Lorne,

Glad to see you here dude.

An issue with your theory on Iraq; the US has spent less than $600 Billion there. Now that is a pretty big number, but this spending bill is larger than that and much of the money will be wasted. Also, if the Democrats that are pushing this spending bill would admit that it is a spending bill and refrain from referring to it as a “Stimulus” package, some folks would at least acknowledge the honesty. If it was only a Stimulus package, the price tag would be about $50 Billion.

Also, I am all for focusing our energies on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan before anything else. That would at least save the American taxpayers some money. No spending on anything until we solve Iraq!!!

By the way, how has the tax and spend and then tax some more approach worked in Michigan and California? How is that New Michigan Business Tax working out? Is it a coincidence that Michigan has a strange talent for chasing businesses to the Southern United States? Taxing our way out of a deficit has not worked.

Hi “Chalmers,”

Thanks for responding. I don’t always follow up on my posts, so I was lucky to catch your response.

I’m not certain of your spending total for the Iraq war — does that include only direct spending or does it include indirect spending as well?

In any event, at $600 billion and growing, the total cost of that war will approximate the cost of the proposed stimulus/spending bill. My question is fair: Why is it a matter of urgent national security in the eyes of republicans to free and rebuild Iraq (a country that never attacked or materially threatened us, by the way)–most of which was wasted too–but it is somehow irresponsible and wrong to spend an equivalent amount of money on America?

Like I said, I agree with the notion that fiscal discipline requires restraint in government spending. But I think it’s an inverted values system that argues for spending American dollars and American lives to prop up foreign countries, while fighting tooth and nail against spending that directly benefits Americans.

Apparently, republicans would support a “Shoes for Sunnis” program aimed at providing free footwear for Iraqi children, but would vehemently oppose as “wasteful” a similar program aimed at helping underprivileged folks here in America. I just don’t understand that.

As for the state of the Michigan economy, at least we are better off than California. In fact, we have done better at restraining increases in general fund spending than any other state in the union. Our democratic governor has recently proposed reducing 18 state departments to 8 — which is directly opposite to what her republican predecessor did: he expanded the government and left her with budget deficits (much like the recent republican president).

Michigan’s governmental structure was largely fashioned around its burgeoning manufacturing base during the early- to mid-20th century. At that time, the state was flush with wealth; it’s roads and schools were second to none and Flint was actually a model city.

Working class incomes were among the highest in the nation (thanks to the labor unions), and people left the impoverished South in droves to work in Michigan’s factories. There, they built a better life for themselves and their children. Today, those workers are wealthy retirees and, as a group, one of the most powerful economic forces in this country.

Of course, during those years, Michigan was as much or more a so-called “tax and spend” state, enjoying 13 years of democratic rule from 1949 to 1963. Since then, however, the state governorship has been held by republicans 31 years to democrats’ 14, so it’s a bit simplistic to pin the state’s current economic woes on “liberal tax-and-spend” policies.

No, the real culprit is the outsourcing of manufacturing jobs to foreign countries, which has resulted in skyrocketing unemployment, declining population growth statewide and negative growth in urban centers, plus declines in state revenues.

Some argue that jobs were outsourced because Michigan’s taxes and labor costs were too high. But I simply point to the fact that Michigan during the ’50s and ’60s was a booming, growing, prosperous place, despite high labor costs and high taxes. So, what changed?

Simply that American corporations discovered the economies of “globalization”: they could get a Mexican or Chinaman to do the work of an American for dramatically less money, not to mention those countries had no environmental laws, worker protection laws, or other pesky regulations to contend with.

Now, republicans and “free traders” argue that American workers should accept a Mexican wage and agree to live in a filthy, polluted environment with no legal protections, so that they can be “competitive” with their third-world counterparts. That way, “business” can prosper in Michigan and the United States again.

I understand that labor unions have probably hamstrung manufacturers with some fairly ridiculous collective bargaining agreements over the years. At the same time, the recalcitrance and arrogance on the part of the executives of those companies in demanding that the workers always make concessions and cuts to save the company while taking tens of millions of dollars in bonuses themselves was as much or more despicable and responsible for what ails American manufacturing today.

You saw the same thing when the CEOs of the Big 3 went to Washington last year. They flew in private jets with their hands out. They had been flying in private jets with their hands out to labor negotiations for decades.

And now you have bankers on Wall Street doing the same thing.

Meanwhile, workers get cut because they are not “competitive.” Yet executive compensation has been growing astronomically. Where is that money coming from? Easy. Corporations are producing products overseas at a Chinese cost and selling them here for an American price. The difference is not going into wages for workers, which would grow the middle-class and “stimulate” a healthy economy. Instead, the money is going into executive pay and stock dividends which are largely reaped by the executives and large corporations that hold huge chunks of stock.

Republicans love to argue that lowering taxes is the best way to stimulate the American economy. They claim that putting more money into the hands of “average Americans” will spur consumption and generate robust economic activity.

Yet, unaccountably, republicans are opposed to workers organizing for higher wages. And they
clamor for more “free trade,” which does nothing more than take jobs and income OUT of the hands of “average Americans” and concentrate it in the hands of the wealthiest few.

What good is a tax cut to the average American if he has little or no income in the first place?