The rallying cry of Romney and the Republicans is, tax us less and we will have more to create jobs. Really? How much more do they need? The fact is that big business is sitting on over 1.6 trillion dollars and no matter how much they add to that total they aren’t going to create job one until there is some indication that someone is going to buy the products made by the newly employed workers. Until then the only thing that lower taxes for the rich will produce is more yachts, and yacht building is a pretty small business in terms of job creation.
I watched some half-baked psychologist on GPS, the other day, talking about how the left doesn’t understand the right because they don’t really listen to them. I’m more against stupidity and incompetence than I am for left wing causes, but okay, I’ll take the label for this discussion. There are no facts, numbers, equations, progressions, estimations or projections that logically show that lowering taxes on the rich will produce more jobs. For the last thirteen years specifically, and for the most part, for the last thirty, millionaires in this country have enjoyed its lowest tax rate ever, and the job growth has been pathetic. Doesn’t it make sense, even for those with the lowest intellectual capacity, to see that this doesn’t work? So why are Romney and the Republicans trying to sell it to us?
Two reasons. The first that it’s what they want. The Republican Party is dominated by a few rich men, like Romney whose money gives them access to all parts of government, and allows them to pretty much do as they please. Naturally they please to put more money into their own pockets. That they are shortsighted as well as greedy doesn’t seem to ring a bell for them.
The second reason Romney and the Republicans want to cut taxes and spending is because the Democrats what to raise taxes and spending. This could seem childish, but that’s not really the explanation. The thinking Republican, and yes I really believe that thee are many of them, sees the corruption and waste that is the natural way of our government and says; why should we pay for that? It’s a good question, a logical question, but instead of coming to a logical conclusion, which is we have to cut out all that waste and corruption, the thinking Republican says we have to cut out that program. To follow this logic, one would cut off their leg every time they got an infection in a toe. Does that analogy seem ridiculous and overblown? Well, that’s exactly where the Republican policy wants to lead us.
This country has far more than its fair share of children that fall into the poverty class, children who need to be fed by government because their parents, for whatever reason, can’t or won’t feed them. Many of the programs that undertake to feed these kids are rife with waste and dishonesty. Something needs to be done.
The left says that the programs are necessary and must be continued and if left to their own devices they would do just that, ignoring the waste and corruption in the light of the greater good.
The right says there is no reason to continue a program that is full of waste and corruption and they would end that program and return the money to the taxpayers or pay off the national debt, leaving the kids to be taken care of by private charitable organizations.
I say both are wrong. The real answer is to continue the program but police it, make it honest and functional. This outrages the right and confuses the left. Why? Because from the right’s point of view we are extending a corrupt program by giving more power, (the power to police) to the government when we should be shrinking the government. The left is confused because they have already shown no ability to police the program, and what makes anyone think that they will be able to take on added responsibility, when they have already shown that they can’t handle what they have.
I repeat; the real answer is to continue the left wing program but make it honest and functional, that is, have the right wing police it.
I have used feeding poor children as an example but the country has thousands of programs like that, all of which, are the responsibility of government and the reason for government, and most of which need work. The welfare cheat, the guy who collects unemployment so he doesn’t have to look for work, the guy who collects a pension around age forty because he put in 20 years at a job and then takes another job, usually from someone who desperately needs it. These are the kinds of things that make conservatives go mad and rightfully so. Why they say, should I be spending my money to support these deadbeats and outright thieves? The answer is you shouldn’t, but the programs that are being stolen from, are necessary to protect those that cannot protect themselves. That’s what government is for. There’s more to government than maintaining a standing army.
The concept of small government in a large country is ludicrous. All the clowns shouting socialist, every time someone speaks to the need for government to do what it was created to do, only shows how uninformed that segment of the public is. All democracies are socialistic by nature. They depend on a central government to hold the nation together and to provide services that individuals cannot provide for themselves. These include defense forces, police, fire control, garbage collection, education and yes, a raft of social services. Notice that they are called social services. That’s because they serve and deal with society. It does not mean that they are communist which most untrained minds cannot separate from socialist, so before anyone starts jumping up and down and writing dumb signs; realize that the only way out of the jobless market is for the government to create the jobs that the private sector can not. That’s not communism. It’s not even real socialism. It’s government doing what it was created to do.
Notice, that I didn’t say the private sector will not. I said it can not. That’s because it can’t provide jobs when there is no demand for its products. Yes, we can produce new products and that’s what innovation is all about; but if there are no buyers out there with the money to purchase these new products they will sit on the shelf and the manufacturer will go bust, putting those newly hired workers back on the street.
I’ve said this before and so have a lot of people who are smarter than me. The only place to create jobs when there is no demand for product, is for the government to create them to solve problems. One thing we have plenty of, is problems. Rusting bridges, rotting highways, collapsing subway tunnels, antiquated power grids, underdeveloped broadband, decaying schools, understaffed hospitals, non-functional rail systems and a whole raft of others.
There’s plenty to do out there and it would provide plenty of work, mainly to the kind of worker who is in need of it. The money is out there too, at borrowing rates lower than any in history, but nothing will get done unless the right decides to either cooperate or get out of the way. They must stop being the blockade they are now. If they do either of those things and the left gets off its collective, non-functioning butt and uses the money that is available, to provide the necessary infrastructure jobs, we will start the process of getting our people back to work. That means everybody has to bear down and do business, something they have, so far, been awful at. Only then will this country have a shot, and a very good one at pulling out of this mess that both parties have allowed us to sink into.