BOSTON & SANTA FE, NM
(By
Deval Patrick, Democrat, Governor of Massachusetts)
July 1, 2011 At our 25th college reunion in 2003, Grover Norquist the brain
and able spokesman for the radical right and I, along with other classmates
who had been in public or political life, participated in a lively panel
discussion about politics.
During his presentation, Norquist explained why he believed there would be a
permanent Republican majority in America.
One person interrupted, as I recall, and said, Cmon, Grover, surely one day a
Democrat will win the White House.
Norquist immediately replied: We will make it so a Democrat cannot govern as a
Democrat.
In a way, Republicans have accomplished that.
This spring, in an effort to reduce the deficit, a Democratic president proposed
to cut $2 trillion in spending, much of it from domestic programs Democrats have
long championed.
Last week, Republican leaders withdrew from talks with the vice president on a
bipartisan plan to reduce the deficit because, as another part of the solution
and like every bipartisan budget deal for decades, the president proposed to
raise revenue. Specifically, he proposed to raise $1 in new revenue (through
closing loopholes or ending the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans) for
every $2 in spending cuts. In response to that modest proposal, Republican
leaders walked out.
It is now clear the Republican strategy is to drive America to the brink of
fiscal ruin and then argue the only way out is to cut spending for the
powerless.
Taxes a dirty word thanks to Norquists no new taxes gimmick are made to
seem beyond the pale, even as the burden of paying for our society shifts
disproportionately to the middle class and working poor. It is the height of
fiscal folly.
It is also not who we are as a country.
For nearly a decade, our federal government paid for two wars and a costly
prescription drug benefit with borrowed money. Our government paid for the Bush
tax cuts with borrowed money.
Now, after exhausting the budget surplus left by the Clinton administration, the
only spending Republicans are willing to discuss cutting is spending that helps
the poor and vulnerable meaning anything that does not touch the interests of
large corporations and the very rich.
Last December, Republican hard-liners held hostage benefits for people out of
work in exchange for an agreement to extend the Bush tax cuts for those who make
a million dollars or more a year.
Last month, many of the same lawmakers rallied to protect special tax benefits
for oil companies that have made record profits on high gas prices.
Meanwhile, some mom-and-pop stores and college students pay more in taxes than
some of our largest corporations. Still, taxes are sin to the hard-liners,
though they have difficulty demonstrating a correlation over the past decade
between tax cuts and economic growth.
Everyone knows we have to reduce the deficit. Everyone also knows that reducing
government spending and addressing revenue shortfalls have to be a part of the
plan.
This isnt partisan; its pragmatic. Some might even call it conservative. But
Norquist and the rest of the radical right have so hypnotized the Republican
leadership they cant come out and say it. For them, maintaining their rhetoric
about spending cuts is more important than preserving the civic investments that
make America stand out from the rest of the world.
That political calculus has consequences for the rest of us.
If the deficit is reduced by spending cuts alone and there is no deal to raise
the debt ceiling, heres a sampling of what happens: We stop paying our soldiers
or supporting our veterans. We stop feeding the neediest children and families.
We stop providing nursing-home care to seniors. We stop inoculating
schoolchildren. We stop helping young people go to college. The unemployed are
on their own. Roads and bridges continue to crumble. And we jeopardize the
creditworthiness of our economy at one of the most fragile moments in history.
All to protect the marginal benefits of the most fortunate and the political
purity of the radical right.
I remember sitting in the Dunster House dining hall at Harvard with Norquist
when we were sophomores or juniors in college, while he explained his view of
government, or lack thereof. It sounded logical the notion we could live
independently of each other, making our own decisions in our own self-interest.
But then who puts out the fires? Who answers the calls to 911? Who educates poor
children? Who helps people with disabilities?
Id like to think that the most prosperous nation in human history can have both
freedom and security. I think we have reached a point where my personal success
is not threatened by a program to help our parents retire with dignity.
Voters are smart enough to see that taxes are one of the ways we get those
things.
They are the price we pay for civilization.
