A Policy of Meanness Without Meaning

Or How the Politics of Governors Will Destroy Republican Chances in 2010

“We don't want no new filthy stinking taxes sullying our pristine reputations?” “We are so absolute about maintaining the smallest level of taxation on the wealthy in the world that we have lost all political sense?” Or maybe just, “We think most of you are just as mean spirited as we are and that benefits us politically, too bad if you're broke.”

Whatever the message may be that they are trying to send; the Republican Governors of anywhere from five to nine states are uniting against Federally supported unemployment payments to their most desperate workers.

The  states involved thus far are in the South where unions have long been an endangered species. They are also places where education had to go through desegregation to reach it's current heights. In most cases that is not so lofty by national standards. If the anti-tax movement has a home base, this is it, and guess what? Those policies are not working to make wealth grow!!!! “These States are ______(you fill in the blank) poor.”

If you want to know what you are talking about when you speak of matters economic you need to study results from the past a bit. If policies have not resulted in an economy with more winners than losers they ought to be reviewed and discarded. The Republicans are so caught up in their anti-tax revolution that they cannot see how it works against the very outcome they desire.

The main value of a strong expanding economy is that it continuously expands and redistributes wealth. Simply put, money keeps moving and wealth keeps growing. That means that more economic activity is better than less in our estimate.

It also means that the goals of the anti-tax movement are only occasionally aligned with the common good. That is, Shockingly, not where the tax cuts are used in ways that increase immobile, stagnant wealth. If taxes promote the movement of money and the growth of wealth generally, not in the hands of the few, the proud, the super-rich; they benefit the economy.

Of course we can do anything in excess even lower taxes. Redistributing wealth is the job of the economy. Government is around twenty five percent of this economy or more on an annual basis. If our only source of expansion is Government Spending we have two choices. Crank up the printing presses or raise some taxes from the money in the mattresses.

Laffer, an economist with a wicked curve, lied to us. Cutting taxes is not always the best solution in hard times. Raising taxes on the wealthy does increase revenue when they are already this low. In fact, raising them on select members of society might even work better to help the economy expand if you lower them on the rest of the people. If taxes are used to free up wealth for redistribution in times where some people are stuffing their mattresses those taxes work to help the economy expand.

Cranking up the printing presses is what the anti-tax governors are really all about. Either that is their goal or it is a long and arduous depression without light or hope. They may just want a planet full of pain. The idea that it also quickly becomes a no gain economic model should not be lost on them. They have only to look at their own state's past performance economically to see the inevitable outcome.

Meanwhile the election of 2010 looms large in their eyes. Too large if it obscures the real image they are projecting in the world of 2009. The meanness and smallness of their spirits are nearly as tiny as is their understanding of how the Economy of this nation works.

That is what makes the irony of their position so poignant. They are unwittingly sacrificing their careers on the altar of their mistaken ideology. While I would gladly hand them the knife there is something else at stake. The painful question is will they take the GOP's loyal opposition down with them? We need a healthy strong opposition in this country and the governors may be killing it just when it is most needed.