Welcome Born-Again Democrats

"Let's you and them share, and we'll take the gains." This in a nutshell is the attitude America's governing elites take toward American working people and their less fortunate counterparts abroad. The American working people are a generous people. We have always have been a generous people. But we are also a people who insist upon fairness and justice. If great sacrifices are required for the sake of our country, justice requires that all Americans, rich and poor alike, share in those sacrifices. And if enormous economic gains are going to be reaped as a consequence of changes in government policy, then justice requires that all Americans, rich and poor alike, share in those gains. As Born-Again Democrats we should, and we shall, demand nothing less.

Born-Again Democrats need to be aware that the principle of compensation was always part and parcel of modern trade theory, just as surely as that same theory predicted the unhappy consequences for American wages and working conditions that our new trade policies would have. That our nation's leading economists, virtually without exception, chose to lie to and mislead the American public on these two essential points -- which is exactly what they did, let us never forget, back in the days of the great Nafta debates -- has got to be the most egregious case of academic malpractice in American academic history. We think it grounds to end economics as an independent academic discipline. Let it merge with political science instead, to recreate the moral science of political economy the way it used to be.

The idea of a graduated consumption tax is as old and well-understood as it is unknown to the public. At heart it is simply the idea of making savings tax exempt. People are taxed not on the money they make but on the money they spend. And because it is graduated, the larger the revenues that need to be raised, the higher the incentives to save and invest, and hence the greater the future growth of the economy -- a seeming paradox that nonetheless holds true so long as it isn't taken to extremes (extremes being fatal to every form of taxation).

A key point here is that the graduated consumption tax allows successful businessmen and entrepreneurs to amass bigger fortunes more quickly than does the graduated income tax (or any other tax for that matter). It encourages rather than discourages private enterprise, so essential to the future health and prosperity of our American economy.

Here is another key point: a graduated consumption tax embodies the principle that a dollar is worth more to a poor man than a rich one all else being equal. This is essential if we intend to promote the greatest happiness of the greatest number, which, of course, is one of the clearly stated purposes of our federal government under the Constitution (the greatest happiness of the greatest number being the very definition of the general welfare).

On the practical side Born-Again Democrats should be aware that a graduated consumption tax was actually drafted into law in the form of the so-called USA Tax, co-sponsored by Senators Sam Nunn, Democrat of Georgia, and Pete Domenici, Republican of Arizona, back in 1996. They might also like to know that the American economics profession failed to speak up in behalf of that bill, further testimony to its utter lack of regard for the welfare of the American people.

As for the best way to administer wage compensation, the simpler the better. We propose an across-the-board percentage increase in wages -- a 25% pay raise for all hourly workers -- that will be based upon each worker's market wage as contracted with his employer, to be paid out of the U.S. Treasury and automatically added to his paycheck at the end of each week. That way everyone can see that the employer is not footing the bill, and that a free market in labor is being maintained.

Since passage of the 1965 Immigration Act, some 35 million immigrants have legally moved to the United States, the vast majority of them economic refugees from the Third World. They come from places with no democratic traditions and no conception of the rights and responsibilities of citizenship in a liberal republic. We think it essential that these newcomers to our shores be integrated into the fabric of American culture and civilization, just as was done with every other wave of immigrants before them. New U.S.citizens need to be educated in our language, our history, our laws, and our republican ideals, to say nothing of the traditional hopes and fears of the American people. In short, they need to learn how to think and act like Americans. Experience has shown that it takes three generations to fully accomplish these goals, and that is approximately how long we think the pause ought to last.

The truly remarkable thing here is that such legislation is necessary. The Supreme Court has certainly made itself clear on this point: there is nothing inherently unconstitutional about studying the Bible in our public schools so long as it remains part of a secular program of public education. The Bible is, after all, a primary document of our culture and civilization. Indeed the Bible is in many respects the primary document, rivaled only by The Magna Carter, The Mayflower Compact, The Declaration of Independence, The U.S. Constitution, The Bill of Rights, The Gettysburg Address, and Martin Luther King's I Have a Dream speech which he delivered on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. But in order to appreciate this latter set of documents in their full historical significance it is first necessary to have a good working knowledge of the Bible, and of the part that book played in the lives of the men and women who made it possible for those documents to be written.

The reason, of course, is that the great liberal ideals upon which our republic is founded are all Biblical in origin. The idea that all men are created equal is certainly Biblical in origin. The notion that justice means fairness, and that one of the chief purposes of government is to protect the weak against the strong and the poor against the rich, is also Biblical in origin. The idea of liberty itself, in both its political and its economic dimensions, is partly if not wholly Biblical in origin. And as for that nobler conception of history long animating the American people, according to which history, when viewed in its entirety, has a purpose, and the purpose of America is a part that purpose, whose aim is to overturn all tyranny, put an end to every form of servitude, and establish justice and freedom as the birth-right of the whole human race -- this idea is wholly Biblical in origin, bequeathed to us by the ancient Hebrew people and their Jewish descendants.

A great English critic and educator once remarked that those who know their history and do not know their Bible do not know their history. That the vast, indeed the overwhelming majority of students graduating from Ivy League colleges today -- the very men and women who are supposedly picked to become the future leaders of our society -- seem blissfully unaware of the justice of this remark, let alone who made it, is a very great pity indeed. But it does serve one useful purpose. It shows the extent to which our nation's primary and secondary schools have failed to discharge one of their most fundamental educational responsibilities. We intend to put an end to that unhealthy state of affairs.

In a country as big as the United States, it is essential that law enforcement officers be able to identify the people they encounter. A national ID card will not only permit easy verification of citizenship by employers and the police, but it will also make it virtually impossible for wanted criminals to operate in our midst. Not as long as they are required to produce their national ID cards every time they attempt to buy groceries, cash a check, use a credit card, apply for a driver's license, or otherwise interact with our political and economic institutions.

As for the argument that a national ID increases the dangers of a police state, we find it not a little naive. The preservation of our liberties depends upon the readiness of the American people to defend their rights, by force of arms if necessary, should tyranny ever dare to rear its ugly head. In other words, the preservation of our liberties depends on what is written in our hearts and minds, not on our ability to hide from the police. The ACLU is simply mistaken here.

It is now estimated by no less an authority than David Cay Johnston, chief financial correspondent of the New York Times, that America's 13,000 wealthiest families avoid paying $300 billion a year in taxes they owe. That is 15 % of America's total tax burden, or roughly $4000 a year for every family of four, every dollar of which it and its heirs and descendants will be forced to make up at some point in the future.

How does such a tiny elite manage to get away with it? In two ways, according to Johnston. Partly by bribing both political parties to the point that the IRS will no longer go after them. And partly by legerdemain made possible through a combination of phony "shell" corporations and secret bank and brokerage accounts which they maintain overseas, in so-called "tax havens," many of them located on remote islands in the middle of the ocean. Clearly, these outrageous tactics will have to be ended.

But just as clearly, ending them will not be a simple matter of domestic law enforcement. It it going to require the close cooperation of all our major allies and trading partners. If that seems unlikely, we should remember that these countries have the same interests we do in collecting their taxes. Furthermore, ending them will put the drug cartels and international terrorist organizations out of business right along with the big tax cheaters, since they all depend upon the same anonymous access to the international banking system.

We therefore propose that countries which refuse to cooperate be expelled from the international community and lose their memberships in the World Trading Organization. In effect they will be removed from the world economy and unplugged from the international banking system. In other words, no more international landing rights for their airplanes, no more shipping into and out of their ports, and no more rights for their citizens to travel abroad, or even use a credit card. If applied diplomatically, this should be enough to bring them around.

Corporations, by their very nature, are not moral entities. It follows that if they are ever going to be effectively policed, it will have to be done by those individuals who alone possess the necessary power and authority to police them from within. In other words, by their chief executive officers and the boards of directors who appoint them. Ignorance can be no excuse. Only if these men (and they are mostly men, a few of them sociopaths) face certain jail time -- forget about fines -- along with the stigma and disabilities that come with felony convictions, will they have sufficient motive to police the organizations they run.

As for requiring that the terms of their compensation be transparent to shareholders, this is to insure that these same chief executives are working in the interests of the shareholders as opposed to their own or that of the small groups of their friends who sit on their boards of directors. We can think of no other way to solve this problem of agency, a recurrent source corporate corruption in our society.

We agree with Martin Luther King that every individual should be judged by the content of her character and not by the color of her skin. Is there really anything more to be said on this subject? To our way of thinking the rhetoric of diversity, of multiculturalism and affirmative action, is so much sophistry and cant. These are the tools that today's elites like to use to confuse and divide us into rival ethnic camps, all the more easily to control us for their own selfish ends. We refuse to allow ourselves to be used in this way. Identity politics, in our humble view, is racism incarnate, and those who espouse it -- not a few of whom look upon America's white working classes with laughter and contempt (Borat anyone?) -- are the last remaining racists in America who are not beyond the pale. We think they ought to be ashamed of themselves.

Disorder in the class room and incompetent teaching are the real culprits undermining the quality of public education in America. Without class room discipline and competent teachers it is impossible for students to learn. At present there is no easy way for teachers to prove student misbehavior when it occurs, and no way for parents or the public to document incompetent teaching where it exists. The needs of our students must come first, before any supposed right to privacy for misbehaving children, let alone the prerogatives of the teachers' unions. Parents and the public have a right to see what is going on in public school class rooms. Only then can other problems be identified, and appropriate remedies be put into place.

Let's get this issue behind us. Cousin marriage and polygamy are incompatible with the liberal idea. Cousin marriage leads to clan loyalties that supersede the individual's loyalty to his country, while polygamy leads to class and sexual conflicts that are at odds with the principles of social equality. Together they promote the kinds of anarchy and tyranny we see on display across the Middle East.

As for the idea of homosexual marriage, it mocks of the very purpose of marriage as a human institution, which is to establish stable biological families for the perpetuation of our species, and for the acculturation of the next generation. If we, as a nation, fail to sustain the traditional form of marriage in our society, we believe the long-term survival of our liberal institutions, indeed of our whole culture and civilization, will be imperilled.

At stake here are not free and open discussions of controversial ideas, but rather graphic displays of sex and violence in public places. If some of our cosmopolitan elites wish to tolerate such displays -- or, indeed, convert their communities into theaters of licentiousness -- that is their right and their prerogative. But it must equally remain the right of smaller towns and communities across America to stick with more traditional standards of public decency that have served them so well in the past. It is time for all Americans, liberals and conservatives alike, to recognize that we can have a far more diverse and tolerant society if we do not insist that things which may be tolerated in some places as a matter of choice, must therefore be tolerated everywhere as a matter of right. We insist upon maintaining that distinction, not at the discretion of our courts, but as a matter of fundamental law.

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