I confess that I'm glad that my taxes aren't going up. My wife's pay has been frozen along with that of all other state workers, and my Social Security is barely keeping up with inflation if in actuality it really is at all, never mind the near miss with the chained CPI. But still, I must admit that the predicament that the nation found itself in in December could have been a solid step toward resolving our long-term debt and deficit problems...if only our politicians had done nothing. Raising taxes on only the top 1% may be minimal, but at least it's something, and we no longer hear mention of Social Security in connection with diminishing the federal deficit and the national debt...at least not nearly as often, and that is all as it should be. But what now? As long as circumlocution is the national political language and the media do nothing to confront our politicians with the fact that they never answer the difficult questions, but rather say what they want to say, usually on some other issue, and then dig in their heels. Some day, however, they are all going to have to confront the real question, which has been asked over and over since the election season began, but has been only partially answered. What is the nature of our country? Who are we and what do we want?
From the Republican conservative complex's (Rcc's) perspective the answer is suggested by their mantra: we don't have a revenue problem, we have a spending problem, which evokes my recollection of an old joke about a man and his mule to me. A farmer is out plowing his field with his new mule and his neighbor approaches him.
"Isn't that a new mule?" he asks.
"Yeah," the first farmer answers, "the last one died."
"Oh, what happened," the neighbor asks.
"Well," the first farmer says, "it was just like the one before him and the one before that. Just when I've finally trained 'em not to eat, they die on me."
We can cut spending to nothing if we want, but then people literally die. By the same token, we can give everyone everything he wants, but we die then too, though in a different way. The formula for America's future is somewhere in the middle, but it's not solely a revenue question or a spending question. It is a question of priorities. In current politics, it takes the form, is it more important for some to be rich even when others go hungry, or is it better to take from some who have more than they can ever use--even if they've earned it--so that everyone eats, and eats well, has shelter from the elements and clothes to wear to school or work. The oversimplification in which the Rcc and the Republican leadership in particular indulge...this sloganeering and boosterism obsession about "spending problems" and "revenue problems"...is not just offensive, it's a red herring and a subterfuge. We working people cannot afford the rich any more, nor can we afford the poor. But somehow, both groups have to do the right thing by everyone else and each other. No one can get everything. But no one can get nothing either. That's the kind of form the solution to our long term problems will have to take. We have to stop thinking in terms of what it is our right to have and start thinking in terms of what it is right for us to do. It amazes me that the rich regard the poor with envy. They think that the poor are getting a sweet deal, not having to work even though the reason often is that they can't find jobs that pay a living wage. After all, they keep getting those unemployment benefits, never mind that the slow trickle of social succor will keep them from homelessness only if they are lucky. The easy way to live, the rich think. At the same time, those who number themselves as working poor envy all of the rich and condemn them for their avarice and callousness, never acknowledging those who get rich curing diseases and inventing the machines that drive our world...making no distinction between them and self-enriching debutantes who are famous for being famous and dilettantes who put on uniforms and play games for a living...quite often badly.
The fact is that there are rich and poor who take advantage of all of the rest of us. But that is no justification for condemning either the rest of the rich or the rest of the poor. We have to stop thinking in terms of the hyperbole that the two extremes induce and begin seeing through the smoke being generated by contrived arguments and evasions. We are a country that has worked collectively and communally to accomplish our national prosperity and well-being. As President Obama was trying to say when the media began playing their elliptical clip of the statement he made to small business people about not building their businesses, we have built this nation together, acting in concert, and everyone should have the modicum of comfort that it can provide irrespective of economic rank. There will still be plenty left over for those who crave more, and while such a minimum standard of affluence might leave some few without sufficient motivation to toil in the vineyard with the rest of us, very few will prosper immorally if we just show some compassion and restraint. I for one do not want the life that a person on the bottom end of the economic ladder should be able to expect, even if, for whatever reason, he never earns a dime. I want more. And frankly, I don't want the Sybaritic life of an heir or an heiress to a fortune built by ancestors either. I wouldn't know how to live it, and I think most people...the vast majority, I believe...feel the same way. We need to talk about that moderate stasis that will serve everyone, not about the extremes of wealth and poverty. Neither is enviable, and neither is good for our society as a whole. And in the end, we will all have to forego current dogma in order to achieve it.
According to the New York Times, the tax code is the most progressive it's been since Ronald Reagan took office. The rich are paying a bigger share, which they can easily afford, and those less affluent multitudes are paying a smaller one, but we are nowhere near the days when the top tax rate was 90% after World War II. And a small group of doctors who were actually performing unnecessary heart surgery so that they could get our insurance money--cutting people open to steal from them--are now being forced to pay the money back. Ten big banks are being assessed penalties amounting to about $10 billion--which seems like a lot but barely affects their profitability over more than a few weeks--for cheating home owners by contriving evidence in foreclosure proceedings. Reigning in abuses by the few poor who commit them started a long time ago with reform of welfare during the Clinton administration, and they continue today with enhanced benefits auditing procedures and fraud prevention. But all this is just a start. Taxes on those most able to pay them have to go up further, and abuse of a system born of compassion has to be curtailed even further as we seek homeostasis that is just and moral...and American. Some programs will have to be modified and cut. But the rich haven't finished paying their fair share despite the fulminations of Mitch McConnell to the effect that the tax issue is resolved. For example, we could eliminate preferential tax treatment for investment income. People who don't need money won't stop investing if they can keep only 60% of what their money earns rather than 80%, just as someone needing money won't refuse $6 because he'd rather have $8. As to all of us and the debate amongst us, we have to start doing a better job of separating the wheat from the chaff, the baby from the bathwater, the owls from the chickens and all that, but especially right from wrong. In a study by a sister group of the magazine, "The Economist," the quality of life was measured among eighty nations, and the conclusion of the study was that the quality of life--and the brightness of the future--were best in countries in which social and economic disparities were least. In that regard, we still have a long way to go.
Your friend,
Mike
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