John Boehner and Scott Walker as The Walrus and the Carpenter

In the poem The Walrus and the Carpenter, Lewis Carroll told of how the Walrus and the Carpenter, walking by the sea, convinced the oysters to join them. The Walrus and the Carpenter then ate all of the oysters and wept at their own trickery and the fate of all the oysters they had eaten. So let's apply that morality tale to our politics.


The time has come, the Walrus said, to talk of many things: especially of deficits and debt. For it is fear of debt that is driving our politics today. If you want to know what Speaker of the House John Boehner is asking you to go along with, you have to understand how debt is being manipulated for political ends. All the rest is just jabberwocky nonsense.


The conservative wisdom proclaims, first, that debt is bad, bad, bad and the annual deficits are out-of-control, promising future bankruptcy. The deficit hawks established that political truth with the outcome of the last election. Now House Speaker Boehner and President Obama are haggling about how to respond to that "truth."


Second, the conservatives maintain, it is overspending by the middle class and the Democrats on entitlements and on public services like police, health and education that is causing our near bankruptcy.


Third, they claim, we are now so far in debt that only draconian austerity with regard to public services will permit us to get the deficit under control.


A lot of people are, like the oysters, willing to go along on that walk with Gov. Scott Walker and company. The Republicans are cocky enough to admit that their goals are not fiscal but political: right now, crush the public service employee unions as a source of Democratic party support and, in the long run, "shrink government down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub." The debt crisis is an important tool in achieving that future. But fear-talk about the deficit is just a head fake to hide the fact, as the walrus said, that pigs don't have wings and that it would be a dismal thing to do.


The Republicans were complicit in creating the debt. They deliberately caused the current "crisis" – they called it "starving the beast." Now, like the Walrus and the Carpenter, they shed a bitter tear and say come and walk with us!


To understand what the Republicans are doing, you have to understand the nature of debt. Debt is, of a necessity and equally, the rich man's wealth. All debt is in essence a contract that obliges one person to give something to another person at a future date. The ownership of debt determines the redistribution of income in the future. Debt is important because it reflects who owns and controls the future.


So now let's apply this to our national debt. The wealthy have in the past lent about $14 trillion to the federal government. That is, besides their assets, they own $14 trillion worth of future output. This debt represents power and the future. The bondholders see the government as a countervailing force.


The wealthy fully realize that the government is the only power that threatens their control over the future. By control of the money supply, by regulation of businesses, by promises inherent in Social Security, Medicare and the entire social safety net, the government is committed to redistributing income in the future. That threatens the future ownership and control of our society by the wealthy of today.


More often than bondholders want to admit, however, sovereign national debt is paid off with inflation diminished dollars. That is the way we paid off the World War II debt and, the bondholders fear, it is the way we will pay off the debt created by the Bush tax cuts and the Iraq/Afghan wars: the debt they are now holding.


From 1946 to 1960, a low and steady inflation and real growth in GDP made the debt relatively smaller. In the decade 1970 – 80, serious inflation roared through the economy and the consumer price index more than doubled, effectively cutting in half the real wealth held by the bondholders. The Republicans and the wealthy see government spending as the cause of that inflation. Curtailing government spending is seen as a means to control the future.


So, all of us – the Walrus, decided in the last election to starve the government commitment to the poor and needy, to forget about equality of opportunity and to drown the government in the bathtub. The wealthy are going to eat us alive just as the Walrus and the Carpenter ate every oyster who went along with them.


I weep for you, John Boehner said: I deeply sympathize. But he has to control the future for his constituents and he does that by eating all the oysters.


I say, a little more inflation is my oyster