Tax cuts to businesses and wealthier Americans have the same crippling effect on the national budget as social programs, according to a manuscript tentatively titled, “The Two American Welfare States: How Both Parties Increase Social Spending and Affect Income Inequality.”
Christopher Faircy, WSU assistant professor of political science, recently published several papers and the manuscript, according to a WSU News article.
Faircy's various documents outline the fact that tax breaks cost the government just as much as social programs like Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. But, unlike those programs that tend to favor lower-income Americans, tax cuts distribute wealth to the upper-class and increase inequality amongst tax payers.
Faircy also pointed out that despite claims by Republican politicians that Democrats spend more money while in office, both parties remain equally guilty.
This illustrates that while major cuts to spending need to happen in order to balance the American budget, an approach that includes cuts to social programs and the removal of tax cuts that favor wealthier Americans is the best answer. While it's highly unlikely to ever survive politically, the best approach would include the temporary disbandment of the three big spenders Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security until the budget balanced itself.
However, Republicans have been loath to compromise with Democrats on anything. In fact, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid stated on television, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal, that the GOP has supported a strategy of “obstructionism on steroids,” fighting the Democratic Party for every inch of ground.
Republicans adopted this strategy in 2008 when President Barack Obama was first elected, and while Reid agreed that fighting to prevent a person from retaining an office remains an acceptable strategy, it should not be their number one goal. In fact, the GOP’s aggressive behavior has gone so far as to endanger the health of the nation.
In the summer of 2011, Republicans denied the reality of the coming catastrophe that would ensue from failing to raise the debt ceiling and thereby causing the U.S. to default on its loans. They haggled with Obama on a bill that would cut spending without increasing taxes, and eventually they received their wish.
Standards and Poor's responded by dropping the credit rating of the U.S. due to the unwillingness by the two parties to work together, the fact that only modest cuts in spending were made and most importantly no additional revenues were in sight, according to their own report.
The game of politics in Washington, D.C. has gone too far. The Republican refusal to raise taxes has harmed the country as much as over-spending. Any politician who willingly gambles with the health of the nation for political benefit borders on treason.
A democracy cannot function without compromise. When the Constitution was first written, the representatives of that gathering had vehemently disagreed ideologically. Despite their differences, however, they set personal views aside and compromised for the good of the nation. Therefore, let the party that constantly yells for returning to the Constitution’s roots take a page from its own book and realize that the U.S. has many different factions with opposing opinions, and that it was created that way to prevent the tyranny of one group from forcing itself on others, James Madison Federalist No. 10.
