AYN RAND VS. J.C.
The
presidential election campaign in France the past couple of weeks has been a welcome divertissement from our own interminable
campaign, and it’ll be interesting to see how the results of that election and
the one in Greece will play out in the U.S. presidential sweepstakes. The political pundits and economists have already begun to weigh in. Nobel Prize winner economist Paul Krugman, who writes a column for the New York Times, sees it as a validation of his position that austerity alone is not the answer to getting the economy going. He is a Keynesian who believes that during these severe economic downturns, the public sector needs to “prime the pump” to help the private sector recover. The Wall Street Journal, strong proponents of laissez faire economics, wants to keep the central government out of it and let the private sector economy work things out. Like most of us, I gravitate towards those whose political philosophy I agree with, so I tend to agree with Krugman’s analysis.
Still, there are people on the other side – or in the shrinking middle -- who make interesting arguments for their case. For example, a couple of days ago I listened to Republican Governor Chris Christie’s blunt, thoughtful speech to the Cato Institute. And in today’s New York Times, columnist David Brooks makes an interesting case for austerity while addressing structural reform of the economy, as does Raghuram Rajan, Professor of Finance at the University of Chicago, in the latest issue of Foreign Affairs.
What doesn’t make sense to me is when
Rep. Paul Ryan, chairman of the House Budget Committee, whose blueprint for
economic recovery and a path forward for the GOP, claims his budget proposal
was shaped by his Catholic education and upbringing. I
make no pretense of being an economist, but I do know something about
Christianity and Catholicism, having read the New Testament many times and
heard it proclaimed from the pulpit more times than I can count.
So, I don’t know what translation of
the New Testament Rep. Ryan was raised on, but it surely doesn’t agree with the
one I was taught. And I have a lot of
company of both political persuasions. Jesuits
and other professors at Georgetown jumped all over Ryan’s claim, with more than
90 signing a letter to him, saying: “In short, your budget appears to reflect
the values of your favorite philosopher, Ayn Rand, rather than the Gospel of
Jesus Christ. Her call to selfishness and her antagonism toward religion are
antithetical to the Gospel values of compassion and love.”
That elicited an harrumph from Ryan and
House Speaker John Boehner, another Catholic, who essentially said that liberal
Catholics think they’re the only ones who understand Catholic social
teaching. They didn’t get by with that
either because even the U.S Catholic Bishops Conference had to put aside its
preferential option for the GOP and call them out on that one.
To be fair, Ryan says that if we don’t
get spending under control, the poor and the disadvantaged in our society will
suffer the most in “the long run.” True,
but, as Harry Hopkins, FDR aide during the Great Depression, once famously
observed: “People don’t eat in the long
run; they eat in the short term.” Moreover – and here is where the fig leaf slips badly -- while Ryan’s plan would have a devastating impact on programs for the poor, he wants to cut taxes for the wealthiest of Americans, which he and other GOP leaders refer to as the so-called job creators. That just doesn’t pass the smell test because it’s widely agreed that small businesses are the principal job creators in this country and President Obama has already cut their taxes seven times.
Meantime, the segment of Americans who
need the most help would bear the brunt of the GOP proposal. So, it appears to me that the GOP budget may
have been influenced by FOUNTAINHEAD or ATLAS SHRUGGED, but it’s hard for me to
see any major influences from Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John.
Gerald E.
Lavey
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