Fiscal conservatism clearly has failed; it’s time to try something else

Fiscal conservatism clearly has failed; it’s time to try something else
By KEN MIDKIFF
Published Friday, November 14, 2008
(http://www.columbiatribune.com/2008/Nov/20081114Comm002.asp)

Fiscal conservatives, you’ve had your season in the sun, and you’ve really messed things up.

Our economy is in the tank, the U.S. environment is trashed (Healthy Forests Restorative Act? Clear Skies Initiative?), our status in the world is lower than dirt, and the president (your man, George W. Bush) has an approval rating in the mid-20s.

Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Bill O’Reilly, Walter Williams, Charles Krauthammer and others of their ilk have complained bitterly about the state of the nation, its economy and world standing. One problem: Their philosophies, positions and policies have led us to our current dismal state. They have met the enemy, and it is them.
You see, for the past eight years or so, fiscal conservatives of all stripes have been in charge in Washington, D.C., and many states’ capitols. From George W. Bush to Matt Blunt, the fiscal conservatives-in-charge have failed miserably to do much of anything that could be deemed an improvement.

Thanks to allowing the investment industries to run amok, U.S. taxpayers are bailing out Wall Street fat cats to the tune of more than $750 billion. The head of the U.S. Forest Service is a former timber industry lobbyist who believes all trees should be converted into two-by-fours; the Environmental Protection Agency recently released draft regulations that would allow concentrated animal feeding operations to self-certify that they won’t pollute; and the Bush administration decided that the No. 1 priority for Western public lands would be "drill, baby, drill" by the oil and gas industry. All this amounts to a high degree of preference for private profiteers at the expense of the public.

We are engaged in a quagmire war that seems to have the stamina of the Energizer Bunny. The Iraq war is extremely unpopular, and even most members of Congress agree that we shouldn’t have gone there to begin with. But, based on the now-proven falsehoods of Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and the rest of the Gang That Can’t Shoot Straight, we invaded. We sent the troops into what has become an unwinnable war, and now all concerned (even the Iraqi leadership) are trying to figure out how to get us out soon and with dignity.

What we have done to Iraq is nothing less than return that proud nation to the Stone Age. Electricity is sporadic and often not available. Drinking water is fouled. Sewage runs down the streets. The education system, once one of the best in the world, has been decimated. We’re there, and we broke things and killed people. Now what?
The bedrock principles of conservatism have been tried and found wanting. As I understand it, as espoused by fiscal conservatives and as exemplified by the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, those principles are:

Removal of regulations and letting the "free market" rule: Think AIG, Lehman Brothers, Bank of America, Wachovia and subprime mortgages.
Privatization and corporatization: Think KBR, Blackwater, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Think of private profits on public lands. Think of allowing the air to be more fouled, our forests clear-cut.
Reduction of social services: Think about No Child Left Behind, reduction or elimination of Medicare and Medicaid benefits, increasing health-care costs and the federal emergency management agency fiasco after Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans.
Removal of trade barriers: Think NAFTA, CAFTA, FTAA, which have no doubt benefited multinational corporations but have devastated the working class and the environment.
Higher taxes on the working class, lower taxes on the upper class.

Think of all these things, and then think this: failure.

From a once-great nation, we have sunk miserably. We have failed to regulate Wall Street and the banking industry. We have turned over vital national services to for-profit companies - ones more interested in their bottom lines than national security. Multinational corporations have left rusting factories behind in our northern states for cheap labor in Mexico and China. Our education system is little more than a vast underfunded penal colony. Our infrastructure - bridges, roads, sewer systems, landfills, drinking water delivery, wastewater treatment plants - is crumbling and falling apart. We have allowed those who prey on public resources to benefit from such predator activities.
Child abuse has gone up. Spouse abuse has skyrocketed. The "war on drugs" is an abysmal failure: There is more drug use now, and at a younger age than ever. Much money has been lavished on corporate CEOs but little on the minions responsible for making the products of the corporations - yet working-class mothers are dismissed as "welfare queens." There are many other problems; the list is almost exhaustive.

Note that none of this has much to do with evangelical Christians, except that they tend to support fiscal conservatives. Social values - anti-abortion, anti-gay, pro-their morality, pro-gun - have had little to do with the dismal state of this country. War, free markets and bailing out Wall Street are fiscal policies, not social ones. Social conservatives need to divorce their interests from those in favor of fiscal conservatism.

All of our "in-the-ditch" problems can be laid on the doorstep of fiscal conservatives. Deregulation, privatization, reduction of social services and higher taxes have led us into that ditch. To paraphrase head free marketer Alan Greenspan, "Who knew that greedy pigs would act like greedy pigs?"

Fiscal conservatives: Move over. Now is not the time to try more of the same. It’s time to try something else. For our planet, for our future, for our lives and health.