War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, Ignorance is Strength, Trillion Dollar Deficits are Responsibility
This entry was posted on 3/1/2009 12:06 PM and is filed under uncategorized.
I've been following the discussion around Obama's budget, a document entitled A New Era of Responsibility ... Renewing America's Promise. I'm appalled at the recklessness of the thing. Obama seems to be banking on the Big Lie theory, that people will believe a big lie sooner than a little one. His projections of massive and unprecedented deficits as far as the eye can see are utter madness.
We already know what works. We have Clinton's presidency to show us the way. The wealthy need to pay their fair share. The government needs to look for ways to economize. Obama had an unprecedented opportunity to show political courage, ask for shared sacrifice, and really revolutionize America. Instead he's ensuring America's decline under an ocean of debt.
Unfortunately, there is no coherent and principled opposition to the thing. Republicans' hypocrisy and decline into fascism over the last 8 years has left them, as I saw someone describe it on Meet the Press this morning, like a bunch of eunuchs at the Playboy mansion, analyzing and observing the events around them, while unable to participate.
If I were the declarer in chief, here's how I'd play Obama's hand:
Roll back the Bush tax cuts on the wealthy yesterday. Especially the inheritance tax.
I hear the opposition: 'You don't raise taxes in a recession.' Yeah, well you don't lower taxes when you're at war, either, but somehow that argument fell on deaf ears over the last 7 years. Allowing billionaires who die in 2010 to pass on their entire vast fortunes tax-free is insane and irresponsible in a time of financial crisis. Give them a generous 10 or even 20 million dollar exemption and then tax the rest at a healthy 40 or 50%. Raise the top marginal rate back to 39.6%. Even at that level it's somewhat on the low side, but at least it gets you back into the right ballpark.
Stop letting insolvent banks hold our economy hostage and bleed our economy dry.
I was watching Bill Moyers last night and finally heard from someone who made some sense on the banking crisis. Regulators need to assess the solvency of each bank. Obama should insist that the directors/management of all insolvent banks tender their resignations (not that he will necessarily accept them all.) Stockholders in insolvent banks must not be bailed out. Their shares are worthless because the underlying entity is insolvent. The government should take over each bank as it defaults on its obligations, if it can't be arranged to do so sooner. The government should recapitalize the banks and then resell them back to the market.
Freeze military spending.
There's probably more waste, fraud and abuse in the department of defense budget than in all other departments put together. Smart people should be able to figure out how to keep America safe with a budget that's only 5 times as much as the world's next most expensive military budget. I'm all for paying soldiers more. But corrupt folks like Blackwater and Halliburton need to be investigated for fraud and the era of no-bid contracts needs to come to an end. Obsolete military programs need to be shelved. Obsolete military bases need to be closed. Unnecessary wars and foreign occupations need to responsibly and swiftly end.
Don't increase education spending, spend education money more wisely.
Do you want the world's most brilliant citizenry? Here's my plan: Make broadband Internet available to every American. You can profitably mass-produce a cheap net-ready workstation for under $200 each. If you gave one to EVERY American, that'd be a paltry $60 billion. Focus on young people of lower socioeconomic means and I'm sure you could provide near-universal access for one tenth that amount. Make online videos/classes and testing on virtually every academic subject under the sun available for low cost to all and for free to those of limited means. I don't understand why you can't have the best teachers in America make videos of their classes, make them available to America's families, and get Americans thinking again. I'd love a Harvard education, whether I have some piece of paper on my wall that cost me $200,000 or not. It really isn't that complicated.
Gut the budget for the Department of Homeland Security.
It's up to the CIA and the DoD to prevent a terrorist from smuggling a dirty bomb into this country or from using cyber-terrorism to cripple this country's technological infrastructure and bring it to its knees (a more likely and dangerous threat, imo.) If you want to see colored lights and whatnot, go to your nearest intersection. As for natural disasters, people need to relearn the lesson that decisions have consequences. That if you build a city below sea level you're periodically going to get wet and that if you live in an area prone to hurricanes, it's up to you to either build structures capable of withstanding them or footing the cost of rebuilding. They also need to learn the lesson that living in fear of terrorism or getting hit by lightning or by a plane that falls from the sky and hits your house just isn't rational and there needs to be a sane balance between expenses incurred and lives saved.
Raise the age at which you qualify for social security benefits.
Social security is a Ponzi scheme. Always has been. A racist and sexist one at that (discriminating against blacks and males, who tend to die significantly younger than their non-black/female counterparts.) But at least when it was created, the life expectancy tables meant that it wouldn't be an excessively onerous financial burden (the average life expectancy in 1930 was 58 for men and 62 for women.) http://www.ssa.gov/history/lifeexpect.html That's no longer true. Fix it.
Health care.
Give the AMA and the insurance industry a chance to propose a plan that will insure all Americans without raising our current health care spending a dime. If they fail/refuse, go to a single-payer model like the rest of the civilized world has done long ago. We pay massively more per capita than any other country and yet tens of millions are uninsured. The market model has failed in health care. It's time to accept that and move to something that works. More money (as Obama has proposed) is not the answer. We spend too much already.
Tax carbon.
It was the right idea when I first heard of it in 1992. It's the right idea today. Nobody has the right to pollute my environment without paying me for the damage they have caused. As the old native American saying goes, 'We don't inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children.' Americans need to be given a reality check when it comes to the true cost of energy. That will spur conservation and increased investment in renewables.
End the 'War on Drugs'
The widespread incarceration of non-violent offenders is one of the great human rights travesties of all time. I'd put it on par with slavery in terms of its destructiveness to our society and our moral fabric. People have the inalienable right to dominion over their own physical person. That includes ingesting substances that others deem harmful.
Stop subsidizing breeding
As the world population approaches 7 billion people, I don't think the problem is that there's not enough folks.
