The Republican Corporate Welfare State

The Republican Corporate Welfare State:
I was a young faculty member, teaching the Introduction to American Politics, at the University of Rochester in the early 1970’s. On occasion, we had guests come into the classroom, particularly during an election year, and one of the guests was the Democratic and African-American Democratic Congressman, Ron Dellums, from Berkeley, California. Berkeley was and probably still is one of the most “liberal” communities in the United States. Dellums was an outstanding public speaker, often falling into the colloquial speech of the Ghetto as a way to make a point, or for humor, and he made a point that day that has stayed with me my whole life.

Welfare vs. Subsidy:
He asked the student a rhetorical question. “Why is it that when the government gives poor people money, they call it “welfare,” which is a very bad thing according to the Republicans? However, why is it when the government gives money to rich and prosperous people, they call that money, “subsidies?” And Republicans really must like “subsidies” because they give so many of them out. He wanted to know if anyone in the class could tell him any difference between the two things that warranted a different word for them. He wanted to know why it was the height of” virtue”, according to Republicans, to give tens of billions of dollars in “subsidies” to farmers for the purpose of reducing agricultural output while it was “immoral” to give tens of billions of dollars to poor people, who might really need the help. No one in the class could answer the question because there is no difference, as he already knew and the students learned that day.

Then he proceeded to recount the tens of billions of dollars we gave as subsidies to farmers, to oil interests, to real estate, to large corporate manufacturers, etc. The amounts, of course, far exceeded anything we were giving to poor people at the time, and he specifically did not include the military-industrial complex that fed regularly at the public trough and he did not include the myriad of huge tax breaks that went to the real estate lobby and the like.

The Fundamental Hypocrisy of Bush and the Republicans:
The Bush tax cuts, that John McCain wants to make permanent, are nothing more than a huge ”welfare state” handout to the most affluent Americans who financed Bush’s campaign, and who will finance John McCain’s campaign now that he is the candidate of the Republican Party. Hidden in that overall plan are tens of billions of “gifts” (called tax subsidies) to the various special interests that Bush takes care of with his Corporate Welfare plan. The breaks are a direct transfer of wealth from the Middle Class taxpayers, who are paying more taxes today because of the Alternative Minimum tax effect, to the most affluent five percent of American taxpayers and corporations.

When the Democratic candidates propose to let the Bush tax cuts for the top tax brackets expire, the Republicans whine that this will make an already bad economy worse. They ignore that these cuts don’t expire until 2011 and that, even then, the taxes will return to those paid in the booming Clinton years.

No matter what they say, Bush and McCain are among the most intense supporters of the “Corporate Welfare” state where some interests, almost always those with political access purchased through campaign contributions, are given huge breaks in their taxes and other subsidies that the rest of us have to make up with our own taxes. In truth, they did not raise the taxes on the middle class. That has been occurring automatically. What they did was to institute a huge transfer of wealth from the next generation who will have to contend with the debt with which they financed everything.

When people say one thing and then do something that is entirely opposite of what they say, that is the definition of a “hypocrite.” The Republicans have been saying one thing and doing another for so long that we assume that such is the normal state of affairs, and we do not even examine the behavior involved. We should all give them credit, however, because they are masters at raising money for their campaigns (from a whole horde of special interests and lobbies) and they have a veritable army of sycophantic consultants to tell them how to persuade Americans that up is really down, day is really night, that “corporate welfare” is really “subsidies”, and that all is right with the world if the Republicans are given responsibility for the government.

The Morality of Robbing from Your Children and Grandchildren:
We all know that the policies of the past eight years have more than doubled the national debt, from $4.8 Trillion when Bush assumed the White House, to nearly $10 Trillion when he leaves. The service on that debt in interest exceeds $400 Billion annually and has been rising. Basically, what the Bush/Cheney Administration have done is to fight two wars in the Middle East, making our children and grandchildren pay for their decisions. Certainly, the rich are not paying for the war since we already know that the Administration lowered their taxes dramatically.

I know that both George Bush and Dick Cheney present themselves to us as fundamentally moral and religious men – men who subscribe to a higher than average morality and patriotism than most of the rest of us do, particularly Democrats, whose patriotism they question at every turn. I would ask you the question. How “moral” is it to pay for two wars by passing the cost entirely on to generations who cannot vote and cannot protect themselves? Do we really think this is moral? Perhaps this is the new standard of Christian Fundamentalist Charity, in which they wrap themselves. It is now the “moral responsibility” of the “not yet born” to pay for the policies and mistakes of the “born-agains.”

Apparently, the Christian Right Wing in American politics finds no problem at all with this behavior. The Evangelicals are among the most passionate supporters of this Administration. I have read Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount many times, and there is simply no way that the Jesus of that Sermon would support this kind of behavior – unless, of course, you believe that Jesus had no sense of morality at all. Perhaps it is time for all of the Christian Churches to rethink their standards of morality if they find nothing wrong with this behavior. The behavior is pretty monstrous, really, and it makes me wonder about the dishonesty and hypocrisy I see in the support given this Administration by many so-called Christians. I say “so-called” because I cannot call any person “Christian” who finds nothing wrong with this behavior.

A Different Kind of Politics:
Many Americans are supporting Barak Obama because they “hope” for a different kind of politics – a politics where honesty, candor, and real ethics and morality are better represented in the political process. I say “hope” because nothing is certain in this life and not everything turns out as we hope it will. In my lifetime, the only person I watched in politics who told the truth consistently – just the facts – was Ross Perot, and he nearly upended the two political parties with half hour presentations of the simple facts of American political and economic life.
If Obama is the candidate, I hope he takes a page out of Perot’s playbook and spends a few half hours giving Americans the facts. Americans are not stupid, and most of us are capable of discerning the truth when it is laid out in front of us. A candidate cannot do that in 30 or even 60 second commercials, and Perot understood that. It is far easier to spread hate, distrust, doubt and character assassination in short bursts, which is precisely what the Republicans have been experts at, but the truth is more complicated and needs more time to tell. The “facts” of the past eight years are unfortunate enough. There is no need to exaggerate them, but there is a need for literate and caring Americans, of all political persuasions, to focus on them. There are huge numbers of Americans out there who really do care, who want to hear the facts, and who want to be treated as the intelligent adults that they are. When the Republican client groups start to spread their hate, in 30 and 60 second bites, which they have been doing successfully for decades, the best anecdote is to treat the American voters as decent, intelligent people.

At a minimum, Americans should be given the facts about the “corporate welfare state” that they are funding with their tax dollars. I personally do not think that most Americans will find subsidizing “big oil”, “big real estate”, or “big financial services firms” a very agreeable policy. If the Democrats want to defeat the Republics in 2008, they are going to have to go after them with the facts, which are positively dreadful, and not spend the election defending themselves against the smear tactics the Republican Party has perfected over the years.

Just my opinion,