Ever since David Stockman - the Chief Financial Architect for President
Reagan - created the revolutionary "tax cuts pay for themselves" economic
plan...two of the harshest critics have been David Stockman and the facts.
Mr. Stockman has gone on record as saying his theory was only applicable
when the highest tax rates were 71-90 percent. And the facts speak for
themselves with each ensuing independent CBO Report that cites how each
tax cut has continually and substantially added to our National Debt.
But the true "Mad Scientist" that was laying the groundwork for the long-term
economic bomb the "Reaganites" were planning to deploy was famed economist
Milton Friedman.
His "Starve the Beast" formula to undo government growth and spending on
popular social programs was simple. If you lose the ideological battle on the
role and size of government - win the battle on the government's ability to pay
for it...and you win the war!
Now that the Republicans have successfully "Starved the Government" of revenue
by entrenching the Bush Tax Cuts for 99% of all Americans - Phase II will be to cut
government programs to match the size of the revenue coming into the government.
A brilliant perverse strategy that would seem logical to every American who has to
struggle to balance his own checkbook every single month.
Except that if you live in a society where we "ask what we can do for our country",
than we might have chosen what government programs we want to have as a shared
responsibility first - and than decide how much to tax people in order to pay for them!
Instead, we decide how much to tax people first and than what government programs
we can afford!
The third and final phase of the Reagan Revolution is to overfund the Military and
underfund what domestic programs we have left.
If you don't fundamentally believe in an expansive role for government in our day to
today's lives...then by underfunding those programs, you make them as ineffective as
possible and call for the free market and privatization to solve the problem.
Does the call for the privatization of Social Security - the need for supplemental insurance if you are on Medicare - School Vouchers - Corporately owned Prisons - and fighting a war with with almost more private contractors on the ground than men in uniform...sound familiar!
The Democrats may have won the last election but the winner of the Reagan Revolution may well be decided in March as the Republicans come armed and ready to the battlefield of the Debt Ceiling and the Automatic Spending Cuts.
The President does not come alone - as he is armed with an arsenal of a bloated Military Budget - Tax Deductions and Corporate Tax Rates that have some fortune 500 Companies at an effective rate of 0%.
But if he doesn't come to fight with the American People as his Calvary, than we might lose more than a program or two...we might lose the "Final Battle" of who we are and where we are going!...and that is worth fighting for!