Can You Afford Republican Principles?
By
Bruce A. Blodgett

When I see Republican Eric Cantor (aptly named) singing the tired and downright dangerous song “No New Taxes” even when the majority of the country is behind the idea of restoring a graduated tax code that only barely begins to address the only seemingly sustainable aspect of the economy: the ever-widening gap in income between rich and poor, I think of George Bernard Shaw’s character Alfred Doolittle of Pygmalion. Doolittle is trapped into middle class morality at the end of the play because, for a lark, Professor Higgins had suggested to Ezra D, Wannafeller (thinly disguised John D. Rockefeller) that the most original moralist in England is none other than Doolittle. As a result, Doolittle is “forced” to accept a generous stipend for a half a dozen lectures a year on behalf of the Wannafeller Moral Reform World League and become one who is “touched” by everyone rather than the one who “touches.” Before this all happened, Doolittle was a mere dustman who was free and easy.
Eric Cantor has become spokesman for the self-appointed moral reform society of America which is an apt description for the Republican Party. Unlike Robin Hood, this moral reform society wants to make sure that no matter what happens, the most important principles of property, wealth, and privilege must be preserved at any cost. If the poor suffer, so be it; if the old suffer, so be it; if the struggling masses yearning to be free suffer, so be it. What matters most is preservation or even enhancement of the way of life for the few at the expense of the many. Opportunity is for the quick and the resourced. The rest can live on the trickle down crumbs that haphazardly spill from the pockets of the rich. There is also a religious phalanx of the party that is pro-choice for light bulbs but anti-choice on abortion.
The main difference between Cantor and Doolittle is that Doolittle is a self-proclaimed member of the undeserving poor (before Wannafeller intercedes) while Cantor is a member of the self-appointed deserving rich. In Doolittle’s world there are the deserving poor, undeserving poor, and the middle class; in Cantor’s world, there appear to be simply the deserving rich, the struggling middle class, and the undeserving poor.

Doolittle sets forth his philosophy in Act II:
When asked by Pickering : “Have you no morals , man?”
Doolittle replies: “Can’t afford them, Governor.”
He continues to explain:
“I’m one of the undeserving poor: that’s what I am. Think of what that means to a man. It means that he’s up agen middle class morality all the time. If there’s anything going, and I put in for a bit of it, it’s always the same story” ‘You’re undeserving so you can’t have it.’ But my needs is as great the most deserving widow’s that ever got money out of six different charities in one week for the death of the same husband. I don’t need less than a deserving man: I need more. I don’t eat less hearty than him; and I drink a lot more. I want a bit of amusement cause I’m a thinking man. I want cheerfulness and a song and a band when I feel low. Well, they charge me just the same for everything as they charge the deserving. What is middle class morality? Just an excuse for never giving me anything….I ain’t pretending to be deserving. I’m undeserving; and I mean to go on being undeserving. I like it; and that’s the truth.”
When Pickering suggests Doolittle will make bad use of the five pounds he has asked for the sale of his daughter Liza to Higgins, Doolittle replies with a shake of the head at middle class morality: “Not me Governor, so help me I won’t. Don’t you be afraid that I’ll save it and spare it and live idle on it. There won’t be a penny left of it by Monday. I’ll have to go to work as if I’d never had it. It won’t pauperize me, you bet. Just one good spree for myself and the missus, giving pleasure to ourselves and employment to others, and satisfaction to you to think its not been throwed away. You couldn’t spend it better.”
In the next part of the dialogue Doolittle refuses to take ten pounds offered by Higgins because it is too much money and would instill prudence at the expense of happiness. What Shaw is showing is how some self-denigrating poor may actually feel and why they remain mired in poverty; how the inevitable anti-materialistic counter-culture of a particular generation thinks; and at the same time Shaw is questioning the whole idea of the accumulation of wealth producing happiness and what truly and immediately provides employment for others, namely, consumerism.
Eric Cantor’s world is middle class morality on steroids. Undeserving rich is practically an oxymoron. The only possible people in this category would be those found guilty of breaking the law: the Ponzi- schemers, the Mafia, and the insider traders would be the candidates for this rarefied category in Cantor’s world. The deserving rich is almost a tautology. Of course the rich are deserving. Their wealth is a measure of their virtue. It’s been that way since the advent of capitalism. Never mind how the money is obtained, so long as the process is legally protected. If you have accumulated considerable resources, you are in a much stronger position to hold your position because you can afford the best legal defense of both your monetary and schematic means.
If a private equity firm can buy a company, squeeze more profit for investors at the expense of workers’ jobs, then in the name of efficiency that’s perfectly legal and moral in Cantor’s world. For example, if a Wall Street mogul could somehow take a company like Lincoln Electric which guarantees employment for workers in return for meritocratic piece-work wages, that would be just because it would be legal. We are a nation of laws, and just because the law favors the rich and powerful over the little guy, that’s just fine.
So long as Cantor sings “No New Taxes” for the upper 2% of incomes in America, you can bet that not much will change in terms of relative opportunity in America. The divide between rich and poor will continue to mirror the divide in opportunity access for rich and poor as well. The only means available for the redistribution of wealth and therefore opportunity in America is taxation. Industry has proven, by and large, not to be interested in providing the tools by which opportunity may spread across the classes in America. Therefore, only government will. May it do so now by providing funds for retooling the American workforce through grants to community colleges and technical schools utilizing income from increased taxes on the very rich.
We cannot afford to preserve the status quo that enables the rich to become richer and the less fortunate to stagnate. The Republican principles that they hold so dear are killing this culture slowly but surely. Like Alfred Doolittle, we cannot afford the principles of privilege and never could. We have a new generation of Robber Barons who hide on Wall Street and manipulate the markets to their benefit at the expense of the masses. If that is legal, it sure isn’t justice.

Keeping Up with the Joneses

"Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
-Emma Lazarus

We, the people, have this expectation that by now we should have this have-have not issue sorted out by now. The truth is American life has become so compartmentalized, gated, isolated, stratified, segmented, and cocooned, two statues within close proximity of each other in New York City can have two very different takes on the concept of opportunity. I am referring to the Charging Bull on Wall Street and the Statue of Liberty in the New York harbor. The practices of Lloyd Blankfein, CEO of Goldman-Sachs, and the poetry of Emma Lazarus are worlds apart. The land of opportunity has become the land for opportunists. The opportunists, if given a chance, will own everything; we, the people, will own nothing.
At this point in American history the Wall Street opportunists see developing markets abroad, cheap labor abroad, and could care less about what happens to the American people. The American people have nothing to do with Wall Street's self-interests unless the American people can make them richer. When they can't, the Wall Streeters and their ilk turn elsewhere. Their loyalty is to their own increasing wealth. It's all about making money, never mind the tired and poor left behind.
Yes, a segment of America has gotten fat, tired, lazy, and entitled. Yes, keeping up with the Joneses has turned into keeping up with the Dow Joneses. We also became a vigilante consumer culture: buy now, ask questions later. The poor, who have nothing but TV to inform them, are conditioned to buy-buy-buy even when they have no purchasing power. However, there are those who have tried their best and still have failed. They are the ones who need help from somewhere.
If our culture and its chief agency, namely government, could better distribute opportunity rather than wealth, that would go a long way toward leveling the playing field. Affirmative correction has done that for some individuals, but the effort has to be orchestrated for whole communities, not just individuals. It does no good to remove a few rough diamonds and polish them, except for the diamonds themselves.
Teach for America is a good start. If businesses can be given tax incentives to hire and train Americans rather than ship jobs overseas, that would be an effective way out. But to rely on more taxation as the means of redistributing wealth simply won't sell. The rich hold the purse-strings of the economy as well as the government, Democrats and Republicans alike. We are kidding ourselves if we think otherwise. Therefore, tax break incentives to create and maintain jobs in America are the pragmatic way out of this burgeoning inequality.
Then again, not taxing the rich more than we currently do will leave the growing national deficit a terrible liability for our children’s future. Sooner or later, we'll have to raise taxes. Since 2% of the population earns 24% of the wealth, they should shoulder 24% of the tax burden. Currently they fall far short of that.