This scion of the old
industrial elite would have us believe that history's most enlightened
empire cannot afford to educate its children, treat its sick, protect
its elderly -- all while allowing the middle class an expanded share of
national wealth.
And he's right if, like him, the rest of us base our expectations on the mysterious "numbers"
that Paul Ryan apparently found buried under Ayn Rand's tombstone and
refuses to reveal, even to a friendly inquisitor like Fox's Chris
Wallace.
By inventing the myth of
the "fiscal cliff," Romney and his fledgling economic czar are betting
they can put middle America in a sleeper hold that will last through
November 6 -- and they're pretty close to succeeding.
And, yes, "myth" is the
right term, because the "cliff" is being depicted as a permanent hazard
of the economy, one that will inevitably wreck the government. In fact, like any budgetary problem, it
can be fixed, adjusted, or forestalled by a mix of spending decreases
and revenue increases. In Romneynomics, of course, that latter step is
forbidden because it would involve marginal expense for Those Who May
Not Be Taxed Another Penny.
President Obama has
resumed, none too soon, his campaign's national teach-in about Romney's
vision for institutionalizing the advantages of the haves at the
permanent expense of the have-nots. In an admittedly spotty sampling of
the post-debate commentary, I saw only my friend and former colleague
Tom Friedman make one essential point.
The government does have a spending problem that will require a
reining-in of debt from the welfare state. But the government also has a
massive revenue problem that can only cured by higher taxes on selected
sectors of the economy.
Romney is masking his
who-has-to-pay regimen with bland boosterism. So let's look at who
doesn't have to pay more, according to his debate presentation: all
corporations, recipients of capital-gains income, beneficiaries of
offshore tax shelters, holders of inherited wealth, the top 5% in
income, people like himself who can game the top tax rates down to, say,
14%.
If I hear him correctly,
he says it would be immoral to alter that scheme, and higher taxes on
the exempted classes wouldn't really change our revenue picture. If that
were true, any mention of an equitable taxation policy wouldn't put
that hint of hysteria into Paul Ryan's voice.
This is radical stuff.
Romney can't quite think of which loopholes the deserving rich would
have to give up. But he has a formula for limiting working-class couples
to a $25,000 "basket" of deductions. One thing they might have to toss
out of their basket is the home-mortgage deduction. Apparently we can't
alter top tax rates, but it's moral now to deprive the housing industry,
already flattened by financial-market whizzes of Romney's ilk, of a
major sales tool. It's "moral" now to take away one of the middle
class's main methods for creating a retirement nest egg through home
ownership.
No wonder Romney won't
show his tax returns. They would provide an arresting picture of how his
economic cohort preserves wealth from the expenses that afflict the
rest of us.
What Romney is
describing is a world of frozen riches in which the social and financial
mobility that have been central to American life become practical
impossibilities. That's a high price for a striving society to pay, but
at least it can be measured in dollars and cents over time. Not so, the
radical alterations that Romney's oligarch-protection program must
inevitably bring to the American social contract.
Let's get right to it.
In a world where increased taxes from the rich are unthinkable and
social expenditures for a growing population are capped below current
levels, a caring society cannot exist. Thus, basing public policy on the
myth of the fiscal cliff becomes a tool for ending those pesky debates
about the obligations of a civilized people toward the least, the lowest
and the lost.
In Randian terms, it's a
beautifully symmetrical resolution about expenses run up by, let us
say, 47% of the people. But one can still pose the questions of what's
best for a two-income household making the median income of about $74,000, or a single-earner household making the median of around $50,000.
For example, how far
does Ryan's unspecified health care voucher go in covering the expenses
of one of these households suddenly faced with an Alzheimer's diagnosis
for a 65-year-old parent who will requires full custodial care, or a
4-year-old with a brain tumor? Or in less traumatic circumstances, where
does such a family turn for tuition to send a child to the best college
for his or her gifts? Sure, these are typical bleeding-heart questions,
but they are also real-life situations that an economic radical doesn't
have to confront with family-friendly solutions.
Personally I find it
hard to believe that at the peak of one of our nation's periodic
revivals, Americans want to eliminate mercy and generosity as typical
American political values.
You have to hand it to
Mitt. He's confronted us with a straight up-or-down vote on the quality
of caring. To be sure, Romney and Ryan will be invoking Ronald Reagan
during the coming days, but what they are saying is an insult to the
Gipper, who compromised on Social Security, raised taxes to meet
rational revenue needs, and understood FDR's war on economic
"royalists." What's on offer this year is Reaganism run amok.
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