The political class thinks of itself as the ruling class
Recently, as I sat in a booth at my favorite luncheonette — Mr. G’s at 12th and Callowhill — waiting for my lunch to arrive, I did something I actually don’t do very often: I read the City Paper.
The big piece seemed to be one written by someone named Jeffrey C. Billman suggesting that we get serious about the national debt. One of the sub-heads caught my eye: “Spending cuts are not the answer.”
To be fair, the article itself does say that “spending cuts may be part of the equation.” That still didn’t strike me as being especially serious. After all, one sure way to cut down on debt is to stop spending so much. It’s not just part of the equation; it’s the essential part.
But the sentence that really arrested my attention was this: “The 2001 tax cuts cost $1.35 trillion over 10 years; that dwarfs Obama’s $787 billion stimulus.” The tax cuts cost? Cost whom? Certainly not the people who didn’t have to pay them. What Billman means, of course, is that the cuts cost the government revenue.
His source for this is something called CBPR. I wondered what that was, so I Googled it, and found that it is something called Community-Based Participatory Research.
Maybe Billman should have used something a little more official, such as the Congressional Budget Office. Had he done so, he would have found that in January the estimate for the stimulus package had been upped $75 billion to $862 billion.
As for the cost of those tax cuts, CBO figures indicate that while a $325 billion surplus for fiscal year 2006 had been projected in 2000, the actual figures for 2006 registered a $247 billion deficit. Add those figures together and you get a whopping $572 million net drop.
Only it had little to do with tax cuts. Historical averages of federal tax revenues range between 17. 9 percent and 18.3 percent of GDP. Federal tax revenues in 2006 were 18.4 percent of GDP. The reason for the deficit was that government spent $237 billion more than had been projected. The CBO had, by the way, projected that the tax cuts would result in a $188 billion drop in revenue; the actual drop was $58 billion.
I have no interest in engaging in a statistical pissing contest over this, however. You can find the whole story by reading this CBO report: The Budget and Economic Outlook: Fiscal Years 2001-2010.
What interests me is the thinking that underlies that phrase “tax cuts cost.” The presumption seems to be that the primary function of citizens is to underwrite the government. Actually, that is not the function of citizens. That is the function of subjects.
Another presumption underlying the thought that tax cuts “cost” is that government ought to be doing all sorts of things for which it is manifestly unsuited. If you think education in this country has improved since the establishment of a federal Department of Education, then you need to read Diane Ravitch’s The Death and Life of the Great American School System. Ravitch is a former Assistant Secretary of Education.
You can visit the Gulf to see what a great job the Department of Energy has been doing.
On the whole, the government neither makes anything nor sells anything. It is largely unproductive. And when it tries to be otherwise, the results are not pretty. In April, for instance, the Government Accountability Office issued a report declaring that the United States Postal Service was no longer economically viable. And those of us who live in Pennsylvania already know what a fine job our state does when it comes to selling wine and spirits.
State stores start by tacking on a uniform 30 percent markup on the price of every bottle. Next, they add a $1.40 handling charge. Then, there’s the 18 percent Johnstown Flood Tax. The flood referred to isn’t the legendary 1889 one. The PLCB didn’t exist then. No, this was the 1936 Johnstown flood. No matter that the town has since recovered. None of the tax collected goes to Johnstown anyway. It goes to the state’s general fund. Oh, and originally it was 10 percent. There’s also something called “the round-up.” But I’ll let this video explain that. On top of all of which there is the 6 percent state sales tax. Together, these practically double the price of a $10 bottle of wine. If any private seller tried this sort of thing they’d be prosecuted.
In a strange way, though, Mr. Billman is right. Spending and taxes aren’t really the problem. They’re just symptoms. The problem is that we now have a political class that has come to think of itself as a ruling class. According to Rasmussen Reports, 58 percent of those polled favor repeal of the recently enacted healthcare legislation. That’s four points higher than the number who opposed the legislation before it was passed. Polls also indicate that Americans overwhelmingly approve of Arizona’s immigration law. Yet the political class — including the President, Justice Department and, so far, one federal judge — beg to differ.
This column usually focuses on a famous quotation. Today I end with one. What Talleyrand said of the thick-headed Bourbons applies perfectly to today’s political class: “They have learned nothing, and they have forgotten nothing.” It’s time the citizenry got around to teaching them a thing or two.
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Thank you, Frank, for giving me some important insight. Based on your analysis, I am now tempted to become a government unto myself. Then, if my credit card debt becomes excessive, I will simply acquire more credit cards. If I cannot pay my mortgage, I will default and make my neighbors pay it. When my income remains insufficient to pay for my family’s basic needs, I will hold a gun to my employer’s head (always referring to my gun as a powerful force with whom there can be no argument), and I will demand (and get) more income. Then, if my family complains selfishly about our reduced standard of living because of the debts, I will remind them that I am in charge, I know what is best (i.e., father knows best), and I am someone with whom they are forever bound because they are dependent upon me for everything. Yes, I will become a government! (Note: I will not need a written document as authority for anything that I do because I will–in my hubris–make it up as I go along because, as I will remind my family, I am the government, and that assertion of status is the only authority that I need!)
“Polls also indicate that Americans overwhelmingly approve of Arizona’s immigration law. Yet the political class — including the President, Justice Department and, so far, one federal judge — beg to differ.”
You gah dam right. This has been going on long enough. First they say states can’t nullify the national government’s laws. Then they refuse to effectively enforce the law to return a runaway darkie to its rightful owner. THEN they say you can’t even OWN a darkie, despite the overwhelming approval of slavery by the Southron states and by even a minority in the misbegotten states. THEN they say you can’t opt out of this tyranny called the United States. And THEN the political class – including the President, the War Department, the Army and the Navy – begged to differ and used the full might of the national government to go to war against its own individual states!
This is the sort of thing to which a stop must be put. It’s time the citizenry got around to teaching them a thing or two. Thank God we have Sens. Mitch McConnell, John Kyl and Lindsey Graham – a coincidence that they are all Republicans? I think not – who want to repeal the 14th Amendment, that damnable piece of legislation that overthrew the Dred Scott decision and said that even non-whites could be citizens. With such true patriots on the watch all decent citizens – you know who you are – can rest more comfortably behind the gates of their communities.
As I understand it, Parsifal, the proposal is to revise, not repeal the 14th Amendment. Moreover, the Arizona law is virtually identical with the federal law the national government declines to enforce. I gather that you are in favor of a ruling class in America — at least if it shares your views, and therefore, in your view, knows better than the rest of us. Well, I continue to think that sovereignty belongs to the people — but that’s the part of the Constitution I gather you would want revised.
Heh heh. Gotcha!
” . . . but that’s the part of the Constitution I gather you would want revised.”
As usual, you gather incorrectly. I don’t want the Constitution revised. It’s working just fine, now that the Bushies and suchlike are done trashing it. trash it.
” . . . the proposal is to revise, not repeal the 14th Amendment.” Yeah, you right-wingers and other reactionaries will revise it until you get it back to 1858 and it allows only the kind of people you, with the help of the fine legal mind of Roger Taney, deem worthy of citizenship.
Apparently, Parsifal, you have never learned that same-calling weakens, rather than strengthens, an argument. But the right-winger appellation, let alone the implied charge of racism, simply won’t do. I am registered libertarian and have been for 20 years. Economically, I am distributist.There is, of course, a procedure outlined in the Constitution for amending it. Merely to propose a change to the Constitution hardly suggests that one is aiming to gut the document, since the document itself provides for such proposals. I happen to think the chances of such a change as you have referred to being enacted are very slight. I think the chances are much better that, eventually, Arizona will win its case in federal court. But we shall see. If it does, I am sure you will be in high dudgeon over that. But then you are always in high dudgeon, it would seem. As Pat Condell would say, Peace.
It is hardly name-calling to call a thing what it is. Right-winger, reactionary, conservative, Republican, libertarian — they’re all the same kettle of fish, wanting to take us out of democracy and back to a time when the political class ruled, be it plutocracy, monarchy, theocracy, or just plain old conservative dictatorship.
The call to “revise” — heh heh — the 14th Amendment is not necessarily a call to gut the Constitution, any more than a call to revise the 2nd Amendment — now THERE’s a thought definitely worth pursuing — would be. But it is code, in this instance, for “let’s put THOSE people in their place.” Too many of them turn out to prefer the Democratic Party. I too think that there is, thank goodness, little chance of it happening, but we should not lose sight of what the impulse behind it is, and it is NOT to improve our immigration policy. As Dave Garroway would say, Peace.
“It is hardly name-calling to call a thing what it is. Right-winger, reactionary, conservative, Republican, libertarian — they’re all the same kettle of fish, wanting to take us out of democracy and back to a time when the political class ruled, be it plutocracy, monarchy, theocracy, or just plain old conservative dictatorship.”
To which I respond: Fuck you.
“To which I respond: Fuck you.”
Ooh, now THAT’S writing! Can’t top that. Oh, wait:
“Apparently . . . you have never learned that [foul language] weakens, rather than strengthens, an argument.”
I said name-calling, not foul language. My only regret is that we are not physically proximate.
P.S. Also, I wasn’t advancing an argument. I was telling you how I felt about you and your comments. Is that clear enough, sweetie?
“Also, I wasn’t advancing an argument. . . . ” I’ve got news for you:, pal You weren’t advancing an argument when you wrote the co-called column.
Temper, temper. You’ll take a stroke. Calm down, drop your head between your legs, breathe deeply, and count to 10. I’d tell you while you’re there to stick your head up your ass, but it’s already there.
My only regret — SWEETIE — is that you’re in the same country as I am.
Too bad it’s not the same city. Or is it?
Parsifal, you’re a c*nt and a dickwad. And a poopy pants.
To quote Herr Wilson: “Fuck you.”
Don’t blame me. I didn’t start it, and you guys are the ones with the potty mouths. I actually have a vocabulary I can — and, as you see, do — use.
Actually, Parsifal — so bravely hiding, like a second-rate editorialist, behind your knightly pseudonym — you began it, not with profanity, but by playing the race card in your comments. First, this column was not about the immigration debate. It was about the relation between citizens and government. Second, for all your blather about the law of the land, you seem unconcerned as to whether the immigration statutes are enforced or not. The President if the chief law enforcement officer in the nation. As I said earlier, the Arizona state and the federal statutes are fundamentally identical. Both have overwhelming popular support. Why exactly should that support be ignored or denigrated, by you or by anyone else? And please, should you choose to address this question, try to stay on topic and leave the red herrings out. As for the coarse language, had you suggested I was a right-wing reactionary racist in a bar, I wouldn’t have said anything.
“you seem unconcerned as to whether the immigration statutes are enforced or not.”
Seem, seem, seem. There you go again with your elitist right-wing assumptions about the ideas and beliefs of those you wish to control.
I said nothing directly about illegal immigration. But as to that, what needs to be enforced is the prohibition against employers hiring undocumented aliens. You enforce that and you cut illegal immigration way back right quick. But the fatcat corporate pals of Republicans won’t allow that.
What I commented on was the right-wing impulse to gut — er, “revise” — the 14th Amendment. It is not using the race card to point out blatant racism, any more than it is name calling to call a thing by its name.
“had you suggested I was a right-wing reactionary racist in a bar, I wouldn’t have SAID [sorry, no italics available here] anything.” Ooh, I’m frightened. Would you punch me in the nose? Tough talk from an old fart. Anyway, any bar you frequented decent people wouldn’t be seen in. So I would be spared that. Not that I frequent bars overmuch, other than the VFW occasionally.
“so bravely hiding, like a second-rate editorialist, behind your knightly pseudonym”
If When Falls the Coliseum doesn’t want anonymous comments and commenters, then let it change its policy. If it weren’t for pseudonymous comments, you’d be hard pressed for any comments at all.
Frank Wilson has the courage to post his real name and his photograph along with his opinions.
If you had his courage, you would respond under your own name as well.
I assure you that no comments at all would be preferable to any of your pseudonymous comments. But let’s look a little closer at this:
“It is not using the race card to point out blatant racism, any more than it is name calling to call a thing by its name.” Blatant only to you, debatable to others until proved. And the right-wing reactionary racist implication was directed at me. And I’m supposed to take that as reasoned discourse? Well, I’ve already told you my response to that.
I certainly agree that laws against employers hiring undocumented aliens should be enforced. And I don;t think it is only Republicans breaking those laws. And it’s Democrats who think they benefit at the polls by not enforcing them. But: enforcing one part of the law doesn’t relieve the government of enforcing other parts.
Since you point out that you disn’t say anything directly about illegal immigration, perhaps you should ask what you did bring up had to do with the topic of this column.
Lucky for the bars that you don’t frequent them overmuch. Wonder how your left-wing drivel goes over in the VFW. And somehow I suspect you’re as much of an old fart as I am, though some old farts have had some fighting experience. I suggest we become strangers again.
When joining the Marines you raise your right hand and swear to “Defend America against all enemies foreign and domesic” and “obey the orders of the president of the United States” Should the “president” become a domestic enemy….. I would fall upon the first half of that oath that I just typed….. Corrupt congressmen and other elected officials would end up at the end of my sights as a “fuzzy target” should they prove themselves an enemy to the United States…. I guess I am not the only former serviceman that feels that way because Obama’s administration called us domestic terrorists….. his people said it in a memo…. now does that sound like a ruling class that respects the sacrifices of its citizens? (disclaimer, I am not condoning/wanting to kill anyone even this administration but alot of people do not like what is going on.)
Bravo, Frank! You can’t make honest observations nowadays about the condition of the country without the Statists taking alarm and accusing you of Racism. Pathetic!