Taxation Without Representation

In the wee morning hours of Saturday December 2nd, 2017 the nation reenacted Colonial America. We did it without setting aside any of our 21st Century comforts. We did it without putting on tri-cornered hats or waistcoats or powdered wigs. The ladies didn’t need to don stays or petticoats. We didn’t talk in faux British accents and mimic the king’s subjects. We the people weren’t invited to participate. We were dragged there forcibly in the dead of night by a body of 51 individuals who took America back to the days of King George when it was the government’s prerogative to impose taxation without representation.

For all who might have forgotten here’s the short version. The American Revolution began when tensions over the Stamp Act and Tea Act bubbled over from resentment to protest to violence. When the shooting was all done and the mess cleaned up the result was the United States of America and what we could loosely call a rulebook - The Constitution. That rulebook, in theory anyway, compels the men (and now includes women) in the seat of power to be the voices of the people and that all men should be treated equally. When George Washington became President it was a glorious time when there were no political parties. As Washington’s presidency wound down parties began to creep out from under the political wet rocks. The outgoing president warned the nation of the dangers of political parties in the farewell speech that he penned in September of 1796. Wrote Washington;

The disorders and miseries which result gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of public liberty.

Without looking forward to an extremity of this kind (which nevertheless ought not to be entirely out of sight), the common and continual mischiefs of the spirit of party are sufficient to make it the interest and duty of a wise people to discourage and restrain it.

It serves always to distract the public councils and enfeeble the public administration. It agitates the community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms, kindles the animosity of one part against another, foments occasionally riot and insurrection. It opens the door to foreign influence and corruption, which finds a facilitated access to the government itself through the channels of party passions. Thus the policy and the will of one country is subjected to the policy and will of another.

Read Washington’s address. And then read it again...slowly. Let it sink in as you think about the current state of what is preposterously called our representation in Washington.  

Now back to December 2017. Ask yourself which party has traditionally been a voice for business and banking (Hint - It goes by the initials GOP). We began the Christmas season with the Republican Senate gathering up as much coal as it could find and like thieves in the night dumping it in the national stocking. An abomination that they laughably call a tax cut. In fact it was done in such secrecy and with such subversion that the very knaves who voted for this atrocity went up to the eleventh hour doctoring it up with illegible notes in the margins. But what the hell, it wouldn’t matter that the notes were illegible because the blackhearted reprobates who passed this thing didn’t even bother to read it.

Let this sink in for a moment. The Senate of the United States of America passed a tax bill that will affect the finances of every man, woman and child in this country and THEY - DIDN’T - BOTHER - TO - READ - IT. It was passed because the Republicans needed a victory. After nearly 11 months of nothing they had to come up with something - anything. Ostensibly it was to make good on promises made to their constituents.

And just who are those constituents?  It’s supposed to be the people, right? Our Congress is supposed to be representing “we the people.” Is that true?  Let’s take a recent example and go back to 2010 and the efforts to reign in the banking industry. The financial industry went to work and mobilized by hiring 1447 former government officials as lobbyists. These individuals were former members of Congress, former staffers and former policy makers from the White House and the Department of the Treasury. Of those lobbyists 73 were former members of Congress. You know, the guys who know how things work and have inside connections.

Who is Congress really representing?  Who has the loudest voice? In 1971 there were 175 lobbying offices in Washington. Ten years later that number had ballooned to 2445. By 2012 there were 135 business lobbyists for every member of Congress. In 2016, the top lobbying donor was the U.S. Chamber of Commerce which spent $103,950,000. Anyone who thinks that the Chamber of Commerce is going to advocate for the working man is seriously confused. Running a distant second to the Chamber of Commerce was the National Association of Realtors at $64,821,111. To find any organization that even remotely resembles a public advocacy lobbyist you have to go to AARP at number 33 which spent $8,710,000.

So who are the real constituents?  Back to the tax bill. A poll released on November 29th found that 49 percent opposed the bill while 29 percent supported it. And so the Republican Senators rushed this thing through probably so that the flood waters of opposition couldn’t get any higher.

Yeah I know. The bill that was just passed is called a tax cut. Well that’s sort of true. If you’re a business the tax cut is permanent. If you’re a person it expires after 2025. Analysts say that the bill will add over a trillion dollars to the deficit. If you cut revenue with the result of running up a deficit then you have to cut expenses and the rich and business are not going to pick up that tab. Who will that be? Well, go back a couple of paragraphs to the stats on lobbyists and mull that over.

Americans are once again being fed that stale diet of trickle down. With all of that extra money businesses will hire more workers and raise wages and there’ll be a chicken in every pot. Corporations don’t need cash. They’ve been sitting on it for years. Look at the stock market. It’s been on a consistent rise. And wages? Not so much. We did the trickle down experiment during the Reagan years and we just got pissed on. Kansas’ Republican Governor Brownback tried it most recently and drove the state’s economy into a ditch. The result was that the Republican led legislature in Kansas reversed course and dumped trickle down. Yes, the Republican led legislature dumped trickle down.

But why believe me? David Stockman who was the Director of Office of Management and Budget during Ronald (trickle down) Reagan said of the GOP bill, “The GOP tax bill boils down to borrowing more than $1 trillion from the American public in order to pay higher dividends to wealthy private stockholders…” Stockman called the bill a “GOP con job.” Said Stockman, "The GOP tax bill is of the lobbies, by the PACS and for the money. Period."

Meanwhile on social media the outrage is palpable. “We need a revolution.” “We have to fight back.” “The Senators are going to get what’s coming to them for this.” Blah, blah, blah.

How do I feel about this? Hopeless and helpless. I go back to the stats on lobbyists, mull it over and feel absolutely powerless. And what’s most frustrating? It’s watching Congress be so brazen. They have no shame in favoring large donors over the interests of the common citizen. They casually throw the most vulnerable of Americans to the curb as they would a piece of trash and think nothing of it. They just don’t give a shit and they don’t even go through the motions of pretending to give a shit. In the end we have a political party that shamelessly ignores the people it is supposed to represent in order to pander to business, banking and the rich minority. Washington’s warning about the evils of party has proven out and we’ve gone back to the days of King George.

What’s to be done? Sadly I realize that the tri-cornered hat and musket days are done. There will be no revolution. All that I can take solace in today is the big smile on my face during my recurring dream of slapping the smirk off of Paul Ryan’s face and kicking Mitch McConnell in his withered old balls.

~ Posted by Paulie