The Fiscal Cliff, and How Weed Could Help Our Assault Rifle Worries

Life is full of surprises, and yet ... not so much when it comes to the news. Y2K, for instance. How long was that potential catastrophe discussed and speculated on before it turned out to be the obvious fizzle it turned out to be? Contrary, at times belligerent sort that I am, I waited until New Year's Day, 2000, before I went out to fill my tank with gas, to get cash from the ATM. There was no one at either the gas station or the bank drive-through. At the grocery store, where, to be even more perverse, I went to buy a single bottle of water, there were people—this is true—trying to return large previously purchased flats of bottled water. I didn't stop by the rental store, but I understand there was a similar line of people returning generators it turned out they wouldn't need.

The stock market wouldn't crater until March of that year, and its cratering would have nothing to do with Y2K. If anything, the crash following the parabolic rise in tech stocks the previous year was put off by the spending put toward the correcting of systems that might otherwise have been affected by Y2K, but weren't, because it was a problem that needed addressing, for the sake of profits, and was thus addressed.

Similarly, and despite the news, the endless coverage and punditry, the presidential election was over as soon as it became clear that Mitt Romney was going to be the Republican presidential nominee. Anyone with half a brain (not just me and Nate Silver) should have been able to figure that out, and yet, if you listened to the news, or got scared, as I did, watching Obama all but throw the first debate (probably high as a kite, at altitude, on that close-to-being-legal-before-it-became-legal weed that we now have in this state—notice we haven't had anyone shot up by crazy motherfuckers wielding assault rifles with big-assed magazines since; coincidence? I don't think so), you ended up getting nervous over nothing, convincing yourself that the obvious wasn't so obvious.

And now comes that dreaded Bernanke creation, The Fiscal Cliff.

As I write this, the awful clock is ticking. Frankly, I'm so frightened I could just poop my pants.

Count me among the camp (Krugman, Buffett, Howard Dean, not to mention a long list of true small government types) that thinks—hopes—we go over.

Unlike many in that camp, however, I thought the original "temporary" tax cuts were a very bad idea—all of them, including the ones for the middle-class. It seemed to me obvious at the time that we would need some reserves (now that we had finally balanced our budget after Reagan and his ilk had taken the debt to levels previously unheard of) ahead of retiring that big demographic of Baby-Boomers that had done so much to expand our growing consumer economy, a process, their transitioning from taxpayers and spenders to tax-takers and hobbyists, that would begin more or less in earnest in 2011.

But no. Instead we cut taxes, got into two fruitless wars, made sure military contractors and the VA would be busy for years to come, while also throwing in an unfunded drug plan for seniors that by law disallowed the government that was paying for it to negotiate lower prices on the drugs, as, say, the government of Canada does for its citizenry, to keep Big Pharma's coffers flush, and to further assure that medications in the United States are not only the best (they say), but the most expensive in the world.

That's what we did instead of shoring up our finances, ahead of everything blowing up again in 2008.

As I predicted in one of my blogs back then, when the whole house of cards was coming down, and, during an election year, we were being asked to free up nearly a trillion dollars, right away, to save some banks and insurance companies and possibly even Western Civilization as we knew it, from ruin, after highly-levered risks went bad, risks that likely wouldn't have been taken had the principal players not felt with reasonable certainty that American taxes would be there (over a trillion dollars, ultimately) to cushion the brutal free market blow if things went the other way of where they needed to, that arguments would be made before long that we simply couldn't afford our "entitlements"anymore, and that we would have to do something: cut them, limit them, end them, or else we'd be screwed.

The fact that many (though not all) of those who say we must do something about "entitlements" don't also say we should do something about military spending, or the gap between rich and poor brought on largely by the tax policies of the last thirty years, tells you that the budget battle we hear about endlessly on the news has more to do with whose people get the tax dollars and whose don't than it does with addressing the real fiscal problems we and most other western nations—particularly the ones who trusted the banking system to make their lives richer—face at the moment.

To wit: we are currently spending roughly 1.9 dollars for every dollar we take in. Thus, to merely balance the budget, and hold the burgeoning debt where it is, excepting the interest on it (currently held artificially low by our Federal Reserve's buying of Treasury Bonds), we would have to raise tax revenue by roughly 90%. This, as many have pointed out, would crush the economy, and with it tax receipts.

By contrast, we could cut spending by half. To give you an idea what that would look like, if we cut the entire military budget—all of it: the VA, the armed forces, contractor cash, the whole shebang—it wouldn't be enough.

Even a combination of the two: cut spending by 25%, and raise taxes by 45%, would put a strain on our economy the likes of which would make the Great Depression look like a slow afternoon at the deli, if for no other reason—and there would be other reasons, plenty of them—than the general run of human being was much less dependent on The System in those days. Our current anemic 2% growth, helped along by zero interest rate policy (ZIRP), as well as an unprecedented rise in the money supply thanks to our backstop of last resort, the Federal Reserve (QE1, QE2, QE3 ... ) would get squeezed even more, thus producing fewer tax receipts, a deep recession if not a full-on, intractable depression.

Moreover, if we cut "entitlements" across the board, many of those people would have less money to spend, in our economy that is currently 70% driven by consumer spending. If we cut military spending, the one manufacturing base that is still undeniably strong, uniquely American—weapons making—will suffer; and those who make their living at Lockheed or someplace similar will have to do with less.

Soldiers, many of whom ended up becoming soldiers because they couldn't find suitable work in the venerable private sector, would suddenly be doing with less money and medical benefits, with less VA care to follow.

Anyone with means who had old relatives, poor relatives, disabled relatives, would be stuck caring for them, just like the good old days, when only the rich traveled and went to restaurants, got their nails done and had all kinds of servants.

Many of the outposts of our economy that we now take for granted, that have been made possible, and broadly available, due in part to progressive taxation and the oft-disparaged spreading of the wealth, would suffer greatly, or simply disappear.

Many of us might imagine that would be a good thing; I don't see how.

So what do we do? Is there any way out? Realistically, no, there isn't. Certainly not if we limit our tools to taxation and spending cuts. Which is why the current political debate, that presupposes a realistic fiscal solution short of radically devaluing the currency, is absurd. What we are arguing about now is over who keeps what, not over what gets fixed and when.

One could argue—I would—that the real fiscal cliff, the point of no return, happened with the temporary tax cuts that squandered our surplus and are now set to expire, short of some last minute gimmick, in a few hours, and was further sealed by our invasion of Iraq, and our subsequent dithering about in Afghanistan. Whatever we do now is going to involve printing money, lots of it, and probably for a long time. Normally, were we not the world's de facto reserve currency, and Europe and Japan weren't in worse shape than us, this would lead to a flight from our debt, and thus our currency, by "vigilante" bondholders, causing interest rates to rise ... hyperinflation, followed by a long depression. But Europe and Japan are in worse shape than us. The dollar is still the world's reserve currency—the least dirty of all the dirty shirts, as Bill Gross of PIMCO would say—and besides, it happened to Germany in the early twenties, and look where, after two losses in two world wars, they are now? And Argentina—hyperinflation is to Argentina what guns are to the United States: a kind of unique craziness—and do people still tango in Buenos Aires? Yes they do.

So what's all the fuss? Why, after twenty first-graders were slaughtered in a classroom by the mentally challenged son of a survivalist mother who taught him to shoot, with an M-16 with a magazine that held thirty shells (the number one new buyer of guns: women), that apparently didn't jam, as a similar, possibly foreign-made, model did for our local well-armed lunatic down in Aurora in July, isn't gun control among the top four things Barack Obama is going to focus on during the first year of his new administration?

Obviously ... it's because, in this country, it would be, in the president's estimation, a waste of time. Because the people of the country, this country—most of them, it seems—just aren't that outraged. Not like they'd be if they had to pay more in taxes.

So here's my idea for dealing with both taxes and guns: What if, for starters, we get Humbolt County in California to go straight, and tax them. Then, before long, legalize weed everywhere! (Seriously, isn't it about goddamned time those potheads started giving back to their country instead of to the Mexican and Columbian cartels?)

And to boost sales, and thus boost our still anemic economy, and tax revenue with it, what if we decided to make it MANDATORY that anyone who owned an assault rifle, regardless what size the magazine(s), had to be stoned AT ALL TIMES.

That's right. All fucking day. If he wanted to own an assault rifle and keep it in his house. You buy the gun, in lieu of a background check, you'd have to sign a weed agreement.

We could come up with a simple blood test (that, think about it, would employ more lab techs, scientists, couriers) that could measure the amount of THC in the blood, and if that person who owned the weapon fell below that level, he'd have to hand over his assault rifle (the process of which could be interesting, not to mention newsworthy—exciting—but never mind).

Frankly, I'd be in favor of having the same law apply to owners of, say, handguns, but ... I'd be willing, in the spirit of democracy and all its inherent messiness, to start small. With assault rifles. That way we keep certain elements good and mellow without pinching the still thriving arms industry in this country, which, as noted, continues to struggle with anemic economic growth despite unprecedented boosts and supports. That and we'd be growing a new economic engine: the weed industry. Growing it, and taxing it. It might not seem brilliant at first, maybe even a little cock-eyed, I'll admit, but it beats the trouble of having to decide what sort of sidearm the music teacher is going to carry come next fall. AND we wouldn't have to raise taxes too terribly much on the rich, and upset them, and have them move to some other country like a certain French actor whose name I can't spell.

OR take away too much from  old people, poor people, disabled people, soldiers, military contractors, space explorers, the home-ownership industry ... the list goes on; in short, lots of people who might otherwise be buying something from you, rather than wanting to stay for free in your basement.

Something to keep in mind as we edge into the new year, and decide which things, which sorts of people, we most want to complain about.

Until then, until we get a law passed, if you got guns laying around the house, especially those big goddamned ones that shoot thirty rounds faster than you can say Jack Splatt, stay mellow. Get down to your corner, maybe it's the former small-town hardware store, and talk to your man. Head to the Weed Store. Set a good example. For the welfare of the country. For our young people. Our babies.