Takers and Makers

"We risk hitting a tipping point in our society where we have more takers than makers … President Obama's policies are feverishly putting more people in the column of being takers than makers. We're going to either have a taker society or a maker society. The president is trying to create more of a permanent class of government dependents."

— Paul Ryan, August 11, 2012

What's curious about this is the imbalance between the intensity of the fear — that, as Ryan puts it, we'll soon have more 'takers,' fewer 'makers' — and the utter lack of specificity. No evidence. No statistics. The congressman doesn't explain what a 'taker' is, as opposed to a 'maker.' He doesn't tell us how many 'takers' we had before Obama or how many we have now. We're not at all sure it's a thing we can measure. Last but not least, he doesn't tell us which of "President Obama's policies" are responsible for the threat, or how they effect the transformation from maker into taker.

My guess as to why he doesn't divulge these things is twofold. First, I suspect the stats here are dicey. Even if one could arrive at a definition for 'maker' and a corresponding one for 'taker,' statistics are unlikely to tell a clean, clear story about either over the last four years. What's more, the origin of most of the bad news is unlikely to be anything Obama's done. It'll all root in the 2008 crash. Ryan's hyperventilatingly anti-regulatory campaign doesn't want to discuss what pretty much everyone with a pulse agrees are the dire consequences of underregulation.

Second, and more significantly: drawing clear lines between 'takers' and 'makers' is almost certainly an act of political suicide. The unemployment rolls have expanded dramatically since the financial crash; Congress has extended unemployment benefits multiple times since 2009. Are recipients of government largesse such as these a great new batch of 'takers,' or are they merely 'makers' in a temporary pinch of outside provenance?

It gets more granular, and more dangerous for Ryan. A unionized worker in an auto factory: taker, or maker? A two-income family relying on mortgage assistance to escape forclosure: takers, or makers? For that matter, any homeowner making use of the mortgage interest deduction: takers, the lot of us?

Or how about this: Rex Tillerson, chairman of Exxon Corp, which receives billions in tax exemptions each fiscal year: taker, or maker? Or Wes Bush, CEO of Northrup Grumman, beneficiary of $5 billion in government contracts last year — taker or maker? And how about this: the DoD wants to kill the Abrams tank; it's old and irrelevant, they say. Congress has lined up to keep making it anyway, and to force the Pentagon to keep buying it, at taxpayer expense amounting to nearly $300 million. If Congress succeeds, will everyone who thenceforth works on an Abrams tank component be a taker? How about the execs at General Dynamics, which makes it? Better still (and if the Obama campaign doesn't ask this, they don't deserve to win): General Motors — makers, or takers?

You can see where this goes. 'Maker society' and 'taker society' are pretty tightly entwined. Most makers are, or were, takers of some kind. Most takers are also makers, or were; and most expect to be again.

So who's Ryan talking about? What's Ryan talking about?

Somebody wanna ask?