Class Warfare, Part II

Larry Beinhart’s Body Politic

by Larry Beinhart, December 30, 2010

Summary of Part I: We’re losing, they’re winning. Who are they? The richest 1percent. And maybe the next 9 percent. Who are we? All the rest.

Which poses an interesting question: How has a tiny fraction of the population—which is diverse in many ways—arranged for their narrowest economic interests to dominate the economic interests of the vast majority? And, while they’re at it, endanger the economic well-being of our nation and bring the financial system of the whole world to the brink of collapse?

They have money.

We have votes. Theoretically, that means we should have the government. Theoretically, government should be a countervailing force against the excesses of big money, take the long view for the good of the nation, and watch out for the majority, not to mention the poor and downtrodden.

What we actually have is one political party that is flat out the party of big money, and another party that sells out to big money.

Well, at least we have safety nets.

George Bush’s biggest regret is that he didn’t privatize Social Security. Why so eager? One reason is that it’s a big pile of money. Absolutely gigantic. It drives the bankers and brokers crazy that they can’t get their hands on it. The other is ideological hatred. Stephen Moore, senior fellow at the Cato Institute, contributing editor of the National Review, and president of the Free Enterprise Fund,  has written, “Social Security is the soft underbelly of the welfare state. If you can jab your spear through that, you can undermine the whole welfare state.”

Where Bush failed, Obama has now taken the first step. His new tax deal includes cuts on employee contributions to Social Security. Which means defunding, weakening, and setting a new precedent—that Social Security contributions can be cut to “stimulate” the economy.

The crash has put the states in trouble. Rather than raise taxes, or borrow, several have decided on cuts to Medicaid, the program that services several categories of low-income people: pregnant women, children under 19, the blind, the disabled, and those who need nursing home care. If you’re a poor kid who needs a liver transplant, you can beg, rob a convenience store, or die.

This shift to the right is a triumph of a long and very well-funded propaganda campaign. Every time I read an op-ed in the New York Times and it says it was written by a “senior scholar” from the Hoover Institute or a “fellow” from the Cato Institute, I want to scream, “Please replace that with ‘paid whore funded by a psychotic right-wing billionaire’!” Which is significantly more accurate.