To Tea or Not To Tea
Posted: Tuesday, February 09, 2010
by Joel Hirschhorn
http://www.delusionaldemocracy.com
As a long term, proud political dissident and rebel I have had some admiration for the national tea party movement. I welcome all that shakes up and reforms our dysfunctional political system. But in the end I find far too much distasteful about what these people embrace to participate in or support it.
I have been especially disappointed with their lack of interest in reforming the American political system through a third political party. Sometimes tea party people say they are fed up with both major parties, but they keep supporting Republicans. As if this will put people in Congress who would actually act as independents and work courageously to enact true, deep reforms. Call my cynical, but I doubt whether people like Senator Scott Brown will resist pressures to be loyal Republicans no matter how extensively they avoid calling themselves Republicans in their campaigns. Sadly, the tea party movement is a blow to third parties, particularly the Libertarian Party that has struggled for many years. Could some very clever people be using this movement to strengthen the Republican Party rather than transform the political system? If so, then most of the tea party crowd have been conned and deceived.
Third, the pervasive support for smaller federal government and so many other openly expressed platitudes reveal inconsistencies and outright hypocrisy about what tea party zealots are willing to do to show their true beliefs. I want to see these people proudly professing their commitment to stop participating in social security and Medicare; stop using public schools for their children; stop taking unemployment payments or support for job training; stop using local police and fire departments and public libraries. I want to hear far more support for necessary government functions. Less government does not necessarily equate to better government.
With critical thinking tea party zealots must recognize that it was not excessive government action that caused the Great Recession, bur rather too little government action to stem the greedy actions among banks and other financial institutions. The core problem is not excessive government but corruption of government by private sector corporate and other special interests. Yet I hear very little from this crowd about the exact means they would use to eliminate pervasive corruption of the two-party plutocracy. Their glib talk about freedom and regard for the Constitution is not supported by more than empty rhetoric.
I would have much more respect for this movement if it embraced the nonpartisan effort by Friends of the Article V Convention at foavc.org to make Congress obey the Constitution and give us what the Founders believed would be a necessary option: An Article V Convention of state delegates that could propose constitutional amendments, true reforms that the corrupt Congress will never propose. Without this there are a whole lot of constitutional hypocrites.
Fourth, passionate support for Sarah Palin is appalling. There is no rational basis for such support based on her beliefs, actions and policy positions. She is a blatant numbskull and intellectual midget with damn good looks and speaking skills, but to make her a political leader is disgraceful.
In sum, it is heartening to see so many Americans with genuine anger, frustration and disgust about American politics and government. I share these feelings. Great motivation, but what it is producing seems little more than an avenue for racist views and desire to strengthen the Republican Party, which when it had considerable political power did far more to advance corporate interests and the wealthy than helping ordinary Americans.
We need a populist Second American Revolution. Populism yes; Republicans and Democrats NO! Recognize this or die still waiting for the change you have been waiting for and suffering with a delusional democracy. See the Article V convention option as the constitutionally provided populist path to true reforms. Demand that candidates openly support making Congress obey the Constitution and give us the first Article V convention. An Article V convention would be the way to have a meaningful tea party that honored our Founders.
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Top-level comments on this article: (7 total)I'm listening to the organizer of the Tea Party movement, Justin Philips speaking to Dianne Rheam right now. Honestly, the Tea Party is just another variation of the Conservative movement. The guy keeps saying how Republicans have gotten away from the Ronald Reagan principals, and he wants the Tea Party to move back to Reagan principals. So what's the message? This movement offers nothing to the general population, and seems to serve or appeal only to a more radical subset of Conservatives. Therefore, they marginalize themselves. It is a fiscal conservative protest movement, without broad base appeal.Reagan's legacy - how he purposely destroyed the poor and middle classes.
“The original concept of capitalism is that investors and entrepreneurs are allowed to pursue profits because that's good for everyone. Private ownership and free-market competition drive the creation of wealth, and raise the standard of living. So profit is a means to an end. But under Reagan, we lost sight of this original purpose, profit became the end in itself. This led to the concentration of wealth and slow decline in the standard of living for most people, a trend that continues to this day.
“Reagan deregulated many industries, in effect destroying competition and creating oligopolies. For example, his deregulation of airlines resulted in every single airline in the US going bankrupt except two. His deregulation of broadcasting resulted in the entire industry being dominated by a few enormously powerful players, like Disney and Clear Channel.
“Under Reagan, money became more powerful in politics than ever before. So powerful that today we don't really have elections, we have auctions. The candidate who spends more money wins about 98% of the time. This has made it easier for powerful corporations to 'buy' politicians.
“The concentration of wealth created a whole new class of millionaires, but for each new millionaire there were several hundred new homeless. The poor were demonized and Republican politicians and their mouthpieces in the media directed the public's anger at them for being a drag on the economy, while actually, all along, it was the rich who were really ripping us off. The city of Los Angeles installed a fingerprint system to guard against welfare fraud. The system cost $30 million, and it caught -one- welfare cheat. Meanwhile for the first time in US history corporate fraud and white collar crime cost us more than street crime, did more damage, and even arguably resulted in more deaths.
“Reagan's deregulation of the savings and loan industry ended in a debacle that cost Americans $500 billion. I wonder how many Americans realize that the current banking debacle based on subprime mortgages is the THIRD huge financial services disaster in as many decades caused by imprudent Republican deregulation.
“Reagan also began (or accelerated) the export of American manufacturing overseas. In fact the US govt. actually subsidizes corporations to move jobs overseas, making investors richer and working people poorerWhat do you do when you want to screw only the working people of your nation with the largest tax increase in history and hand those trillions of dollars to your wealthy campaign contributors, yet not have anybody realize you've done it? If you're Ronald Reagan, you call in Alan Greenspan.
Through the "golden years of the American middle class" - the 1940s through 1982 - the top income tax rate for the hyper-rich had been between 90 and 70 percent. Ronald Reagan wanted to cut that rate dramatically, to help out his political patrons. He did this with a massive tax cut in the summer of 1981. The only problem was that when Reagan took his meat axe to our tax code, he produced mind-boggling budget deficits.
Voodoo economics didn't work out as planned, and even after borrowing so much money that this year we'll pay over $100 billion just in interest on the money Reagan borrowed to make the economy look good in the 1980s, Reagan couldn't come up with the revenues he needed to run the government. Coincidentally, the actuaries at the Social Security Administration were beginning to get worried about the Baby Boomer generation, who would begin retiring in big numbers in fifty years or so. They were a "rabbit going through the python" bulge that would require a few trillion more dollars than Social Security could easily collect during the same 20 year or so period of their retirement. We needed, the actuaries said, to tax more heavily those very persons who would eventually retire, so instead of using current workers' money to pay for the Boomer's Social Security payments in 2020, the Boomers themselves would have pre-paid for their own retirement.
Reagan got Daniel Patrick Moynihan and Alan Greenspan together to form a commission on Social Security reform, along with a few other politicians and economists, and they recommend a near-doubling of the Social Security tax on the then-working Boomers. That tax created - for the first time in history - a giant savings account that Social Security could use to pay for the Boomers' retirement.
This was a huge change. Prior to this, Social Security had always paid for today's retirees with income from today's workers (it still is today). The Boomers were the first generation that would pay Social Security taxes both to fund current retirees and save up enough money to pay for their own retirement. And, after the Boomers were all retired and the savings account - called the "Social Security Trust Fund" - was all spent, the rabbit would have finished its journey through the python and Social Security could go back to a "pay as you go" taxing system. Thus, within the period of a few short years, Reagan dramatically dropped the income tax on America's most wealthy by more than half, and roughly doubled the Social Security tax on people earning $30,000 or less.
It was, simultaneously, the largest income tax cut in America's history (almost entirely for the very wealthy), and the most massive tax increase in the history of the nation (which entirely hit working-class people). But Reagan still had a problem. His tax cuts for the wealthy - even when moderated by subsequent tax increases - weren't generating enough money to invest properly in America's infrastructure, schools, police and fire departments, and military.
The country was facing bankruptcy. No problem, suggested Greenspan. Just borrow the Boomer's savings account - the money in the Social Security Trust Fund - and, because you're borrowing "government money" to fund "government expenditures," you don't have to list it as part of the deficit. Much of the deficit will magically seem to disappear, and nobody will know what you did for another 50 years when the Boomers begin to retire 2015. Reagan jumped at the opportunity. As did George H. W. Bush. As did Bill Clinton (although Al Gore argued strongly that Social Security funds should not be raided, but, instead, put in a "lock box").
And so did George W. Bush. The result is that all that money - trillions of dollars - that has been taxed out of working Boomers (the ceiling has risen from the tax being on your first $30,000 of income to the first $90,000 today) has been borrowed and spent. What are left behind are a special form of IOUs - an unique form of Treasury debt instruments similar (but not identical) to those the government issues to borrow money from China today to fund George W. Bush's most recent tax cuts for billionaires (George Junior is still also "borrowing" from the Social Security Trust Fund).
Former Bush Junior Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill recounts how Dick Cheney famously said, "Reagan proved deficits don't matter." Cheney was either ignorant or being disingenuous - it would be more accurate to say, "Reagan proved that deficits don't matter if you rip off the Social Security Trust Fund to pay for them, and don't report that borrowing from the Boomers as part of the deficit."
Very well stated, Prof. Hirschhorn. I would love to have a populist 3rd party to support, one that would move our country forward and not backwards. Unfortunately I don't even see this on the horizon.
Beautiful thoughts! However, the processes of natural selection are doing precisely as they are intended. To change these processes, would come at a considerable cost to human life. Therefore we as a society are more inclined to conform to powerful forces, as opposed to fighting for idealistic freedoms.Yours sir, is a thought of visionaries, not of realists. It is my opinion, that opposed to your view of a delusional democracy, which seems to suggest that some form of democracy still exists, that it is more of an illusion, a pacifier, if you will, for the masses.The United States does not have near the numbers necessary to instigate a popular revolution. As is evidenced by the number of people that can comprehend, much less contemplate, that someone like Gov. Sarah Palin, should seriously be considered as a viable candidate to lead, and make law, over this country.To know that there are actually people out there, like you, that could use to your advantage the current power structure, yet choose to advocate for a more just society, should be complimented, emulated, and admired! Thank you.
The "pervasive support for smaller federal government and so many other openly expressed platitudes reveal inconsistencies and outright hypocrisy about what tea party zealots are willing to do to show their true beliefs. I want to see these people proudly professing their commitment to stop participating in social security and Medicare; stop using public schools for their children; stop taking unemployment payments or support for job training; stop using local police and fire departments and public libraries. I want to hear far more support for necessary government functions. Less government does not necessarily equate to better government."
What a delicious read! Joel just strips naked all the dark disguises off the political underparts of sneaky tea partiers, exposing their partisan buttocks for observers to behold and look away with queer giggles. Thanks for a well-crafted piece of literature. ~mogama~
Maybe Americans still have some intelligence:More than half the nation — 55% — see Sarah Palin unfavorably, and 71% believe the “Going Rogue” author is not qualified to be President, according to today’s ABC News/Washington Post poll.
Joel,Excellent article! Enough said...Many thanks,Kevin
Well said, although unfortunately both democrats and republicans are now calling themselves 'populists'. We do need change, actual change and not just a changing of the guard. Well done, sir.
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