Faith Calls the Workers to Sin, Suffer and Repent

The world did not end this past weekend. The people who thought the end times were coming put their faith above common sense. This kind of mistaken faith is not all that rare. It happens to us all the time when we let our economic and political ideology crowd out plain facts.

This is happening now to the Republican Party, and especially the Tea Partiers. The Republicans seem to be, if you'll pardon the phrase, hell-bent on clinging to their religious call for workers to sin, suffer and repent, the facts be damned.

The Republicans and their conservative allies believe the financial crisis and Great Recession occurred because the poor were induced to buy houses and the government taxed and spent wastefully. The American workers and especially union members are called to repent and suffer through a period of fiscal restraint, diminished expectations and less of a government safety net. America will return to a state of grace only when the government stops meddling and markets are allowed to do their magic. It takes a lot of faith to believe all that.

The Democrats have their own narrative. But they lack a shared orthodoxy and follow Will Rogers with his claim: "I am not a member of an organized political party. I am a Democrat." Democrats believe that inequality among individuals and government deregulation of markets starved the economy for purchasing power and caused the crisis. Democrats celebrate government and community.

The present political turmoil arises from these incompatible visions that the parties have watched play out over the past 80 years and both are still clinging to as a matter of faith.

The story starts in the excesses of the 1920s. Growing inequality and deregulation led to the bubble economy that brought on the 1930s and the Great Depression. The New Deal, which was conceived in the 1930s, was implemented in the 1940s, 50s and 60s. The New Deal brought the Great Moderation and with it riches, stability and growth to the American middle class. Individualism was out; government was in and we got everything from the EPA to the Clean Air Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act and even Medicare.

Starting about 1980, memories of the depression faded. When Republicans took over, government became the problem rather than the solution. They resurrected the austerity gospel and removed the protections and controls that curtailed the abuses of the 1920s.

The decade 2000-10 replayed the 1920s with the financial crisis and Great Recession the natural consequences. This time the government had the tools, a whopping big stimulus package and a Federal Reserve ready to pump trillions of dollars into the financial sector. These actions prevented another 1930s type depression. Republicans and Democrats together did well to implement this rescue even when it did not fit the orthodoxy of either party.

This bold and effective avoidance of a depression had a strange political response. The emergence of the Tea Party calling for the Republican solution of sin, suffer and repent seems weird even perverse. The Tea Party agenda of smaller government, less taxes and less regulation is what caused the disaster. The Tea Partiers are angry at the actions that prevented a depression. They are calling for austerity when they are the people who have the most to lose. But they are faithful to the Republican creed.

Rep. Paul Ryan laid out a proposal that the Republicans claimed would achieve the necessary budget cuts and solve the fiscal problems. In a cynical move, the Ryan proposal would leave Medicare in place for those over 55 years of age. For the next generation, however, Medicare would become a voucher-based, underfunded shadow of its former self. The Republicans passed a resolution advocating this plan 235 to 4. They kept the faith.

In addition, the 11 newly elected Republican governors have aggressively adopted the Republican austerity program that would abolish Medicare and slash Medicaid, education, healthcare and infrastructure investment. One Republican governor dismissed complaints stating that the people were now  "more willing to accept pain and difficulty." The governors' attack on public service employee bargaining rights seems gratuitous and coordinated. These unpopular but bold moves were responsive to a shared faith.

In this process, Republican sloganeering became the Ryan proposal and the political scene tipped. The town meetings in Republican-led congressional districts erupted in angry denunciation. The Republican governors found newspaper headlines talking of "buyer remorse." And to cap it all, Democrat Kathy Hochul defended Medicare in the Republican heartland and won. The electorate appears to have awakened to the fact that the end of Medicare would be the end of the world for many of them.

But the Republicans are keeping the faith, whatever it costs the working class.