Ryan’s Hope and Change
Except that most self-proclaimed liberals don’t get it, with the exception of Jacob Weisberg, whose article I cited in an earlier blog post, and Zakaria. Zakaria even faults Ryan for not going far enough, for refusing to touch Social Security reform, and for not specifying what actual programs he would cut. He argues that the Ryan play as he sees it is “actually quite weak at outlining reductions in government spending.”
Zakaria, of course, is no Tea Party conservative. He argues that CBO estimates show that the Ryan plan would not actually lower health care prices for the poor or elderly, and he thinks that the Ryan voucher plan would not work. But Zakaria, unlike the liberal establishment, is not a reactionary. He goes on to write that “[i]n health care, a huge part of the expense relates to a small percentage of sick patients and to the last year of life (and those two categories overlap). Eighty-five percent of Medicare costs are generated by just 25% of patients. Even in the most conservative health care plan, the health savings account, people buy catastrophic insurance. Well, that sick 25% of the patient population would have catastrophic insurance, which would still explode the Medicare budget.”
Zakaria fully understands that people have to take Ryan and his proposals seriously, because, as he writes, “The Government Accountability Office concludes that America faces a “‘fiscal gap’ of $99.4 trillion over the next 75 years, which would mean we would have to increase taxes by 50% or reduce spending by 35% simply to stop accumulating more debt. Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security will together make up 50% of the federal budget by 2021.” In anyone’s eyes, these shocking figures reveal a very serious looming fiscal crisis.
Zakaria does not understand why “liberals” don’t get this. He argues that they should understand that if nothing is done, there will not be any funds whatsoever left for the kind of government programs they love — those for developing infrastructure and doing something about economic inequality, poverty, education and the like. He argues: “Liberals fear an attack on the welfare state, so they have become unthinking defenders of every aspect of that state. Consider Social Security. The left doesn’t seem to understand that it has won the war. Conservatives long tried to turn Social Security into a set of individual retirement accounts. That failed, and now they propose means testing and other changes that are highly progressive. This is a deal worth making.”
Possibly. The only problem is that the reactionaries — those Zakaria still calls liberals — cannot accept any such deal, because they have one simple solution they scream over and over: “Tax the rich,” take their money and redistribute it to the poor, and so forth. Of course, their concept of rich includes many hard working middle-class Americans, and they do not seem to realize that even if they did tax the highest end rich to the maximum amount possible, it would hardly make a dent in the kind of looming fiscal crisis facing us down the pike.
The reactionaries are those who, and here I use Zakaria’s own words, seek “to turn every item in Ryan’s plan into an attack ad, scare the elderly and ride to victory in 2012,” thereby pushing off entitlement reform to the far future, when it will be far too late.
Writing in the current issue of The Weekly Standard, my favorite commentator on social policy issues, Yuval Levin, calls Ryan’s plan “radical gradualism.” Levin writes: “[Ryan’s plan is] a choice between a vision and a nonvision. Opposed to the House Republicans’ agenda is not a different set of solutions to our deepening fiscal problems proposed by the left, or even a defense of our existing welfare state. What the Democrats offer instead is complaisance that amounts to a knowing acquiescence in a preventable disaster. The Democratic party now has no discernible policy agenda whatsoever. It offers only a reflexive defense of an indefensible status quo.”
Levin is exactly right — which is why we must continually point out that when these Democrats and radicals make their arguments, they are looking back to failed proposals from the New Deal era, and arguing against any changes that will address today’s problems. Hence, again, they are classic reactionaries.
Ryan does not want to abolish the welfare state in a radical direction, but reform it and save social programs that provide a necessary safety net for those who need it. As Levin points out, it is meant to balance the budget slowly, in over two decades! This is Burkean reform at its best; not radical change. The transformation of Medicare that Ryan proposes is to begin in ten years — hardly tomorrow.
I have written this before President Obama speaks tomorrow. The president has this one chance to break from the back of his “liberal” colleagues and his leftist base, and seek to meet Ryan’s proposals in a serious fashion. Will he do this, or will he too prove that he is just another one of the reactionary pack of average Democrats? We will soon find out. Will he, like old TR, decide to be the kind of progressive who really cares about the future, and seeks to meet serious conservatives more than half way?
The more dependant the people are upon the government, the more control the government has over the people. That’s what this current regime wants.
Margarete Thatcher once said that socialism works until it runs out of the other person’s money.
At long, long last. Amazing and incredible. It was hard to believe my ears. It’s still hard to believe. An honest politician who has a brain, who cares about his own country, and who has a gd-dm spine. I’ve played the clip of his speech many times, and I still find it hard to believe.
I’m talking about Mr. Ryan. I never thought I’d see something like this in my lifetime. Never.
Today’s Democrats are continuously dishonest as a matter of intentional strategy. They are truly and shockingly ignorant, semi-psychotic, self important, cowardly blind fools and idiots. As human beings, most of them are truly disgusting and pathetic failures. And Obama is certainly one of the worst of that pack.
The Democrats could not possibly care less if they utterly collapse America. They are like Thelma and Louise, racing toward the edge of the cliff with the gas pedal floored. Their judgment, their intentions, and their solemn promises can not be trusted an inch, not for a minute. Unless they are stopped they WILL quickly and happily bankrupt America, and then wonder what the hell just happened.
Mr Radosh,
Why even ask the question, “Will he (Obama)do this, or will he too prove that he is just another one of the reactionary pack of average Democrats?”
The Senate is comprised of at least 40% avowed Socialists/Communists, together with the rest that won’t publicly confess that they are. They’re ALL cut from the same cloth, and fight each other, not because they have idiological differences but because they differ in opinion on how quickly to implement the radical “progressive” agenda. Apparently their own “budget plan” is named, “the Peoples’ Budget”. They are NOT a “reactionary pack”. These people are a well organised force to contend with, and treating them like anything but a full-fledged anti-American Constitutional Republic pack of wolves, amounts to total ignorance of the real enemies of freedom.
The question you posed regarding Obama is absolutely sophmoric. These people do not intend to meet any ideological opponent “half-way” and to even ask that question completely nullifies the credibility of the rest of your article. Did Mao, Stalin, Hitler et al meet people half-way?? This is America though, and they are way more stealthy out of necessity; but they will NOT budge an inch or waver one iota from their agenda. Obama will try his best to do a bang-up job of whitewashing the unwashed masses with his charm (fully supporting the regressive agenda but never saying so openly), and take full credit for the “historic” whitewash he just gave to the Republicans (stupid suckers) and continue right ahead and propose even more draconic and far-reaching destructive progressive boot-on-the-neck policies and taxes etc.
Nothing personal Ron; I reckon the time has come to go for the throat and take the real issues head on – such as exposing thses criminals for who they really are instead of wondering if they’ll compromise.
I have only one problem with your article – you seem to assume, at the end, that what Obama says (in this case will say) has any correlation at all with what he does. This guy doesn’t work that way.
“Will the Democrats meet Ryan half way?” I certainly hope not! Ryan’s proposal is (to me) not a starting point for compromise backwards, but rather a small step forward in what needs to be done in this country. Let the Dems stand their ground and once and for all tell this country who the really are. Then perhaps the un-informed and the ill-informed will become educated, leaving only the redistributionists for us to battle.
“Will the Democrats meet Ryan half way?” you echo. Hell, I’m doubtful the Republicans will meet him halfway.
Obama’s speech will be all smoke and mirrors with a coat of Bees wax to give it shine…but then a few days later the gloss wears off and the bees come out and sting. There are times when I watch a Obama speech, I have to smack myself on the left side of my cerebral cortex and ask myself, “What did he say?”
He is caught between his left wingnut base and his Republican fantasy-killing agenda…What can he do? call a meeting with his 52 czars and have them come up with a solution.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/13/opinion/13wed1.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/13/opinion/13wed2.html
Nothing really need be added to the above, but who can resist recalling that the Bush tax cuts, which were in place when the economy tanked and unemployment spiraled, was resold to the American public as necessary for job creation.
Of course, as Arizona Senator Jon Kyl so clearly demonstrated –”If you want an abortion, you go to Planned Parenthood, and that’s well over 90 percent of what Planned Parenthood does”* – expecting honest figures from the GOP is an exercise in futility.
* “Not intended as a factual statement”
stopped reading link when i came to “vital services”
Well, daxypoo, you might try a dictionary if you’re having comprehension problems. But speaking of “vital services,” did you know that women don’t need Planned Parenthood because, according to Fox & Friends, they can get pap smears and breast exams at Walgreens!
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/04/12/colbert-fox-friends_n_847930.html?utm_source=Triggermail&utm_medium=email&utm_term=Daily%20Brief&utm_campaign=daily_brief
if it is not in the constitution it should not be in the federal government
btw, nytimes and huffpo links wont get you far
go get some trolling tips
For Progressives, all social programs are written on stone tablets, never to be changed (except expanded). The Constitution, however is written in sand, during a windstorm.
I was surprised and disappointed to read that the proposed budget cuts only $78 Billion from Defense in the course of 10 years. Meanwhile, the Defense budget for this year ALONE is $700 Billion. There is something very wrong here. Do we really need to keep paying $8 Billion a MONTH to continue the war in Iraq, and $7 Billion a MONTH to continue the war in Afghanistan?
The world is a dangerous place. Providing for defense of our nation and its allies is the first and most important function of government, with the administration of justice within the country its only serious second function – without these two, all the rest is meaningless.
Fight the enemies of liberty abroad, or at home: that is only choice, for real enemies abound. In the long run, it is far cheaper to fight them abroad than at home.
what does defense do?
versus
what did the stimulus do?
besides, defense would be much more cost effective if we actually let our armed forces annihilate the enemy once in awhile; you see, our enemies would begin to fear that mean, old, imperialist, us of a and think twice before committing acts against us
Concerning the three Middle Eastern wars — “kinetic military action?” HAH! — you have a good point. We’re not doing any perceptible good in Afghanistan, and it’s time to leave the Iraqis to stand on their own feet. (As for Libya, we don’t belong in that fracas at all.) However, the national expenditure on defense and “warlike stores” has oscillated between 3% and 4% of GDP since World War II, so to reduce it below the 3% level would be a dramatic change. It might be possible without compromising our defenses and our ability to back up our positions internationally, but it would take some study for me to feel confident about it.
Concerning “waste” and “inefficiency” in the Pentagon, I defer to the late, great Herman Kahn:
It’s well to remember that war is messy and wasteful, and therefore, that warlike institutions cannot be closely held to an accountant’s preferred standards of efficiency.
“Conservatives long tried to turn Social Security into a set of individual retirement accounts. That failed, and now they propose means testing and other changes that are highly progressive. This is a deal worth making.”
We should do that for people who are too far along in the current program to restructure themselves financially, sat people whoare older than 55 or 60. In a phased in fashion scheduled by age, younger people should be permitted to place their 15% social security tax into IRA’s.
We have saved and invested for many years…we depended on the dividends from savings to not use social security in any way…then suddenly, over night, it was gone!..all because of the government.
so you’re damned right, we feel the gov owes us. social security will be a small amount compared to what we lost because of gov incompetence in so many facets of the banking industry and life.
no, liberals will not meet half way. liberals are bold self concerned fools. they’re like dandy peacocks
anne….sorry for your losses! However, can we get some terminology correct? Savings is just that money set aside and saved with virtually no risk. Savings invested is called investments. The government may have perpetuated an environment that created very stupid and risky investment instruments in the banking and finance and on Wall Street but, the government did not mandate anybody partake of the poisonous fruit. That same poisonous fruit had millions of American’s with administered retirment funds and individual investments in glee, when they seen their quarterly investment returns. When the built in risks of those insane instruments caused them to come crashing down, it somehow became the governments fault.
Sorry but, we all have an individual responsibility to be informed and make wise decisions for ourselves and our savings. Greed of any form and level, that nobody likes to admit to, is what has brought this once great nation to its knees today. Other than homes one can responsibly afford, the next best investment is good old American dirt…..or old fashioned ‘cash’ savings parked somewhere that has little to no risks.
Hopefully, you will be able to have a bit of do-over opportunity before you really need it.
Might I add:
You are owed? Because the government made this mess? The government is not a separate entity from you. YOU are the government. Each and every Citizen is part of the government in a free society. The government is only a thing apart… when it is a thing apart. Elections have consequences. We get the kind of government we deserve.
You are not owed something by the government, because you had a hand in its doings, for better or worse.
I wouldn’t define a progressive as ‘someone who resolutely sets his face towards the future’. Indeed, I consider a progressive somone who in essence rejects that there IS a future. A progressive turns his face away from the future because for him, the future is always virtual; it never moves into the hard ‘here and now’ facts of reality.
Therefore, the progressive will always talk in the abstract rather than the particular, in ‘hope and change’ rather than about a specific fact-based and contextually connected policy. The progressive will, when asked for remedies to deal with this amorphous future scenario, will reply with an equally amorphous suggestion: Tax the Rich.
This ignores two basic questions. The first is semantic: who and what is the definition of rich? The second is basic economics: if you remove the ability to fund the future from the people..then..who will invest in and build that future?
It is this second question that is totally, completely, mindboggling absent from the perspective of the progressive. Since for them, the future has no reality then they ignore our current necessity to build the future. That’s right: Build The Future. It doesn’t exist…you have to build it. How? By using your wealth, your current wealth, to build an infrastructure for that future.
This infrastructure is, first, the symbol of work/wealth itself: money. So, you SAVE a good portion of the results of your work (money) to invest in projects in the future. Banks must gather this wealth to make loans to enable future small and medium business to exist in the future. And you now make long term infrastructures that last and do work in the future: hospitals, roads, research.
Notice Obama’s themes: Hope and Change. Winning the Future.
Notice something about them? Both themes view the future as abstract. The first is pure emotion; it fills you with hope. For what? Ahh…that important factual framework is left out. There’s nothing factual or actual about the progressive future…because it is always ‘virtual’ rather than real.
What about his other theme: Winning the Future. What does it say? It’s equally amorphous and abstract and you must, as well, ‘fill-in-the-blanks’ about the actual nature of that future. Obama doesn’t do this.
It also has another meaning: it suggests that the future is, like a lottery, something that ALREADY EXISTS in another space and time. Something like a ‘parallel universe’.
…It is not, as a conservative understands it, someothing that you, now, must work to develop and set up an operating infrastructure for the young to develop and work at. Nope.
For the progressive, the Future is a messianic Being that Will Come…like a lucky lottery. You just have to Hope that you’ll Win. If you don’t…it’s your bad luck.
As for Obama responding to Ryan’s very practical, specific and hard look at the actual steps we must take to prepare for our future…he won’t respond with actual plans. He’ll just continue with the amorphous abstract.
Remember, progressives never, ever, take ANY actual practical steps to prepare for the future..because to them, the future DOES NOT EXIST as connected in any way, to the ‘here and now’. A progressive considers that the future ‘exists’ in a virtual reality. It’s purely abstract. It ‘comes’..like a lottery win or loss. Unconnected to your work. So, there’s nothing you can do about it. Other than spend, spend, spend all your current wealth. No plans for the future because it has no connection to you.
And something else about Obama. His hatred of capitalism and wealth, his ignorance of economics and the realities of the connection between the present and the future…that’s basic. But something else about Obama is that he never, ever, develops policies and programs. Never. Obama lives, himself, totally within the virtual realm of rhetoric. Words, words, words. He always votes ‘present’. He leaves all policies and programs that deal with the actual world to others.
Obama’s ‘schtick’ is to wait and wait..until he sees which one is popular. Then, he’ll jump in and align himself with the Winning Side. Because Obama, above all, wants your adulation, your submission. He wants to feel that He controls you. That’s all there is to him.
obama is definitely a past-poster
Ryan’s proposal is nowhere near a solution to our budgetary problems. It’s timid and fearful. There is nothing bold in it. It merely proposes slowing down expenses as compared to Obama’s plan, and not a reduction in expenses.It doesn’t even touch entitlements and proposes to save them. Bold would be to have a plan to eliminate entitlements gradually and retreat the power of the government dramatically. It will not resolve anything except to pacify the public into believing it’s a bold plan. I think this is worse than nothing.
>>It doesn’t even touch entitlements and proposes to save them.
I don’t think you’re familiar with the plan.
I believe he’s one of the ones who believe all the Republicans did this last time around is all they will do.
Try reading it again, please. It proposes to save entitlements! The plan is weak and will be watered down by the Democrats from that point. It slows down spending, but does not reduce it. This plan is not sufficient. Entitlements have to be attacked head on. There is fear in the Republican leadership.
There is a lot of the usual empty rhetoric in the responses to Mr. Radosh’s article; and the usual “Obama can do no good” commentary. But none of that can take away from a well-written article that is spot-on in identifying the fiscal problems we face as a nation. And per Mr. Radosh, at least some so-called liberals like Mr. Zakaria also get it.
#6 Cato R.’s response: “the world is a dangerous place. Providing for defense of our nation and its allies……….” Yes, we all know how important national defense is. But you’re not answering BARBBF’s question. Why do we need a defense budget of over $700 billion when everything is factored in?
Why is our defense budget greater than the combined defense budgets of Russia, China, Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Japan & Brazil? We need all the weaponry to fight a few thousand terrorists & militants? Why does the Ryan budget proposal not really tackle the hard issue of what is the correct funding level for defense, while taking on the problem of the out-of-control entitlements?
In early 2009, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) released a study of 94 different weapons procurement programs. 66 were showing a collective $267 billion in cost overruns. I can understand a few billion here & there, but several hundred??
What’s needed is not a whitewash of giving defense contractors whatever they want. We need more Tea Party conservatives willing to take on the defense establishment & its supporters, like Boehner, as was done with the alternative engine for the F-35 fighter.
The war we’re losing is the economic war and the battle for resources with China & India in places like Africa and S. America. They’re locking up contracts for oil and minerals; and building their economies; while we spend our billions on weaponry and Medicaid. Ryan ‘s proposal is a good start; but just that, a start.
["Why do we need a defense budget of over $700 billion when everything is factored in? Why is our defense budget greater than the combined defense budgets of Russia, China, Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Japan & Brazil?"]
Because the American people let congress, our presidents and the UN ignore our constitutional authorities for a military and their uses. More precisely, our military was declared by the UN, post WWII, to be ONE of the worlds police forces…but become the predominate in short time.
I keep preaching to folks to force the restoration of the constitution and amendements if needed, and most of the nations problems will go away…foreign AND domestic.
considering zakariah’s comment: “Consider Social Security. The left doesn’t seem to understand that it has won the war. Conservatives long tried to turn Social Security into a set of individual retirement accounts.”
i may be a political neophyte but when has this ever been attempted?
from what i’ve seen, if social security reform is even mentioned, even in passing, the libs’ histrionic richter scale “goes to 11″ making fukushima look like passing gas on the sofa
The “meeting Ryan halfway” point has been on the table for months. The Fiscal Commission’s recommendations are near to what something that has any chance of passing has to look like.
CBO: Budget deal cuts this fiscal year’s deficit by just $353 million, not $38 billion touted!!
The budget deficit is projected at $1.6 trillion this year.
The CBO study confirms that the measure trims $38 billion in new spending authority, but says many of the cuts come in slow-spending accounts like water-and-sewer grants that don’t have an immediate deficit impact.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/cbo-budget-deal-cuts-this-fiscal-years-deficit-by-just-353-million-not-38-billion-touted/2011/04/13/AFFJnkWD_story.html
Ron is correct insofar as he briefly describes the development of the terminology of America’s lefists, but I doubt calling them reactionary or Reactionary would have any effect at all in terms of coping with or fighting them. Most people are too ignorant to understand those terms, or most terms, including socialist and communist. When we have high schools, colleges, universities, and churches filled with people who love security more than liberty we have a greater job to do than to define ideologies. I think that we will first see individual states pass Nullification laws, then see the states begin to weaken the Federal (and unconstitutional and outlaw) government, and either bring the Federal government to heel or descend into secession and violence.
I wish I could believe that electing an originalist conservative president would do the trick, but I have no faith that it will.
["Paul Ryan's bold vision brings real change to the budget process."]
That comment was meant for humor…I hope!
Every ‘plan’ including Ryan’s plan is akin to applying a bandaid on your forehead and declaring you’re attacking the body’s cancer.
The only discussion of relevency should be what is really constitutional spending by the federal government and what is not constitutional spending…then we can have a real reformed budget process discussion and constitutional amendments.
“Every ‘plan’ including Ryan’s plan is akin to applying a bandaid on your forehead and declaring you’re attacking the body’s cancer.”
I think those who insist now on the Republicans trying to do something they can’t do are being stupid at best. They weakly hold one house.
That’s it.
Excuse me Perkins!
Seems to me I recall all the drama from the ‘liberals’ and their media, when this GOP House Majority got seated, that they would demand ‘everything’ considered and advanced through the House would have to meet a constitutional test of authority…correct me if I’m wrong! If I’m not wrong…what happened?
The federal government ignoring the constitution is what has brought us to this point in time and circumstance. Returning to the constitution is the only ‘fix’ for what ails the nation…..period!
Your litle rant indicates you’re well conditioned by the socialist philosophy to believe that it is the Federal Government who holds all the cards of power and authority in America….and the constitution and the people are helpless to any government process.
Hopefully, there are a few Americans left, unlike yourself, who understand that the federal government is not the power and authority over anything not specifically granted to it by the constitution.
Thats it.
My “little rant” speaks the truth. The GOP cannot with the numbers they have end a single program regardless of how unconstitutional it is.
The fact you are mewling so loudly about the impossible shows you do not understand politics is the art of the possible.
“Hopefully, there are a few Americans left, unlike yourself, who understand that the federal government is not the power and authority over anything not specifically granted to it by the constitution.”
Funny thing is, I’m more on your side than you are. I perfectly well understand the constitution creates a national governrment of limited jurisdiction. The difference is I also recognize what can be done right now to move in that direction, and what will be a wasted effort.
You want a wasted effort.
G’head. Wear yourself out.
Funny how an uprising of the people who called themselves the Tea Party succeeded in changing the face of the House of Representatives and likely would have the Senate also, had the terms been up for the same balance opportunity. They massed themselves in great numbers across the country and in Washington to state their causes and demand and they did what was necessary through their public masses to carry out their demands. Yet, in all your emassed government experience and wisdom you state to me that the ‘people’ are helpless to effect the great changes needed and once demanded, in the federal government, in spite of those elected to serve there.
You can either be content to chase and swat at the wasps or….go deal with the real issue and threat of the wasp nest. Stupidity is coming to some resolve that can be reversed tomorrow at the conclusion of an election outcome and a new majority. You decide what is stupid and a wasted effort now!
What is to be reality is in the hands of the people….not the federal government and its corrupted processes ignoring the authorities of the constitution…unless of course, that is what the people wish to continue!
In one word, NO.
T.T. Thomas – thank you!
The Ryan plan, while much better than Obama’s, still kicks the can much too far down the road. The only thing even approaching an honest plan – and I call it honest because it would balance the budget during his term of office, not leaving it to the next guy – is Rand Paul’s. And frankly even that doesn’t go far enough for my taste.
[Obama] took 600+ Billion from Senior’s Medicare to fund his Obama care. Now Obamadrama cries the GOP wants to “make” the eldery pay more toward their healthcare. Who took the Seniors money in the first place???? Also, the GOP wants to kill women??
For the record, this is not a Republican Goal…
Why do liberals/progressives (reactionaries) give speeches, diatribes and FEAR MONGER the same issues they themselves have destroyed? Why do they use the “Obama” “Drama” Card”? When are Americans going to wake up?
Who would liberals/Progressives/ [reactionaries] [blame] for their [Failures] if there were no wealthy people, big banks, big oil, big corporations, big car and whatever other ‘big’ is out there? Seriously, who would they blame?
LIBERALISM/PROGRESSIVES/REACTIONARIES = BIG FAIL
Taxing the rich? How unfair!
This from Harper’s:
Stiglitz on the One Percent Nation
By Scott Horton
Writing in Vanity Fair, economist Joseph Stiglitz reminds us that, as crowds across the Middle East decry kleptocratic elites, a dramatic social transformation has taken place in the United States.
The upper 1 percent of Americans are now taking in nearly a quarter of the nation’s income every year. In terms of wealth rather than income, the top 1 percent control 40 percent. Their lot in life has improved considerably. Twenty-five years ago, the corresponding figures were 12 percent and 33 percent. One response might be to celebrate the ingenuity and drive that brought good fortune to these people, and to contend that a rising tide lifts all boats. That response would be misguided. While the top 1 percent have seen their incomes rise 18 percent over the past decade, those in the middle have actually seen their incomes fall. For men with only high-school degrees, the decline has been precipitous—12 percent in the last quarter-century alone. All the growth in recent decades—and more—has gone to those at the top. In terms of income equality, America lags behind any country in the old, ossified Europe that President George W. Bush used to deride. Among our closest counterparts are Russia with its oligarchs and Iran.
To those who argue that this widening discrepancy merely reflects the natural rise to the top of the nation’s most gifted and most entrepreneurial, Stiglitz has some sharp retorts. First, he argues that opportunity for advancement is falling sharply. Second, he says that these income distortions actually make the economy less efficient. Third, he links this wealth concentration to declining social investment in technology, education, and infrastructure, which are key to sustained economic growth. He also sees a process of political lock-in, with the 1 percent elite having come to control the political process, so that even what is lauded as reform rarely turns out to work meaningful change. He argues that this process will ultimately feed a backlash:
The top 1 percent have the best houses, the best educations, the best doctors, and the best lifestyles, but there is one thing that money doesn’t seem to have bought: an understanding that their fate is bound up with how the other 99 percent live. Throughout history, this is something that the top 1 percent eventually do learn. Too late.
What silliness. Income equality? Really? Who says it is supposed to be equal at all? Some have greater circumstances of birth. Some have more natural talent. Some just bust their behinds to achieve.
This is the politics of envy. Thou shalt not covet. When you focus on the blessings of others, you lose sight of your own blessings. Thank God for the blessings you do have, rather than reproving God for what you do NOT have.
The top 1% are only in danger from the other 99%, if the professional rabble-rousers can get folks coveting, then get them to use government to steal.
His assertions are false, anyway. In most of the world, 4% of the people control 95+% of the wealth. They are either in government, or those connected to those in government. All others live in abject poverty.
Income equality is a false notion. A level playing-field, with impartial referees is what we should focus on. Opportunity inequality happens when the government scum try to set themselves as the arbiters of who gets the wealth. The more they intervene, the MORE unequal it becomes, not the less. Eventually, those in government, and their cronies outside it, have that 95% of the wealth.
This accounts for the growing income disparity in this country. We have more relatively poor people, subsidized by government. We have more rich people, also subsidized by government.
Think “bailouts”. How many of those execs walked away with millions in bonuses while running their companies into the ground, then the companies got bailed out?
How many small stockholders lost their college funds, their investment funds, their retirement funds? Did that not reduce their incomes? When bankruptcies increased, did not folks lose their jobs and their incomes? Did not others stop getting raises, or even take pay-cuts?
Did not government have a hand in this? Did they not gut the protective laws? (Glass-Steagall) Sen. Graham (D/R- SC), a trained economist, did it at the behest of the huge banking lobby in his State. He knew better. He did it anyway, because he likes being called Senator. Corruption.
Did they not engage in redistributive policies (CRA)? Pandering to minorities, buying their votes. Tax monies went to banks. Some portion of those monies were specifically carved out for those minority groups. How many of them took the money and never repaid a dime? Graft.
Did they not create Fannie and Freddie? They said they would not backstop them, but in the end, didn’t they, just as businessmen predicted? Government involvement meant more risk-taking, not less. The rich got richer, not by creating real wealth via products and services, but by bogus paper profits. When the time came to pay the piper, the government ponied up. The rich with connections to government were protected. Unions were protected. Special groups were protected. Others? Not so much. More graft and corruption.
More and more, the money is ending up in the hands of those in government or those with connections to those in government. Just like in third-world countries.
Income inequality? False terminology. Income disparity is the proper term. Great disparity is caused by those in government. When you see it here, it is because our freedoms are reduced. Less freedom equals less wealth.
Marc…always happy to see when sombody gets it….and can state it so clearly. A corrupted government has long been the controlling authority of the nations economy and who reaps from it wealth and who doesn’t. Disparity is a strategic ploy straight from the anti capitalists socialists handbook. Yes sir! It comes from the strategic efforts of the same socialists people who stand on the mountaintops and condemn economic disparity. It does two things. One it gives them their needed platform for anti capitalism and two it justifies the need for creating a [central government] to regulate the bad capitalists. They’ve accomplished both by systemically ignoring the constitution over many decades while American’s slept! All that is left is for the walls of capitalism to fall the rest of the way to nationalism.
The socialist hierarchy under their stern face masks must certainly be giggling at the GOP today…especially, at their silly superficial approach to the current economic and government debt debacle.
“Funny how an uprising of the people who called themselves the Tea Party succeeded in changing the face of the House of Representatives and likely would have the Senate also, had the terms been up for the same balance opportunity.”
If the Tea Party changed the face of the house of representatives, what are you crying about?
I’m very glad that with a majority in the House too small to override a veto, they’ve cut spending for the first time in a long time. I expect them to do a lot more with a larger proportion of the House in 2012, and with them holding the Presidency and Senate as well.
“Yet, in all your emassed government experience and wisdom you state to me that the ‘people’ are helpless to effect the great changes needed and once demanded, in the federal government, in spite of those elected to serve there.”
Without staying in the face of the Tea Party candidates and incumbents, and giving no rest to the other Reprersentatives and Senators–for math challenged types like T. T. Thomas, that’s the vast majority of them–what the new Republican House can do is pretty much what they’ve done.
Without holding the Senate and Oval Office, they won’t make the end of the New Deal I think you and I both want. That’s reality.
Old people who are counting on the unconstitutional promises that were made to them need to keep on getting their checks, especially the smaller those checks are and the greater the fraction of their income those smaller checks represent. They get those checks, or they are hungry on the street–and they won’t vote for that, and they are to numerous to blow off. That’s reality.
People who bought homes counting on the permanency of a mortgage interest deduction need to have that elapse slowly, or you yank the rug out from under many, many more younger voters, who will remember how you took an axe to their plans. They won’t vote for that. That’s reality.
Of course the unconstitutional programs should be brought to an end, but what the pompous windbag T. T. Thomas seems to be crying about is that everything hasn’t already been done–he wants to have all the chemotherapy shot into the patient all at once–which just gets you a new funeral to attend. I’m sure he would find the death to be unexpected.
Always interesting to run into the younger generations of revisionist indocrinated GOP folks. You are sorely uninformed of what the constitution and government mechanisms are meant to be in America! You fall into the camp of the new GOP and the 60′s reformation ideology leaving behind the traditional GOP platform foundations of [classical] liberalism, paleoconservatism, and progressivism. I’m betting you can’t even define the terms of the traditional platform without further study! You come from the indoctrinated [social] liberalism and progressiveism camp and don’t even have a clue that you do. You [rely] upon a central government to do what is right or needed to maintain the daily ‘peoples’ business…..a lamb in following…a surrender! To hell with the constitution is your cry!
You rant about the great progress of change being effected by the House GOP majority and the Senate GOP minority! The jokes on you bub! With all your intellect you fail to understand that non discretionary government spending is captive to first, inflation and second, the legislative demands for that spending. Get real and look at the legitimate historical charts for inflation. Get real and look at the legitimate historical charts for the demand of legislated non discretionary services. If you want to effectively reduce the cost of services…you reduce or eliminate the services! Thats
K-1 level analytical skills.
So, let me recap since you seem to let all your accumululated intellect slow you down in the comprehension department.
You reduce the cost of government by reducing the size and services of the government! Go work on that concept and you’ll have less time to come here and direct personalized attacks and name calling. While you’re doing that consider that the national liability is $63 TRILLION dollars and speeding upward by the second….not the $14 trillion dollars of the populist rhetoric.
Don’t mess with Social Security and Medicare. Fight fraud and overcharging.
Slash military budgets and get out of the Middle East. The country’s infrastructure is falling apart and education is lagging.
Stop partisan squabbles and become patriotic.