Laws of Politics

I have been watching politics for rougly 35 years, maybe a little less. I guess I started caring much in 1976 or 77.

In that time there have been some patterns of behavior which seem so inviolate that they can be called axioms or laws. There are more than just these I list below, but I hope I make my point with the list. Similar to the Laws of Thermodynamics (of which there are four), these are observations which seem to be true in all cases.

1. Democrats, specifically liberals, propose governmental regulation or programs as solutions to almost any problem.

2. Republicans will claim to stand for National Security, but will sacrifice that security for extra-military spending, especially on hardware, even if such hardware is unnecessary.

3. Democrats, especially the Green Party wing of the Democratic Party, will reflexively oppose military action, even if justified (to wit, Afghanistan).

4. Republicans will sacrifice anything, including the debt, the deficit, anything to gain tax cuts for the rich. Not the middle-class, the rich.

It's this last one that I think is currently especially appropriate to discuss, though #2 is topical at the moment as it relates to John Kyl's opposition to the "New START" treaty and #3 is topical as it relates to Obama's plans for Afghanistan.

So, as regards #4, I have watched, watched and watched, since 1980 at least, as promises of balanced budgets, of "real" cuts in spending, deficit "hawks", in infinite amounts promised the budget "should be run like you run your own budget at home" and "was the gravest threat to national security out there" and so on. I've also watched as those who repudiated Keynesian economics did an about face, as Dick Cheney did in 2003 when he said that "Deficits don't matter" in response to questions about how Bush was going to pay for the tax cuts enacted in 2002 as the projected surpluses disappeared.


I also watched this year as Republican after Republican promised that there shouldn't be "cuts to Medicare" which were "just plain wrong (Eric Paulson R-MN - my US House Rep). Yet, the Social Security system is being considered, as is Medicare, for vast and sweeping changes, raising the retirement age, decreasing benefits. Now, of course Mr. Paulsen failed to mention that all Obama proposed were cuts to waste, the exact same kinds of cuts Reagan promised in the 1980s, nope, to Paulsen and the Republicans, saying anything to condemn such cuts to win an election, only to then turn around and propose the exact SAME sorts of cuts, or worse, that's all fine.

Equally, while they condemn "job killing taxes" all over the nation, no problems with raising taxes on Social Security contributions for the middle class or extending them to higher income brackets (than the current cap). Again, raising taxes on the middle-class is fine, even raising them marginally on the upper-class is fine (so long as it's relatively minor..)all of this is fine because...

That way, they don't have to restore the tax levels to what they were prior to the Bush Tax Cuts. Tax Cuts which make any small increase in Social Security meaningless for the ultra-wealthy. Tax Cuts which will institutionalize and make permanent generational wealth and control of companies and the country by eliminating the inheritance tax. We didn't want kings when we formed the country, but somehow apparently putting someones son or daughter in charge of multi-billion dollar companies simply because their father or mother once was in charge, is a good idea. That way some 81 TRILLION dollars (iirc), which is expected to change hands through inheritance over the next 20 years, will not be taxed. That is the trillion dollar prize out there. That is the one all the ultra-wealthy are watching. That is the one the Republicans care most about and that is the one which they will sacrifice anything to see made permanent.

Anything, the annual debt, Social Security benefits, infrastructure, schools, Medicare, the deficit, anything to keep the tax rate from being what it was in 2001.

When you wonder where the funding for schools went for the arts or sports, when you wonder why you will work another 2-5 years past 65, when you wonder why Medicare has holes, the answer is simple, it is because we did not have the stomach to restore badly needed tax rates to a level which allowed the rich to amass vast fortunes in the 1980s and 1990s but were simply unacceptable in the 2000s as they got rich off of off-shoring jobs to India and China and as they ate up the wealth of the middle-class when the middle-class borrowed against home equity. It happened in the 1980s when Reagan accepted quadrupling the national debt in order to pay for cutting the income tax on the rich in half, a cut which probably propelled the off-shoring boom into high gear, and it is happening again.

So that's why I say, you watch, everything and I mean everything will be sacrificed if needs be, the deficit already is being sacrificed, but everything will be, to give tax cuts to the rich. Similar to the line from one Native American about the only promise the US government ever kept was to take the land from them; For Republicans, the only promise that matters, the only promise you can be sure they'll keep, is that they're going to cut taxes for the rich. It was the first demand they made to Obama after the election, and they'll hold up everything until they get it, even if the national debt climbs to 50Trillion.