We’re not broke. Yes, nearly all levels of government face fiscal problems because of the economic downturn. But there is no crisis. There are many different paths open to fixing public budgets. And we will come up with wiser and more sustainable solutions if we approach fiscal problems calmly, realizing that we’re still a very rich country and that the wealthiest among us are doing exceptionally well.
Those words appear in this morning's Washington Post, in an op ed by E. J. Dionne titled What if we're not broke? As Dionne puts it succinctly,
A phony metaphor is being used to hijack the nation’s political conversation and skew public policies to benefit better-off Americans and hurt most others.
This is a must-read column. And before I explore it more, I want to offer a few remarks about Dionne.
In year's past, one of the most consistent liberal voices among the political commentators was that of Tom Fiedler of the Boston Globe. There are other voices I admire among current pundits, certainly those of Derrick Jackson of the Boston Globe, Bob Herbert of The New York Time, and Eugene Robinson of The Washington Post. The latter two have rightly won Pulitzers for their work, and I feel that Jackson, who has been nominated, is equally deserving. Certainly Paul Krugman, who offers this fine column this morning, is another terrific liberal voice.
But theirs are different kinds of voices than was that of Fiedler. In a sense Dionne comes closest, and I am glad to see his words appearing more frequently. That is why I am delighted to take the time to make this column more visible.
Dionne skewers two of the major "we're broke" voices, Speaker John Boehner and Gov. of Wisconsin Scott Walker. He quotes from a speech by the former, and writes of the approach to sell the cuts to the Congress and the American public "he only way to sell them is to cry catastrophe." I do not doubt that the use of the word "cry" was deliberate in writing of our perpetually weepy Speaker. Of Walker, he reminds us that the Governor began his tenure, before seeking to slash benefits for public workers and making severe cuts in state funding for public schools, by making tax cuts for corporations. Dionne then notes, as might be expected from a real liberal,
n both cases, the fiscal issues are just an excuse for ideologically driven policies to lower taxes on well-off people and business while reducing government programs. Yet only occasionally do journalists step back to ask: Are these guys telling the truth?
He then offers words from Politifact.com that concludes Walker's claims of necessity are false, and an excerpt from Bloomberg News that declares that Boehner is wrong.
The words from Politifact.com are quite appropriate. Let me quote the paragraph in which they appear, as well as Dionne's very brief response:
“Experts agree the state faces financial challenges in the form of deficits,” PolitiFact wrote. “But they also agree the state isn’t broke. Employees and bills are being paid. Services are continuing to be performed. Revenue continues to roll in. A variety of tools — taxes, layoffs, spending cuts, debt shifting — is available to make ends meet. Walker has promised not to increase taxes. That takes one tool off the table.”
And that’s the whole point.
Of course, it is even worse than taking one tool off the table. Republicans, by continuing to cut taxes for those who do not need such cuts - Walker for corporations, Republicans in Congress for the wealthiest - are removing one leg from the table making fixing the economy nigh impossible.
Dionne has a number of brief paragraphs that cut to the heart of things. After quoting from Bloomberg at current low interest rates available to the Federal government, and that tax revenue is currently at a 60 year low in terms of its percentage of the economy, which together mean the government could borrow at historically low rates without jeopardizing the economy as a whole, he writes
Precisely. A phony metaphor is being used to hijack the nation’s political conversation and skew public policies to benefit better-off Americans and hurt most others.
Perhaps I am partial to Dionne because I see in writing like this something of the kind of approach I use in my own writing. He offers words of others to provide a context in which he offers his own observations.
In this piece he quotes from a speech Senator Al Franken gave in which he noted the economic reality of the shift of income - and thus wealth - to the already wealthy while when adjusted for inflation median household income actually declined. In each of this points Dionne reiterates the key point with one additional line of his own, as you will see when you read his complete piece, which I urge you to do.
Dionne ends with two brief - and blunt - sentences:
Give Boehner, Walker and their allies full credit for diverting our attention with an arresting metaphor. The rest of us are dupes if we fall for it.
Of course, regularly readers of this site do NOT fall for it. Yet somehow we have been unable to change the framing of the political discussion. Too many Democrats, including those making and supporting administrative policy, have bought into that framing.
Let me be as blunt as Dionne, as one of those of whom he says are experiencing "he pain of a deep recession" who he rightly notes "who didn’t profit from it or cause it in the first place."
The middle class is being destroyed. Public institutions, like the schools in which teachers like me work, are being weakened and starved of resources. Increasingly not only is income and wealth being shifted to the already wealthy and powerful, institutions that serve the rest of us are being privatized. We already see that Rep. Paul Ryan is preparing to take another run at Social Security. In today's Boston Globe former NH Senator John E. Sununu offers this op ed which argues for cuts in benefits in Social Security and Medicare, and attacks the late Sen. Ted Kennedy from preventing that from happening in 2003. In fact, one does not have to cut benefits, even for the wealthiest. One merely needs to tax the benefits, or even simpler, raise the income ceiling on which taxes are paid. Further, by combining the two programs into one screed Sununu distorts reality on several levels. Social Security is NOT in jeopardy financially any time soon since we have been collecting extra to keep it solvent, and the funding for it is outside of the regular budgetary process, since it is in a separate trust fund. That news organizations do NOT regularly make this point clear allows further distortion of the national conversation on our economy and government finances, which further enables the likes of Boehner, Walker, Ryan and others of their ilk.
Some have noted my repeated requests for support for a DFA scholarship to Netroots Nation this year. For the first time, it is impossible for me to pay my own way. In the past I would on occasion even be a sponsor at the fundraisers in DC. But my salary step is and will remain frozen, I have been furloughed 4 days, and I have lost my National Board Stipend. My costs continue to go up, and my pay is down $8,800 this school year. I am being asked to contribute either an additional 2% or 3% to my pension to earn the same benefits, even thought the primary cause of the pension problems in Maryland are that the state ignored the advice of its actuaries and did not make its own contributions when the market was doing well, and then we saw the market have its share of problems. Meanwhile state revenues from income and sales taxes have declined, and in many localities revenue from local property tax has plummeted, both because of bankruptcies and because of the mortgage crisis - significant numbers of foreclosed homes lead to declines in property values thereby limiting the revenue on which local governments depend.
It's simple. On a national basis, We are NOT broke!
For too many of us not among the wealthy or powerful, we run the real risk of going broke.
The policies that are being advocated by the Republicans punish those of us who did nothing to cause the situation, while those who did and those who benefited not only are not punished, not only are not being asked to pay even a portion of the costs they imposed on our economy and the rest of us, they are being rewarded with further tax breaks and if they get their way, immunity from prosecution and legal protection for their sham manipulations of mortgages and the economy.
We are NOT broke! To which I also add Those that have benefited have an obligation to pay up!
Dionne gets it. Franken gets it. Krugman gets it.
Now here's the question - why don't all the Democrats in Washington get it? It is not only the right thing to address, it actually is the politically beneficial thing to address.
And if they don't address it, they will not only lose what power they still have, they will have enabled the destruction of the Republic.
And now? I am going to get dressed and go to school.
What about you?