Ed Kilgore says ...

8 Words of Wisdom for Week Ending 4/17/2009 #3

It's no secret that arguments for economic inequality depend on two different kinds of rationales. One is simply that of efficiency: permitting a significant amount of wealth accumulation provides capital for investment and growth, while also creating incentives for hard work and innovation. But the other, which is powerful in our essentially moralistic land, is moral: those who create wealth and improve economic productivity deserve, via their hard work, talent, and willingness to bear risks, deserve a higher standard of living than their sluggish, mediocre, and risk-averse fellow-citizens.

A variation on this moral theme is that a nation where your standard of living (not to mention those of your children) is largely determined by the rewards and punishments of rigorous competition is a stronger and more virtuous country--indeed, an exceptional country that has earned certain hegemonic privileges by its virtue and prosperity.

But in determining national economic policies, the "earned privilege" rationale for inequality begins to break down when inherited privilege comes into play. And that's why it's more than passing strange that the estate tax--or as Republicans like to call it, the "death tax"--has such weak support in Washington even among politicians who profess no particular objection to progressive income taxes ...

I have been continuously surprised at the opposition to the Inheritance Tax among so many Americans. Obviously, a lot of that is based on the misinformation put out by conservatives and their "useful idiots" in the Republican Party. (No one can find a single instance of a family farm being lost as a result of the inheritance tax.)

The answer to why conservatives support the inheritance tax seems rather simple to me: they are hypocrites. The notion that they support rewarding risk is just bunk. They reward the accumulation of wealth ... and that is all. They seek to make it easier to keep wealth, and have no interest in helping others join the ranks of the wealthy. At no point are modern conservatives about anything else.

Source - The Democratic Strategist

Ed Kilgore says ...

8 Words of Wisdom for Week Ending 3/27/2009 #7

Obama answered these questions in the obvious way, telling Loven that it's precisely the absence of such authority that's made outrages like the AIG bonuses possible, and reminding Todd that "the public" is already sacrificing quite a lot, thank you very much. He also exhibited his famous cool by addressing Loven and Todd in a tone of mild surprise, without laughing out loud or exhibiting anger.

The more interesting aspect of the questions is the mindset they reflected. The planted axiom in Loven's question was that government screwed up the bailout of financial institutions, and thus the immediate remedy is to reduce, not expand, the power of government. This assumption is central to the GOP's effort to make "activist government," not Wall Street, the villain of the story, and to shift the focus away from the causes of the financial conflagration to the would-be firefighters.

Todd's question was a bit more subtle. In Washington-speak, calling for "sacrifices" by "the people" is code for going after government programs and/or tax benefits that are popular among the middle class. Indeed, "shared sacrifice" is often a euphemism for "entitlement reform," particularly in the context of the budget. So asking Obama when he's going to call for "sacrifices" is another way of suggesting that he's taking the easy way out by expanding some government programs and leaving others alone, instead of "even-handedly" cutting everything. This is High Broderism at its most abstract.

It was nice of the press to confront the President with the arguments of the conservatives. The problem is in the sheer stupidity of the arguments. Nothing in the bailout has suggested that the problem is with the government. Everything has suggested that the government is not involved enough in the bailout. I don't like Geithner, but he's right about the government needing the authority to take over large financial institutions when their failure to perform threatens the broader economy. We need the Treasury Department to get off their asses and see if our largest banks need to be placed in some form of FDIC receivership. We need Congress to get off their asses and re-regulate the financial industry to the moon and back. We need the Justice Department to get off their asses and start handing down indictments when necessary. The time for government intervention is yesterday.

Source - The Democratic Strategist