For the most part, the liberal-left has denounced Obama’s deal
over taxes with the Republicans but it will probably have enough
votes from the Republicans and Blue Dog Democrats like Ben Nelson
to pass. Of course, according to the NY Times’s Matt Bai, the
president himself has described himself as essentially a Blue Dog
Democrat so it should not come as any great surprise that he
struck a deal with Mitch McConnell and company.
It is of some interest that some on the liberal-left and even on
the radical left have bought into the deal as well. Kevin Drum, a
blogger at Mother Jones, wrote:
In the end, this is the second stimulus we all wanted. It’s not a
very efficient stimulus, and it sadly caves into the conservative
snake oil that the sum total of fiscal policy is tax cuts, but
them’s the breaks. Anyone who doesn’t like it needs to spend the
next two years persuading the public not just to tell pollsters
they don’t like tax cuts for the rich, but to actually vote out of
office anyone who supports tax cuts for the rich. That’s the only
way we’ll win the replay of this battle in 2012.
Dean Baker, an economist generally associated with populist
attacks on wealth and privilege, wrote a piece provocatively
titled In Defense of Giving Money to Rich People that reasons:
“extending the tax cuts to the richest 2 percent for another 2
years is not especially harmful. It will hand money to people who
will spend at least some it, thereby creating demand and
generating jobs.”
Moving over a few steps to the left, the Communist Party joins
Drum and Baker in putting a positive spin on the deal. Art Perlo,
the son of the late Victor Perlo, the party’s long-time economics
expert, put it this way:
Spending money on tax cuts for the rich stinks. It is offensive
to the majority of working Americans who are suffering in this
economic crisis. And it is bad economics. But if it is a price
necessary to continue unemployment benefits for millions of
families, and to prevent a tax increase for all workers, it might
be worth it.
Now it should be understood that the CPUSA no longer makes any
pretenses of being some kind of revolutionary organization and
seems intent on carving out a space on the left once occupied by
Irving Howe, but it still has some influence in the trade union
movement and in the Democratic Party where its aging cadres have
sunk their tentacles.
Most interesting of all is the article by Michael Meerpol that
appears on The Nation website titled Obama’s a Sell-Out on Taxes?
Not So Fast that repeats the talking points found above, including
the same formulation as Dean Baker’s about doing no harm:
I also think, however distasteful it is on moral grounds,
extending the Bush tax cuts does not do much harm. Even after
Clinton persuaded Congress to raise taxes on the highest income
earners and well before the estate tax cuts passed in 2001, the
super-rich were continuing to increase their share of the nation’s
income and wealth. Long term trends in inequality have more to do
with the decline of union membership, financial deregulation and
increased trade in labor intensive goods, while increasing
protectionism for high salaried professionals (doctors,
accountants, professors) and the fraying of the social safety net.
Tax policy plays some role, but it is nowhere near the whole story.
Meerpol seems to have a soft spot for Obama even though his
policies are basically warmed over Clintonism, and arguably a
continuation of the Bush administration. In 1998 Meerpol wrote a
rather good book called “Surrender: How the Clinton Administration
Completed the Reagan Revolution.” Perhaps he has changed his mind
about the role of these DLC types in the interim since the same
kind of book can be written about Obama, especially in
consideration of his nod to the Gipper. In “Audacity of Hope”,
Obama expresses sympathy for Reagan’s antagonism toward high
corporate tax rates since they “distorted investment decisions”
and led to tax shelters. In the same paragraph, he blamed welfare
for creating “perverse incentives” when it came to the “work
ethic”. One wonders if the “progressives for Obama” ever read this
crap before they made fools of themselves.
full: http://louisproyect.wordpress.com/2010/12/09/starving-the-beast/
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