Law Enforcement, Race and the Gun Culture – III

This is the third in this series. I recommend that you read or re-read Part I, which you can find here as well as Part II, which you can find here.

In both Parts I and II I outlined misbehavior by police in my own experience, as well in the news. I don’t want the reader to come away as a result with the impression that I think the police, as a whole, is corrupt or anxious to kill. It is the usual situations of a few bad apples.

But there are many important reasons why there is often incompetence and/or corruption in the police. Most important is that the police in the US are unionized. I happen to favor unions in the private sector, where the bargaining power of the individual worker is none existent, and where the demise of unions is a major factor in the wage stagnation that we are now experiencing.

But the police are different. The police are in many ways a quasi-military force, who like the military, often have to put their lives on the line, and have the power of life or death over those they confront. It is vital that they obey orders from their superiors, and not put the interest of themselves, or of their comrades, over that of the public. Insubordination ought to no more be tolerated in the police, than it would be in the military.

Can anyone image a members of our military turning their back in disrespect on the President of the United States, or large numbers staging a slow-down because they are displeased with the policies instituted by their superiors, as the police recently did relative to the mayor in NYC. A quick court marshal would follow. We need the same discipline for our police forces throughout the US.

All this occurred in New York because the mayor, who has a son of color, expressed empathy for the demonstrators exercising their constitutional rights to peacefully demonstrate, and put into words what every father of an African-American knows (but which is probably good advise for all races) be very polite and non-confrontational with the police. Or maybe it occurred because the police were angry because they liked the freedom to stop and frisk at random in neighborhoods of color, which the new mayor and new police commissioner ended.

But what finally triggered the expression of their pent-up anger, was the assassination of two of their comrades by a deranged man, who had indicated that much of his anger against the police was triggered by the demonstrations. Of course, his anger wasn’t just directed against the NYC police, for before undertaking that wanton act, he shot his girlfriend, and thereafter shot himself, something he had considered doing in the first place.

So what are we to make of this wanton killing by a deranged man. The head of the police union immediately pointed the finger at the mayor.

I rather think that there is a clearer connection, for it falls into line with the many killings by deranged men at schools, recently at Sandy Hook Elementary School, Connecticut. See here, but less unusual then most think. CNN reports: 

After Tuesday's shooting at an Oregon high school, many media outlets, including CNN, reported that there have been 74 school shootings in the past 18 months.

That's the time period since the December 2012 massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School, where 20 children and six adults were shot to death.

It prompted me to publish a letter in the North Jersey Record, which I reproduce below:

As I did in my previous blog posts, I set forth below the transcript of the letter for those who may have difficulty reading the clipping.

The tragic death of New York Police officer Rafael Ramos makes him another victim of a deranged man with a gun, though it has been presented as being the result of demonstrations against the killing of unarmed African-American men, and even as a result of New York Mayor Bill de Blasio’s action in ending the racially charged and racially profiled policy of stop and frisk.

It is no such thing!

It is no different from the many tragic death around the country, highlighted most recently by the murders at Sandy Hook in Connecticut. These are murders by deranged persons, who should have been in treatment, and who have easy access to guns.

How much longer must this country live with an atmosphere where the joy of owning a gun and the feeling of power that it gives its owners, not to speak of the all the money to be made by manufacturers and dealers, trumps the right to life of innocent people, whether they are school children or police officers.

It is difficult to understand why the right to own and drive an automobile can be licensed, but the right to own and shoot a gun cannot.

The second amendment has been completely distorted and given a meaning, which it does not have, and was never meant to have by its authors and did not have for most of this countries history.

Emil Scheller
Fort Lee, December 27

As I write this blog post I am reminded of the reaction of the President of the NRA, the lobbying arm of the gun manufacturers, after the Sandy Hook shooting. He said:

The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.

Well, the two cops had guns. It didn’t stop their killer. Does the NRA care? Do they care about anything but the profits of the gun manufacturers for whom the solution will always be “we want to sell more guns – we want more profits!!!

But let us not be deceived. We have many more problems with our criminal justice system.

I will go into greater detail in future posts. But for now allow me to just set out a graph that speaks volumes.

What is there about the US that would make us have one of the highest incarceration rates in the world?

I will come back to this in another context, but for now allow me to express my disappointment that our President, in his sixth State of the Union address, did not speak about this subject. It is one of the few areas where he might be able to find common ground with Republicans.

The Washington Post reports: 

But on issues of sentencing reform and prison recidivism, Republicans — especially several governors in Southern states — have been the leaders, earning praise from prison reform groups on both sides of the aisle for efforts to save money by implementing rehabilitation programs and curbing skyrocketing prison costs.

A nonpartisan study issued last year about how one of the bluest states in the union, Massachusetts, could cut prison costs credited Republicans states for how they have tackled prison reform…

‘This is our chance to show we can provide solutions to affect significant problems,’ said Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform.

The renewed focus on costsaving reforms marks a dramatic, decade-long shift by Republican governors, many of whom previously won election by stumping on tough-on-crime platforms.

But, as many of those governors have noted, one way to cut state costs is to decrease the number of people being locked up for nonviolent offenses and rid the law books of mandatory minimum sentences for such offenses.

In addition to Perry, prominent Republicans who once trumpeted tough-on-crime ­stances and now call for sentencing changes and rehabilitation programs for drug and other nonviolent offenders include former Florida governor Jeb Bush and former House speaker Newt Gingrich. Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), a tea party hero, has made reform of mandatory minimum sentences a major focus in recent months.

“We’re not a soft-on-crime state, you know what I’m saying? . . . We’re tough on crime,” Perry said. “But I hope we are also seen as a smart-on-crime state.”

That is quite a change from the tough on crime of Republicans in years and decades past, when, e.g. George H.W. Bush used the famous, or infamous, Willie Horton ad (See here) in his campaign against Michael Dukakis.

But whatever the past, this is an issue that now appears to have Republican support, and if the President and the Democratic Party don’t seize the opportunity, the chance for reform may well be wasted.

I will have more to say in the area of the American Justice system next time.

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While I have decided not to dwell on the Israeli issue any further, I cannot ignore the outrage of the Boehner/Netanyahu axis. They are both a disgrace in meddling in the domestic affairs of the other’s country. Netanyahu will face elections in Israel on March 17 according to Fox News, but instead of campaigning in Israel, he will campaign by addressing the US Congress on March 3, two weeks before the Israeli election. This is a blatant and transparent attempt on the part of both the Speaker and the Prime Minister to meddle in the affairs of the other country. Even while this is likely to aid Netanyahu in Israel, it is at the same time an attempt to embarrass the President of the US, by Netanyahu coming here, once again, in his ongoing and endless attempt to influence the US not to negotiate with Iran and instead go to war. He has said the US has no right to tell Israel not to attack Iran, which the US has never done, while trying to ensnare the US into war with Iran.

Netanyahu’s crude attempt to meddle in American domestic affairs has a long and infamous history. He is the proverbial child always crying wolf and has been doing so since more than two years. On September 12, 2012 I published an article entitled: “I am an American”, from which I quote:

But Netanyahu has gone out of his way to violate every rule of diplomatic behavior. In my view he has been a disaster for Israel. Since any Letter to the Editor has to be short I commend readers to "Peter Beinart on Netanyahu’s Bullying Act" from The Daily Beast.

That article relates in some detail Netanyahu’s long history of meddling in American politics, so much so that the Republican Secretary of State James Baker briefly had him banned from the State Department. But beyond that, and I quote from the article, “Netanyahu has been brazenly intervening in American politics—often with an eye to screwing Democratic presidents.”…

But now he has the gall to come to the US and use our airwaves to try to dictate American foreign policy. Appearing on US Television, Netanyahu declared: “Those in the international community who refuse to put red lines before Iran don't have a moral right to place a red light before Israel.” I agree with the Prime Minster that no one has a right to place a “Red Light” before Israel. But, in fact no one has!!!...

The attempt by any country to dictate American policy, particularly on issues of war and peace must be rejected by all Americans.

What did the Prime Minister show to the US to demonstrate the imminent danger? Look here.

That was two years ago. Is Iran now in the final stage? Not even the man who keeps crying wolf claims that is the case. The negotiations, whether they finally succeed, or not, have delayed the Iranian progress. If the danger ever was anywhere near as imminent as the fear monger claimed, the Iranian’s would have the bomb today.

And what is the alternative to the present course? To go to war? Netanyahu is ready to hold the coat of the US. Israel is not about to commit that folly, nor would its military and intelligence agencies allow it. Should there be more sanctions by the US, which would end the negotiations, and worse, end the unity of the allies in imposing multi-lateral sanctions?

But quite aside from that, does his diagram look like an atomic bomb?

Here is a terrific YouTube video on that subject.



I urge the reader to watch it. If nothing else, it is funny and it does a good job of relating the history of the “the boy who cried wolf”. He points out that the cry that Iran is about to get “the bomb” goes back to 1992.

Comments, questions, or corrections are welcome, and will be responded to and distributed with attribution, unless the writer requests that he/she not be identified. However, please give your full name and the town and state in which you reside or have an office.

Guns, The Cliff, The Right, & The Left

It’s madness all around!!

In my last post "The Fiscal Cliff" I quoted The Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence as reporting that more than 30,000 people are killed by guns in this nation each year. This is mostly in our cities and in our poor African-American communities, but it has not, and continues not to raise the conscience of the media or the Nation. But 20 children and six adults killed in a suburb in Connecticut get two weeks of coverage and a Nation outraged. Something is wrong with our values.

Wayne LaPierre, the NRA’s executive Vice President, speaks and says that the answer to gun violence is more guns, every cable news channel covers his speech. The following Sunday all the Sunday morning news programs have a representative of the NRA on their show. Why? Why?

Who in Hell is the NRA? They have been represented by the media as the representative of gun owners, of hunters, of sportsmen. Are they? According to their own website they have four million members. The adult population of the United States is 250 million adults over the age of 18.  

Four million is a tiny percentage. The NRA speaks only for the gun manufacturing industry. The media has allowed the myth that they speak for anyone else. Annual membership in the NRA costs only $25.-  so they clearly don't get their money from their members. They get it from gun manufacturers. The NRA speaks only for the gun manufacturing industry. The media has allowed the myth that they speak for anyone else.

It is time to unmask this charade!!!

As for the Cliff, the Right claims they are worried about the deficit, but reducing it by increasing tax revenues from the income tax, or the estate tax, or the capital gains tax, or on dividends is opposed fanatically. Do they really care about the deficit? Or is that just a ruse for their true desire to, in the words of their hero, Grover Glenn Norquist, “just want to shrink it (government) down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub.”

The Left e.g. Paul Krugman, insist that the best think for the economy is an increased deficit, at least in the short run. But they are adamant that taxes on the rich must be raised, which lowers the deficit and going over the cliff would have decreased the deficit by a hell of a lot.

They tell us that the most important thing that our government can do is increase jobs, but they seem to almost relish the idea of going over the cliff, which would cost untold jobs. They described any deal as a bad deal that reduces entitlement benefits by one iota, but this deal gave not one inch on entitlements, and they call it a bad deal.

I must admit that I find myself disappointed by the deal in that it did not raise enough revenue. But for me that makes sense, since I believe that debt does matter. But if you argue that it doesn’t, why is this important? But as I read the reports I come away with the feeling that the early estimates of how much revenue was raised are just that, early estimates. I have a feeling that these early estimates do not take into account the reductions in exemptions or other aspects. The “deal” may yet show much more revenue estimates than are now being recognized.

In the words of our self-described Socialist Senator from Vermont, Bernie Sanders:

This agreement preserves incentives for the development of clean energy by encouraging companies that are creating jobs in America and helping reduce the greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming. That is a win-win for our economy and our environment. In Vermont and across the country, hundreds of wind manufacturing plants already are producing wind turbines, and the industry is providing jobs for 75,000 American workers. The fact that we have doubled wind generation since 2008 is an American success story. Extending the Production Tax Credit means we can continue the tremendous growth in wind and other safe, clean, renewable sources energy that must be developed if we are to reverse global warming. 

This agreement also is a major victory for Social Security recipients and for disabled veterans. Despite an eleventh-hour bid by Senate Republicans, the final bill does not include their proposed change in how cost-of-living adjustments are calculated. As the founder of the Defending Social Security Caucus and the incoming chairman of the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee, I am proud that organizations representing seniors and veterans worked together to block the switch to a so-called chained CPI as a way to cut future benefits for more than 55 million Americans.

But regardless of anything else, the President is our quarterback and unlike others, I refuse to indulge in the “Monday morning quarterback” syndrome.

What is obvious is that the President is first and foremost concerned with the economy and jobs. He is not willing to let the economy tank and the progress we have made in creating jobs to be stymied. The deal caused a huge jump in the markets throughout the world, and as for jobs, quoting Reuters: “(t)he ADP National Employment Report showed the private sector added 215,000 jobs in December, comfortably above economists' expectation of a 133,000 gain.” That is something to be celebrated.

I have great difficulty understanding my friends on the Left.

When Bill Clinton “triangulated” and signed into law a devastating revision in our “Aid to Families with Dependant Children," put into place the outrageous “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” in our military, signed DOMA into law, acquiesced in the repeal of Glass-Steagal, and allowed an outrageous new bankruptcy law that denied bankruptcy to people with excessive credit card debt, (See here for my comments on May 5th, 2009) and famously said “The era of big government is over” the Left for the most part was quiet. Now that we have a President who fights for our values, it is never good enough, and we act like “Monday morning quarterbacks” at every turn.

I know! I heard it over and over again! “We are only trying to get him to do the right thing.” But what is “the right thing” in an age of intransient sabotage, of hostage taking of our economy, or in the words of the former Treasury Secretary in the Republican Administration of G.W. Bush, PaulO’Neill, “Those Who Won’t Raise Debt Ceiling Are Terrorists”.

When terrorists take hostages and demand a ransom, those who care about the hostage must always ask themselves, “Do we let them kill the hostage?” or do we pay ransom. How much? Do we pay a little to keep the hostage alive, or do we pay a lot to have the hostage released. These are always agonizing questions. The quarterback must call the plays. The second guessers and the “Monday Morning Quarterbacks” must stand down.

E.J. Dionne, writing in the Wahington Post said:

To be deemed a serious analyst at the moment seems to require a lot of hand-wringing and sneering over how awful Congress looked the past few days as it rushed a “fiscal cliff” deal into law.  

So permit me to burn my membership card in the League of Commentators and Pundits.

Comments, questions, or corrections, are welcome and will be responded to and distributed with attribution, unless the writer requests that he/she not be identified.

The Deficit Reduction Committee II

On November 28, 2011 I posted and distributed my commentary entitled "The Deficit Reduction Committee" on the DRC's failure to reach agreement, and pointed out that Republicans on the committee never made a good faith effort to reduce the deficit, since the only proposal that they made would have increased the deficit. (In this connection it should be noted that in pushing for the extension of the Bush tax cuts for the very wealthy, they insisted that no offsets were necessary, when it came to to an extension of the of the payroll tax cut, they insisted that offsets are a sin qua non. Tax Cuts for working Americans, according to them, pose a danger to the economy, but Tax Cuts for the wealthy, who they call “Job Creators” are, according to them, good for the economy and need no set offs, no matter how much they increase the deficit.

I have received two comments to this article, but will postpone sharing them with you until the next post because of space constraints. In the meantime I invite further comments.

At the end of my last post, I promised to analyze point by point a column by Charles Krauthammer that appeared in the November 24 issue of the Washington Post, under the heading "The Grover Norquist tax myth." See here.

I suggest you first read it in full by clicking "here” above and then read my comments thereon, for which purpose I reproduce the article and intersperse my responses in contrasting type.

            Democrats are unanimous in charging that the debt-reduction supercommittee collapsed because Republicans refused to raise taxes. Apparently, Republicans are in the thrall of one Grover Norquist, the anti-tax campaigner, whom Sen. John Kerry called “the 13th member of this committee without being there.” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid helpfully suggested “maybe they should impeach Grover Norquist.”

            With that, Norquist officially replaces the Koch brothers as the great malevolent manipulator that controls the republic by pulling unseen strings on behalf of the plutocracy.

Nice theory. Except for the following facts:

            ●Sen. Tom Coburn last year signed on to the Simpson-Bowles tax reform that would have increased tax revenue by $1 trillion over a decade  There was no Simpson-Bowles Tax Reform. This refers to a bi-partisan commission appointed by the President, the formation of which Republicans opposed. The President stipulated that its recommendations would only be submitted to Congress if 14 of its members voted for it. That vote was not achieved and the plan died. Sen. Coburn (R) voted for the report, but the Republican leadership in Congress showed no interest in it, and never brought it up for a vote in the House.

            ●During the debt-ceiling talks, House Speaker John Boehner agreed to an $800 billion revenue increase as part of a Grand Bargain. Yes, and then reneged when he found that his caucus would not consider it, despite the fact that cuts would have been three times the size of revenue increases.

            ●Supercommittee member Pat Toomey, a Club for Growth Republican, proposed increasing tax revenue by $300 billion as part of $1.2 trillion in debt reduction. This is precisely, what I was talking about in my last post. The proposal was to increase $300 billion in revenue, provided there was a decrease of $4 trillion in revenue, through a permanent extension of the Bush tax cuts. This means a net cut in revenue $3.7 trillion.

Leading, very conservative Republicans proposing tax increases. So why does the myth of the Norquist-controlled anti-tax monolith persist? You might suggest cynicism and perversity. Let me offer a more benign explanation: thickheadedness — the inability to tell the difference between tax revenue and tax rates.

            In deficit reduction, all that matters is tax revenue. The holders of our national debt care not a whit what tax rates yield the money to pay them back. They care about the sum.The Republican proposals raise revenue, despite lowering rates, by opening a gusher of new income for the Treasury in the form of loophole elimination. For example, the Toomey plan eliminates deductions by $300 billion more than the reduction in tax rates “cost.” Result: $300 billion in new revenue. This is unadulterated nonsense! Democrats don’t care how revenues are raised as long as they are raised. It is not a question of rates. Republicans have made clear they will not agree to anything that brings more revenue to the treasury.

The Simpson-Bowles commission — appointed by President Obama and endorsed by Coburn — used the same formula. Its tax reform would lower tax rates at a “cost” of $1 trillion a year while eliminating loopholes that deprive the Treasury of $1.1 trillion a year. This would leave the Treasury with an excess — i.e., new tax revenue — of $100 billion a year, or $1 trillion over a decade. Not extending the Bush tax cuts nets $4 trillion. As indicated, Republicans do not support the Simpson-Bowles plan. So this is a straw man. What is the significance of one Republican supporting it on the commission, when we don’t even know if he is prepared to support it in Congress? And it is one Senator. One!

            Raising revenue through tax reform is better than simply raising rates, which Democrats insist upon with near religious fervor. It is more economically efficient because it eliminates credits, carve-outs, and deductions that grossly misallocate capital. And it is fairer because it is the rich who can afford not only the sharp lawyers and accountants who exploit loopholes but the lobbyists who create them in the first place. This is the latest canard. No Republican reform plan proposed would increase revenue, and none of any kind has been proposed. What they mostly talk about is reforming the tax code, so as to do away with mostly middle class deductions, and a flat tax that would further shift the burden of taxation away from the rich and toward the middle class. This is truly class-warfare. It is war on the middle class and the poor.

            Yet the Democrats, who flatter themselves as the party of fairness, are instead obsessed with raising tax rates on the rich as a sign of civic virtue. This is perverse in three ways:

            (1) Raising rates gratuitously slows economic growth, i.e., expansion of the economic pie for everyone, by penalizing work and by retaining inefficiency-inducing loopholes. We should get rid of the loopholes!!! That is a good start. Lets do it now and reduce the deficit. Increasing taxation on those who can best afford it doesn’t slow growth, no matter how often it is repeated. If we wish to encourage work then we should reduce taxes on those who indeed work, and increase taxes on the “coupon clippers.” Or in other words, tax unearned income the same as earned income. Tax Capital Gains and Dividends the same as earnings from work. Tax Inheritance, at the upper end, since the beneficiaries have never worked for it.

            (2) We’re talking pennies on the dollar. Obama’s coveted repeal of the Bush tax cuts would yield the Treasury, at the very most, $80 billion a year — offsetting 2 cents on the dollar of government spending ($3.6 trillion). This is the ultimate in juggling numbers. It sounds like Enron. That is not 80 billion a year. It is $4 trillion over ten years. And no one expects spending to be anywhere near 3.6 trillion going forward. But of course spending has to be reduced, and the President and Congressional Democrats have proposed spending cuts three times as large as revenue enhancements. Their proposals would begin to bring the deficit under control. The answer has been No and No and No. Every Republican proposal, whether the Ryan budget, or the plan put forward by Republicans on the Deficit Reduction Commission, would actually increase the deficit.

            (3) Hiking tax rates ignores the real drivers of debt, which, as Obama himself has acknowledged, are entitlements. Deficits are driven by lack of revenue or spending or both. Most non-partisan economists feel it is both. Entitlements need structural adjustments and Obams’s “Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act” makes a number of changes that make a beginning in reducing these expenses, over Republican opposition. In negotiations, other changes have been proposed as part of a comprehensive debt reduction measure. Republicans have rejected each and every one, because small revenue enhancements were to be included.

            Has the president ever publicly proposed a single significant structural change in any entitlement? Yes, Many! Again and again, as part of a balanced approach, only to be rebuffed each time. After Simpson-Bowles reported? No. In his February budget? No. In his April 13 budget “framework”? No. During the debt-ceiling crisis? No. During or after the supercommittee deliberations? No.

Indeed, Obama was AWOL from the supercommittee — then immediately pounced on its failure by going on TV to repeat his incessantly repeated campaign theme of the do-nothing (Republican) Congress. Obama had actively negotiated with Boehner and they had a deal until the Republican caucus rejected it. After this failure, it was agreed to set up the super-committee, which was to work without interference from Boehner or the President.

A swell slogan that fits nicely with the Norquist myth. Except for another inconvenient fact: It is the Republicans who passed — through the House, the only branch of government they control — a real budget that cut $5.8 trillion of spending over the next 10 years. Yes, it does. It does away with SS, Medicare and Medicaid, and the whole safety net, and still has so many tax cuts that it increases the debt by $6 trillion. Obama’s February budget, which would have increased spending, was laughed out of the Senate, voted down 97 to 0. Dems didn’t want the vote, and turned it into a joke by voting against it. As for the Democratic Senate, it has submitted no budget at all for 2 1 / 2 years. Does the filibuster have anything to do with this?

Who, then, is do-nothing? Republicans should happily take on this absurd, and central, Democratic campaign plank. Bring Simpson-Bowles to the House floor Yes, why not, but all of it, not cherry picking it. and pass the most radical of its three deficit-reduction alternatives.

Dare the Senate Democrats to vote down the grandest of all bargains. Dare Obama to veto his own debt commission. Dare the Democrats to actually do something about debt. They already have, most particularly in the “Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act,” which Republicans want to repeal.

Krauthammer isn’t even consistent. On July 14, 2011 he wrote: 

 If conservatives really want to get the nation’s spending under control, the only way is to win the presidency. Put the question to the country and let the people decide. To seriously jeopardize the election now in pursuit of a long-term, small-government, Ryan-like reform that is inherently unreachable without control of the White House may be good for the soul. But it could very well wreck the cause. But they would never put their hostility to the entitlements to a vote. They would lose overwhelmingly. Instead, they will talk about anything else, and hope they can fool the voters, and do all they can to keep the economy from improving.

The Deficit Reduction Committee

Surprise, Surprise! The Deficit Reduction Committee did not reach agreement.

Our media, as is their wont, bills it as a failure of our two parties unwillingness to compromise, and as a symptom of our broken government. But it is not the former, and it is the latter, only in so far as one of our two major parties, the Republican Party, is determined to keep government from working. As the old saying goes: “it takes two to tango.”

No compromise was possible because the Right (Republican Party) has no interest in what the Committee was charged with accomplishing, i.e. deficit reduction and they demonstrated this again in blocking any possibility of agreement.

           

As I have demonstrated in past writings on the deficit, Republicans have no interest in deficit reduction. It is simply a weapon with which to destroy the hated, “Welfare State.” I discussed this at length, and I urge you to go back and read my posts starting with my latest post on the subject: "The Deficit – One Big Hoax (Part VI)" and working backwards from there, using the links provided.

           

To repeat part of what I said in these posts:

Their lack of concern with the deficit can easily be seen in that not one of their proposed “reforms” decreases the deficit. The Ryan plan, which has passed the House with almost unanimous Republican support (four Republicans voted against it and no Democrats voted for it) would, according to Representative Paul Ryan himself, add $6 trillion to the national debt over ten years as reported by the Economist, hardly a left wing source, and as far as I can find nowhere else in the media.

This lack of concern with the deficit surfaced again in the deliberations of the “The Deficit Reduction Committee.” Democrats genuinely concerned with the deficit and anxious to reach agreement offered to agree to cuts in entitlement programs, which need to be cut in any case for their sustainability, as I discussed in my post which you can find here. 

They asked that Republicans come to the table with an agreement that would raise revenues, and until a few days before the deadline the Republicans on the panel would not put one dime in increased revenue on the table. With the deadline fast approaching they finally talked about an “increase (in) tax revenue by $300 billion, which was seen by some lawmakers as a breakthrough given the party’s resistance to increased revenues.”  

Since the committee was charged with coming up with at least 1.2 trillion in reduction to the deficit, this would have meant that Democrats would have to agree to $ 900 billion in cuts, a three to one ratio. The Dems swallowed hard and indicated they might be willing to go along. They thought they had a breakthrough, in so far a Republicans finally appeared to have put “added revenue” on the table. Then came the kicker! In order for them to agree to 300 billion in added revenue, Dems would have to agree to extend the Bush tax cuts, or a decrease in revenue of $4 trillion. It doesn’t take a mathematical genius to see that if you deduct 2.1 trillion from 4 trillion, you get 1.9 trillion, the amount by which the deficit would be increased. Or to put it another way, it’s the Ryan budget all over again. You cut entitlement spending and you increase the deficit at the same time, which, according to their logic requires further slashing of entitlements and other programs that they don’t like. Or heads we win, tails you lose. Needless to say, there was no agreement.

But where was the media to explain all this? As usual they were missing in action. All they could come up with was a shake of the head and the usual bromide, “Why can’t they agree.” Well there is a damn good reason why! There was no desire on the part of the Republicans to offer anything that remotely accomplishes anything, other than do away with entitlements.

How could any sane Democrat agree to this?

Why doesn’t the media, who even with their fear of speaking the truth is denounced by the Right, speak the truth for once. Why are they so afraid of being accused of partisanship? Telling the truth wherever it may lead, is what good journalism is supposed to be all about.

One of the few media outlets, The Christian Science Monitor reported what happened accurately:

Republicans insisted during the super committee negotiations that curbing tax breaks to raise revenues be coupled with guarantees that all the Bush tax cuts would continue beyond 2012…Democrats countered that the super committee was created to reduce the budget deficit, not add to it by extending tax cuts.

The Economist all alone tells us the way it is:

The game being played here has little to do with the budget itself. It is an ideological debate about the role and obligation of government. First, cut taxes for the wealthy to create a big hole in the budget, have a Great Recession aid the cause by stripping government at all levels of tax revenue, increasing costs of serving people, and creating short-run deficit problems (and a war here and there doesn't hurt the cause either), and finally use the deficit as a club against social insurance programs such as Medicare and Social Security. 

So we have ended up with $1.2 trillion cuts going into effect beginning in 2013. $600 billion of that will be in defense spending which is in addition to a cut of $450 billion previously agreed to. Not the worst of all possible outcomes, and in 2013 the Bush tax cuts will expire. No Congressional action is needed. Beginning in 2013 the deficit will be reduced over the following ten years by 6.1 trillion. The hammer of using the deficit to justify attacks on needed spending will be gone. Not bad negotiating by our President.

In response to my post “What can we, and should we do about the deficit?” Bruce Weintraub wrote:

Republicans should be forced to make choices too:  Either an increase in marginal tax rates for the superwealthy or steep cuts in ‘defense’. But Democrats NEVER put them on the spot.

Well Bruce, they did, and the “Elephants” were maneuvered into agreeing to steep defense cuts.

            

Would Bruce and the Left please apologize to our President and admit he did a brilliant job of negotiating under the most difficult circumstances.


The threat to our National Security according to Admiral Mike Mullin then Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is our debt, as shown below:

While Secretary of Defense, Leon Panetta, has talked about all kinds of disasters from cuts in defense of $1 trillion, this does not square with the facts. As an article in US News and World Report points out: 

Despite the doomsday scenarios continually espoused by Secretary Panetta and the military chiefs, a cut of that size would amount to only 15 percent, in real terms return spending to its 2007 level, and still leave the United States above what we spent on average in the Cold War. Finally, such a cut would be far less than cuts made by Eisenhower (27 percent), Nixon (29 percent), and Reagan, H.W. Bush, and Clinton (35 percent), which were done without jeopardizing security.

           

Now the Republican deception takes full form in a column by Charles Krauthammer that appeared in the November 24 issue of the Washington Post, under the heading “The Grover Norquist tax myth." I will analyze this point by point in my next post.

I regret that I was forced by events to abandon my analysis of where we could beneficially cut spending. Hopefully events will make it possible for me to return to beneficial cutting without ignoring developing news.

Comments are welcome and will be distributed with attribution unless the writer requests not to be identified.

The Deficit – One Big Hoax (Part IV)

I wrote the following a few days ago. The days are now counting down, and what has been unthinkable to most has now become almost inevitable. The consequences are almost too hard to imagine. If it happens, interest rates will go up by at least 1% causing the deficit to increase by another trillion over ten years. So much for those who claim to be concerned about the deficit.

The media seems to have forgotten that Speaker Boehner actually had reached an agreement to cut four trillion from the deficit with the President weeks ago. He then consulted his caucus and came back and said it couldn’t pass. No one seems to have questioned that claim. But it is almost surely untrue. What he was reporting was that a majority of the Republican caucus would not go along. It is almost a certainty that if he had decided to put it to a vote, it would have passed, mostly with Democratic votes, but with enough Republican votes to make a majority if the speaker had put his effort behind it.

It would have meant that he would have lost his speakership and maybe his seat, but he would have saved the country. Whatever happened to “Country First?”

As I indicated in my posts "The Deficit – One Big Hoax (Part I)," "The Deficit – One Big Hoax (Part II)" and "The Deficit – One Big Hoax (Part III)," the Bush Administration with the active support and connivance of his Republican Congress, set out to create as big a deficit as they possibly could, and taking a surplus in excess of 200 billion dollars, and projected surpluses so great, that many, including then Fed Chairman Greenspan, predicted that all of the national debt would be wiped out before long. In fact, as New Economic Perspectives wrote:

...on June 29, 1999 the Wall Street Journal ran two long articles, one boasting that government surpluses would wipe out the national debt and add to national saving...

It was argued that wiping out the National debt would be a disaster and steps must be taken to prevent this. This was the argument used to justify the huge tax cuts, which were originally intended to be permanent, but when the CBO (Congressional Budget Office) projected the results of these cuts beyond 10 years, the deficit became so large that it was concluded that it couldn’t be sold. For that reason it was passed with a 10 year sunset provision, but with the intent that after the ten years arguments would be found to make them permanent, which is exactly where we are now.

But as the Bush Administration continued, it became apparent that tax cutting was not the end all because spending accelerated as well. Not only were we spending huge amounts on the war in Iraq, but with huge increases in Defense spending. In addition the Bush Administration, with the support of Republicans in the Congress, actually added to the benefits given by Medicare in the form of Part D, which would for the first time cover pharmaceuticals, adding greatly to the deficit within the Medicare architecture. At that time I remember writing to a friend that I thought that this was a deliberate plan to make it unsustainable.

I arrived at this conclusion because I was aware that the Americans for Tax Reform, headed by Grover Norquist, which was dominating Republican policy had summarized his view with the now famous quote:

I don't want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub.

In pursuit of this goal he has pressured almost every single Republican, not only in Congress but at all levels of government to sign a pledge reading:

“I, _____, pledge to the taxpayers of the (____ district of the) state of ______ and to the American people that I will: ONE, oppose any and all efforts to increase the marginal income tax rate for individuals and business; and TWO, oppose any net reduction or elimination of deductions and credits, unless matched dollar for dollar by further reducing tax rates.”

It is interesting to note that this refers only to income taxes, but what is the Club’s position on the Capital Gains tax?:

Rather than increasing the Capital Gains tax...Congress should instead be looking at reducing it. Preferably to zero.

Or let us look at the policies advocated by the Club for Growth:

A flat tax, but until that can be obtained it recommends:

-Permanently extend the reduced income tax rates set to expire at the end of 2010.
-Lower or eliminate the dividend tax rate.
-Lower or eliminate the individual capital gains tax rate.
-Lower or eliminate the corporate income tax rate

While this clearly indicates a desire to eliminate the progressive nature of the income tax and to put the whole tax burden on those who earn their living by working, it hides a much more insidious objective. Since any tax that lower income earners could pay would of necessity have to be quite low, and since according to National Taxpayers Union, the bulk of income taxes are paid by the top 50% of earners who pay 97.30% of all Federal Personal Income Tax paid, and according to the Heritage Foundation “The Top 10 Percent of Earners Paid 70 Percent of Federal Income… while the bottom 50% paid only 3%” (they don’t say where the remaining 27% comes from) and since the top tax rate in the US at present is 35%, a flat tax of let us say 10% would reduce total tax receipts by well over 50%, making it impossible for the government to fund much more than the military. I suggest that is exactly what is intended, not simply to spare the rich from paying taxes.

Or to return to the oft-quoted statement of by Grover Norquist, "I don't want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub."

That is exactly what these policy prescriptions would accomplish and what is intended.

(In case the reader is wondering why the top 10 percent of earners pay 70% of federal income taxes, allow me to point out that in 2006, which are the latest figures available, the top 20% of earners in the US earned 61% of all income and the top 1% earned 21.3%. Even if we had a completely flat income tax 61% of the tax would be paid by the top 20%. Wealth is skewed even worse, with the top 1% owning almost 35% of all wealth in the US and the rest or 99% combined owning only a little over 65%. See here, which is well worth reading.)

Some might ask why anyone would want so much money, should remember that wealth is power, and no human has ever had enough power. Furthermore, the acquisition of wealth is part of a game or sport, and its ever-greater acquisition is winning the game.

In my next post on this subject, I will address why in this recession raising taxes on the rich will not hurt the economy, while reducing spending will, which is the opposite of what Republicans and our media is telling us.