Letter 2 America for November 23, 2012

Dear America,

We can all breathe a sigh of relief now that the 2012 election is over.  Mitt Romney has demonstrated his real mettle with his most recent gaff about "gifts" that Barrack Obama has "given" to his constituents, like Pell Grants and student loan interest abatements for example, and by doing so has shown all of us what a close call we just had.  He would have been the apotheosis of the Republican conservative tide that has been lapping at our shores for seventy five years...since the New Deal.  Romney is genuinely conservative despite the reservations that the Republican conservative complex (Rcc) loudly disparaged him with during the campaign.  He is a social and economic Darwinist, and he is unapologetic about it, failing to see the disparity between his ardent Calvinism and the faith, hope and charity that he reputedly practices.  He is the anti-FDR, and in that he rose to the station of standard bearer for his party and then lost the election, he represents the end of a cyclical swing toward his creed...and make no mistake about it, it is a creed.  Just listen to the way that the Rcc pules about Social Security, claiming that the trust fund from which it is paid is a myth in order to justify seizing the contents of the trust for the purpose of erasing about one eighth of the national debt with a stroke of the pen...and all this in spite of statutes that as plain as day make the fund a reality, and do so for the specific purpose of denying the Rcc what it has sought to accomplish ever since Social Security came to be.  Mitt Romney was the fully evolved representative of the movement to repeal the New Deal and Social Security lock, stock and barrel, and thus we have taken the Rcc's best shot.  While Ronald Reagan is the patron saint of the conservative movement, even he believed in the sanctity of Social Security overall.  So Romney and his reactionary column are the real and pure soldiers for the conservative clause, and they have now had their best hope in three quarters of a century dashed.  But that is just the beginning of the ebb of the Rcc as the emerging power in our politics.

The liberal establishment has sat by much of the time during the nascence and evolution of the threat of this American reign of terror...claiming the higher moral ground and being walked on for fear of being seen as no better than its adversary.  But the recent overt Republican strategy and the tactics used to pursue it should have made a difference.  It is no longer appropriate to bend over backwards to be fair to the other side.  Given the lapse by the Republicans into imprecation from mere disdain and sabotage from mere opposition, the Democrats must recognize that their political opposite numbers are not just a threat, they are a danger to the party and to those whom it represents.  The luxury of fair play is a thing of the past, but how should the recognition of that new reality be manifested.  My answer to that question has to do with the mantra of the Republicans still, even after losing an election that was probably the most fecund opportunity for their final victory they have ever seen: time to eat the rich, and the "fiscal cliff" created under pressure from their camp is the perfect appetizer.

Because of the stubborn adherence to the notion that wealth in the few is good for us all, and that lower taxes are the key to wealth in the few, there is now talk of how to get revenue from the rich for the federal fisc without raising the marginal tax rate they pay.  Mind you, that rate is only a little more than a third of what it was at its peak, but modern conservatives think that is still too much because anything that redistributes the wealth created by us all away from the concentration of it in the rich that prevails today is anathema to them.  Thus, this privileged taxation for the privileged few is the holy grail of the Rcc, and this is the time to give them what they want while taking from them what they actually have.  The talk is of reducing "loopholes" in the tax code to achieve the enhanced revenue that the federal government desperately needs these days, and I think we should use that technique to meet the goals that are imperatives right now.  It is a kind of euphemism for increased taxes on the rich, and over the next two years, we should change the tax code by limiting the total amount of deductions that the rich can take in a way that won't diminish their will to do the good things the do--like contributing to charity--while they are willing to indulge in the self-deceit that in this fashion, they can be true to the cause of protecting the wealthy from the predation of all those who have smaller boats than they do.  But then, in two years, we should renew the effort to increase the marginal rate at the top of the income tax scale--and for that matter all the tax rates, even for the middle class rates that prevailed during the Clinton administration--so as to bring the budget into balance once again and even perhaps create budget surpluses so as to reduce the national debt over time.  That's what the Republicans have been doing over the past four years.  They give up what only what they couldn't keep anyway, and then they take even that back when the opportunity arises.  People forget that the only way that the Bush tax cuts could be passed in the first place was to limit their duration to ten years...that's what the Republicans gave up to get the tax cuts...a one decade duration.  But then, they took that back by refusing to increase the nation's debt ceiling or to repeal don't ask, don't tell, or by threatening to allow the Social Security tax abatement, which started the national economic tax recovery, to lapse.  They did all that in the 2010 lame duck session, and that is what the Democratic Party should do now, and two years from now.

The Democrats prevailed in this election, and in some ways it was more of a thumping than the Republicans inflicted two years ago.  So it should be used as such, and it will thus be the opening salvo in the battle to drive conservatism back to where it came from seventy five years ago.  So, give them what they want this time and get the money from the other pocket of the rich.  But two years from now, restore the prosperity of the Clinton administration by restoring the tax rates that prevailed at that time.  Talk about our children's future, going back to balanced budgets and reducing the national debt with any budget surplus is the way to go.  It was George W. Bush who mortgaged their future, not Barrack Obama.

Your friend,

Mike