Pocketbooks will fatten just enough to get scammers on the congressional Right re-elected
It couldn’t be more transparent, that the middle class has been bought off with token tax relief in the Republican tax bill, while billionaires and corporations continue to top up their coffers with still bigger tax breaks.
But the transparency doesn’t mean much, since the cynical middle class has had to resign itself to getting Something rather than Nothing for the last few decades. They’re inured to it. Now a few crumbs tossed to ordinary folks will suffice to keep Republican politicians in the House afloat for at least another year. That’s because elections usually turn on pocketbook issues, and if by November the average taxpayer has received $1,500 worth of reductions in withholding, then s/he will settle for the status quo. (Even a status quo with Trump at the helm, as long as he does not actually start a major war.) Put that together with gerrymandering, and seeing that the House Republicans would have to lose 46 seats to lose majority, I imagine they will hold it. Especially because there are bound to be more rounds of attempting to repeal the ACA—even though McConnell is now loathe to touch it in the Senate—which will rally the conservative base.
The Senate majority is more iffy, largely on account of the drag of Trump. We mustn’t make too much of the slim defeat of Roy Moore in Alabama. Moore was a weak candidate even before the revelations of his sexual depredations, and his loss was due as much to disgusted Republicans staying home as it was to Democrats coming out. On the other side, Democrats, especially African-Americans, was heartening, but absent a Republican as divisive as Roy Moore, we can’t count on a repeat in 2018.
Once again, the “Trickle Down” theory of wealth growth has triumphed over common sense. The biggest Trickle from the new tax regime is supposed to come from corporations who will lever their newfound tax advantages to invest in American businesses and projects, thus bringing prosperity to all—more jobs, higher wages, and more job security. The last time this was attempted was in the George W. Bush presidency and we see where that eventually led.
I was in favor of reducing corporate taxes, and so was President Obama. But to cut them nearly in half! It’s a giveaway based on the very shaky bet that corporations will Do The Right Thing for Americans. The latter might happen as a side-effect, but the corporations’ first obligation is to shareholders— who are now rubbing their hands with glee. (The fact that some of us, through retirement investments, are gaining by this should not take our eyes off the ball—the ball being the disproportionate enrichment of the Donor Class.)
The Grip of Reaganism
The day that Ronald Reagan busted the air traffic controllers union in 1981 is the day that turned the tide against all labor, unionized or not, and that tide has been running against the average American ever since. In one quick blow, he shattered for good the implicit pact between capitalists and workers that had been forged in fire in the first half of the Twentieth Century. This blow succeeded for the airline industry at the time—salaried supervisors were able to keep the system limping along until the fired strikers abandoned the union and were accepted back as singles, or were simply replaced by new trainees.
Of course, the defeat of the air traffic controllers union was not by itself a fatal blow to labor, but it was a conspicuous marker of less visible, more pervasive forces at work under Reagan.
The long-term effect hasn’t been the “rising tide lifting all boats,” phenomenon, it has been a tide sweeping away hard-won protections earned by the labor movement, and replacing them with “right to work” laws and similar measures that disadvantage workers as a whole. “Right to work” makes it possible for employees to refuse to pay union dues for some gripe such as the union supports Democrats—and then this employee benefits from union activities on his/her behalf without paying in. Becomes, in effect, a free rider.
“Right to work” has the plausible ring of empowering the rugged, self-sufficient individual, the mythic icon of American success and American exceptionalism—the icon that stands in opposition to Old World collectivism. Unions, along with expanding government, were targeted as agents of a veiled Communist movement antithetical to the American character.
Unfortunately, the failure of corrupt Communism east of the Iron Curtain gave strength to the argument of capitalism’s stalwarts, whom Reagan represented, that collectivism of all kinds was inherently inimical to democracy. Never mind that moderate forms of socialism, such as found in the Scandinavian countries, were working out to the benefit of all, the Soviet Union and the monster Stalin became the cruel face of collectivism.
“Right to work,” hand in hand with other compatible legislation and business practices at federal, state, and local levels, has succeeded in atomizing the American workforce, leaving individual workers to compete with each other rather than joining forces—and that dynamic has persisted to this day. (It is starkly evident in the vehement conviction within the white underclass, that immigrants, and people of color favored through Political Correctness, are taking their jobs.) The “gig economy” that sounds so revolutionary is yet another manifestation of the same theme. It is now enhanced by disruptive communications technology, but it is the same game of vying for scraps.
“Stronger Together” – We Wish!
Hillary Clinton’s campaign slogan, “Stronger Together,” echoes the theme of labor unions sixty years ago. The American labor movement truly was a tide that lifted all boats, and Americans today, including “right to work” advocates ignorant of history, still owe much to that noble struggle. If the labor movement hadn’t happened, most of us would be worse off than we are now—in the case of the poorest, much worse.
The Right is working from an implicit philosophy of, “Richer Divided.”
So here we are in 2017, trying once more to muster support for a progressive agenda, one that recognizes the dignity of all and the power of unity. That’s a challenge for 2018—but if we lose (as I think we will, in overall numbers of legislators), it could be something along the lines of losing a battle but going on to win a war. As much as I deplore many facets of social media, they can be a tool for unifying, and were used as such by the Obama campaigns of 2008 and 2012. There’s promise for the future starting in 2020.
We can be stronger together, but we must appreciate the strength of the forces arrayed against us, and one of those forces is the persistent narrative of the rugged individual conquering all odds. That myth energized the expansion of America’s the western frontier in the 18th and 19th centuries (at a devastating cost to indigenous people) , but a frontier mentality does not suit the intensely socially integrated world of our time.
==========afterthought follows============
P.S. *I have one lingering and uncharitably negative take on CNN commentator David Gergen. On air, Gergen waxes sanctimonious about the offenses of Donald Trump. But one should not forget Gergen’s role as speechwriter pitching Ronald Reagan’s economic policies in the 1980s. Gergen may be a fundamentally decent man, but his contribution to the success of Reaganomics is arguably one of the biggest reasons for the rise of the tea party and Donald Trump.