Tax Day Philosophy

Last April 15 was the date that the new right was launched in the US. The TEA (Taxed Enough Already) movement, led by grass roots everymen Roger Ailes and Glenn Beck, gathered for the cameras and each other. I felt the earth shift under my feet (no, really) when the reactionary, Reagan worshiping, small-gubment philosophy reappeared as a populist movement. Their main arguments are that government is bad, taxes are bad and that nearly any federal domestic action by the elected and sponsored ruling party is anti-freedom, anti-constitutional, anti-American and communist.

For an educated, thinking person like me these views appear to be too crazy and shallow to even consider. It is now apparent that they have some very strong legs. It seems to be the main organized resistance to the moderately progressive policy ideas and actions of Obama and the Democratic leadership of the federal legislature. Therefore, it is worthy of consideration and response.

The simplest version of the argument I can muster is that Reagan was wrong. He had been spinning reactionary rhetoric all his long political life. In 1979, President Carter presided over a disastrous foreign policy. He took the heat for the high interest rates engineered by Paul Volcker to wring inflation out of the economy. Even worse for Carter, he took heat from within his own party in the form of Ted Kennedy's run for the nomination. Reagan capitalized on these weaknesses with some very simple rhetoric about the evils of government and the greatness of the American flag. That effective rhetoric is still with us at the core of the bullshit believed by the TEA people. It was cute then, but the shallowness of these ideas are now harmful to the country.

Government is not bad - It simply is. The 'government is bad' argument is very difficult to deal with because it is shallow, emotional and illogical. It is often supported by anecdotes about debt, inefficiencies and a distaste for bureaucracy. In other words, the argument that 'government is bad' is just fucking stupid. My simple counter argument, that it simply exists outside of any sort of moral judgment of it goodness, is not something your normal Reagan Republican can grasp.

Taxes are not bad - they are necessary. The main reason for taxes is to generate money to fund government activities. Taxes are not levied as penalties for bad behavior, they are calculations on transactions that can be tracked by accountants. An estate tax is not a tax on death, it is a tax on cash transactions between the holdings of deceased people and their heirs. Income taxes are not sanctions against hard work and good fortune, they are calculations on transactions. Money changes hands, it is tracked by accountants and a calculation is made of a social cut. The cut goes to fund government activities.

Once the cash goes into government coffers, it ceases to be the property of the individual. It becomes the property of the society as represented by elected officials. This is a disconnection the TEA people don't buy. They argue that government money is their money and should not be spent on things they (as individuals) don't want. Federal abortion funding is the latest cry in this category, but the anger over 'handouts' is the loudest and most persistent argument from the right. It is a bullshit argument. Once taxes are levied and individual monies move to societal coffers, the individual can only have power over it via their elected officials. If these individuals yell loud enough, or spend heavy enough, they can have some say in how government funds are spent.

The striking foolishness of the TEA position becomes crystal clear to me when every single person I have heard speak as a TEA enthusiast uses the word "we" when they are speaking out of their individual mouth or typing with their own pair of hands. How is it that one person can talk about "we the people" or "taking our country back from them"? It sounds crazy to speak for "the people" when I disagree with you so deeply. You don't speak for me, so you certainly can't speak for "the people". The entire movement shakes down to Reagan populist bullshit.

Frank Rich - quote of the day

"The conjunction of a black president and a female speaker of the House — topped off by a wise Latina on the Supreme Court and a powerful gay Congressional committee chairman — would sow fears of disenfranchisement among a dwindling and threatened minority in the country no matter what policies were in play."