George Rebane

Nevada County poet Molly Fisk, who is also a regular essayist on KVMR and a fine lady of the liberal persuasion, and I were asked to trade our commentaries for today.  The idea was to have listeners maybe raise an eyebrow or two in fun as they heard familiar voices deliver unfamiliar monologues.  Each of us wrote a piece to be read by the other which was broadcast today.

Here is the piece that I wrote on Calvin Coolidge for Molly to read.

Across the land there is constant talk of government debts, deficits, spending, taxes, and budgets.  Some folks are very worried about today’s slow economic recovery, the lack of jobs, and Washington wanting to take over more and more of the economy – they call it nationalization.  Ahead, many see nothing but storm clouds gathering for our Republic.  It appears to be a unique turning point in America’s history, a point where the promised fundamental change will actually take place.

Actually, we may have been around that barn before, or at least one that looked a lot like it.  Hardly a person now alive remembers what happened after WW1 ended.  During that European maelstrom millions died in the trenches and running through barbed wire into machine guns.  When it was over, empires had crumbled and tumbled, and a new era was upon us.

In America President Woodrow Wilson had nationalized the railroads, jailed thousands guilty of German descent, ‘encouraged’ the stock markets to shut down, and put forth a vision of a new and much expanded role for government.  His progressive supporters doubled down and demanded that governments take over utilities like water, power, and other critical infrastructures.  This was in response to hard times that had descended over America at war’s end.

During the war the nation’s debt had exploded tenfold, taxes had already been raised to a top rate of 70%, but the economy continued sinking as various new federal budgets were proposed willy-nilly as businesses contracted and returning veterans could not find jobs.  Prices soared while wages lagged.  In response, workers in Seattle, New York, and Boston took to the streets, and open talk of revolution was in the air.

Speaking recently at Hillsdale College, Bloomberg syndicated columnist and author Amity Shlaes compared and contrasted those days with the polarization and unrest that we witness in America today.  The literal chaos that we found ourselves in after WW1 looked hopeless until the 1920 election when Warren Harding campaigned on a platform of smaller government and a ‘return to normalcy’.  His VP was Calvin Coolidge, former governor of Massachusetts and a no nonsense manager who someone said looked like he had been weaned on a sour pickle.

Policies were reversed, taxes lowered, and sensible budgets adopted.  Then Harding’s early death vaulted Coolidge into the White House.  Coolidge immediately adopted a firmer way forward; where Harding had said ‘yes’ to new spending proposals, Coolidge started saying ‘no’.  And the economy’s immediate response was what came to known as the ‘Roaring Twenties’, with soaring growth rates in the 3 and 4% range.

Along the way President Coolidge was a constant cost and tax cutter.  With his Treasury Secretary Mellon they ushered in what was called “scientific taxation”, the discovery that as tax rates were lowered, government revenues went up.  Today we call it the Laffer Curve.  By 1926 Coolidge had the top marginal rate down to 25%, and revenues poured into the federal coffers.

In 1928 Coolidge would have been a shoo-in, but he decided not to run.  Herbert Hoover was elected on the promise that he would continue the Coolidge policies, which he promptly abandoned.  And the rest is history.

But the real legacy of Calvin Coolidge is the moral case he made for lower taxes.  He did not lower them to increase revenues and expand government, but to reduce the burden on the taxpayer and to get government out of the people’s way.  Coolidge unwaveringly promoted American freedom and prosperity, and with his opposition to subsidies and his use of the Budget and Accounting Act of 1921, he demonstrated that a successful moral tax policy demands “tough budgeting” that is initiated and overseen by the Executive Branch.

This 1921 law served us well into the 1970s, when it was gutted as part of Watergate’s collateral damage, and the budgeting process was returned to Congress.  Today we see the fruits of that decision as we look at how the resulting string of broken budgets gave rise to ever more spending, deficits, debt, and governments’ growth.

[Molly’s closing.]

And I read the following offering written by Molly.

Last Fall I went back to the organic farm where I get most of my vegetables for an end-of-the-year “gleaning.” Half the reason I went was in honor of this old-fashioned, long-forgotten word, which comes from the Gaelic and means to gather anything little by little, especially what’s left after the regular gatherers are finished. The other half of the reason was because I’m a big fan of sharing.

From the earliest sibling hand-to-hand combat through kindergarten’s mottos and grammar school recess foursquare games, most Americans have been encouraged to share, take turns, and let Tom, Dick, or Harriet go next. This isn’t always a lesson that sticks, as you can see just by looking at the current administration. As we grow up, “share and share alike” seems to get muscled aside by “it’s a dog-eat-dog world,” and “every man for himself.” This might be the human animal’s natural state, entwined in our DNA, or a function of watching sports on TV, where a winning-at-all-costs mentality prevails. I don’t know — it’s just so disappointing. So whenever there’s a chance to promote or participate in sharing, I take it.

When I got to the farm — which is five open acres sloped at a lovely angle — it was filled with busy gleaners, from the septuagenarian hauling hot pepper plants out by the roots to a trio of little girls dropping cherry tomatoes carefully into their pockets. Men, women, and turquoise-haired teenagers were twisting eggplants, squashes, and seven kinds of tomatoes from their vines. They filled cardboard boxes, grocery bags, and every type of basket. People toted watermelons and baseball-bat zucchinis down the zinnia-lined promenade between the fields to their cars.

The farmers devised the gleaning as a way to strengthen bonds with the community, as well as not waste end-of-season produce that would otherwise be plowed under when they sowed their winter cover crop. These leftovers were perfectly tasty, despite not being farmstand-perfect in size or ripeness. Since early June the farmers have been picking produce, so there was a certain slap-happiness in their demeanor as they stood aside and watched a hundred people swarming the rows, fending for themselves among the tomatillos, carrots, and bolted basil.

There was a donation box, but we could take what we wanted, and were urged to take no more than we could use. The Interfaith Food Ministry hauled off ten huge boxes. A man I spoke to was going to make fried green tomatoes because of the movie title. I was thinking of ratatouille but it was impossible to get any picking done since I stopped to talk to so many friends. I came away, finally, with three eggplants, two green peppers, and a bag of tomatoes someone handed me, delighted at the beautiful fall day, the bustling scene, and the spirit of generosity. I put ten bucks in the kitty.

On the way home, I found myself humming: “And in the end, the love you take… is equal to the love you make.”

My name is Rebane, and I eschew these and related themes on georgerebane.com where the transcript of this commentary is posted with appropriate contrition.  Nevertheless, it still may be that these views are not shared by KVMR.  Thank you for listening.

It was a lot of fun, but we probably didn’t fool anybody.