Since the work I do involves the judicious and correct use of the English language, I thought it would be appropriate to call attention to how our major political parties employ key words in their allegedly deliberative discourse on issues. Of course, their studied usage of words often purposefully fails to make the connection necessary to maintain honest context, but then in a manner of speaking, they wouldn’t be “politically correct” if they did.
In Senate debate on energy policy, for example, Democrats are employing the word “jobs” as a major part of the discussion. Proposed “cap and trade” carbon emission legislation would, according to Democratic Senators, create millions of “jobs” and would keep those jobs here at home as part of a new “green energy” platform.
Across the aisle, their Republican colleagues decry the legislation as a huge “tax” on both the American people and small business. Onerous regulation and government intervention (also hot-button government-speak jargon) would create hundreds of billions of dollars in hidden “taxes,” which would stifle economic growth and prosperity.
What both of these groups fail to do, by design and to the detriment of the debate in my opinion, is show the direct link that exists between “taxes” and “jobs” in the domestic economy. If we look hard enough, doesn’t every “tax” dollar, regardless of how many are imposed on the American people (including Senators, by the way), somehow connect directly or indirectly to a “job?” Don’t so-called “entitlement” payments get spent in economic segments that keep retail workers and health care professionals employed? Don’t “defense” dollars translate to income for our brave soldiers and their families as well as the development and manufacture of weapons systems by contractors who employ engineers and secretaries?
Indeed, words such as “taxes” and “jobs” are inexorably tied to one another, but in politically motivated debate they are used separately by those who speak them. I mean, for Democrats to concede that the “jobs” they trumpet only emerge from the imposition and collection of “taxes,” or for Republicans to acknowledge that the “taxes” raised would result in creation of meaningful “jobs,” would somehow, if you will, negate the debate.
And heaven knows, in this little “democratic republic” of ours, it’s not in either party’s political interest to have a conversation that results in honest context, is it?
Tags: carbon emission legislation, Democrats, English language, entitlement, jobs, key words, Republicans, taxes