Balancing the View

Paul Krugman writes commentaries on politics and economics. For the New York Times. He is well seasoned, thought provoking and academically skilled. And balanced.  He recently offered this view:

“A society committed to the notion that government is always bad will have bad government.”

Even if it turns out to be better than feared I’ll bet a lot of people – maybe a majority? – will think the government is bad nonetheless.

Let’s check a few things out and see how bad some people think it is, and yet how well the government is working anyway.

The federal Office of Management and Budget provides these Fiscal Year 2014 spending facts as proposed by President Obama: (percent of total expenses budgeted for the year)

            “Military expenditures total 57%

             Education department gets 6%

             Government operations gets 6%

             Veterans’ Benefits gets 6%

             Housing and Community programs get 5%

             Health is budgeted at 5%

             International Affairs gets 3%

             Energy & Environment is at 3%

             Science gets 3%

             Transportation programs get 3%

             Labor Department gets 2%

             Food & Agriculture is slated for 1%”

Discretionary expenses are very small compared with military overhead. Cut a little out of a small departmental budget and many lives are affected. Cut a little out of the military budget and it is hardly noticed.

Independent Senator from Vermont Bernie Sanders reminds us:

“At a time when we now spend almost as much as the rest of the world combined on defense, we can make judicious cuts in our armed forces without compromising our military capability.”

Surely Senator Sanders has a viable point here. The US continues to be the watch dog for the world at our expense. Germany, Italy, France and England can complain about American policies, spying and its war on terror. But where are they with budget assistance, program collaboration, fast strike anti-terror forces, military equipment, and the rest of it? We are doing a lot to make the world safe. The world community needs to step up to the plate and carry their fair share. We prop up the world economy, global defense systems, and international affairs without a lot of help from others. We also are 'Johnny on the Spot' with charitable aid following disasters, and continuing medical and food assistance to third world countries. Yet we continue to get complaints when it is politically feasible for them.

What would happen if we re-sized our military? Well, for one thing, the military industrial complex would scream like stuck pigs. After all that is the greatest means of subsidizing American corporations. They paint it as patriotic contributions toward our mutual defense, however, they run to their banks with outrageous profits daily; have for many decades.

Yet, try to get more dollars to improve education for our children! Or a bit more for health programs, welfare assistance…you name it and the corporate elite will be there to complain. 

We should ask: “Where is the balance in these views?”

Sidney Hillman reminds us:

“We want a better America, an America that will give its citizens, first of all, a higher and higher standard of living so that no child will cry for food in the midst of plenty?”

Maintaining a well balanced economy will produce plentiful jobs, savvy investing, great returns on investments, and a growing standard of living for the greatest number of people. This can be done, but only if the greedy are willing to recognize that they do not solely take risks to make money. Each taxpayer does so with their taxes invested in building infrastructure that we all use for common benefit. Corporations, however, experience the largest share of the benefit. They do not directly pay for that infrastructure. We all do. Their job is made simpler because of that fact. They make money with less risk using the investments of other people.

Bernie Sanders continues his dialogue with us with this statement:

“In America today, we have the most unequal distribution of wealth and income of any major country on earth, and more inequality than at any time period since 1928. The top 1% owns 42% of the financial wealth of the nation, while, incredibly, the bottom 60% own only 2.3%. In terms of income distribution in 2010, the last study done on this issue, the top 1% earned 93% of all new income while the bottom 99% shared the remaining 7%.”

Balance is missing. Clearly. Also clearly this anonymous quote has much truth in it:

“When the poor come to the government for welfare, they are stigmatized and degraded. When the rich come for welfare they convince everyone that they earned it.”

 And Bill Moyers boldly asserts this:

“America’s vast inequality didn't just happen…it’s been politically engineered.”

And we all watched it happen. Many of us didn't think it would get this bad. Well, we were wrong!  The statistics make a compelling argument of that!

Charlie Price goes further with this statement:

“Remember the fertilizer plant that blew in West, Texas? Hell, remember the Massey coal mine disaster? Remember how there inevitably was a story about how those places had been freed steadily from the death grip of government regulation by the Invisible Hand of the Profit Motive? Remember how people then wondered how such terrible things could happen to such wonderful people and everybody sent teddy bears and stuff?

Well for the love of weeping Christ, if you let the members of America’s corporate elite go unsupervised and unaccountable, they will kill people, either all at once in cave-ins or big boom-booms, or slowly, a little at a time by poisoning the air and the water and the food.”

Pretty harsh words, but then think about this quote from mediamatter.org:

“Fact: The federal deficit is shrinking (and it’s projected to hit a 5-year low this year).

Yet 90% of Americans believe that the deficit will either stay the same or increase. So, how can the public be so misinformed on this?

            You can thank the Media for that one.”

Well I have a couple of thoughts to add to this:

First, the annual federal spending deficit is shrinking as reported; it is still red ink however, and the national debt continues to grow. That is where the public’s confusion lies.

Second, the media may have a role to play in this confusion but the real engineers of the problem are the political wing nuts who spread false information, manufacture false ‘facts’ and deliberately mislead the public. We call those people ideologues. They believe the ends justify the means. These are usually the conservatives and republicans in our midst.  Shame on them.

We know why the deficits of the past several years exist: two wars, massive tax reductions for the wealthy, expansion of social programs at the same time, response to Katrina, Hurricane Sandy, and 9-11. Add in World Terrorism and you have a pretty good idea how and why the deficits came about. And the current President had very little to do with it. The previous administration did. And the media loved it. So did the Tea Party, the republicans and gamers.

Well, hopefully there is a little more balance in these matters just based on today’s blog. I can only hope it makes a difference to a few people!

November 7, 2013