Advice for November 6: Choose your battle wisely

Vice-President Aaron Burr spoils his political career by
killing former treasury secretary Alexander Hamilton.

Yesterday during the Prayers of the People at St Barnabas, someone in the congregation spontaneously thanked God that the American election season is almost over. Everyone laughed.

One reason this election has brought out the worst in us is that we are fighting two battles at once. I fear that, no matter who wins the presidency, we will continue to fight these battles. We will probably still be fighting them in 2016.

We are fighting an economic battle between those who believe that the federal government should spend tax dollars on the military and little else, and those who believe that the federal government should also play a major role in assuring health care for all, supporting the indigent and elderly, rebuilding our infrastructure, and aiding disaster-stricken areas.

At the same time, we are fighting a moral battle between those who believe the federal government should allow individuals the freedom to decide whom to marry and whether to carry a child to term, and those who believe the federal government should outlaw abortion and recognize only heterosexual marriages.

The two major parties have divided up our concerns in unexpected ways. The Democratic ticket is communitarian in economics and libertarian in morals; the Republican ticket is just the reverse. This creates a problem for people who are consistently communitarian or libertarian.

A lot of students at Miami University of Ohio, as Bill Keller points out today in "The Republican Id," are consistently libertarian: they are enthusiastic about Republican economics but reject Republican morals. For them, economics trumps morals: the majority support Romney.

Most Catholic bishops, on the other hand, are consistently communitarian: they support Democratic economics but reject Democratic morals. For many bishops, morals trump economics (see David Gibson, "Catholic bishops make last-minute push for Romney"): they too support Romney.

The students are far smarter than the bishops.

If Romney and Ryan are elected, there's a good chance that federal programs such as Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid will be gutted (click here for five good reasons to be worried, even if you're over 55), along with smaller programs such as highway construction, education, and food stamps. There's not much chance, however, that abortion or gay marriage will go away. Overturning Roe v. Wade would not outlaw abortion; it would return the question to the states. As long as a woman had enough money, she could simply travel to wherever abortion was available.

If you're a student at a highly rated university like Miami, you probably figure you'll be one of the elites that would be helped by Romney/Ryan economics. As one of those elites, you could find your way around Republican moral strictures. So yes, as long as you're not concerned about people who haven't done as well as you, it makes sense for you to vote for survival of the fittest. (In a decade or two you may discover you're less fit than you thought you were, but you can vote differently then.)

The Catholic bishops, on the other hand, are showing themselves to be as wise as doves and as harmless as serpents. Even if they get their way - in the name of religious liberty! - Americans will continue to use contraception. They will continue to marry or live with whomever they please. They will continue to get far too many abortions (though if abortion goes underground, a lot more women will die).

Catholic bishops have little effect on American morals (even among their own parishioners: click here to see statistics on abortion rates and here to see statistics on contraceptive use among Catholics), but if they tip the election to Romney/Ryan, they may have a major effect on American economics - an effect that goes against more than a century of Catholic social teaching. In the name of freedom and small government, more families will struggle to put food on the table, to send their children to college, to find adequate housing, to care for their aging parents. Americans will continue to die younger than people in countries with universal health care. Our highways and bridges will deteriorate, and environmental pollution will increase. We may tumble back into recession or even depression.

Here's my point. Our next president's policies will probably have a major effect on America's economic health and, very likely, the economic health of the world. His policies will probably have a minor effect, if any effect at all, on America's morals.

If you like Romney/Ryan's Darwinian proposals, if you think the financiers who are paying for their campaign will help the middle class, if you believe that trickle-down economics help the poor (or if you think the poor shouldn't be helped), if you think business can thrive in the absence of a strong infrastructure, if you think climate change is a hoax, and if you trust for-profit health insurance companies with your life, then by all means vote for Romney-Ryan.

Just don't think they're going to bring about moral renewal in America.

Two political conventions, two Catholic leaders

New York's Cardinal Dolan may have tried to offend everybody in just eight days, though the Republicans seem not to have noticed his blessing on recent immigrants who have come to America in search of jobs. Democrats, however, did not miss his call for protection of the unborn, his veiled allusion to gay marriage, and his call for "religious freedom in full," which to him means freedom for Catholic institutions to deny contraceptive coverage to employees. (You can read the full text of both benedictions here.)

It must be tricky, being a bishop-politician. The Republican position on abortion sounds very Catholic, but its approach to the economy goes counter to over a century of Catholic social teaching. The Democratic platform upholds Catholic social teaching, but it also affirms Roe v. Wade.

Faced with this split, Cardinal Dolan, a great admirer of Paul Ryan, did what the Catholic hierarchy has typically done, at least in recent years--he paid little attention to social justice and focused mainly on sex. No wonder Andrew Sullivan, in a blistering op-ed piece, dubbed him "The Republican Party Cardinal."

Enough about the Cardinal. Another Catholic speaker at the Democratic National Convention was much more inspiring. Here's Sister Simone Campbell, executive director of Network, a social-justice lobby criticized by the Vatican last spring for spending too much time fighting poverty and too little time fighting abortion and gay marriage. Like Cardinal Dolan, she offered to speak at both conventions. The Republicans did not get back to her.

Saving Medicare the Republican way

It's a promise: "A Romney-Ryan administration will protect and strengthen Medicare, for my mom’s generation, for my generation, and for my kids and yours." That's what Paul Ryan told the Republican National Convention last night in his acceptance speech.

How do the Republicans plan to do this? The Republican Platform spells it out: "The first step is to move [Medicare and Medicaid] away from their current unsustainable defined-benefit entitlement model to a fiscally sound defined-contribution model."

Right--that has worked so well for pension plans.

Once upon a time we were told that the 401(k) defined-contribution plans would let us retire rich. We could choose our own investments! No intermediaries would take hefty cuts! The miracle of compounding interest would do the rest!

But then interest rates tumbled, and financial institutions took hefty cuts anyway, and our houses lost a third of their value, and most of us forgot that we really needed to be socking away the maximum allowable percentage of our salaries if we planned to continue eating in retirement.

You might want to check out David Callahan's article, "A Perfect Failure: Why the 401(k) Has Been a Flop." Or you might just want to consider your own 401(k). Will you have saved a million dollars by the time you retire? That's how much you'll need if you want to draw out a modest $40,000 a year, and if you want your savings to last as long as you do.

Now ask yourself: do you really want an individualized, free-market Medicare along with your individualized, free-market 401(k)?

Soon-to-retire Boomers will remember a sentence reportedly uttered by an American officer in Vietnam: "We had to destroy the village in order to save it." That's pretty much how Mr. Ryan plans to save Medicare.

I do hope Messrs Obama and Biden come up with a better idea.