Critique of Stevan Drobac, Jr., Platform

This page was last updated on October 2, 2004.

Introduction

I begin by wishing Mr. Drobac the best of luck in his fight with cancer.  It takes a lot of courage and determination to wage both this fight and a political campaign simultaneously.

Mr. Drobac is the Democrat candidate for U.S. representative of the 4th district.  He lost in 2002 against incumbent Republican Melissa Hart and will once again face Ms. Hart.

The purpose of this page is to address Mr. Drobac’s campaign web site.  While I try to address everything with which I differ, there’s just not enough time.  Therefore, just because I do not address a particular piece of Mr. Drobac’s campaign web site, do not assume I agree with it.

Though I exchanged a few e-mail messages with Mr. Drobac, I’ve never met him.  Based on his e-mail messages and web site, I believe Mr. Drobac means well but is a victim of Democrat party propaganda.  I think it’s fair to call him a Kucinich Democrat.¹

In general, the Drobac platform consists of the standard Democrat party communist/socialist agenda disguised as looking out for the best interests of “working people and their families.”  Mr. Drobac makes no effort to hide his socialist beliefs.  Consider the following quote from a previous version of his web site with respect to his support for a socialized healthcare system, “You say this is socialism!  Tell me then, what is Medicare?  What is Social Security?  What about Public Schools?  Lets get real!”  In another example, Mr. Drobac equated democracy with socialism, writing, “Political power exercised by the whole community is socialism!”  The disclosure of his socialist beliefs should help voters make a more informed decision.

It’s worth noting Mr. Drobac has toned down the explicit support of socialism on his web site.  For example, the above healthcare-related comment is now, “If you feel this is socialism, what is medicare [sic]?  If you feel this is socialism, what do you call insurance companies telling you what Doctor, what prescription and what hospital you must use. [sic]  You are being denied a freedom of CHOICE.”  In another spot, Mr. Drobac writes, “I will work for Health Care benefits for all Americans, the power of democracy at work, not socialism.”  Previously, democracy – “power exercised by the whole community” – was socialism according to Mr. Drobac.  Now it is not.  My guess is someone spoke to Mr. Drobac and recommended he hide his true beliefs by toning down the explicit support for socialism.  That doesn’t change Mr. Drobac’s core belief in socialism, however.

Mr. Drobac even attacks Democrats who are not as far left as he is.  Quoting the Drobac web site, “It’s time for the Democrat Party leaders themselves to confront those elected Democrats who commit treason against their party.  STOP complaining when you do not have the majority in office as you continue to allow your own elected Democrat to commit such treason.”  It appears the Democrat party stranglehold on southwestern Pennsylvania is not enough for Mr. Drobac.  Another indication that Mr. Drobac is on the left end of the Democrat party spectrum is he appeared to support presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich.¹

Mr. Drobac and I exchanged a few e-mail messages during his 2002 campaign.  He lacked a grasp of facts in a variety of areas, ranging from Socialist Security to Hart campaign contributors.  When he and I exchanged e-mail about misleading info on his web site in late 2003, he responded by writing that omitting critical words from a quote was not the same as presenting half the story.  He subsequently changed subjects and refused to address the original issue.  To his credit, Mr. Drobac removed the misleading info within six weeks.

Finally, I believe Mr. Drobac can be classified as a victim of the Democrat party.  By that I mean he appears to buy socialism hook, line, and sinker without any apparent thought or research.

The 2002 campaign

While he received only 37% of district votes in the 2002 election, Mr. Drobac received 46% of Beaver County votes.²  I consider it a close election when a switch in only 13% of the voters (4% in Beaver County) would result in a tie.  In Beaver County, Mr. Drobac won Aliquippa, Center, Hopewell, Monaca, Vanport, Conway, Eastvale, Freedom, Glasgow, Harmony, Homewood, Hookstown, Koppel, Midland, and Pulaski, and tied in East Rochester.³

These results were scary, at least to a conservative, for the following reasons.

·        I believe the Democrat party conceded the 4th district even before the primary election.

·        Union management was divided in that some union PACs that contributed to the Drobac campaign also contributed to the Hart campaign.

·        The Hart campaign spent $1.2 million during the 2002 campaign while the Drobac campaign spent only $77,000.⁴  In my mind, this lack of funding confirms the Democrat party conceded the 4th district.

·        This should not be taken as a personal attack, but it’s my opinion Mr. Drobac was a weak candidate.

Given his nanny government beliefs, what amounted to a class warfare/victim group platform, erroneous “facts,” and limited campaign funding, we should have learned a lesson if we didn’t already know it.  Even a weak candidate is a threat in Beaver County as long as he runs as a Democrat.

Though they did the citizens of the 4th congressional district a favor, I believe the Democrat party did itself a disfavor when it conceded the 4th district even before the primary election.  Considering Mr. Drobac’s performance with limited ability and funding, I believe the Democrats could have unseated Ms. Hart had they groomed a better candidate and provided reasonable funding.  Who knows, Mr. Drobac may have won with decent Democrat party support.

In my April 2004 critique of the Drobac platform, I wrote, “I doubt the Democrats and their union management familiars will make the same mistake in 2004.”  As of early October, it appears I was wrong.  As far as I can tell, the Democrat party has written off the 4^th district once again.

Strategy

As it was in 2002, Mr. Drobac’s 2004 strategy appears to be class warfare and creating victims.  Again, we’re talking the standard operating procedure for socialists.  Among the victim groups identified so far are children, seniors, military veterans, anyone who pays for their own healthcare, and union management.

The enemies appear to be businesses, the “rich,” and proponents of limited government.

Campaign contributions

Campaign contributors - 2002 (top contributors only)

The way Mr. Drobac refers to contributions to the Hart campaign, he appears to consider a contribution to the opposition to be a payoff.  What does that say about Mr. Drobac?

Opposition to the private sector

Whenever privatization of any government program comes up, Mr. Drobac opposes it.  It’s clear from his writings either he has no confidence in the private sector or he believes government should own all businesses.  This is further evidence of socialist beliefs.

Freedom from government interference

Mr. Drobac claims Democrats believe “In freedom from government interference in our private lives and personal decisions.”  Is he serious?  The Democrat/socialist agenda is all about increasing “government interference in our private lives and personal decisions.”  Mr. Drobac “talks the talk,” let’s see how he “walks the walk.”

·        Nationalized healthcare means the government makes your healthcare decisions, not you.  Of course, the wealthy will still be able to afford the healthcare they want.

·        By opposing school vouchers, Mr. Drobac makes the education decision for all but those families who can afford to pay both public school taxes and private school tuition.

·        By giving taxpayers no options for their Socialist Security taxes, Mr. Drobac takes a huge personal decision out of the hands of taxpayers.

I guess Mr. Drobac isn’t serious about “freedom from government interference in our private lives and personal decisions” after all.

Our economy

In an earlier iteration of his web site, Mr. Drobac claimed, “Our economy is at its lowest ever.”  To his credit, Mr. Drobac figured out this was a lie, something most Democrat leaders haven’t done.

Mr. Drobac’s discussion of the economy is a wandering piece without any apparent theme.  It appears Mr. Drobac has absolutely no understanding of economics and how economies work.

Drobac claims his goal is “A plan for regional economic development emphasizing the need for new infrastructure - development - a new generation of mass transit - and training opportunities for those unemployed - will make Western Pennsylvania strong.  The plan is to create good paying jobs that can and will support a family.”  In other words, Drobac believes in a government-directed economy.  Someone needs to remind Mr. Drobac the private sector generates jobs, not the government.  Of course, as mentioned above, Mr. Drobac does not believe in the private sector.

Mr. Drobac provides no clue as to why he believes “a new generation of mass transit” would help “regional economic development.”

In a confusing sentence, Drobac writes, “Stop Taxing and Stop Tax Breaks.  Taxes and tax breaks are actually forcing the middle-class worker to pay the blunt end of all taxes.”  Earth to Mr. Drobac; the top 5% of federal income taxpayers pay 53% of the federal income tax while the bottom 50% pay only 4%.  If we stop taxing, how will Mr. Drobac pay for his pet projects like Socialist Security, national healthcare, government education, et cetera?  If we stop taxing, there would be no tax breaks because there would be no taxes.  What was Mr. Drobac trying to say?

Drobac talks about “fair trade,” socialist code for protectionism.  Mr. Drobac wants tariffs on imports from countries that don’t have the same labor and environmental regulations and costs as the United States.  Mr. Drobac doesn’t say if he believes countries with more socialistic labor and environment regulations should be able to impose tariffs on our goods.

Drobac talks about “consolidating taxes,” but is not clear about what he means.  Drobac writes, “A prime example is tax-dollars already being contributed for Medicare, Pace, PaceNet, SCHIP and many other insurance programs both on a federal and state level.  Consolidating all these taxes together, allows for a lower tax and a National Health care plan.”  The problem is there are no PACE, PACENET, or SCHIP taxes.  PACE and PACENET are Pennsylvania programs funded entirely by the PA Lottery, and SCHIP is funded from general federal and state appropriations.  There is no SCHIP tax that I could find.

Drobac writes, “The best tax break to any business is the elimination of Health Insurance.  This would open up the job market and allow every working American the opportunity for employment and better pay increases.”  This is a hoot.  Drobac wants us to believe that a national healthcare system will eliminate any healthcare related costs for businesses so they could increase pay.  Does anyone want to bet upon whom Mr. Drobac would levy the taxes needed to pay for this doomed excursion further into socialism?  The first words out of Mr. Drobac’s mouth will be something like, “Businesses need to pay their fair share.”  That’s socialistspeak for businesses must shoulder the entire load.  The only way to eliminate any healthcare costs for businesses is to place the responsibility where it belongs, on us individuals.  In that case, businesses would be in a position to offer better pay to offset the elimination of the healthcare insurance premium.

Mr. Drobac concludes by writing, “A plan to increase minimum wage, provide retraining to displaced workers for job opportunities; the development of new infrastructure; national health care and the elimination of real estate taxes will solve our economic problems.  The final results mean NO MORE unemployment, low wages, capital decline, and major deficits.”

The above list of items and the promised result of utopia is a joke.  Here are a couple of examples.  Drobac promises NO MORE unemployment, but increasing the minimum wage works to increase unemployment.  Also, if Mr. Drobac understood how economies work, he would realize zero unemployment – even if possible – would be completely undesirable.  Some level of unemployment is required for an economy to function efficiently.  Drobac wants socialized healthcare and the elimination of real estate taxes, but promises NO MORE “major deficits.”  How does Mr. Drobac plan to pay for these things?

The Iraq War

It’s clear Mr. Drobac was against the Iraq War and is against our continued presence in Iraq.  Despite all the words Mr. Drobac expends on the subject, he never tells us what he would have done or will do.

·        Mr. Drobac wrote, “We must not forget the weapons of mass destruction was the sole reason and purpose to declare war on Iraq.”  Mr. Drobac should read the Iraq War Resolution.  WMD were not the sole reason.

·        Mr. Drobac repeats former Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill’s assertion that “the Bush administration began making plans for an invasion of Iraq, including the use of American troops, within days of President Bush’s inauguration.”  Mr. Drobac should check his history.  Regime change in Iraq became U.S. policy in 1998 during the Clinton administration.  The contingency plan to which Mr. O’Neill referred was inherited from the Clinton administration.  Given Iraq’s history, it would have been irresponsible if the Clinton administration did not have such a plan sitting on the shelf.  Even O’Neill later said he was misinterpreted.  On the “Today” show, O’Neill said, “People are trying to make a case that I said the president was planning war in Iraq early in the administration.  Actually, there was a continuation of work that had been going on in the Clinton administration with the notion that there needed to be regime change in Iraq.  I’m amazed that anyone would think that our government, on a continuing basis across political administrations, doesn’t do contingency planning and look at circumstances.”

·        Every intelligence agency in the world concluded Iraq had WMD.  Iraq used WMD against its neighbors and its own citizens.  The UN Security Council unanimously agreed Iraq had WMD.  Even the countries most opposed to military action in Iraq – France, Germany, and Russia – agreed Iraq had WMD.  Would Mr. Drobac have us believe President Bush knew something unknown by every major intelligence agency in the world?

President Bush appointed former weapons inspector, David Kay, to head the post-war search for WMD in Iraq.  Mr. Kay didn’t find any WMD.  So much for Democrat accusations that President Bush tried to rig the search.  Mr. Kay testified,

“All I can say is if you read the total body of intelligence in the last 12 to 15 years that flowed on Iraq, I quite frankly think it would be hard to come to a conclusion other than Iraq was a gathering, serious threat to the world with regard to WMD.”  Further, Mr. Kay stated, “I have said I actually think this may be one of those cases where it was even more dangerous than we thought.  I think when we have the complete record you’re going to discover that after 1998 it became a regime that was totally corrupt.  Individuals were out for their own protection.  And in a world where we know others are seeking WMD, the likelihood at some point in the future of a seller and a buyer meeting up would have made that a far more dangerous country than even we anticipated with what may turn out not to be a fully accurate estimate.”⁵

·        So far we haven’t found any significant stores of WMD in Iraq and may never find any.  Except for Democrats trying to use the Iraqi WMD issue for political purposes, this is not a reason to celebrate.  Not finding WMD doesn’t change the fact that Iraq had documented WMD stockpiles in the early 1990s that remain unaccounted for.  If they aren’t in Iraq, what happened to them?  Can we afford to assume they were destroyed?  Can we afford to assume the WMD aren’t in some country hostile to the United States just waiting to be sold or given to terrorists?

If Iraq didn’t have WMD, why did our military find biological/chemical warfare suits and antidote injection kits had been distributed to some Iraqi military units?  Are we to believe the Iraqis feared we would use biological and chemical weapons against them?

In May 2004 we got the answer to that question.  American soldiers were attacked with two shells containing mustard gas and sarin and the soldiers had to be treated for exposure.  Are we to believe these were the only WMD shells in Iraq?

·        Mr. Drobac writes, “any law enforcement agency seeking a search warrant must appear before the Judge [sic] with solid evidence before a search warrant is issued.”  Given Saddam Hussein’s history and his inability to account for previously documented WMD inventories, I believe we had far more than just cause.

·        Mr. Drobac implies members of Congress simply took President Bush’s word that Iraq possessed WMD.  That’s simply not true.  All members - Democrats and Republicans – of the congressional intelligence committees saw exactly the same reports as President Bush.

·        Mr. Drobac claims Rep. Melissa Hart’s vote for the Iraq War Resolution (House Joint Resolution 114) was the result of “partiality.”  For the record, 39% of House Democrats and 58% of Senate Democrats voted for the resolution.  Were all of these Democrats party “traitors?”

·        As a good Democrat reading from the Democrat playbook, Mr. Drobac dutifully mentioned “the absence of imminent threat.”  What President Bush said was,

“Some have said we must not act until the threat is imminent.  Since when have terrorists and tyrants announced their intentions, politely putting us on notice before they strike?  If this threat is permitted to fully and suddenly emerge, all actions, all words, and all recriminations would come too late.  Trusting in the sanity and restraint of Saddam Hussein is not a strategy, and it is not an option.”⁶

Perhaps Mr. Drobac is confusing President Bush with VP candidate Sen. John Edwards.  On February 24, 2003, John Edwards said,

“I mean, we have three different countries [Iran, Iraq, North Korea] that, while they all present serious problems for the United States – they’re dictatorships, they’re involved in the development and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction -- you know, the most imminent, clear and present threat to our country is not the same from those three countries.  I think Iraq is the most serious and imminent threat to our country.  …  And they do, in my judgment, present different threats.  And I think Iraq and Saddam Hussein present the most serious and most imminent threat.”⁷

President Bush never said Iraq was an imminent threat, but John Edwards did.

When will Mr. Drobac stop bashing President Bush for something he never said?

$87 billion – What it can do!

I can only assume Mr. Drobac believes our military should have left Iraq immediately after the war concluded.  Most Americans don’t believe it makes sense to leave a power vacuum in an area of the world that absolutely hates the United States and the western world in general.  If we left Iraq without getting it well down the road to stable democracy, what we saw in Afghanistan with al-Qaida and the Taliban would be pale in comparison.  Think of terrorists with access to Iraq’s oil wealth.  Over the long term, fostering democracies in the Middle East will improve our national security.  In the short term, terrorists are consumed fighting our highly trained military on foreign soil, not murdering innocent civilians on U.S. soil.

Below are some comments about what Mr. Drobac says could be done with $87 billion.

·        “Enough to pay the 3.3 million people who have lost jobs $26,363 each.”  Mr. Drobac should check his facts.  There has been a net increase of jobs since President Bush took office.

·        Regarding what $87 billion could buy for education, the Constitution grants the federal government neither authority over, nor responsibility for, education.

·        “Roughly the total of two years worth of all U.S. unemployment benefits.”  Studies show when we give unemployment benefit extensions, unemployment stays higher than it should, longer than it should.  In other words, some people won’t get serious about taking a job until their benefits run out.

Facts

Mr. Drobac’s list of Iraq War facts is just a bunch of statements.  Many of them have to do with the horrors of war and their results.  No one believes war is clean.  Very bad things happen to very good men, women, and their families.

Mr. Drobac is a good Democrat and mentions Halliburton in a way to imply there’s something wrong because Vice President Dick Cheney used to be the company CEO.

In an earlier version of the web site, Mr. Drobac wrote, “Iraq must have been digging forever, to conceal all these weapons underneath sand.”  What Mr. Drobac fails to explain, or doesn’t know himself, is that enough biological/chemical agents to kill thousands of people can be stored in a relatively small number of 55 gallon drums.  In March 2003, the UN reported there were 10,000 liters of Iraqi anthrax unaccounted for.  That’s less than 50 55-gallon drums to hide across a country the size of California.  It’s not like looking for vast ammo dumps of conventional weapons.

Mr. Drobac talks about “PROOF” of WMD, as if only 100% certain proof would satisfy him.  The effect of that position is that Mr. Drobac would take action against our enemies only after we had been attacked.  I’m no intelligence expert, but even I know gathering intelligence in the real world is not like it’s depicted in Mission: Impossible or Alias episodes.  As former Bush CIA chief George Tenet -- also Clinton’s CIA chief -- said,

“By definition, intelligence deals with the unclear, the unknown, the deliberately hidden.  What the enemies of the United States hope to deny, we work to reveal.  In the intelligence business, you are almost never completely wrong or completely right.”⁸

Most of the time, analysts must draw conclusions from a lot of different pieces of data.  100% certain “smoking guns” are rare.  Once again, if U.S. intelligence agencies were wrong, so was every other significant intelligence agency in the world.  Indeed, information uncovered by David Kay indicates Saddam Hussein thought he had WMD.

In testimony before Congress, David Kay said,

“We’re also in a period in which we’ve had intelligence surprises in the proliferation area that go the other way.  The case of Iran, a nuclear program that the Iranians admit was 18 years old, that we underestimated and that, in fact, we didn’t discover.  It was discovered by a group of Iranian dissidents outside the country, who pointed the international community at the location.  The Libyan program recently discovered was far more extensive than was assessed prior to that.”⁵

But Mr. Drobac will accept only 100% certainty.

Veterans

I believe we owe both veterans and those on active duty a debt.  We should deliver on the commitments/promises we make to these brave men and women.  That said, we can’t give away the store no matter how much we want to.

Perhaps for more than any of his other victim groups, Mr. Drobac lays it on thick for military veterans and those persons on active duty.  For example, Mr. Drobac usually writes veteran as “Veteran,” “VETERAN,” or “VETERAN.”  I suppose he believes current and former military personnel as well as civilians will fall for this obvious pandering.

In his effort to buy votes, Mr. Drobac makes demands no responsible government would grant.  For example, he believes a veteran’s income should have no effect on his healthcare coverage.  Why should taxpayers pay for healthcare for a millionaire?  To be clear, I’m talking about coverage for “normal” health issues.  If a problem can be traced to something that happened while the person was on active duty, I believe these items should be covered regardless of income.  This was Veteran’s Administration policy until sometime in the 1990s.

When he bashes President Bush and Rep. Hart about funding for veteran programs, Mr. Drobac ignores the following points.

·        VA funding is now higher than at any point in the past ten years, and it’s going up twice as fast under President Bush as under President Clinton.⁹

·        Funding for veterans in the first three Bush budgets increased 27%.  If President Bush gets what he proposed for the 2005 budget, the total increase will be 37.6%.  That’s 37.6% in four years compared to 31.6% during Clinton’s eight years.

·        The number of veterans receiving health benefits is going up 25 percent under President Bush’s budgets.⁹  No, it’s not because of the Iraq War.

Mr. Drobac writes, “Every United States Veteran who stepped foot on foreign soil during a war was wounded in battle.”  I never served in the military, but fortunately this is a ridiculous claim.  I doubt it’s even true that all combat veterans were wounded.

In a previous version of the web site, Mr. Drobac said, “Every Veteran who stepped foot in a Country of War is a wounded Veteran and you damn well know that.”  Thus, Mr. Drobac sees every veteran as a victim.  I’ve been lucky enough to know a few veterans, mostly from Vietnam, and not one considered himself a victim.  Why does Mr. Drobac?

National healthcare benefits

Other than Mr. Drobac believes government should be a healthcare provider monopoly, I can’t follow his argument.  He wanders from democracy to socialism to monetary donations to patriotism!

I’m sure Mr. Drobac will deny that he believes government should be a healthcare provider monopoly, but that’s the logical outcome of socialized healthcare.  If there is only one healthcare insurer and that insurer is the government, the effect is that all healthcare workers, including doctors, become de facto government employees.

Mr. Drobac makes a couple of fantasy claims for socialized healthcare.  First, he claims patients would be “Free to visit any physician or hospital of your choice.”  Second, Mr. Drobac claims socialized medicine “Will empower physicians and patients to make health care decisions.  Not HMO Bureaucrats.”  Fat chance.  It’s clear Mr. Drobac never heard the saying, “He who pays the piper calls the tune.”  Since the government will pay the bills, it will set the rules.  In effect, the government becomes the “HMO.”

As discussed in “Our economy,” Mr. Drobac promotes the fantasy that businesses would somehow escape paying for any aspect of a socialized healthcare system.

Mr. Drobac fails to acknowledge that there is no successful nationalized healthcare system on the planet, with the possible exception of a few oil-rich Middle East countries.  While some people will claim this country or that has a good socialized healthcare system, a little research quickly uncovers availability and quality issues.  Mr. Drobac also ignores the fact that government meddling in healthcare for over 50 years is the primary reason our healthcare costs have been skyrocketing.

Mr. Drobac doesn’t address the cost of his nationalized system or its effect on the availability and quality of services.  What good is “free” healthcare if there is limited availability or if it is of low quality?  These are traits of socialized services.

Finally, Mr. Drobac tries to convince us that if we are anti-abortion, we are hypocritical if we don’t also support socialized healthcare.

Though Mr. Drobac wants socialized healthcare, he provides an example of government run healthcare not working.  See his piece entitled “Veterans, VA Hospitals and Health Care.”  I have no experience with VA hospitals so I can’t comment.  I mention it only because despite claiming government healthcare isn’t working for veterans, Mr. Drobac wants government healthcare for everyone.  It doesn’t make sense, unless you are a socialist.

To provide the best overall care to the most number of people at the lowest overall cost, we need to completely eliminate government involvement in healthcare.

Medicare

Naturally, Mr. Drobac considers Medicare a success.  To him, Medicare’s only weakness is that it does not cover all healthcare expenses for everyone in the United States.

Here’s a funny statement coming from a Democrat, “I do not support the new Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act of 2003.  This bill divides, segregates and discriminates against all ages and income levels.”  Mr. Drobac complains about dividing, segregating, and discriminating, yet divisiveness is the underlying strategy of Democrats.  At least until recently, the idea of “two Americas” was a main theme of the Kerry/Edwards campaign, and that’s just one example.

I get a kick out of the following statement about Medicare, “The employee donates 1.45%.  The employer donates 1.45%.”  Donates?  To donate requires a voluntary act.  Paying Medicare taxes is not voluntary.  By the way, it’s a myth to claim the employer pays 1.45%.  That 1.45% comes out of your paycheck before you see it.  Don’t believe otherwise.

Mr. Drobac believes the U.S. healthcare situation is irrational, but for the wrong reason.  As mentioned above, Mr. Drobac believes the government should provide “free” healthcare to everyone.  In reality, the major problems we have with healthcare are because employer-based healthcare plans, Medicaid, and Medicare cover too many Americans and make them insensitive to cost.  The third party payer system has to go.

Socialist Security

To start, I find Mr. Drobac’s Socialist Security history lesson a little humorous.  During his 2002 campaign, Mr. Drobac wrote in an e-mail note to me that Socialist Security was “A tax promise made to bail the government out of debt to support the expenses of war in the 40’s.”  I had to correct him.

Mr. Drobac’s big point is to oppose any privatization.  His arguments against privatization are tortured.

·        Mr. Drobac writes, “Are you willing to privatize Social Security in the stock market, susceptible to investors profits and company scandals?”  What does this mean?  If you invest in the stock market, that makes you an investor.  Don’t we want investor profits so our retirement nest egg will grow?

·        Despite the fact a well-balanced investment in the stock market consistently provides excellent returns over the long term, Mr. Drobac apparently believes investing in the stock market is no better than burning your cash.  To Mr. Drobac, companies like Enron are apparently the norm, not the exception.

·        The argument against investing even a small part of Socialist Security taxes is a bit warped.  He argues that if it makes sense to invest 1% and get a superior return, we should invest the whole thing.  Otherwise, it’s a waste of time.  This is wrong for two reasons.  First, initially investing only a small amount is a test intended to show the wisdom of some level of privatization.  Second, hasn’t Mr. Drobac learned that you never put all your eggs in the same basket, regardless of risk?  For example, you need some investments for capital appreciation and some investments for day-to-day cash flow.

·        Mr. Drobac appears upset that some investment companies could make money from some privatization of Socialist Security.  Earth to Mr. Drobac.  As long as your nest egg grows larger than it would by simply squirreling it away in Treasury bonds, who cares if someone makes some money?  I guess he believes fund managers who help grow your nest egg should work for free.

Government education

In the interest of disclosure, I attended private grade school (St. Titus – Aliquippa) and public high school (Center High – Center Township).

Mr. Drobac has changed his education discussion quite a bit since my original review, so I’ll include both the old and the new and start off with the old.

If government education is an issue for Mr. Drobac, it’s not clear that he knows public education is not a federal responsibility.  In a previous version of his web site he wrote, “Stop complaining about teacher salaries and hold your U.S. House of Representative [sic] responsible for your school tax increases.”  U.S. representatives don’t sit on school boards, approve district budgets, and levy district taxes.

Mr. Drobac also wrote, “Public education must be supported in its entirety,” but does not say what that means.  Does he mean we should continue to increase K-12 funding until we have nothing left in our paychecks and pension checks?

Here are a few funding facts.  Pennsylvania ranks #1 in the United States for teacher pay.  Pennsylvania ranks #3 for the amount it spends per student.  Despite way above average funding, 2003 Pennsylvania seniors ranked 46th on the 2003 SAT test.  They also did poorly on the PSSA tests.  Mr. Drobac, how much do we need to spend to ensure Pennsylvania students will rank #1 on all standardized tests?  Could it be that we can’t buy achievement?

It is clear Mr. Drobac opposes any competition for traditional public schools.  On an earlier version of his web site, Mr. Drobac wrote,

“Charter, Cyber and Private Schools are not, ‘non-profit schools,’ they are ‘for-profit’ schools.  Charter, Cyber, and Private Schools are receiving your tax dollars to gain a profit, while our children and grandchildren in public schools continue to suffer.  Our educators continue to be deprived of excellent educational material needed to educate those in the public school systems.”

Using Mr. Drobac’s logic, no business should make a profit on government jobs because they would be “receiving your tax dollars to gain a profit.”

In his zeal to protect the government and teacher union monopoly on K-12 public education, Mr. Drobac misses what I think is the objective of publicly funded education.  I believe the objective is to provide the best education at a price taxpayers are willing to pay.  So what if the school that best meets the objective generates a profit?  Are we better off to have poorly educated children graduate from a public school?

For the record, churches run most private schools and they are non-profit.  Also, their tuition is consistently below the per-student spending of public schools.

I’d like to know where “our children and grandchildren in public schools continue to suffer.”  Children suffering?  I’d also like to know where our “educators continue to be deprived of excellent educational material.”  Can Mr. Drobac provide examples?

At one time, Mr. Drobac concluded by writing, “WE MUST STOP IGNORING PUBLIC EDUCATION.”  On which planet does Mr. Drobac live?  At 34% ($7.6 billion) of the proposed 2004-2005 General Fund expenditures, public education is by far the largest item in the Pennsylvania budget and the largest item – about $10 billion – in local budgets.  The proposed 2005 U.S. Department of Education budget is $57.3 billion.  Mr. Drobac, how much more do we need to spend?

Mr. Drobac writes, “It is the federal governments [sic] responsibility to help fund public schools in the state and local governments.”  No, Mr. Drobac, it is not.  The 10th amendment to the U.S. Constitution says, “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved for the States respectively, or to the people.”  The Constitution delegates no education powers to the federal government.  This makes education a state, community, and individual responsibility.

Mr. Drobac writes, “The share of education financing with state dollars has been increasing and the local share shrinking.  Why?  Our economy has faltered with world trade laws.  Capital depends on labor, without good paying jobs, public education has also suffered.”  There’s no logic in this paragraph, so I’ll stick with the individual points.  The government education monopoly constantly claims the “state isn’t paying its fair share,” yet Mr. Drobac claims the opposite in the first sentence.  I thought the reason for climbing property taxes was less state funding.  Mr. Drobac wants us to believe “public education has also suffered” because of free trade.  That makes no sense because we throw more money every year at government schools.

Mr. Drobac writes, “Our federal government wasted millions of tax dollars investigating President Clinton instead of using tax dollars to help our teachers better educate our children.  The VOTER never held anyone responsible for this malicious use of tax dollars.”  I have to admit I wasn’t happy to spend a lot of money investigating a philanderer, but we can leave that discussion for another time.  The idea, however, that the money spent would have materially helped government education is ridiculous.  I haven’t found an authoritative estimate, but cost estimates I’ve seen peg the cost of the various Clinton investigations in the $50 - $70 million range.  At the high end, that’s about 0.12% of the federal education budget.  Let’s also look at it on a per-student basis.  With approximately 60 million K-12 age children, we’re talking about a one-time hit of $1.17/student.  As I wrote above, Mr. Drobac’s claim that investigating President Clinton materially hurt public education is ridiculous.

Mr. Drobac concludes with, “Forcing discrimination demands on state and local government is not solving the educational problem.”  What is he talking about?  I honestly don’t know what point Mr. Drobac is trying to make.

Capital depends on labor

I’ll address this topic in the same way I dissect editorials, letters to the editor, et cetera.

“The simple truth is that the standard of living of most middle-class Americans depends on employment and fair wages.

“This means that unemployment matters not just for those out of work but also for those whose wages are depressed when too many people are competing for too few jobs.”

[RWC] Why wouldn’t these statements be true for all Americans?  To be honest, I’m surprised Mr. Drobac knows the concept of supply and demand.  That makes his socialist beliefs even more difficult to understand.

“Nine million ordinary middle-class American workers lack jobs, adequate incomes and medical insurance, too few people can afford to buy what businesses hope to sell.”

[RWC] Since there are approximately nine million unemployed in total, apparently Mr. Drobac believes the only people unemployed are in the so-called “middle class.”  Given the unemployment rate is 5.4% -- below the average of the “good old days” 1990s, how can Mr. Drobac honestly claim “too few people can afford to buy what businesses hope to sell?”

“According to the Federal Reserve, half of all Americans have some connection to the stock market, which means that half do not.  And even for the happy 50 percent, their major connection to the stock market is through pension funds they do not themselves control.

“As corporations file bankruptcies even these pensions are lost in part or in whole because we have either weak laws or no laws protecting the full pension of the middle-class laborer themselves.”

[RWC] This is what happens when you believe in socialism.  Pensions grew out of the socialist idea that people can’t take care of themselves so the employer must provide retirement income.  There’s little difference between pensions and Socialist Security.  In both cases, the worker turns over responsibility for his retirement income to a third party.

“From July 2000 until July 2003, 2.7 million industrial jobs have been lost.  And these were, for the most part, good jobs, averaging $54,000 a year.  ‘The manufacturing jobs are gone, and they’re not coming back,’ is the most absurd statement any individual can make.

[RWC] Mr. Drobac needs to coordinate better with his pals at the AFL-CIO.  They claim the jobs were lost entirely during the Bush administration.  In truth, so-called manufacturing jobs started sliding in 1998.

Let’s look at the facts.  Democrats like to say we lost 2.7 million jobs since President Bush took office.  What they don’t tell you is that we also generated 1.8 million new jobs.  Therefore, using the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) payroll survey, we lost a net of 0.9 million jobs, 1/3 of that claimed by Democrats.  I don’t claim this is cause for celebration, but even this doesn’t tell the whole story.

Each month the BLS actually conducts two job surveys, the household and the payroll surveys.  Historically, the payroll survey underestimates employment because it doesn’t count the self-employed or those persons who work at home or on farms.  When you use the household survey data, there has been a net employment increase of 1.9 million jobs since President Bush took office.¹⁰  The household survey is also the basis for the official BLS unemployment figures.  Now you know why Democrats like to quote the payroll survey.

“Your Congresswoman voted ‘YES’ for FTAA (Free Trade Area of the Americas), SFTA (Singapore Free Trade Agreement) and CFTA (Chile Free Trade Agreement) Acts.

[RWC] Though I haven’t read these agreements, free trade tends to benefit the United States as a whole, though some industries do better than others.

“Yes, manufacturing jobs are gone and will not come back as long as we support the foreign job market without the same demands levied on big businesses in the United States.  Supporting the foreign job market without tariff restrictions on these demands will continue to cause high unemployment and economic deficits.

“How can a Country protect its Economy when exporting less in manufacturing products while importing is almost 30% greater?  If you spend 30% greater of what your net income produces it will force you to lose everything you own.”

[RWC] Protectionism never did anything but promote a poor economic environment and retaliation from trading partners.

“It is time people realize labor is a strong backbone to a successful economy.  Without labor you have no capital, without capital you have no labor.

“I am all for a nation of owners and investors.  People need jobs offering good wages.  For the past twenty-five years, we have been hearing that labor depends upon capital.  It’s time to resurrect the other, buried truth: that capital depends upon labor.”

[RWC] Don’t believe the “I am all for a nation of owners and investors” comment.  At nearly every opportunity, Mr. Drobac trashes business.  Remember, he opposes privatization of government services and programs because he doesn’t want anyone to profit.

“Replacing good paying job opportunities with riverfront jobs, recreational and sports facilities and other low paying job opportunities will never boost our economy.

“Economic prosperity and capital is accomplished in a successful economy when it consists of job opportunities offering good wages and benefits.  Otherwise, capital will continue to be lost.”

[RWC] The “low paying job opportunities” comment doesn’t hold water.  Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan doesn’t buy the claim that new jobs are of lesser quality than lost jobs.  Testifying before Congress, Greenspan said, “We’ve not been able to find a significantly meaningful change in the quality of the jobs being produced relative to the quality of jobs being lost for the nation as a whole over the last year.”  Is that true for Pennsylvania?  I don’t know.  The real disposable income of American workers has increased every month since at least January 2003 with the exception of September 2003.  Home ownership is at its highest point in history and climbing.  These facts don’t support Mr. Drobac’s claim.

“Wages and salaries create prosperity.  In order to create the means to produce goods and glorify the entrepreneur you need labor.  Without adequate income neither labor nor capital will flourish.”

[RWC] Wages and salaries do not create prosperity.  Prosperity comes from having a product, service, or skill that is in demand.  Wages and salaries are an effect, not a cause.  Socialists tend to get it backward.

1. Candidate vows industry’s rebirth; Bob Bauder; Beaver County Times; July 30, 2003.

2. Unofficial Election Results by Race; Beaver County, PA.  The Beaver County web site lists the results only for the most recent election.

3. Unofficial Election Results by Precinct; Beaver County, PA.

4. Total Raised and Spent; Center for Responsive Politics.

5. Hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee; Federal News Service; January 28, 2004.

6. President Delivers “State of the Union”; January 28, 2003.

7. CNN Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer; CNN.com; February 24, 2003.

8. Iraq and Weapons of Mass Destruction; George J. Tenet – Director of Central Intelligence; February 5, 2004.

9. Special Report – Political Grapevine; Brit Hume; Fox News Channel; February 23, 2004.

10. Why Are the Dems Griping About Jobs?; Robert J. Barro; BusinessWeek; October 4, 2004.  A subscription is required to access this web site.

© 2004 Robert W. Cox, all rights reserved.