New AJE op-ed: Mitt Romney, ‘Welfare Queen’ [New]
My new AJE op-ed is here. It begins as follows:
Mitt Romney, ‘Welfare Queen’
The private equity business model that Romney’s wealth is based on is founded on tax-payer subsidies, says the author.
Ever since Brown v. Board of Education, conservatives have been complaining about judges “legislating from the bench”. It was a brilliant strategy: “We’re not racists,” they could say. “There’s a matter of high principle involved here.” But it was not until 56 years later, with the Citizens United decision, and conservative justices ruling the roost, that we got to see what an earth-shattering example of legislating from the bench really looks like – and the Republican presidential primary is the number one surprise casualty. It’s just the sort of unintended consequence you’d expect in the absence of a thorough legislative fact-finding process, and the fine-tuning of final legislation. It’s not that the legislative process is flawless – far from it. But this sort of staggering bolt-from-blue consequence is precisely the sort of thing that the legislative process is intended to avoid, and that the judicial process is ill-equipped to anticipate. Oops!
So now the GOP has gotten a taste of their own medicine, with lurid, hyperbolic attack adds dominating the electoral process. And they do not like it, not one bit. Two deeply-flawed candidates have emerged as frontrunners in a process that has exacerbated and amplified those flaws a thousand fold. The tide may have finally turned, Mitt Romney may have finally learned how to punch back, and the tide of establishment money may have finally swamped Newt Gingrich for good as a serious threat – though he’s unlikely to quit. But even if Gingrich were to quit today, months and months of videotaped debates, press conferences, attack ads and various other vicious odds and ends are not just going to go away. They’ll be back when the general election campaign really heats up next fall.
More importantly, the Republican primary has unwittingly validated the Occupy movement in spades, laying the groundwork for a potentially very different sort of campaign environment not just in the fall, but starting right now. Mitt Romney’s limited tax-form release validates what we already knew: He’s not just a member of the 1 per cent, he’s in the 1 per cent of the 1 per cent – perfectly positioned to illustrate everything that’s wrong with the existing system. Seen through the lens of Romney’s own example, it’s not capitalism per se that’s the problem, but the dramatic shift away from a form of capitalism that benefited almost everyone to a form that only benefits a small handful. And it is Gingrich’s campaign that has forcefully made this point, on the stump, in debates and in the half-hour video, When Mitt Romney Came to Town, which starts off with a paen to capitalism as the source of the US’ strength before turning dark with its focus on Wall Street, leveraged buyouts and Romney’s Bain Capital in particular.
Although Gingrich attacks Romney for what he’s done to American workers, there’s an even deeper jujitsu criticism to be made of his business mode: Mitt Romney is a welfare queen. As we’ll see below, without the tax-breaks given to interest payment, the private equity business model would never have been born. Those tax-breaks are nothing but a taxpayer subsidy, paid for by everybody else picking up the slack for Mitt Romney and his crony corporate raiders. But let’s not spoil our appetites by starting with dessert.
To read the whole article, click here.
What Do You Think?
6 Responses to 'New AJE op-ed: Mitt Romney, ‘Welfare Queen’'
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Tim [New]
Thursday, 2 Feb, 2012 at 5:46 pm
Great piece, Paul. I’m trying to find more on the bankruptcy of American Airlines which is another perfect example of the capitalism you describe. AA apparently is the last big airline to declare bankruptcy as a deliberate ploy to bust unions, offshore jobs, and escape pension liabilities employees already funded. You’d think someone in government would notice and put a stop to it. And you’d think flyers would be a little upset to learn that plane maintenance for all airlines except AA is sometimes done by non-English speaking mechanics working overseas in places like Singapore and Thailand who apparently can’t even read the manual. As I said, I heard this today on CNN of all places and I’m trying to find the supporting evidence.
In any event, I’d also quibble with Dean Baker’s ideas about solving the underwater mortgage crisis. Cramdowns might be the most direct solution but they’re a dead letter given the political control banks wield in Washington. It would’ve been better to provide a legal mechanism to reprice mortgages to reflect market value, and a significant share of the homeowners down payment if any, with banks getting significant upside in a future home sale with the ability to sell that upside to taxpayers who could hold on to it and reap the benefits in future decades.
Emocrat [New]
Thursday, 2 Feb, 2012 at 6:14 pm
Yep. Absolutely:
Also, the rather unregulated use of bogus or counterfeit parts is a massive concern. That’s why so much maintenance is done off-shore now. It’s not just labor arbitrage. It’s parts arbitrage as well.
Flying sure is a lot of fun these days, isn’t it? And I’ve loved flying since I was a wee lad. Still do, but I prefer smaller aircraft these days. Airlines are horrible.
Emocrat [New]
Thursday, 2 Feb, 2012 at 6:09 pm
Yet another, “If there’s one op-ed you must read this week, it’s this one.”
I’ve become almost entirely fatigued with Republican Outrage Syndrome, such that I can’t even watch MSNBC for more than ten minutes at a time now… now that they’ve become an “All-GOP-All-Of-The-Time” outrage festival. (the liberal version of “3 hours of hate”?)
So even in this oversaturated environment, it was nice to see something so substantive and well-reasoned.
Tim [New]
Thursday, 2 Feb, 2012 at 6:15 pm
bystander the other day had an interesting point about Republicans confessing their sins to Bill Moyer. The elite response to the public truth-telling of the past year (since Wisconsin?) has been fascinating, from Newt’s liberal critique to the three hours of hate you mention to political inoculation by confessing on TV. I wonder if any of it will have an impact. Or if it simply is theater. Or an attempt to avoid responsibility.
Emocrat [New]
Thursday, 2 Feb, 2012 at 6:57 pm
Well, those are good questions, aren’t they? Stockman has been going through this for a while now. He seems to have some sort of conscience. Perhaps he’s taken a cue or three from John Dean.
My own bias watching this is that it’s all theater, regardless of the motivation. That’s a bit harsh, but saving one’s karmic derriére after doing so much damage in the course of one’s earlier career can be viewed a number of ways. But theater will always be a part of that. Any good mea culpa these days involves at least some aspect of theater. Perhaps at any time or age, for that matter.
One thing we can probably rule out, at least partially, is inoculation. The only reason I say that is people like David Stockman don’t really need to concern themselves with that. They’re not running for office, after all. The former Citibank (bleep) struck me as oddly pathetic for some reason. I have more doubts about his honesty, for obvious reasons, than anyone else on that show. Perhaps he has offspring or grandkids that are finally becoming sentient and he needs to deal with them. Aye dunno.
As for impact, I rather doubt it. As much as I have deeply admired Moyers since I was a friggin’ teenager, he’s really trying to get a serious message across to people who, in all likelihood, don’t care about what he has to say. BM is interviewing these people specifically because he thinks the Real Power will listen to them. I think he’s wrong about that and I also believe the evidence will bear me out on that shortly.
Still, he’s at least making the effort. And he’s still one of the most eloquent humans in the US today. Indeed, he seems to be one of the few screaming consciences left in the DC metro area. If he wasn’t so admired by so many, even people he’s ripping to shreds, he’d be a very lonely person in DC.
This is a very strange dynamic we’re living in today. In some important respects, it seems (from a time-distance) to jibe somewhat with the totalitarian era we call “the ’50s.” In this sense, it’s not ironic to see people who actually lived in “the ’50s” to be acting apologetically now. They always knew they were being bad when they were doing so. Stockman knew he was a saboteur of good government when he was “just doing his job.” So did the feller from Citi, who still has many millions in the bank from his various crimes.
But at least they’re sorry about it!
Friday, 3 Feb, 2012 at 12:33 pm
Thanks, folks. I don’t think everything you’re talking about is *just* theater. But it definitey *is* being played out in a limited ideological space–which is why the description in terms of theater has some very legitimate resonance.
That’s why I’ve always got a concern–either foreground or background–to include some measure of elements that “break the frame”, so-to-speak. Which is why I supplemented the interview material with the historical stuff via RortyBomb & Minsky, for example.
I am sure that Baker would agree that cramdown is politically not very feasible, which is why it hasn’t been his primary focus. He brought it up more as a way of highlighting the similar consequences of different actions that would shift the power relations that are always present, but are generally ignored, in the real vs. idealized/sanfictified market–in this case, the housing market.
It’s great to use Baker’s comments as a jumping-off point, but generally not a good idea to jump off by criticizing him. He’s usually 2-3 steps ahead of you–a guy who knows where all the chutes & ladders lead to, if you know what I mean. Which makes for an interesting experience interviwing him, to say the least.