Defending my previous post...

I had planned to send my previous post to my local newspaper as a letter to the editor.  But I first shared it with an old friend whose opinion I value.  He felt it contained 'vilifications and armegeddon scenarios', and suggested I present the problem more indepedently and objectively, with less partisanship.

His view made sense.  But (of course) I defended the letter as written.  Here is part of my response:

I think my letter raises some important points:

a) The "Reagan Revolution" did take us from a fiscal crisis (double-digit inflation and a $1 Trillion debt) to a generation of prosperity. But the unspoken assumption was that the solution was a permanent one: we had gone from the 'wrong way' of doing things to the 'right way', or at least a 'better way'. But in retrospect, some of that prosperity was borrowed from the future. If we had adjusted taxes (or, more accurately, had not adjusted taxes during W's administration) we may have sacrificed some 'prosperity', but we would have less debt now.

b) The drug pusher analogy may be vilification, but I think it has some merit. Perhaps I could modify it be a bartender with an alcoholic. (Or perhaps, to give distance, a saloon-keeper with alcoholic cowboys.) In my mind, historically low taxes are like the alcohol: you get the shakes, you take a drink, and you feel better. Drinking is really the problem, but it seems to be the solution. And there are vested interests that benefit from continuing the problem.

c) There's an assumption that "what's good for the stock market is good for the country." But I recall hearing analysts a few years ago talking about how low unemployment was having a negative effect on the stock market. The idea was that if people felt free to shop for jobs, they could demand more money, and labor costs would rise. I was astonished that this view was presented as just a fact: the radio commentators (I think they were on NPR) didn't seem to notice the conflict of interest. They were just informing viewers of the reason the market was "soft". I guess all the investors were supposed to hope that unemployment would rise. If so, we got our wish.

d) The following wasn't in my original text, but it was on my mind, and is in the above revision: In our generation middle-class people have become partial capitalists through the shift from pensions to retirement accounts. (Workers have also become partial socialists through the shift from savings and family to Social Security.) So many people do have a vested interest in the stock market. But the amount of vested interest is a function of the size of the investments. But in much of the political discussion higher stock market prices are assumed to be an unalloyed 'good' (unless, of course, there's a bubble). I want people to be more aware that there is a potential conflict between benefit to investors and the best interest of workers. We who are investing for retirement are both. There's a danger in putting too much emphasis on the investor side, or assuming that what's good for investors automatically leads to proliferation of good-paying jobs. But tgetting back to my revised text: our IRAs benefit when the stock market rises, but they are 'little' compared with investments of those I call the 'moneyed interests'

[Note: my friend said was misquoting the Bible]
e) I'm not quoting the Bible, I clearly say I'm paraphrasing it. And my point follows the theme of Ecclesiates 3: Things go in cycles. I'm not saying low taxes don't have a place in the big scheme of things; I'm not saying low taxes are basically evil. I'm saying that there are appropriate times for contrasting activities. The Bible says "a time to plant, a time to pluck up that which is planted." You don't dig up your garden vegetables in mid-Spring; you don't plant your garden in the fall. (At least, not unless you're in Texas!) I want to point out that solutions aren't necessarily permanent. (And I also want to give an indication that I'm not Biblically ignorant.)

f) Long dissertations like this don't fly in letters to the editor. People's attention span when reading newpapers doesn't give me time to present the problem independently. My goal is to plant a seed, and hope it makes some people think about the problem from an alternative perspective.

g) In general, I don't think the piece demonstrates inflexibility. I see flexibility as something separate from viewpoint. Flexible people with various viewpoints can get together and chart out a course of action that is acceptable to all. But if a valid point of view is missing or ignored at the conference table, the resulting action may not be as good as it might otherwise be. I want to insert these ideas into the discussion.

I hear what you're saying about painting 'disagreers as criminals'. I'll modify the metaphor to saloon-keepers. But I think I will submit it...

[End of my response]

In case you missed it, the letter being discussed is posted on this blog.  (see below).