One must admire its stark honesty at least, if not its greedy grab for more of the national pie. This is a reference, of course, to the long-term budget plan put forth yesterday by House Budget Chairman Paul D. Ryan which the House is expected to pass in the next few days and endorse as the GOP’s budget blueprint for the future.
In case you missed it, the GOP proposal would cut $5.8 trillion in spending over the next decade. Most of those cuts would come from Medicare, Medicaid, and from repeal of the health care law. At the same time, it would slash individual and corporate income taxes, reducing the top rate to 25 percent from the current 35 percent.
To be fair, any honest discussion of long-term budget reform must include changes to the health care system, including Medicare and Medicaid. It also must include changes in Social Security and reduced military spending, two issues that Ryan either ignores, as in the case of Social Security, or soft pedaled, in the case of military spending.
But to bludgeon programs that primarily help the poor and disadvantaged in our society while cutting taxes that will benefit mostly the wealthiest among us is stunning in its naked lust for more of the national pie. This at a time when the distribution of wealth and benefits is already overwhelming skewed in favor of the rich and the income disparity gap grows wider.
In WINNER TAKE ALL POLITICS, authors Jacob S. Hacker and Paul Pierson, state that “from 1979 until the eve of the Great Recession [2005] the top one percent [of Americans] received 36 percent of all gains in household income – even after taking into account the value of employer-sponsored health insurance, federal taxes, and all government benefits.”
The top 0.1 percent had it even better, they say, gaining 20 percent of all after-tax income gains. “If the total income growth of these years were a pie,” they write, “the slice enjoyed by the roughly 300,000 people in the top tenth of 1 percent would be half again as large as the slice enjoyed by the roughly 180 million in the bottom 60 percent.” Meantime, the income growth of the people in between was modest, with their spending power remaining essentially stagnant.
This neatly sums up for me once again the reason I am still a liberal Democrat, with all its warts, its ugly racial past, its excesses, and its maddeningly self-destructive ways. At its core, the Democratic Party has maintained a steady preferential option for the poor, a phrase enshrined in Catholic social teaching since the dawn of the 20th century and the heart of liberal Democratic policies and administrations since the Roosevelt Administration.
Despite everything, that is one single factor that has kept me in the Democratic fold since I first voted in 1960. And, once again, as the 2012 election draws near, the choice for me could not be more clear — or more easy.
Gerald E. Lavey
Jerry,
ReplyDeleteWhile I agree with the analysis of how well the upper 1 percent do, I don't agree that we throw this whole proposal out. I see this as a starting point for discussion about a serious matter. It isn't about how to widen the gap between the haves and have not's but rather a proposal to do something drastic to curtail our runaway national debt. The question is how can we shrink this deficit before it destroys us economically. I'm not in favor or reducing the tax bracket for high earners but I am in favor of a rewrite of our tax code to a simpler system with fewer loopholes. I don't understand why I will pay more taxes than GE this year; let alone at a much higher rate with no deferred tax credits for future earnings. I am in favor of looking at the entire national budget; examining the sacred cows and entitlements to see where we can make adjustments. Regarding the next election, I'll vote for the individuals that demonstrate the leadership skills required to put this nation back on a clearly defined path. I'll also vote against every incumbent I can that has demonstrated that they are party puppets; failed to lead; and didn't seek common solutions both for the present and the future. We need leaders - folks that can think outside their party machines, seek compromise across the aisles and implement a government that our forefathers envisioned when they wrote our constitution.
Greed and power have superceded doing the right thing in our country.
ReplyDeleteAs I now reside in the south, I am amazed at those that attend church every Sunday, profess their faith daily, yet doing the right thing never seems to enter their thinking. As long as they aren't impacted, they are in total agreement.
Principle based life and leadership seems to have been replaced with starving egos and self-will.
Nancy Chapman
Jerry,
ReplyDeleteI find myself wondering what kind of country the Republicans envision for America. What would America look like to them? What do they think is going to happen if their tax cuts and cuts in spending come to fruition?
Is there really that depth of ignorance on the Republicans' part about the economic disparity among us? And the causes of that disparity?
In today's NY Times, Krugman says, "In short, this plan isn’t remotely serious; on the contrary, it’s ludicrous."
I wish I had the sense that we were being looked after.
Really enjoyed the blog, Jerry.
Kevin
Ah, the classic struggle between the haves and the have-nots.
ReplyDeleteI don't think the problem is with our country; it's with human nature. People who have power (money) take what they want from people who can't stop them.
Our country is one of a special few in human history that, ideally, value the liberty and the integrity of the individual citizen.
I mean, the fact that most of the people in this country think that every child should be fed, clothed, and educated at the expense of the state if the family is without the means; that really is something special.
In most cultures, the haves would hit us over the head or shoot us to take what they want. But we figured out that there are more of us than there are of them, and that WE have the power if we stick together and stand our ground.
What I think we are losing in this country is a sense of individual responsibility for the state. We expect to be looked after by the government, when the government needs to be looked after by us.
There just aren't enough people who understand how the government works, pay attention to the legislation being passed, or even know who their representatives are, let alone write or call them.
Ignorance and complacency. We sign contracts without reading them, take out mortgages without a calculator, and elect officials without checking up on them.
In this culture, the haves wait until we're not looking to take what they want.
It's not their fault; it's ours.