I hate hypocrisy. That’s where someone doesn’t practice what they preach. I can’t stand those phonies.
It’s part of the reason that I’m not religious. Virtually all religions would like one to believe that they are all about peace, being nice to your fellow man, etc. But, then, take a close look at the fine print…the Bible, the Koran, etc. You need not delve too far into the prose before you discover racism, misogyny, bad behavior rationalized by platitudes, etc. Religions and greed have caused most of the wars in history, and it’s not surprising because they have a lot in common.
For the past thirty years, the Republican party has been the so-called “deficit watchers”, the Party of No, the Tea Partiers, and such. To hear tell, they should not, will not, shall not pass spending measures which increase the Federal Budget deficit (i.e. spending more money than we take in). It makes sense to me. Anytime the Democratic party rolled out a program to benefit Americans, the Republicans would be all over it like stink on dirty diapers. Conservative think tanks would pooh-pooh the idea, and Grover Norquist would enlist Congressmen to take pledges against such heresy. Rallies would be held, effigies would be burned.
Now that the Republicans control the White House, the Senate, and the Congress, it seems that GOP leaders are singing a different tune. Proposals to increase military spending by 10 percent while significantly lowering tax rates are being bandied about. Excuse me, Sirs, but we’ve seen these pie-in-the-sky solutions attempted before, under the guise of “Trickle Down” or “Voodoo” economics. Basically, they don’t work, and the budget deficit tin can just gets kicked down the road by Congress, throwing as-yet-unborn Americans further under the bus. That’s how deficits happened in the first place: a promise earn our way out of debt. It never seems to happen, for some reason.
Under this particular Republican administration, where facts don’t seem to matter, and perception is the only thing that counts, there is going to be great impetus to come up with a huge, barnburner of a tax cut to make everyone fat and happy. Rallie and parades will be occasioned, the Flag will be waved, and Republicans will thump their chests. Unfortunately, the Federal Budget, which has been out of balance for decades, will then be even further out of balance, which would mean that the deficit will grow exponentially.
This would have curled the hair on GOP Congressmen two years ago; now, not so big a problem. The reason: “those tax cuts will stimulate business”, thereby offsetting the income tax revenue reductions. Well, that may be, but, if that happens, it will be the first time that the Trickle Down/Voodoo plan actually bore fruit. Nixon couldn’t do it, nor could Reagan, nor could the Bushes. But, then, they were experienced government hands who understood democracy and politics.
President Trump, whose background is business and using the tax code to rescue his failing businesses, is going to give it his best shot, though. He’s got operatives writing up daily Executive Orders to strip Federal watchdog agencies of any authority, so that Big Business will be free to rape and pillage in the name of free enterprise. Profits should go up. However, we’ve been there before…i.e. the Gilded Age…and the excesses that typified that era were the stimulus for Big Government. Big Business got too big for it’s britches, and America throttled back the industrial tycoons with a raft of regulations. Despite that, our financial institutions have found ways to work around the regulations and kick the country in the crotch on several occasions (Stock Market Crash of 1929, Savings and Loan Debacle of 1989-1995, the Great Recession of 2007-2009). Now that the Trump Administration is declawing the market regulatory agencies, we can expect more of the “Greed is Good” mentality and subsequent economic bubble bursting. We may not survive the next one.
It will be interesting to watch the GOP Congress leaders wordsmith their way around the coming tax and budget plans. Lying and hypocrisy has always gone hand-in-hand with being a successful politician, so I’m fully expecting world class bullshit to emerge in the coming weeks, trying to convince us (with a straight face) that “Two plus Two equals Five”, “Deficits are actually Good!”, or some other 360-degree philosophical flip-flop. This is going to be entertaining.
There are many phonies in the nation’s capital, but one of the biggest idiots and bullshitters is Senator Ted Cruz. He’s the shameless self-promoting Tea Party doofus who couldn’t even beat Trump in the primaries. The distinguished legislator (?) today floated a Mexico Wall funding proposal that would utilize seized assets of the drug cartel strongman El Chapo Guzman. That is not going to happen in my lifetime, and certainly not during Trump’s presidency. But, if it did, and the Wall was built (miraculously) tomorrow, what would be the impact? I’m pretty sure that the labor market for homebuilders, farmers, domestic help, and landscaping (not to mention many factories which employ illegals) would dry up, causing the economy to tailspin into another recession, at the minimum. It certainly would in California.
This is the way it is in politics. It’s like a balloon which is squeezed down on one end, only to get larger on the other end. A “Zero Sum” game, in many respects. There are reasons for all the laws (hint: constituencies), the governmental agencies, the lobbyists, and the complicated tax code. All of it is designed to support the American Way of Life, as we have come to know it. Well-intentioned modifications are fine, but quick, wholesale changes are problematic. If it were easy, smart guys would have perfected this long ago.
I hope that the entire crew in Washington D.C., Republicans and Democrats alike, take the time to figure this out. All ideas should be on the table, but, in the end, the math needs to work.