I am getting sick of the word 'austerity', thrown around haphazardly by all of the Serious People in the news as the answer to our budgetary and economic woes. Austerity, as a media buzzword, has come to mean a new round of mass privatizations, wage cuts, tax cuts, and a general dismemberment of the people's half of our government ledger.
Our teachers are expected to get by on McJob wages, our firefighters are to be thrown into the streets the second their bad backs (from carrying the morbidly obese down flights of stairs on stretchers, thanks food lobby!) become too much of a burden. Our middle class is expected to pay for the education required to have a shot in hell at a decent living through burdensome, non-dischargeable student loans or service to the imperial war machine. Our elderly are expected to work as Wal*Mart greeters and live in their rusting out 93' Oldsmobiles for the crime of expecting a pension upon retirement. Our sick are expected to sit quietly in a corner and die of easily treatable illness.
Not once do these Serious People seek to discuss cuts which would have real, tangible effects- the big ticket items on the plutocrat's portion of the ledger are of course off limits.
The imperial war machine? Someone connected is making a buck off of our addiction to war and empire. We can't cut 'defense', mind that the actual salary for our nation's men and women in uniform are a small fraction of the system. The graft must go on, after all.
Taxing wealthy people on their capital gains? That would hurt investment!
Taxing multinationals that have the gall to operate in country? No, we cannot tax them, we must tax small businesspeople instead- they are not politically connected, you see.
Competitive contracts for government work with sizable penalties for going over budget? Nope!
Letting banks and big businesses fail when they fail in the marketplace? That would be socialism, surely! We must prop up outmoded institutions- they pay for my next election.
The poison pill of austerity is not directed at the powerful and the connected. This medicine is a weapon force fed down the throats of the working and middle classes. Is there waste and fraud at the low end of the totem pole? Sure. But the numbers matter. If some guy on welfare smokes a joint in his off time, I really am not to blame him. His life sucks. The 300 dollars in odd cash he might extort monthly from the system cannot and does not compare to the trillions being pilfered by investment institutions, defense contractors, our scam of a healthcare system, and university presidents.
Before we knock the last pillars of support from our least able citizens, we should give those at the top a damn close shave of a haircut.
After that we can and should address problems at the bottom. Not until then, though.
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