In standard “small government conservative” discourse, one of the more popular talking points concerns the alleged mechanism behind the rise of big government: The poor and working class majority vote themselves largess out of the public treasury, taxing all the thrifty and productive “John Galts” out there, until government spends and borrows itself into bankruptcy.
There’s only one problem with this little scenario: The actual hogs at the trough mostly look like Mr. Moneypenny on the Monopoly gameboard.
Take a look at the biggest causes, on the spending side, of the deficit increase since 2001:
Two unfunded wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and an increase in the so-called “Defense” budget (when’s the last time America actually fought a war to defend her own territory, as opposed to attacking some little country on the other side of the world?).
The unfunded Medicare prescription drug benefit, which amounts to a transfer of hundreds of billions of dollars a year to Big Pharma for drugs at a patent markup of up to 2000%.
The vast expansion of the security-industrial complex since 9-11 — Homeland Security, the TSA, and tens of billions a year in increased intelligence spending — with Uncle Sam throwing out untold thousands of contracts to security and surveillance technology firms, all the while calling “Soooie! Here, piggy!”
And of course there’s the ongoing growth of the prison-industrial complex under the War on Drugs, with prison guard unions and private prison corporation lobbyists agitating for ever more draconian drug laws.
And if you think about it, it’s minorities, the poor, and the less educated who are least likely to vote. Who do you really think is more likely the primary actor behind the food stamp program — the agribusiness interests in Bob Dole’s old constituency, or that powerful voting bloc of single mothers on welfare?
Take a look at the map of net taxpaying states and net revenue consuming states: The overwhelming flow of money is from taxpayers in Blue States to recipients in Red States. 27 of 32 states that get more than they give vote Republican, and 14 of 18 that give more than they get vote Democratic.
This really shouldn’t be much of a surprise. The overwhelming majority of net tax recipients are in the South, Great Plains, Rocky Mountains and Alaska (you know, those ruggedly independent areas that want government to get off their back).
Military bases are disproportionately located in the South. At one time the tech industry in Newt Gingrich’s old district was the top recipient of DoD R&D money. And the economies of states in the Plains and Rockies (not to mention Sarah “Thanks, But No Thanks” Palin’s Alaska) are heavily skewed toward agriculture and extractive industries.
The primary recipients of farm subsidies are large-scale cereal grain operations in Red States of the Midwest and Upper Plains. And the so-called “Sagebrush Rebellion” (you may have heard of it) is mainly a movement of the oil, mining, ranching and logging industries to get preferential access to government land, along with taxpayer subsidies of much of their operating expenses.
Even the welfare state, on which the working poor and underclass of the Red States are disproportionately dependent, is a subsidy to the low-wage employers in all those “right to work” banana republics of the South.
So when the Norquists, Armeys and DeLays say they’re against “big government,” know them for the liars they are. They’re not against big government as such. Big government that helps poor people, of course, is socialism — flaming red ruin on wheels. But big government that helps the Good ol’ Boys in the country club isn’t big government at all. It’s just “free enterprise.”
Where is John Galt? That’s him over there with his face in the trough.
Citations to this article:
- Kevin Carson, It’s Not Big Government if it Helps the Rich, Carroll County, Maryland Standard, 06/11/11
Bingo.
Very well written article and "right on the money!" (Pun intended). My only questions are: (1) what is a "contemporary mutualist" and (2) what is an "individualist anarchist"?
You're full of shit, spinning Medicare Part D as a subsidy to the rich. Please! You could make a credible, persuasive argument every once in a while if you didn't pollute every article with that kind of BS. As it stands, I just glaze over another left-wing, class war propaganda piece.
"The overwhelming flow of money is from taxpayers in Blue States to recipients in Red States. 27 of 32 states that get more than they give vote Republican, and 14 of 18 that give more than they get vote Democratic."
That's exactly why they're red states. The voters in those states know first hand the ruinous effects of state-sponsored welfare and the cycle of poverty it perpetuates.
"And if you think about it, it’s minorities, the poor, and the less educated who are least likely to vote. Who do you really think is more likely the primary actor behind the food stamp program — the agribusiness interests in Bob Dole’s old constituency, or that powerful voting bloc of single mothers on welfare?"
Neither. Ideological Marxists (actually "vulgar communists" like yourself) on the left drive these programs. Without them, the programs would collapse, the recipients would be forced to take responsibility for their lives, and their condition would finally begin to improve.
It bears noting that the most fundamental, irreducible function of government is to protect the assets of the already-well-off. So a small government couldn't be so small that it failed to do that, or else it would be no government at all. It's only when that has been accomplished that the government can turn its attention to doing OTHER things, including those things which help mitigate the harm done by the core functions of government. So of COURSE small-government conservatives focus their attacks on those things which help poor folks – that's the superfluous, expendable stuff, after all. Attacking the corporate welfare and monopoly profits and the like is attacking government per se. Not that there's anything WRONG with that, mind you. It's just attacking the component of government containing its root.
That’s nice but it isn’t exactly the problem we have now. Right now we have a ‘big government liberal’ who is quite happy to help out his favored constituencies among the rich. Liberals like to claim all this spending is to help the little guy but at every turn they are just as dedicated to shoveling out the contents of the treasury to ‘the rich’ – perhaps more so given that the blue states not only consume more public dollars — after correcting for the disproportionate number of defense and agriculture subsidy dollars that go to red states — they are home to most of the individual wealth in the country. Wal-Mart — they get a pass because the donate to ThinkProgress, support nationalized healthcare, and lobby for increases in the minimum wage. They no well and good that no local competition can compete with the forced overhead of those programs. Goldman-Sachs — big donors to the Democrats and to judge by the vast sums they have raked in from the government, money well-spent. G.E. manages to get cheap lighting sources banned thus forcing the poor to pay more for light bulbs and forcing the shutdown of assembly lines that produced incandescent bulbs. So, yeah, point taken: ‘small government conservatives’ that cozy up to big business are hypocrites. But, in the words of the Dead Kennedy’s: we go a bigger problem now. So when are you going to write a post about all the ‘anti corporate welfare liberals’ that get all smoochy with big business once in power?
"So when are you going to write a post about all the 'anti corporate welfare liberals' that get all smoochy with big business once in power? "
Where the hell have you been you ignorant little shit? He wrote a whole study about it! —>>> http://c4ss.org/content/3097
I smell a stinkin' troll.
The flow of money to the red states is mostly in the form of military bases and contracts to companies that operate in the red states, not welfare to poor people. The red staters love their corporate and military welfare, they just do not recognize it as such. The overwhelming majority of welfare money is give to the wealthy, that is the point of the article and bloody obvious to anyone who pays attention to the federal budget and to what is going on in this country.
Is KPres kidding?
The notion that anarchists are to blame for the welfare state is pretty funny. Almost as funny as blaming pacifists for starting all the wars.
" Ideological Marxists (actually "vulgar communists" like yourself)"
Please, what kind of communist defends a radical free market? What a fucking idiot.
For the last twenty-five years I've been telling my conservative friends that if the Republicans had their way the U.S. economy would resemble that of Guatemala. Now that the banana republic is finally on its way, maybe some of them will actually wake up.
“Where the hell have you been you ignorant little shit? He wrote a whole study about it! ”
Thanks for the link douchebag.
@wfstratton: An individualist anarchist is an adherent of the ideas of Josiah Warren, William Greene, Benjamin Tucker and the other so-called "Boston anarchists." Mutualism is the strand of anarchism associated with P.J. Proudhon, which heavily influenced the Boston anarchists and with which many of them identified. "Contemporary mutualist" simply means I'm a contemporary representative of those ideas.
KPres: So you're really saying that using tax revenue to buy drugs from the drug companies at patent markup prices isn't a subsidy to the drug companies?
Q: Where does the money end up?
A: In the pockets of drug cos.