TheMillerCircle.org

We knew that something like this was bound to happen. It’s how the Republican forces have always worked and much to our dismay, they often get their way because of the power of corporate America. In Rick Perlstein’s book “Before the Storm” he illustrates how, in the wake of Barry Goldwater’s colossal defeat to Lyndon Johnson in the 1964 Presidential election, the political pundits of the time, such as James Reston of the New York Times and many others of that era, pronounced the conservative Republican movement as all but dead and certainly headed for the trash can of history. As a result of this commonly held belief, liberal Democrats dropped their guard and assumed that Johnson had clear sailing ahead for a more socialized agenda.

But unknown to almost everyone at the time, the Goldwater defeat was the beginning and not the end of the conservative Republican movement. It was Goldwater who, once the civil rights legislation had been passed under Johnson,  urged the Republican party to re-enter the South and convert the anti-civil rights Southern Democrats into Republicans. This suggestion led directly to Nixon’s “Southern Strategy” and eventually Ronald Reagan came into power and more specifically courted the right wing anti-racial Southern conservatives and began the religious indoctrination of the Republican party. As told by Bill Moyers, Lyndon Johnson’s Press Secretary, he came in to see Johnson immediately after a major Civil Rights Bill had been signed and found Johnson morose. Moyers asked him why he was sad, when he should be feeling jubilant for signing such a historic bill. Johnson replied “I have just given the South to the Republicans”–and so he had. The conversion of the Southern Democrats into a solid block of Southern Republican states, together with the Reagan Democrats, created a ruling block that controlled the White House for five of the next seven Presidential elections from 1980-2008 and provided many majorities in the House and Senate during that same period.

Today, we are faced with a situation that runs parallel to what happened in the 1964 Presidential election. The 2008 election was a resounding election victory  (though not a landslide) for Obama and with it, liberals are more inclined to see this past election as a new vista for the country, one that is moving in their direction. But, in addition to the false sense of security that enveloped liberals after the 1964 election, we have to be aware of the phenomenon that the Republicans practice so well–namely, that when a country is in a state of political or economic shock, and public apathy and confusion is abundant–that is seen by the Republicans as the most optimal time to introduce policy changes that would otherwise be odious and unacceptable to the public. This “Shock Doctrine” is precisely what Naomi Klein talks about in her book on the subject and it is one of the issues we need to be more aware of–now more than ever before and  certainly more so than was done in the aftermath of the 1964 Presidential election.

South American countries that we have dominated by way of the Monroe Doctrine and its many different iterations (Open Door Policy), are now saying that they don’t want the IMF or the CIA or our military protection. Many of these countries have gone through the “shock doctrine” of accepting onerous fiscal policies from the IMF when their economies were on the rocks. They are finally learning from their experiences with the United States that by following the leadership of American hegemony, they have not prospered, but delcined further in their economy and income distribution–too many Banana Republics supported or installed by the United States. In South America, there is a widespread sense of dedication to throwing off the shackles of American Imperialism, which have given them stunted growth and disproportionate changes in class stability. Those countries are turning left, not right, as they begin to pursue their own agenda of development.

But what about our own government here at home?  Being forewarned by our neighbors to the South is to be forearmed. With our antennas all tuned in and turned on to high alert, William Greider has written an article pointing out that many corporate groups, including Washington think tanks, have devised a plan to have our Social Security system and Medicare and Medicaid pay for the bailout. According to Greider this action would not be a frontal assault on these social benefits, reminiscent of what Bush tried to do with the privatization of Social Security, but rather they would come to us in the form of  “entitlement reform” which is the Republican’s way of indicating a cut in benefits. Obama has recently agreed to hold a “fiscal responsibility summit” to examine the long term costs of entitlements. I have already heard one financial adviser to Obama, Larry Summers, described entitlement costs as being too high. The plan is to have this action done in the spirit of “bipartisan compromise” which means that no one gets blamed, but the public gets screwed.
We can win this fight, but only if large sectors of the public stand up vigorously and unanimously and say “hands off our entitlements.”  Social Security is financially sound for a long time into the future. The problems we face with Medicare require solutions to our general health care system before we even consider cutting benefits. We have the highest per capita health care system in the world, yet have 44 million people uninsured and our costs are so high and so out of reach for too many Americans,  that each year 18,000-100,000 (depending on how you define preventable death) people die from causes due to a lack of access to decent medical care.

Just remember that our lack of a universal medical care system was the result of right-wing fanatics, including the AMA, who labeled Truman’s single payer plan as “socialized medicine” and killed it during the emergence of the “red scare” period of our history. A single payer plan was also killed during the Clinton administration when corporate America, largely funded through the health insurance companies (which charge $0.30 for the administration of each $1.00 of health care, while Medicare charges $.04 for each $1.00), killed the plan by charging it would remove health care choices from the public.

There is a financial group that should be paying a disproportionately large amount for the bailout and that is corporate America and its wealthy leaders. We have seen that excessive profits are toxic, not just to our financial system, but also to the environment and their disproportionate influence on Congress. When income taxes on the wealthy were much higher in the pre-Reagan era, wealthy corporate leaders did not feel they had ready access to Congress, nothing like that which exists today. We need to raise our fists and shout at our Congressional leaders to demand that Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid are off the table for financing the bailout through reductions in benefits. CORPORATIONS SHOULD BE LICENSED TO SERVE THE PUBLIC NEEDS, NOT TO SUPPORT EXCESSIVE MANAGEMENT SALARIES.

In 1983, under Ronald Reagan, Congress raised the payroll tax on working Americans to support Social Security–the weekly FICA deduction. Reagan did this to offset the huge Federal revenue losses that resulted from his massive tax cuts for the wealthy.  So, in one single sweep, working Americans were asked to compensate for the tax cuts given to the wealthy. The blue-ribbon commission that recommended these changes was chaired by our good friend Alan Greenspan, architect of many of our current set of miseries. These higher taxes have now resulted in a $2.5 trillion surplus and it is that surplus that corporatists want to hijack. There are many ways available to us to pay for the bailout funds and the stimulus package that do not require raiding entitlement resources. Obama made it clear during his campaign that Social Security was in good shape and would not be touched. But if a slight of hand agreement comes out of the summit meeting on entitlement reform, or as Greider describes it “a switch and bait operation” is put into play (like the 1983 tax increase) then it might be too tempting for Obama to avoid using this resource in ways for which it was never intended. The public may be more willing to accept “entitlement reform” in their current state of shock and apathy than they would under more normal economic conditions. But, make no mistake about it, putting this recovery on the backs of the American workers, when these same workers have lost benefits and income over the years of Reaganomics, cannot help but eventually ignite a fire that could jeopardize security for all of us. We need to keep an active vigil and speak forcefully communicate with our politicians, including the administration and emphasize that entitlement programs are off the table for bailout compensation. There are many alternative choices!

The battle over Federal Entitlements is primarily spearheaded by Peter Peterson, a Republican financier who made a fortune doing corporate takovers at Wall Street’s Blackstone Group.  Greider says, Peterson is the “Daddy Warbucks” of the fiscal responsibility crusade. Now 82 and retired, Peterson has dedicated a good part of his $2.8 billion wealth to alarm the public into accepting lowered entitlements. He describes a “$53 trillion hole” that faces Americans because of entitlement programs. Peterson is the darling of the press and our mainstream media, who never seem to challenge his assertions, check his facts or even understand the arguments. But, as Greider concludes, his arguments and alarms are full of holes and just the opposite of what a progressive social policy should emphasize. Social Security is sound. Medicare and Medicaid will provide a train wreck for us if we don’t fix them. But fixing those two programs amounts to reforming our medical care system and reducing the costs that insurance companies and the pharmaceutical industry charge, which  generate some of the highest levels of corporate profits on record: in 2007 insurance company profits were $12 billion, while pharmaceutical industry profits were $40 billion. As one example, the drug Lanzoprasol, a widely used suppressor of gastric secretion costs $329 in Baltimore, Maryland, but the exact same drug and same dose costs $9 in Barcelona (yes, $329 vs $9).

Reducing medical care costs can fix the financial problems we face with Medicare and Medicaid. Peterson’s idea is based on keeping corporate profits at irrationally high levels, while reducing benefits to make it all work. He has the wrong solution and views life from the wrong pedestal. But Peterson has generated a documentary–IOUSA–which opened in 400 theaters across the country and has been shown on CNN. He has generated ads in the New York Times to promote a bipartisan “fiscal responsibility commission” of the type that increased workers’ FICA taxes in 1983 (the way the switch and bait system works, is that excess revenues are generated in the Social Security System, such as the $2.5 trillion that exists today. The government borrows that money with the promise that it will be returned when needed. But, when the magic day comes, many decades down the road, the government says “sorry, but there isn’t enough money available to payout the expected benefits”–that’s why it is important to insure this system is not raided). The purpose of the commission is to make a decision to reduce benefits while protecting the politicians from taking the blame for all the changes. Let’s not swallow this corporatist medicine. I hope we are too smart for it this time around!

Wake up America, your government does not have your interests in mind, not any longer! Ronald Reagan was elected to the Presidency in 1980, with the slogan, “government is not part of the solution, but part of the problem.” When he came into office that statement was untrue–government worked well for the majority of Americans. But Reagan gave us Reaganomics and eventually he and his Republican followers finally gave us the kind of government he campaigned against in 1980–we now have a government that is a problem, but it’s a problem that the American citizens need to fix through the application of pressure points on an administration that is finally willing to listen! At least we hope that’s the way things are beginning to move. It has been a long time in coming, but it will not happen if we don’t apply continuous pressure.

RFM