But I can't resist the opportunity to annoy everyone one more time, especially because it has to do with something I'm working on. I will hang around to field some responses, if there are any.
The fabled "prosperity dividend" now being touted by the Progressive Caucus, the AFL, and all my formerly favorite Members of Congress is an unmitigated piece of shit. But let me tell you how I really feel.
The Dems had a unique opportunity when Bush rolled out his tax plan to put forward one that contrasted favorably -- something clear, simple, and progressive. The Pwogwessive Caucus had an opportunity to provide leadership on this same count. They are totally blowing it.
In a forthcoming piece in The American Prospect, I suggest three good ways of doing such a tax cut, one of which is my own proposal with Bob Cherry.
Instead of putting forward a progressive tax cut, we are getting the proposal to take about a third of the on-budget budget surplus (about $750 billion) and divide it equally amongst the population -- about $300 for every man, woman, and child in the nation. The payment, misleadingly described as a "tax cut" or "tax rebate", would be conditional on the surpluses "really being there."
The proposal began in at least two places. One was in the brain of Bernie Sanders, and the other in an op-ed in the NY Times by Richard Freeman and my boss, Eileen Appelbaum. The op-ed was founded on a sensible point: if you want to stimulate the economy, tax cuts are not the best way to go. Too slow and too small. Fine. Better to just send everyone some money, like they do in Alaska every year with state royalties from oil drilling. Fine again.
The trouble is that this idea has mutated into a semi-permanent payment that, more than anything else, certifies the brain-death of Democrats and the non- radical left. Here we have a huge budget surplus, after years of austerity fueled by the assertion that we cannot do anythin until the deficit is gone, and the proposed policy is divvy it up.
The proposal has been getting nice elite press coverage, and I think I know why. It's because the elites don't want any tax cut at all, so by treating this idea seriously they discombobulate G. Bush. I very much doubt this proposal is politically sustainable, so the effect is to cede tax policy to the G.O.P.
It is not sustainable because people in the U.S. don't want the government to send checks to people who don't work or pay taxes. As soon as people figure out this is what is going on, the prosperity dividend will die a well-deserved death, and the road to the Bush tax cut will be clear.
I suspect the Democrats don't want a tax cut either, they only want to stop Bush. Some of them may want to spend later, others to keep paying down debt. Either way, their invocation of austerity policy makes future spending initiatives less probable, not more, IMO. I don't think you can invoke fiscal discipline now, then turn around and say it doesn't matter when you have majorities in Congress. I realize this has not stopped Greenspan or the G.O.P., but the Dems are deeper in this swamp in my view. Nor is it clear that opposing tax cuts gets them majorities in Congress.
The bottom line is the Dems fealty to finanz kapital, whether tactical or strategic, is a cancer on the social-democratic prospect. It will take a populist uprising to get them on some kind of positive track. That's what I'm working on. Right now the action is tax cuts. There will be a large one, and the only issue is how to do it. The dividend is not a tax cut; it has nothing to do with the taxes anyone pays, nor with their contribution to the economy (both intimated by supporters). It is just a payment for Being. It's moolah, nothing more, and it will never happen. Instead G. Bush will get credit for rewarding his supporters, and for lack of an alternative, the Dems will split between those upholding fiscal discipline and those who are bought into the Bush package.
cheerio, mbs