Conservatism can be defined in many ways, although dictionary definitions typically use the word itself as a descriptor: We should conserve the values and ideas of the past. Surely, there is some good sense in that.
Another definition, the attribution to which I have not found, defines today’s conservatism this way: Conservatism has become the search for a superior moral justification for self-interest. That certainly fits well with Paul Ryan’s budget, which calls for $1.1 trillion of tax cuts for wealthy and super-wealthy people. That’s a lot of self-interest.
Conservatism has evolved from traditional bedrock values to something hateful and uncaring. It is an expression of the vitriol that permeates society today, the pervasive view that if someone disagrees they must be some form of low life and perhaps unpatriotic. The focus of today’s conservatism is fiscal, along with a testosterone fueled national defense and war making capability. That’s it.
Today’s conservatives seem to have strange ideas about why they lost the last presidential election, lost seats in the House and lost the congressional popular vote count. They don’t think it was because their ideas were unpopular, nor because they were disrespecting of huge segments of the American public and not because they lied and got caught. They think it was because they didn’t couch their message in the right terms. They just don’t get it.
People don’t want what they are selling. It really is that simple. Their trying to win upcoming elections by “enlarging the tent” to include people of color makes no sense, because once those recruited are in the tent the conservatives are going to metaphorically club them over the head and steal their wallets. Here’s an example.
As mentioned, Ryan’s new budget proposes $1.1 trillion in tax savings for the wealthy, revenue that would be lost to the federal government. What is interesting is that when Ryan is questioned about the cost to the government of his gift to the wealthy he declares that it will be paid for through some undefined magical process, perhaps a deus ex machina contraption from days gone by. That’s what Reagan sold to the American people as “supply side economics” 33 years ago and which was described by President Bush the First as “voodoo economics.” Bush was right. It was voodoo then and it is voodoo now. There is no deus ex machina that could restore that loss of revenue and save us from our self-inflicted national impoverishment.
All that would be accomplished would be to make fabulously wealthy people even wealthier and cut funds for critical national needs. That is exactly what Ryan proposed and which was overwhelmingly rejected by Americans in the last election. Regardless, Ryan plods on with his same tired ideas, now in a nifty new green wrapper. His sleight of hand, though, hides his mean ideas, that taxes and costs will inevitably go up for all but the rich, including the newbies in that conservative tent. That’s the wallet theft.
Meanwhile, there are other provisions to Ryan’s budget. Everyone agrees that at some point Medicare will become too expensive. Ryan’s plan to deal with that is to give each senior a voucher to go to the private healthcare insurance market and buy their own medical insurance policy.
- Never mind that seniors are, by definition, older and therefore a poorer risk for those insurance companies who may not offer them coverage at all.
- Never mind that many of our seniors will have pre-existing conditions that insurance companies will refuse to cover.
- Never mind that those vouchers couldn’t possibly cover the cost of a medical insurance policy and will necessarily mean that seniors will have to take a lot of money out of their piggy banks to pay for their policies. That assumes that they have enough in those piggy banks both to pay for their policies and also to eat.
Ryan offers absolutely no detail about how his proposal that would kill Medicare is not a proposal to kill Medicare. Apparently, we should just trust him. How well did that trust process work for us when President Bush started the war in Iraq on disinformation?
This third iteration of Ryan’s budget proposal is just another effort to kill social programs that so-called conservatives have been trying to kill for decades. Doing that and making wealthy people even wealthier while leaving everyone else to scramble for crumbs is today’s conservatism. There is nothing remotely conservative in the historical sense of the word in Paul Ryan’s budget thumping or in the hearts of today’s self-interested conservatives.
Copyright 2024 by Jack Altschuler
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