The economy sucks and Biden’s in charge. Republican candidates in the upcoming midterm elections are hoping those two incontestable facts will lead voters to the obvious conclusion that handing our financial risk management to the opposition party is only too reasonable.
Put aside that much of the GOP has condoned intentional suspensions of electoral democracy, so there’s little guarantee that once we hand them power, they’ll hand it back should they lose. Put aside the nightmarish prospect of forced childbirth becoming federal law. Put aside treating migrants like dirt and banning books in school and trigger-happy policing and another mass shooting every week.
Ignore the almost laughable scaremongering over rainbow-colored fentanyl, which erupted just in time for Halloween. Ignore snatching trans kids from their parents. But, most of all, ignore the civilizational threat caused by unchecked fossil fuel emissions, which the Republican Party — nearly alone on Earth — refuses to so much as acknowledge.
Set all that aside.
Just focus on economic hardship. As of now, 65 million Social Security beneficiaries are set to receive an 8.7% cost-of-living adjustment next year. That means, on average, their checks will increase by more than $140 a month starting in January. That’s real money in Americans’ pockets.
But GOP candidates are explicitly discussing drastic cuts to Social Security and Medicare, including reanimating long-dead privatization schemes.
“The four Republicans interested in serving as House Budget Committee chairman in the next Congress said in interviews that next year’s deadline to raise or suspend the debt ceiling is a point of leverage if their party can win control of the House,” Bloomberg reported earlier this month. Those four include Texas’ own U.S. Rep. Jodey Arrington.
Needless to say, that game of brinksmanship could yield disastrous consequences.
“The economic consequences of breaching the debt ceiling are dire,” business columnist Michael Hiltzik wrote for the Los Angeles Times. “Payments on existing debt would be halted, as would Social Security checks, Medicare reimbursements to doctors and hospitals and paychecks to military families.”
And what do the “fiscally responsible” Republicans intend to accomplish by risking the fiscal suicide of these United States?
“To extract concessions from Democrats on entitlements,” including “a list of eligibility reforms” and other “major changes,” such as shifting the indispensable programs from mandatory to discretionary spending.
“Republicans have said they want to cut Social Security and Medicare: how does every American in the country not know that fact?” an exasperated commentator Krystal Ball explained on the YouTube show Breaking Points. “They are out saying they want to trigger a government crisis when they come into office. That is their own stated plan. Why does everyone not know that?”
She went on to accuse Democratic candidates of “complete political malpractice,” telling party officials point-blank, “You’re not even trying.”
What else is in Republicans’ bag of goodies? They want to make permanent Trump’s great tax giveaway — deficits and inflation be damned. And thanks to tax evasion by multinational corporations and the fabulously wealthy, we’re already losing $1 trillion dollars in government revenue annually.
The commissioner of the Internal Revenue Services forlornly described his agency as “outgunned.” So, of course, Republicans want to scrap the Biden administration’s plans to beef up IRS efforts to go after massive tax theft.
If you’re fine with an economy where three individuals own more wealth than 160 million Americans and you feel we need more border patrol agents and fewer auditors of the upper class, then by all means, vote Republican. The GOP’s loyalty to market ideology precludes the party entertaining the notion that rising prices are mostly due to corporate markups.
But don’t be spooked by the predictable calamities that ensue.
President Bill Clinton left President George Bush enormous budget surpluses; Bush left President Obama the 2008 crash. Obama left President Trump ever-dwindling unemployment; Trump left President Biden a pandemic-ravaged country with broken supply chains.
It would be unfair to suggest Republicans lack an economic plan, even though they’re understandably shy about going into specifics right before citizens cast their votes. The perennial imperative is to give the rich a fuck ton more money.
Democrats, for all their faults, incompetence, corruption and spinelessness, should welcome a referendum on the economy. The GOP never dealt with our collapsing roads and bridges or skyrocketing pharmaceutical drug prices. Trump’s tariffs hurt farmers, his cabinet was stacked with centimillionaire and billionaire cronies, and his tax cuts evaporated in stock buybacks. Is that really a record to be proud of?
Demagogues make for exciting campaigners, but scapegoating the vulnerable seldom delivers the goods for the majority.
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This article appears in Nov 2-15, 2022.