Never trust a millionaire who wants to tell you why the government must control it's spending

Dear James, Daniel and Emily,

Missed the first part of the State of the Union last night, but caught most of it. And then endured the idiocy of the 'Official' Republican response. Here's my take on both, for what it's worth.

Most of what Obama said had to be taken with a grain of political salt of course. It just doesn't make sense to talk about investment and spending, while at the same time talking about cutting back on waste and controlling the deficit. Politically most of what he asked for was pretty much just bully pulpit talk, which I don't expect much results from.

I was mildly excited by his talk of ending subsidies for Oil companies in order to pay for clean technology research. That's a real good idea, and I saw a chart a week or 2 ago that demonstrated just how big of an impact that could have. The most interesting thing that I heard he proposed was to really reorganize the government structure. This sounded cool, and made sense, and could actually result in real cost saving. All of which means that it is an effort that is pretty much doomed from the start.

Listening to the GOP response had me alternating between yelling "you lie!" at the TV and checking to make sure I still had my wallet. The best description of GOP policies is this, put in the terms that politicians always like to use:

Take your family, the parents are both working, and one or both of them are working 2 or maybe even 3 jobs. They work so hard because they had to take a pay cut from their primary job as a result of the recession. They took on the extra jobs because they still want to be able to pay for their kids school supplies, medical insurance, and be able to pay for maintenance on their home and cars. Taking on extra jobs until your primary job income rises is like being willing to pay higher taxes so that the government can pay for infrastructure improvements, education improvements, and health care.

The GOP thinks you shouldn't have to take on those extra jobs, because that extra work is cutting into your freedom. Instead they want you to only work 1 job, and in fact maybe even take lower wages, because that free time is your freedom. Of course you can't do that and pay your bills, so you take out more loans and max out your credit cards to keep up. Now the GOP says that instead of taking on the extra work and jobs you just need to suck it up and forgo buying those new clothes for your kids, educational supplies, health insurance, or maintenance on your house and car. See, just cutting that spending allows you to keep up with your bills, of course if something horrible happens, or if you care at all about the future and want to plan for it that's simply not possible. But you have all that 'freedom'!

My response is that all that 'freedom' from taxation is worthless when my kids have to go to schools that can't afford basic supplies and be taught by teachers who have effectively taken an oath of poverty. It's worthless when the roads I drive on rarely get repaved, much less upgraded. It's worthless when there are not streetlights on my street, and the local parks are overgrown with weeds and covered in graffiti. It's worthless when it takes the police 30 minutes to respond to a 911 call because half the force was cut to save money. It's worthless when a woman fells she has to risk prison and her future career to send her kids to a better school.

And that is the world that these millionaires talk about when they talk about our freedom from taxation. I don't see them stepping up to the plate to save us from the deficit. I don't see them giving up their government paid health care, even though they want to repeal the same for the rest of us. I don't see them giving up their perks, and half or more of their income to save us from the deficit.

My biggest feeling is that when it comes to money our political culture has lost the sense of community, that we are all in this together. That when sacrifice is called for, it is those who have the most who should be willing to makethe largest sacrifice. Instead the prevailing wisdom seems to be that sacrifice should somehow affect us all equally, so that millionaire only has to give up a couple of gold trips, while the rest of us forego things like new clothes, car repair, hoem maintenance etc. People like to talk aout the 'Geat Generation' that fought in WWII, well let's not forget that generation also gave up a lot of personal wealth so we could have a country with the largest middle class in world history, the most equal distribution of wealth in a modern democratic society. Too bad that sacrifice is not talked about any more.