Published on Facebook, 4/13/2011- you'll noticed that I skipped 78, 79 and 80. Those thoughts are a bit dated and I'm tired of writing about Libya. It irritates me.
I decided not to watch the news today. Between Republican saber-rattling about still more budget cuts and President Obama's promised speech on what he thought we should do about the deficit, I just thought that all the Tums in the world wouldn't be enough to hold down my bile. So I waited for the print version and kids, it turned out that I was right. Tums would have been needed. By the bucketload.
At this point, it's undeniable that we've got a little bit of a deficit problem. Everyone, despite the shortcomings in our education system should be able to do the simple math and think to themselves, 'damn, that's a lot of money. How are we going to pay that off?' Therein lies the question that will confront either President Obama for a second term in the White House or whichever Republican we are unlucky enough to inflict upon ourselves. The reason for my sense of utter disillusionment at this point is a deceptively simple one: everybody- and I do mean everybody is getting it utterly and completely wrong.
If there was ever an argument for a genuine, real, viable third political party in this country, the deficit mess should serve as no greater illustration for the need. As voters we are asked to choose between two social and political models: let's call them, for the sake of argument, the Red and the Blue- when one looks at what is being proposed and by whom, we find that both have serious shortcomings and both will ultimately produce failures- either though failing to achieve their objectives through political stalemate or through solutions so unpalatable to the majority of voters as to alienate large swathes of the political center.
The Red, (or Republican) would have us believe that all government is an inherent evil. No government, no Department of Education, little to no taxation and an end to all wasteful liberal frivolities like Seasame Street and Planned Parenthood. Entitlements too should be returned to the people- let people earn their money and play with it as they please. It is, after all, their retirement.
The Blue, (or Democratic) would have us believe that the rich aren't paying their fair share and if there is waste in government it is to be found in the Defense Department and moreover, the basic principle of Keynesian economics hold true- you spend more during a downturn until you can spend your way right out of it and then worry about balancing your budget.
The problem is, both of these visions- basic summations that they are, are utterly incorrect. I don't believe that all government is an inherent evil- I think we need less of it, but as President Obama himself said, it's not about bringing a machete to the table- we need smarter government- more decentralized government and more flexible government. Should some agencies be axed? Sure. Should some be consolidated? You bet- and more to the point, why do they all have to stay in Washington D.C.? Such a concentration of power in one place in the age of modern communications technology seems foolish- and given the distances involved, it isolates the center of power in this country from the vast majority of the rest of the country. People get so enraged with government and I think it's because, in general, we send people to Washington for decades at a time and then when they retire, they often do so straight into a lobbying position and never leave the place. How then are our leaders supposed to know the struggles of middle class America when they only see us on weekends?
I think the Department of Agriculture could be moved. (How much farming do they do in Washington, anyway?) The Department of Education could be scrapped. I'm not even sure why we have a Department of Commerce- Wall Street tends to fuck things up with the government's help and it's not like anyone's regulating commerce these days anyway. The Department of the Interior should, I think, perhaps be in the actual Interior and things like the Bureau of Indian Affairs could be scrapped as well. The President's right: smart government means going through every Agency and deciding what we really and truly need. At the end of the day, if we do that, then all Departments should emerge a lot thinner than they are now.
Entitlements are really easy if our politicians would actually have the courage to take them on. I'm not sure I'm down with Paul Ryan's mad plan on Medicare and Medicaid, but really and truly: we live longer than we did in the 1930s. Raise the retirement age to 70 and means test the shit out of these programs. To me- and maybe I'm crazy, but the point of the social safety net should be NOT TO NEED the social safety net. If I retire a bajillionaire- as we all wish too, then I don't need Social Security. Let someone else who actually needs it, take it. (And before Conservatives jump and down on the 'unfairness' of means testing, consider: you're not guaranteed anything in life. You could retire like Warren Buffet or you could end up like Ken Lay or Bernie Madoff. The whole point of means testing entitlements would be to ensure that they're there for the people who really need them- and unless you're Miss Cleo, you're not going to know if you need 'em until you get there.)
Taxes and Subsidies are more complicated- I've become increasingly convinced that the income tax, weighed down with it's loopholes and deductions is becoming rapidly useless. We're a consumer-based society and we like to buy shit The more money you have, the more shit you tend to buy, therefore the more taxes you pay. A progressive way of imposing a straight up sales tax could be devised (if you make less than X amount of dollars, you pay no tax) and every August you could have a tax free month- a yearly economic boost just in time for back-to-school shopping.
While I tend to roll my eyes when Republicans talk about how high and crushing corporate taxes are (really? BP made how much last year in profits? Is life really that hard?) I do think the examples of banks who took god knows how much in taxpayer money and ended up paying no taxes at all is fine example of grade A bullshit. Lower the corporate taxes, fine, but strip out every single last loophole to make sure that business pays something at least- and there should be a hefty surcharge if they come begging for a bailout from the government.
We should end every dollar of corporate welfare and subsidies should be put under a microscope. (I'm a fan of both Planned Parenthood and NPR, yet have to ask: if they could make it without Federal money, shouldn't they? Wouldn't that allow them more freedom to do what they do without their budgets become a political punching bag?)
We should End the War On Drugs. We lost, a long time ago.
We should wind up our operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, double down hard to finish the job in Libya and excise every stupid example of waste from the Pentagon's budget. If you're spending tax money on a plane that flies backwards instead of equipping our troops with the best equipment you can, then that's unacceptable as well.
Basically: we need original, creative, radical ideas. None of which are to be found in Washington today.
Now, where did I put those Tums?
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