Tuesday, January 31, 2012

This One's For the People

I've been thinking about politics a lot lately.

Weird, I know.  I mean, honestly, who thinks about politics these days?

At any rate, one of my weird friends who is also thinking about politics mentioned something interesting today, about the fact that the federal deficit has been one trillion dollars (yes, that's with a T) each of the last four years.

And this wonky friend said something along the lines of "If you took all of the wealth and income of the top 1%, you still couldn't close the budget gap."

But maybe...well, maybe it shouldn't be about the top 1%. Maybe it should be about everyone?

My opinion is that anyone out of you and I, I think, could generally agree on a basic framework for even (gasp!) a decently progressive tax regime - say, five tiers, from ~0% to 30%. Heck, you and I might even be able to agree on eliminating most or all deductions, loopholes, and maybe reduced rates. We'd probably agree that some people - maybe even you and I - might have to pay increased taxes, if only for a while to start closing the gap.

You and I could probably agree on some broad-ish entitlement reforms. Maybe we couldn't agree on everything, but you and I, we could get some things done, you know?

And I'd think that most people, liberal and conservative both, would agree with both of us and our decisions. They may not like it - neither of us would like everything - but they would probably agree.

But we are not Congress. And Congress scuttled both deficit reduction plans, with President Obama not being willing to push Erskine-Bowles.

Why did Congress scuttle these?

Because they don't give a flying fuck.

We, you and I and the public at large, are not Congress. Congress, despite its protestations and the general idea behind our democracy, does not work for us.

Congress works for their campaign donors, for the media, for Soros and the Kochs, for whoever you want to suggest that excludes "the people."

And so we end up with an eleventy-billion page tax code, corporations with two sets of books (one for the IRS, one for their investors, both above board), all these :!: H&R Block and Turbotax ads, PACs, SuperPACs, a joke of a campaign finance system, and a trillion-dollar deficit.

But you and I? Well, we could work it out, but so what? It's not us who's in charge.