The Bishop and the Butterfly: Murder, Politics, and the End of the Jazz Age
    coatesd's picture

    EIGHT THINGS TO TELL A REPUBLICAN

    By coatesd on Thu, 08/11/2011 - 9:58am |

     

    With Congress in recess and our lawmakers now back in their districts, there is presumably a slight chance of meeting one of them in the street. If, like me, your representative in the House is not of your political persuasion – mine, Virginia Foxx, most definitely is not – it might just be worth letting them know how vital it is that, by the time Congress re-convenes, the Republican Party leadership should have moderated its disastrous stance on taxation and federal spending. Having manufactured a debt ceiling crisis and set in motion cuts in federal spending that will likely tip us back into recession, it is hard to see how much more damage House Republicans can do. But they will no doubt try, unless we can persuade them of at least the following eight things.

    1.      It is right to worry about debt, but it is important to worry about the right kind of debt. The debts that will cripple us down the line are debts on our overseas trade and debts on our credit cards. Federal debt rises and falls with the state of the economy, and is the least threatening of the three forms of debt that now beset us. Being in hock to China or to a mega-bank does not make us free.

     

    2.      Most Americans are not under financial pressure because the tax-take is too high. Federal taxes as a percentage of GDP are at a 60 year low. Most Americans are under financial pressure because their wages are too low and their jobs insecure. Cutting public spending now simply adds to the downward spiral of job loss and falling demand. The regeneration of well-paying jobs is vital to our long-term recovery.

     

    3.      The argument that federal spending heaps debt onto the shoulders of our children ignores the capacity of public spending to trigger economic growth to clear that debt. Spending tax dollars now on the building of a bridge does not necessarily leave our children in hock – that depends on how the enterprise is financed – but it does necessarily leave them a bridge. The better the bridge, the brighter the economic future.

     

    4.      Trickle-down economics did not work under George W. Bush and it will not work under Barack Obama. The key to economic recovery in a recession plagued by lack of business confidence is the certainty of future demand. Putting money in the hands of ordinary consumers is the best way forward. Recovery must trickle up, or it will not come at all. With unemployment and poverty running at record levels, tax cuts for the rich are at best an irrelevance and at worst an obscenity.

     

    5.      Markets only optimize individual freedom if everyone inside them has equal purchasing power, and income equality is not a contemporary American condition. Unregulated markets are engines of inequality as the post-Reagan years so clearly demonstrated.  If we currently suffer from a culture of entitlements, that culture is stronger among the rich than among the poor. Greed at the top, not greed at the bottom, is the root cause of our present crisis. As the new (and vital) Contract for the American Dream has it, “too many at the top are grabbing the gains.”[1]

     

    6.      Markets work by generating winners and losers. The children of the losers do not compete on a level playing field with the children of the winners. True equality of opportunity for the next generation requires public policy to level the field by raising the base. Otherwise, “picking your parents with care” will continue to be the best guarantee of material success for yet another cohort of our richer children, and we will continue to squander the hopes and capacities of so many of their less fortunate contemporaries.

     

    7.      Going green is not a communist plot. It is a way of simultaneously saving the planet and our prosperity. The Cheney principle should apply.[2] A one percent chance that Iraq had WMDs justified the invasion. A similar chance of climate change should justify action to prevent global warming.

     

    8.      The outsourcing of manufacturing jobs may serve corporate interests, but it does not serve ours. Only a stronger manufacturing base can get us back to the affluence we once took for granted. It is time for us to recapture control of our economic destiny from the Wall Street moguls and overpaid CEOs who took us into our contemporary distress.

     

    If in making these points you experience pushback – if you find yourself being told that, given you like welfare capitalism so much you should go live in one, and stop being so un-American – then that may well be the time to remind your local conservatives of those other truths which they tend to discount: namely that the New Deal and the Great Society were just as homegrown as Reaganomics; and that there is nothing particularly patriotic in playing chicken, as the House Republicans just did, with the U.S. debt ceiling and the economy’s triple-A credit rating. And as a parting shot, perhaps you should urge them to read the Contract for the American Dream. As the Contract says, “America needs jobs, not cuts.” Are all Republicans so ideologically wedded to the Grover Norquist view that government needs to be cut “to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub”?[3]  It is worth asking them. Let us hope that the sanest amongst them are not.

     

     

    These arguments are fully developed in David Coates, Making The Progressive Case: Towards a Stronger American Economy; and on its supporting  website www.davidcoates.net

     


    [1] Here at last is a document to organize around. The full text is at http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/08/09-4

     

    [2] For this, see Thomas Friedman, “Going Cheney on Climate,” The New York Times December 8, 2009; available at http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/09/opinion/09friedman.html

     

    [3] Interview with Mara Liasson, “Morning Edition”, NPR, May 25, 2001.

     

    Comments

    As usual, a very nice piece. The only think I find lacking is something to disagree with you about. wink


    by Verified Atheist on Thu, 08/11/2011 - 10:31am

    I have an amusing image in my head of you haranguing Virginia Foxx. I predict that you might make it about two-thirds of the way through the first sentence.


    by Michael Wolraich on Thu, 08/11/2011 - 11:08am

    But everything you've mentioned above goes against the GOPer grain. I have serious doubt there's a GOPer alive who understands the US economy is consumer driven ... the public MUST be making purchases for businesses to thrive and prosper. As it now stands, businesses are idle, only producing enough to make ends meet simply because the demand for goods is but a trickle. No business leader in his right mind would even think of hiring more workers to produce more output if the consumer demand for the product wasn't there. So the governments role is to stimulate consumers to spend. But how can that be accomplished if close to 20% of the population is not working or under-employed? I think the GOPer's believe in the field of dreams concept. Too bad they don't understand it was only a movie and fictional ... not fact.


    by Beetlejuice on Thu, 08/11/2011 - 11:51am

    Why can't we find a photogenic, articulate businessperson who will say for a 30-second spot just that?  That she's not hiring because there aren't enough buyers, and the only way to get more buyers so she can hire and expand like she wants to is for the federal government to stimulate the economy further instead of making things worse by a too-soon focus on cutting our debt.  A human could say that or something like it in 30 seconds.  Plenty of possibilities for some visuals early in the spot of people out of work, and late in the spot of people smiling, at work, with hope, a 2 second flash of a national debt graphic showing the trend line going down, people just generally in a good mood.  

    The answer to the question is: of course it could be done.  But which sitting federal government official or institution has a reason to do that?  Not the White House.  It wants austerity.  Not House or Senate Democratic campaign committees because they're not going to air ads going against the policy of a President of their own party.  Not the Republicans, because they don't agree with its message. 

    It would probably have to be an independent progressive group able to come up with the money.  The time to do it would not be now, in any case, but next fall.  


    by AmericanDreamer on Thu, 08/11/2011 - 12:16pm

    Only a stronger manufacturing base can get us back to the affluence we once took for granted.

    I do think this requires a "how to," David. There is a legitimate question about how to compete against foreign workforces willing to work for $3 a day. A corollary to this is the notion that we are living in a much different global economy than we were back in the 1950s and 60s, when the US was the undisputed economic champion.


    by Peter Schwartz on Thu, 08/11/2011 - 1:46pm

    Dear Peter

    I entirely agree. Just tough to do in a brief posting. In Making the Progressive Case, there is a whole chapter on Managed Trade. Without that, no chance of breaking the race to the bottom. But neither side of the political class currently concede that: so the argument against free trade ends up in the hands of people like Ron Paul and Pat Buchanan. A progressive case for Managed Trade is essential in my view

    Best wishes

    David


    by coatesd on Thu, 08/11/2011 - 8:30pm

    I don't mean to criticize, and I did want to see what 8 things that you fellas think you should tell us Republicans, but Geez! coatholder, you should just put em in a list, you know, with numbers 1 to 8.  No one is gonna read all of those thousand paragraphs to see what you said. Bottom line it, man!


    by The Decider on Thu, 08/11/2011 - 5:51pm

    I never thought I'd say this, but I agree with The Decider.


    by erica20 on Thu, 08/11/2011 - 6:36pm

    Republicans elected The Decider because they figured it was easiest if he did the deciding, anyway, Republican leadership follows the path set down to them by The Almighty....8 things, facts or body counts notwithstanding.


    by NCD on Fri, 08/12/2011 - 12:17pm

    apologies all round to the Decider. The original essay, posted on my website and Huffington Post, had eight numbered points. For some reason this morning when I posted on dagblog, as I always do, the technology beat me and the numbers disappeared. Again, apologies

    David


    by coatesd on Thu, 08/11/2011 - 8:32pm

    Hey Dahg

    Would you also like him to use phonetics, so you won't have to work so hard?wink


    by Resistance on Fri, 08/12/2011 - 12:58am

     It is time for us to recapture control of our economic destiny from the Wall Street moguls and overpaid CEOs and otherwise liberal economists * who took us into our contemporary distress.

    *Flavius

     As I've written here too many times ,  Keynes n the 30s recanted his life time support for Free Trade.. At first half heartedly

    "the virtue of tariffs is-they do the trick" 

    but ultimately -in a set piece Dublin lecture -he  completely abandoned Free Trade, summarizing his position  

    "Let  goods be homespun".

    If the savings from off shoring could somehow be shared by society , perhaps it would make sense. But in our deeply laizee faire country there's no chance of that happening. And in our continent- sized country no need . The last trade round should have been , the last.From now on we should reverse the direction of our trade policy and move as far as we can as fast as we can away from at least this aspect of Globalization


    by Flavius on Fri, 08/12/2011 - 2:16am

    Please, if you are going to issue talking points and be serious please be serious, you talking points only go to prove that who ever uses these as such only show ignorance and fultility of judgment, for anyone of mature thinking can shot huge holes into each statement issued,

    1. right to worry about EVERY form of debt, one cannot borrow

    out of debt. , forget that concept

    2.most Americans are under pressure financially because they were coehersed into borrowing entirely too much for their homes, in a market driven to extremes by the no-down, government backed loans that were made available to anyone with a name. These loans, driving sales out of the realm of reality, made working people have to compete with who ever walked in the door. Unfair, and unjust. Now, those with-out investment besides their name, if even real, walk away. Those who have entire family fortune invested in homes are underwater by 3-% + margins, hopelessly stuck. The government bails out, or pays the same banks who instigated this mess, along with fannie mae and freddy mac, with the same future earnings of the struggling to keep alive workers, not the welfare people. so, absolutely wrong point again.

    3.The nations economy under Bush 2 was amazing, huge growth, everyone working, enough so that even the dems banked on those working and making so much they could somehow divest the known amount of underscored mortgages on them, point again totaly false. Only when the dems secured both houses of congress did the c=economy begin to tank, which reveals how the dem party is not afraid to ruin others who work for a living to secure their personal elitist desires.

    4. shameful words. The markets are run by huge corperations who channel imeensable amounts of money. The dems although they always deny, are of course the ones behind such firms. The stories of haliburton running the oil fields and of cheney under their control make Texan;s laugh out loud, for all know that the longtime yellow dog dem family of ladybird johnson owns haliburton and schlumberger and Brown and Root, the worlds largest by far construction companies. So there, learn before you speak.

    5. Actually, the underhanded formation of an entire market trading in green carbon credits was the brainchild of the most famous crooks in the world, enron. VP gore, worth 1.2 million after his tenure as VP, now worth over 1 billion, all in invested monies to secure his supporters rights to run this imagination built market. Now that NASA has refused to sign on and submit as did the EPA when defunded by obama until they put the false laughable Co2 reports and findings, NASA refused. And even when the space shuttle etc were defunded, laying off 100's of 1000's they still filed formal studies totally disproving the man made global warming conspiracy. So there.....it was all a front to get money from the working people under false pretense of impending doom, in otherwords  , the biggest worldwide scam in human history. Gore should be stripped of all monies and sent to live next to madoff forever.

    6. the outsource in 90% of American jobs was a direct response to taxation, over regulation lawsuits etc all brought upon manufacturers by those from the democrat party, I cannot believe you even mentioned this idea, childishly laughable, much like obama's crayon written budget. He has failed in every manner except for fooling people into believing in him, as a black, not his policies, most do not know what those are, for like his budget, they are nowhere to be found in print.

    You Sir, are a child in the world of adults who have finally given up any hope of you redemption. Yop and your kind will soon be found wishing you have never participated in these egregious attacks upon the real working Americans in this country. Good Bye


    by Anonymous (not verified) on Fri, 08/12/2011 - 6:36pm

    Why are people so obsessed with Al Gore? I work with some people who can't go a full day without their needing to rant about Mr. Gore. I really don't quite understand what you see in him. He kind of annoys me. NASA retired the shuttle fleet. Many people have lost their jobs but nowhere near hundreds of thousands. There weren't hundreds of thousands working for NASA to be let go to begin with. I would reread the official report from NASA. You sound like you may have gotten a biased analysis of the report. It is best to read the actual report. What is a "real working American"? I work a 50+ hour job, plus working most of my extra time to start a small business. Do I qualify? If not, what about if I take up ranting about Al on a daily basis? Would I qualify then?

    by emerson the fourth (not verified) on Fri, 08/12/2011 - 9:24pm

    Great stuff.  And a refreshing change from elections, polls and personality.


    by Dan Kervick on Fri, 08/12/2011 - 8:51pm

    Excellent piece, David, as usual. I haven't yet followed your link to read the expanded arguments, but instead thought I'd first offer a little "Wisconsin perspective" here.

    Real estate developer Terrence Wall offers a pretty scary glimpse into the "other side" of key elements of this economic argument you lay out so plainly and logically. Wall was a candidate for U. S. Senate in Wisconsin this last go-around. Perhaps amazingly (relative to this exploration of his business "attitude") he was perceived to be the mainstream GOP candidate in the race. Tea Party candidate Ron Johnson ultimately won the primary and took the Senate seat from Russ Feingold.

    "Wisconsin is Open for Business" Wall crows, citing Governor Walker's campaign slogan. And in the article at the link he lays out just how depraved a concept this is.

    "When the government interfered in the marketplace, causing the recession, I stopped new development and cut our head count in half."

    Never mind the "government caused the recession" nonsense. Wall insists that it's taxes and the other costs of doing business that prevent him from hiring:

    Now that the equation in this state has changed... job creators like me have regained enough confidence to dip our development toe back into the shark-infested waters.

    Wall, a decidedly Free Market Libertarian, ignores the irony that implies it is ultimately the state that controls his business decisions instead of the market. He would have us believe that he will not build anything if he has to "share" profits with the taxman - regardless of how steep the profits to be realized. Likewise, he would build things even if there were no one to purchase them, if only government would get the hell out of the way and let him proceed full steam ahead.

    He ignores the plain fact that - for better or worse - ours is a consumer economy. But Wall knows this to be true. He and his fellow business compatriots ain't so stupid as to buy the drivel they sell as tea party talking points. Quite simply, they wouldn't be in business for very long if they didn't constantly calculate the consumer appetitie for whatever product or service they offer.

    So what gives here? Not surprisingly, what Wall offers here is nothing more than a "your money or your life" hostage taking that isn't particularly well presented.

    "It's a privileged class, these businesses," Wall would tell us. They are entitled to wealthfare programs and subsidies and unlimited authority to do as they please. In exchange, they create jobs. Be nice to them, and they will shower us with jobs and everyone's happy. Do anything to piss them off, however, and strap yourself in for a recession. It's just that simple.

    It's ludicrous, to be sure, but somehow it resonates with tea party types who are fearful about the future subsequent to the frequent recent failures of thirty years of supply-side economics. In the absence of any Keynesian alternative being actively promoted and defended, they turn to more-of-the-same as the only game in town. And Wall (and the Koch Bros., and Club for Growth, etc.) is right there to lay it out for them.

    The consequences of supporting such an entitled business class are about to be keenly realized here in Wisconsin, and an unfettered Republican control of our state government offers little opportunity to stand in the way.

    Wisconsin is now about to embark on a revisit of the "mining wars" that have occurred in our northern territory over the last number of decades. The recent messaging and maneuvering by the Walker Administration and its media allies indicate that effort is afoot to set aside environmental and virtually all other social and even sustainable economic concerns under the guise of "job creation" and "economic development." It's the same tired arguments that have been made before but that have been rebuffed as people understand that it offers a beggar's choice. Whatever temporary jobs are to be gained are more than offset by permanent degradations in the environment AND the local economy.

    But it is "jobs" that these "job creators" will hold hostage with demands that we give away our natural resources in exchange. And we are at a record level of unemployment with no real prospects for improvement, even as the state eliminates thousands more family-supporting jobs in the interest of providing increased "incentives" for the corporations.

    We are "Open for Business," after all. And in Wall's World and the world of the FitzWalkers, we are told that business reigns supreme.

    "Wisconsin is Open for Business!" the FitzWalkers tell us. And the business execs like Wall and the Koch Bros and others will follow that up with their demand: "Prove it once and for all! Bend over, grab your ankles, and tell me that you love me."

    This is going to hurt.


    by SleepinJeezus on Sat, 08/13/2011 - 11:07am

    Oh, and as for Virginia Fox? My thought is that they keep her around only to help Michelle Bachmann and Louis Gohmert look plausibly sane. LOL!


    by SleepinJeezus on Sat, 08/13/2011 - 4:04pm