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Je proteste
Author: BobR    Date: 10/20/2010 12:31:34

The overwhelming theme of this year's election (and the previous two) has been "throw the bums out". The huge Republican losses in 2006 and 2008 are predicted this year for the Democrats. It seems that the electorate feels that if they keep replacing their legislators, sooner or later they'll get a set they're happy with. Such is the wave the Tea Party is riding this year. As Eugene Robinson says in his OpEd piece yesterday, that could backfire on them in 2 years if they don't change anything (it's a well written piece btw. Go ahead and read it - I'll wait. Ignore the inflammatory title). The thing is - this "throw the bums out" attitude is nothing new in history (it's what revolutions are made of).

Consider France - revolutions (mostly bloody ones) are a big part of their history. They've fought long and hard to ensure that everyone in France (regardless of income) is afforded certain guarantees in their lives. Sure they pay higher taxes, but they also have free health care, an awesome transportation system, 6 weeks of vacation a year, and retire at age 60. That last one is about to change in order to keep from bankrupting the government, and the people are NOT happy. Those who watch news that occurs beyond our own borders know that strikes in France occur on a regular basis. This one is getting serious:
Masked youths clashed with police and set fires in cities across France on Tuesday as protests against a proposed hike in the retirement age took an increasingly radical turn. Hundreds of flights were canceled, long lines formed at gas stations and train service in many regions was cut in half.
[...]
The protesters are trying to prevent the French parliament from approving a bill that would raise the retirement age from 60 to 62 to help prevent the pension system from going bankrupt. Many workers feel the change would be a dangerous step in eroding France's social benefits — which include long vacations, contracts that make it hard for employers to lay off workers and a state-subsidized health care system — in favor of "American-style capitalism."
[...]
Strikes by oil refinery workers have sparked fuel shortages that forced at least 1,000 gas stations to be shuttered. Other stations saw large crowds. At an Esso station on the southeast edge of Paris on Tuesday morning, the line snaked along a city block and some drivers stood with canisters to stock gasoline in case of shortages.

Of course - I don't advocate violence. But the key thing here is the striking workers. The oil workers are bringing the country to a halt because gasoline supplies are severely constrained. Look at the history of most protests in France, and it involves workers in various industries striking in solidarity with one another.

Consider the Tea Partiers - how many of them would be willing to go without gasoline to push their agenda? What about trash pickup? Or television? How many of them would be willing to deal with snarled traffic? To me, this shows the difference between what the French and the Americans are made of when it comes to sacrificing their personal comfort in order to make change. If the French complain about the garbage stacking up because the sanitation workers are on strike, they don't blame the workers, they blame the government.

The other aspect, of course, is that the French are heavily unionized. This is why their protests can be so effective. In their country, the labor of the middle working class speaks loudly and has real clout in the governance. Here in the U.S., money is what speaks, and it speaks loudest via lobbyists. There are some unions that can make the voices of their particular members heard, but their influence is much less than the anti-union corporate alarmists would have you believe.

Whereas the French are protesting against cutbacks in their social contract, the tea partiers seem to not care about any social contract at all. All they (ostensibly) care about is taxes, the deficit, and jobs (in some circles, the "Tea" stands for "Taxed Enough Already"). So how does the reality stack up against their complaints?

As most of us on the left already know, the Democrats (President Obama in particular) has cut their taxes already. The problem is, they didn't notice:
In a troubling sign for Democrats as they head into the midterm elections, their signature tax cut of the past two years, which decreased income taxes by up to $400 a year for individuals and $800 for married couples, has gone largely unnoticed.

In a New York Times/CBS News Poll last month, fewer than one in 10 respondents knew that the Obama administration had lowered taxes for most Americans. Half of those polled said they thought that their taxes had stayed the same, a third thought that their taxes had gone up, and about a tenth said they did not know. As Thom Tillis, a Republican state representative, put it as the dinner wound down here, “This was the tax cut that fell in the woods — nobody heard it.”

Hmmm... okay. What about jobs? There's plenty of anecdotal evidence, like the town in Indiana saved by the stimulus. But the reality is that the private sector has been growing jobs for months. It's just that - like the economy, the foreclosure crisis, and the deficit - the hole in the job market created by Republican policies is deep and will take a while to climb out of. Lack of patience and ADD are both typical for Americans, sadly.

Finally - the deficit problem cannot be seriously addressed without raising taxes. Ronald Reagan learned that when he was president (cutting, and then re-raising taxes), and Bill Clinton did it resulting in a surplus that started paying off some of the national debt. When only 1/5 of the budget is "discretionary" spending (once again - see Eugene Robinson's column, linked above), there's very little room for making any reasonable cuts. The health care legislation, hated by those on the right (and the tea partiers) actually reduces the deficit.

Which leads to why none of this makes any sense. Obama has addressed the three main concerns of the tea partiers, yet they hate him with a passion. The third concern (the deficit) can be worked on further by rolling back tax cuts that do not effect 95% of the tea partiers. Finally - they also hate the unions, even though unions are entirely made up of skilled U.S. labor, something everyone gives lip service to. Yet - the unions used to be (and still could be) a vehicle to actually put power back into the hands of The People (like they do in France).

The problem with "throw the bums out" is that they're not all bums, and some of the erstwhile replacements are much less qualified to bring the kind of change that the voters seem to want. The best person for the job may already be doing it.

 

24 comments (Latest Comment: 10/21/2010 03:23:21 by Raine)
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