[R-P] Notable similitud entre el contubernio argentino y los neoliberales estadounidenses

[Néstor Gorojovsky]

[Como es notorio, lo que llamo el contubernio (en la tradición de
Joaquín Coca) es la masa informe que, desde Liebres del Sur hasta
Federico Pinedo, no pierde oportunidad de "hacerle sentir al Gobierno
kirchnerista la ´nueva correlación de fuerzas´ en el Parlamento".]

Pues bien, este contubernio repelente le hace al gobierno argentino lo
mismo que -denuncia Paul Krugman en el New York Times- los
neoliberales reaganianos y sus sucesores le hicieron a los demócratas.

Krugman es, quizás convenga recordarlo, "el último keynesiano vivo" en
EEUU. Tanto la inestabilidad social interna de los países
imperialistas como el anquilosamiento ya notable del bloque socialista
llevó a que, hacia 1975, los viejísimos representantes de la más
vulgar de las economías vulgares decimonónicas se reciclaran como
"neoliberales" y se hicieran cargo del ajuste de cuentas con los
trabajadores.

Ideológicamente, esto se logró insistiendo en la importancia de tener
un gobierno débil, y de liquidar al Estado "hasta que estemos en
condiciones de ahogarlo en una bañera" (sic, ver el artículo en inglés
abajo). Como los programas estatales de EEUU eran (y son) muy
populares, la receta, que también se aplica en el mundo entero,
especialmente después de 1989, fue ir recortando impuestos (lo que es
más popular aún) hasta que el Estado cayera en un déficit inmanejable.
"Matar de hambre a la bestia" se llamó esa táctica.

Pues bien, esto ha sucedido. Y ahora Obama invita a los reaganianos y
postreaganianos a decidir, en un comité conjunto, qué
parte del Estado hay que liquidar.

¿Qué hacen, en este momento de victoria?

Se niegan a participar del comité.

Provocaron el desastre, pero como buenos empresarios quieren que las
costas las paguen otros.

Es lo mismo que busca el contubernio.

Dice Krugman de los neoliberales estadounidenses (claro, el hombre
sangra por la herida porque es demócrata):

"Pero la posición que adoptan ahora los republicanos tiene cierta
lógica: en efecto, el partido le está doblando la apuesta a "matar a
la bestia de hambre". Resulta que no alcanzó con quitarle los ingresos
al Estado para obligar a los políticos a desmantelar el Estado de
Bienestar. Así que la estrategia actual, de hecho, es oponerse a
cualquier acción responsable hasta que lleguemos a la catástrofe
fiscal. Les di la primicia."

A diferencia de EEUU, en la Argentina hay un frente nacional y un
frente antinacional, que son los que verdaderamente están en pugna.
Reunificar el primero y movilizarlo contra el segundo es la única
manera de terminar con los contubernistas, de "derecha" a "izquierda",
que de hecho nos quieren llevar a una catástrofe fiscal.

[Original en inglés, completo:]

  Published on Monday, February 22, 2010 by The New York Times
The Bankruptcy Boys

by Paul Krugman

O.K., the beast is starving. Now what? That’s the question confronting
Republicans. But they’re refusing to answer, or even to engage in any
serious discussion about what to do.

For readers who don’t know what I’m talking about: ever since Reagan,
the G.O.P. has been run by people who want a much smaller government.
In the famous words of the activist Grover Norquist, conservatives
want to get the government “down to the size where we can drown it in
the bathtub.”

But there has always been a political problem with this agenda. Voters
may say that they oppose big government, but the programs that
actually dominate federal spending — Medicare, Medicaid and Social
Security — are very popular. So how can the public be persuaded to
accept large spending cuts?

The conservative answer, which evolved in the late 1970s, would be
dubbed “starving the beast” during the Reagan years. The idea —
propounded by many members of the conservative intelligentsia, from
Alan Greenspan to Irving Kristol — was basically that sympathetic
politicians should engage in a game of bait and switch. Rather than
proposing unpopular spending cuts, Republicans would push through
popular tax cuts, with the deliberate intention of worsening the
government’s fiscal position. Spending cuts could then be sold as a
necessity rather than a choice, the only way to eliminate an
unsustainable budget deficit.

And the deficit came. True, more than half of this year’s budget
deficit is the result of the Great Recession, which has both depressed
revenues and required a temporary surge in spending to contain the
damage. But even when the crisis is over, the budget will remain
deeply in the red, largely as a result of Bush-era tax cuts (and
Bush-era unfunded wars). And the combination of an aging population
and rising medical costs will, unless something is done, lead to
explosive debt growth after 2020.

So the beast is starving, as planned. It should be time, then, for
conservatives to explain which parts of the beast they want to cut.
And President Obama has, in effect, invited them to do just that, by
calling for a bipartisan deficit commission.

Many progressives were deeply worried by this proposal, fearing that
it would turn into a kind of Trojan horse — in particular, that the
commission would end up reviving the long-standing Republican goal of
gutting Social Security. But they needn’t have worried: Senate
Republicans overwhelmingly voted against legislation that would have
created a commission with some actual power, and it is unlikely that
anything meaningful will come from the much weaker commission Mr.
Obama established by executive order.

Why are Republicans reluctant to sit down and talk? Because they would
then be forced to put up or shut up. Since they’re adamantly opposed
to reducing the deficit with tax increases, they would have to explain
what spending they want to cut. And guess what? After three decades of
preparing the ground for this moment, they’re still not willing to do
that.

In fact, conservatives have backed away from spending cuts they
themselves proposed in the past. In the 1990s, for example,
Republicans in Congress tried to force through sharp cuts in Medicare.
But now they have made opposition to any effort to spend Medicare
funds more wisely the core of their campaign against health care
reform (death panels!). And presidential hopefuls say things like
this, from Gov. Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota: “I don’t think anybody’s
gonna go back now and say, Let’s abolish, or reduce, Medicare and
Medicaid.”

What about Social Security? Five years ago the Bush administration
proposed limiting future payments to upper- and middle-income workers,
in effect means-testing retirement benefits. But in December, The Wall
Street Journal’s editorial page denounced any such means-testing,
because “middle- and upper-middle-class (i.e., G.O.P.) voters would
get less than they were promised in return for a lifetime of payroll
taxes.” (Hmm. Since when do conservatives openly admit that the G.O.P.
is the party of the affluent?)

At this point, then, Republicans insist that the deficit must be
eliminated, but they’re not willing either to raise taxes or to
support cuts in any major government programs. And they’re not willing
to participate in serious bipartisan discussions, either, because that
might force them to explain their plan — and there isn’t any plan,
except to regain power.

But there is a kind of logic to the current Republican position: in
effect, the party is doubling down on starve-the-beast. Depriving the
government of revenue, it turns out, wasn’t enough to push politicians
into dismantling the welfare state. So now the de facto strategy is to
oppose any responsible action until we are in the midst of a fiscal
catastrophe. You read it here first.

-- 

Néstor Gorojovsky
El texto principal de este correo puede no ser de mi autoría