I travel a lot and often overhear conversations in airports and restaurants regarding politics. The arguments that are anti-Obama and anti-left, are usually the same. “Liberals want to spend, spend, spend” and “America is broke because of Obama” along with “My hard work is paying for lazy people.”
The consensus from the right (that I hear consistently) is that “we need to run government like a business” and while I counter with the obvious, “Government is not a business, it is a government,” usually their eyes glaze over, not because they can’t comprehend my simple premise, but because they think I’m full of shit.
The primary complaint I hear of socially liberal economics, in general, regards the social expenditures that come out of paychecks; money that conservatives believe should be left to them to decide how it’s spent and on whom. It is money, they believe, that will stimulate the economy, and ultimately if welfare spending is curbed, will motivate those who are on the dole to get out and find a job.
It is a huge ideological gap between the two sides and one that should be examined…
On the left there is this idea that we could end poverty with the right assistance programs. On the right there is a belief that everyone will be better off by lowering taxes and ending most of those programs.
Both sides are only dreaming. There’s an elephant in the room that no one wants to address- It isn’t possible to completely end poverty and it isn’t possible for everyone to be well off- because the rich feed off the poor and the poor feed off the rich.
Did I really just say that?
I’d like to play out a scenario to illustrate this point. Let’s give the right wing their dream scenario. Let’s say, the Bush tax cuts become permanent and, in fact, taxes are cut even 5% more! That takes about two hundred billion dollars out of the Treasury annually, but we can begin to balance that by cutting almost every entitlement program plus we’ll have to cut a little military spending (we can afford to) and other discretionary spending will be cut back, as well. We can take a red pencil state to state and cut a LOT of pork…
The average American household could keep about $2500 more in their pockets annually to put towards a down payment on a house, a car, buy appliances, remodel the kitchen, whatever. Or they can invest toward retirement or college. We are talking about 375 billion dollars of new money being pumped into the economy!
Demand for products grows industry and that creates jobs. Job creation expands the middle class and that is the engine of a mixed (predominately capitalist) economy, along with incentive and wealth and the growing tax base covers the lost revenue from lower taxes. Perfect! Everyone is happy!
Except…we’re not….the wealthy have expanded their holdings exponentially in this scenario and the divide between the top and the bottom is greater than ever.
What’s the problem with that if everyone is better off?
Because everyone is NOT better off as the cost of living slides, as it always does, toward affluence.
“But the competition, as a result of increased industry from consumer demand, has driven down prices (The economic law that conservatives think was brought down from Mt. Sinai).”
After an initial reprieve from inflation, due to competitive pricing, wages have risen along with profits (if we’re going to use economic laws then we have to incorporate that one, as well) and prices go up to compensate. That $2500 in our pockets doesn’t give us the ability to buy that house; it only gives us more collateral to get a bigger loan and a better car with a higher payment.
It is inevitable that as the “standard” of living rises, Americans will live outside of their means to try and keep up.
The root cause of inflation is usury (interest on loans) and our debt has increased. Most “money” is created by banks as loans, but the interest on that debt is not and to create the money to pay the interest, more debt must be created (refinancing). This creates ever larger payments that in turn drive higher prices for goods in order to service the growing debt.
All we have done in this scenario is slide the bar higher and now there are as many, if not more, who fall under the new poverty line. This is not a made up scenario to illustrate a point, this is exacty what has been happening for 30 years.
But now (in the hypothetical that cut social programs)…there are no programs to bridge the gap during unemployment and poverty rises. Job education programs were taken out of the budget and the skill levels decrease. The economic machinery, however, is still geared toward high production (we can use Detroit as the model for this) while demand now sinks. Major industry is in the red and unemployment rises, more people walk the streets indigent and the programs that could have at least given them sustenance or hope…are gone.
Some things will never change, however. The wealthy are wealthier than ever but are still trying to convince the rest of us that they are unfairly burdened and if we’d just decrease their taxes even more….
And what about the liberal dream where our communal assistance ends poverty?
Well, people will fail no matter how hard we try to stop it. Failure is part of the human condition; as Mark Twain cynically stated, “Let us be thankful for the fools, but for them the rest of us could not succeed.”
Twain’s comment, though, has more to do with the precarious success “of the rest of us” than it is a condemnation of the “fools.” It comes down to a choice that my conscience and my heart have no trouble making clear— I would rather move in the direction of compassion than to isolate those who have failed.
That is why I call myself a “progressive”; the policies we champion give strength to a platform of helping those in need, of rehabilitation for those whose luck turned sour and of respect to all who grace this planet.
Conservatives love to quote the Chinese proverb ( many people think this is Biblical but it’s not), “Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day, teach a man to fish and he will eat for a lifetime” but that’s not what they really mean; their politics show no interest in teaching him to fish. They say, “Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day, but if he wants to eat like me he better find a pole and learn to fish, like I did.”
I love the original proverb, but I would like to add, “Let’s share the fish we caught while we teach him. And let’s give him our pole because he doesn’t have one…we’ll get another.”
