The Worst Laid Plans
When Herman Cain made his irrelevant 9-9-9 tax plan a focal point of the current political debate, Rick Perry and Newt Gingrich were quick to shout out their "Me too!" Perry's 20% flat tax, pulled out of the magic hat by a deft right hand, would produce a very serious revenue short fall, but we are not to worry. With, his other hand in another hat, Perry promises to pull out such savings that the United States will finally have a balanced budget.
What about Gingrich's 15% flat tax? What, indeed. Gingrich's political career belongs to the history books, and good Americans take no interest in history.
Not that any flat tax will be accepted by the voters in a country where about half the population pays liittle or no federal income tax and the great majority are net tax consumers. As everywhere, the American "poor"--namely, the people who expect me to subsidize their big-screen televisions, smart phones, and drug habits--are constantly whining if they have to pay any taxes on the charity they extort from the taxpaying working classes.
Gingrich, bless his heart, always has some crack-brained project up his sleeve, but while Newt used to be virtually unique in drawing up detailed proposals to save his country and improve the human racet, these days one cannot be a serious candidate without having a quiver full of these pointless arrows.
The big presidential debates permit each candidate to defend his own ridiculous plan while attacking his rivals' equally ridiculous plans. Since neither candidate has had anything to drawing up the plans, which in many cases they do not even understand much less believe in, it adds to the sense of unreality in which American political debates are enveloped.
Both parties have their special projects The Democrats like Green Energy plans, especially if they are touted as "sustainable." Naturally, none of these projects ever works: If they could produce cheap energy, some greedy businessman would already be making money out of them. However, Green Energy projects do sustain the politicians who receive campaign contributes in return for promises to invest the federal government money into bogus companies like Solyndra.
The Republicans, who tend to take their money from ethanol producers, such as Archer Daniels Midland, prefer to invest federal funds in ethanol producers like Archer Daniels Midland. In the Bush years, the GOP with malice aforethought raised the price of food by diverting agriculture into growing crops to be turned syn fuels. After the fact, Republican leaders claimed that the rise in food prices could not have been anticipated. In fact, just about every economist I talked to knew that it would happen.
No need to talk about sustainability in the bio-energy racket, because syn fuels will always cost more to produce than petroleum products in any climate without a 365 day growing season. This boondoggle has an ancient and honorable history. Cane sugar cannot be produced at a competitive price in the United States, which is why it has been subsidized since the the first sugar was refined in Louisiana in the early 19th century.
It's the same with all these projects, whether the object is to balance the budget, "end welfare as we know it" (an absolutely hilarious claim of the Clintons), stimulate the economy, spread democracy, or cure cancer. None of them will ever actually get implemented. Politicians bribed by the other side will do their best to block passage of hte necessary legislation.
Besides, American politics (I'm sure it cannot be like this in wholesome and upright Britain) comes down to nothing more serious than the transfer of wealth from those who work and create wealth to a parasitic class of politicians who dribble some small amount back to the government dependents who put them into office.
There is a good side to this. At least sensible people who understand the system do not have to waste their time--unless they are hacks doing a blog for The Daily Mail--watching debates or analyzing the campaigns.
But here is the scary part. One of these candidates-- people who spend their entire political careers lying to an American public that pretends to be interested in policy matters--will actually become President of the United States, nominally in charge of the greatest military machine the world has ever known.
Pleasant dreams....