Letter 2 America for May 7, 2013

Dear America,

There is a new bill going before congress.  It is intended to eliminate the current tax small brewers pay on each of the first 50,000 barrels of beer they produce: something on the order of $7 on each of those 50,000 barrels.  It is being sponsored by a Republican congressman...surprise...and presumably, it is intended to "stimulate small business" in a business that is already growing by leaps and bounds, but in this era in which the budget is being cut arbitrarily pursuant to the sequester and the Republican Party continues to obsess about the deficit and the national debt, is this really a good thing...and more importantly, has anyone asked that question?  Notably, small breweries have grown in number by 11% in the past two years, suggesting that the small brewery business is doing just fine and doesn't need tax relief for stimulation.  On the other hand, the Chicago school system is closing down more than fifty schools because the city's budget doesn't allow for all of the schools to continue to be run in light of cuts affecting education in the federal budget.  The consequence is that some small children will have to cross the boundaries between gang turfs at risk of harm and intimidation...on foot.  And conservatives in general want to put guns in schools to deter deranged killers rather than regulate and register guns, while they apparently aren't concerned about the encouragement of beer drinking by making it cheaper for would-be beer gastronomes to buy more than they need at a cost far in excess of that for ordinary beer, in other words, for beer snobbery to be subsidized.  Newly elected Republican senator Kelly Ayotte from New Hampshire--a state in which 90% of the population is in favor of universal background checks for gun purchases--voted against the Manshin-Toomey amendment to the gun control bill intended to implement a somewhat diluted version of universal background checks, and now her constituents are berating her for it at town hall meetings over the congressional recess.  She persists in claiming that the measure "would be burdensome" and wouldn't prevent crimes like that committed in Newtown--she even refused to meet with gun shot victims during the current congressional recess--while ignoring the consensus, supported by specific examples of where the lack of background checks enabled crimes of violence, that some crimes of gun violence would be prevented by universal background checks.  My guess is that she will vote for the tax relief for small brewers though, and if she gets the chance, I'm also sure she will vote for cuts in programs like WIC, which helps poor women feed their infant children, and Medicare.  That is the profile of Republican politicians today: anything for business because no one really needs anything else.  But the American people have begun to recognize that business does nothing for anyone but itself.  Before anything trickles down, all of it has to trickle through the hands of those at the top, and they don't miss much when they are deciding what to keep for themselves. 

It reminds me of George H.W. Bush's claim that he was a "compassionate conservative."  He was going to reap the largess of "a thousand points of light" that were supposedly out there, waiting to be generous and altruistic.  It is worth noting that during his entire administration, he identified only four of them, but there was a conversation that the compassionate-conservative-in-chief had aboard a plane full of press during the period of his transition before he assumed office after election that was informative about the depth of his contemplation on the subject.  He was on his way to Texas to hunt quail--not his vice president, Dan, but the birds of the same name--when a member of the press asked him how killing animals was consistent with compassionate conservatism. Bush Responded, "Quail aren't animals.  They're birds."  And that is really the problem with conservatism, compassionate or not.  Just as H.W. didn't seem to know that a bird is an animal, conservatives don't seem to know the difference between people and things.  Like H.W., they don't seem to know that businesses aren't really people no matter what the Supreme Court says.  And because businesses aren't people, they don't think, but more importantly, they don't feel.  They just do what their proprietors make them do, and if those proprietors are conservatives, the needs and feelings of people don't enter into the matter.  For that reason if for no other, the future of conservative Republicanism is in doubt.  The very dogma by which it is identified is the liability by which it is encumbered.  We are not a nation of businesses.  We are a nation of people.  And the inalienable rights embodied by our seminal documents didn't inure to the benefit of businesses.  They were inalienable in men and women, not in things.  But more important for the Republicans is this.  Businesses can't vote even if their owners can control our political process with money...at least to some extent.

There was a treatment on "60 Minutes" of a character who fancies himself a Robin Hood.  He is a stock trader who got very rich in the field of artificial wealth creation, and now purports to give to those in need out of compassion by sponsoring an event each year for his Robin Hood foundation.  He invited four thousand very rich people this year, and by arm twisting he raised over $57 million in one night.  That's an average of just over $14,000 from each of them...millionaires every one...and for that they want to think of themselves as altruists.  But to a person for whom that kind of money represents little more than the interest on his wealth for a week or two, it is a meager show of generosity.  It is like Bill and Melinda Gates giving away a billion dollars a year when their fortune continues to grow by that amount even after their largess is deducted, and I have this to say to those 4000 millionaires, and to the Gates family as well.  If you want your earthly ticket validated so that you can get into heaven, you are going to have to do better.  And in that same vein, if the Republicans want to get elected, they're going to have to do better than giving tax breaks to that 4000 millionaires.

Your friend,

Mike