There have been some very interesting looking
threads that I regret missing, but I've been
too absorbed in my own policy machinations.
For the same reason I'm going to have to
sign off until the smoke clears and try
to figure out ways of changing my life.
But I can't resist the opportunity to annoy
everyone one more time, especially because
it has to do with something I'm working on.
I will hang around to field some responses,
if there are any.
The fabled "prosperity dividend" now being
touted by the Progressive Caucus, the AFL,
and all my formerly favorite Members of Congress
is an unmitigated piece of shit. But let me
tell you how I really feel.
The Dems had a unique opportunity when Bush
rolled out his tax plan to put forward one that
contrasted favorably -- something clear, simple,
and progressive. The Pwogwessive Caucus had an
opportunity to provide leadership on this same
count. They are totally blowing it.
In a forthcoming piece in The American Prospect,
I suggest three good ways of doing such a tax
cut, one of which is my own proposal with Bob
Cherry.
Instead of putting forward a progressive tax cut,
we are getting the proposal to take about a third
of the on-budget budget surplus (about $750 billion)
and divide it equally amongst the population -- about
$300 for every man, woman, and child in the nation.
The payment, misleadingly described as a "tax cut"
or "tax rebate", would be conditional on the surpluses
"really being there."
The proposal began in at least two places. One was in
the brain of Bernie Sanders, and the other in an op-ed
in the NY Times by Richard Freeman and my boss, Eileen
Appelbaum. The op-ed was founded on a sensible point:
if you want to stimulate the economy, tax cuts are not
the best way to go. Too slow and too small. Fine.
Better to just send everyone some money, like they
do in Alaska every year with state royalties from
oil drilling. Fine again.
The trouble is that this idea has mutated into a
semi-permanent payment that, more than anything else,
certifies the brain-death of Democrats and the non-
radical left. Here we have a huge budget surplus,
after years of austerity fueled by the assertion that
we cannot do anythin until the deficit is gone, and
the proposed policy is divvy it up.
The proposal has been getting nice elite press coverage,
and I think I know why. It's because the elites don't
want any tax cut at all, so by treating this idea
seriously they discombobulate G. Bush. I very much
doubt this proposal is politically sustainable, so
the effect is to cede tax policy to the G.O.P.
It is not sustainable because people in the U.S. don't
want the government to send checks to people who don't
work or pay taxes. As soon as people figure out this
is what is going on, the prosperity dividend will die
a well-deserved death, and the road to the Bush tax
cut will be clear.
I suspect the Democrats don't want a tax cut either,
they only want to stop Bush. Some of them may want to
spend later, others to keep paying down debt. Either
way, their invocation of austerity policy makes future
spending initiatives less probable, not more, IMO.
I don't think you can invoke fiscal discipline now,
then turn around and say it doesn't matter when you
have majorities in Congress. I realize this has not
stopped Greenspan or the G.O.P., but the Dems are
deeper in this swamp in my view. Nor is it clear that
opposing tax cuts gets them majorities in Congress.
The bottom line is the Dems fealty to finanz kapital,
whether tactical or strategic, is a cancer on the
social-democratic prospect. It will take a populist
uprising to get them on some kind of positive track.
That's what I'm working on. Right now the action
is tax cuts. There will be a
large one, and the only issue is how to do it. The
dividend is not a tax cut; it has nothing to do with
the taxes anyone pays, nor with their contribution
to the economy (both intimated by supporters). It
is just a payment for Being. It's moolah, nothing
more, and it will never happen. Instead G. Bush will
get credit for rewarding his supporters, and for lack
of an alternative, the Dems will split between those
upholding fiscal discipline and those who are bought
into the Bush package.
cheerio,
mbs
