How to Fail At Legislating by Really, Really Trying

This post may very well get pretty long and quite possibly convoluted, so I request your patience/forgiveness in advance. A probably (definitely) better written piece that takes on similar themes can be found here (it's Rolling Stone, but not Matt Taibbi. So back off). Feel free to jump to the last paragraph of this post for the punch line.

In a surprise to no one, the (Not so) Super Committee on Debt Reduction failed miserably at their mandate and did not even get a proposal together that they could vote on. There are a variety of reasons for this failure but (as some may have guessed) I place the blame squarely at the feet of GOP orthodoxy (religious term usage intended) on taxes. Simply put, Republicans on the Debt Reduction Committee refused to budge on additional revenue to work in tandem with the spending cuts the Dems were offering. Specifically, the GOP was requesting that the Bush tax cuts lasted beyond 2012. Obama has pushed for the continuance of the Bush tax cuts for the middle class before, but the Republicans required that ALL of the tax cuts, including for the wealthiest in this county, are extended as well. Despite the fact that the country can no longer afford them. And despite repeatedly and vociferously preaching debt reduction. The basic argument, as far as there is one, is that taxes upon the wealthy impede growth and the economic growth is really the only way we can pay down our national debt. Classic Trickle-down economics (aka Reaganomics).

There are NUMEROUS problems with this theory, but I'll try to contain myself as much as possible. First and foremost, if this is the case then WHERE THE EFF IS THE MOTHER EFF'N GROWTH YOU GODDAMN MORONS? (Looks like my Caps Lock got stuck. Whoops.). This is not some hot new theory that Paul Ryan, Mitch Daniels and Chris Christie hatched at a slumber party being all GOP young guns and such. As the name suggests, the Bush tax cuts have been around since the presidency of, wait for it... you ready?... I don't know if you are, but here it is... George Walker Bush. Yet the growth hasn't come.  Now, I guess, the plan is to maintain the status quo and hope beyond hope that the spirit of the Gipper makes it all better? These tax cuts have taken billions from our revenue stream and, along with two unfunded wars, helped mightily in bringing the US into the situation we are now in. Despite GOP mythologizing, even President Reagan raised taxes when it was necessary to keep the US economy on an even keel. You do not stand on orthodoxy when the country is reeling; you find solutions that work (such as spending cuts + increased revenues = balance; yes, that would be Personal Finance 101- Your Checkbook).

Additionally, and lastly (thankfully for you), the current talk of tax cuts to the wealthiest and corporations spurring hiring and ACTUAL growth through capital investment, R&D, new products, et al., is just a steamy load of horse manure. As today's NY Times points out, many companies, currently sitting on enormous amounts of cash, are not reinvesting that money in ways that would ACTUALLY help the economy grow. Rather, these companies are artificially approximating growth by instituting share buy backs,which push up the earnings per share. This is accounting legerdemain being used to simulate growth. The truly sad part is that investment in research and development would, eventually, help a company ACTUALLY grow. It just requires taking the long view. And in lies the rub. The short term artificial growth helps executives hit required earnings per share/growth numbers and, thus, get performance based performances attached to those numbers. Likewise, usually top executives making these decisions hold a large amount of stock in the company and can directly benefit from these buy backs. This is, clearly, a potential conflict of interest but courts give a wide amount of latitude in business judgment. Unless there is a clear breach of fiduciary duties, the games continue. All tax cuts would do is grow the pile of money that corporations are sitting on and help those running those companies get richer while paying lower tax rates. Sounds totes fair, right?

So, in other words, shit is eff'n crazy pants to the max. I can only hope that the POTUS sticks by his promises to veto any attempt to roll back the automatic spending cut trigger and a full extension of the Bush tax cuts. It may take some brass ones but, considering our current political environment (those federalists/anti-federalists were lil schoolboys comparatively), this may be the best outcome we could have hoped for.