Christopher C. DeMuth is one of the grand old men of conservatism, having served at the American Spectator and run the American Enterprise Institute think tank for years.
As we all are, DeMuth is disturbed about our "fractured politics" and longs to do something about it. In a speech at AEI he proposes, 1) to end the modern filibuster, and 2) to enact a balanced budget amendment.
I'm sorry, but to me Christopher DeMuth is missing the point. Politics is about bigger things than the petty obstructionisms of the filibuster and the glorious goal of fiscal rectitude. It is about what happens after the welfare state.
And if we want to play the blame game then, yes, conservatives are to blame for the current mess. You can see that in the deficit numbers over at usgovernmentspending.com. The federal deficit started up in the messes of the 1970s and continued high in the Reagan years of the 1980s. That's when conservatives decided we were not going to continue as dutiful tax collectors for the welfare state.
Not surprisingly, Democrats hate this. The neo-feudal welfare state is a great way to capture the votes of those new to the city, the immigrants that first came from Europe and now come from pretty well everywhere else. Rural people look to a strong benevolent master to look after them. Anthony Trollope defined the type in Cousin Henry, although his master is a woman:
As the old New Deal consensus has broken down the Democrats have responded by tightening political discipline. The meaning for me of all the political correctness is that Democrats need to frighten their supporters in order to get them to the polls. Obviously the 90 percent Democratic votes from African Americans is proof of that. The whole point of President Obama's race thingies, like support for Trayvon Martin and the race incident in Ferguson, Missouri, is to keep African-Americans strong in the fear that we are one election away from a return to Jim Crow. The only way to get 90 percent of any group's vote is to scare the stuffing out of them.
That is why we seem to be in a kind of a witch-hunt/reign of terror. Political hysteria is a natural step in the political process when things aren't going too well for your side. Earnest partisans ask themselves why the movement has not reached the Promised Land. The answer is obvious: saboteurs and wreckers, or in our modern parlance, racists, sexists, and homophobes.
And obviously, when an idiot like Donald Trump can become president, then it is time for the Resistance!
Now, I am a peaceable kind of guy, and I really don't like bust-ups. But nice, responsible reform is not the way that politics works, not now, not ever. That's because government is force, and the total assembly of government programs are nothing but a testament of force, enacted by the ruling class to reward its supporters. The revenues for Social Security pensions are obtained by forcing the American worker to cough up about 12 cents of every dollar earned. The Medicare benefits are obtained mostly by forcing wealthy Americans to cough up a substantial part of their incomes, so that the top 1 percent of federal taxpayers supply 40 percent of income tax revenue.
I don't see that any fiddling with the filibuster rules, or balanced-budget amendment is going to fix this problem. If you look at history the only way that any governmental problem gets solved is when it runs out of other peoples' money, and maybe not even then.
The reason that Donald Trump was elected is because the white working class finally woke up to the fact that the Democratic Party regards it as deplorables and expendables. And has done so ever since Archie Bunker was launched on TV in 1971 as the quintessential working-class racist sexist bigot. But the white working class still wants its Social Security and its Medicare. So nothing will change.
In my view, so long as the great middle of the American people want to be looked after by a kind land-owning squire rather than band together in non-governmental forms of social assistance, so long will the present neo-feudal big government welfare state continue. Until it breaks.
It might break because the non-white majority prefers the neo-tribalisms of modern Africa over the nation-state capitalism birthed in Northwest Europe. It might break because it runs out of money and the leaders of the time prefer to destroy the economy, as with Venezuela, rather than admit its errors. It might break because we got into a war and tried to continue the middle-class entitlements while waging global war on the Russians or the Chinese.
But one thing is sure. The present "fractured politics" will continue until somebody cries "uncle."
As we all are, DeMuth is disturbed about our "fractured politics" and longs to do something about it. In a speech at AEI he proposes, 1) to end the modern filibuster, and 2) to enact a balanced budget amendment.
I'm sorry, but to me Christopher DeMuth is missing the point. Politics is about bigger things than the petty obstructionisms of the filibuster and the glorious goal of fiscal rectitude. It is about what happens after the welfare state.
And if we want to play the blame game then, yes, conservatives are to blame for the current mess. You can see that in the deficit numbers over at usgovernmentspending.com. The federal deficit started up in the messes of the 1970s and continued high in the Reagan years of the 1980s. That's when conservatives decided we were not going to continue as dutiful tax collectors for the welfare state.
Not surprisingly, Democrats hate this. The neo-feudal welfare state is a great way to capture the votes of those new to the city, the immigrants that first came from Europe and now come from pretty well everywhere else. Rural people look to a strong benevolent master to look after them. Anthony Trollope defined the type in Cousin Henry, although his master is a woman:
The tenants had known her as the future owner of the acres which they cultivated and had entertained for her and shown her much genuine love. She had made herself acquainted with every homestead, landmark, and field about the place. She had learned the wants of the poor, and the requirements of the little school.That is how Democrats think of themselves, as kindly proprietors of the poor and the marginalized. Only, in truth, the federal budget is not all about the poor, but the middle class, for 50 percent of the federal budget goes for middle-class Social Security and Medicare. We conservatives say, great: everyone wants to help the poor, but not if it means that 50 percent of the federal budget goes for Social Security and Medicare. It stands to reason that, whatever the benefits of pension and health care programs for America's seniors like me, middle-class entitlements should not break the budget. It stands to reason also that the political system would always want to avoid facing up to the huge obligations of these fixed and immovable middle-class entitlements. Until it is too late.
As the old New Deal consensus has broken down the Democrats have responded by tightening political discipline. The meaning for me of all the political correctness is that Democrats need to frighten their supporters in order to get them to the polls. Obviously the 90 percent Democratic votes from African Americans is proof of that. The whole point of President Obama's race thingies, like support for Trayvon Martin and the race incident in Ferguson, Missouri, is to keep African-Americans strong in the fear that we are one election away from a return to Jim Crow. The only way to get 90 percent of any group's vote is to scare the stuffing out of them.
That is why we seem to be in a kind of a witch-hunt/reign of terror. Political hysteria is a natural step in the political process when things aren't going too well for your side. Earnest partisans ask themselves why the movement has not reached the Promised Land. The answer is obvious: saboteurs and wreckers, or in our modern parlance, racists, sexists, and homophobes.
And obviously, when an idiot like Donald Trump can become president, then it is time for the Resistance!
Now, I am a peaceable kind of guy, and I really don't like bust-ups. But nice, responsible reform is not the way that politics works, not now, not ever. That's because government is force, and the total assembly of government programs are nothing but a testament of force, enacted by the ruling class to reward its supporters. The revenues for Social Security pensions are obtained by forcing the American worker to cough up about 12 cents of every dollar earned. The Medicare benefits are obtained mostly by forcing wealthy Americans to cough up a substantial part of their incomes, so that the top 1 percent of federal taxpayers supply 40 percent of income tax revenue.
I don't see that any fiddling with the filibuster rules, or balanced-budget amendment is going to fix this problem. If you look at history the only way that any governmental problem gets solved is when it runs out of other peoples' money, and maybe not even then.
The reason that Donald Trump was elected is because the white working class finally woke up to the fact that the Democratic Party regards it as deplorables and expendables. And has done so ever since Archie Bunker was launched on TV in 1971 as the quintessential working-class racist sexist bigot. But the white working class still wants its Social Security and its Medicare. So nothing will change.
In my view, so long as the great middle of the American people want to be looked after by a kind land-owning squire rather than band together in non-governmental forms of social assistance, so long will the present neo-feudal big government welfare state continue. Until it breaks.
It might break because the non-white majority prefers the neo-tribalisms of modern Africa over the nation-state capitalism birthed in Northwest Europe. It might break because it runs out of money and the leaders of the time prefer to destroy the economy, as with Venezuela, rather than admit its errors. It might break because we got into a war and tried to continue the middle-class entitlements while waging global war on the Russians or the Chinese.
But one thing is sure. The present "fractured politics" will continue until somebody cries "uncle."
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