One of the benefits of Catholicism is the confessional. The absolution of sins is preceded only by the request for forgiveness. While none of the people mentioned below are necessarily asking to be forgiven for their actions, unless they do, we will be the ones who will be left with the penance.

On the eve of the State of the Union Address, the opinion of President Bush will be televised for the world to see. Which president will we hear? Will it be the Great Decider? His belief that the tax cuts are sacrosanct and his squandering of surpluses and then the deficits as above reproach leaves the possibility of just such an appearance wide open.

Or perhaps we will witness a slightly more humble leader, the Great Parser, who realizes that this country needs someone who can admit that we are headed in the wrong direction and offer solutions that are new and refreshing? In doing so, he could define what he means by bi-partisanship and he intends to work with this newly elected Congress to meet the demands of those that elected them.

Or will we hear much of the same as he takes to the podium as the Great Concealer, leading us to more darkened corners and political dead-ends?

As he addresses the first Democratic Congress he has had to face, he is instead offering to make reforms to health insurance as the distraction. His offer to allows those with private plans the ability to take a tax deduction once again offers the typical break to those who can afford private coverage.

Comparing his program to home ownership, the president hopes to attract some the 47 million uninsured in the United States to seek coverage. Allowing them to deduct up to $15,000 in policy costs for a family and $7,500 for a single worker will not make insurance more affordable for the vast majority of Americans who are currently without coverage. It was affordability that drove many of them into their current situation.

Even with the tax breaks, a family would first need to find the income to pay for the insurance before they can deduct the costs. This begins with finding carriers who are willing to take on the “less-desirable” over the healthy.

To pay for this plan, the president suggests that those who have insurance plans through their employers or as the result of union contracts be taxed for their benefits. Mr. Bush should be forgiven his ignorance.

The best way to fix this problem would be draw on the wisdom of foreign plans. Culling the best ideas from around the world would be far better than his ‘robbing Peter to pay Paul’ approach. For example, he could force private carriers to create a universal plan of preventative care for everyone. This type of care has been proven to decrease the overall costs of insurance plans and would allow policyholders to pick and choose their coverage beyond those initial limits. The government could easily cover these costs and in the process, force private carriers to compete for additional coverage.

Medical debt forgiveness might be offered to the financially strapped as well. In the process, credit records would be repaired and the chance to seek coverage with a clean slate would keep premiums more affordable for this group. Setting a threshold that insurers could charge would force companies to keep many unnecessary procedures affordable. But foremost, the government needs to step away from allowing the private insurance sector to run the show. 

The funnel that a single payer system creates, whether it be Ron Wyden’s (D-OR) plan, a hybrid of the Massachusetts plan (that taxes private policyholders if they do not buy into the plan while subsidizing private insurance plans) or Mr. Bush’s idea relies in the private sector. 

A move towards greater government coverage would allow more of the working poor to buy insurance while it expanded the number of children who are eligible for free coverage. Refocusing universal care to act much like Medicare would save the taxpayers not only money but also paperwork.

On January 17^th, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke appeared before Senate lawmakers warning that we are headed for trouble unless we fix our entitlement programs and soon. His report left the Senators with little in the way of answers to the looming problems that we face down the road.

Mr. Bernanke can be forgiven his middle of the road visit. He avoided the tax question suggesting that the net effect of the tax cut will always result in decreased revenues for the Treasury. He admitted that over the last two years, tax revenues have increased because of strong economic growth but stopped well short of citing the tax cuts as the reason. Bernanke as much as said exactly that, warning that such effects are short-lived.

Long-term projections are often used when trying to project the health of entitlement programs such as Social Security, which along with Medicare is projected to increase to almost 15% of the total economic outlay. A recent Congressional Budget Office report did just that suggesting that in less than 25 years the pace of borrowing to cover those shortfalls would make this point in time appear as “the calm before the storm”. 

He understands better than most that the current course requires the federal government to continue to borrow without any end in sight. 

He should be forgiven for stepping into the fray. He had promised to keep a low profile when it came to these testimonies, unlike his predecessor Alan Greenspan. Yet he left the lawmakers with the possibility that such borrowing could reach 100% of the GDP in less than 25 years if the issue is not solved. Perhaps it was guilt by association.

And finally, Michael Bloomberg, Republican mayor of New York along with Democratic Senator from the same state, Charles Schumer announced at a Monday morning press conference that this country is on the verge of a crisis. Their suggestion that the regulations currently guarding investors in this country is having a detrimental effect on the extremely profitable financial services sector. They should also be forgiven for their lack of vision and their misdirected culpability.

They are understandably distraught over the downside effect of a global marketplace. Who could have foreseen the rapid growth in service sector jobs, once the saving grace of a country that has effectively shunned manufacturing for the intellectual products that Wall Street offers, as being exportable? Certainly not the elected officials who were bemoaning the potential loss of these jobs to London.

Echoing the sentiments of the curiously absent Henry Paulson, Secretary of the Treasury, Bloomberg pointed to over regulation as the sole reason hedge funds, IPOs and other service sector jobs have begun to leave this financial capital. 

Keep in mind that the gradual shift away from products based economy to services based one has been seen as a necessary shift for the United States as the monthly jobs reports have revealed. Bloomberg asserted that, "we are going to see America's leadership in global financial transactions dwindle putting a chill on the nation's economy and the city's that will spell fewer jobs and slower overall growth."

The suggestions the mayor makes border on the ludicrous. Redefining Sarbanes-Oxley and possibly even allowing some companies to opt out of the rules, making legal retribution against financial services companies more difficult and reforming immigration laws to allow certain skilled workers into the United States goes not and probably will not play well to the citizens living outside of Wall Street.

Nor should it. But like the president, who has resisted the voice of the people he governs and Mr. Bernanke, who has been consistently distant and academically aloof when it comes to the plight of Middle America, they should be forgiven their myopia. But they should also be made to do the penance that comes with the sin.

© 2007 Paul Petillo
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