An Appetite for Gifts: Rep. Bobby Scott’s ‘Rational’ Solution to the Deficit
By Andrew Schwartz | Tuesday, September 27th, 2011 | Economics, Hampton Roads, Policy, VirginiaRepresentative Bobby Scott held a Townhall meeting in Norfolk, VA yesterday evening that focused on the economic future of the United States, but more specifically toward the Hampton Roads area.
The Democrat’s position is that any talk of deficit reduction will have a “significant” impact on job creation and retention among his constituency. This is actually true for most of Virginia, Maryland, and any location where the structure and industry of bureaucratic systematism has entrenched itself through decades of natural growth, by virtue of its proximity to the central bureaucratic hub in Washington, DC.
In the Hampton Roads area, however, most of the federal government spending is directed toward the one area of the budget that Republicans are hesitant to decrease: defense. It has been the theme of his party, rather, to cut the largest federal expenditure in his district.
It is not my intent to argue the wisdom of cutting portions of defense; but that aside, The Commonwealth Institute presented a statistic that showed 45% of all income in Virginia is received directly from the federal government, whether through wages, entitlements, or pensions. (Let us, for the sake of argument, accept this statistic, despite its source.) Naturally, any large-scale cuts in federal spending potentially reduces the availability of these funds, at this percentage, for Virginians.
The short-term and emotional question in response to this may be, “How shall we keep these federal payments at current levels?” As long as Rep. Scott and the Institute demonstrate convincingly that spending cuts will affect personal income, Virginians will ask this question. No one wants to see their income drop arbitrarily. It is one thing to receive a salary-cut based on poor performance, but it is quite another to receive one based on the corporation’s fiscal mismanagement.
Truly, the federal corporation must reduce its expenditures based on the latter. Even Rep. Scott seems to recognize this, admitting, “We have not been fiscally responsible.” But his definition of “responsible” is not balancing spending with income; instead, a “responsible” government, according to Scott, would have raised the tax rates. “The only rational thing to do is to let the [Bush] tax cuts expire.” That is to say, when a corporation has a surmounting deficit, it would be irresponsible and irrational simply to cut salaries and overhead costs; its singular option must also include raising prices on its services. (This corporation may also incarcerate its customers for refusing to pay the required price increase.)
But would not a wiser and more rational question in response be, “How may we wean ourselves from federal dependence?” Do we really wish to continue the path that places our economic subsistence in the hands of a bureaucratized corporation? Would it not be better to have more choice over your own income—whether that be in entrepreneurship or private employment—so that these political corporate executives may not arbitrarily reduce your salary, while at the same time demand you purchase more of their increasingly expensive services?
“But,” the argument will be, “how many jobs will be lost in Virginia if the federal work force is cut?” This is mercantilist and socialist thinking, both of which assume there is a finite amount of wealth to be earned and exploited in the world. If we consider instead that the money not granted to the federal government, and thence not redistributed to its employees and subsidiarities, may be used to create more private wealth and opportunity, then overall these jobs are only reduced from the federal debit side of the books, and increased to the private credit side.
Surely, a decrease in government spending will have a direct negative impact on individual salaries and stability. But just as surely, an increase in government spending will also have a direct negative impact on individual salaries and stability—only these impacts have farther reaching consequences that threaten the very capabilities of our government’s primary responsibility to protect the individual’s right to work as he wishes, and to keep the fruits of that labor.
If we insist on allowing the government to extract income in proportion to its expenses–rather than insist its expenses be reduced in proportion to its income–simply because we are dependant upon their federal benevolence and wish to vote ourselves into prosperity, then Polybius was right: the politicians will have “created among the masses an appetite for gifts and a habit of receiving them; and democracy in its turn will be abolished and will change into a rule of force and violence.”
“For the people,” he warns,
having grown accustomed to feed at the expense of others and to depend for their livelihood on the property of others, as soon as they find a leader who is enterprising but is excluded from the houses of office by his [social stature], institute the rule of violence; and then uniting their forces massacre, banish, and plunder, until they degenerate again into perfect savages and seek once more an absolute master and a monarch.
This will be a perfect manifestation of class warfare.
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About the author
Andrew Schwartz is a historian from Old Dominion University, where, despite his conservative arguments in liberal academia, he graduated Summa Cum Laude. His focus as a historian is on Colonial and Revolutionary American political, legal and intellectual history. His focus on politics is rational conservatism. He can also be found at AmericanThinker.com.
Comments
9 Responses to "An Appetite for Gifts: Rep. Bobby Scott’s ‘Rational’ Solution to the Deficit"
Cut all non “defense” spending, bring troops stationed all around the world home, quit wasting money overseas.
Anyone who is a Tea Party “Constitutionalist” shouldn’t support overseas troop deployment, should they?
Being that the military is the largest chunk of Federal spending, it should be the first place we look for waste, fat, corruption, cuts, and back room deals; yet it the first place that Republicans want to protect, no matter what the cost.
Tor,
Thomas Jefferson sent the US fleet to the Barbary Coast to end the tyranny of the North African pirates on Mediterranean commerce and shipping, something that the European nations were content to live with while paying tribute and ransom. Would you have us believe that Thomas Jefferson was not a “Constitutionalist?” (Whatever that is.)
HisRoc: we are all tired of hearing about Jefferson and the Barbary Pirates, and how somehow that is the same thing as W invading and occupying Iraq for 8 years for no apparent reason. What Jefferson did was in defense of American shipping and American lives against an active threat. What Bush did is something else entirely.
Mr. Schwartz,
I am glad to have read this. More please.
Jamie,
There is no doubt in my mind that, just as Rep. Jeannette Rankin voted against the declaration of war against Japan in 1941, there were plenty of your ilk who opposed Jefferson’s deployment of the fleet against the Barbary pirates. Isolationists and pacifists have always been amongst us and will always enjoy the blessings of national security that wiser men impose on you against your will. That is democracy.
HR,
Jefferson also purchased Louisiana and that wasn’t really what he stood for either. He was quite the contradictory man. My favorite president but quite contradictory.
Tor,
There it is. Jefferson is my least favorite President of the early republic–a real man would have simply taken the Louisiana Territory instead of paying the dysfunctional French loser colonials to go away. But I have to admit he drove a hard bargain, even if neither he nor the French really knew what the product was. On the other hand, he was probably the best President in the early republic on the matter of foreign policy. So, I agree with you–he was very contradictory. His greatest legacy was the Louisiana Territory but his greatest contribution to contemporary American influence was sending the fleet to North Africa. In the case of the former, he kick-started the American Manifest Destiny. In the case of the latter, he made the complacent monarchies of Europe sit up and notice the power of a constitutional democracy. You can argue both ways which was a greater contribution to Western Civilization. But he was still a liberal Democrat, someone we would call a limo liberal today.
Certainly there are Constitutional precedents that allow expeditionary forces–rather than just reactionary ones. I try not to get involved in those debates. It is my opinion that the DoD always has more intelligence than they let on (and by intelligence, I don’t mean to imply they are smarter than the average person…).
Situations along the Barbary Coast, Iraq, and yes, even modern Libya, I am willing to accept, until disproven, that there were national security concerns we may not know about.
But I also do not begrudge people for arguing from a neo-isolationist stance either. Both sides argue from different premises.
HisRoc,
There is no doubt in my mind (as you have just confirmed it) that you are unable to draw any distinction between a) sending ships to defend against active aggression towards U.S. flagged shipping and crews, and b) invading a sovereign nation over unsubstantiated and ultimately unproven allegations about “WMDs,” occupying said nation, and implementing a regime change.
The lives of America’s uniformed servicemen and women are the most valuable national resource we have. They are to be risked and expended only when all other options have been eliminated. They are not pawns in some great game of realpolitik chess played by venal politicians.
“…a real man would have simply taken the Louisiana Territory instead of paying the dysfunctional French loser colonials to go away.”
Are you kidding, or are you serious?
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