Michael Hirsh has a typically asinine column in today’s Newsweek, in which he berates Republicans for being unwilling to “compromise” (read: abandon conservative principles and flock to President Obama’s pork-filled big-spending “stimulus” proposal) and follow Obama’s lead in putting “childish things” (like core beliefs) behind them and focusing on making America more socialist.
For the purpose of this post, I’ll just quote the final portion of the column:
In his Inaugural Address, Obama proclaimed “an end to the petty grievances and false promises, the recriminations and worn-out dogmas, that for far too long have strangled our politics.” He said he wanted to move beyond “stale political arguments … The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works.”
That sounded about right to me, at least in terms of dealing with the crisis nature of the times. It is also smart, at this dire moment, to be trying to learn a few lessons from the past.
Obviously we don’t want to go back to the excesses of the long era of Democratic dominance and overspending—the New Deal-Great Society/Vietnam continuum—but neither can we simply return to the Republican era of Reaganite deregulation (especially of financial markets). It’s clear we need to do some serious rethinking of the best ways to make capitalism work, moving beyond both FDR and Reagan.
Get that? “Obviously we don’t want to go back to the excesses of the long era of Democratic dominance and overspending—the New Deal-Great Society/Vietnam continuum,” says Hirsh. Hm — if $800 billion in pork barrel giveaways isn’t “overspending,” what, in his opinion, would be?
He concludes:
But reaching a new consensus would require a reassessment of basic premises, and it appears, at least for the moment, that there will be very little of that. The emerging Republican consensus suggests that Bush grew so unpopular because he strayed from, rather than stood behind, the old GOP verities by creating a vast national-security state and giant deficits. Hence the Republicans are flocking to a proposal by the House Republican Study Committee calling for no new government spending at all, and nothing but tax cuts instead. A little over a week after Obama’s inauguration, “stale” political arguments again rule the day. So much for the post-partisan era.
Let me make sure I’ve got this straight: massive amounts of pork-barrel spending, using money we don’t have to redistribute wealth and fund pet projects, is a brand-new idea, yet actually allowing taxpayers (you know — the ones who produce goods and services and make this economy go) to keep more of their own money and use it as they see fit is a “stale political argument.”
Clearly Hirsh is as upset as Speaker Pelosi that House Republicans refused to provide Democrats with bipartisan cover on this failure-in-the-making of a spending bill.
Speaking of which, here’s a “fresh, new” idea for Mr. Hirsh: a majority party actually showing the backbone to take responsibility — without cover from the minority — for the policies they claim to firmly believe should be implemented. How’s that for revolutionary?
Moe Lane
Neil Stevens
Steve Maley
Dan McLaughlin
The Reagan Tax Cuts: Lessons for Tax Reform
izoneguy (Diary) Thursday, January 29th at 6:19PM EST (link)The Reagan Tax Cuts: Lessons for Tax Reform
Conclusion
The Reagan tax cuts, like similar measures enacted in the 1920s and 1960s, showed that reducing excessive tax rates stimulates growth, reduces tax avoidance, and can increase the amount and share of tax payments generated by the rich. High top tax rates can induce counterproductive behavior and suppress revenues, factors that are usually missed or understated in government static revenue analysis. Furthermore, the key assumption of static revenue analysis that economic growth is not affected by tax changes is di sproved by the experience of previous tax reduction programs. There is little reason to expect static revenue analysis to evaluate the economic or distributional effects of current tax reform proposals much better than it evaluated the Reagan tax program 15 years ago.
http://www.house.gov/jec/fiscal/tx-grwth/reagtxct/reagtxct.htm
The point cannot be made often enough: Modern liberalism, as embodied in the Obama presidency, is the defender of the status quo. And the status quo is a road to economic ruin. Political forces cannot redistribute the wealth that the economic system does not produce.
If responsible tax cuts are "stale ole politics", then I can take that.
gekster (Diary) Thursday, January 29th at 6:29PM EST (link)They say Republicans are for the rich, Democrats are for the poor.
If they need more voters,
then they have to make more of who they are for.
We are there in the various Tea Party groups, leaderless, but not rudderless.
We steer always toward the Constitutional principles this nation was founded upon.
Erick Brockway
Ok folks, 2012 is here. Get involved
Republicans Welcome Carbon Tax!
klangston Thursday, January 29th at 6:55PM EST (link)http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_11575954?source=most_viewed
Gore urged Congress to adopt the huge stimulus package as drawn up in the House, saying it will give renewable and alternative fuels a major boost and build a better electric “smart” grid. That would make it easier for Congress to pass a cap-and-trade bill, with a system for utilities and other companies that pollute less than the limit to trade or sell permits to those over the limit.
If Congress does that, Gore said, “the United States will regain its credibility and enter the treaty talks with a renewed authority to lead the world.”
One Republican, Sen. Bob Corker of Tennessee, said he expected a cap-and-trade bill to pass this year, although he favored a tax on carbon, as long as taxpayers are reimbursed through the payroll tax.
Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., said he wanted a strong climate treaty and praised Obama’s inaugural speech for “restoring science to its rightful place in the operation of our government.”
While Corker and other Republicans stressed the need for more nuclear energy to reduce reliance on oil and coal, Gore said nuclear energy could play a role, but the size and cost of new nuclear plants made him “skeptical” that enough private investment would be available.
The former vice president highlighted his testimony with new slides and video clips — sort of a sequel to his Oscar-winning “An Inconvenient Truth” — showing the latest data and images on melting polar ice and other climate change indicators. He said the latest data showed the planet was “in grave danger.”
“This is the one challenge that could completely end human civilization, and it’s rushing at us with such speed and force,” Gore warned.
The only grave danger to the planet
Praying (Diary) Friday, January 30th at 9:20AM EST (link)will be if the idiots in congress listen to Al Gore. What a doofus. Taxing carbon makes about as much sense as taxing oxygen. The biggest “greenhouse gas” is dihydrous oxide – H2O – water vapor. But these wackos will push their agenda, and apparently there are too many in congress with too little intelligence to make any kind of independent scientific evaluation. But over 31,000 scientists in the USA alone have come out against the rhetoric of the global warming (or climate change, since we hardly seen to be warm these days) alarmists. The earth has gone through warming and cooling cycles for millions of years, irrespective of human influence. I think Al Gore produces more “greenhouse gas” (of the methane variety) than the entire US beef and dairy cattle industry. Just shut up, Al. You’re a jerk.
No!!!11!1!!1!1! The Bilderbergers are coming
A Bleak Day
izoneguy (Diary) Thursday, January 29th at 7:00PM EST (link)http://spectator.org/archives/2009/01/29/a-bleak-day
“Only ten per cent of the “stimulus” to be spent on 2009.
Close to half goes to entities that sponsor or employ or both members of the Service Employees International Union, federal, state, and municipal employee unions, or other Democrat-controlled unions.
This bill is sent to Congress after Obama has been in office for seven days. It is 680 pages long. According to my calculations, not one member of Congress read the entire bill before this vote. Obviously, it would have been impossible, given his schedule, for President Obama to have read the entire bill.
This has been a punch in the solar plexus to the kind of responsible, far-seeing, mature government processes that are needed to protect America. This is more than the pork barrel. This is a coup for the constituencies of the party in power and against the idea of a responsible government itself. A bleak day.
Unfortunately, it is only the latest in a long series of such days stretching across decades of rule by both parties, to the point where truly responsible government is only a distant echo of our forgotten ancestors.”
The point cannot be made often enough: Modern liberalism, as embodied in the Obama presidency, is the defender of the status quo. And the status quo is a road to economic ruin. Political forces cannot redistribute the wealth that the economic system does not produce.
Change, huh...
Praying (Diary) Friday, January 30th at 9:21AM EST (link)You keep the change, I’ll keep my religion, guns, and money.
No!!!11!1!!1!1! The Bilderbergers are coming