Glenn Greenwald's cynical comments are getting a lot of attention, deservedly so.
Greenwald's hypothesis, that smoke is being blow up our asses by people who control the processes and thus own the outcomes, it at odds with the euphoria generated by Obama's win against McCain.
I'd like to pile on here.
Washington works precisely the way Greenwald says it does. Nothing is given to common folks without extracting an offset for the moneyed interests, the net transaction at best a wash and often worse.
Case in point: the CBO's "scoring" of Healthcare Reform.
The CBO has approached scoring HCR ins a straightforward way:
Increase in government spending less any increase in tax revenues directly tied to the legislation
Seemingly benign, right? We can know the costs and then debate how much the program is "worth" to each of us.
But the CBO has a different approach to scoring legislation that benefits the moneyed interests, such as decreasing taxes on the wealthy. There, the CBO's approach is:
Loss in revenues due to lower rates less increase in taxable income due to higher economic growth
This is what is known as "Dynamic Scoring," made famous during the Reagan years by so-called "supply-siders," when tax cuts for the wealthy were reduced in score due to the claim by the CBO that lower taxes result in higher economic growth and thus higher incomes to be taxed.
"Dynamic Scoring" was no "one-hit wonder": Congress continues to use dynamic scoring on all issues related to taxation of moneyed interests.
But, on healthcare reform, the CBO's score is $1 trillion, give or take a few billion, a figure that is the result of an agreed upon (by the Democrats and by Obama) decision to use "Static Scoring." The CBO was not tasked to compute an offsetting dollar amount for any of the following:
- Higher payroll taxes due to fewer missed days of work
- Higher payroll taxes due to higher productivity while at work
- Higher rates of capital investment due to a healthier labor force
- ...(you can fill in the blanks)
Yes, people are talking about the benefits of HCR, just as they talked about "Supply Side" hypotheses before Reagan. The difference is, Reagan forced Congress to accept "Supply Side" as truth in every calculation done involving taxes on the wealthy. Today, HCR is as much a boon to GDP as would be lower taxes, likely moreso, but Obama does not demand the same considerations for HCR. In fact, Obama has recently stated:
- he will use the CBO's figures, as is, and
- he will not sign an HCR bill that adds to the deficit
At face value, these statements are so extreme as to be Republican.
Sigh. An example of things we are almost numb to, praise be to Greenwald for not being so. The bar moves on us every day, based solely on the interests of the moneyed elites who run this country and who, so far, have nothing to fear from the Obama Administration and, indeed, much to like.