Time to Feed the Beast

When you have two political parties that are required by tradition and common sense to work together, what do you call the party that refuses to negotiate? A bully.

What do you call the bully when its refusal is intended to force the country into financial freefall? When the purpose of this refusal to negotiate is to so weaken the government so that the bully can blame everyone else and grab political power? You call it an enemy of the state.

What else can you call the still-active Republican agenda of “starve the beast?” If you are not familiar with that phrase, it harkens back to the Reagan era, as do so many of today’s Republican bare-fisted tactics. It is the strategy of refusing to ever vote to raise taxes, even though they were drastically and disastrously lowered during W’s reign, no matter how devastating the results were to the country.

In fact, that is the point: to starve the government of funds to the point where programs that the Republicans don’t like will be cut out of necessity.

Witness the recent debt ceiling debacle. What did the Tea Party’s Michele Bachmann say? It won’t be a problem. Well, folks, I don’t know about your situation but my house in Moorpark has dropped more than $15,000 in value in the past month, according to the website Zillow.com. I suspect the two are connected. Anyone been able to qualify for a loan lately? Anyone had his or her bank fees reduced lately?

Why would any sane person, much less those who have been elected and have sworn an oath to uphold and protect the U.S. Constitution, intentionally weaken their own country? Simple. To ride to the rescue on a white steed of fabricated excuses and finger pointing and grab back the power they were unable to come by honestly.

I could not make this up. Ask our representative in Sacramento, Sen. Tony Strickland, co-founder and former President of the California Club for Growth. Strickland has found a shortcut to starving the beast. He proudly explained in 2006 that any Republican state legislator who voted for a tax increase, ever, would be run out of office by his own party. And so they have.

Grover Norquist, the unelected leader of the ultraconservative faux grassroots organization founded and funded by billionaire David Koch, Americans for Prosperity, insisted that all Republicans in Congress sign a pledge to never raise taxes, ever. That pledge has taken precedence over their sworn oath as elected representatives of the people. As in “We the People.”

Here is what Norquist has infamously said (in a May 25, 2001 NPR interview) about this plan: “My goal is to cut government in half in 25 years to get it down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub.”

This, from who?  And, yes, that is what was behind our precipitous flirtation with financial default a few months ago.

Last year, economist Paul Kruger said it better than I ever could: “Rather than proposing unpopular spending cuts, Republicans would push through popular tax cuts, with the deliberate intention of worsening the government’s fiscal position. And they’re not willing to participate in serious bipartisan discussions, because that might force them to explain their plan–and there isn’t any plan, except to regain power.”

So as our redistricted political landscape takes shape and likely will pit state Sen. Fran Pavley against state Sen. Strickland, perhaps you might ask Sen. Strickland why he is so proud of his role in enforcing this strategy? How will this possibly help the citizens of Moorpark?

Right now, we are the ultraconservative extreme rightwing faction of Ventura County, with Supervisor Peter Foy as our elected official. Foy is also the President of the California Chapter of Americans for Prosperity, the Koch group led by Grover Norquist.

I would think it is about time for the Strickland and Foy supporters to ask our representatives some questions of substance. You might not get a reply of substance.

Aren’t you tired of the jingoism yet? Is this “starve the beast” thing working for you? Oops, there I go again.