Stan Geiger

Challenging the Numbers

A Senate committee has apparently come up with its version of health care reform. It is being touted as the cheapest plan to emerge to date. The 10-year cost is only $856 billion. You know, eeeasy monthly payments.

Senator Orin Hatch made a comment I found amusing. He said when government says something will cost $5 you can bet it will cost $10. Don’t get me wrong, I find truth in the comment. It’s just that I get a chuckle anytime a lifelong politician talks about government shortcomings as if he has nothing at all to do with them.

Anyway, Max Baucus claims the plan will actually be in the black in 2019. Can you tell me what things will look like 10 years from now? Can you tell me what things will look like 5 years from now? Can you tell me what things will look like 2 years from now? Can Max Baucus? Can Barack Obama?

Was anybody---anybody---10 years ago, 5 years ago or 2 years ago even hinting that in 2009 the federal government would be running $1.8 trillion in the red, or that unemployment would be approaching double digits, or that there would be a meltdown in the banking system, or that all three U.S. automakers would be on the brink of going tits up at the same time?

The answer to all of the questions put above is no. So why are politicians presenting numbers relative to the cost of health care reform---spread out over 10 years---as if they are carved in granite? And why is the media gleefully reporting them as such?

We’re talking about long-term projections. And long-term projections---especially when they come from politicians---aren’t worth spit.

I can cite a couple of examples drawn from local experience alone.

I think it was 2003 when the Vision 2025 tax passed. I might be off on the year, but I think that’s right. “Cranes in the air!” was the mantra. Oh, the new tax on Tulsa County residents and the projects financed by it were going to light up our local economy. Has that promise been fulfilled? No, it hasn’t. There are no cranes in the air. And a lot of the local TV news time is dedicated to announcing job losses. We’re still paying the tax, though. And we will continue to pay the tax for several more years.

The centerpiece of the plan was the grand arena in downtown Tulsa. Nearly $200 million was spent building the great white elephant. And then there were corresponding tax expenditures on downtown streets and such.

Sure, it’s had its moments. But Rod Stewart scheduled a date here. He canceled. News reports said a meager 7,000 tickets had been sold. And, recently, I’d swear I heard a mention on KTUL that 9,000 were expected at the Britney Spears concert. The arena has 18,000 seats.

Word travels in the industry. When other big acts hear that the biggest of names can’t sell seats in Tulsa, they won’t put Tulsa on the schedule.

Spinning off the grand arena, our fabulous mayor, Kat Taylor, figured we should move City Hall from its longstanding location to a downtown Borg cube. Kat claims to be a great business leader, you understand. I mean she’s not a mayor, she’s a freakin’ CEO. She said it would be a good deal for taxpayers. She said we could sell the old City Hall to private developers that would build a hotel on the location. The old City Hall building sits alone and empty, sticking out like a diamond in a goat’s ass. Nobody’s interested.

Kat now says nobody has a crystal ball; nobody could foresee the real estate collapse.

What? How could a mayor with such marvelous business acumen not have the foresight to see a landmine on the economic horizon? Beside that, the real estate problems that plague much of the country haven’t manifested themselves in Tulsa.

Nobody is interested because the public investment in downtown has failed to produce results. It’s that simple.

Wolfgang Puck, I hear, is opening a restaurant in Tulsa. Where? Not next to the grand arena downtown but on Brookside. He’s going where the people go---arenas and baseball parks notwithstanding.

A couple of years back, Speaker of the Oklahoma House Chris Benge made an ignorant remark. The Legislature had passed some meaningless law, and the speaker claimed that law had fixed the Oklahoma Teachers’ Retirement System. I immediately had something to say about that.

In short, I said he was wrong---dead wrong. I said the system would continue to be a problem until the lawmakers dealt with the benefits side of the equation.

Politicians refuse to do anything about curtailing pension benefits for educators because the education lobby likes the idea of fat pensions.

I have a copy of an old Tulsa World article about the OTRS. It was published in the mid ‘90s. At the time, the unfunded liability for the system was about $4 billion. A couple of years ago, when I wrote on the matter, the unfunded liability was about $7 billion. A few months ago, KJRH did a story on the OTRS. KJRH said the unfunded liability at that time was $12 billion.

Uh, fixed, Mr. Speaker?

I recall another local blogger linking to my piece. He said it was interesting, but, he noted, I didn’t present any “credentials” that might lend credence to my argument.

Well, I don’t have any “credentials,” Mikey. But I do have a brain, and I can do simple math. If something isn’t done about educators, they will bankrupt us all. That is, all of us that aren’t on the receiving end of the education money-conduit.

The OTRS unfunded liability is a credit card debt, make no mistake about it. Basically, as things currently exist, the system is committed to paying out $12 billion more than it will bring in over the next 30 years.

Obama and his cronies speak of “kicking the can down the road” when it comes to health care reform. Dude, what about debt? That’s the can we keep kicking down the road. Sooner or later, barring change, we’re going to hit the generation that just flat can’t pay the bills. If we hit that point, the great American experiment is done.

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