Genre

Tuesday, September 18, 2012

The November Election: How to decide? Part Two [essay]

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In Part One of this piece, I said:

"Peace and prosperity, equality of opportunity, liberty, and justice for all: the most persistent threat today to these essential values is the concentration of wealth and power in the hands of the few. Equality of opportunity is simply not possible when power – social, political, or economic power – is extremely concentrated, as it is today. Justice is undermined when some can afford more and more skillful legal counsel than the rest of us. Liberty is diminished when the wealthy work to guard wealth for themselves and to limit others' powers to get ahead. Peace too is endangered when power is highly concentrated, because one tried and true means of perpetuating the hold onto power by the few is to use propaganda to promote fear by demonizing so-called "enemies," and to stir up social conflict at home and war abroad. Prosperity depends on both peace abroad and equality of opportunity at home.

"In short – as the Founding Fathers clearly understood – extreme concentration of power threatens our pursuit and attainment of all that we value most highly.

"If we fail to elect the candidates whose policies more credibly address the pervasive issue of the currently high concentration of power in the hands of the few, then our lives will be diminished in many ways. Ironically, even the lives of the most powerful themselves will be diminished, as well as the lives of the rest of us. At least long-term, our national experience - which since the 18th century has been no different in this regard from other national histories - shows that widely shared prosperity benefits all, including even the most prosperous among the rich."


Now, how should we proceed here in Part Two?

First, we should recall the problems that are widely believed to be the central issues in this election. Then we can look at each issue and review how, if at all, differing opinions on each topic relate to the key problem we face, the huge disparity between the wealth and power of a few and the comparatively meager wealth and power of the rest of us.

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Before we begin such a review, let's recall that from time to time, several issues are mentioned that are of great significance to a relative few, such as Birth control and Abortion rights, Immigration, Same-sex marriage, and other topics.  Questions of freedom, justice, perhaps equality of opportunity may be relevant in discussion of these issues, but none of the issues themselves are closely related to the central issue in this election, which threatens all five of our core values as a nation.

Traditionally, areas of concern often debated in presidential campaigns include: Foreign Affairs, the U. S. economy including taxes, and education.  In recent years, health care has also been an issue.  Two other issues of concern now are the way political campaigns are funded, and public restrictions on private businesses (especially financial institutions).

So, we need to ask ourselves how the central issue - toxic concentration of wealth and power - would be impacted by the various, differing opinions on each of these issues:
  1. Campaign Finance
  2. Government Regulation of business
  3. Education
  4. Health Care
  5. Foreign Affairs, and
  6. The Economy.

The purpose here is not to make a detailed or authoritative analysis of the impact on today's enormous concentration of power and wealth of the contrasting positions on all these topics, but to demonstrate ways in which one should consider for whom to vote based on whether we perceive that a particular candidate's policies will make the key problem we face worse or better.


a.  Campaign Finance


The Supreme Court's recent "Citizens United" decision was either good or bad, depending on the candidate speaking.  But it is clear to all that the decision to this point has certainly had a big impact on the wealth-power gap.  Or, rather, those few in whom wealth and power in America today is highly concentrated have certainly exploited the new potential they have been given to increase their already powerful influence on elections.

Because there is now no limit on the amount wealthy persons (including Corporations, who - as at least one candidate has recently affirmed - are also persons) can give anonymously to political campaigns - and experience has shown that the amount of money a candidate spends on her or his campaign decides the election more often than not - current legislation regarding campaign financing is likely to help the rich and powerful keep or increase their wealth and power.  The result is continuation of the downward spiral from democracy, or rule by representatives of the people, and toward plutocracy, which is rule by the richest few.

Candidates who have acknowledged the need for change in campaign finance legislation deserve our support, and those who either ignore or oppose such reform should be hotly criticized.  The proposed legislation requiring full disclosure of all gifts above $10,000 to campaigns, political action committees, and also to political issue "social service" non-profits would help, but not fully resolve the issue.  The proposed Constitutional Amendment clarifying that Corporations are not "persons" is sorely needed but has little chance of approval for a while.

b.  Government Regulation

No one supports mindless and inefficient bureaucracy, which slows social progress including economic growth, but for decades in America there have been many complaints about over-weening government interference and unnecessary regulation.  But since the recent Great Recession in particular, there have also been loud voices calling attention to the vast and profound harm that de-regulation over the last three decades has done to our economy.

Would return to more efficient and updated public restraints on business tend to increase the current trend redistributing wealth and power from the people generally to a few individuals and a few large corporations?  If so, then candidates supporting more (and better) regulation should be supported, and those still complaining that we have too much regulation already should not.

The current weakness of business regulation has led to reduced competition as the large and wealthy corporations continue to corner larger and larger markets, becoming "too big to fail."  Weak regulation has contributed significantly to less and less commitment to truth in media, as well as to riskier business speculation as we saw recently in personal credit and in real estate.

On the other hand, in the 2012 elections there are even fewer candidates for office who are seeking more government requirements for business accountability than there are supporting campaign finance reform.  In other words, although increasing accountability is needed to stop the greater and greater concentration of wealth and power, positions on this issue taken by current candidates are not likely to influence our decisions about whom to support.

c.  Education

Equality of opportunity is a key to addressing the problem of the disparity between the Super-rich and the rest of us, and as we learned in the 1950s, "separate is not equal."  But the amount of quality education available to poor and middle-income Americans today is far from equal to that accessible only to the Rich and Super-Rich.  The misguided and unnecessary pursuit of a "red herring" - national debt control - has led to actual cuts in local tax revenue, driving down educational quality across the nation.

Candidates who support immediate change to make college more available to all should be supported.  Those candidates committed to raising the level of public education generally - to all families, in all sections of all our communities - should be preferred over those who complain how much such efforts may cost.  Those who cut or arbitrarily limit taxes and force public school teacher lay-offs, school mergers, and larger classes in public schools or who seek to undermine public education by issuing vouchers should be vilified, defied, and thrown out of office wherever possible.

d.  Health Care

People living in deteriorating and crime-infested neighborhoods - for whom good and healthy food is difficult to find, whose health is poor or insecure - do not have an equal opportunity to find and hold good jobs and to get ahead.  Without equal opportunity it is highly probable that the wide gap separating those with lower incomes from those more fortunate will grow wider still.

Good, well-insured health care must be made equally accessible to all if all of us are to have the opportunity to advance.  Those candidates today who oppose the few, minimal steps toward this goal that have recently been taken need our support, and those committed to reverse recent progress, thus reducing the chances we have for narrowing the gap between the Super-Rich and the rest of us must be opposed.  Those who have protested our recent steps forward the loudest must be the most hotly criticized of all. 

e.  Foreign Affairs

The foreign policy issues in the November elections are the instability in the Middle East and, as always it seems, the threat of war.

The questions of how to deal with the Syrian civil war and what to do about Iran's efforts to develop nuclear weapons endanger our prospectives for peace, a core American goal.  We should oppose candidates who speak recklessly about the U. S. intervening (again) militarily in Middle Eastern conflicts - including the intractable Palestinian-Israeli crisis.  The Super-Rich and the huge global corporations profit from American military involvement, and "tough talk" about abandoning our friends the Israelis, about invading Syria, standing up to China, and bombing Iran serves their interests more than it serves our country's.

We have "the big stick"; our leaders should be those who "speak softly."

f.  The Economy

The two central questions about the U. S. Economy in 2012 - taxes and jobs - boil down to the same one, How to get the economic engine hitting again on all cylinders?  The challenge for us, as we decide whom to support and whom to oppose, is to distinguish those economic policies which will get us rolling the sooner toward reversing the movement tilting toward the increasing benefit of the wealthiest Americans.

The essential problem in a time of economic deflation, depression, or recession is that too little money is being spent relative to the goods and services that the current economy can produce.  The solution, therefore, is to increase the amount of money being spent.

When a candidate says he or she supports reducing or freezing taxes, that does sound relevant to the central issue; increasing taxes - it would seem - would actually further reduce the amount of money being spent.  But let's think that over a moment. 

It's not the amount of wealth in the economy that is the problem: it is the lack of money being spent  Therefore, increasing the amount of wealth by reducing taxes is good or bad depending on whether the dollars being made available will actually get spent, right away, on goods and services produced by the American economy. 

Reducing the taxes of those who are less likely to spend here and now, on real goods and services will not address the problem.  Reducing the taxes on those who are eager or even desperate to spend - on basic necessities such as food, housing, clothing - would most effectively address the problems of recession.

Candidates who support reduction of taxes on the lower-income Americans thus deserve our support, while those seeking to reduce or even freeze taxes on the very wealthy should not be supported.  (Note: Even increasing taxes on the rich - closing loopholes, raising the graduation of income taxes, taxing capital income at the same or nearly the same rate as income earned - this would not significantly harm economic recovery.)

The benefit of increasing the amount spent on goods and services here and now is that businesses will produce more as more is sold, and will need to hire more workers and buy more supplies; suppliers will produce more and will need more workers.  (If this spiral were to go on too long - say, ten years - then there would be more demand than an economy at full capacity could produce, and price inflation would result.  But the immediate problem we face today is the opposite.)

One problem, though, with reducing taxes as a means of increasing money being spent is that it takes time.  Federal income tax, of course, is paid only once a year.  New spending now is the goal... which means that direct government employment of a larger number of workers is the better, immediately-effective way to get the economy rolling.  Big government projects - rebuilding bridges and highways, for example - take some time to get rolling; but putting back to work the many laid-off government workers - teachers, police officers, fire fighters, et al. - could be done very quickly.

Thus, candidates who are bold enough to support rebuilding essential government services right away, even if money is not yet on hand to pay for it, should be supported since this is the most efficient way to start us moving again toward widely shared prosperity.

3

As we seek to know what candidates in November will help the country the most, we have to refuse to chase red herrings - the size of the national debt, social issues, the unfair trade practices of China, questions about American military intervention in foreign conflicts, etc. - and keep rigorously focused on the problem undermining our progresses toward achievement of our most fundamental national values.  Our core values are long-term and broadly-shared peace, prosperity, equality of opportunity, liberty, and justice.

All five of these national goals and essential cultural values are threatened today by the widening disparity of power and wealth in the hands of the very, very rich, at the expense of all the rest of us.  Who is likely to work to reduce that gap?  Who is more likely to increase it further?

We can decide if we take this approach.

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