The Height/Weight Botheration

I looked at one of those height/weight charts that one can easily find on the Web, and I was dismayed to discover that I am almost 5 inches too short for my weight. Dismayed because at my age there is virtually no chance that I’ll be able to add 5 inches to my height. I’m destined to always be too short for my weight. Sigh.

But at least I have company. Millions of Americans are too short for their weight. Some blame sugary soft drinks. Those soft drinks must be stunting our growth; that could explain why so many of us are too short for our weight. That’s unfortunate, as being too short for one’s weight is known to contribute to diabetes, heart disease, and even some cancers. But as I have no control over my height, I’m not going to worry about it.

Big Spender

I see so much misinformation in what passes for news media in this country that I prefer not to get my opinions from the talking heads on TV. Rather, I prefer to form my own opinions based on facts, not fables. Much has been spoken and written in conservative media about Obama’s “reckless spending.” I decided to look at the actual numbers and try to find the truth. I asked the question: how does government spending under Obama compare with government spending under past presidents? I looked at every fiscal year since Reagan took office.

Keep in mind that only Congress can authorize spending. The President can propose a budget to Congress, but it’s really a wish list; Congress can reject it, modify it, or pass it. Usually, many changes are made to a budget before it passes.

Budgets are a slippery topic. The U.S. has two kinds of expenditures: on-budget and off-budget. Items that are off-budget are funded through supplemental appropriations. For example, George W. Bush did not include the cost of military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan in his budgets. Those operations were funded off-budget. When Barack Obama came into office he chose to include the cost of those military operations in his budgets. That boosted the size of his budgets by hundreds of billions of dollars, even if the government had otherwise spent exactly the same amount of money as in the previous year.

For the table on this page, I’ve chosen to use Total Outlays, which includes on-budget and off-budget expenditures.

I need to explain the term fiscal year. The government’s fiscal year currently begins on October 1 and runs through September 30. The fiscal year is named after the year in which the budget ends. So, for example, Ronald Reagan was elected in 1980, sworn into office in 1981, and sent his first budget to Congress for the fiscal year beginning in October, 1981, which was FY 1982. Reagan’s final budget was sent to Congress in 1988 for the next fiscal year, FY 1989.

I have seen “news” articles attributing the FY 2009 budget to Barack Obama. This is incorrect. The FY 2009 budget had been funding government for almost 4 months before Obama was sworn into office. Obama’s first budget was for FY 2010, and his last budget will be for either FY 2013 or (if he is re-elected) FY 2017.

Numbers for the following table are from the Office of Management and Budget and specifically Table 1.1—Summary of Receipts, Outlays, and Surpluses or Deficits (-): 1789–2017. Last updated Aug 9, 2016 using data from Table 1.1—Summary of Receipts, Outlays, and Surpluses or Deficits (-): 1789–2021.

Fiscal Year	Total Outlays (billions)	Previous Year (billions)	Difference (billions)	Percent Change (from previous year)
Ronald Reagan
1982	745.7	678.2	67.5	9.95%
1983	808.3	745.7	62.6	8.40%
1984	851.8	808.3	43.5	5.37%
1985	946.3	851.8	94.5	11.10%
1986	990.3	946.3	44.0	4.65%
1987	1004.0	990.3	13.7	1.38%
1988	1064.4	1004.0	60.4	6.02%
1989	1143.7	1064.4	79.3	7.45%
Average annual growth during Reagan terms				8.58%
G. H. W. Bush
1990	1253.0	1143.7	109.3	9.55%
1991	1324.2	1253.0	71.2	5.68%
1992	1381.5	1324.2	57.3	4.33%
1993	1409.4	1381.5	27.9	2.02%
Average annual growth during  Bush term				5.80%
Bill Clinton
1994	1461.8	1409.4	52.4	3.72%
1995	1515.7	1461.8	53.9	3.69%
1996	1560.5	1515.7	44.8	2.95%
1997	1601.1	1560.5	40.6	2.60%
1998	1652.5	1601.1	51.4	3.21%
1999	1701.8	1652.5	49.3	2.99%
2000	1789.0	1701.8	87.2	5.12%
2001	1862.8	1789.0	73.8	4.13%
Average annual growth during Clinton terms				4.02%
G. W. Bush
2002	2010.9	1862.8	148.1	7.95%
2003	2159.9	2010.9	149.0	7.41%
2004	2292.8	2159.9	132.9	6.16%
2005	2472.0	2292.8	179.2	7.81%
2006	2655.1	2472.0	283.1	7.41%
2007	2728.7	2655.1	73.6	2.77%
2008	2982.5	2728.7	253.8	9.30%
2009	3517.7	2982.5	535.2	17.94%
Average annual growth during  Bush terms				11.10%
Barack Obama
2010	3456.2	3517.7	– 61.5	– 1.75%
2011	3603.1	3456.2	146.9	4.25%
2012	3537.0	3603.1	-66.1	-1.83%
2013	3454.6	3537.0	-82.4	-2.32%
2014	3506.1	3454.6	51.5	1.49%
2015	3688.3	3506.1	182.2	5.20%
2016	3951.3*	3688.3	263.0*	7.13%*
2017	4147.2*	3951.3*	195.9*	4.96%*
Average annual growth during Obama terms				2.24%**

(* estimated; the fiscal year is not yet over.)
(** The last two years, 2016 & 2017, are estimated. The first six years of Obama's terms produced an average annual deficit of 0.81%.)

I have a final comment about the FY 2009 budget. The budget George Bush sent to Congress included a $400 billion deficit. However, Congress added more than $400 billion dollars of spending to the budget, and the economy tanked, resulting in tax receipts being $600 billion less than expected. These events resulted in a $1.4 trillion deficit. Without this massive FY 2009 deficit, Bush's average annual spending would have been 8.59%, almost identical to Reagan's 8.58%.

America’s Budget

See if you can guess who I’m talking about:

One of this president’s campaign talking points was the size of the federal budget. He said it was too large and if he was elected he would get it under control. People believed him and they voted him into office. However, the budget continued to grow, and when he left office the national debt was almost 3 times as large as when he took office.

If you guessed Ronald Reagan, you are correct.

It’s not unexpected that the budget grows larger each year, for a number of reasons. Every year we’re a bigger country – our population grows. More people means more poor people, more sick people, more retirees, and more mandated spending to take care of those people. In fact, only 37% of the budget is discretionary spending. Fully 63% of the budget is mandated spending (such as Medicare, Medicaid, and interest on the debt). There are federal programs to assist cities and states with their financial burdens, and more people means those programs will spend more. On top of that, inflation erodes the value of the dollar, so the government has to spend more dollars each year just to stay even with the previous year.

From 1980 to 2009, budget outlays grew from $590.9 billion to $3517.6 billion. That is an average increase of 6.6% per year.

Let’s talk about fiscal years. What is a fiscal year? From Wikipedia:

“The federal government's fiscal year currently begins on October 1 and ends on September 30 of the next calendar year. The fiscal year corresponds to the calendar year in which it ends; thus, fiscal year 2009 would begin on October 1, 2008 and end September 30, 2009.”

What this means is that the last Bush budget was the FY 2009 budget, which was enacted in 2008 and funded government from October, 2008, through September, 2009. Obama’s first budget was the FY 2010 budget, which funded government from October, 2009, until September, 2010.

It’s important to note that only Congress has the power to authorize spending. The President sends a budget to Congress, but it’s really a wish list. Congress can reject it, modify it, or pass it. Usually, many changes are made to a budget before it passes Congress.

Keeping that fact in mind, here are the total outlays (on-budget plus off-budget).

	Expenditure (billions)	Previous Year (billions)	Difference (billions)	Percentage Change (from the previous year)
FY 2010	3,721	3,518	+ 203	+ 5.77%
FY 2011	3,360	3,721	– 361	– 9.70%
FY 2012	3,796	3,360	+ 436	+ 12.98%
FY 2013	3,803*	3,796	+ 7	+ 0.18%
4 year average	3,668	3,599	+ 71	+ 2.3%

(* FY 2013 has been requested but not yet enacted.)

In FY 2010, Obama requested $3.552 trillion, but Congress enacted $3.721 trillion. Congress ordered more spending than Obama requested.

In FY2012, Obama requested $3.729 trillion, but Congress enacted $3.796 trillion. Once again, Congress ordered more spending than Obama requested.

If Obama can restrain Congress from packing his FY 2013 budget full of pork, and if, after four years, government spending has increased by an average rate of only 2.3% per year, it will mean that under Obama, the rate of government’s spending increases has been a third of the historical rate of spending increases since 1980.

Not bad for a “big spender”.

Reference: Office of Management and Budget, Historical Tables
Table 1.1—Summary of Receipts, Outlays, and Surpluses or Deficits (-): 1789–2017

Tomato Update

My first experiment with growing a tomato plant in a 5 gallon bucket is going well. The tomato plant is growing like a weed. Here it is on April 29:

And here it is on May 17, only 18 days later:

It already has a little tomato:

More Random Thoughts

Observation…

George Bush invaded Iraq looking for weapons of mass destruction.
Cost:  $4 trillion, thousands of American lives, hundreds of thousands of civilian lives.
Result: weapons of mass destruction are not found.

Barack Obama invaded Pakistan looking for Osama bin Laden who, unlike Saddam Hussein, actually executed an attack that killed thousands of Americans.
Cost:  One helicopter lost. No American casualties.
Result: A terrorist leader is killed, and Obama is ridiculed in emails which make him out to be a fool.

This is an example of cognitive dissonance, in which people try to hold conflicting cognitions (ideas, beliefs, opinions) simultaneously. On the one hand, conservatives assert that Obama is incompetent and can do nothing right. On the other hand, Obama gets credit for eliminating America’s most wanted terrorist. This conflict between belief and reality causes discomfort. The discomfort can be lessened in two ways: by belittling Obama’s contribution to the military operation and/or by reducing the importance of eliminating bin Laden. Both techniques have been employed since the raid on bin Laden’s compound, with the result that conservatives are once again comfortable with believing that Obama is incompetent and can do nothing right.

Bullies…

I still remember what a quadratic equation looks like from my high school algebra days. On the other hand, Mitt Romney claims he can’t recall pinning a classmate to the ground and cutting off the boy’s hair with scissors. Mitt says even if he did do it, it was just high jinks. After 50 years, Mitt Romney hasn’t grown enough to own the bad behavior of his youth.

Dog Flipping…

It’s a growing trend. You go to a dog breeder and buy a dog with a promise to give the dog a good home. Then you immediately sell the dog and pocket the profit. It’s like house-flipping but with a scared, trusting animal hoping to get a decent human master.

Citizenship…

A growing number of wealthy Americans are renouncing their citizenship in order to cut their tax bill. Among the latest to do this is Eduardo Saverin, the billionaire co-founder of Facebook. He is going to live in Singapore which has no capital gains tax. So much for loyalty to the land that made it possible for him to become a billionaire.

Almost May

It’s April 29. I haven’t blogged since March 19. There hasn’t been much to write about. There have been things I could have written about, but all of it was too deep, too weighty. A blog post can’t be a chapter in a book. So I waited for something suitable to come along to write about. And nothing came along.

Athalia the Azalea in front of my house bloomed … as did the pink phlox beside my house and around the back steps, despite my mowing it to the ground several times every summer. The phlox, that is … not the azalea. I don’t think the azalea would stand being mowed to the ground even once.

George the Bush sprouted white blossoms. George stands at the far end of my back yard next to an alley that runs the length of my city block. I cut George to the ground a couple years ago, but the root refused to die and it sprouts stems and flowers in the spring. George is a shadow of his old self, though. He’s much easier to mow around now, and I don’t have to take the hedge trimmer to him any longer.  He’s George the Bush, Jr.

 

Dandelions are hard at work destroying my grass … what little remains. My lawn is mostly weeds now: a lot of clover, but henbit and chickweed, too. I put down grass seed in spots where the weeds had died and left bare dirt. I don’t have good luck with planting grass, so I’m not expecting much in the way of results.

 

I planted a tomato plant in a 5 gallon bucket. I call it Tom (the tomato plant … not the bucket). It’s an experiment. I’ve grown tomatoes before but never in a container. Here’s a picture of Tom at home in his tomato bucket. Formerly it was a paint bucket but it’s been re-purposed. I drilled holes in the bottom so excess water will run out.

Tom already has a yellow flower on his little stem!

If you look closely you can see a couple more buds ready to open.

Today was 68° (F) and sunny so I went outside and performed some maintenance on a rosebush, cutting away the grass growing up inside it. In the process I accidentally cut off a rose stem, so I put it into a little blue vase. Now it sits cheerfully on my living room fireplace mantle.

In other news: I cut down two trees growing beside my garage. Had them cut down, actually. It was interesting to watch. I also took down the white dogwood standing beside my garage. It had been dying for years and the trunk was hollow with rot.

So, not much to write about this month after all. Living in the Heights is a lot like living at Lake Wobegon, except that Garrison Keillor usually finds a way to make the stories there almost interesting. Almost.

Winter

What can I say about this year’s winter in central Virginia?

It’s still winter, according to the calendar. But it’s winter only on the calendar. I’ve had to mow my lawn twice, and the grass was so high the first time that I could barely push the mower through it. I would have mowed before the grass got so tall, but the weather was too hot. (It seems like every year the lawn-mowing season begins earlier and ends later than it did the previous year.) I run the air conditioner in my Jeep when I’m out and about. I turned off my home’s central heat weeks ago when the temperatures began hitting the mid-80s every day. Central Virginia will get a little relief this week, with daytime high temperatures forecast to be “only” in the upper 70s. This is winter?

Maybe not. Winter is pretty much an arbitrary thing. There’s an astronomical winter which, in the U.S., begins on the solstice and ends on the following equinox. There’s a meteorological winter which, in the northern hemisphere, extends over the three coldest months – December, January, and February. In Scandinavia, winter begins on 14 October and ends the last day of February. In Celtic nations such as Ireland, winter is defined as the three month period having the shortest days – November, December, and January. Many countries in Europe recognize St. Martin’s Day (11 November) as the first day of winter. Some countries consider Valentine’s Day (14 February) as the first day of spring. And of course, countries in the southern hemisphere have their winters during the months of June, July, and August.

Year to year, cold weather begins on different dates and ends on different dates. It could be a long, cold winter one year and a short, mild winter the next year. As for me, as long as the weather is cold enough to kill the mosquitoes, I’m happy. After that, I’m ready for spring.

The Stretch of Time

I know that most if not all of my readers think that I’m young and hip. That’s because I look young and hip ... at least, in my own head. But sadly, here’s the reality.

When I was a tadpole, I remember looking at my grandparents’ telephone. There was an earpiece you could lift up and put to your – where else? – ear. And a nice lady named Mabel, or possibly Martha, at the central office would say, “Number please.” You would give her the number of the phone you were calling – it would be something like “35” or “679”, and she would physically connect your phone with the other phone by plugging an electrical cord (your phone line) into a jack (the other phone line) on a patch panel.

Off I went to grade school. One day the class was excited because there was a big change coming to telephones and the teacher was going to explain it to us. Sure enough, the teacher told us that soon telephones would have something called “dials” and when you wanted to make a call you would lift a handset to your ear and you would hear a “dial tone”. Then you would poke your finger into one of ten holes in a round disk and spin it around once for each digit in the phone number you were calling. After that, the connection was automated. Goodbye Mabel. Or possibly Martha.

My family moved into a new house. We had a telephone but it was connected to the phone company by something called a “party line.” This meant that we shared our phone line with our neighbors. Our neighbors had children – little girls who liked to play on the telephone. My dad would pick up the phone to call someone and he would be unable to place a call because the neighbor girls would be on the phone laughing and giggling. So one day he called the phone company and he ordered something rare in those days: a “private line”, our very own personal phone number that belonged only to us and no one else.

The little girls that lived next door grew up. One of them married a preacher and they had a baby girl of their own. That baby girl grew up, married, and had two baby girls of her own. Those girls are now age 16 and 14, and when they aren’t talking or texting on their smart phones they’re using their phones to post messages to Facebook or to tweet about their favorite boy bands.

And here I sit with three phone numbers of my own. Whereas my parents shared a phone number with their neighbors, I have a mobile phone number, a magicJack phone number, and a Google Voice phone number. It’s only through dent of determination that I don’t have even more phone numbers. It’s been years since I’ve had an old-fashioned landline telephone. I don’t expect to ever have one again.

In 60 years, today’s tadpoles will be senior citizens. No one can imagine what phones be like in that far-off day. But one thing is sure: whatever today’s phones evolve into, it will be something that no one today would ever recognize as a telephone.

Socialism: Good, Bad, or Ugly?

I’m glad Obama bailed out the automobile industry. I think it was the right thing to do. The unemployment rate is high enough. Do we really want to see how high it would go if the auto industry collapsed? That industry generates millions of jobs. It’s not just about the people who make the cars and trucks. It’s about the people who work for hundreds if not thousands of companies that make parts for the industry, and it’s about people who work at thousands of dealerships around the country: salesmen, mechanics, accountants, advertising people. And it’s about people who make a living supporting all those people: from the waitress at the diner where the mechanics eat lunch, to the shopkeeper who sells the sales manager a suit, to the semi-retired senior citizen who drives you to work in a dealership minivan after you’ve dropped off your car for maintenance. Allowing the auto industry to collapse would tip the first domino in a very long chain.

Yet Republicans who criticize Obama for not doing more to reduce unemployment were, ironically, united in their opposition to the bailout and boasted proudly that they would have let the industry go bankrupt. The bailout was against their orthodoxy, so by definition it was a bad idea. But you can’t have your cake and eat it, too. You can’t accuse Obama of not doing enough to reduce unemployment and at the same time accuse him of being a socialist for saving a million jobs. Well, you can – and Republicans do – but there’s a name for it: it’s called “two-faced.”

Remember the Chrysler bailout of 1979? I don’t remember hearing people call President Carter a socialist just because he helped Chrysler survive. Maybe that’s because people didn’t hate Jimmy Carter. There were reasons why some people disliked Carter: he refused to go to war when Iranians captured our embassy in Tehran (weak), he established full diplomatic relations with the People's Republic of China (cozy with communists), he made good on a long-standing American promise to return control of the Panama Canal to Panama (gave away what was “ours”). But no one called him a socialist – a label that Obama-haters frequently apply to the current president.

Socialism may be the bogey-man to Republicans, but America has plenty of socialist programs. If the government plans for and provides goods and services to its citizens and those goods and services are paid for by taxes and fees collected from the public, that is socialism in action. Here is a partial list of socialist organizations and programs in America:

• Defense Department
• Social Security
• Medicare and Medicaid
• Police protection
• Municipal water systems
• Municipal sewage treatment
• Municipal garbage collection
• Municipal airports
• Street lights
• Public education
• Interstate highway system
• City streets and state roads
• Air traffic control system
• Bridges
• Parks
• Museums
• Libraries
• Weather and spy satellites
• Centers for Disease Control (CDC)
• NASA

America is a mix of capitalism and socialism. However, the most essential products and services are socialist in nature (provided by government) while less-essential products and services are free market (provided by business).

Just to be clear: if the government takes part ownership of an auto company in return for guaranteeing loans to that company, that’s not socialism. Socialism is when the government takes control of the auto company and decides where the cars will be built, how many will be built, and where the cars will be sent after being built. That is called “central planning” and it’s a key part of socialism. Simply owning stock in a company isn’t socialism, it’s just a way of making sure you’ll get your money back if the company is successful.

I favor free markets over socialism; however, the government obviously has a place. Government defends our borders. It provides police and fire protection, sanitation services, clean water at our kitchen faucets, and a basic level of education for its citizens. In other words, government provides services that are essential for public health and safety. The government doesn’t own but does regulate certain businesses, such as electric and gas utilities, because their products are essential for the public good. A citizen’s access to health care is something that most of the world considers essential for public health and is therefore regulated by government in most countries. It’s time for all people to accept the idea that government has a place in a nation’s health care system, just as it has a place in ensuring safe neighborhoods and workplaces, ensuring that goods get to their markets, and ensuring that the buses, trains, and airplanes we depend on for travel have been properly maintained. A wealthy nation should not be satisfied with any health care system that falls short of universal coverage. It doesn’t have to break the bank. If it does break the bank then we’re doing it wrong!

It took a century of struggle and a disastrous war to abolish slavery in this country. It took decades of mass protests, murders, and lynchings to establish equal rights for the descendants of slaves. I mention this only to point out that it sometimes takes a very long time to change minds, but that doesn’t mean the effort will never bear fruit.

Health Care: Out of Control

It has been said that America doesn’t have a debt problem – it has a health care problem. The U.S. government provides health insurance for 60-65% of the American people through programs like Medicare, Medicaid, TRICARE, the Children's Health Insurance Program, and the Veterans Health Administration. The cost of health care is a large part of the nation’s debt, it’s a large part of what is driving up the debt, and it’s out of control. What do I mean by “out of control”?

In 2004, an attack of “a-fib” (an irregular heartbeat that is dangerous because it can cause a stroke) put me in the hospital for two days. I had no health insurance and went home with a $7744 hospital bill and physicians’ bills totaling $1148, for a total of $8892. At the time, it seemed like a lot. After all, I didn’t get a new kidney. I just lay in bed and took meds and had some tests done.

Over the years since 2004 I’ve wondered what the cost would be if the a-fib happened again. In October, 2011, I found out. I experienced another occurrence of a-fib and ended up in the hospital again.

This time the hospital bill was $42,241. Added to that were physicians’ bills totaling $3172. In seven years, the medical bills for treating the same medical condition blossomed from $8892 to $45,413.

Out of control. And any attempt to rein in costs is met with howls of outrage by conservatives who claim that the government wants to kill grandma. Even the Tea Party is telling Obama and Congress, “Keep your government hands off my Medicare.” So the government has taken the default position of doing nothing and letting the problem – and the debt – grow. But I think we all know that ignoring a growing problem is a strictly limited-time option.

It’s possible for us to work together for a realistic, practical solution. That solution exists. Or we can use fear-mongering and bumper-sticker slogans to protect our own special interests. But there will come a day of reckoning.