Posts by Jon Talton

"With the stroke of a pen, President Obama on Friday enacted the largest tax cut in nearly a decade and, in the process, took a big step toward reinventing himself as a champion of compromise in a politically fractured capital." Thus began a news analysis by one of the leading sources of elite opinion, The New York Times. Nevermind that the "tax cut" is really an extension of a rate reduction that failed to either propel growth or job creation after 10 years in place, and must be borrowed from our friends, the Red Chinese. The point, you see, is that Mr. Hoover has learned his lesson from the famous mid-term "shellacking." The Times reports, "the president who has emerged appears increasingly more confident than chastened, eager to revive his campaign image as a postpartisan leader who can work across party lines even at the cost of alienating his own supporters."

Many problems confront this scenario. One is that the Republicans are too smart, and the plutocracy behind them too powerful, to allow another Clinton triangulation. No amount of groveling before CEOs or the U.S. Chamber will cause them to like President Hoover. The plutocracy owns the Congress, and now, clearly, the Supreme Court. This is not the 1990s. It is a new Gilded Age with cheap trinkets from Asia to keep the proles distracted. And what did we get for Bill Clinton's vaunted triangulation anyway? Deregulation that killed millions of good jobs and set us up for the financial crash. Impeachment. A wasted presidency.

The deeper dilemma facing the president's strategy comes down to this: What is the center in America today? Does it even matter?

As I write this, President Hoover is once again negotiating against himself, this time on extension of the Bush tax cuts. In exchange for a two-year extension on the Bush cuts, Mr. Obama will get, supposedly, a continuation of benefits for the unemployed and a reduction in payroll taxes. In another world, this would set up 2012 as a referendum on historically low taxes on the rich (and virtually no taxes on perfectly legal tax evasion by major corporations). But that world would require a Democratic wing of the Democratic Party, which no longer exists outside of a few members of Congress and underfunded advocacy groups. The American future is found, once again, in Arizona, which has attracted national attention for the Legislature's slash-and-burn approach to Medicaid. It's a program the state never would have adopted without a court order. Now, cuts to the program are a death sentence for transplant patients. Remember the hysteria during the health-care debate over "death panels." It's happening now, under Republican control, where the rich are protected and devil take the hindmost.

Expect more of the same, and not just in Medicaid. Our infrastructure is decades behind that of our competitors, and what we have needs $1.6 trillion just to get into good condition, according to the American Society of Civil Engineers. Most of our schools are underfunded, most of our teachers underpaid. American dominance in research and development is slipping. This is what happens when federal taxes are at a 60-year low, even as the demands (and, yes, appetites) of a complex, urbanized nation have grown. The inadequacy of tax revenue, along with the cost of empire and the recession, have put the deficit at 10 percent of GDP and debt nearly 93 percent of GDP. Yet the answers, from Mr. Obama's own commission, are to slam the middle class and start to welsh on Social Security, just as states are doing on their solemn pension obligations. Nevermind that conservative presidents and policies are most responsible for the red ink. Your tax cuts at work. At stake is whether we will still have a civilization, a meritocracy, a commons — or merely be a market for the Chinese and a looting ground for the rich playerz.

Well, that was over fast. The real or supposed national outrage in America over the airport body scanners was supposed to create a backlash, culminating in a "national opt-out day." Travelers would refuse to go through the new scanners, creating huge lines at airports and…what was supposed to happen from there, I'm not sure. David Carr of the New York Times argues it was a creature of media hype, but he's the media columnist (and, god knows, he wouldn't be the first such scribe desperate for a column idea). I never thought this opt-out would happen, and not because Americans had the wisdom to set aside media-wrought hysteria.

For one thing, we don't have many travel options. It's pretty much fly or drive. Six decades ago, we had the finest passenger train system in the world as well as the best airline service. We had far more intercity trains going to more destinations on the eve of Amtrak in 1970 than we have today. And this is just conventional rail, not the high-speed lines in operation and being expanded all over the world — and competing very well against airlines on many city-pairings. We opted out. Now, not only are we left with far fewer travel options, but we are an increasingly backward nation in transportation.

If one were observing an ignorant and self-indulgent "consumer" America in the abstract, it would be fun to say, "Go right ahead, enact the deficit reductions recommended by the old right-wing coot Alan Simpson & Co. See how that works out for you." The anti-middle-class, anti-investment-in-the-future tenor of the report is perfectly in keeping with the Tea Party, and apparently the white, suburban vote that the Democrats have lost. And this is a commission appointed by Barack Obama. I'd feel this way if I wanted my country to hurt and fail. But I don't.

"Austerity" is just a con to further enrich the nationless capital markets and the super-rich. Nothing more. The very rich have no interest in the history of America from the 1940s through the 1970s, when a rising and secure middle class, and 90-percent tax rates on top earners, still supported fine lifestyles for the wealthy as well as the world's greatest economy and society. Now we have to lose so they can win yet more. But austerity and tax cuts are the watchword, the intellectual fraud that has taken the day. Somehow the boobs indoctrinated by Fox "News" and rightwing talk radio never think it applies to them. To their 4,000-square-foot exurban houses for a family of four, multiple gas guzzlers and "consuming" from the mall and Wal-Mart — all on credit. Why, that's the American dream. Talk about an unsustainable entitlement program.