Freddie at the Bat
According to the WSJ, Freddie Thompson is soon going to go public with a plan to lower the corporate income tax rate (the second highest in the world he shudders) and dramatically lower the payouts of Medicare and Social security. I suppose this is the modern version of traditional conservatism: those with high earning potential get a tax break and those with little earning potential get a benefit cut. It make sense in a sort of Lord of the Flies way.
The corporate income tax thing will probably get him some attention as we have been carefully taught that taxes should never be high. I wonder if he will mention that up to 60% of large corporations do not pay taxes at all and that, with a few exceptions, corporate taxes as a percentage of government revenue have been falling since 2000. Probably not. The Republican Party is beholden to its supply siders and that theory remains the gold standard among the party's elite even though it has about as much basis in fact as creationism. (Then again, at least three of the Republican candidates for President believe in that as well.)
We have had our own little budget battle here in Michigan and as one might expect the anti tax crowd was out in force, threatening to recall anyone who supported a .4% raise in the state income tax and a tax on some discretionary services such as manicures and tanning sessions. The anti tax debate whether local or national shines some light on how far this country has moved from a communitarian ethos to one of selfish individualism. Ever since Ayn Rand first suggested that selfishness was somehow a virtue, we have had a bevy of politicians offer various excuses as to why every American should pitch less into the common pot, whether it was the Laughter Curve (intentional mispelling) in the Reagan years or Goldwater's paranoid libretarianism.
The impulse to selfishness is easily understood, however it should be avoided... even if for very selfish reasons. If you take a look around, the world is getting smaller not larger. More and more our ability to compete and our quality of life is dependent upon the quality of the infrastructure around us. Whether it is parks, bridges, state universities, healthcare airports, or secure ports we are now more reliant upon goods and services that individuals cannot provide and cannot be provided efficiently or fairly by the private sector.
Relatedly, it seems like the economies that are on the move, the EU, Latin America and the Pacific Rim are in countries with a high degree of public investment. More and more it appears that the economic moment is had by those countries that take advantages of economies of scale and invest in themselves.
Even more obvious, the problems we are dealing with, global warming, trade imbalances, drought, energy independence, lackluster public education are not going to be solved by the private sector or even state governments. They are going to be solved by -- pause, take a deep breath -- governmental action on a massive scale. Whether it is in setting incentives, funding research, or just plain building things, we are going to need a government that both knows how to do things and has the resources to do them. The idea of a government "small enough to drown in a bath tub" is no longer realistic or desirable. (Except of course to those few Americans at the top of the earnings curve whose income was bolstered by the latest round of tax cutting.)
I suppose there is very little we can do to combat the mantra that has been drummed into us by our political elite: "Greed is good." I remember when the slick Gordon Gekko uttered those words. I kind of assumed everyone realized Oliver Stone was being ironic. We may exist as individuals, but we only thrive in connection with our communities, or put another way (by the DKM), "together we can be what we can't be alone."
The corporate income tax thing will probably get him some attention as we have been carefully taught that taxes should never be high. I wonder if he will mention that up to 60% of large corporations do not pay taxes at all and that, with a few exceptions, corporate taxes as a percentage of government revenue have been falling since 2000. Probably not. The Republican Party is beholden to its supply siders and that theory remains the gold standard among the party's elite even though it has about as much basis in fact as creationism. (Then again, at least three of the Republican candidates for President believe in that as well.)
We have had our own little budget battle here in Michigan and as one might expect the anti tax crowd was out in force, threatening to recall anyone who supported a .4% raise in the state income tax and a tax on some discretionary services such as manicures and tanning sessions. The anti tax debate whether local or national shines some light on how far this country has moved from a communitarian ethos to one of selfish individualism. Ever since Ayn Rand first suggested that selfishness was somehow a virtue, we have had a bevy of politicians offer various excuses as to why every American should pitch less into the common pot, whether it was the Laughter Curve (intentional mispelling) in the Reagan years or Goldwater's paranoid libretarianism.
The impulse to selfishness is easily understood, however it should be avoided... even if for very selfish reasons. If you take a look around, the world is getting smaller not larger. More and more our ability to compete and our quality of life is dependent upon the quality of the infrastructure around us. Whether it is parks, bridges, state universities, healthcare airports, or secure ports we are now more reliant upon goods and services that individuals cannot provide and cannot be provided efficiently or fairly by the private sector.
Relatedly, it seems like the economies that are on the move, the EU, Latin America and the Pacific Rim are in countries with a high degree of public investment. More and more it appears that the economic moment is had by those countries that take advantages of economies of scale and invest in themselves.
Even more obvious, the problems we are dealing with, global warming, trade imbalances, drought, energy independence, lackluster public education are not going to be solved by the private sector or even state governments. They are going to be solved by -- pause, take a deep breath -- governmental action on a massive scale. Whether it is in setting incentives, funding research, or just plain building things, we are going to need a government that both knows how to do things and has the resources to do them. The idea of a government "small enough to drown in a bath tub" is no longer realistic or desirable. (Except of course to those few Americans at the top of the earnings curve whose income was bolstered by the latest round of tax cutting.)
I suppose there is very little we can do to combat the mantra that has been drummed into us by our political elite: "Greed is good." I remember when the slick Gordon Gekko uttered those words. I kind of assumed everyone realized Oliver Stone was being ironic. We may exist as individuals, but we only thrive in connection with our communities, or put another way (by the DKM), "together we can be what we can't be alone."
posted by Jack Reed at 3:23 PM
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