Libertarian Social Democrat

A.D. Freudenheim, The Editor

This recent political cartoon is a nutshell description of how and why I find myself drawn towards two conflicting approaches to government and governance these days. The Democratic and Republican parties are corrupt, cynical, and out of touch in equal measure, and it seems increasingly clear to me that this pathetic gridlock is unlikely to change for the better in the 2010 or even 2012 elections. The parties are too entrenched, the politicians too self-serving, and problems too vast. Here, then, are my two opposing perspectives on what must be done.

“Option A”: I call this approach the “Double-down on Obama, and embrace the hardcore, European-style Social Democrat approach of which the president’s critics are so afraid.” To anyone willing to listen, I am happy complain about the impact of current tax law on my household finances—not to mention the lack of affordable health insurance, the challenge of finding good public (i.e., free) schools in New York City, or the likelihood that Social Security will not be solvent should I ever need it. Nonetheless, I cannot help but wonder whether our society would be better off if we imposed the type of pervasive, all-encompassing “Nordic model” tax regime common in places like Denmark or Sweden. There, national income tax rates are upwards of 32% across the board, and there is a significant Value Added Tax on most purchases, a tax that typically rises for luxury goods. This hefty source of government revenue makes possible a generous network of social services, while also providing a slight leveling-out of wealth: the super-rich are slightly less so, while the poor can lead more stable lives with better government support where needed.

It isn't that I have a great need for more taxes, but the neither-here-nor-there nature of the current US tax plan is not working. The US Treasury, along with state government taxes, brings in enough revenue to sustain programs like Medicare and Social Security in the very near term—while much else has to be paid for with debt that will come due later. This tax revenue will diminish as Baby Boomers retire and government expenditures go up, making our future choices about programs and services even more complicated, and the population available to pay for them more diminished. As much as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are a drain on our resources, this situation—the demographic shift and its associated costs—existed before we went to war.

It is this absurd scenario that leads me to ponder the possibilities of giving the government 20% more money, in order to get better services out to a wider portion of the population while investing in and stabilizing some of the long-term programs that might otherwise run out of funding. Hell, witness Glenn Beck extolling the virtues of his local (taxpayer-subsidized) public library, and you can see all over again what could be accomplished with even more resources for these and other programs.

Not to mention that the more I have to listen to the self-serving, completely absurd Republican rationales for why national health care is effectively subsidizing the sick at the cost of the healthy, the more I think the “Nordic model”—heck, even the British model—is appealing. After all, this cross-subsidizing of resources and needs is one of the foundation stones of modern, Western civilization: taxpayers pay for police and fire services, even if most people never have their homes burgled or catch fire. Taxpayers pay for roads throughout their community, city, or state, even if the roads they drive on 90% of the time are the same 25 miles from home to school to work and back again. It takes a lunatic (like Glenn Beck) to think that eliminating (let’s say) the federal government, or even just federal income tax, would change this dynamic for the better. It would not diminish our needs, only the resources to address them.

And yet... there is my “Option B”: This one is summarized as “Learn from the Tea Baggers and the Libertarians—not to mention the founders of our nation, who revolted against an oppressive, self-serving regime.” Putting the terrorism-endorsing elements of the Tea Baggers, faux-Tea Baggers, and their GOP friends aside, it seems fairly clear that our governments actually are failing. From New York in the east to California in the west, the mixture of budget deficits, political gridlock, corruption, and pre-determined spending needs are making effective representative government harder and harder to find. (I know: Indiana is in great shape. Sorta.)

The thing is that the federal, state, and even New York City taxes I pay take a significant portion of my income—while the scope and quality of the services I receive in return continue to diminish, and the additional costs grow, too. At the same time, the sectors in which the federal government has been extremely focused for the last two years—such as banking and global finance—have become even more adept at taking advantage of a taxpayer-funded opportunity to soak the poor and middle-classes in favor of the already rich. Locally, one starts to wonder why Mayor Bloomberg’s city government can find the wherewithal to condemn private property in favor of billionaire developers when there are more basic needs left undone and while so many of the goals outlined in Bloomberg's PlaNYC remain unaccomplished. And meanwhile the optimistic, principled, values-driven “Yes, we can” president we elected seems to be either overwhelmed by actually having to govern or overwhelmed by the scope of the problems left him by the corrupt, sadistic, and politically twisted administration of Bush and Cheney. Heck, you know things are in bad shape when the ACLU is offering up a comparison between Obama and Bush!

No matter how noble the intentions or potentially good the outcomes of any new government initiative, skepticism and cynicism are easy to come by. Just look, for instance, at the convoluted health care bills that have passed both chambers of Congress: it’s easy to say that not every plan for reform is a good one—based on the impact of these two proposals in terms of taxes, costs, and access to medical care. Perhaps more government involvement in health care is not the benefit for which many of us were hoping, relative to a desire for lowered insurance premiums. Yet simple initiatives like the one proposed by Representative Alan Grayson, to allow people to buy into Medicare directly, probably have little hope of success.

Power corrupts, and government offices seem to fuel this even more than the power that comes from wealth and prestige. Given that, it seems like the the best way to tackle our present problems is not through greater and more vigorous government engagement. Instead, we need vigorous government disengagement—a winnowing and pulling back, especially at the Federal level—combined with a steep reduction in our Federal tax burden.

Ultimately, this should be combined with a series of national “conversations” about some of the key issues we face as a nation and state by state. From guns to, well, health care, we don’t know what we want. Our politicians, and the parties that support them, are too scared to help—too scared to move away from the ease of lobbyist-driven corruption, lest they make an unpopular move and wind up out of office and out of power. The platform of domestic policy goals I outlined in August 2007 remains as relevant now as it was then. The question is: who is going to help us get there—or when and how will we help ourselves?