Klein's flawed assumption

Ezra Klein tries to make sense of things:

As I understand it, the GOP has five basic goals in the budget talks:
1) Cut the deficit.
2) Cut entitlement spending.
3) Protect defense spending, and possibly even increase it.
4) Simplify the tax code by cleaning out deductions and loopholes.
5) Lower tax rates.

He then outlines the fundamental incompatibility of Republicans' hostility to the White House's attempted accommodations of the former's stated goals, noting that "I’ve asked some Republican sources to explain their thinking to me. But none of the answers quite seems to add up..... Perhaps I’m missing something?"

In fact, Ezra, the underlying problem may be that you've included too much; that is, you have accepted as premise #1 the Republican goal to "cut the deficit." While this is a noble-sounding marketing slogan for the GOP, it is politically antipodal to the party's deeper objective of goal #2--"cut entitlement spending"--which, to be somewhat repetitive, becomes politically more palatable only by not accomplishing goal #1.

Put another way, one should not accept at face value anything the GOP says (is it really still necessary to say that?)--especially when it comes to deficits, and especially since it was the GOP that deliberately cranked them up. And having gone to so much trouble to wreck our fiscal house, why would the GOP want to help rebuild it, which in short order would only let entitlements off the hook? 

Finally radicalized nearly to the point of clarity, the contemporary GOP is left with one fundamental goal: to destroy the welfare state, along with anything that smacks of a welfare state, which includes earned entitlements. And that cannot be accomplished through logical fiscal policies, nicely ordered, beginning with "cut the deficit."

Comments

[AnneJ]

As I understand it, the GOP's stated goal is to drown government in a bathtub as Grover the Norquist has famously said. Does that mean their government jobs as well? And if not then what do they get to draw a government paycheck for? And if they do accomplish such a goal, then what? What happens next? Am I missing something here?

[ren]

AnneJ...if I may: I think the goal is not total elimination of government. The idea is that once the welfare state has been destroyed, we'll still need a crew of brave patriots to stand guard against the forces of evil who would seek to rebuild it. And 435 Republican Congressmen and ohh...about 100 Republican Senators ought to be enough to do it. Throw in a prez who knows how to sign his name, a dozen Supreme Court justices with the right values and a few hundred lackeys to shine shoes and government has been "right-sized" at under 1000 people. Think of the tax cuts!

[Robert Lipscomb]

Since the advent of Reaganism, labor's only effective means of negotiating with management and owners is via "entitlements" and the "welfare state".

The ability to tax is the equivalent of ownership. Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid comprise something like a set-aside of 10% of the economy - tatal economic assets. Think of those combined assets as comprising the perfectly designed and operated mutal fund.

I am sure the One Per cent think of it that way.

Now add to that our public school systems - state & local, including colleges. The taxes for that mirror what I just described and can be thought of as one large education fund for the bottom 95%. I do not know, but 5% of the economy is a reasonable number for the sake of argument.

So, (gain for the sake of argument) let's say 15% of the combined economic assets have been set aside in a mutal fund that benefits everyone - more or less equally, and the One Per Cent cannot touch it - more or less.

Most people live in a cash flow economy. The One Percent has a healthy balance sheet (assets and liabilities) in their financial statement. So, they notice what I have described and perceive it that way.

They also think they now do and always will deserve to own the whole damned economy - and not just 85%.

The One Percent also know that this big mutual fund is really popular because it works really well. They know that if the 90% see it the same way as the One Per Cent, they are toast in a truly democratically elected, representative government.

In the movie, "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre", three gold prospectors go mad with greed when they realize they own a big gold mine and sacks of gold.

The One Per Cent see the gold mine and the bags of gold.

They want "their money" back!

[Chris Andersen]

I'm sure the one percent of the one percent think that way. People sometimes lose perspective on just what it takes to be included in the one percent. I believe it's somewhere around $250,000 a year.

Yes, for the average person that is a lot of money, but when it comes to making investment decisions, someone who makes $250,000 a year is really not that much different from someone who makes $75,000 a year.

The people who salivate over that 10% of the economy that is set aside for Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid are people for whom a $250,000 *investment* would be considered small change. These are the people who regularly make decisions that effect the transfer of billions of dollars around the world.

So let's talk about the greed of 0.01% shall we?

[Robert Lipscomb]

I can go with the 1% of 1%.