gracchusdixit

Every political ideology needs a corresponding mythology to sustain itself, that is to say, a fictional narrative that attempts to explain reality—or explain it away—and to do so in a fashion that advances its ideological purpose.  For decades, Republicans have been hankering to roll back the social and economic programs of the “New Deal,” instituted by Franklin Delano Roosevelt to cope with the crisis of the Great Depression and expanded by his Democratic successors.  With majorities in both houses of Congress and a compliant Donald Trump in the White House, they now see a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to enact their agenda.

The problem, of course, is that the programs they are determined to destroy—which include Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and even the Affordable Care Act—are enormously popular.  Thus, Republican ideologues have had to create a set of myths to mask, and justify, their real intent.  Foremost among these myths is a phony dichotomy between “makers and takers,” between “hard-working Americans” and lazy, undeserving parasites.

Ronald Reagan launched this myth at a campaign rally in 1976 when he lifted a story from the staunchly conservative newspaper, The Chicago Tribune, which had embarked upon a crusade against a woman named Linda Taylor, whom it dubbed a “welfare queen.”  There was no question that Taylor had bilked the system of thousands of dollars; indeed, she ultimately went to prison for that and a variety of other crimes.  Far more questionable, however, was the insinuation that she was in any way typical of the vast majority of people receiving public assistance.  That didn’t stop the Tribune or Reagan from exploiting her bad behavior and turning it into a universal symbol.  The slur, “welfare queen,” promptly became part of the coded language Republicans used for decades to undermine every aspect of the social safety net.

That phrase eventually became unacceptable for its obvious sexist and racist connotations.  So, Republican ideologues had to adjust their terminology.  They eventually settled upon the seductive and alliterative alternative, “makers and takers,” which crudely  but memorably carves up the country into two opposing moral camps: the presumptively productive and deserving versus supposedly undeserving and unproductive parasites.

This malicious slur became more infamous than it already was in 2012, when the Republican Party’s presidential candidate, Mitt Romney, was secretly videotaped addressing a group of rich donors at a posh hotel in Boca Raton.  Romney did not use the phrase, “makers and takers,” but he expressed the underlying thought with a clarity that he quickly came to regret.  To quote Romney directly:

The President starts out with 48, 49 percent.  He starts off with a huge number.  These are people who pay no income tax.  Forty-seven percent of Americans pay no income tax.  So, our message on low taxes doesn’t connect.  So, he’ll be out there talking about tax cuts for the rich.  I mean that’s what they sell every four years.  And so, my job is not to worry about those people.  I’ll never convince them that they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives.

The most damning line in Romney’s riff, of course, was the last one.  For someone like Romney to demean Americans who pay no income taxes for failing to “take personal responsibility and care for their lives” was worse than hypocritical; it was absurd.  Romney grew up rich, went to the most exclusive private schools and universities in the country, and never, even for a moment, had to worry about his future, let alone take “personal responsibility” for a life that was handed to him on a silver platter.  It seems never to have occurred to Romney that many Americans were (and are) too poor to pay income taxes or that, as poor as they are, are nonetheless compelled to pay countless other taxes they can’t afford:  on their wages, on the food and clothing they buy, on the gasoline they need to get to work or drive their kids to school.

The ultimate irony in all this is that the defining myth of the Republican Party—the divide between Republican “makers” and Democratic “takers”—is the very opposite of the truth.  The 21 states in which Hillary Clinton won a majority of the votes last November are responsible for producing a majority of our nation’s GDP and paying most of its taxes.   What is more, the Clinton states are net “donors” to the nation’s finances, paying far more in taxes than they receive in benefits from the federal government.  Far from being “takers,” Democratic states and Democratic voters are the nation’s true “makers.”

Clinton won 62 percent of the vote in California, which pays 15 percent more in federal taxes than it gets in return.  She won 59 percent of the vote in New York, which pays 28 percent more in taxes than it gets in return.  She won 60 percent of the vote in Massachusetts, which pays 30 percent more in taxes than it gets in return.  She won 55 percent of the vote in my own state of Connecticut, which, like Massachusetts, pays 30 percent more in taxes than it receives in return from the federal government.

Most of the states that voted for Donald Trump, on the other hand, are like pigs at the proverbial trough, receiving far more in benefits from the federal government than the taxes they pay.  For example, Trump got 58 percent of the vote in Mississippi, which receives 199 percent—that’s right, 199 percent—more in federal benefits than it pays in taxes.  He won 68 percent of the vote in West Virginia, which gets 189 percent more in benefits.  He won 62 percent of the vote in Alabama, which gets 126 percent more from the federal government than it contributes.  And he won 63 percent of the vote in Mitch McConnell’s state of Kentucky, which gets 45 percent more in benefits from the federal government than it pays in taxes.  States like these can afford to cut public services and slash taxes on corporations and their richest citizens, because they know the federal government will step in, transferring wealth and resources from “blue states” to “red states.”

The true “takers” in our society aren’t “welfare queens” like Linda Taylor in Chicago.  They are the states that voted for Donald Trump and the Republican Party which supports him.  Perhaps it’s time the true “makers” in our country decided that enough is enough, and deprived these “takers” of their privileges and their subsidies.  Perhaps it’s time to cut them off, and let the pigs squeal.