Reading a David Brooks column is like stepping into quicksand. You can’t believe you have done something so stupid, but before you know it you are suffocating in his verbose, ill-informed 19th century era biased opinions, and wondering why you ever went down this path in the first place. But by then it’s too late.
Take his most recent column, which argues that if only the middle class and poor people had better, more virtuous characters, all our problems would be solved. Oh, and we never would have run up those nasty “immoral” government deficits, either. Just read his paean today to James Q. Wilson and you will see how out of touch Brooks is about the problems that face our society.
The economy boomed [in the latter half of the 20th Century] and factory jobs opened up, but crime rates skyrocketed. Every generation has an incentive to spend on itself, but none ran up huge deficits until the current one. Some sort of moral norms prevented them.
No David, what prevented those “deficits” from increasing was that we actually once had a progressive tax system that required the rich to pay their fair share. We only ran up enormous deficits when a lazy, amoral son of a former Republican President weaseled his way into the Presidency, cut taxes for the wealthiest Americans at a time when we were running a budget surplus and then went on a spending spree to finance two wars all while funneling more and more government funds to private corporations, many of which committed fraud on a scale not seen since — ever.
As a result, government deficits rose at a greater rate and in total dollar amounts than at any time in our history. The largest part of those debt increases is attributable to the Bush tax cuts for the rich as can be seen in this chart.
So, Bush lowered taxes on the wealthy, and spent money we didn’t have to fund two wars (one of which is still ongoing). In brief, his tax “reforms,” his costly and illegal wars and his policy of deregulation and lack of oversight of financial institutions continue to be the main drivers behind the rise in our current federal debt and our ongoing economic crisis, policies still supported by his party (despite the fact that they have virtually disowned him). Yet, according to David Brooks, it is the poor moral character of America’s poor an middle class that is to blame for our fiscal difficulties–not massive unemployment, fiscal irresponsibility, deregulation and the privatization of government services, the rapaciousness of Wall Street or the cost of the Bus era wars and tax cuts. No it’s the low moral character of the poor and (dwindling) middle class which is to blame.
And remember, this column comes on the coattails of renewed evidence of Republican racism against our President, as well as the continuing saga of Rush Limbaugh’s slanderous allegations that a young female Georgetown law student, Sandra Fluke, was a “slut” and a “prostitute” who wanted to have too much sex because she advocated for the right of young women to have access to birth control medications, particularly those who require it for known health conditions having nothing to do with preventing pregnancy.
Mr. Brooks, something tells me you have no idea regarding the meaning of the word “character” as you use it, because you certainly have demonstrated massive hypocrisy in arguing that the character of the poor and middle class is the cause of all our society’s troubles. I suggest you take a long look in the mirror before you spout such ugly and misguided remarks again. To do otherwise would only be further proof of your own, shall I say, “low character” for spreading lies and mis-truths in order to promote policies that only benefit greedy, amoral individuals such as your friends who work at Wall Street firms.
By the way David, crime rates rose primarily due to the Baby Boom. Crime rates traditionally rise when the largest demographic in any society is between the ages of 18-34. As Boomers get older crime rates have gone down. Well crime rates among everyone but the white collar corporate criminals who are your buddies, that is, many of whom are now being investigated and indicted for insider trading and securities fraud.
Funny how Mr. Brooks never brings up the greed, mendacity, immorality and lack of compassion of the rich for our current situation. Instead he prefers to target the most vulnerable among us as the source of all that is wrong in our society. One might consider his factual omissions, deceits and outright hypocrisy clear evidence of his own “low” character. I certainly do.
