The Base.
A few days ago (I think) I asked what Obama stood for. After his press conference, I think I have a better idea. He believes in government that does the most good for the most people.
But there was an exchange on MSNBC with Howard Dean this morning that underscores an important point, that Josh Marshall teased out well here. Dean was explaining that the root of his opposition to the Obama tax deal was that tax cuts for the wealthy do not stimulate the economy but are terrible for the deficit. And I agree.
The host seemed startled that progressives care about the deficit. But Dean has always cared about long term deficits. The host - Chris Jansing - was simply internalizing the idea that the Democratic party loved to run up big deficits, whereas the GOP was the party of fiscal discipline.
But that's objectively false. The last GOP president to care about the deficit even a teensy-tiny bit was Bush 41, when he raised taxes. Reagan barely cared. Cheney said - falsely - that Reagan proved that deficits don't matter.
Marshall's right - and Obama said the same thing - that the GOP only cares about tax cuts, especially for the rich. That is literally all they exist to do. They don't have anything against a government program that will win them votes, look at Medicare Plan D. But the new raison d'etre of the modern Republican party seems to be, "Let's run up huge deficits so that Democrats can't do what they want when they get into power."
Grover Norquist, GOP kingmaker, famously said he wanted to shrink government to the size where he could drown it in a bathtub. But does anyone really think the GOP is worried about the size and obtrusiveness of the federal government? They gave us warrantless wiretapping, Medicare Plan D and the Department of Homeland Security. One of the more impassioned critics of the modern GOP is Ron Paul, a libertarian, for crying out loud. That's how far through the looking glass we've gone.
And it's worth noting that the Teatards that are SO upset with a health care plan that is estimated to actually REDUCE the deficit were fine with all the Bush era power grabs. And one of their main obsessions right now is to allow Arizona to become a modern day police state for people with high melanin content in their skin.
Now, having come into power, they have leveraged themselves to one purpose. As Obama pointed out, the ONE thing they care about is tax cuts for the rich. That's IT.
You're average Teabagger is fairly wealthy and older (and of course, melanin-deprived). They don't care about "liberty". They care about what they see as a redistribution of wealth. And they see THEIR money going to THOSE people. They see it SO clearly, that they even see it where it doesn't exist. Ask a Teabagger whether his taxes went up or down under Obama, and he'll say they went up. They went down, but he'll just say he knows what he knows.
The idea that Democrats practice wealth redistribution is not entirely inaccurate. But the Republicans practice it, too. They redistribute wealth upwards. They stand in foursquare opposition to anything that might impinge upon the privileges and perquisites of the rich. Health care reform? The rich have health insurance, but wealthy insurance companies and for-profit hospitals stand to lose, so the GOP is against it.
This is why the failure to have this debate in September was SO maddening. This is why I hope that Obama continues to portray the GOP as essentially captive to the idea of a massive transfer of wealth from everyone else to the very rich. He makes a piss-poor populist, but maybe the case needs to be made in his rather Vulcan-esque calm. At every opportunity, the Democratic party needs to reinforce the idea that the GOP wants to bankrupt the country in order to provide tax cuts for people who don't need them.
Just because Obama is willing to compromise on it now, doesn't mean that he can't run on this issue in 2012. At least, that's my only hope for this country.
Not to be melodramatic or anything.
No comments:
Post a Comment