I get so aggravated by people just repeating the same lies over and over again, with the hope that people will just accept them. Case in point, last week at The Upshot, Tyler Cowen wrote, It’s Not the Inequality; It’s the Immobility. This is a perfect example of a headline used by a Very Serious Person. Yes, silly people like me care about inequality, but that’s not the problem at all! The problem is immobility. I guess Cowen is using the word “mobility” instead of “equality of opportunity” since that phrase has now been totally destroyed as the apologetic drivel that it always was.

Technically, there is a difference between mobility and equality of opportunity. What Cowen is pushing is the old Milton Friedman idea that it doesn’t matter if almost all of productivity gains go to the rich, as long as their rising tides lift all boats. But look at just what a fraud Cowen is; he wrote, “[W]hile we have talked incessantly about the disproportionate gains of the top 1 percent, the wage slowdown in the United States in recent decades is a bigger problem for most people.” He’s right in the second half of that. But does he really expect us to believe that the decoupling of wages and productivity is not a direct result of things like the decline of labor unions that have allowed the rich to capture all of those productivity gains as increased profits?

He goes on to say that inequality shouldn’t necessarily be a negative term. I agree. A certain level of economic inequality is desirable. For example, some people want to work less and are willing to sacrifice the extra money that goes with extra work. And no one has a problem with incentives. But given the staggering level of inequality in the United States and to a lesser extent the developed world, how can anyone talk about inequality being a good thing? If Cowen wants to have this conservation, he can bring it up when corporate CEO wages are back down to 50 times the average worker pay. Until then, inequality is indeed a very bad word.

The entire article is so filled with caveats that it made my head spin. But the point of the whole thing is very clear: let’s not look at inequality! Instead, we are supposed to look at “immobility.” And how? By making it easier to become a doctor or a lawyer? Oh no! We can’t do that. That might cost Tyler Cowen’s friends money. Instead, “[C]onsider the licensing of occupations like interior decorators and barbers.” This is a favorite of upper class columnists everywhere. Those barber licenses are really what’s keeping the poor down! (Note: I think many of these kinds of regulations are stupid. But I’ve written much in the past of the kinds of things that I, as a micro-business owner, find most difficult in making a living. Licensing requirements are greatly overstated as a barrier to doing business.)

He ends the article with some brilliant but pernicious apologetics:

The whole point here is that we shouldn’t pay attention to income inequality. “Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain!” The fact, however, is that inequality is largely the cause of immobility. Dean Baker took on these issues in an article, Tyler Cowen’s Three-Card Monte on Inequality. In addition to mentioning many of the same things I did, he noted that inequality itself can reduce productivity growth. And most important of all, “[M]any of the policies that would most obviously promote equality also promote growth.” But this is what Cowen — or any of the Very Serious People — wants to talk about. He just wants to talk about how we can improve the lives of the poor by dislocating the middle class. And never, never, never think about the justice of the rich extracting all the productivity gains of the economy for themselves.

I was talking to Will over the weekend about Glenn Ford — the recently exonerated Louisiana man who had spent 30 years on death row. He’s been in the news recently, because the state is refusing to pay full restitution to him. Meanwhile, Ford has stage four lung cancer. He has been released just in time to die. And the state is messing with him. The judge in the case claimed that “he did not have clean hands.” This is because he knew those who did commit the crime, but despite what the judge says, there is actually little evidence that he was majorly involved in the crime. But what does it matter? Ford is poor, black, old, and dying. The state of Louisiana is showing the kind of callousness that we expect.

But Will thought I was talking about a different case. Anthony Ray Hinton was convicted of two murders a year after Ford in the similarly enlightened state of Alabama. He spent 28 years is solitary confinement in a 40 square foot cell. But that is the least of the injustices done to him. Hinton had no criminal record. The police tried to get him for the non-fatal shooting of a man working at a restaurant. As usual with these cases, the only evidence against him was an eye-witness — the victim himself. But it turned out that Hinton could not have committed the crime. So the police went searching for a crime that they could charge him with.

Five months earlier, two managers at a fast food restaurant were murdered. There was no evidence, but the police decided that Hinton had done it. They searched his house and found a pistol that belonged to his mother. The prosecution claimed that the gun was used in both crimes. Hinton’s public defender did not counter this — probably because he didn’t know he could have requested extra funds to hire a ballistics expert. It was determined much later that not only was that not the gun used in the crimes, the two crimes were committed with different guns. Hinton was railroaded.

There is much more to the case. You can read Steven D’s excellent overview if you feel like being enraged, Alabama AG: “No Comment.” That title is in reference to the fact that the Alabama Attorney General had no comment on the case, even after the state had spent over a decade fighting a retrial after experts discovered that Hinton must be innocent. (The case had to go to the Supreme Court before Alabama would grant a retrial.)

I think it is interesting that Will and I could be confused about similar cases. This is because there are so many of them. And the total apathy of those in the “judicial” system is staggering. But I guess it goes along with the American attitude that it is more important to look like you are doing something than to actually accomplish something. In this case, rather than actively seek justice, prosecutors and judges just try to stop the world from knowing about the injustices that they create every day. In the case of Glenn Ford, they were probably hoping that he would just die in prison.

Meanwhile, no one is held accountable. The prosecutor in Hinton’s case was a known racist who was allowed to say in court that he knew Hinton was evil just by looking at him. I’ve tried to find the name of the prosecutor, but I have been unable. He’s probably dead anyway. And if he isn’t, there will be no public shaming, much less professional or economic penalties. (To his credit, Ford’s prosecutor has apologized and has advocated for him.) The police who railroaded Hinton doubtless got raises for bringing down such a dangerous criminal. And it is not clear if Hinton will receive any compensation from the state. Another day for justice in America.

On Thursday, Jonathan Bernstein provided some real insight on a side of things I hadn’t much thought about, The Iran Deal and US Politics. I was most struck by what he said about public opinion, “President Barack Obama is extremely unlikely to get a short-term public opinion bounce from the deal announced today that outlines next steps in curbing Iran’s nuclear program.” If he had started bombing Iran, well then, his approval rating might shoot up to over 50%. Leave it to Americans to be happy about something we know they would complain about in short order. But the main thing is that while Americans may live their lives in terror about Iran, they aren’t at all interested in the actual work of governments to reduce that threat.

Now Senator Bob Corker has proposed a bill that would limit, and potentially eliminate, the President’s ability to lift most of the sanctions against Iran. He can do this because it is a matter of national security. I’ve never been so keen on all of this kind of Unitary Executive Theory garbage. But the right of the President to manage foreign affairs is established in the Constitution and by tradition. But the Republicans, who always claim they want a “strong” President, decide against that the moment the President doesn’t see his job as going to war at every opportunity.

Of course, it isn’t just Republicans. Many Democrats in Congress are for doing this as well. This is why this is potentially a threat to the deal with Iran. It is possible that Corker’s bill could get enough support from Democrats that it would be able to overcome a veto. In the Senate, 13 Democrats would be needed. But here’s the shocking thing, “In the Senate, nine Democrats have already signed on as cosponsors… with several more supporters said to be waiting in the wings.” Just brilliant. When it comes to NSA spying or unrestricted drone killings or bank bailouts while homeowners get screwed, the Democrats in Congress can’t get in the way of the President. But on this issue, the Democrats are going to take a stand? Unbelievable.

And who is one of the biggest supporters? Only the future Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer. He’s a multiple threat: a Wall Street hack and apparently someone who thinks that Israel ought to be dictating US Middle East policy. The thing is, all this “tough on Iran” business is nonsense. The deal we are looking at is really good. And this is all reminding me of the budget deal that John Boehner passed up in 2011. In 2012, Obama allegedly chided him, “You should have taken that deal when you had the chance.” We aren’t going to get a better deal with Iran. And to those many people who think that the Iranian regime is on the verge of collapse, I have one word: Cuba. (Of course, most of these same people think that after 50 years, Cuba is on the verge of cracking too.)

It is possible that the excellent Iran deal framework will change some minds — at least in the Democratic Party. But it is hard to say. The truth is that all this anti-Iran hysteria is not based upon a rational analysis. It is rather based upon the same old irrational belief that our enemies are monsters who just can’t be trusted to act in their own interests. And that very clearly isn’t the case. If this is the hill that Democrats want to die on with respect to standing up to the President, it will be very sad for this country.

Do you know whose taxes are easy: mine. I don’t make enough money for there to be any questions. There is the amount of money I make. There is the standard deduction. There is the money that I owe (or as is generally the case, don’t owe). Whose taxes are complicated are people like Mitt Romney — with all the shenanigans that his tax people get up to long before he’s even acquired it all. And what this means is that it really isn’t hard for the IRS to police me. In fact, they could have a computer do it (and probably do). But to police the Mitt Romneys of the world, the IRS needs well trained and experienced agents.

Thus, it isn’t surprising that conservatives like the idea of gutting IRS enforcement. Most of them will admit that they want to destroy the IRS. Doing so would turn the United States into a kind of banana republic where those who are currently at the top would stay there and have even more power. Poor people might like the idea of not having to pay taxes, but an end of the IRS would decimate the economy. I would be surprised if it didn’t turn the Land of the Free into the Land of Mad Max.

Chuck Marr, Joel Friedman, and Brandon DeBot wrote a really interesting paper over at the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, IRS Funding Cuts Continue to Compromise Taxpayer Service and Weaken Enforcement. It starts with a stunning fact, “The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) budget has been cut by 18 percent since 2010, after adjusting for inflation.” This has the effect of providing far less and inferior help to ordinary tax payers like me who are forced to do our taxes ourselves. But more important, this has a huge effect on the finances of the government:

They also note that the Republican budgets out of the House and Senate would make further cuts to the IRS, even while they claim to be all concerned about balancing the budget in ten years and other ridiculous ideas. The truth is that these Representatives and Senators are looking at eliminating their own jobs. This reminds me of the Nazis after they took over the government, they effectively destroyed the Reichstag. A large segment of the Republicans in Congress did not come to fix the government but to destroy it. They are radicals — things totally outside the American tradition.

What are we going to do about this? I really don’t know. It seems that all a Republican has to do to get sent to Washington is to say that abortion is baby murder and claim that she would nuke Iran if given half a chance. Meanwhile, the real work of these Republicans is not what they say publicly. These people are so dangerous, that we would be better off having representatives from General Motors and Walmart. Grover Norquist was apparently wrong. It isn’t necessary to make government small enough to kill in a bath tub. It can be done gradually, just by defunding the IRS. And in a short time, only the little people like me will be paying taxes. And Norquist and his conservative allies should be fine with that.