The
Monitor’s View
Christian
Science Monitor...
Supreme
Court wrestles with a more dependent world
The high
court hears a complaint from states about the health-care law’s
‘coercion’ to
accept an expensive expansion of Medicaid. The issue reflects a more
dependent
world in government, trade, and high-tech.
In the last
day of its debate over the health-care law, the US Supreme Court
wrestled with
a big issue in this interconnected age: When does voluntary dependency
slip
into coercion and perhaps even blackmail?
The
justices heard a complaint by 26 states about the law’s expansion of
Medicaid
to all adults with incomes up to 133 percent of the poverty line. The
added
cost of this state-administered program could hit local taxpayers, the
states
argued.
Yet, while
states can legally opt out of Medicaid, they are also threatened with
the loss
of all federal spending if they don’t comply.
Like a
debtor in too deep, states will likely be stuck with paying for much of
Medicaid’s expansion in the coming decades. It’s a type of unforeseen
overdependency – in which largess can turn to duress – and which can
become
more common with the growth of federal spending, global trade, and
personal
technology.
Washington,
for example, remains hooked on China’s willingness as the world’s
largest
banker to continue buying US debt in order to keep the American economy
going.
The world’s high-tech industries are also dangerously reliant on
China’s
almost-exclusive supply of rare earth minerals used in manufacturing
many
digital goods. Beijing has threatened to withhold exports of such
minerals
unless high-tech companies open plants in China.
America’s
dependency on foreign oil persists despite the lessons of the 1973 OPEC
oil
embargo and spikes in gasoline prices. Even with improved energy
efficiency and
alternative sources, the United States has a $300 billion trade deficit
on
petroleum. Countries like Iran and Venezuela can still easily disrupt
oil
markets.
After
joining the euro, Greece became addicted to easy credit from foreign
banks.
Now, after the possible collapse of the euro, it must endure difficult
austerity imposed by Germany and others. One irony is that an axiom of
ancient
Greece was “everything in moderation,” which was engraved on temples at
Delphi.
In the US,
easy credit during the housing boom of the last decade left many
homeowners at
the mercy of lenders when the bubble burst. Now a quarter of homeowners
owe
more than their houses are worth while others are forced into
foreclosure by banks.
In
technology, worries have ebbed and flowed about a dependency on giant
companies
like Microsoft and Google. Apple became famous for its 1984 ad
challenging
IBM’s dominance, but now it is the world’s wealthiest company with a
dominance
in tablet computers and cellphones. And Google finds it difficult to
live up to
its motto of “do no evil,” especially in preserving people’s privacy.
Young
people are becoming dependent on social networks. Facebook users have
an
average of more than 130 “friends,” and they rely on this collective of
friends
to make many decisions. But that can also easily turn to peer pressure.
Digital
links can quickly become a social ball and chain.
In the
Medicaid case, the Supreme Court may be reluctant to rule in favor of
the 26
states. In similar cases about federal conditions imposed on states in
order to
receive funding, the court had a hard time defining coercion.
Yet the
issue persists. A century ago, more than half of all government
spending was
local; less than a third was federal. Now Washington accounts for more
than
two-thirds of public spending. As scholar Lynn Baker notes, “The
biggest threat
to state autonomy is, and has long been, Congress’s spending power.”
It’s more
difficult these days to live by old adages like “never a borrower or
lender be”
or “beware Greeks bearing gifts.” Interdependency brings many benefits.
More
can be done through better networking and sharing of wealth.
Codependency
in any relationship, whether personal or institutional, can run amok if
one
side makes onerous demands. That’s the basic issue before the Supreme
Court. As
a lower court judge stated in this case: There must be “a line
somewhere
between mere pressure and impermissible coercion.”
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