Al's Opinions

Any number of conservative polemicists have argued in favor of small government, low taxes, and few regulations on business.  Some of the arguments are phrased in moral terms: with small government people will have to learn to take care of themselves and not depend on a large, inefficient, unresponsive government to help them.  Other arguments are specific to the desires of their rich patrons, who favor low taxes and freedom from any public limits on their behavior.  To me the most appealing argument is that large government can become unresponsive to the needs and desires of most of its citizens and, being large, is almost impossible to change.  I say that this is the most appealing argument to me.  Actually I don't care for any of them.

Historically, governments have tended to be either weak or tyrannical.  In neither case the government cared little about and did little of benefit for the "common" people (that is, us 99%).  Roman emperors arranged spectacles to entertain the commoners, such as fights between gladiators or feeding Christians to lions, but did little to make sure that the commoners were well-fed, well-clothed, and well cared for in old age.  In modern times it was Otto von Bismarck who recognized that a stable government depended on a satisfied population, and set about creating governmental institutions to provide health care and other benefits for the whole population of Germany.  By contrast, a century earlier the Kings of France were making sure that wealthy Frenchmen were happy and satisfied.  We know where that policy led.

Small, weak government leads necessarily to a society in which the richest individuals have the greatest power.  They can create walled and gated enclaves in which to live.  They can hire thugs to keep the less privileged away.  They can dictate the conditions and the wages of working people.  The hired thugs guarantee that the workers accept the wages and conditions.  Who wants to be a member of the 99% in such a society?

Not me, certainly.  However, Howard Jarvis looked forward eagerly to the creation of such a society.  Today Grover Norquist advocates shrinking government to a size that it can then be drowned in a bathtub.  Mr. Norquist would almost certainly deny it, but it seems to me that he advocates anarchy; that is, no government at all.

We, the 99 percent, need a strong government committed to making sure that the one percent don't simply squeeze us from the paltry share we have of the nation's wealth and other amenities.  The government is strong; unfortunately, it has been taken over by the one percent.  Corporations now have as much legal standing as persons.  (I wonder if corporations can be put to death if convicted of murder?)  We also need strong non-governmental-organizations (NGO) such as unions and associations dedicated to protecting our rights to help us withstand the power of the one percent.

Labels: Grover Norquist, Howard Jarvis, need for labor unions, Otto von Bismarck, power of corporations, the French Revolution

Years ago in the campaign for proposition 13 the sainted Howard Jarvis told us that his goal was to reduce the revenue available to politicians.  Having less money, they would do less.  There'd be less annoying and costly regulation of business.  Besides, people should pay directly for the services they receive and not depend on government to provide them.  People should pay to use libraries, just like they pay to visit museums.  Parents should pay for their children's educations.  All of these services should be provided by private enterprrise.  Private businesses are more efficient than government.  Etc., etc., etc.

This philosophy of government did not originate with Mr. Jarvis.  It's an old idea, one cherished by Republicans for ages.  One of President Gerald Ford's favorite sayings was "government spends too much money."  An early advocate of "small" government was a business man who, about 1929, wrote an article complaining about how government regulations was costing his business too much money.  He didn't care about the size of government.  He simply wanted it to leave him alone.

The behavior of recently elected Republican governors and legislators indicates that their primary concern is not the size or strength of government but rather a government that will support the aspirations of their wealthy backers.  Governor Walker did not reduce the revenue of the government of Wisconsin to bring about "small" government.  His intent all along was to make Wisconsin a State hospitable to manufacturers by reducing the wages of workers.  To do that requires destroying labor unions.  He is starting with  the public employee unions.

We liberal progressives seem to have been caught off guard.  We are astonished and unbelieving that a governor could be so calculating as to produce a budget problem, then use that problem to attack the civil servants of the State.  But think back a few years.  When Bill Clinton left office, the federal revenue exceeded federal expenditures.  The national debt was being paid down.  One of George Bush's first accomplishments was to engineer a sustantial tax reduction.  Most of the benefits went to the wealthiest taxpayers.  The government has been running a deficit ever since.  Republicans are now using this deficit to justify their attacks on Social Security, Medicare, support for National Public Radio, and expansion of health care.  They're not talking about reining in the Defense budget or about letting Bush's tax cuts expire and going back to Clinton's tax rates.

We thought that the elections of 2006 and 2008 had put away these aspirations of some Republicans.  We shifted our attention to other matters, such as ending the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, extending the rights of marriage to gays and lesbians, providing true universal health care in California, and providing public funding for election campaigns.  Now we face the task of fighting for workers' rights.  It's as though we were living in the year 1911, not 2011.

We haven't been paying enough attention to our political enemies.  We've ignored the evidence of a wise man who believed in keeping his friends close and his enemies closer.

Labels: Bush tax cuts, Gerald Ford, going back 100 years, Howard Jarvis, Proposition 13, Scott Walmer

It's about the California Budget Agreement. In the end, the Democratic majority had to accept the Republicans' budget, with no tax increases and deep cuts in education, medical help, Medicaid (or MediCal), subsidies to local governments, and others. In fact, under the agreement, local governments have to help bail the State out of its budget hole.

How did this happen? It was the power of 1/3 + 1 in the legislature and the power of 1 Republican Governor. By now everyone knows that the California Legislature labors under the quaint restriction that budgets and taxes require 2/3 votes in each chamber for passage. Everyone also knows that Republicans in California are required by party leaders to take an oath to oppose any and all tax increases in order to have the support of faithful Republicans in the primary elections.

Although the 2/3 vote is required for increasing taxes, it is not required for establishing or increasing a fee. With a sympathetic Democratic Governor, the majority Democrats in the legislature could have found the money to pay for education, medical care, and the like by establishing or increasing some fees.

Republicans in California should be happy to have the effective support of their Republican Governor. Howard Jarvis in his grave should be spinning with glee and happiness.

Labels: California budget, Governor Schwarzenegger, Howard Jarvis

The news that Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania has switched parties, knowing that he can not be reelected as a Republican, has started me to ruminate (and rant a little) about the current ideologues who are running the Republican Party. What we have, both in Washington, DC, and here in California is a party dominated by the legacy of Howard Jarvis and Jerry Falwell. Howard Jarvis was a tax crusader who advocated small government. Jerry Falwell was a Conservative Christian minister who advocated a return to belief that the Bible is literally the will of God and placing his interpretation of the Bible ahead of the federal constitution as the supreme law of the land.

Jarvis, like such philosophers as Milton Friedman and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibnitz, advocated ideas that pleased his rich supporters. All three men were well paid by their patrons. Leibnitz convinced the rich of his day that, by arguments similar to those used in applying the calculus of variations to physical problems, the structure of society was stable and the only stable and proper structure, with a few rich men and a large class of poor people. The rich should therefore not feel ashamed about being rich. Friedman argued in favor of free, unregulated markets. By arguments similar to those of Leibnitz he convinced the corporate managerial class that unregulated free markets would produce a stable economic system in which every resource would be used and distributed for the greatest efficiency and good of the society. Jarvis's argument was that small government and low taxes would bring about the best society. Why, he asked, should government have to provide such things as free libraries or free education or free health care? Governments should be forced to abandon such unnecessary activities and the way to do it was to reduce taxes so that there would be no funds for them.

Jarvis was a clever rascal. He saw that there was no popular support for a general reduction of taxes. However, there was some popular hysteria over the rapid increase of property values and the concurrent increase in the property tax. Even that would have to be spun to achieve a populist swell to bring about his goal. He exploited the fear of aging homeowners that they would be taxed out of their homes unless something drastic was done, such as vote for Proposition 13 that froze property taxes at some arbitrary level.

Actually, he didn't care much one way or the other about the plight of the aging home owners. He was more interested in the welfare of his patrons, the landlords and the other business people who depended on using property to provide their incomes. Home owners could have simply not paid the tax. The State would wait until the property was finally sold or inherited to collect the back taxes. However, hysteria prevailed over common sense and the proposition passed with an overwhelming vote. (My wife and I were aging homeowners at the time and we voted against it.)

I won't write anything here about Falwell and other conservative clerics.

The Republican Party has traditionally been the party of the rich business class. I recall reading once about a poor American of latino descent. He hoped some day to be rich. The Republican Party was the party of the rich. Therefore, he became a Republican. Republicans have taken the philosophy of Jarvis to its logical extreme. In California, they refuse to consider any revenue enhancement to solve the budget shortage the State faces. Given their way, they would cut and eliminate enough State services to make the available tax revenue cover them. If that means very high tuition for the State Universities and Community Colleges, so be it. If it means school classes of 60 students, so be it. If it means closing of hospital emergency rooms, so be it. These are examples of services that government shouldn't be providing, anyway. Certainly the government of George Washington provided none of these services.

Unfortunately for the Republicans, the country is moving away from these ideas. Young people want to be able to attend university and they want to be able to afford it. Nearly everyone wants emergency rooms to be available and funded and staffed so that one doesn't have a four-hour wait at an emergency room in case of a serious injury or stroke or heart attack. Nearly everyone enjoys and wants to keep free public libraries. The party that would deny them these things is not going to do well in coming elections.

Senator Specter knows that many more moderate Republicans of Pennsylvania have moved from the Republican Party to the Democrats and Independents. To achieve survival in the Senate, he has done likewise.

Labels: Arlen Specter, dim future for Republicans, Howard Jarvis, Jerry Fallwell, Leibnitz, Milton Friedman, the Bible as the literal word of God

We tend, perhaps incorrectly, to think of ideologies as points on a line. Moderation is a point, or rather a region, near the midpoint of the line. Moving to the left we come to progressivism, liberalism, socialism, communism, anarchism, and so on. Moving to the right we come to conservatism, extreme conservatism, and so on. Someone pointed out to me many years ago that the extremes on this line tend to be very similar. I therefore posit that the line isn't a straight line but rather a circle. Moderation is a point or region on the circle. Diametrically opposite is a region of anarchism.

Both the extreme right and the extreme left in politics abhor large government. The Communists believed that if private property could be eliminated, the state would simply wither away because there would be nothing for it to do. They thought of the state as the protector of property rights, especially those of the rich. Conservatives like Grover Norquist and the late Howard Jarvis also believed in a small state that didn't do much. Ultimately their ideal was anarchy or a stateless society.

Without a state there would be no taxes to vex the rich. Whatever services were available to the public would be paid for by fees charged for service. If you want to borrow a book from the library, or even go to the library to read a book or magazine, you would pay a fee. If your house was on fire, you would pay a fee to a fire brigade to put it out. If you got sick, you would pay a fee to the doctor and to the nurses that took care of you.

I don't know of any region that has functioned as a society without a government. In Somalia there is no central government and things aren't very good there. I do know of a society that existed with a weak government in which taxes were low and one had to pay fees or bribes for such services as obtaining license plates for your car. In the case of that society, inflation had wiped out much of the value of the currency. However, government officials were still paid according to the pre-inflation scale. In order to make ends meet, they had to solicit fees (bribes) from people who needed their services.

Communism was tried in Russia. It became corrupt and finally failed. It seems to me that the same fate will overtake any experiment in conservative "small government." Conservative small government lets enterpreneurs do whatever they want. It encourages originality. We have seen recently some examples of originality and absence of government supervision. It is my opinion that small government will lead to corruption, just as Communism led to corruption.

Labels: communism, Grover Norquist, Howard Jarvis, inflation as a cause of corruption, Russia, small government