusetts Tax rate to the Federal Taxes paid. This would render the Massachusetts tax system more progressive rather than the current flat tax rate and align Massachusetts policies with those of the Federal Government -- it is not helpful when they tug in different directions (as with taxes on Capital Gains and Dividend Income).
I see the Massachusetts Tax Form as containing four lines:

• 1. Taxable Income (from US 1040)_________________________
• 2. Tax paid to Federal Government (from US 1040)___________
• 3. Multiply line 2 by 0.25 (or whatever % is required to be revenue neutral)____________
• 4. Amount sent to Massachusetts Department of Revenue _______ OR Amount to be Refunded _________

A copy of the Federal Return would be filed is support of this four line Massachusetts form.
This would make the lives of Massachusetts taxpayers much simpler. Think of all the laws that could be wiped from the books! The only decision to be taken each year is what the rate should be.

Softwood Lumber

Date: October 20th., 2005
Sent to but not published in the Boston Globe

Thank you for Tom Oliphant's informative piece (How Bush muddied relations with Canada, October 20th. 2005, page A15) on the softwood lumber dispute.

But why are we surprised at the Bush Administration's reluctance to abide by the NAFTA Disputes Panel's findings? This is the way that this Administration deals with every domestic or international agreement that it finds, shall we say, inconvenient. This action is on a par with the torture memoranda, the withdrawal from Kyoto, the failure to ratify the International Criminal Court, and the US withdrawal from the obscure Vienna Protocol that ensures that jailed foreigners have the right to talk to consular officers.

The Bush administration just won't play by international rules; rules that it wants everyone else to play by. How sad!

Lack of Planning

Date: October 7th., 2005
Sent to but not published in the New York Times

It really is time for this Administration to go. Not because it makes mistakes, all Administrations do that; but because it fails to learn from its mistakes.
I read in today's "Bush addresses GOP Unease over Nominee" (October 8th, pages 1, 16) that "the White House was working to assemble a dossier that would back up its case about Ms. Miers' record of accomplishment, her legal qualifications, and her conservative credentials."
Why are they only now working on dossier? What information went into the initial decision?
Like with the Iraq war, planning in how to deal with resistance must have been minimal. This Administration just doesn't understand Murphy's law: that if something can go wrong it will. As a result the Administration does not prepare to deal with the worst case scenario: something that all MBA's learn early in their program.
It really is time to get rid of the cronies and replace them with competent professionals in the White House, in the Defense Department and throughout the government.

Roberts and the Three Umpores

Date: October 7th., 2005
Sent to but not published in the New York Times

All this talk about Supreme Court Justices resembling baseball umpires reminded me of the old story of the three umpires talking about balls and strikes.

• The first says, "I call them as I see them."
• The second says, "I call them as they is."
• The third says, "They ain't nothin' till I've called them."

It is this last umperial role that Supreme Court Justices enjoy. Before they rule, the laws and precedents are conflicting, confusing, and ambiguous. After they have ruled, they have created a new reality. The law is clear.

Path Dependence in the Iraq War

Date: October 3rd., 2005
Sent to but not published in the New York Times

The present strategy and tactics for the prosecution of the war in Iraq are not leading to victory. A number of commentators (notably Andrew Krepinevich) have argued that we can turn the current situation around if we employ more troops and change our strategy to the "oil-spot" strategy. This involves pacifying a small segment of the country (or City of Baghdad) and then gradually expanding the perimeter of the pacified portion until more and more of the country is pacified. This means occupying and holding ground rather than the current tactics of smash and grab that have characterized the US's approach so far.
I fear that this is too late. Success in war, as in most things, is path dependent. That is, the viable options available today are constrained (either practically or psychologically) by the decisions made in the past. In practice, there is nothing (except Shinseki's 200,000 troops) to stop us adopting the oil-spot strategy, but psychologically the situation is very different.
Both Americans and Iraqis have been strongly influenced by the Bush administration's decisions of the past two years. Americans have been devastated by the reliance on inaccurate intelligence information that led to the declaration of war. We all remember the administration telling the inspectors "we know exactly where the WMDs are." We couldn't understand why they didn't tell the inspectors the locations (The administration argued that it was because intelligence sources would be compromised). We now know they didn't tell the inspectors because they couldn't. There were no WMDs. Americans were disappointed by the UN's decision not to replace its destroyed mission with a bigger and better one; the flight of the UN represented an early and major victory for the insurgents. Americans were devastated by the prisoner abuses of Abu Ghraib; they are outraged by the lack of accountability for this abuse at the highest levels in the military and the government and the seeming approval of this abuse by the now-Attorney General; those that know are disgusted by the administration's resistance to Senator John McCain's demand that prisoners should be treated according to the principles laid down in the Geneva convention and the torture treaties which are embodied in the US Army Field Manual.
The Iraqis who welcomed the Americans as liberators were outraged in the first days after the war as coalition troops stood by (except for guarding the oil ministry) as Iraq was looted. They were aghast as the National Museum was broken open and its irreplaceable treasures were scattered to the four corners of the earth. They were distressed as reconstruction contracts were given to foreign contractors using foreign employees rather than to local businesses who had the capacity to undertake most of the work and who would have employed local labor. Like Americans, Iraqis were outraged at the abuse of prisoners. Any moral high ground occupied by the Americans in comparison with the regime of Saddam Hussein was lost the night those soldiers took their incriminating digital photographs and distributed them around the world.
Neither Americans nor Iraqis have much confidence left in the Bush Administration. After all that is gone before can we believe the oil-spot strategy? We have an Army that cannot even keep the green zone bomb free. We have a presence on the ground in Iraq that cannot control the road from downtown Baghdad to its airport. Surely that is the test of the futility of adopting the oil-spot strategy. If we could do it, we would at least have done it in that small corner of Iraq. Or if it could be done, we would have expanded the areas around Iraqi police stations and recruiting centers, but we haven't done that. It seems that we are incapable of implementing the strategy on the ground in Iraq. Can anyone provide convincing evidence that it can work? Can anyone estimate the number of troops that it will take to make it work?
Perhaps prior to the discovery that Iraq lacked WMD, the oil-spot strategy might have worked. Perhaps prior to the looting, the oil-spot strategy might have worked. Perhaps prior to Abu Ghraib, the oil-spot strategy might have worked. Now, after all that has happened, I fear that this oil-spot strategy will generate yet another stain on America's honor with the implementation involving a scorched earth policy with inhabitants confined, not to the safety of their ancestral villages, but to concertina wire surrounded concentration camps. That, no doubt, is the way we would do the implementation.

Blame Romeny

Date: September 28th., 2005
Published in the Boston Globe

Your columnist, Scot Lehigh, says that no one yet has blamed Romney for the poor take-up of positions for evacuees at Camp Edwards (September 27th., page A15). Let me be the first.
It is not surprising that so few people from the Gulf took up the offer. For the past six months Romney has been barnstorming through southern states telling people how terrible Massachusetts is. Would you come to a Massachusetts whose governor went around running the state down? No.
Link to Globe

Team player

Date: September 22nd., 2005
Sent to but not published in the Boston Globe

Mr Donald Mills (Letters, September 22nd. 2005) has it completely wrong.
It is the Governor who has abandoned the principles and policies on which he and the GOP ran for Office. It is the Governor who has abandoned the civil union rights for gay people. It is the Governor who abandoned his commitment to facilitate access to contraception. It is the Governor who advocated the abandonment of civil liberties for Moslems.
We really cannot blame Ms Healey for sticking to her principles.

Taking Responsibility

Date: September 15th., 2005
Sent to but not published in the New York Times

When Lord Carrington took responsibility for British Intelligence failures prior to the Falkland war, he resigned as Foreign Secretary.
Is George W. Bush going to do the same? If not, what does "taking responsibility" mean?

Catholic Church and Gays

Date: September 14th., 2005
Sent to but not published in the Pilot (The Newspaper of the Boston Catholic Hierarchy)

Why is the Catholic Church so insistent on removing the civil rights of its fellow citizens?
Surely, to be consistent in its belief that nothing good can come out of gay people (see its witch hunt against gays in the seminaries despite the fact that pederasty has no relation to homosexuality), the Catholic Church should whitewash and cover up the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel -- a marvellous testament to the glory of God and produced by a gay person!

Gillette

Date: September 14th., 2005
Sent to but not published in the Boston Globe (nor did I expect it to be)

Thank you for today's David D'Alessandro's piece that put a broader perspective on the Kilts' op-ed of last week.
He, more effectively (in terms of both source and content), covered the issues that I raised in my letter (http://martingevans.blogspot.com/2005/09/gillette-merger.html) (unpublished) that I sent last week.
As there were NO letters commenting on Kilts in the paper all week, I was beginning to think he was getting a free pass because he sat on your parent Board.
I am delighted that this was not the case. Thank you.

Gillette Merger

September 8th. 2005,
Sent to Boston Globe but not published

Thank you for giving James Kilts a pulpit from which he can assure the rest of us that the Proctor and Gamble merger with Gillette is a good one (Globe, Op-Ed, September 8th., 2005, A17).
The unanswered question in his piece is: Good for whom?
All of the people he mentions who endorsed the merger represent just one of the many stakeholders in Gillette -- the shareholders. What about the employees -- many of them will lose jobs. What about the cities in which those employees live. They will lose the purchases of those employees with a knock-on de-multiplier effect: the stores and service establishments patronised by those employees will lose business. What about consumers? There is no mention by Mr Kilts of the benefits to consumers that the merged company will provide. If he did not mention them, does that mean there are none?
Of course Mr Kilts, who is now drawing a retainer as a Board Member of the New York Times Company (owner of of the Boston Globe), is the biggest beneficiary of all. He walks away with an enormous $156 million golden parachute.
Let's see what that means in terms that we can all understand. The average salary in Boston is $48,000. So, if Mr Kilts had declined this package, about 3,421 persons could have continued to be employed by Gillette in Boston for a year. Maybe those job losses could have been achieved by attrition rather than lay-off. Mr Kilts, of course, did not mention that in his paean to the merger.
In the interests of full disclosure he should have.
The picture is darker and more complex than that painted by Mr. Kilts. Even if the plant remains, with decision making moving from Boston to the headquarters in Cincinnati, can we be sure that Boston's concerns will be front and center? I am not sure.

September 6th. 2005,
Sent to New York Times but not published

Government does not have a monopoly of incompetence.
It took 15 years or so for the levees of New Orleans to deteriorate. Here in Boston it took just a few months for the first significant breach to appear in the tunnel walls of the "Big Dig." A large number of major flaws have now been discovered in this project managed and undertaken by private enterprise.
It took three months of reports from health inspectors before Halliburton cleaned up a Mess Hall kitchen in Iraq. Their failure added to the perils faced by our troops.
Even today, two hundred years after Semelweiss discovered how germs were transmitted in hospitals, many doctors and nurses do not wash their hands between patients.
It is time for us all to start acting responsibly.

Language Requirement

September 5th. 2005,
Sent to New York Times Book Review but not published

At Mr Sleeper's University (Yale) the decline in graduate language requirements occurred many years ago. When I was a graduate student in 1964, the Graduate Faculty -- after an impassioned plea to retain the liberal education ideal by Henri Peyre, the distinguished French scholar -- the graduate faculty voted to reduce the language requirement from two to one language. Martin Shubik, the economist, told his colleagues that next year he would be back to propose that one of the permissible languages for study would be Fortran!

Health Care

Date: July 4 2005
Sent to Macleans, Canada

The Supreme Court has it wrong. Technological advances will destroy private health insurance over the next decade.
Once genetic screening techniques are perfected, so that our propensity for each and every disease will be known from an early age, the only form of health insurance that makes sense will be the single payer form. The private health insurance industry will go the way of the dodo, as no responsible Canadian Government will allow an unregulated market in which Insurance Companies can cherry pick for coverage those with a low propensity to get sick while excluding those from coverage who are likely to do so.
We had better start now to develop a Health Care system that takes account of these evolving technologies. At least we have a better base to build on than our neighbours to the south.

Pay at the MFA

September 1st. 2005,
Sent to Boston Globe but not published

Did Malcolm Rogers really accept a pay raise equal to the amount he asked his lowest level employees to give up? Where is the notion of an organization as a community with all sharing the pain when the organization encountered difficulties and all sharing the gain when the organization flourished? That is very much a thing of the past
Of course, to my surprise, Mr Rogers has not violated the Mission Statement of the MFA. To my surprise the mission statement, adopted in 1991, make absolutely no mention of the Institution's responsibilities to its employees.
It is time for the Trustees to go back to the drawing board and craft a new mission statement that takes the contributions of employees at all levels into account.

The Lost War

Date: August 22nd. 2005
Sent to but not published by the New York Times

The war in Iraq is lost.
We lost the war when we entered it for false reasons.
We lost the war when we let Iraqis riot in the aftermath of the downfall of Saddam.
We lost the war when we failed to provide enough men and equipment to occupy the country.
We lost the war when the UN quit Iraq after the destruction of its staff and offices in Baghdad.

And our biggest defeat, we lost the war when we abandoned our principles at Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib.
We should withdraw now from Iraq. With US troops there holding the circle, the Iraqis have little incentive to develop their own competencies in internal control. With the US still there, the Iraqis have little incentive to make the compromises needed to achieve a stable federal democracy. The Iraqis need to be left to stand on their own two feet.

Cambridge Redistricting

August 18th. 2005,
Published in Cambridge Chronicle

I live in Ward 9 of Cambridge in the far western Cambridge Highlands. Politically, as far as the Massachusetts House of Representatives is concerned we are in Watertown which dominates the 29th Middlesex District. The district is barely legal even under the existing rules: there is only about 300 yards of boundary between Cambridge and Watertown where real people from the two towns live side by side. The remaining boundary (required to ensure contiguity) is made up of Mount Auburn Cemetery. I suppose in the bad old days when tombstones voted, the legality of the district was on more solid ground.
This district of mine is symptomatic of the mess that the Massachusetts redistricting process currently enjoys. A quick look at the map of the current boundaries of the Massachusetts Congressional Districts shows that important criteria are not met: districts do have roughly equal numbers, but they are not compact and they have little community of interest – what do the voters of preppie Needham have in common with the voters of blue-collar Fall River (or western Cambridge with Watertown for that matter).
Currently, district boundaries are drawn by the legislators. As we have seen, they have made a mess of it. Unless we devise a better method of setting District boundaries, our troubles will come back at the beginning of the next decade when the new Census is issued and the redesign of districts will have to take place. We need to think through an alternative to the Legislature devising the boundaries.
Think back to when you were a child, if a piece of cake had to be divided between you and a friend, you quickly figured out that the way to get a fair distribution was for one person to cut the piece of cake in half and for the second person to decide which piece to take. That kept the cutter honest and made sure that two equal pieces emerged. It is not like that when it comes to choosing the boundaries of political districts in Massachusetts, the big brothers and sisters on Beacon Hill design and choose the boundaries – it is almost like the politicians choose the voters rather than, as it should be, the voters choosing their representatives. As a result Massachusetts has almost the least competitive election in the US. It is very clear that redistricting is much too important to be left to the politicians who act as the political heirs of Elbridge Gerry to create districts to suit their convenience.
There must be a better, fairer way of setting the boundaries of electoral districts. There are several! Federalism is, after all, a source of experimentation so we can see a number of alternatives existing across different states.
Common Cause and its allies are suggesting a model based on the Electoral Commissions of Iowa and Arizona. A committee of 7 persons is charged with undertaking the redistricting every ten years. Four of these are partisan (selected from a pool of 20 generated by the Senate and House Majority and Minority Leaders) – but are NOT current, past or potential office holders, the other three are experts selected by the Governor, the Secretary of State, and the Chief Justice. This small committee then designs one or more plans based on the usual criteria: equal numbers of voters, contiguity, compactness, community of interest, and adherence to the Voting Rights Act. One of these plans is then adopted by a simple majority vote.
This process of designing the boundaries has the advantage of allowing politically motivated input to the system – through the selection of the commissioners – but keeps the politicians at arm's length when it comes to the design and decision. The least of many evils!
We are five years away from the next Census and the need for redistricting. If we start now, at the pace at which the political wheels turn in Massachusetts, we might have just the new procedures in place for 2011. But we have to get started NOW. Common Cause is proposing a ballot initiative to ensure that the question of Fair Redistricting is taken up by the legislature.
Maybe then, Ward 9 in Cambridge will be grouped with other Cambridge Wards in its legislative representation.
See on line version in the Cambridge Chronicle.

Golden Parachutes

Date: June 16th. 2005
Sent to but unpublished in Boston Globe

The figures that have been bandied around about James Kilts' golden parachute mean little to the ordinary person. They need to be described in terms that we can understand.
The average salary in the Boston Metropolitan area is $48,232. Mr Kilts' golden handshake would pay the salaries of 3,421 average persons in Boston. That is the kind of purchasing power that is being taken out of the local economy by the largess thrown to Mr Kilts.
Think about it!

Date: June 17th 2005
Sent to but unpublished in New York Times

So the New York Times has appointed James Kilts to its Board of Directors.
Am I to anticipate that he will gain similar excessive emoluments as he did in his previous position at Gillette – if so, it bodes ill for ordinary employees of the Times.
The average salary in the Boston Metropolitan area is about $48,232. Mr Kilts' golden handshake from Gillette would pay the salaries of 3,421 average persons in Boston. That is the kind of purchasing power that is being taken out of the local economy by the largess thrown to Mr Kilts.
I hope his pecuniary rewards from the New York Times will be more modest.

Date: Aug 11, 2005
Sent to but not published in Boston Globe

with Nancy R. Evans

Like his father before him, Mitt Romney has been brainwashed, as evidenced by his veto of the Emergency Contraception Bill. This time by far right radical fundamentalists.
He has been brainwashed into accepting bad science. The Emergency contraception pill does not cause an abortion. Like the uncontroversial IUD, the pill prevents a fertilized egg from implanting in the lining of the womb. It is a prevention of conception, not the abortion of a conceived fetus.
He has been brainwashed into believing that the state has an interest in bringing to term any baby no matter how poor and unwelcoming the environment. If anything the state should be encouraging only the births of wanted children. The Roe v Wade decision, it is suggested, has caused the declining crime rates of 20 years later as unwanted fetuses could be aborted.
He has been brainwashed into believing that it is merely an inconvenience for a woman to carry to term a child conceived through rape or incest. This makes the Governor of the State of Massachusetts complicit in exacerbating the outcome of the rape of a citizen of the Commonwealth. That is not somewhere we like to see our Governor stand.
We encourage the Governor to rethink his position. It is hard to break out of the shackles of brainwashing but it can be done. We think the Governor will be well advised to return to the position he took four years ago when running for office.

Romney's evolution

Date: Aug 8, 2005
Sent to but not published in Boston Globe

Governor Romney claims that his views on abortion have evolved over the past three years.
I am sure he meant to say that his ideas had been unintelligently redesigned.

Strikeout!

Date: August 2, 2005
Sent to but not published in the Boston Globe

President George W. Bush with his unerring talent for getting things wrong, managed to make a trio of bad decisions in the past day.
He made a recess appointment of John Bolton to be ambassador to the UN (Boston Globe, August 2nd, Pages A1 and A12). If ever there was a situation requiring a person with subtlety and strong persuasive, as opposed to bullying, skills, it is the US ambasssadorship to the UN. First strike against G. W. Bush!
He made a strong endorsement of Karl Rove as a "valued member of my team" despite his appeal to everyone to remain silent on the issue of Rove and the Wilson/Plame leak until all the facts were in (Page A3). Strike two!
Finally he announced that "intelligent design" should be taught in high school science classes along with the theory of evolution (Page A7). The problem is that scientifically, there is no controversy. Intelligent design has no empirical evidence in its support -- the theory of evolution does. The ideas of the proponents of Intelligent Design and their social implications can be taught in social studies classes but they have no place in science classes. Strike three!
Surely after three strikes in a single day, he should be out.

Terrorist Profiling

Date: July 22, 2005
Sent to but not published in the Boston Globe

Mitt Romney is at it again, trying to pull the symbolic wool over the eyes of the public. His riding one stop, even if he had known the correct fare, would have done nothing to demonstrate that the subway is safe. What demonstrates its safety is the actions of thousands of commuters each day who ride the subway to work.
His symbolic silliness is of a piece with his actions as a candidate. Each week Mitt Romney worked for a day -- at least it was a day, not a five minute subway ride -- at a "regular "job. That "day at work program" by Mitt Romney provided for great photo opportunities, but it did not give time for the meaninglessness of much of that work to sink in – one is still in a learning mode. When I was a student, I only lasted a week on a donut assembly line: I could not get to sleep until I started up the line in my dreams. That is the reality of many assembly line jobs. The one day working at a menial job did not give Mitt Romney the insight into the reality of poor people's lives that he could have gained by reading Nickel and Dimed (Barbara Ehrenreich) or When Work Disappears (W. J. Wilson).
Once again for Mitt Romney, symbol trumps substance.

Romney Rides the Subway for one stop

Date: July 22, 2005
Sent to but not published in the Boston Globe

Mitt Romney is at it again, trying to pull the symbolic wool over the eyes of the public. His riding one stop, even if he had known the correct fare, would have done nothing to demonstrate that the subway is safe. What demonstrates its safety is the actions of thousands of commuters each day who ride the subway to work.
His symbolic silliness is of a piece with his actions as a candidate. Each week Mitt Romney worked for a day -- at least it was a day, not a five minute subway ride -- at a "regular "job. That "day at work program" by Mitt Romney provided for great photo opportunities, but it did not give time for the meaninglessness of much of that work to sink in – one is still in a learning mode. When I was a student, I only lasted a week on a donut assembly line: I could not get to sleep until I started up the line in my dreams. That is the reality of many assembly line jobs. The one day working at a menial job did not give Mitt Romney the insight into the reality of poor people's lives that he could have gained by reading Nickel and Dimed (Barbara Ehrenreich) or When Work Disappears (W. J. Wilson).
Once again for Mitt Romney, symbol trumps substance.

Senator Santorum

Date: July 17, 2005
Sent to but not published in the Philadelphia Inquirer

Senator Santorum has been getting a very bad press in the Boston newspapers. He has been described as being insensitive to the victims of priestly abuse and as being stupid for linking that abuse to the liberal culture of Massachusetts. I have a different perspective on his words.

I believe that we should be truly sorry for Senator Santorum. Here is a devout Catholic (or so we are told) who is struggling to reconcile his belief that the Church can do no wrong with his knowledge that Priests in his Church have engaged in the most horrendous of sins (harming little children) and that their acts were facilitated by their supervisor, Cardinal Bernard Law. In trying to deal with that dissonance, he is projecting blame on to the liberal culture of Boston.

Of course, it does not work: priestly abuse of children seems to have been universal in the Catholic church from Newfoundland to San Francisco. Cardinal Law, in my view the true villain, was no Massachusetts liberal. Cardinal Law's decision to turn a blind eye to the actions of the pedophiles came from his misguided sense of duty to the institutional Church rather than choosing to be a good shepherd to his flock. It had nothing to do with liberal Massachusetts.

Loyalty to Karl Rove

Date: July 13th., 2005
Sent to but not published in the New York Times

Unlike Morgan Forster, the President of the United States does not have the luxury of "having the courage to betray his country." The President has a higher loyalty to the country. The President swore to uphold the constitution; The President promised us that he would fire anyone involved in outing Ms Plame. The President must act to fire Karl Rove now.
If Karl Rove had any loyalty to the country and to the President, he would have admitted his fault a year ago and resigned; thereby saving the expense of a complicated Grand Jury investigation.

They Came for Me -- Updated

Date: July 11th., 2005
Sent to but not published in the New York Times

In 1946, Martin Niemöller is said to have written the following poem:

First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out - because I was not a communist;
Then they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out - because I was not a socialist;
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out - because I was not a trade unionist;
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out - because I was not a Jew;
Then they came for me - and there was no one left to speak out for me.

With the erosion of civil liberties over the last few years, the poem needs to be updated to reflect our era. Unhappily all the groups mentioned are in danger of being deprived of their civil liberties; happily, for the rest of us, only members of the first group are in prison.

First they came for the enemy combatants, and I did not speak out -- because I was neither an enemy nor a combatant;
Then they came for those seeking or providing abortions, and I did not speak out -- because I neither sought nor provided abortions;
Then they came for the Muslims, and I did not speak out - because I was not a Muslim;
Then they came for the gays and lesbians, and I did not speak out -- because I was neither a gay nor a lesbian;
Then they came for the buyers and borrowers of books, and I did not speak out - because I neither bought nor borrowed a book;
Then they came for the remaining non-Christians; and I did not speak out because I was not a non-Christian;
Then they came for the non-Evangelicals, and I did not speak out -- because I was not a non-Evangelical;
Then they came for me -- and there was no one left to speak out for me.

It is time for all of us to recognize that civil liberties are indivisible. The attack on one group is a threat to all of us. The terrible attacks in London last week are going to make it more difficult to restrain the heavy hand of the Bush Administration and its proposals for the renewal of the Patriot Act, but resist we must.

Date: July 2005
Sent to Boston Globe

Who does Gillette think it is fooling in todays advertisement in the business section?
They boast about giving just under $2 million to Boston charities. That amount pales in comparison with the amount James Kilts will walk away with: $165 million. Kilts' bonanza is the equivalent to the salaries of 3,421 average persons in Boston (where the average pay packet is $48,000). That is the kind of purchasing power that is being taken out of the local economy by the largess thrown to Mr Kilts.
If the $2 million figure for charity and the $165 million figure for Kilts were reversed then Gillette might have something to boast about.

Date: June 26th.. 2005
Sent to New York Times

Good leaders lead by example.
The image (Sunday Jun. 26, p A8) of Donald Rumsfeld sitting inside the secure shell of a heavily armored Rhino Runner while the troops he leads travel in unarmored Humvees says a lot about what is wrong with our prosecution of the Iraq war.
Good leaders share the risks undertaken by their subordinates. Good leaders accept responsibility when things go wrong. Good leaders ensure that their subordinates have the resources needed to get the job done. Good leaders clarify what needs to be done to achieve the goal.
The top echelon of the Bush administration have failed in each of these aspect of leadership.

Date: June 22nd. 2005
Sent to "Frontline"

According to Frontline there are 120,000 contract employees working in Iraq in support of the coalition forces. Let us be blunt there is a second army of mercenaries working for the United States.
There are four problems with this state of affairs:

• First, there is the pay inequity between regular troops and the $1000-a-day mercenaries who are doing the same work as the soldiers. Underpayment inequity leads our troops to be resentful of their better paid colleagues. Resentful troops cannot be expected to put in as much effort as those with high morale.
• Second, there is a lack of flexibility. A soldier doing KP can be turned out in the night to take up a defensive position or go out on an aggressive patrol. You cannot make contract employees do that. So we don't have enough people do to the job properly.
• Third, there is an appalling lack of coordination. Contractors and their employees aren't under the direct control of the military so inadvertently they may interfere with the operations of the army. This does not make for good tactical presence on the ground. It is hard enough coordinating the regular troops; it is virtually impossible to coordinate their activities with the mercenaries.
• Finally, we are not getting what we are paying for. As well as the overbilling, we have the hygiene problem: according to NBC news late in 2003, "Pentagon inspections of mess halls run by KBR are finding a mess in some of them... In the main Baghdad dining facility where President Bush surprised the troops on Thanksgiving, inspectors found filthy kitchen conditions in each of the three previous months. Complaints filed in August, September and again October report problems. Blood all over the floor of the refrigerators, dirty pans, dirty grills, dirty salad bars, rotting meats and vegetables. In October, the inspector writes that Halliburton's previous promises to fix the problems have not been followed through and warns the company serious repercussions may result, due to improper handling and serving of food." [NBC News, 12/12/03] In the old days, a good hard-boiled Mess Sergeant would have got a mess like that cleaned up in a day or so -- and the whole crew would have been on extra detail until the kitchen equipment shone like the Excalibur sword.

It seems that we have lost a great deal with the privatization of the military's support functions to the likes of Halliburton who obviously do not care about doing a good job. It is unconscionable that coalition troops should be at risk from the lack of flexibility, lack of coordination, and food poisoning that are the downside of privatization.
Solving this with regular troops will not mean we need to double the boots on the ground; it will mean tripling them -- an appalling prospect.

1130 words A nation of laws not of men. Martin G. Evans Professor Emeritus, Rotman School, University of Toronto. This is a nation of laws not of men. This fundamental bedrock of American society in under attack by the very men and women who make our laws: the state and federal legislators. This must stop. Both major parties are guilty of changing and bending of the rules in order to serve their own political ends. Fortunately, the most recent of these attacks was (partially) turned back at the last minute: the filibuster rule is safe for the time being. L Massachusetts: Law abolishing senate seat vacancy to be filled by selection by Governor. Democratic initiative In the summer of 2004, Massachusetts Democrats had high hopes that by the following January there would be a senate vacancy following the election of Senator John Kerry to the Presidency of the United States. Alas this was not to be. Under Massachusetts law when a mid-term vacancy occurred, the senate seat was filled by a person of the Governor’s choice – it could even be the Governor! With the Massachusetts Governor’s office filled by a Republican, and with large Democratic majorities in the State Senate and State House of Representatives and with the US Senate closely divided, the Massachusetts Democrats introduced a law to change the way in which Senate vacancies should be filled. The proposal was to have a special election for the Senate office. In general this would be a good idea – allowing the people to decide. It is the applicability to the current election that I am objecting to. The law was designed to apply to a particular vacancy: that of John Kerry, with intended benefits to particular incumbents. It should have been drafted so it applied, not to the current potential vacancy, but to vacancies that occurred after the next Senate elections. In that way, the potential Kerry vacancy would have been treated under the rules in place when he was elected, and future vacancies would have been treated under the new rules. That would have been much fairer. L New Jersey: At the request of the democratic Party, the New Jersey State Supreme Court overturned the rule that said the deadline for candidates to file was 51 days before the election. This enabled Frank Lautenberg to run for the United States Senate after Robert Toricelli withdrew as candidate about 36 days before the election. His withdrawal was not due to ill-health. It was not due to family issues. It was not due an appointment as ambassador or cabinet secretary. No, he withdrew because he was losing to Republican, Doug Forrester. This was the most egregious self-serving action taken by the Democrats in recent memory. The rules 2 are there to be followed. One could understand the rule being set aside in the case of death (though in Missouri the dead Mel Carnahan defeated the very much alive John Ashcroft). One could understand the rule being set aside if Torricelli had been appointed to a cabinet position or an ambassadorship. But there is no justification for changing the rule because he withdrew from the race because he was losing. Where is the fairness in that? The Court argued that after Torricelli’s withdrawal, a substitute was required to ensure that the electors of New Jersey had a “full and fair ballot choice” [SUPREME COURT OF NEW JERSEY. A-24 September Term 2002. 53,618]. They had a perfectly good choice until Torricelli withdrew because he was losing. That is not a reason to change the rule. Of course, if after serious consideration, it was felt that the rule was too onerous. The legislature could have changed it; but to be fair, the change should not apply to this race but only to future races. L Texas: redistricting despite no new census. Republican initiative In 2001 the US Census Bureau issued its decennial census report. This triggered a round of redistricting for congressional and state offices in every state in the union. In Texas, the normal bilateral consensus on districts did not emerge so that the districts based on the 2001 Census had to be drawn by a three judge panel of the Federal Court. Following the 2002 election, the Republican-dominated State Legislature decided that the judicially crafted plan was inadequate and developed its own plan. After much excited jockeying with Democratic lawmakers hiding out in Oklahoma (and with the Texas Rangers trying to herd them back to the legislature), the new redistricting plan passed into law and was the basis for the 2004 election. This plan was recently upheld in the District Court. If the plan is overturned on appeal to the Supreme Court, who knows what will happen. Once again, there is an underlying unwillingness to abide by the rule and wait for redistricting until after the 2010 census in 2011. L Federal: abolishment of the filibuster for judicial nominations. Republican initiative. Last month we saw the cliffhanger in the Senate with the Republican majority threatening to use the so-called “constitutional option” or as the Democrats prefer the “nuclear option.” This apocalyptic phrase describes the intent of the Republican majority to remove the opportunity of the minority Democrats to filibuster the President’s judicial nominees. To overcome a filibuster by invoking cloture, 60 votes are needed. However a little used procedure could be invoked by asking the Vice-President in his role as presiding officer of the Senate to declare filibustering judicial nominations as unconstitutional. Upholding the chair’s ruling on such a request requires a simple majority of the Senators present. This is a double attack on the rules. First it destroys the filibuster rule, second it undermines the Senate’s rules for changing its own rules. Changing Senate rules requires a 67% supermajority so requires a large measure of agreement between all members. The constitutional option reduces the bar for change considerably. Once again, this attack goes into effect instantly. A better model would be for any rule change not to be effective until the next congressional session. This would reduce the opportunity for self serving rule changes and allow for deliberate second thoughts to occur – something very lacking, at least until May 23rd 2005 in today’s feverish climate. Fortunately, cooler heads did prevail and a deal was struck that kept the filibuster for judicial nominations intact (but with reduced potency) and allowed the confirmations of some judicial nominations in 3 the Senate. This rush for the immediate application of rule changes is a dangerous one. We see this in much legislation that is sloppily drafted due to the perceived need to act in haste. This speediness is in line with the North American desire for immediate gratification. The best things come after mature deliberation. Both sides should reduce their focus on immediacy and consider the long term implications of their actions

Workforce Training

Date: June 14th. 2005
Published in Boston Globe, June 15th, 2005

I strongly support your call for workforce training for the new industries that are growing in Massachusetts.
But let us not forget something much easier and quite current. Over the last weeks we have heard Mayor Menino complain about the lack of summer jobs for high school students and last week the operators of hotels and restaurants on the Cape and in New Hampshire have been complaining about the lack of immigrant labor for their summer operations.
Can't Boston's unemployed students fill these gaps?
I suggest that we start planning now for next year's summer. Let our high schools offer evening programs in waiting, bussing, and room cleaning - perhaps Boston's hotels and restauranteurs can offer experts to staff the courses and sites for students to practice. Then next year we will have a trained labor force ready to fill those dormitories on the Cape with willing and capable workers.
URL

Date: June 7th. 2005
Sent to but unpublished in New York Times & [later] to Boston Globe

Who could have imagined in 1984 that many of the predictions in George Orwell's 1948 masterpiece, "1984," would have come to pass 20 years later in George Bush's America.
To be sure we do not have the three mega-countries in a state of continuing open warfare with shifting alliances; but much else is on track
The virtual Ministry of Truth is hard at work spinning the Administration's views. Propaganda pieces developed by the hired hands of the Administration are presented by news organizations as if they were produced by independent organizations.
The administration in the words of Colin Powell, rules a country that is the most accountable in the world. Such is that accountability that no senior level administration official has been held to account for the widespread breakdown in the laws of war that has disgraced America in the eyes of the world. The failure to hold senior officials accountable has exacerbated the problem.
Then there is the way in which language has been distorted to suit the purposes of the speakers, and the use of slogans to hide the reality (the first is from Orwell, the rest from Bush):

• War is Peace (1984)
• No child left behind (But there is a lack of funding to provide the extra staff required to fulfill this promise)
• Homeland security (But there is a lack of funding to proved an increased personnel for first responders and chemical plants are as unprotected as they were on the 9/11)
• A culture of life (Yes, but for a life lived in poverty and distress for many)
• Environmental protection (But this has meant a reduction in standards for sewage discharge, for mercury in the atmosphere, and for acid rain emissions)
• Social Security (The dismantling of the insurance features of the plan)
• Faith-based Initiatives (the dismantling of the barriers between church and state and the creation of the theocracy anticipated in another great novel: Margaret Atwood's "The Handmaiden's Tale"

And then there is the worst thing in the world. For Winston Smith in 1984 that was a room containing a rat; that rodent caused Smith to break and affirm his love of Big Brother. For the Moslems in Guantanamo Bay, the worst thing in the world was the desecration of the Koran. That was to soften them up so that they would betray their comrades. What an exquisite and subtle form of torture for the devout Moslem!

Bush in the Dark

Date: May 13th., 2005
Sent to but not published in the New York Times

The failure to alert Mr Bush to the Cessna intrusion in Washington the other day was one of the better decisions made by this administration in the last few weeks.
First like those Mayday parade photographs studied so earnestly by Kremlinologists in the 1950's it shows clearly where the power in Washington lies: in the hands of the Vice President.
Second, with his track record, would anyone seriously want George W. Bush calling the shots during a National emergency?
To whoever made that decision: Thank you for keeping him in the dark.

Date: May 10th., 2005
Sent to but not published in the Boston Globe

There is an interesting juxtaposition in your pages today. In the main section Peter Cannellos discusses the geographic localization of military values and culture (page A3). This culture includes "loyalty to the chain of command, its patriotic sense of the rightnesss of Americas mission in the world, its commitment to retaining a supportive home front." Then on the op-ed page we have James Carroll's devastating indictment of the Bush administration's betrayal of each of those values.
Bush and his team show no loyalty to the chain of command. There is no accountability; not for Abu Ghraib; not for the torture in Guantanamo Bay; not for the intelligence failures prior to 9/11 nor for the misinformation on Iraq; not for under-armored troop carriers in Iraq; not for the failure, despite the advice of seasoned professionals, to provide sufficient troops to provide a peaceful aftermath to the invasion of Iraq.
The Bush administration is not doing the right things. It began an unjust war; just where were those weapons of mass destruction? It continues that war with no end in sight. It has withdrawn from the International Criminal Court because, in the words of Colin Powell "We are the most accountable nation on earth." No Longer! It withdrew from the Koyoto accords and has failed on every measure of environmental conservation. It has even abrogated the Optional Protocol to the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations that ensures that jailed foreigners have the right to talk to consular officers.
The Bush administration is undermining the home front with its attempt to privatize Social Security; with its failure to fully fund the expanded need for homeland security, education, and Medicare.
I wonder how long those military values with last once it is realized how badly they have been betrayed by the people who were expected to embody them in their actions: the President and the Administration Team.

Kerry Avoids Democrats

Date: May 1st., 2005
Sent to but not published in the Boston Globe

What on earth is in John Kerry's mind?
He is a senior member of the Democratic Party here in Massachusetts but he will not attend the Party Platform convention. He is clueless -- the grass roots are what gives him power. He owes the Democrats an appearance at the platform convention to fight for his ideas. If he objects to gay marriage let him come before the Convention and give a reasoned argument for his opposition.
He did not shy away from the Vietcong. He did not shy away from opposition when he energized the peace movement in the 1970's. Why is he shying away from a fight now. Has he grown too comfortable in his incumbency?

Social Security

Date: May 1st., 2005
Sent to but not published in the New York Times

At last George W. Bush is starting to come clean on the Social Security issue. He still has a way to go.
There are three major issues that he has to put forward with complete accuracy:

• There is NOT a crisis in Social Security funding; but there IS a moderately serious financing problem. I will suggest one way of dealing with it later.
• The suggestion that creating privatized accounts will solve the problem is false; other steps will have to be taken. Privatized accounts, by taking money OUT OF the Social Security system will acerbate the problems.
• The suggestion that there will be money remaining in those privatized accounts for one's heirs is also false. People will be compelled to purchase an annuity. An annuity yielding enough to top up one's social security benefits to current levels will cease on the death of the individual.

Any solutions that are put forward have to be based on these truths, not on the administration's current scare tactic distortions. They misled us once on the Iraq war, shame on them; if they mislead us now on Social Security and we believe them, shame on us.
We can solve the underfunding problem with some modest changes to the current tax regime: remove the cap on individual income (not the employer portion as that might prove to be a job killer) which now stands at $90,000. Doubling the cap would solve the problem for the foreseeable future; removing the cap altogether would add additional funding to the program and would remove the regressive nature of the current Social Security tax.
This additional funding could be used in one of two ways: reduction of the tax rate or to increase benefits for poorer persons. Right now the Social Security formula for computing one's pension depends on Average Lifetime Earnings. Now Social Security pays you 90% of the first $627.00 of monthly income, 32% of income between $628.00 and $3,779.00, and 15% of income above $3,779.00 to the cap of $7500.00 ($90,000.00 per year). It would make sense to increase the lowest bracket to about $800 which is the poverty level for a single person in the US today. It would also make sense to reduce the percentages at higher average incomes. If the cap were doubled, then two new brackets should be added so people earning between $3800.00 and $9,999.99 a month would be paid 10% of that tranche while those between $10,000.00 and the cap at $15,000.00 would be recompensed at 5% of that salary. If the cap were to be totally removed then those earning over $15,000.01 per month would be paid at the rate of 1% of that income; or perhaps an even lower rate.
These suggestions show that there is a relatively simple way out of the problem facing us. It is essential that these actions be taken now before the problem turns into a crisis. As for private accounts, we have them now, the 401(k). These are useful supplements to Social Security, they should not be its core.

John Bolton

Date: April 26 2005
Published in Boston Globe, April 30th, 2005

State department spokesman Adam Erili claims that Secretary of State Rice and President Bush know John Bolton better than a retired ex-ambassador (Boston Globe, Tuesday April 26, page 11). We should however remember the context: Bolton has been categorized as a person who, in polite terms, "kisses up and kicks down." Rice and Bush have seen the nice side of Bolton; the ex-ambassador saw him kicking. John Bolton is not needed at the UN, where quiet diplomacy is required to bring about constructive change.

Agricultural subsidies

Date: April 27 2005
Sent to but not published by Boston Globe

Secretary of Agriculture Mike Johanns wrote a column (Boston Globe, Ideas Section, April 24th. 2005, page D11) on international trade in Agricultural products without ever mentioning the enormous subsidies give by the Federal Government to our agri-businesses. One of the major barriers to poor countries becoming less poor is the fact that their agricultural produce cannot compete in world markets with subsidized American crops.
Shame on the Secretary for not acknowledging this!

De-Electrification

Date: April 26 2005
Sent to but not published by New York Times

The Bush administration seems to want to roll back many of the New Deal and post World War II social programs. Perhaps a solution to the potential energy crisis would be to undo rural electrification. Folks in the hinterland can go back to lighting their houses with beeswax candles and heating their homes with wood burning stoves. That should reduce the demand for electricity and oil and gas quite nicely.
Now if we could only abolish cars as well ...

Cheney in Back

April 21th. 2006
Sent to but not published in the New York Times

Your picture of China's President Hu Jintao greeting onlookers (New York Times, April 21, page A1) took me back to the days of the cold war when analysts carefully examined the photographs of the Russian Politburo during the annual May Day Parades. By examining changes in the positions of Politburo members relative to the central figure of the General Secretary, they could infer changes in the power structure of the Soviet government.

I noticed that Dick Cheney was standing four rows back. He was positioned behind an unidentified woman, who stood behind Dr Rice, who in turn was placed behind Secretary Rumsfeld.

Does this mean that there really has been a power shake-up at the White House with Vice-President Cheney being relegated to the benches. It is a pity that Donald Rumsfeld isn't back there with him.

Or is this just wishful thinking and his position merely illustrates the fact that he is still "the power behind the throne."

Unfair Comparisons

Date: March 13, 2005
Sent to but not published in the New York Times

Unfair Comparisons

In comparing American combat readiness with that of the Europeans, Thomas Friedman (Week in Review, March 6th., 2005) engages in a columnist's subtle sleight of hand. He says, "only about 5% of the European troops have the training, weaponry, logistical and intelligence support and airlift capability to fight a modern, hot war outside of Europe. (In the US it is 70% in crucial units).
He is comparing apples and oranges – the whole of Europe's armies with "crucial" US army units. This is the same army with over 2 million persons (I hesitate to say "under arms") which cannot sustain a force of 150,000 in Iraq without imposing stop loss orders on those who have completed their commitments.
It sounds to me as if the US is approaching the European state of unpreparedness.

Abandionment of Consular Rules

Date: March 10th., 2005
Sent to but not published in the New York Times

International Standards

Yesterday, the United States took one more step in its rejection of international standards of behavior. The United States withdrew from an Optional Protocol to the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations that ensures that jailed foreigners have the right to talk to consular officers.
This has two chilling effects, one domestic and one international. On the domestic front it is a direct repudiation of the Supreme Court's reasoning that international standards should apply when considering the applicability of the death penalty. Clearly the Bush administration does not agree.
Internationally it represents just one more repudiation of international law and the wrong insistence that the US is accountable to no one but itself. It follows three similar actions:

• the repudiation of the International Criminal Court.
• the US pressure to sign bilateral agreements with 50 countries to exclude US citizens from the rules of the ICC treaty.
• the withdrawal from the Kyoto accords.

We will I fear regret these actions as foreign nations begin to apply our rules to us. The Congress should take steps to pass legislation incorporating the optional protocol on consular relations into United States law. Surely both Democrats and Republicans can agree on the necessity of due process.
This latest action reinforces what I find so despicable about the current administration's actions: it's unwillingness to live by the same rules that it insists that others follow. How sad.

Reforming Social Security

Date: March 5th., 2005
Sent to but not published in the New York Times

George W. Bush needs to stop his exaggerations and distortions if he wishes to develop a convincing plan to reform Social Security. At present his position is so unconvincing that the support he has will continue to erode.
There are three major issues that he has to put forward with complete accuracy:

• There is NOT a crisis in Social Security funding; but there IS a moderately serious financing problem. I will suggest one way of dealing with it later.
• The suggestion that creating privatized accounts will solve the problem is false; other steps will have to be taken. Privatized accounts, by taking money OUT OF the Social Security system will acerbate the problems.
• The suggestion that there will be money remaining in those privatized accounts for one's heirs is also false. People will be compelled to purchase an annuity. An annuity yielding enough to top up one's social security benefits to current levels will cease on the death of the individual.

Any solutions that are put forward have to be based on these truths, not on the administration's current scare tactic distortions. They misled us once on the Iraq war, shame on them; if they mislead us now on Social Security and we believe them, shame on us.
We can solve the underfunding problem with some modest changes to the current tax regime: remove the cap on individual income (not the employer portion as that might prove to be a job killer) which now stands at $90,000. Doubling the cap would solve the problem for the foreseeable future; removing the cap altogether would add additional funding to the program and would remove the regressive nature of the current Social Security tax.
This additional funding could be used in one of two ways: reduction of the tax rate or to increase benefits for poorer persons. Right now the Social Security formula for computing one's pension depends on Average Lifetime Earnings. Now Social Security pays you 90% of the first $627.00 of monthly income, 32% of income between $628.00 and $3,779.00, and 15% of income above $3,779.00 to the cap of $7500.00 ($90,000.00 per year). It would make sense to increase the lowest bracket to about $800 which is the poverty level for a single person in the US today. It would also make sense to reduce the percentages at higher average incomes. If the cap were doubled, then two new brackets should be added so people earning between $3800.00 and $9,999.99 a month would be paid 10% of that tranche while those between $10,000.00 and the cap at $15,000.00 would be recompensed at 5% of that salary. If the cap were to be totally removed then those earning over $15,000.01 per month would be paid at the rate of 1% of that income; or perhaps an even lower rate.
These suggestions show that there is a relatively simple way out of the problem facing us. It is essential that these actions be taken now before the problem turns into a crisis. As for private accounts, we have them now, the 401(k). These are useful supplements to Social Security, they should not be its core.

Lebanon and Iraq

Date: March 4th., 2005
Sent to but not published in the Boston Globe

Speaking of Lebanon today (March 4th.), President George W. Bush stated that the country could not have a fair and free election while the country was under occupation by a foreign power (Syria).
Is the same true of Iraq?

Subway Congestion and Flexible Working Hours

Date: March 2nd, 2005
Sent to but not published in the Boston Globe

The problem of peak hour congestion is unlikely to be solved by a surcharge on MBTA fares (Letter, Eric V. Loewenstein, Globe April 1st, 2005). Most people do not have a choice in their hours of work, these are set by their employers. The problem must be addressed through a solution requiring a systemic change involving Boston firms and the public services provided by the MBTA and the police. The solution is the widespread adoption of flexible working hours. In addition to firms increasing their flexibility in working hours, infrastructure changes will have to occur simultaneously with the changes in working hours. The MBTA will have to change its train and bus schedules: rush hour schedules will have to be extended for an hour or two each side of the morning and evening peak hours. The police department will have to put more police on the street during these extended commuting hours. Only if commuting is made easier in these off peak hours will there be a major shift in individual commuting behavior.
Can Boston’s firms, police and politicians muster the energy required to make such cooperation work?

Was Churchill a Neo-Con

Date: March 1st, 2005
Published in the New York Times Book Review, March 20th. 2005. p 6.

Churchill a neo-con (Jacob Heilbrunn, Book Review, Feb 27, page 27)? I don't think so.
He famously once said "jaw-jaw is better than war-war!" A proposition decisively rejected by the neo-cons.
He also served in the Liberal Government of the early 1900's that introduced Old Age Pensions and Unemployment Insurance and Labor Exchanges -- all anathema to today's neo-cons.
Link to New York Times

Health Care Reform

Date: February 26th, 2006
Sent to Boston Globe

So, "Hopes fade for Healthcare Reform" (Globe, February 26, 2006, page A1).
It is time to take a more sensible approach. There is no logical reason for employers to be implicated in the provision of Health Insurance. That should be government's responsibility.
We need to go to a radical solution:
1. Enroll everyone in Massachusetts in the State Employee Plan -- I believe that Bob Reich's Health Care team showed that this was feasible during the last gubernatorial campaign.
2. Pay for this through a progressive income tax system. Given that costs for the uninsured are currently hidden in the insurance premiums for those individuals and the companies that pay for insurance. This should be revenue neutral to both as long as the firms pay what they now pay for health insurance directly to the individuals insured.
3. Enjoy the benefits of health insurance for all citizens of the Commonwealth.

Two Roles of the University

February 25th. 2006
Sent to but not published in the New York Times

John Tierney (Op-Ed, The Faculty Club,February 25th, 2006, page A29), despite his family connections with academia, falls into the trap of equating the mission of the University with teaching. In reality, the University has two missions: the transmission of knowledge and the creation of knowledge.
In a pluralistic system, different universities put different emphases on the teaching and research roles. That is as it should be. Potential students can then make informed decisions about whether they want a truly memorable undergraduate experience or whether they want to attend a research powerhouse where they may get useful research experience in some of their upper level courses.
And, yes I did teach undergraduate survey courses at Toronto.

The Peace Movement

Date: February 21, 2005
Sent to but not published by Boston Globe

The peace movement, despite the ongoing Iraq war, is alive and well. It lives all across this country in church basements and community centers. Perhaps because of the evident injustice of the current war the peace movement flourishes.

To the old idealism of the past has been added a very practical streak: assuming that once again there will be a peace dividend, how will it be invested? Major corporations follow the money in government contracts. Major defense organizations have the technology and the brains to make major inroads into solving the renewable energy problem. They have the brains and the technology to help educate the under-educated. They have the brains and the technology to bring to bear on the problems of the inner cities. There are a multitude of problems to be solved. Weaning the defense industry from military contracts to solve the problems of our civil society is the way to go once the present war is behind us.

Two types of Cloning

Surely Michael Gazzaniga (Op-Ed, February 16th., A33) is living in a dream world if he believes that this President can make the subtle judgement required to distinguish between reproductive cloning and biomedical cloning.
After all this Administration has shown itself unable to distinguish between real nuclear threats (Iran and North Korea) and a non-existent threat (Iraq). The administration cannot tell the difference between a fundamentalist Moslem (Bin Laden) and a secular Moslem (Saddam Hussein). The administration cannot tell the difference between dangerous captives in Guantanamo and innocent bystanders rounded up in Afghanistan. It cannot tell the difference between legal and illegal interrogation techniques in Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay. Despite its enormous array of legal talent, it cannot tell the difference between legal and illegal surveillance operations inside America.
Those are fairly gross distinctions compared to those between the two types of cloning. There is little hope that Mr. Bush will soon draw that important distinction and allow Federal funding of biomedical cloning to begin unfettered by the current restrictions.

Bush and al-Quaida

Date: February 11, 2005
Sent to but not published by Boston Globe

So Richard Clarke sent a memo to Condaleezza Rice about terrorist groups (together with a plan for dealing with them) on January 25th 2001. He also called for a Cabinet Meeting to discuss the problem. The Bush Cabinet got around to discussing the problem on September 4th, just a week before 9/11.

Why? Was the Cabinet busy dealing with other issues, was the President busy dealing with other issues? No! President Bush, early in his first term, presided over the most laid back administration in living memory. He was busy chopping sage brush at the Western White House. He had the worst ratio of working days to vacation days of any President.

And this is the man we just re-elected. Pity!

Bush's Inconsistent Policies

Date: February 6, 2005
Sent to but not published by Boston Globe

President Bush is somewhat inconsistent with his application of rugged individualism and the ownership society. At the same time that he is proposing to replace a chunk of social security benefits with privatized accounts he is proposing to pay life insurance premiums for all servicemen and women on active duty -- a policy that I applaud.
Where is the consistency in his proposals? Why not just give service personnel the money for those premiums and let them put it to the purposes the individual chooses. The answer, of course, is the same as the reason we should continue our present course with social security: people often let short term considerations overwhelm long term considerations, so fail to buy insurance; and the transaction costs for each individual would be prohibitive so that lower benefits would be obtained for the same cost.

Who Owns MY Social Security Benefits

Date: February 6, 2005
Sent to but not published by New York Times

Could someone please explain to me what I do not own in my forthcoming Social Security benefits.
The benefits are registered in my name. No one else has access to them, except my spouse who may draw benefits on my death.
To be sure there are some limits in how these benefits are created and delivered. But those limits are exactly the same as those incurred by term life insurance and the purchase of an annuity that pays an income to me and my surviving spouse – it is also an annuity with inflation protection which is an expensive option in the private market.
The argument that private accounts will benefit one's children is false. Transaction costs will, as they did in the U.K. eat up funds in these private accounts. If, on retirement, one is forced (a policy inconsistent with the myth that these accounts are under the individual's control) to purchase an annuity then, on one's death, (despite the Administration rhetoric) nothing will be left for one's heirs.
Lets stop this barrage of misinformation and lets undertake a sensible, modest upgrading to the Social Security system.