Wednesday, July 13, 2011

Democrats and Republicans Play Chicken on the Debt

It's probably a really scary time to be a Congressman.  The Federal debt has gotten to the point where they can't just talk it away for a little while longer.  Everyone with a brain knew we would get to this point eventually.  Sovereign debt is taking down countries in Europe....Greece, Italy, and Portugal are a harbinger of things to come.  China, holding massive amounts of American debt, is getting nervous, and if you're feeling really cynical/paranoid/depressive, the reality of the Fallout universe's Resource Wars and an invasion of Alaska is just a tiny bit less nutty than it was a few years ago.

What's going on in Congress right now should startle just about everyone.  House Republicans are ready to drive the country off the cliff just to prove their point.  Senate Republicans are ready to give Obama a blank check.  Democrats, to their credit, are coming around to reality just in time but running up against the House Republicans' line in the sand: tax increases.

In this deranged calculus, the House Republicans are the most wrong on one thing: closing tax loopholes and eliminating tax credits do not constitute a "tax increase", no matter how much they bleat about it.  Incredibly, they still seem to think that giving away the farm to wealthy corporate interests will magically turn the economy around, when it's plain to everyone with a brain that American corporations only see Americans as fit to buy their crap, not to work to make it, and so as long as the banks are insane enough to keep extending credit card debt to people, American corporations seem content to export all the manufacturing jobs to China and import all their cheap plastic crap for us to buy on credit.

GE is only the worst, most egregious case of absurdly twisted tax policy.  Earlier this year, it was revealed to the world that GE, in spite of making $3 billion in profit in 2010, paid no income tax on it, and additionally received $5 billion in tax credits.  They cleared $8 billion in takehome pay last year.  Let's see, if you made $60,000 last year, then 133,333 households just like you (about a half million men, women, and children) would have had their income covered by what GE took home free and clear last year.  Most corporations didn't make off like bandits this blatantly, but with $1.1 trillion in available tax credits in the Federal tax code, it's safe to say that many did.

It is not my goal to provoke class warfare or hatred of corporations.  Honestly, society doesn't need my help for that anyway.  And in a practically managed world, I would not bregrudge anyone lower taxes.  Taxes, after all, are one of the biggest sins against liberty in the government playbook.  But the world is not practically managed.  Only now, on the brink of economic disaster, is anyone questioning the wisdom of continually driving up the Federal debt.  Except the insane House Republicans.

What are we to do?

First off, the House Republicans must concede one plain fact:  Stop insisting that eliminating a tax credit is a tax increase.  A tax credit is a bribe.  No entity, whether it's a corporation or an individual, should be in a position to pay no taxes and receive tax credits, period.  If taxation is theft, then receiving more back in tax credits than one pays in taxes is theft from all of us.

Once that occurs, everything else will fall into place.  Democrats have already signaled that they will be willing to concede on social welfare spending.  Everything else that the Republicans want -- hard spending caps, a Balanced Budget Amendment, a real debt reduction time line -- is fine by me, so long as it's not bolted onto repressive, bigoted "social riders".  Let gay marriage and abortion go.  It's not important at this point.  To insist on anything more than that is to be irresponsible legislators who deserve to be voted out of office.  

The Tea Party has one last chance to get it right.  Personally, I think they'll blow it.  Then, in the words of Q from Star Trek: The Next Generation, "May whatever God you believe in have mercy on your soul."

Monday, July 4, 2011

Why the Constitution Matters (But States' Rights is a Sham)

As a Libertarian, I value individual liberty.  All liberty, not just the liberty I approve of.  This is what separates Libertarians from Conservatives these days.  You see, Conservatives gleefully adorn themselves with the raiments of liberty when it suits them.  Freedom of "my speech", freedom of "my religion", and so forth.  One of their common rallying cries is "States' Rights".

If people truly valued liberty, states' rights would be a consistently good and happy thing.  In the face of an increasingly powerful Federal government, states' rights is an important check and balance in the application of government.  There are many ways to get things done, and the people in Washington DC don't have a monopoly on smarts.  When it comes to government services, such as Medicare and Medicaid, sometimes it makes sense to leave it to the states to decide for themselves what they are willing to provide to their citizens with their tax money.  

Just cutting out the loop between paying Federal taxes and the Feds giving money back to the states to do things would improve the efficiency of such services.  The main objection to this idea from the Left is that services would not be uniform:  Some states might give "adequate" benefits while others act chintzy and give "less than adequate" benefits, so we need the Federal government to ensure that everyone has the same opportunity to receive aid.  Liberals fear a "race to the bottom" for the quantity and quality of government services, as states with richer benefits bear the brunt of migration of the disadvantaged into their jurisdictions.  This itself is a consequence of a common Conservative response, "if you don't like it, move".  Liberals then point out that the people most likely to need aid are those least able to move in the first place.

This argument is based purely on the basis of equal access, which in itself is a sound government principle, at least in theory.  The 14th Amendment's primary showpiece is the "equal protection" clause:

"No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."

What this says, straight out, is that states can't violate people's rights any more than the Feds can.  And yet, we see on a near-continual basis efforts by state legislatures to limit people's rights and liberties.  The argument for it?  Yep, "states' rights".  Where does this idea come from?  It comes from earlier in the Constitution, namely the Tenth Amendment:

"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."

The original idea behind the inclusion of this Amendment was a fear by the Anti-Federalists (folks like Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henry, and George Mason) that the Constitution would contain more power than was prudent for America's central government.  A prescient concept, as we can see from subsequent history.  Even before the ink was dry on the whole thing, we were dealing with limits on freedom such as the Sedition Act, championed by that paragon of liberty, John Adams.  He has the dubious distinction of being just the first of many politicians whose tune changed after being elected to power.

Here are some examples of abridgement of liberty at least partially defended by the "states' rights" argument:

* The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, and the subsequent Supreme Court  decision Dred Scott v. Sandford, which held for the protection of Southerners' "property" throughout the country.

* The "separate but equal" principle of state-imposed racial segregation, based on Plessy v. Ferguson.  Several states passed Interposition Resolutions proclaiming that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 violated states' rights.  Those Federal statues also struck down state laws prohibiting interracial marriage.

* Arguments for state laws that limit womens' access to abortion frequently cite States' Rights, or conversely arguments against Federal laws preserving abortion rights (e.g. Ron Paul's positions on the issue).

* Blocking the closure or consolidation of National Guard installations during the 1993 Defense rollbacks.  (Of course, this did not inspire states to take over their funding.)

* State laws against consensual sex acts (so-called "sodomy laws"), which were used overwhelmingly to punish homosexuals.  These were struck down by Lawrence v. Texas in 2003.

* Current battles over same-sex marriage in opposition to the Reciprocity Clause.  The Defense of Marriage Act is an example of a Federal law giving states permission to discriminate and infringe rights.

* Many local battles over church-state separation have hinged on pro-church advocates citing states' rights in cases where non-Christian religions are subject to discriminatory legislation.  In her book, Pagans and the Law, lawyer Dana Eilers documents numerous past state and local laws and ordinances denying tax-exempt status to Neo-Pagan congregations.

In his "It's a Free Country" blog, Alec Hamilton quotes Constitutional scholar and University of Texas law professor Sanford Levinson saying,

There is a prevalent paradigm that Democrats like centralized power while Republicans favor states’ rights, but closer inspection does not show this to be always the case. Many of those who favor states’ rights over regulation of marijuana, for example, identify as Democrats. Levinson has an explanation: 'Federalism arguments are often opportunistic. It really depends, often on what the issue is.'

Because of this, I think it is crucial that Libertarians avoid using States' Rights principles in their arguments against restrictive Federal or state laws.  States are no more noble than the Federal government is.  Sure, it's tempting to attempt to address a Federal-level infringement by trying to exempt your state from its influence.  But cannot liberty stand on its own, without appealing to a concept that has been used so many times to take freedom away from people?

If a liberty is worth defending, it is worth doing so on its own merits, not by appealing to an argument so flawed that it can be used with equal ease to take liberty away.