The Wrong Inequality

Here’s another truly thoughtful column from David Brooks.

The Wrong Inequality

By DAVID BROOKS

Published: October 31, 2011, NYT

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/01/opinion/brooks-the-wrong-inequality.html?_r=1&ref=opinion

I absolutely agree with Brooks’ point.  If you don’t think wage and employment stagnation are problems, then you are part of the problem.  If you believe that wealth transfer is any part of a solution to wage or employment stagnation, then you are part of the problem.

Government cannot create jobs or economic growth – it’s only option is to get out of the way.  But that does not mean that there is nothing government can do to help or that government should do nothing.

Just as with the Great Depression, this recession will not end on Main Street until the national economy returns to sustainable growth.  But in America, we had wage and employment stagnation for more than a decade before the crash of 2008 – so we’ll still have those problems after growth returns.

The nation will need time to work the personal and institutional debt out of the system.  In the interim, we should be clearing the way for growth.  We should be working on our structural problems:  We must live within our means, at home and in government;  The fastest way out of poverty is education and health;  The surest path to economic growth is trade. 

The Presidential aspirant and every political Party should be telling us how government will demonstrate its commitment fixing these things:

·         Our education system – including trade schools for non-scholars and retraining for workers squeezed out by globalization.

·         Spending within our means and paying down our debt – that absolutely means higher taxes and a broadened tax base.

·         Unaffordable, unfunded liabilities in entitlements and pensions.  We must be made to understand we must all pay for the services we demand.

·         Unaffordable growth in healthcare costs as compared to the economy.

·         Immigration – an end to new illegals combined with a vast increase in desirable immigration at all levels.

·         Trade – an end to all tariffs via trade agreements and a new focus on American exports.

·         Federal taxes, regulation and bureaucracy must be reformed and simplified.

·         No wars unless Congress declares them.

These, unfortunately, are the basics.  Sorry, they don’t fit on a bumper sticker.  In addition, there is no room right now for bashing gays, arguing about abortion, taxing the rich, protecting snail darters or nationalizing electric car and solar panel companies.  We wish there were time to talk about clean air and energy independence.  We wish we could end the war on drugs and move money from the Defense Department to the State Department – and a million other things – but we have bigger fish to fry.

We need leadership that is focused on the national interest and nothing else.  Everything we touch, for a while, must be about all of us.  No inequality.  If it’s only about the poor, the rich, the unborn, the gay, the air, or whatever – forget it.  It has to be about the nation and future generations.  And for a while, I think it has to hurt a little;  so it should hurt everybody and it should be for a purpose we all understand.