The US undeniably sets the overarching tone of British politics. If you follow US politics you’ll see the same debates filter over to the UK shortly afterwards, enabling us to insert lovely terms like “wealth creators” and “the politics of envy” into the national vernacular. Do not ignore the weather report.
It’s a well documented stark choice facing the United States this election cycle. On the one hand, there’s President Obama seeking to foster a culture whereby the richest in society contribute a larger share of tax revenues, while on the other side, Mitt Romney argues that lowering tax rates will unleash a tornado of economic activity and growth, allowing everyday Americans to prosper. There are, of course, a number of differences in policy, but the election in the minds of everyday Americans will coalesce around this central economic difference.
The Economy
It would be churlish to suggest both parties do not look for the betterment of wider society. This issue is simply one of priorities. George Bush instituted large tax cuts under the exact same argument Romney advances. The United States is running a debt to GDP ratio of over 80%. Sweden on the other hand – where tax rates are much higher – runs a debt to GDP ratio of more than half that. Bush squandered the surplus he inherited and left Obama a large deficit. Bush argued that lower tax rates for the wealthy would grow the economy. It hasn’t. It’s left the US economy lopsided and more indebted. The notion that somehow tax cuts for “the wealth creators” will unleash investment above and beyond times of higher taxes is a fallacy that’s demonstrably false. However, a President Romney signals to the world mass tax cuts will stimulate growth, “America’s open for business” and enriching the rich is the answer.
Let’s get this straight: Less tax revenue leads to less money for government to spend on the types of programmes that we all support here in the UK. Programmes and bulwarks of society such as: the NHS, the emergency services, education, infrastructure building. We cannot conceivably retain the levels of provisions we’re used to with less revenues, so we’ll have two options: A reduction in the size of the state (or “smaller government” in US parlance) in favour of the private sector assuming the running of said services, or the working and middle classes taking on the extra tax burden to fund these services we all count on. Republicans (and Tories) believe in privatisation of most (if not all) public services. They believe this leads to a greater efficiency and a better service, because it’s driven by competition. As we all know from the debacle with the UK train network, this is simply not the case. Will it work in certain cases? Yes. All cases? Evidence shows us not.
In a Europe beset by crippling deficit reduction plans that have choked off growth, we must tackle a double dip recession with bold government investment. Keynesian policy dictates we invest in times of recession to trigger and stimulate growth, while we pull back in the good times. Criticism of the previous Labour government overspending during the boom is not without credibility. However, for a collective conservative reaction in entering dramatic deficit cutting plans, as in Europe, has resulted in the malaise we currently see. Lest we not forget that the Labour Party left a small recovery that the Tories turned into a double dip recession. It’s not partisan to say this – it’s simply stating the facts.
A reduction in government spending and activity during a recession, or the onset of a recovery, leads to greater unemployment, larger welfare costs and no cutting of the deficit. We’re seeing extra borrowing from the Tories for this very reason. We’re seeing them renege on borrowing pledges. What’s happened in the meantime? People have suffered and turned to other sources of income like payday loans. Now, I do not intend to protect these greedy little vultures, but the fact is they provide a service based on demand. People do not use payday loan companies out of choice – they do it out of necessity. They do it because they cannot make ends meet. They do it because the costs of living rise quicker than the growth of their pay packet. So plainly speaking, these payday loan companies step in and provide a largely unregulated service that worsens people’s debt situations. Whilst a short-term approach of regulation will temper the worst of the stories we now see in the media, only a long-term evaluation of reducing income inequality can fully alleviate these problems. The payday companies become a convenient punch bag for government because it detracts from the fact there are too many unemployed, too many underpaid and too many at the point of desperation. A vibrant working class will put these companies out of business. It is not the responsibility of payday loan companies to help spur economic growth – that is the role of the government. We must take a long-term, beyond-the-end-of-your-nose approach is critical.
To my mind, one of the key, long-term sensible solutions, is that we institute a higher minimum wage (or a living wage) that can withstand the costs of living. This must be reassessed each year and tagged to a value above inflation. In the short-term, we must not lose sight of the fact we’re a consumerist economy, and as such, people at all levels must possess the cashflow to keep the hamster on the wheel. An inflated debt bubble sustained us in the late ’90s/early ’00s and now that people are indebted beyond their means, we need short-term measures to encourage spending. However, it’s all very well growing that GDP pie, but when we have an increasingly larger portion going to the wealthiest in our society, we have a problem and a crossroads: a political party in the UK needs to actually embody these concerns and act on plans to grow a working class that has been let down time and again. A President Romney would be a man who recently stated he hasn’t paid less than 13% taxes over the course of the last 10 years. This is a man who has taken advantage of every conceivable loophole to avoid paying tax, stashed money offshore and now advocates making George Bush’s tax cuts permanent and then some. Who will this immediately benefit? The wealthiest in the US. This is what the priority is. Plain and simple. Such a bold move by a US President will send out a message to those who seek to institute similar tax reforms here in the UK, that perseverance can see the implementation of your goals. It’s worth mentioning once more the resounding failure of the George Bush tax cuts. This trickle down notion is demonstrably false. Consult the facts and figures. A tax cutting programme like the one advocated by Romney is exactly what Boris Johnson is calling for: tax cuts for the wealthiest Brits to grow the economy.
It’s also important to note that the plan Paul Ryan put forward in the States doesn’t actually slash the deficit any quicker than Obama. It does, however, put tax cuts for the wealthiest in society at the forefront as a priority. This is not the right course for the United States. This is not the right course for the UK.
Healthcare
Republicans believe healthcare should be run by the private sector. The Vice Presidential nominee Paul Ryan believes the NHS impinges on our freedoms in the UK. Do you? Do you want companies like G4S with their mitts (pun intended) on the NHS? A President Romney pledges to repeal “Obamacare” on his first day in office. Obama’s healthcare act has, amongst other things, stopped insurance companies restricting access to insurance for those with pre-existing conditions. It’s disgusting that Americans have died because they could not obtain access to healthcare simply due to a lack of funds, or that they were unfortunate enough to be born with a “pre-existing condition”. Why not treat people with pre-existing conditions? Because it impacts the bottom line. Barack Obama’s healthcare law puts a stop to this practice and acts to constrain the profit motive in the provision of healthcare. And Mitt Romney plans to nullify this key aspect of Obama’s bill with no alternative.
Here in the UK, we have a creeping privatisation and the growth of an overriding profit motive in the treatment of human beings while they’re at their most vulnerable. So why’s this important? A President Romney repealing or taking the teeth out of Obamacare emboldens the Tories in their seeping privatisation of the NHS (something Labour was also guilty of). Romney and Tories share an ideological view of the world. This cannot be stressed enough. It’s at the very core of their contemporary beliefs. The Tories are not the One Nation Disraeli party any longer. They’re not even the party of Ted Heath.
To bring a common sense into the equation, outsourcing elements of services to private companies that can increase efficiency in a naturally bureaucratic environment (on the caveat it does not impinge treatment or jar with the primary focus of a healthcare service – namely to treat people) is fine. It’s common sense. However, Labour has proved that contracts with the private sector can very quickly become a fiasco and a huge waste of taxpayer money, as anyone familiar with the computer project failure will attest. But ultimately, let’s not lose sight that the goal for the Tories, ideologically, is to dismantle what they’d term inefficient public entities in favour of a private system. Their long game is to create an NHS provided by the private sector. A President Romney helps embolden this pursuit.
The Tories know that a gradual erosion of the NHS as a public body is the only way to bring the private sector in. Unlike the sell off of other public services such as gas, water and rail, there’s no way the British people will sanction a radical move like privatising the NHS. Nobody really knows what form such a privatisation would take. Would it remain free at the point of use? Or would we be at the mercy of an insurance-based model and pre-existing conditions? Either way, it’s undeniable the profit motive would grow larger and lead to private companies reaping profits from our medical treatment. This is unacceptable and you only need to look at the situation Obama has had to tackle. The NHS must remain sacred.
Social Issues
On social issues, a President Romney has voiced his support for banning abortion. For the party that espouses freedom as its clarion call, it’s pretty unfathomable that their idea of freedom doesn’t extend to a woman’s right to make her own choices about her body. Whilst I don’t think that the Republicans will ever achieve the ban nor would British politicians be stupid enough to push the case, it does set the tone for regressive social policies. It’s welcome that Cameron and Osborne have proved to be liberal on social issues. They are facing lots of opposition within their own party for this laudable stance. A President Romney, however, will be in the pocket of the far right Republicans, as he’s had to kowtow to their demands for election – these are people who now outright question the validity of climate change research, claim Barack Obama was born outside the US, that he is a Muslim and is intent on destroying the US from the inside. The centrist policies he has pursued do not dissuade them of this folly. What these far right-types achieve is dragging the centre ground further to the right, which a President Romney will personify.
This will clearly have an impact on UK politics and could lead to us allowing social issues like abortion to re-enter the national discussion. This puts progressive issues like same-sex marriage on the back burner. It was decided long ago that we embrace the separation of church and state. We are supposedly secularist societies. We march around the world spreading democracy to countries we decry as too overtly religious. These far right-types are patently unaware of the irony in their hawkish foreign policy and what they seek to achieve at home. The far right in the US have their brethren here in the form of the BNP, and these people seek to redesign the basic social construct with their anti-immigration, anti-minorities stance. This cannot be allowed to happen.
Many may consider this post a smidgen apocalyptic. President Reagan and Prime Minister Thatcher shifted the ’80s political central ground way to the right of the post-war consensus, which was marked by a collective mindset. Clinton and Blair’s “Third Way” sought to incrementally shift from the selfish, greedy individualistic capitalism that gave birth to larger deficits, larger debts and larger income inequality. A President Romney and a Prime Minister Cameron, or Prime Minister Johnson, would shift us even further to the right. This will be regressive and detrimental to the vast majority of Americans and Brits.
The exacerbation of income inequality this past 30 years has led us to the yawning gaps last experienced prior to the Great Depression, which of course prefaced World War II. There’s no latent suggestion from me that we’re on the precipice of World War III. History, however, is to be studied to avoid making the same mistakes. We must institute into our society a fairness that acknowledges not all poor people are lazy or benefits cheats; or that the only measure of hard work is your bank balance; or that fostering a reduction in income inequality is the politics of envy; or that the rich got rich simply because of their initiative, resolve and hard work.
We’re an interconnected society. It’s time we started to act like it again.