It’s no secret that the rational wing of the Republican Party has been steadily abandoning the party in recent years.
In the era of Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck, and the Tea Party, the GOP base has increasingly become the last bastion of conspiracy-theories and magical thinking.
But the latest proposal by congressional Republicans to double down on the reckless Bush tax cuts may just be a bit too magical for many of those who joined the GOP back when it still represented America’s business class, and believed in things like fiscal prudence.
You don’t need to find a Democrat these days to hear the Republican plan to extend the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy written off as a lousy idea. Alan Greenspan—as ardent a free market proponent and tax-cutter as exists— called the proposal potentially “disastrous” for the economy.
Former Reagan budget director David Stockman called it evidence of political bankruptcy on the part of the GOP. In a widely-read editorial this week, Stockman notes: “Republicans used to believe that prosperity depended upon the regular balancing of accounts— in government, in international trade, on the ledgers of central banks and in the financial affairs of private households and businesses, too. But the new catechism, as practiced by Republican policymakers for decades now, has amounted to little more than money printing and deficit finance— vulgar Keynesianism robed in the ideological vestments of the prosperous classes.”
While Republicans criticize the Obama administration for federal stimulus spending to repair the economy, it has been the Republicans, for the past two decades, who have recklessly inflated the economy with borrowed money handed out by the truckoad to rich Americans. The result, according to Mr. Stockman, has been “the serial financial bubbles and Wall Street depredations that have crippled our economy.”
What Mr. Stockman did not mention is that one result of two decades of Republican fiscal policy has been to lay bare the fallacy of supply-side economics for all to see.
At no time in more than a century, has the supply side of the U.S. economy been more flooded with liquid assets, and yet the economy can barely muster the strength to add any new jobs.
The Federal Reserve gives greenbacks away to banks for nothing, while the nation’s corporations sit on unprecedented hordes of cash— about two trillion dollars according to the latest financial reports.
That would certainly be enough to spark a recovery, except there is little reason for all those corporations to begin investing their mountains of money—because demand for goods and services is so slack.
As Henry Ford well understood more than a century ago, the best way to grow America’s economy is to grow demand by building a strong middle class, not by filling the already-stuffed pockets of millionaires, as the GOP has claimed for the past two decades.
The half-baked theories of supply-siders have long been based more on politics than rational economics. But then handing over hundreds of billions in borrowed money for tax cuts to the wealthy would have been unseemly, had it not gone hand-in-hand with claims that doing so would spark economic prosperity for all. Were that the case, of course, the Bush policies would have spawned an unprecedented economic expansion, growing family incomes, and lower deficits. Instead, we’ve experienced the gutting of the middle class, a crushing financial collapse, and a $1.3 trillion federal deficit.
It all should have been obvious to any student of history. Deregulation and supply-side tax cuts implemented in the 1920s by Republicans Warren Harding and Calvin Coolidge temporarily inflated the economy but led to financial collapse by 1929. It’s funny how history has a way of repeating itself.
Republicans in Congress are apparently hoping the third time’s the charm. But pursuing the same policies and expecting a different result is a common definition of insanity.
Of course, in this strange new Fox News-derived “reality,” you can simultaneously bark about the dangers of the national debt or decry a $30 billion extension of unemployment benefits for out-of-work Americans, while happily proposing a $687 billion, unfunded extension of tax cuts for millionaires.
Amazingly, these folks don’t even comprehend the hypocrisy, much less the irony.
As political parties go, the Republicans increasingly look like a run-away train, headed over the cliff of ultra-extremism. It’s no wonder the more sensible members of the party are desperately looking for the emergency exits.
Rome is burning and Marshall is preaching about--you guessed it--how the minority party is to blame! Psssstttt--hey Marshall--Dems have run Congress since January '07 and the whole shootin' match since January '09. Thought I'd point that out.
Oh, golly gee ... that is such a long time. And given the huge amount of cooperation offered by the minority party ...
But maybe you are right on timing. Bush was able to get us into two glorious wars by this time in his terms ... and have the economy headed into an abyss.
Gosh, Marshall, how could you have overlooked such obvious things. (Yes, I know you have better things to do, but our friend who hides behind nicknames, including his own, doesn't. Just likes to rant and rave.
"It’s no secret that the rational wing of the Republican Party has been steadily abandoning the party in recent years. In the era of Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck, and the Tea Party, the GOP base has increasingly become the last bastion of conspiracy-theories and magical thinking."
Marshall,
Your lead-in is upside-down. It's cute, but erroneous. Data show that independents are sloughing off the Democrats like scabies and moving Rightward. What does this imply about the station of us already to the right? America has been lied to, laughed at and looted by the loopy liberals on the Left, who in their finest hour have foisted a dangerous radical with a nine millimeter mentality upon the country, attaining office through the auspice of nothing more concrete than false hope and quick change. Most people know that now. A tsunami is building and will break in November, washing many things away.
Sustainable living, so dear to many in the Lakes Region, is foreign to this Administration's modus operandi, and as result the United States, like all organisms, wouldn't be able to survive in its own waste. And that is what we have - waste. The wreckage that liberals in D.C. have caused to be strewn about the country: the general contempt now shown the office of President (transparency anyone?); the Obamacare sure to bring untimely death to the elderly and puncture the ceiling with total health care costs; the wholesale legitimization of up to an astounding thirty-eight (38) million often unemployable and doleful illegal aliens already in this country; the begging of our companies to flee for China (just now surpassing Japan as the world's second largest economy), by seeking to institute Cap and Trade and other injurious policies; the lies and falsifications that Anthropomorphic Global Warming rode in on - hellbent to modify our standard of living downward; the spending of play money by a reckless Congress and administrative branch at a yearly rate FOUR TIMES that of the Bush Administration... and on across the landscape...
This 'tax the rich, tax the rich' miasma, so personified locally by Mark Dayton, is a feel good mustard plaster, mistakenly designed to alleviate the pain of an economy in the doldrums. But it can't. It can only cause more misery. Taxing the rich with a vengeance can't restore an economy, because the rich making a lot of money isn't the cause of our economic problem. Lack of domestic production is. Why madly confiscate the reward that the more brilliant and successful in this country have garnered? They're the ones already who through their taxes into the federal treasury are carrying the rest of the country. Joe Poor isn't - he can't - he doesn't know how to make any money. The United States currently rides on the backs of the rich and nearly so, just as "He ain't heavy - he's my brother" on the Father Flannagan Boy's Town stamps at Christmastime tells the story.
Any wishware thinking that conservatism isn't destined to become dominant soon is delusional. Conservatism resides in the hearts of most. It's even in the heart of an erratic personality such as Mark Dayton, notwithstanding his pronouncements against the rich. If pressed, I'm sure he would admit "Yeah, sure, I've taken tax deductions. I'm entitled to it."
We are all fiscally conservative. None of us donates more taxes than is demanded by law. And taxes being blood to the vampire of liberalism, as the great cry of the future is heard - that of government being throttled by angry voters - the vampire will of necessity slink back into its cave to hang upside-down in the dark... and sulk alone.
Oh my ... do we have a local Glenn Beck? I have not read this much jibberish since ... well, I'm not sure I ever have. Fresh out of the woodwork.
I just wish someone on the conservative side would come up with some ideas to help things out rather than babble endlessly about why they, emotionally, think things are wrong.
I dream!
Tell you what Jay tee, why don't YOU offer some ideas. Practice what you preach.
Tell you what Mr. "use nicknames cuz you think it's cute" (I remind you that in debate, that is one of the worst tactics - shows lack of credibility - think about it), since I am agreeing with the opinion piece, the ideas I agree with and support HAVE been stated.
In most all of Mr. Helmberger's (and the Timberjay's) positions, i am in agreement.
And will continue to comment on the allusions of some of those who comment against these positions while continuing to hide behind their online pseudonyms.
Gee...I like listening to Glenn Beck each morning. What do you want me to do? Switch over to Lew Latto?