Reverse Reaganomics

The latest poll about the Tea Party shows no surprises. For instance, most Tea Party members have above average income.  This is not at all surprising given their obsession over materialism.  Despite Fox News's attempt to make the poll look revealing and the "mainstream media" look insulting, the poll remains obvious.  The real problem with the Tea Party is that it's built on a foundation of ignorance.  They claim that the Tea Party is highly educated, but only 1/3rd have graduated from college. This doesn't seem "highly" educated to me.  The Tea Party attempts to make themselves look smarter than they really are as they spread disinformation.  They throw around terms like communist and socialist, without a real academic understanding of them.  But these are great words as a scare tactic.

President Obama is far from a socialist.  He has been denounced by the Socialist Party, and has been called Bush's third term.  The main point here is that he is continuing the 20th century tradition of corporatism.  He is continually supporting corporate America.  There has been no attempt to overtake corporations, nationalize them and make them public for redistribution.  The capitalist profit is not in danger.  But, the mythical small-business loving captialism that conservatives love to dream about is simply not real, it was surpassed early in the twentieth century, being replaced by corporatism and supercapitalism.  As these idealogies swung to the right of capitalism, we became even less socialist than in pre-World War I history when that party was much larger and more influential.

The only differences, economically, between Obama and his conservative predecessor are healthcare reform and tax cuts for the lower classes.  Public healthcare is no more socialist than Social Securty or the Post Office. In fact, the current reform still relies on the private insurance industry, funneling money into that system, making it a purely capitalist system.  Furthermore, public healthcare is actually less socialist than the current employer-based system. [1]  The fact that Obama gets called vile names and compared to Hitler for attempting to expand a publlic service, one that is difficult for many to afford, is mind-boggling.

The Tea Party claims to be for smaller government and lower taxes.  As for government, where was the party when the Republicans were handing out massive bailouts to the private sector?  Nowhere.  And now the polls show that Tea Partiers don't want cuts in Medicare or Social Security.  They don't want "their" benefits cut.  Clearly they really are not for smaller government.  If they were, the best strategy would be to denounce corporatism, end corporate welfare, and realize that government exists to serve the people - through public services like healthcare.

Concerning taxes, they protest even though 95% of Americans received a tax cut under Obama.  I suspect most Tea Party members fall into that category.  For the Tea Party to protest increased taxes while their own have decreased only shows their distorted view of reailty.  If the top 5% want to complain, that's fine.  But they have brain-washed the lower classes into fighting their battle.  The rich have never enjoyed as much prosperity as they have in the last thirty years.  To stand as a prosperous country, we need a strong social system.  And we have to pay for it.  Being the richest country in history this should not be a problem.  But, the wealthy have to pay their share.  Even Adam Smith understood the need for progressive taxation.  What Obama has done is reverse a little Reaganomics.  When Reagan made the largest tax cuts on the rich in the 1980s, economic inequality began to widen immensely, and has continued to expand since.  At best, Obama will be able to undo some of the damage.

I don't hear anyone calling Canada communist. Or Japan. Or England, or the rest of Europe. But even though those systems are more socialist, any attempt at advancement here prompts hysteria.  When the Tea Party gets useless airheads like Victoria Jackson to call Obama a communist it is not only ignorant, but blatantly deceptive.  And then, when the media propagates these terms in defense of the Tea Party, the result is beyond bad journailsm, it is plain lying.

It seems that countries are like people, with older ones exhibiting more maturity.  In Europe this maturity manifests as attempts to improve their public service and soften economic inequality.  Meanwhile, America acts young, loud and arrogant, without trying to improve.  As history continues, the human race matures and we find that we have better means to provide a society that is morally and practically necessary. We should not be afraid of trying new and better ways to improve society.   Conservatives should embrace American ingenuity and have faith that we can do things better than others.  We could make a public health system that is uniquely American and better than any socialist one.  But we can't achieve that level of thinking while manevolent manipulators are dividing the country by deceiving the American public.



[1] See Supercapitalism, Robert Reich, for an explanation of non-taxed employer benefits as publicly funded redistribution.  This is something I will return to in the future.