Letter 2 America for December 25, 2012

Dear America,

Occasionally I find myself using the phrase, the worm has turned.  I researched it one time, and while I found some Elizabethan Era references to it, neither its provenance nor its exact meaning were ever made indisputably clear to me.  However, everyone who knows the phrase knows what it means.  And now, the Republican Party has given me my latest occasion to invoke the phrase.  Last Thursday night, John Boehner, the Republican Speaker of the House of Representatives, was forced to withdraw what he called "Plan B" from consideration by the Republican controlled House because he couldn't get enough support for it from his own party.  Notably, the lynchpin of his plan was extension of the Bush tax cuts to all but .18% of the American people.  Only that .18%--taxpayers who have incomes over $1,000,000 according to Boehner--would see their taxes go up by about, and then by only a manageable 5% for people who already have more than they can ever spend, under Plan B, but even that was too much for the neo-conservatives in the Republican caucus.  Plan B was intended by Boehner to reverse the public sentiment that his party isn't offering compromise at all, and thus will be responsible if taxes go up on the 98% of us who earn less than $250,000.  That's a lot of votes, and Boehner knows it, but the neo-cons don't seem to, and they are willing to forfeit the traditional advantage that the loyal opposition enjoys in mid-term elections--the next ones will be in 2014--by precipitating the most feared political outcome in recent history: the fiscal cliff...a term I deplore for its cartoon-inspired cuteness, but it's useful because everyone knows what it means.

The Republicans, and the Republican conservative complex (Rcc) in general have hung around their necks the failures of the Democratic Party to implement the measures that the party as a whole prefers during the period of its control of both houses--and for the last two years of the period the White House as well--from 2006 through 2010.  But the reason for those failures was not just the ability of the disloyal conservative opposition in The Senate to filibuster almost every important measure.  Though it went unnoticed by the public, the ability of the recalcitrant "Blue Dogs" among the Democrats themselves, they being Democrats in name only, was also to blame.  Together, they blocked every effort in The Congress to advance the progressive agenda.  It was neo-conservatives in both parties that stymied progress toward a better nation.  Of course, Senate Republicans were openly pleased about it; they were the overt opposition.  But in The House, the Blue Dogs, also neo-cons, kept the Democratic Party from exercising its partisan control over the course of that body.  So the Democrats got blamed, but in reality, it was conservative Republicans in Democrat clothing who caused Democratic inefficacy...the serpent in our bosom, so to speak.  The Republicans in both houses must have been laughing up their sleeves the whole time they were pointing to the Democrats and accusing them of failure, knowing all the while that it was the poison pill of neo-conservatism within an otherwise liberal party that was killing the Democrats' plans, just as it was driving the Republicans' own.  But now they are taking that same medicine, and the pill is poisoning them just as it did the Democrats.  Fractiousness has paralyzed the Republicans.  Just ask John Boehner.  It seems the worm has turned.

Mind you, in my opinion going over the fiscal cliff isn't such a bad thing, although I must admit I am not looking forward to paying more taxes next year.  It reduces both the deficit and the national debt over the next ten years by a significant amount, and it brings us back, approximately, to the last time our nation enjoyed wide-spread prosperity rather than obscene corporate profits and accretion of wealth by the very few, though plenty of that will still occur.  Going back to the Clinton years wouldn't be such a bad thing, I think.  But based on the proposition that raising taxes on 98% of Americans would set our economy back significantly, I understand the motive for trying to avoid it.  We need more stimulus to sustain our forward momentum, and putting about $2,200 in every family's bank account is a good way to effect it.  It will help most all of us, but the Republican Party's future may depend on it.  If Boehner couldn't get his party's support for almost universal tax cuts, he can't get their support for anything that has a chance of getting both passed by congress and signed by The President.  So, as all of the polls show, they will take the blame for that $2,200 that comes out of every household's budget next year, and that doesn't bode well.  In fact, if the sages of economics are correct and we do have another small recession, it will allow us to get back just to where we are now probably some time during the 2014 election year.  Between the higher taxes and the decrease in government spending that "sequestration"--the other half of the fiscal cliff--demands, our economy will decline because there will be less money to spend among consumers, who are the source of 70% of GDP, and among government purchasing agents and employees as well, thus accounting for about half of the other 30%.  We will take a hit, no doubt about it.  And when we vote for our congressmen and senators in 2014, whom will we blame?  And rightly so, I might add.  This Christmas, the Republicans are getting coal in their stockings in the form of a big dose of the same medicine they have enjoyed giving us Democrats for the past several years.  And as they will discover over the foreseeable future, it is a gift that keeps on taking.

So while others wring their hands during this holiday season, I say that all is right with the world...at least in American politics.  It's a large helping of just deserts all around if you're a Republican, and it's the prospect of a future without Republican schemes for the rest of us.  They will have to repudiate some of their own and come around to moderation and loyal opposition as political tactics now, and not a moment too soon.

Your friend,

Mike

P.S.  Please forgive the unedited nature of parts of my letter today, but Christmas dinner is in the stove and needs to be attended to.  In that vein, Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all of you.