I Am Outraged--Americans Prefer Sweden

Yesterday, Huffington Post published a report that showed Americans at every income level totally underestimate the distribution of wealth in this country. They thought the top 20% of the country controls 54% of our wealth. The real answer is 84%.

Now comes along a study by Dan Arliely of Duke University and Michael I. Norton of Harvard Business School, which surveyed a randomly selected 5,522 person sample that reflected the country's ideological, economic and gender demographics. The report was based on Jon Rawls' questions about what is just and covered perceptions of fair income distribution. People making over $100,000 and those making under $50,000 had similar responses. In fact, the responses showed that America has much more of an egalitarian ethos than our political system shows. The sample was presented with unlabeled pie charts showing various income distribution in three different countries, including our own. 92% of such a large sample answered they would rather live in a country where the top 20% only controlled 36% of the wealth. And naturally, that country happens to be Sweden, the great bugaboo for conservatives.

We might have gotten a hint of this when the Right started attacking Obama as a socialist. Polls during the first month or two of these accusations showed a sharp increase among the Millenials for socialism, reaching 35% at one point.

So from the sublime to the ridiculous. Paul Krugman in today's article examines the Republicans pledge to cut the national debt. He points out that the extension of the Bush tax cuts permanently would add $3.7 trillion to the deficit--about $700 billion more than the Obama administration's tax proposals. Then they had one specific cut--canceling the rest of the TARP program, which they claim incorrectly would save $16 billion. That's less than half of 1% of the tax cuts they have rewarded themselves. Then Krugman says that everything must be cut "except for common-sense exceptions for seniors, veterans and our troops". In short, Social Security, Medicare and the Defense Budget are off-limit.

He asks what's left? Here he relies on Howard Gleckman of the Tax Policy Center. Gleckman says that the only way to balance the budget by 2020, while simultaneously A.) making the Bush tax cuts permanent and (b.) protecting all the programs Republicans say they won't cut, is to completely abolish the rest of the federal government. "No more national parks, no more Small Business Administration loans, no more export subsidies, no more N.I.H. No more Medicaid (one-third of its budget pays for long-term care for our parents and others with disabilities). No more child health or child nutrition programs. No more highway construction. No more homeland security. O, and no more Congress." Krugman asks what happens when such a movement achieves the power it seeks? The answer, presumably, is that it turns to its real, not-so-secret agenda, which mainly involves privatizing and dismantling Medicare and Social Security.

Krugman doesn't think they will achieve their long-term agenda anytime soon. "So the clear and present danger isn't that the G.O.P. will be able to achieve its long-run goals. It is rather, that Republicans will gain just enough power to make the country ungovernable, unable to address its fiscal problems or anything lese in a serious way. As I said, banana republic, here we come."

Richard Haas has return from a trip to Europe and he reports that foreigners are appalled at the level of debate in this country and doubt whether to take America seriously ever again. This observation simply does not compute with conservatives I talk with. They simply can not conceive of a world where people no longer hang on our every word or are no longer dependent on us for their defense and well-being. We've lost a decade and whole regions have roared with development and been neglected by us and are thriving. The thrill of the United States overcoming its racism to elect its first black President has given way to laughing horror at our healthreform debate and real shock at our Wall Street reform debate.

Brits like John le Carre and Neil Kinnock sort of see us either coming out of a McCarthyite period as in the Bush-Cheney years or lapsing back into it. As Kinnock said, "The election of tea party folks would be a disaster for America and the rest of the world." Remember this all comes as Europeans are trying to re-examine and evaluate their role and complicity in the war against terror and in Britain their intimate involvment in the invasion of Iraq. We have not allowed ourselves the same process. In fact, Lindsey Graham actually spoke at AEI about introducing legislation to bring back "enhanced interrogation."