…damn if I say it you can slap me right here.” – Public Enemy – “Fight the Power“

In early 2002, after budget surpluses turned into deficits in the wake of 9/11, many called on President Bush to delay the massive tax cuts passed a year earlier. Bush dismissed any delay out of hand:

There’s going to be people who say, we can’t have the tax cut go through anymore. That’s a tax raise. And I challenge their economics, when they say raising taxes will help the country recover. Not over my dead body will they raise your taxes.

You read that right: delaying a tax cut that had yet to take effect amounted to raising taxes. The logic that goes into a statement like that is simply beyond understanding, especially when considering that it only applies in situations where the President is rewarding the very richest Americans.

Due to the effects of inflation, the buying power of the federal minimum wage has decayed 26% since 1979. A series of increases in the 1980s and 90s had a brief mitigating effect, but the lack of action since 1997 has left the working poor more poor than ever. By the President’s logic, haven’t minimum wage workers seen pay cuts equal to a quarter of their earnings?

The result of massive tax cuts at the top combined with wage stagnation / erosion for those in the middle / bottom is increasing and accelerating class disparity. Want proof? How about going word for word with one of the very people who created this situation, Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan in Congressional testimony last week:

The income gap between the rich and the rest of the US population has become so wide, and is growing so fast, that it might eventually threaten the stability of democratic capitalism itself.

Greenspan is, of course, exactly correct about the income gap being a serious problem, but destabilization doesn’t seem likely as along as apathy, ignorance, and laziness reign in the population segments most susceptible to the adverse effects.

In one of the most famous hip-hop quotes ever, Chuck D called rap “The ghetto CNN.” But in 2005, political hip-hop doesn’t sell. CNN is the ghetto CNN, reporting on stories that carry the nutritional value of the goods for sale the corner bodega. And 50 Cent rules the charts singing about his champagne campaigns.

MTV recently ran an episode of its True Life series entitled “I’m Dead Broke.” It’s highly unlikely that Chairman Greenspan tuned in to watch the stories of three young adults and their struggle with grinding poverty, but the odds are better that he tuned in to the episode of of “Cribs” that ran in the preceding time slot (as a former (current?) objectivist, he probably likes to keep up with conspicuous consumption more than anyone.)

For those who watched both “Cribs” and True Life, the transition between the shows hit like an icebath after an hour in a sauna. 19-year-old DeMarlon lives with his parents in their rented home, a glorified shack with no running water and mattresses laid wall-to-wall on bare floor. He wants to join the Army, but can’t even come close to passing the minimum reading test. 18-year-old Alexa works as a waitress to save money for a car that will allow her to finish high school. She lives in a trailer with four of her co-workers and never has more than a few dollars left after expenses. 22-year-old Sandra and her boyfriend Armaan work minimum wage jobs and can still barely afford rent.

Each of the subjects have made their share of bad decisions that contribute to their plight: DeMarlon is on probation for theft, Alexa has a bad habit of losing cash, and Sandra passes up free rent at her mother’s house in order to live with Armaan. But it’s clear from the very beginning that education, more accurately the lack of it, is the problem. They work minimum wage (or less) jobs with little hope of advancing because they lack basic skills. The choices that they face daily (gas in the car or lunch / work or go to school etc) are ones that they are unprepared to make. They haven’t helped themselves, but the system has failed them. An increase in the minimum wage would likely have little effect on these kids. They need job training and some kind of basic economics to educate them on the realities of life.

DeMarlon, Alexa, Sandra, and Armaan are among the 35 million Americans living in poverty, up 4.3 million since Bush took office in 2001. While poverty is not new and prior Presidents bear some responsibility for its affect today, George W. Bush has made a mockery of the poor as President. After pledging to be the President of all Americans, it’s clear who receives the attention, and who is left to suffer in silence.

Bush and his aides compound the indignity at every opportunity, and reality isn’t a requirement:

President Bush 5/31/05:

“Our economy is strong. I say it’s strong because we’ve added over 3. 5 million new jobs over the last two years, and the unemployment rate is 5.2 percent. More Americans are working today than ever before…Families are taking home more of what they earn.”

Vice President Dick Cheney 6/13/05:

the economy [is] “in good shape,” calling the nation’s growth “remarkable”

Of course, the U.S. economy during Bush’s time at the helm hasn’t added anything near 3.5 million new jobs. In fact, we’re just now breaking even:

Last month, jobs in the private sector finally reached the level of March 2001, when the last recession began. The 50 months that it took to regain peak-level employment in the private sector was the longest on record.

The unemployment rate is 1.3 points higher than it was when he took office and would be even higher without record numbers of discouraged workers who have stopped even looking for jobs. The President’s statements about the total number of Americans working and how much they are taking home are nothing more than verbal sleight of hand. Of course more Americans are working, population grows with each year, but even that didn’t stop 2002, 2003, and 2004 from being years were less Americans worked than the previous year. The President is highlighting a statistic that places him at the very bottom of Presidential rankings. People are, in absolute terms, taking home more of what they earn, thanks to tax cuts that are heavily skewed to the wealthiest 1% of Americans and will almost certainly lead to tax increases in the near future.

And should Cheney be making his statements at a time when:

…the Bush administration raised its inflation outlook and said the nation’s economy would likely grow at a slower pace than forecast six months ago.

Remarkable.

The administration’s rosy view of the economy is a betrayal of the Americans who wouldn’t be much worse off if this country was in a depression. The benefits that are supposed to “trickle-down” are being absorbed before they even run a tenth of the way down the income distribution. Make no mistake, this is class warfare.

The President’s happy-talk extends to literal warfare as well. The fall of Baghdad, the killing of Uday and Qusay Hussein, the capture of Saddam Hussein, transferring sovereignty, and the Iraqi elections were all supposed to bring about at least pacification, yet as violence continues unabated, Bush and Cheney don’t seem to notice:

Overall, [Bush] said, “I’m pleased with the progress.” Cheney offered an even more hopeful assessment during a CNN interview aired the night before, saying the insurgency was in its “last throes.”

Just as Bush belittles the poor with his sunny rhetoric on the economy, he discounts the sacrifices made by soldiers (1719 dead and counting now) and their families with his unwarranted optimism on Iraq as the death toll there accelerates.

But rather than make changes on either of these issues (or any others), it becomes a game of words. The administration is treating Iraq and the economy as communications problems, to be fixed with spin rather than action:

Bush’s new approach will be mostly rhetorical, however, as the White House does not plan any changes to the policy or time frame for bringing home the 140,000 U.S. troops, as some lawmakers are demanding.
[...]
Bush will streamline his message on the two issues White House strategists blame for the president’s lower-than-ever poll numbers.

No one expects or wants the President to go on national television and feverishly admit that the sky is falling. Yet neither should he be relying on Bobby McFerrin for political advice.

To paraphrase the great Miller’s Crossing, I’d worry less if I thought the President was worrying enough.