The Painful Process of Democracy



In a recent article in The New York Times, Maureen Dowd writes:

The cowboy push by W. and Dick Cheney to be a hyperpower and an empire left America a weakened and tapped-out power, straining to defend its runaway capitalism even as it uneasily adapts to its desperation socialism.

How do we come to terms with the gluttony that exploded our economy and still retain our reptilian American desire for living large? How do we make the pursuit of the American dream a satisfying quest rather than a selfish one?

I have recently engaged in a private email debate with a local newspaper editor regarding Barack Obama. In her blog she called the president a "flippin' idiot" because he proposed reducing the percentage wealthy Americans can deduct from their taxes based on charitable contributions. I argued that Obama's plan is an attempt to level the playing field, not only when it comes to charitable contributions, but also by returning overall tax rates on the wealthiest Americans to pre-W. levels. I reminded her that it was Bush's tax policies (cuts during wartime, no less) that have gotten into this mess. I posed the question: Where does George W. Bush fit in your pantheon of intellectuals if President Obama is a "flippin' idiot"?

We exchanged a few partisan tirades, but then agreed to disagree. However, when I looked up her blog recently, I saw changes that reflected our conversation. She now refers to those who speak of "leveling the playing field" and has expanded on her diatribe against making charitable contributions more equitable by not allowing the truly wealthy to deduct more than, say, the moderately wealthy, or even the average itemizer. Charities need rich people who get tax breaks, she argues--otherwise the money will surely dry up.

The political sticks-in-the-mud continue to believe that our nation is best served by leaving the wealthy alone as much as possible lest they stop contributing to charities and the larger economy via trickle-down economics: as if they will become miserly, hole up in their big houses, and draw the curtains if we trouble them too much. Frankly, I think we should do away with all tax shelters based on charitable giving. Any act of giving that is done with even the vaguest premise of return is egoism, not compassion.

But this little skirmish of mine over tax deductions is but a small side note in a much larger debate that is beginning to take shape.There is a resistance among the old guard to see democracy as an ongoing historical process, not some timeless condition that was established in the 18th century and has remained in pure form ever since. Maureen Dowd says that we are having a hard time adjusting to "desperation socialism." I don't think it's socialism we are adjusting to. Rather, we are trying to figure out how to make democracy work for all rather than just a few.