Bubba Called

By J.M. Hamilton

 

A very good friend phoned the other day to rant about Obama.   “Obama is a one termer, for sure,” he said.  And then Bubba went on to gloat about the resiliency of the Texas economy, and how there’s no state income tax.   I had heard much of this before.   “He’s out… watch the midterms.”

Bubba dates back to my youth, those days when you feel nearly invincible, and you just might live forever.  Bubba, in those days, could charge an offensive line with the best of high school line backers, rend it, and stack it up like so much beef.  Bubba always felt that high school football was the closest he’d ever get to have a legal license to maim, and he was right.   He was the kind of guy that you’d shot gun a six pack with on a Friday night, just to set the tone: simpler and more prosperous times, indeed.

“You (carpetbaggers) are going to looose,” Bubba, again, on the shifting political winds.  (In the interest of full disclosure, Bubba actually used a different phrase, but this is a family oriented blog.)

Unfortunately, Bubba, like many of my Republican friends, I would argue, is out of touch with the present realities of the Republican Party.  Simply put the Republican Party of Reagan, and the eighties, is about as far removed from the present day Republican Party, as well, let’s say “night and day?”  In fact, one could argue that Reagan’s rhetoric was out of touch with the Republican Party of his era, but we’ll sort this out in a few more paragraphs.  Bubba sums up the current administration with one word:  “socialist.”

Ah Bubba, I knew you when.   I knew you when your future wife came hauling across the cow pasture, locked up the brakes in front of the pick-up that we quietly sat drinking beer in, our après water ski ritual, slammed the car door, and glaring at you, all 110 pounds of her stalked into the trailer and slammed the trailer door, a metaphorical exclamation point to her intense rage.  The trailer shuddered, and the glass rattled.  Bubba quietly put down his beer, and w/out so much as word followed his future bride into the cave.  The screaming and shouting was tremendous – barely muffled by the thin walls of the trailer, which contained 38 caliber bullet holes, created by firing a weapon from the inside.  Don’t ask.  Sally (name changed to protect my best friend’s wife), soon departed, slammed the trailer door behind her, and sped back out across the pasture, leaving a blinding dust cloud.  I didn’t even merit so much as a withering look from the angriest blond I’d ever seen.   It was late afternoon, but near the century mark.  I considered the dust rude, as it threatened the liquid refreshment.

As the dust began to settle, Bubba opened the trailer door and emotionless, sauntered over to the pickup, cracked open the cooler, and grabbed a cold one.  Bubba popped the can, and reclining back into the bed of truck, offered up the following immortal words:

“If I told her once, I’ve told her a hundred times, she’s going out with the drunk and she’s just going to have to get use to it.”  

Some may consider those words sad coming from a young man in his early twenties, but I appreciated, greatly, the honesty and the life lesson.   Bubba, this one is for you!

Socialist Defined

For fiscal conservatives, the Reagan Revolution started out promising enough, after all this is the President who, in his first inaugural address said the following:  “In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.”

But there was a disconnect between the rhetoric of Reagan and the dramatic growth in government under his watch.  That is to say, the debt to GDP ratio soared, as government spending picked up and tax cuts were installed.

 

Debt to GDP doubled under Reagan and his successor, George (H.W.) Bush, who when he tried to rein in the debt with a tax increase was turned upon by the more reactionary party members.  H.W. did not believe in “VooDoo economics” or the fiscal irresponsibility of deficit spending; and since the party of Reagan had no appetite to cut social programs, military spending or corporate entitlements, there was no other solution but to raise taxes; but this is anathema to Republicans, as exemplified by Reagan’s line:  “I have only one thing to say to the tax increasers: Go ahead, make my day.”

 

Of course, allowing government spending to increase without a matching increase in tax revenue is the height of fiscal irresponsibility.   Basically, America has been living on a credit card economy, since the 80’s.  And in the last decade Republican’s eschewed the fiscal responsibility rhetoric altogether, when Vice President Cheney stated:  that deficits do not matter.  VP Cheney, however, as a former CEO, knows that deficits do matter, and in fact if a business’s expenditures are greater than its revenue - it will soon go out of business; unless of course you are a patron of the Republican party and a recipient of Republican bailouts, as in the case of AIG and the Wall Street Banks!

For Republicans now to cry foul when a Democratic administration runs a deficit is the epitome of hypocrisy, almost like a drunken sailor, or drunken Bubba, howling at the wind!  It appears that deficits do matter after all, particularly when you are out of power and cannot dispense fiscal largess on your core constituencies.

Monopoly’s Economic Drag

So what’s with the double standard?   It appears that when the Republicans are in power, it’s perfectly okay to run catastrophic deficits as long as the money is going to Wall Street Bank bailouts, the military industrial complex (via two wars, in Afghanistan and Iraq), or to support monopolistic genesis.

The Reagan 80’s and the Bush 2000’s saw a record number of business mergers and consolidations in the American economy, fueled by private equity and the Fed’s easy money policies.  Of course, this frenzy of consolidation often leads to monopolistic, or oligopolistic, powers, and the ability to make extraordinary profits.  Look no further than Exxon, who, in the heart of economic down turn, with a glut of supply and a fall in demand, continues to take record money.

Of course, as this blog has written about (see: Monopolies and Double Standards) monopolies don’t occur in a vacuum; but rather, occur via government sanction and authorization.  Since these mega corporations are the creation of government, the unchecked profits earned by these industry leviathans represent a form of taxation on the U.S. citizen, and this taxation represents a tremendous drag on the overall economy.

But it’s okay if the crony capitalism makes record profits – while unemployment and underemployment is in excess of twenty percent -  because our friends, the Republicans, have taught us through a steady diet of laissez faire indoctrination that if corporate America , or business, does it, it’s gotta be wholesome, righteous and in the public interest. 

So not only are the Republicans in favor of deficit spending, but they also favor the covert taxation that monopolies impose on ordinary Americans every day.   Except the toll taken by Republican authorized monopolies doesn’t go to pay down the Republican created deficits, it goes straight into the pockets of the plutocracy!

Like the Bubba of yesteryear, the Republican Party is drunk.   Drunk on the power of big government, deficit spending, and the exorbitant profits of the monopolies they have created and authorized while in power.

Command Economy & Capital Strike

Republican’s on the campaign trail, spurred on by the Tea Bag community, like to take on the present administration over its effort to bailout the Detroit auto makers.   And of course, they did not like this administration’s forays into Healthcare; but where were their objections when Bush/Paulson spent trillions bailing on the Wall Street banks and AIG, or when Bush expanded Medicare to include prescription drugs?

If we are honest with ourselves, Americans have to recognize that we have been living under a command economy for years.   Eisenhower, in his farewell address to the nation, warned of the military industrial complex.  Energy, Big Pharma, High-tech, the Agricultural oligopoly: are all examples where the government has created, and encouraged, massive incentives for these industries to concentrate and accrue massive wealth and power. 

In authorizing this concentration, Republicans have ignored the deleterious impact on the American public and the citizens of the world.   The hubris surrounding today’s Republican Party is nothing short of amazing, where the ends always justify the means, as long as the ends align with Republican interests.

So that today’s business man, and capital, is literally on strike, in protest over the Obama administration’s policies, as they represent a deviation from the thought that to say “no” to business, or attempt to regulate same, is a direct threat to business itself.   Corporations are hoarding cash, and banks – despite gigantic bailouts – are not lending, both in protest over the current administration; but who brought the uncertainty and the instability that big business is protesting, more specifically, what political party aided and abetted the greatest financial meltdown in the history of man?  Agreed, Democrats share in the blame, but more importantly - who lead the charge?

Political dogma is a dangerous thing.  It has to be continually evaluated and dissected.   Are the assumptions of yesterday, or the claims of a political party truthful and accurate, or just hollowed out rhetoric?   How did the Republican party stray so far from the path, from at least talking the talk, under Reagan, to neither talking the talk or walking the walk, under “W” (or in the case of Cheney, outright apostasy and a cynical manipulation of core beliefs and values)?

Perhaps over time Republicans will reform; but right now their rejection of government (except when it can be used to spread financial cheer among friends), their pandering to the baser instincts in the population, their idolatry of money and profits before all, will not serve Americans or business.   The present Republican path is nihilistic, which appears to wish for, and embrace, government insolvency.

Bubba and Sally, my readers will be happy to know, grew up, married, and had two wonderful children.  They still like to tip a couple on the weekend, but he’s responsible, usually - well mannered, and makes a contribution to society.

I wish the same could be said of the Republican Party.  Then again, perhaps Republican constituents have been going out with a fiscal drunk, and we just need to get used to it.