[Peace-discuss] Note to Rep. Davis

[C. G. Estabrook]

Our new congressman for the 13th IL CD, Rodney Davis, writes to tell me, "...Washington must begin to act under the same expectations we put on every American family, and that is to be responsible and live within your means. Congress owes it to the American people to pass a balanced budget." 

That is of course nonsense, and I write as follows to tell him so (tho' I think he already knows it):

Both parties are trying to scare Americans into accepting austerity, including cuts to Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. They should be exposed and resisted. 

The deficit is a chimera: the national economy is not like a household economy, and the USG is able to borrow money at historically low interest rates.

Not that it should: instead of borrowing from (and hence paying interest to) the 1%, we should tax wealth (not income). And a wealth tax on investable assets (not net worth) over $1 million should be joined to a Tobin (on financial transactions) tax and a low, flat tax on income (so that all contribute).

The problem is not debt but jobs. A massive new WPA is required. The government should be the employer of last resort, providing a living-wage job to anyone who wants one.

--CGE

PS - Minions of the 1%, who talk this way about deficit and debt, should be driven from office by those of us who know that "governments are instituted to secure the rights (among others) to life and liberty" - and that "this country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it; whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it, or exercise their revolutionary right to overthrow it."

We want a government afraid of its people, not a people afraid of their government.   

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