WOULD ROMEO AND JULIET HAVE AVOIDED TRAGEDY IF THEY HAD INVESTED IN A MYRA?

Election 2014

I've enjoyed following Brooke McEldowney's animation of Shakespeare's classic tale of romance and tragedy, Romeo and Juliet, in his comic strip “Pigborn”. As I mentioned in an earlier post, it is difficult to appreciate a play by simply reading its script. Actors, even cartoon actors, provide context to make the story more accessible to us common folk.

Click for more Piggorn

By coincidence, President Obama unveiled MyRA just as McEldowney's version of the play reached the climatic moment when Romeo attempts to intervene in a sword fight between his kinsman, Mercutio, and Juliet's kinsman, Tybalt. Despite his good intentions, Romeo's interference causes the death of Mercutio. This is the event that leads to the story's tragic ending.

Unintended consequences are rarely good. For example, the Affordable Health Care Act (ACA) may have been crafted by some with the best of intentions, but it is coming apart at the seams despite the President's best efforts to patch and delay it. Not only is the health insurance industry unraveling, but also health care providers are abandoning their practices or looking for greener pastures in other nations, and the opposition to the ACA smells blood in the water.

Some are turning on the proponents of Obamacare claiming that they must have foreseen the consequences of this legislation and, thus, intended its harmful results. I am more generous. I believe them to be simply guilty of poor problem solving.

This same lack of skill is evident in the President's latest proposal to provide wage earners with a new program for their retirement savings, MyRA. You say you're not familiar with it? Allow me to summarize. Under this plan, Americans would be permitted to shield their retirement savings in tax exempt government bonds. Although the yields would be small, these bonds would be backed by the full faith and credit of the United States Government.

The President's proposal reminds me of the tale of the farmer who gave his seed corn to a crow on the promise that it would fly the seeds beyond the reach of the mice. I'll let you figure out for yourself, who is the crow and who are the mice in this metaphorical tale, as well as its inevitable conclusion.

There are those who argue that the President doesn't have the authority to create programs on a whim, that he should have waited for Congress to craft a solution. Unfortunately, we know that past performance is the best indicator of future performance and that this Congress has little prospect of crafting any solution to any problem.

Isn't it time to replace them all before the story of our nation reaches the tragic ending that we can so easily perceive looming in the near future?