Posted on March 9, 2011 in Articles

Most people will experience the political overreach and push-back happening in Wisconsin only once or twice in their lifetimes. It’s creating a fundamental ideological shift of formerly entrenched constituencies, and although it takes time for a ship the size of the US to reverse course, that’s exactly what’s happening.

Wisconsin is just a harbinger. After 30 years of “austerity politics,” Republicans have only grandmas, the poor, and school teachers left to attack. Combined with an increased understanding that current tax rates are grossly unfair, Americans are beginning to wrest back their rights in the face of corporate-dominated politics.

In political cycles, ideologues eventually seize control of the party, increasingly catering to their most militant constituents. In the name of deficit reduction, right-wing Republicans are attacking grandma. Seventy million baby boomers will turn 65 in the next 20 years, yet they have mounted a frontal assault on Social Security and Medicare. President Dwight D. Eisenhower, in a letter to his brother Edgar in 1954 wrote:

Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splinter group, of course, that believes you can do these things. Among them are H. L. Hunt (you possibly know his background), a few other Texas oil millionaires, and an occasional politician or business man from other areas. Their number is negligible and they are stupid.

In 2010, 64% of those 70 million Baby Boomers voted, making them the second largest voting demographic. Eliminate or degrade Social Security for 50 million likely voters? Good luck with that strategy. It appears the Boomers have at least one good fight left in them.

Vowing to cut Head Start, Women, Infants and Children (WIC), school breakfast and lunch programs for the needy and food stamps appears to be a mean-spirited attack on needy mothers and babies. Dig deeper and you discover that, of the $79 billion social safety net administered by the USDA, much of it goes to farmers as subsidies, another key Republican constituency.

Then there’s the attempt to deny collective-bargaining rights to public employees. Almost everyone has a friend or relative that’s a teacher or civil servant. Also, it’s not lost on people that Wisconsin’s school system ranks second nationally in average ACT/SAT scores. Conversely, the five states without collective-bargaining for teachers, Virginia, Texas, Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina rank 44th, 47th, 48th, 49th and 50th respectively. Republicans clearly want to fix something that’s not broken by busting the unions.

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s approval ratings are plummeting. Among households with a student in school, he has a 67% disapproval rating. Even conservative pollster Rasmussen shows him with an overall 57% disapproval rating. With most elections decided by only a few percentage points, alienating these large voting blocs is political suicide.

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There’s an increased understanding that tax cuts and credits don’t create jobs. Despite his rhetoric, Ronald Reagan actually increased taxes more than any president since the Great Depression, shifting the tax burden from the rich to the middle class. Then George W. Bush reduced corporate and upper-class tax rates even further, exacerbating the problem.

As a result, these tax cuts have created $2 trillion of idle cash on US corporate balance sheets that won’t be invested because of insufficient demand. That’s where tax rates and public spending balance the equation.

At its inception, the National Basketball Association (NBA) didn’t have a shot clock, and combined scoring for both teams was regularly less than 50 points per game. With a small lead, teams would hold the ball for several minutes without shooting, making for a very boring contest. The shot clock was necessary to speed up the game, and higher tax rates on corporations and the wealthy have the same effect.

Do you enjoy driving on interstate highways? That publicly funded project came out of the Eisenhower administration when the marginal tax rates topped at 91%. By redirecting capital back into the marketplace, it sped up the game and created millions of good-paying jobs. Money in the hands of consumers created demand, giving capitalists a reason to invest their remaining capital into production.

Richard Nixon reduced marginal tax rates from 91% to 70%. That, coupled with some currency manipulations related to the oil industry, caused a major recession and deflation of assets in the late 70s under Jimmy Carter, and facilitated Reagan’s election in 1980.

Reagan further reduced the marginal tax rates to 50%, then used middle-class tax increases and massive budget deficits to create a false economic prosperity. When Bush Jr. further reduced marginal rates to 35%, it was more than the economy could handle. The US immediately descended into recession and hasn’t recovered since, with Bush having the worst job creation performance of any president since the Great Depression.

As a result, there are middle-class white people in the streets, something we haven’t seen since the years of the Vietnam War. They’ve awakened the sleeping giant, and now they have to deal with it. Middle-class Americans realize that, even though Republicans started by chipping away at the social safety net programs, they were in the cross-hairs all along.

The Republicans now have a conundrum. First, much of their voting constituency is over 65 and dying. Coupled with the fact that the most recent generation, the Millennials, voted Democratic by a 66-32% margin, and the Republicans surely understand there is no cavalry coming to rescue. They are doomed to wander in the desert for 30 years.

Maybe that’s why they overplayed their hand, realizing it was their last chance. Unfortunately for them, they’ve energized the opposition, evidenced by 100,000 people in the streets in Madison, WI. As if things couldn’t get worse, on Saturday, March 12, farmers on tractors intend to join the protest. When Republicans lose the farmers, they’re toast.

It’s all over but the shouting, and all that remains is to determine is how far left this country will shift. Will we make it all the way to European-style socialism, or will it be something less? Either way, this country’s in for some fundamental changes, and the next few years should prove exciting.

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Larry Wohlgemuth was raised during the tumultuous 60s in the midst of sometimes violent civil rights and antiwar protests. After a stint in the Air Force during the Vietnam War, he earned a BBA degree from Washburn University. Wohlgemuth leans so far to the left he prefers to be called “Comrade”, and his book, “Capitalism’s Final Solution” is planned to be released in the spring, 2011. Larry is a contributor to Prose Before Hos and runs his own blog, It Begs the Question.