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Kevin and the no good, very bad Republican Agenda (Part 2) [1]
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Date: 2023-09-04
This is the third in a series of articles. In “Kevin McCarthy and the Republicans and the Debt Ceiling, Oh My!” I showed that Speaker McCarthy did not believe any of his rhetoric about the debt ceiling. “Kevin and the no good, very bad Republican Agenda (Part 1)”, revealed, by their actions, the Republican party caters to the desires of the rich to enable them to act with impunity without interference by government. There are two other ways in which Republicans act for us to examine.
Culture Wars
Unless you live in a cave... without Wi-Fi, you must be aware of America’s culture wars. Florida and Governor Ron DeSantis are in the news daily. Government, abortion, gun control, LGBTQ, library books, African American history, climate change. The Republicans have acted to pass numerous laws at the state level banning abortion, green energy, AP American history, and LGBTQ citizens in sports in many states recently. They have banned books in several states. Currently they are trying to muster the votes to pass a national abortion ban in the House of Representatives.
Who benefits from the culture wars?
I am sure some politicians and media celebrities are anti-abortion, against gun control, or think climate change is a hoax. But as we learned from the Fox News v Dominion lawsuit, what they say and what they genuinely believe are two different things. Look at what any Republican candidate said about Trump in 2015 compared to what they say today... 91 felony counts later.
Their current rhetoric is windsock morality designed specifically to gin their base audience into a frenzy daily. With each indictment Donald Trump goes up in the polls matched by increased donations for reelection. There is a similar reaction when any Republican politician mouths any culture war narrative from LGBTQ bathrooms to banning books by African American writers.
Since Republicans make up less than 30% of registered voters, this is a ploy by them and right-wing media outlets to turn out enough voters to be a political majority... where they will continue to serve, you guessed it, the rich. Privatization
From the Great Depression through WWII until 1980 our American story had been President Roosevelt and Keynesian economics had saved us and initiated a wave of prosperity that created the largest middle class in the world. When Ronald Reagan became president, the narrative started to change. He once famously said, “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are ‘I’m from the government and I’m here to help.’” His approach was that if a service isn’t used by every taxpayer, it isn’t a public good and should not be part of a government budget. It is something ‘customers’ who use the service should pay for. Therefore, it is something that can be done for profit.
Privatization is the process of selling government assets to for-profit businesses or contracting private enterprises to provide government services. Although Reagan was not as successful at privatizing the U.S. Government as Thatcher was in the UK, presidents who followed him embraced these policies.
The sales pitch for government privatization emphasizes shrinking the government and reducing spending. How successful is this?
Who benefits?
When assets are sold, like the Naval Petroleum Reserve, the government no longer has control over them. We now must pay whatever the owner demands to tap the reserve in an emergency such as spiraling gasoline prices. When services are contracted out the same is true. We no longer have control over the quality, amount, or price of those services or employees.
Under President Bush private enterprise began feeding and housing our military personnel. President Trump tried to privatize the Veterans Administration. His education secretary, Betsy DeVos , spearheaded the idea of school vouchers started by George W. Bush. These are the most prominent examples involving the federal government. There is a great deal more privatization at all levels of government.
Federal employees
Today, more than 40% of all federal ‘employees’ are supplied by private contractors. Some are direct hires, while most are provided by private companies. Microsoft, for instance, provides a substantial number of employees to our government. The average contract employee costs taxpayers 17% more than hiring a federal employee. Those 1,400,000 private contract employees are not part of the federal government. The government is technically smaller but more expensive... by $23Billion annually some of which is profit at taxpayer expense.
Military weaponry
Over the years the number of federal defense contractors consolidated down to only five major players. More than 50% of the entire $886Billion military budget for the coming year will go to private contractors. It is voluminously documented that they regularly overcharge for their wares reaping 40% to 50% in excessive profits. The annual cost is in the billions annually. Once again, private enterprise is being enriched while making government more expensive... and not any smaller.
Education
School vouchers nationally account for between $66B and $203Billion in education funding annually. Republicans present this as a program to improve educational opportunities for parents in underfunded school districts. Currently 15 states offer school vouchers. Of those nearly half have no qualifying income cap allowing wealthy parents to subsidize private education for their children at taxpayer expense. The number of states offering vouchers is expected to increase dramatically in the next few years.
In addition to vouchers Republicans support ‘education savings accounts’ to help taxpayers afford private and religious education. This exists in 8 states currently. The idea is that you save money toward your child’s private tuition and get an equal tax credit for that amount. Once again this allows wealthy parents to receive tax dollars for private schooling.
These are winning strategies for Republicans and the rich. Expenditures for vouchers and educational tax credits reduce the budget for public education. Republicans, then, declare that public education is failing. Government doesn’t work. We need more vouchers and tax credits.
With both Culture Wars and Privatization a few people are enriching themselves at taxpayer expense. The Republicans have made sure that almost none of those tax dollars come from the richest among us. Hence, the budget goes up and tax dollars go down. Budget crises ensue.
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