I am writing this in response to Travis Hornsby's column, "Why I am no longer liberal-minded." With no disrespect to Hornsby (I agree with everything he said, in fact), he is not saying anything about the big picture. And I have to hand it to him for working for Kerry, the least likable and least articulate Democratic candidate in living memory.
Like Hornsby, I grew up lower-middle-class. My dad was a middle school teacher, and my mom raised us kids. We had enough to eat and a decent house in the country but had no disposable wealth at all. I grew up in another swing state, New Hampshire, which you may recall was the sole New England state to cast its electoral votes for Bush in 2000.
Like Hornsby, I was raised a Democrat - a social and fiscal liberal. Unlike Hornsby, I am not an economics major; I studied mechanical engineering in New Hampshire and worked for five years in the defense industry before coming back to school. And unlike Hornsby, I have become more liberal over those last five years.
I share his outrage when I see a man get an unemployment check who does not need one. I share his disgust with unions that keep wages equal for good and bad employees and who keep a co-worker employed when he should be let go as soon as possible. I would critique the government further and say that I saw many a tax dollar frivolously spent at my workplace.
But I have also seen a few things Travis has not. I bought a house at the market's peak and saw my life savings evaporate overnight. I have seen health insurance costs (read: insurance company profits, not health care costs) soar over the last decade while personal income stagnated or fell.
I have seen the gap between rich and poor grow. I have seen friends and family struggle through the worst job market in a century.
So, I ask a few rhetorical questions to all Alligator readers:
What is more outrageous: a misguided government official awarding a small welfare check to an unworthy recipient or a multibillion dollar, multinational corporation writing off all of its profit for the 2010 tax year (General Electric)? Which one is a result of a liberal agenda, and which one a result of a conservative agenda?
What is more infuriating: The officers of Goldman Sachs raking in hundreds of millions, if not billions, of dollars in personal income by creating and selling credit default swaps while the mortgage investors and mortgagees alike see their investments go up in smoke or little brother Hornsby getting a modest Social Security check for having an old dad? Which one is a result of government policy and which one a result of personal greed?
Do the direct causes of our present financial crisis bear any resemblance to the events leading up to the Great Depression? Which U.S. president presided over the dissolution of much of the financial regulation put in place directly following the recession? Which Federal Reserve Board chairman presided over the same?
Would you rather pay insurance premiums directly into the back pockets of the officers at Kaiser Permanente or United Health Care and later be denied coverage when you develop pancreatic cancer? Or would you start to realize that maybe, just maybe, this is something that the government can do cheaper and more equitably.
What do we as a society think about (liberal) regulation to protect the environment, which the GOP seems so ready to tear apart on its campaign trail? Do we think these are impediments to business and economic growth? Or are they valuable checks on corporate greed that allow us all to breathe the air, drink the water, and eat seafood safely?
What do we as a society think of the Occupy Wall Street movement? I will tell you what I think: These people are not out there because they're lazy; they're out there because the economic reality of Reaganism, Greenspanism and Credit -Default -Swapism has left them with nothing.
As a liberal, I believe that the political (social) system is here to (try to) protect us from the greed of individuals who control the means of production and finance. There are two Americas. The first is comprised of those who either come from money or through a combination of luck and a business major landing a really good job in the financial sector. The second America is basically everyone else. The former is responsible for keeping yacht clubs nationwide in business; the later is responsible for most, if not all, of the actual production. If you are truly lucky, you own your own business and belong to both groups, but that is very rare in today's economy.
Without a liberalized government, I do believe this country would and is in the process of regressing to something resembling the laissez faire social injustice of the early 20th century, or perhaps the serfdom of the early second millennium. While I do not recommend anyone without a raging case of insomnia try to read Karl Marx, his ideas are just as relevant today as when they were first penned.
I look forward to Hornsby's rebuttal.
I especially look forward to an explanation of who Michael Mankiw is and what exactly (in layman's terms) he is trying to convey when he tells us that the marginal tax rate is 100 percent on $40,000 or less. I have no doubt it's true, but I don't know what he is getting at.
Travis Pettengill is biomedical engineering masters student at UF.
