New-fashioned Participation

Reading my old friend Lawrence Wilkinson's most recent post this morning (with broadcast news of the raging debt crisis playing in the back ground), I'm prompted to scrawl down a few thoughts on a "participatory web" that predates (but not by that much) the internet.

Citing an article in the current Economist, Lawrence points out that 43million—one in every seven Americans!—regularly recieve food stamps.  And, as I was just reminded by my own TV, a big part of the uproar over the arbitrary August 2 deadline (on extending the federal debt limit), centers upon precisely which of the 80million checks that the gov't issues to its own citizens each month, may be delayed.  By my estimation, that equates to over half of all American families have become, to a greater or lessor extent, dependent upon government largesse! 

Somehow, I really can't imagine that the founding fathers had anything like this in mind for their Republic: a nation that has devolved to contemporary politicians routinely pandering to whatever voting block they can identify.  Then, sadly, the very nature of an entitlement makes it all but impossible for the next office-holder to remove these insidious freedom-killing programs. Add in an ever-accreting set of politically-packaged new "rights" (e.g., government subsidized health) and the demogoguery floats on a sea of red ink with ease.  This owes, in part I think, to the unhappy coincidence of a less-than-fully-congruent-different "half" of tax payors: i.e., those that end up paying no tax at all and, therefore, have no percieved stake in the outcome or "skin in the game."

`lest you think that terms like "freedom killing" are just so much demogoguery of their own, consider the direct and indirect impact of chronic deficit spending.  What right do we have to indebt our children and grandchildren, to the tune of $100K's/ea, just to pay for our own current over-consumption?  Fast forward a few years to when more frugal Chinese elect to call our hand and start cashing out: doesn't our best case scenario then involve a kind of subtle servitude?  And, back at home in real time, does anyone really doubt that more/better jobs are inextricably linked to expansionary and successful private business ventures? That being the case, isn't it also obvious that, on the margin, an overly-progressive tax structure most certainly retards new and/or expansionary enterprise?

Idiots like Bill Maher puzzle aloud over how/why folks would "vote against their own interests" (e.g., by not insisting on higher taxers for the rich).  He's also fond of saying that the Ameican people are morons.  He's wrong.  The truth is that more of us than he knows have an, at least subliminal, understanding of economic cause and effects; and, in general, we're more rational and aspiring than the elite left wants to fathom.

So, what's "overly-progressive"? How about the status quo. Do you know that in the US 5% of Americans pay over 80% of all taxes BUT they take in less than 40% of all income! In short, the rich and upper middle class already pay more than their "fair share."  IMHO, Obama's hollow solution to upping taxes on "millionaries and billionaries" is almost as big a fraud as is his pointing to corporate taxation (a practice that does nothing more or less than driving the cost of everything up and the demand for American-made products down).  You could take all of the income of all of the very rich and all you get is less: less new business initiatives and, by a short route, less tax revenue (from the suddenly idle but formerly most productive among us). For more on this line of thought, Micheal Medved has been penning persuasive prose here for a while.

First uttered by Plato (and restated by de'Tocqueville and an assortment of others since) "A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury."

Back to Lawrence's original point: a couple of days ago I was standing in the check-out line of a moderately up-scale grocery store and watched as two patrons' selections, including all manner of cosmetics, frozen foods and choice meats, were bagged up.  Call me a tea bagger (which I'm decidedly not) but I could not help but become mildy annoyed to watch them both whip out their EBT (food stamp) cards with nary a notion of appreciation to those out working to pay for their "gifts."

Comments

[Scott Schaefer]

You sound like a cold hearted capitalist who would like nothing more than to perpetuate a country that provides more opportunities to it's citizens than any other in the history of mankind. Here's a question for you.....How is it that we find ourselves on the brink of falling into the abyss of the average while centralized planners in China steer their country to ever higher levles of growth and prosperity?

[Doug]

Thanks for the question F.Scott
DUH...I have no answer. Do you?