I understand how many, many people might think that the administration is incompetent. After all, Bush seems to have the reverse Midas touch – everything he touches turns to feces. And most people want to believe that our leaders are honest folks.
But if you buy into the incompetence framework, you’re overlooking one huge possibility.
What if they’re doing this all on purpose?
Wow, after all the liveblogging of the hearings today, I feel completely inadequate to post this. Nonetheless, it seems important to me.
I understand how many, many people might think that the administration is incompetent. After all, Bush seems to have the reverse Midas touch – everything he touches turns to feces. And most people want to believe that most other people, especially our leaders, are mostly honest, well-intentioned folks.
But if you buy into the incompetence framework, you’re overlooking one huge possibility.
What if they’re doing this all on purpose?
If the Republicans got into office, and wanted to destroy the New Deal, how would one go about doing it? How, exactly, would one go about shrinking the government to the point where Grover Norquist could "drown it in the bathtub?"
There would be two wildly successful tactics to use, that would cause this strategy to succeed.
The first would be to fatally damage the faith of Americans in their government. Well, how would one go about doing that? Can anyone think of anything more effective than implementing mission Reverse Midas?
Install loyal, unqualified yes-men in leadership positions throughout the administration. Make sure the litmus test for their hiring is loyalty to the administration, not the rule of law or what’s best for the country. Give them free reign to reorganize, rewrite, edit, downsize, cut budgets, and cut programs. Have them make it impossible for their organization to carry out their mission statement, insofar as serving the American public goes. Make sure that every effort is moving toward privatization, because after all, corporations are benevolent, generous, self-regulating, competitive entities that altruistically get things done to better serve the American public. Right? Oh, wait... maybe not so much.
Roll as much government function as you can into a huge, super-secret entity of government that is largely opaque in structure, budget, and metrics. Call it the Department of Homeland Security. Make sure that no sunshine gets in; if sunlight threatens, make sure to loudly announce "National Security! War on Terror!" and promptly shut down any queries.
Get the electoral fraud train moving. Make sure you plan to attack legitimate elections from as many different angles as possible, as many different areas in the country as you can. In key areas, get your loyal folks working overtime to make sure than non-auditable procedures are put in place, and that those procedures are the official results, not those darn pesky paper ballots. Stuff any complaints of irregularities, errors, or systematic fraud into the dumpster by hollering "Partisan!" as loud as you can.
Most importantly of all, whenever Americans have counted on their government to do things, and do them right, make sure they no longer can do so. Cut every corner, undot those I’s and uncross those T’s. Cut key staffers. Shuffle the deck; do it again. Create confusion and chaos internally, so citizens cannot be served efficiently.
The second tactic that would cause this strategy to succeed is much simpler. The second tactic is to bankrupt the government. Make it impossible to function in the future. Borrow money to run the government. Pour money into the black hole that is DHS. Cut taxes, without cutting programs. Start a war, and don’t make any changes to fund it; that alone will dig you a pretty deep financial hole.
Keep digging. Keep the war going. Privatization of formerly self-supporting military functions will ensure that many multiples of money will be spent, over what would have been needed in the past. Keep cutting taxes for the richest.
Borrow, borrow, borrow. Make it as invisible as you can. Tell everybody that the economy’s doing fine, while more and more people struggle to make ends meet. Stop reporting on the amount of money you’re printing. Keep spending like a shipful of drunken sailors. Make sure that wages stay depressed, so people have to work longer hours or take a second job; that way they’re too busy and anxious to think about unionizing or organizing in any way. Keep feeding them the sedative that is 21st century television.
Engineer the next big Depression, essentially. Design it, from the ground up. Nurture that eventuality. Set up the Petri dish, then toss the bacteria in. Provide the warmth and moisture needed; cover the dish, then sit back and wait.
When the majority of the citizenry eventually becomes insolvent, the government won’t be able to collect enough taxes to pay for its services. So it’ll cuts, and cut, and cut, but it won’t be enough. So eventually all but the barest bones will remain. Say goodbye to Medicare, Medicaid, any form of welfare, and Social Security. Derisively call them "entitlements." Ignore the senior citizens rummaging through garbage cans for food. After all, the free market and capitalism will fill everyone’s belly and keep everyone warm at night. Right... oh, that’s right, not so much. Maybe if everyone is burning their bundles of worthless dollar bills, they’ll stay warm. And cabbage-potato soup, well heck, you can live on that for months. Right?
Now you can sit back, smile, and bask in the contentment of knowing that you’ve destroyed that evil, poorly conceived New Deal. You might even bring back indentured servitude, if not outright slavery. You can observe people dying for lack of health care, and take comfort in knowing that health care isn’t being wasted on the weak. This is a zero-sum equation, at least, in your own mind. You can watch seniors starve to death; hey, at least they’re not being a drain on the system, right? You’re not having to waste your hard-earned dollars on them.
(Besides, I hear that Paraguay is beautiful this time of year, and they never had the ugly liberal invention of a ‘New Deal.’)
Incompetence isn’t what’s going on. This is failure by design. And they’ve succeeded, beyond their wildest dreams.
Now that testimony, leaks, and so forth are occurring, I’m looking forward to they'll consider some real failures on their part. Popcorn, anyone?