Four pernicious ideas in budget debates

The government budget battles that have been raging in Minnesota and Washington seem deaf to reason and disdainful of compromise. Four pernicious ideas, lodged deeply in today's conservative mind-set, ensure that the discourse will be clouded with shallow generalities, making compromise unlikely to come quickly or easily.

PERNICIOUS IDEA NO. 1

Government is not the solution to our problems; government is itself the problem. Left to its own devices, it grows unchecked, imposing ever more restrictions on social and economic life and demanding an ever-increasing share of personal income as taxes.

This idea, ensconced in conservative scripture in quotes from Ronald Reagan, is received truth for millions of Republicans.

Too bad, but it may take a longer state government shutdown than we've seen to teach voters that government is integral to our society, economy and values, rather than a wealth drain or a parasite on the economy.

To state the obvious, every civilized society this side of hunter-gatherer tribes needs government to provide basic social needs for security, adjudication of conflict, transfer of property, etc. The more advanced a society and its technology become, the greater and more varied are the needs that government is asked to perform.

Government is far from perfect, but is not the monster that far-right politicians make it out to be. Government is necessary for civilized life.

All the parts have their unique role, and work together to create, ideally, a steadily growing economy that responds to the public's needs. If consumption, which accounts for two-thirds of GNP, suddenly falters, it makes eminent sense to rebalance the equation, maintaining national income with increased government spending until consumption recovers.

Government spending on education and infrastructure improve productivity, which eventually leads to increased wages, consumption and investment.

PERNICIOUS IDEA NO. 2

Only individuals can truly do good, not government.

Government -- big government especially -- is ill-suited to do good works such as healing, feeding and clothing those in need. The all-knowing bureaucrat, wielding his one-size-fits-all solution -- probably a new fad from Harvard University--is bound to bungle things by failing to treat real people as individuals. It boggles the mind to imagine providing individual voluntary assistance for every poor person who can't afford a skin cancer operation, every battered spouse or emotionally unstable person in need of shelter and professional care, or every hungry child who goes to school on an empty stomach. To organize such an effort would require ... a government.

But more than competence and practicality are in question here. Fundamental beliefs are at stake. Evangelical conservatives will tell you that the good works that Jesus enjoined his followers to do were meant as instruction to the individual.

Take the stranger into your home. Feed the hungry at your kitchen table. Visit the prisoner yourself. Jesus did not mean that you should pay a government to do good works for you. Taking direct action yourself is the real deal.

Leaving such tasks to government simply feeds the growth of the bumbling, grasping, arrogant, ungodly behemoth. Far better to do good yourself and -- starve the beast by cutting taxes.

PERNICIOUS IDEA NO. 3

"Don't spend more than you have."

But whoever reads this line off the Teleprompter had better move on to the next talking point quickly, before someone starts asking questions. Everybody knows that American families spend much more than they have.

They take out loans to buy expensive houses and cars or pay for their children's education, and they use credit cards for routine shopping. If everyone started obeying the maxim "only spend what you have," the economy would collapse like a burst balloon.

Luckily, many financially competent family heads exercise discipline to ensure that income and expense tend toward equality over the long run, and take care that debt payments don't overtake income.

Many governments act much the same way, using clever forms of borrowing (state), adjusting interest rates or the money supply (federal) in response to inevitable ups and downs in their revenue streams.

PERNICIOUS IDEA NO. 4

This idea, or article of the ultraconservative faith, does not bear scrutiny. It is often used to firmly counter a suggestion that some tax loophole be closed, or that tax rates be raised on the wealthy.

It blithely ignores the fact that any taxation scheme redistributes wealth. Giving a tax break or allowing one to expire are both ways of adjusting how the tax system redistributes wealth from the status quo.

What confessors of this statement usually mean is that any tax increase from current levels is illegitimate.

This confession of faith, like the Boy Scouts Code of Honor, serves to align the one who says it with the forces of good (free enterprise) while darkly hinting at the Marxist motives of those proposing to change the tax system in a way that reduces the net income of people who matter -- usually wealthy "job creators."

Would a calm discussion and public airing of these and similar pernicious ideas make budgeting any less contentious? Probably not. People believe what they want to believe.

Norman Senjem, of Rochester, is a laid-off state worker. He has a degree in agricultural economics and has worked for 18 years at the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency.