Tax Bill Closes Door on Needed Solutions

In his book On the Brink detailing the inside story of the 2008 financial meltdown, former Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson relates how, as the financial system was crumbling and in desperate need of immediate cash, GOP lawmakers argued for stimulatory tax cuts. In today's booming economy with little room for upside growth, GOP lawmakers argue for stimulatory tax cuts. As the old cliche goes, when your only tool is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. There could not be two economic scenarios more disparate than those described above, and yet, all the GOP can suggest is a shopworn, one-size-fits-all solution. Nothing could better demonstrate the vacuum that passes for intellectual conservative thought these days.

It is more than a shame, because given the disruptive nature of today's economy - from job-killing technologies to the rise of new global economic powers - the need for new ideas to address the challenges we face has never been greater. Unfortunately, such thought is in limited supply. Instead, stale thought is about to lock us into another decade (generation?) of record deficits at precisely the time we need fresh, disruptive thought to match the economic disruption of the times.

The challenges we face are myriad. We have entire communities whose livelihoods have disappeared, as trade and technology have reduced the value of the repetitive skills and reliable work habits of those folks, while simultaneously improving the profitability of those they once toiled for. That is both the elegance and the evil of capitalism's creative destruction, displacing the few for the greater good. However, unlike days gone by, when the displaced could rather quickly and easily find often better-paying work requiring similar skill sets (think manual laborer moving from farm to factory), today's disruption often leaves those displaced with options that offer neither the pay nor protection of their previous employment. Thus, the family breadwinner who had health insurance and a pension to go with his or her $25 or $30 an hour factory job frequently feels fortunate to find a job without benefits at half the pay.

And yet, our public response is not to address the pain and pathologies these forgotten people and communities suffer, but rather, to reward those benefiting from that misfortune by cutting taxes even further on the additional profits that accrue from the misery that offshoring and automation inflicts upon those left behind. Hoping those tax savings will be invested in ways that help those suffering ignores that it is the investment of past tax cuts that gave us the technology and lobbying power that helped eliminate these jobs in the first place. The argument that we've weathered such dynamics before as new businesses absorb those made obsolete ignores the fact that today's technology delivers a double-whammy in that technology is not seeking to make repetitive manual labor easier, but to eliminate such work altogether, thus requiring a new skill set that cannot be learned quickly - all while the pace of such change accelerates more each day, making it nearly impossible for the displaced to keep up.

This disruption will only get worse. As robotics and artificial intelligence make more roles obsolete, we'll see even those thought secure at risk of marginalization. The same technology that transformed the shop floor can now be seen in warehouse automation, order entry and checkout kiosks and more. Self-driving trucks threaten to eliminate some two million high-paying blue-collar jobs. And everyone from diagnostic radiologists to software coders are in the crosshairs of the automation revolution. As society becomes more and more automated, as more and more workers are marginalized, the benefits will accrue to those who remain, whose numbers will be ever fewer.

That seems only fair, but at what cost? We already see entire communities struggling under a wave of addiction. Families fret over how to pay for needed health care, let alone the education they know their children will need to survive in this changing world. The anger that has divided us and delivered today's dysfunctional leaders will only get more vocal, more desperate. We risk permanently cleaving into two separate societies - one plagued by crime, poverty, addiction and poor health, the other safely protected in gated communities. That is not freedom. Not for those unable to provide for their families and not for those living behind guarded gates.

The irony in all this - and the great opportunity we are about to squander when this tax bill becomes law - is that what business craves most, what they consistently argue is the greatest need they have, are skilled, reliable, educated workers. Yet an intellectually bankrupt GOP is about to deliver more of what they don't need, and in the process severely cripple our ability to invest in what they do need. They'll argue this tax cut will spur growth that will cure our ills. But when it proves once more it won't, they'll then argue we haven't the resources to invest in people or education or infrastructure or addiction treatment. And so, they'll argue for another round of stimulatory tax cuts, while our roads deteriorate, our schools suffer and an ever larger portion of our population falls further behind. Lather, rinse, repeat.

There's another familiar cliche, one that says doing the same thing over and over while expecting a different result is the definition of insanity. Well, that describes the GOP's tax bill. We've been pursuing that path for a generation now, leaving a trail of forgotten Americans who are slowly losing the wherewithal to educate their children for a future that seems ever further out of reach. Is that really our best path forward? Are we not the nation of immigrants whose parents sacrificed their own creature comforts for the well-being of future generations? Did we not learn their lessons? If not, what have we become - and is this who we strive to be?