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(photo: DonkeyHotey/flickr)
Cross posted from Pruning Shears.
I attended a local government meeting earlier this month in order to keep up with the latest on fracking in our town. Something else interesting happened as well. The meeting began with a budget review. Budget reviews are long and drawn out affairs even when they’re not, if you know what I mean. Fifteen minutes of going through line items, projected numbers, shortfalls, and so on can seem very long indeed if you aren’t turned on by bookkeeping.
That’s a shame, because those kinds of dry, eye glazing exercises are where the real action is at from a policy perspective. As our trustees went through the numbers, one item in particular jumped out at me. That is not because it was the biggest number, but the easiest to understand. The secretary’s review included a big, fat zero for funds that had formerly come from the estate tax. It was eliminated entirely for 2010, which had meant less funding for our town.
It was kind of interesting to see the conservative trustees let it pass without comment. Now, this was a budget review and not a debate. It would have been nonsensical to inject a line of political comment into the middle of it. Still, it seemed a little jarring for everyone to treat this thing – a major policy change that everyone present could see had a material, adverse impact on our community – treated as though it were an act of God.
Policy decisions are just that: decisions. They don’t drop out of the clear blue sky; they are conscious and deliberate, and they reflect our values. And while it wouldn’t do to single out one item in the budget for commentary, it might be worthwhile to have all of them subject to a little discussion. It would make the review process longer, but it would almost surely make it more relevant.
As towns across the country struggle with the Republicans’ overwhelmingly counterproductive commitment to austerity, it would be helpful to make sure the cause and effect are highlighted as much as possible. Funding from the estate tax that was used for, say, road maintenance is no longer there. The right wing is already going crazy about what it calls a fiscal cliff at the end of the year – but states got pushed off a cliff two years ago when stimulus funding ran out. Democrats were willing to make up for the shortfall; Republicans were adamantly opposed.
Conservatives love to cry class warfare or socialism when progressive taxation comes up. How DARE the state take from the wealthy and redistribute it to those lower on the economic food chain! But forget about how the funds are used; progressive taxation is in and of itself good for the country. It is one of the best hedges available against inequality. Creating barriers to the intergenerational transfer of wealth is crucial to preventing a de facto hereditary monarchy. Taxing the rich would be sound policy even if we took all the proceeds and set them on fire.
It just makes extra good sense to find a socially useful purpose for the receipts. The effects of reduced funding are playing out across the country in concrete ways. A clear, bright line can be drawn between austerity budgeting and diminished municipal services. Unfortunately, itemizing it requires three things that are generally in short supply even for committed activists: Access to year-to-year budgeting data, wonky devotion to number crunching, and a substantial amount of time to comb through it. It’s a classic good news/bad news scenario. The good news is, the data is there for the taking. The bad news is, it’s really hard to process.
It doesn’t have to be processed everywhere, though. If even a handful of happily situated individuals ferreted out the relevant information, it might be relatively easy to propagate. This is a presidential election year, and one that already has sounded themes of inequality. There are plenty of candidates for office who would welcome the opportunity to relentlessly publicize some of the real world effects of catering to billionaires. I imagine this would be a pretty easy message to sell:
The GOP took care of the fat cats. As a result, maybe your roads don’t get plowed this winter, or maybe you’ll just have to wait a whole lot longer for a truck to pass by. Or maybe you’ll have to raise property taxes to make up the difference. The rich have succeeded in hoarding that much more money all to themselves, which means everyone else will have to dig that much deeper – or resign themselves to fewer public services. This reduction in your standard of living has been brought to you by the Republican party, with the sponsorship of the 1%.
27 Comments
Re: “How DARE the state take from the wealthy and redistribute it to those lower on the economic food chain! But forget about how the funds are used; progressive taxation is in and of itself good for the country. It is one of the best hedges available against inequality. ”
Mitchell gives the following reason for Why does the 1% upper income FIGHT the war against the 99%? at
http://rodgermmitchell.wordpress.com/2012/06/20/why-does-the-1-upper-income-fight-the-war-against-the-99/
where he says
“Bottom line: In answer to the headline question, “Why does the 1% upper income fight the war against the 99%: The greater the gap between the two, the greater the glory — the greater the admiration and control the 1% believes it gains. The primary motivation of the 1% is not merely to acquire dollars, but rather to extend the gap, and it matters not whether a method lifts the 1% or crushes the 99%. Either way will do.
That is why the politicians and the media fail to “understand” the basic facts of Monetary Sovereignty. An understanding of this fundamental economic truth eventually leads to a reduction in the gap, for it demonstrates why federal benefits to the 99% need not be reduced.
Income gap reduction is an anathema for the 1%.
Rodger Malcolm Mitchell”
The second part of this blog is at
http://rodgermmitchell.wordpress.com/2012/06/21/why-does-the-1-upper-income-win-the-war-against-the-99/
Great post.
The Estate tax always goes unspoken when the California budget crisis is discussed. Before the Republicans gutted the estate tax at the Congressional level, California had a pick-up estate tax that was fully deductible against the Federal Estate tax.
Congress took away this option, so California has been forced to cut 2 Billion a year in programs and education that would have been funded by dead people.
Which is why the bipartisan 1% has agreed for the past 30 years that progressive taxation is bad. And their scions and heirs agree. (As do the aspirational to be among the 1%).
“Creating barriers to the intergenerational transfer of wealth is crucial to preventing a de facto hereditary monarchy.” I think he means a hereditary aristocracy, not a monarchy. Nevertheless, he’s absolutely right. The Reptiles on the other hand are all for both if they can get them.
Two things: one philosophical, the other practical.
1. No one benefits more from government than the wealthy. Without government to protect their real and intellectual property and to provide supporting infrastructure, there would be no wealthy. Therefore, the wealthy ought to have the gratitude to pay more for the levels of government on which they so heavily rely to keep them from living in hovels.
2. Without strong labor unions, especially in the private sector, there is no effective lobby for the interests of the middle and lower classes. The diminution of organized labor is why the Democratic party has moved to the right, and why the last two Democratic presidents have been so pro-corporate management in their policies (as in pro-globalization, anti-accountability for the financial sector). Clinton deregulated the financial sector and Obama has refused to prosecute the resulting crimes or to help labor by sufficiently stimulating the economy to increase employment.
The main reason organized labor has diminished is right-to-work laws in over 20 states.
Reduced funding will necessarily lead to reduced effectiveness for any government, thus allowing them to further pursuit of the "Government doesn't work!" agenda. When the government can no longer do what its supposed to, what then? LIBERTARIAN PARADISE! 'Just like Somalia.
You do remember WHY the game of Monopoly was invented?
To show us what happens when we have an oligarchy society. One winner takes all, everybody else loses, and society as we know it, falls apart. Game over, do not advance to GO, do not collect %200.
You are kidding yourself if you don’t think the elected Dems are just as culpable and just as willing as the GOP to do the bidding of the 1%.
Grover Norquist’s dream country.
“… the Republicans’ overwhelmingly counterproductive commitment to austerity, …”
Everytime someone on the left talks about “austerity” they are giving the 1% and their minions control of the discussion. It’s time to call it was it is: “The Republicans commitment to SELFISHNESS”.
Redistribution would not be necessary if we had right distribution in the first place.
Republicans consistently win the messaging war because because they go for the gut with language a third grader can understand. As long as we go along with the right wing frame we will continue to lose ground.
Oh, please I am really so sick lofhearing the “Republcians, the republcians, the Republicans.
Tim geithner is a Democratic :President’s main economci employyee. But thsoe of us carefully faollowing the action understand that Obama works for Tim ,rather than the other way around.
We would all have plenty of money to put into roads, schools, fire departments, etc, if the state budgets had money. But the states do not have money because of the Ponzi schemes inherent in the way the Greenspan, Paulson, Bernanke, Geithner quadriplicity of people on the top have set up those policies regarding the way money is offered up to Financial Firms, no questions asked, no restrictions imposed. (Before his job as Secretary of Treasury, geithenr headed up the new York Fed, which is of e
But is it the Republicans? Really? When did Obama appoint Geithner?”
Wasn’t there a full Dem majority in House and Senate about to take place when he did made that appointment decision, circa Dec 2008? Did the Republicans hold a gun to his head and have him appoint that Thief of All Thieves? And it is obvious to those of us looking at the very big picture that Obama works for Geithner, who absolutely refuses to give the states any financial help, while his buddies on Wall St have been given trillions of dollars. Trillions.
When you look at the inherent policies that have governed the nation for the past thirty years, the Dems are as guilty. Although the Dems love to say, “Our hands are tied – there’s nothing we can do!”
Bill Clinton signed off on two important Bank Reform measures in the last months of his Presidency. He should have invoked the power of the Presidential veto, but he SIGNED off. One of those measures destroyed Glass Steagall.
I have a bit more to say on this, but no time right now. In any event, thank you for the discussion.
I agree with elisemattu. There are plenty of democrats to share the blame; to pretend otherwise is to play into the hands of all the so-called 1%. It is growing increasingly more clear that this falls federal election is between a pickpocket and a mugger. One will blithely slip his hands into your pocket while the other will hold you at gunpoint or beat you, but the result is the same: you losing your pocketbook.
Another question I’d like to know the answer to: how did Larry Summers, a conservadem with a reputation for not playing well with others, manage to worm his way into the Obama inner circle? Summers and Rahm Emanuel have done enormous and possibly irreparable damage to both the Obama presidency and the Democratic Party.
The air is really getting thick around here with the “it’s all because of Republicans” b.s., isn’t it?
“TPM and Kos readers, come on down! Independents, we can’t fight the Republicans alone! Republicans are evil! Evil, I tell you! The Democrats? Nothing to see there. Move along. Pay no attention to those Democrats behind the curtain.”
“Summers and Rahm Emanuel have done enormous and possibly irreparable damage to both the Obama presidency and the Democratic Party.”
Can’t really blame them for the damage to Obama’s presidency. He has to accept the blame for that. He appointed them and he can fire them at anytime.
Book Salon up with David Karpf’s The MoveOn Effect: The Unexpected Transformation of American Political Advocacy hosted by Nicco Mele
Re: “. . . treated as though it were an act of God.” and “Policy decisions are just that: decisions. They don’t drop out of the clear blue sky . . .”
One of the fascinating things about institutions, from Congress to schools to one’s local government, is how human decisions that were made yesterday get treated as if they were written in stone by the hand of God today. This tendency seems to be stronger in conservatives than in liberals, for reasons relevant to the definition of those terms. I suspect it might also be a function of conservative notions of authority. If one believes in a monotheistic hierarchy, then the actions of field officers do indeed have the stamp of Final Authority. While this attitude may preserve institutional integrity, it also may be a dangerous disconnect for the folks who are making the decisions.
You mean that’s not what you do?
Amongst my family and neighbors, I see three delusions at play.
The first is our egalitarian delusion. Whenever we are asked to pay for something, we all relate to our own situation. My wealthy neighbor is shelling out 35% for taxes so I do not feel bad if I am shelling out the same percent. Little do most people realize is that the wealthy are using so many loopholes, corporate deduction, compensation deferments, etc. We pay the same tax rate but do not have the same number of deductions.
The second is that many do not know many members of the one percent. Many of my neighbors and family think that I am one of the one percent because I have a number of investments. I am not even close and I recognize that I would need to make a ton more money to join the upper one percent.
Lastly, the American delusion is that we all will be part of the one percent OND DAY. As hard as I have worked and saved, I am not sure that I can stay in the upper 50% with the current economy.
Until people are willing to dispel the myths directly, the beatings will continue.
Seeing as how the flow of federal tax dollars is from blue states to red states, I would have to say that you are correct.
FIFY.
Or so he believes. There are folks who are stockpiling medicine, food, and ammunition, and sharpening
ourtheir knives whilewethey wait for the day when his type no longer has the infrastructure they so abhor to protect them from the justice they so richly deserve.You are correct, that is what I meant (dammit).
Time to fire the idiot who edited the post.
Elise and commenters after, my point was to focus on the reduction in funding from the estate tax and to a lesser degree the federal funding for states in the stimulus package.
I agree with you on the many ways Democrats have been part of the problem just as much as Republicans, and your examples give ample support for that. (I’d add the re-appointment of Bernanke as well, but then I’d start feeling obliged to fill out the entire catalog.)
That said, the estate tax repeal was initiated and championed by Republicans. The stimulus was overwhelmingly opposed by Republicans in the Senate and unanimously opposed by them in the House. The stimulus was a purely Democratic operation, and the funding for the states included in it prevented a great deal of harm over the following two years. That’s a pretty significant difference between the parties, I’d say, and it’s a real credit to the Democrats.
And once more, just to be extra clear: the D’s are frequently as big a part of the problem as the R’s. But in this case they weren’t. Credit where credit is due.
Well, whatever the republican agenda is, Barack Obama didn’t come in with a mandate to do rehab on it and the GOP. If he had confronted them instead of going all bipartisan-y, their “agenda” would have been to desperately try to avoid being reduced to the status of the Whigs in 1860.
Instead, we have the sorry spectacle of them having beaten Obama senseless for nearly 4 years, using the baseball bat that he handed them.
I’m not desperate enough to want to reward him with another 4 years for doing it.