Election 2010: The “I hate it here1” edition
You know I tried to be okay with this. I tried to be fine with the election, I tried to tell myself hey republicans only took control of the house, there was no mandate. I wrote a whole different essay trying to be satisfied with what happened. I tried to show that there was no national narrative, that from any angle you look at it there is some gray. The thing is I can’t do that. I can’t do that as long as the minority leader in the senate and the presumptive speaker of the house both immediately come on the air and say that there is no room for compromise, and that the first order of business is to extend the Bush tax cuts and balance the budget. Let me repeat that the first matter of business is to donate 700 Billion dollars to the wealthiest people in the country and then somehow reconcile a three trillion dollar revenue short fall. The Republicans ran on a lie, several in fact. They ran on a platform of fiscal responsibility, while stripping any means of becoming solvent. They ran on a platform of less government intrusion, but stood for government coming between you and your doctor in terms of pregnancy, and you and your god in terms of marriage.
Why in this country is it so easy for us to look at the poor as leeches on our system? Why is it so easy to accept that the poor are poor because the somehow want to be poor. Whenever a discussion about the poor comes up it centers on the ones who abuse the system’s safety net. The people who get luxury cars and flat screen TVs while on the dole. It is always a discussion about the welfare queens. The women who: “keep popping out babies to get larger checks.” Honestly has anyone ever met a woman like this? What kind of opinion on women do you have to have to believe that a woman would on multiple occasions subject themselves to 7 to 9 months of mood swings, nausea, back pain, and radical changes to her body; then go through hours, sometimes days of excruciating labor, during which they will take a crap in front of a room full of people, and are likely to tear one of the most sensitive parts of their body, or if not have another part of their body cut open both of which lead to months of recovery; Only to have to take care of a living being whose only forms of communication are screaming, vomiting, and defecating themselves all alone while the other children they created are running around breaking their flat screen TVs and stealing your luxury cars because the mother is too busy recovering or dealing with aforementioned screamer. All of this, mind you for a check for a couple extra hundred dollars a month. Frankly I think the women in America are worth a heck of a lot more than that. I’m not saying the abusers don’t exist, I’ve just never seen any evidence to support the notion that they make up more than 10% of the population who are a part of this system. I therefore believe it is wrong to denigrating those who are trying to survive with these programs by failing to distinguish abusers from people who need support.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the economic spectrum, people fall over backwards to ensure that the wealthy in this country have every loop hole in the world to avoid paying their share. Explain to me the logic that dictates that there are these vast swaths of poor people getting less than 20,000 dollars a year who are able to run circles around the federal government, yet it is believed that people earning millions of dollars pay every red cent they are supposed to. I honestly want to know how the rich can be that dumb? Obviously this isn’t the case, but it doesn’t matter because they worked so hard for it right? It’s their money right? Well no it isn’t most of the rich get there through as much help as the “welfare queen.” Those top bankers, those captains of industry make most of their money from federally backed loans. Those military conglomerates get by with government contracts. The list goes on and on. I’m not saying these things should not be done, in fact I strongly believe in the government supporting industries deemed vital to the survival of the nation (*cough* renewable energies).
The grand lie in this election is that our economic woes are a result of a failure of government. The hole that we are in is a result of the debt and the deficit. This couldn’t be further from the truth. The hole we are in is a result of business failing. It was a result of the collapses in the banking industry, the housing industry, the automotive industry, and total speculation in the energy industries. The truth is if the debt and the deficit were zero, all of these industries would have still been in trouble. The debt does matter, and it could matter tremendously in our future, but only so much as it shapes the belief of the global market in our ability to continue to produce and consume. Our nation is still the largest in both regards as a result the impact of our debt will be muted until the other nations of the world are truly able to supplant our capacity. Look at this graph of our GDP in comparison to the top nations of the world:
As you can see it would take the combined strength of the three largest producers to equal our capacity, much less render our influence on the global economy impotent. Notice that it really only goes up. Remember that recession that ended in june of 2009 without any of us noticing:
The reason we didn’t notice is because we didn’t really know what a recession means. The graph above shows what it means. Recessions are periods where the GDP stops increasing. Meaning we are in a recession when our ability to produce more than we used to stops.
A lot of the conservatives like to feign populism by making statements like “American people don’t understand why if we as individuals have to balance our budget why the government shouldn’t have to balance their budget.” It is a statement that feels like it should resonate with the average American, because that’s what the average American does. Isn’t it? Well let’s check back in on that average American, many of them have student loans, or mortgages, or medical bills with payment plans. The average American does not balance their budget all of the time. The average American at regular moments in their lives needs to spend more then they have or earn. They do this because they know their capacity for wealth in the future is generally greater then their wealth for the moment. The same is true for the average business. The average small business operates on a web of small loans because their earning potential is larger than their momentary worth. To demand that the budget be balanced is to claim that America has exceeded its capacity for growth, if this were true than the 14% unemployment is only the beginning of our troubles and we have larger structural problems in our nation as a whole. I doubt you can find any economist, businessmen, politician, or any critical thinker who believes this is a clear and present danger.
The most insidious part of the grand lie is that is has the bonus effect of decreasing the faith in the American government. There is a corollary between participation in democracy and faith in the government. The constant drumbeat that the government is swollen with waste and corruption suppresses participation. You’ve heard it before all politicians lie, and are all corrupt. It is an idea that the people in our government should a) be saintly, and b) are more dishonest then the rest of us. Politics is the only profession that a failed marriage could be grounds for you to lose your job. Do you think the CEO of Morgan Stanley would be expected to resign if allegations of infidelity emerged? Absolutely there is waste and corruption in government, there are better ways to do the things we do. Honestly though is it any worse than the waste in the private sector? Remember the outrage Americans felt when the top banking execs flew down to Washington in their corporate jets to beg for a bailout. They’re still flying around in those jets. I wouldn’t go so far as to say that the republican politicians are actively trying to suppress participation (baring the times when they are telling Latinos not to vote, and trying to scare minorities about criminal background checks at polling places), I would say that it is hard to believe that the people with money and influence fail to notice that decreased participation leads to less scrutiny which makes it easier for them to bend policy in their favor.
Make no doubt we are hurting as a nation, but the notion that balancing the federal budget will in anyway solve our problems is cringe worthy. To crib from the play other peoples money: You know, at one time there must've been dozens of companies making buggy whips. And I'll bet the last company around was the one that made the best goddamn buggy whip you ever saw. Balancing the budget of the buggy whip company would not bring jobs back to that company, nor would it allow for growth. If we want to get out of the mess we are in, we need to make sure the government is promoting the industries of tomorrow, and that means government investing and spending in and on ourselves.
1 For those unfamiliar with the reference I urge you all to go to your local comic book store and pick up the trade paperbacks for Transmetropolitan. It is a timeless piece of literature that really gets at the heart of politicians, the media, and authority.
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