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Starving the Beast
"I don't want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub." Those are the words of Grover Norquist, a leading voice of the Republican
Party.
A generation earlier, during the administration of Republican President Reagan, the goal was "starve the beast." Budget director David Stockman admitted that supply-side economics was a "Trojan horse" to cut taxes on the
wealthy. He confessed in his memoirs that Reagan ran up the deficit on purpose, as an excuse to cut domestic spending.
Now that the Republican Party is in full swing — controlling Congress as well as the presidency and a majority of state governorships — we are seeing the results of starving, or drowning, the "beast."
Tax cuts passed during the last few years have been a windfall for the very wealthiest Americans. Their taxes have been reduced by tens of thousands of dollars.
These huge cuts are starving government at all levels.
The rest of us may have had as much as a few hundred dollars in income tax reductions, but they've been offset by property tax increases, fee hikes (for school activities, college tuition, professional licenses) and the
higher personal expenses we incur because states and cities can't afford to maintain basic services.
You'd think that when we're in the midst of a staggeringly expensive war, we wouldn't decrease the taxes of those who have plenty of cash left over after buying everything that interests them.
Yet that's what has happened, even as our country is digging itself into deeper and deeper debt.
But now that the billionaires are saving so much money on taxes, the rest of us must "tighten our belts" in order to reduce the deficit!
That's the reason the Republican Congress gives for slashing spending on services valued by most Americans.
President Bush greeted proposed legislation during Christmas week with the words, "The Senate vote to reduce entitlement spending is a victory for taxpayers, fiscal restraint and responsible budgeting." What he meant was,
"We're making great progress in starving the beast!"
Who will be affected by this "victory," which aims to cut Medicare and Medicaid, student loan programs and home heating assistance? It's the elderly and disabled needing home health care, kids trying to pay for college,
families providing foster care, people who can't afford to heat their houses.
You can be sure that the federal government will be passing even more costs down to the state and local level, meaning that services everyone depends on, including public safety, will be cut further.
This is at a time when it's crystal clear that private charity cannot meet the basic needs of our people. Most food pantries are experiencing an increase in customers and a reduction in contributions.
Meanwhile, executive pay has skyrocketed, corporate profits are up and the United States is the richest country in the world. Exxon-Mobil is the most profitable company on the planet, the polar icecaps are melting and
Congress refuses to take sensible steps to reduce carbon dioxide emissions.
When you wonder why our country's priorities are topsy-turvy, keep in mind where the power is. Republicans outnumber Democrats in the U.S. Senate by 55 to 44, they outnumber Democrats in the U.S. House 231 to 202 and
Republican President Bush controls all the regulatory agencies.
You don't even hear about the legislation that Democrats propose because it's usually killed in committee, before it can get to a floor vote.
When the Republican Party votes to "starve the beast" or drown public services in a bathtub, remember what carrying out this philosophy means in real life: More people going to bed hungry, more low-wage jobs, bridges and
dams in disrepair, extra minutes for firefighters to arrive in your neighborhood, reduced scientific research, our young people graduating with mountains of debt, longer commute times, slower delivery of mail, fewer
textbooks for kids to study at home, more seriously ill people diagnosed too late, more threats to one's retirement security.
None of this is healthy for the economic future of our nation, which demands sound infrastructure and an educated work force.
In 2006, let's return to power the party that works for the common good.
Catherine Bayliss is chair of the Gloucester Democratic City
Committee and a member of the Democratic State Committee. |
Gloucester
