Sunday, November 28, 2010

What Does AARP Stand For?

If you're over 50 you've already heard from the folks at the AARP. If you think you know who or what the AARP is, or what AARP stands for, you're probably mistaken. Today, rather than representing the interests of retired Americans, AARP represents what can only be called a political agenda. 
Last year, when the AARP campaigned in support of healthcare reform legislation that many believed threatened Medicare benefits, people began to ask who does AARP represent, and what exactly does AARP stand for, both the letters in its name and the organization itself.

AARP once did "stand for" something. In fact two things. The letters stood for American Association of Retired Persons, and the organization stood for, in support of, the interests of retired people. Or is it persons?

But today many people don't retire at 65, if they actually still have jobs to go to, and the AARP sends membership applications to anyone who turns 50. If the AARP continues to lower the age for membership, the bar to entry will be so low that toddlers will be able to get over it and become members.  

So in 1998, with the name no longer reflecting the demographics of its members, it was changed to just a set of letters. Today, the organization itself no longer reflects the interests of what it claims are its 40 million members.

But are these really "members?" They don't show up for meetings or make policy decisions. They don't actually elect delegates to represent them. It's probably even less representative and democratic than any business corporation. Those 40 million "members" are members only because they pay a nominal annual fee of $16, which gets them what they really want...discounts on everything from hotel rooms to health insurance and prescription drugs. 

For $16 you become a member of AARP in the same sense that you become an American Express member for $150.  The difference is that American Express doesn't go to Washington claiming to speak for the interests of its 48 million "members."  Something that AARP does. But who appointed AARP to speak for 40 million Americans?  How could they? That's more than 10 percent of the nation's population.  Only the president of the United States can claim such a large constituency.

It's time for AARP to get honest. It does not represent the interests of seniors, retired people, or even people over 50. It's a marketing organization that licenses its name to hawkers of products and services to those people. It then leverages its market clout to promote a political agenda that is often at odds with the true interests of the people it disingenuously claims to represent.  That might require another name change, although it would be hard to spell out in a handful of letters.

Wednesday, November 17, 2010

A tale of one county. It was the worst of times. It was the worst of times.

Join me on a trip down memory lane from a Gwinnett County millage rate increase that “will carry us through the five-year financial plan,” yet just seven months later instead be a $47.5 million deficit. 
March 21, 2010 “We feel like the cuts that we made in 2009, including the millage rate increase, will carry us through the five-year financial plan,” said Aaron Bovos, Gwinnett’s chief financial officer. “We went through the pain last year.” AJC
August 17, 2010 Finance director Aaron Bovos acknowledged it’s a temporary budget fix. He said the county must overcome a $31 million shortfall as it begins to put together its 2011 budget. AJC
November 10, 2010 “Affirmation of our ratings is solid evidence of Gwinnett County’s financial stability and sound management as we navigate today’s difficult financial and economic conditions,” Bovos said. Gwinnett Daily Post
November 16, 2010 Gwinnett could cut its library budget by 15 percent and money to subsidies in half to try to make up a $47.5 million budget deficit. Finance Director Aaron Bovos made the recommendation Tuesday but noted that even with the use of $15.8 million from a one-time second tax payment earlier this year, the county is still $17 million in the hole. Gwinnett Daily Post
What will be next? 


Wednesday, November 10, 2010

What part of financial crisis don't you get?

What part of financial crisis don't you get?  That's what I would ask the department heads in the Gwinnett County (Georgia) government.  I read the budget requests submitted by each of the County's departments and what I saw distressed me.  Not because the total of requests represents a net increase over the current year budget or because a few departments actually requested increases, while a few others proposed reductions for their departments.  No, I'm distressed because anyone with the responsibility of heading a department of the County's government would have the temerity to propose a budget demanding more money than last year when every indication is that county will be collecting less money than last year, and is likely to collect even less money in the following year.

It's not that these offending department heads don't know the financial crisis facing the County.  It's been a matter of discussion and debate for more than 18 months.  It's apparent that these department heads, rather than pitching in to help resolve the problem, continue to subscribe to the old dictum of budgeting, "if you ask for more than you really need, your request will be cut to what you really wanted in the first place."  So, ask for more; you'll get less, but it'll be what you really want, or close to it."  It's dishonest. It's lazy. It's unprofessional. And it's destructive to good government and citizen trust.

So rather than being honest and actually assessing their departments' needs in the context of what is affordable, they just fire off a "hail Mary" pass and hope for the best.  That's not how professionals should do their jobs and it's not what is needed in this situation.  The fact that they did it anyway demonstrates that each lacks the leadership qualities their position and these times demand of them. It similarly demonstrates that their bosses in the County Government, both in the administration and the County Commission, lack the leadership skills and qualities to get the people reporting to them to perform in a manner commensurate with the demands of their jobs and the current circumstances.

While the final budget will surely (hopefully) look a lot different than the department requests suggest, the fact that there are people in the government who don't understand that it's not business as usual, and that no one managed to make them understand, underscores the crisis of leadership this County faces.  It's my hope that someone with integrity and demonstrated leadership qualities will step up next month to offer to turn this situation around.  The citizens of Gwinnett County can not afford to have a government that's in a state of permanent denial. The County is in a financial and leadership crisis.  Pretending it's not will only compound the pain we will inevitably have to endure.  The time is getting short.

Tuesday, September 7, 2010

Stone age solutions can't fix a computer age economy

You wouldn't use a hammer to fix your software problem. But in Washington, our leaders--the president and his congressional majority are attempting to fix our techology-based economy with machine-age tools. 


Now that it's obvious that the president's $3 trillion stimulus packages haven't stimulated anything but the federal deficit, he and his allies in congress are proposing to up the tab with another $50 billion infrastructure stimulus package.  It's the kind of spending programs that makes you think of a time when the United States was a land of farmers and factory laborers... the 1930s.  


When economic disaster hit in the form of the Great Depression, the government rolled out make-work projects that built some our nation's most enduring landmarks and parks.  It did little for unemployment or nothing for economic recovery. But we did get us some pretty nice trails through the Appalachian mountains and other places.  


To actually get out of the economic malaise of the Depression, the nation had to wait for World War II to arrive.  Nothing like a little war or get people back to work, or better yet, out of the labor market completely by putting them in uniform and shipping overseas. Besides putting millions to work building airplanes and ships, it sent most of the people who would have been unemployed off to Europe or into the Pacific to kill or be killed.  Economic stagnation and unemployment solved: not by the economic policies of a president or congress, but by the irrational behavior of insane men in Berlin and Tokyo. 


But the myth persists that the alphabet soup programs of the Roosevelt administration pulled the nation out of the worst economic disaster of the last century. The problem with this myth is that its believers are currently in charge of running this country. And worst of all, as true believers, they can't accept that not only were 1930s style programs inappropriate and ineffective in the 1930s, but they won't accept that these programs are even more inappropriate and less effective today.  They continue to believe that the health of our post industrial, technology-based economy can be restored by spending billions of dollars that the government doesn't have, to build roads, bridges and train tracks.  The trains to run on those tracks, by the way, would be produced by European or Asian companies since no U.S. company has built a train in more than two decades.


It's time for our leaders to stop trying to fix every 21st century problem with early 20th century tools. Just as we've moved beyond starting our automobiles by turning a crank, our economy and its problems are beyond being fixed by turning shovels of dirt.

Wednesday, August 18, 2010

Tolerance is a two way street

Tolerance, noun form of the verb, tolerate, which is to allow the existence, occurrence, or practice of something that one does not necessarily like or agree with without interference.


Actually, when you think about it, it's not a very nice word.  It essentially says, I don't like what you are, or what you represent, but because for any number of possible reasons I'll not try to stop you from doing or saying or believing whatever foolish nonsense you subscribe to.  


It's one of those great ideas that grew out of the 18th-century Age of Enlightenment, and was subsequently imbedded in the armory of our American culture to be pulled out periodically by politicians and preachers to bludgeon the rest of us into meek submission. 


Although our nation's history is rife with examples of racial, economic and religious intolerance, either official or unofficial, the reality is that today, America can stand as a beacon of not just simple dictionary-grade tolerance, but of true inclusion, where most everyone is viewed through the same clear lens---we're Americans. Of course, this inclusion is not automatic. It comes with a simple set of rules, including: if you want me to put up your stupid beliefs....political, economic or religious, you better put up with mine.


Today, some of our leaders are proposing that we should live up to this ideal by extending the privileges inherent in it to people who don't extend it to others. We are being told that we should show that we love our "neighbor" even though our "neighbor" not only believes our values and ideals are worthless but that our lives are worthless as well.  That we should set a good example by extending to a particular group, benefits and privileges, that under similar circumstances, it would not extend to the rest of us.


In the name of American idealism, we are being asked to welcome the creation of an Islamic center near the World Trade Center site where more than 3,000 innocents were killed in the name of Islam fanaticism.  It's all wrong.  It's the wrong facility, to be built and funded the wrong people, in the wrong place, for all the wrong reasons.


It's simply naive to believe that we can uphold American ideals only by extending them to people who have shown how much they despise those ideals.  It's not a contradiction of our values to ask someone or some group to respect what we as a nation hold sacred.  If we don't respect and value it, why should anyone else?





Thursday, August 5, 2010

Medicare Magic

The wonders of government accounting.  Today the good folks in Washington announced that the Medicare Hospital Trust Fund will not run out of money before 2029.  That’s great news for seniors who don’t plan to live more than another 19 years. After that, all bets are off.  In fact they may be off way before that.  
The announcement by Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner put a happy spin on what is really a somber picture. The administration, not surprisingly, gives the much maligned Obamacare healthcare overall credit for creating the savings that gives the Fund its new lease on life. Those apparent savings result from reduced benefits for the seniors the program was designed to help. These were the program improvements that senior lobbying organization AARP actively supported.  With friends like the AARP working on their behalf, seniors won’t need an assisted suicide law to accelerate their deaths. So maybe a few cuts now will help the program last longer, albeit with fewer benefit for its supposed beneficiaries. What’s the point of going to the hospital if you’re going to die anyway in 10 or 15 years.
A couple of important details, along with some elderly Americans, were buried in the announcement. First the news relates only to the “Hospital” fund, not to the fund that pays for doctor services which will remain solvent as long as doctors accept Facebook credits in payment, or to the Social Security Trust Fund which will run out of money the next time an auto worker retires.
In addition, Richard Foster, Medicare’s chief actuary, said that the Medicare savings that are supposed to make this good news possible might not be realistic. How much longer will Mr. Foster keep his job?  
But even if the savings were realistic, the administration plans to spend them on expanding Medicare coverage. There go the savings.  But what good is saving money if you can’t spend it on something else. It’s like you deciding not to buy a new car with money you don’t have and instead spending what you just saved by not buying that car on a trip to Paris.  But that’s pretty much how the federal government works.  It spends money it doesn’t have. Then announces it found savings in a program it didn’t have money for in the first place so that it can spend it on another program it doesn’t have money for.  
We just don’t realize how expensive it is to save money.