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"I will, therefore, begin by saying the most unpopular and most unwelcome thing. I will begin by saying what everybody would like to ignore or forget but which must nevertheless be stated, namely, that we have sustained a total and unmitigated defeat..."
--Winston Churchill, after the Munich agreement, 1938
It is hard to know what the next few weeks will bring in terms of a budget agreement, but one thing is already clear. Our side has already lost, and the Republicans have already won. All that is being determined now is the size and scale of the Republican victory--whether it will be merely massive or rather total and overwhelming.
It is easy to lose track of the greater picture while mired in the details of the chained COLA or distinctions between cutting tax expenditures and raising taxes. But when we step back to consider the larger situation, it becomes striking how much we have already lost.
The battle we should be having is over two competing visions of our society and government. On one side should be the Democratic Party, the great advocate for the poorer and middle classes. We believe the government has a positive role to play in society. As an extension of the public at large, government should provide a safety net for the elderly and the poor, and for those who find themselves the victims of an economic disaster well beyond their control. With the economy still struggling, we understand that it is the government's responsibility to use its vast capabilities to stimulate growth and employment. In practical terms, we know that with unemployment running high and interest rates running low, we believe that the government should borrow money and spend it into the economy, providing a boost that will help the economy into self-sustaining growth. We realize that the big problem right now is not that companies do not have enough confidence in the future, but that do not have enough customers in the present, and that government stimulus will help that.
On the other side will be the Republican Party, or rather, a caricature of that once-great entity. They claim that even at a time of widespread distress that our most pressing issue is the federal deficit. Their solution to this problem is the same as it always is--to cut the size of government. They say this is necessary to instill business confidence, or because a balanced budget is a good thing in itself. But really, it is obvious that these reasons are rationalizations for a predetermined conclusion. Republicans always say that we need to cut spending--whether times are good or bad, whether the economy is growing or not, whether the budget is in surplus or deficit. All they want to do is to shrink government into helplessness--the deficit is just the latest excuse.
These are the conflicting positions. The Democratic vision is of a positive government, which acts as a partner for the private sector in boosting the economy. The Republican stance is a cynical drive to slash public spending and services no matter the situation. With public sentiment overwhelmingly saying that the poor economy is a much larger concern than the deficit, which side is winning the argument? The Republican side, decisively and obviously, rhetorically and practically. The Democratic president repeatedly agrees that the deficit is our paramount issue, and espouses belief in the confidence fairy. He propounds the absurd analogy of government as household with all of its absurd consequences. Even if, as some people say, that this reflects mere political posturing and not his actual beliefs, it sets the parameters of debate and public perception. The idea of new stimulus is completely out of the question in this environment, now that both sides agree that spending must be slashed, not increased.
Unbelievably, the discussions now center on how much we can cut from Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security--three sacred programs that represent the best of what our society can do in take care of each other. Far from being coerced into this, the president has been a driving force in putting these cuts in play. The final outcome--whether we cut $2 trillion or $4 trillion, how much we squeeze out of Medicare, how we adjust the benefits of Social Security, what pennies in higher taxes the Republicans will graciously concede--will not change one unalterable fact. That the main battle is already over, and that our side has been utterly defeated.
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