You can't fight something with nothing. But as long as Democrats refuse to talk about the almost unprecedented buildup of income, wealth, and power at the top -- and the refusal of the super-rich to pay their fair share of the nation's bills -- Republicans will convince people it's all about government and unions.
Republicans claim to have a mandate from voters for the showdowns and shutdowns they're launching. Governors say they're not against unions but voters have told them to cut costs, and unions are in the way. House Republicans say they're not seeking a government shutdown but standing on principle. "Republicans' goal is to cut spending and reduce the size of government," says House leader John Boehner, "not to shut it down." But if a shutdown is necessary to achieve the goal, so be it.
The Republican message is bloated government is responsible for the lousy economy that most people continue to experience. Cut the bloat and jobs and wages will return.
Nothing could be further from the truth, but for some reason Obama and the Democrats aren't responding with the truth. Their response is: We agree but you're going too far. Government employees should give up some more wages and benefits but don't take away their bargaining rights. Private-sector unionized workers should make more concessions but don't bust the unions. Non-defense discretionary spending should be cut but don't cut so much.
In the face of showdowns and shutdowns, the "you're right but you're going too far" response doesn't hack it. If Republicans are correct on principle, they're more likely to be seen as taking a strong principled stand than as going "too far." If they're basically correct that the problem is too much government spending why not go as far as possible to cut the bloat?
The truth that Obama and Democrats must tell is government spending has absolutely nothing to do with high unemployment, declining wages, falling home prices, and all the other horribles that continue to haunt most Americans.
Indeed, too little spending will prolong the horribles for years more because there's not enough demand in the economy without it.
The truth is that while the proximate cause of America's economic plunge was Wall Street's excesses leading up to the crash of 2008, its underlying cause -- and the reason the economy continues to be lousy for most Americans -- is so much income and wealth have been going to the very top that the vast majority no longer has the purchasing power to lift the economy out of its doldrums. American's aren't buying cars (they bought 17 million new cars in 2005, just 12 million last year). They're not buying homes (7.5 million in 2005, 4.6 million last year). They're not going to the malls (high-end retailers are booming but Wal-Mart's sales are down).
Only the richest 5 percent of Americans are back in the stores because their stock portfolios have soared. The Dow Jones Industrial Average has doubled from its crisis low. Wall Street pay is up to record levels. Total compensation and benefits at the 25 major Wall St firms had been $130 billion in 2007, before the crash; now it's close to $140 billion.
But a strong recovery can't be built on the purchases of the richest 5 percent.
The truth is if the super-rich paid their fair share of taxes, government wouldn't be broke. If Governor Scott Walker hadn't handed out tax breaks to corporations and the well-off, Wisconsin wouldn't be in a budget crisis. If Washington hadn't extended the Bush tax cuts for the rich, eviscerated the estate tax, and created loopholes for private-equity and hedge-fund managers, the federal budget wouldn't look nearly as bad.
And if America had higher marginal tax rates and more tax brackets at the top -- for those raking in $1 million, $5 million, $15 million a year -- the budget would look even better. We wouldn't be firing teachers or slashing Medicaid or hurting the most vulnerable members of our society. We wouldn't be in a tizzy over Social Security. We'd slow the rise in health care costs but we wouldn't cut Medicare. We'd cut defense spending and lop off subsidies to giant agribusinesses but we wouldn't view the government as our national nemesis.
The final truth is as income and wealth have risen to the top, so has political power. The reason all of this is proving so difficult to get across is the super-rich, such as the Koch brothers, have been using their billions to corrupt politics, hoodwink the public, and enlarge and entrench their outsized fortunes. They're bankrolling Republicans who are mounting showdowns and threatening shutdowns, and who want the public to believe government spending is the problem.
They are behind the Republican shakedown.
These are the truths that Democrats must start telling, and soon. Otherwise the Republican shakedown may well succeed.
Robert Reich is the author of Aftershock: The Next Economy and America's Future, now in bookstores. This post originally appeared at RobertReich.org.
The US Federal Government is our largest social problem bar none. Rotten to the core.
Balance the budget. Close programs with an axe. And give the country back to the people.
Banks let mortgage holders pay off their mortgages early by making double payments ... that is, splitting your monthly payment in two and making two payments every half a month. By making the payments more continuous the customer saves a huge amount on the mortgage over the life of the loan.
So, why can't our tax brackets have a continuous function, such as calculating the tax by a formula so everyone pays the same amount of tax according to the formula, that way the people at the top and bottom of each brackets don't either pay more or less relative to the average person in their bracket ... in fact we could get rid of brackets and have a nice curve that starts to indicate tax due at some kind of agreed on living wage.
And it can only get worse if the schools get less money and get worse too.
It is clear, this is a manufactured crisis, apparently the only thing America manufactures any more is crises with one-sided interpretations.
We needed an FDR in President Obama, but we got Bill Clinton Jr., and as a result we continue to slide further right.
Nearly all Democratic politicians are afraid to tell the truth about what's really going on in this country and the world - stateless gangs of plutocrats exploiting and terrorizing the rest of us for profit and the overinflation of their sociopathic egos.
As the GOP steals us blind, the majority of American citizens are literally ripped to shreds. Rather than supporting policies that enrich us all from top to bottom, the GOP and their bought and paid for pandering tools, promote further devastation of all but the filthy rich. America's top 5 million are hell bent on establishing in this nation a Mexican economic model that has 50 families owning that economy to the complete exclusion of the remaining 100 million Mexican nationals.
The overt attack by the GOP on workers' collective bargaining rights is just the latest in their pursuit of unlimited power. The right wing Supreme Court majority that espouses unbridled corporatocracy is another powerful step toward complete domination of this reactionary take over. That Court's holding in Citizens United v. F.E.C. has done exactly what it was designed to do...enable the wealthiest among us to "own" the rest of us; set policies that enable more concentration of power (and wealth) among the top 1 percent through labor, tax and social "reforms" that are as antithetical to true American values as anything seen since the early 1900s.
Where is the likes of a Theodore Roosevelt when we desperately need him or her? Is "principle" completely dead in the United States of America?
As sad as it is to say, the governments throughout the United States of America are
It would be an easier problem to solve that what we have right now.
Every time we have popped up a problem deficit it has been in a Republican administration, and it always leads to huge money for an elite, and a big problem for everyone else that they have to pay off.
What Bush did with his tax cuts was kick the economy when it was down ... basically crippling it with debt. Someone has to pay it off, and the money is just not in the bottom 50%, and further crippling people when there is a huge wad of cash that the top 1% is sitting on unprodcutively is criminal.
You have the respect of liberals, progressives, most Democrats and plenty of independents. You have national recognition. You have the requisite experience, intellect and integrity. And you have the connections with those other influentials most likely to join and support such an effort. And if you're reading the posts made in response to your writings, you know that there are millions of folks out there who still desperatley seek a party and a leader that will fight alongside them for an enlightened America. So, why not you and why not right now?