The 2012 Economic Choices
President Obama has decided to make income inequality the major focus of his re-election campaign. Using the Occupy Wall Street events to highlight his message, he has called boosting middle-class opportunity the “defining issue of our times”. The weakening economy has driven both parties to find an approach which best taps into it. For the Republicans it will be the lack of jobs. For Obama it will be the gap between the rich and the poor. The LA Times summarizes both approaches succinctly:
Republicans would like to make the November election a referendum on Obama’s economic record. For much of his presidency, they have pounded away at monthly statistics showing high unemployment and anemic growth.
“We’re seeing continuing high levels of unemployment. We see home values declining; foreclosures remain at record levels,” former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney points out often. Obama, he says, “has failed in the job he was elected to do.”…
So increasingly, Obama and his aides have switched to a longer view, trying to focus attention on what they portray as the president’s defense of the middle class. That positioning, they hope, will set up a helpful contrast with his November opponent.
“This isn’t just about recovering from this recession,” said a senior advisor to Obama, one of several who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about internal White House discussions. “This is about saving the middle class from a decline that’s been going on for three decades.”
Democratic strategists believe their new approach has gained more of an audience this fall, in part from the attention to inequality spotlighted by Occupy Wall Street and similar demonstrations. And they feel Republicans have played into their argument by first backing tax cuts for the wealthy and then balking at a payroll tax cut aimed at the middle class.
“The social Darwinism, the trickle-down economics — these are just not working for this country,” said David Axelrod, the president’s longest-standing political advisor. “The president’s vision was a very distinct vision from what the Republicans are offering.”
The announcement is an admission that the OWS — objectively if not deliberately — was the curtain raiser for a strategic communications plan which in essence presents redistribution as a solution to the ongoing economic crisis. If the current crisis had its genesis in the last “three decades” then something other than what the Clintons had doing has to be emplaced. Whether that program is called ‘socialism’ or something else, it is clearly something different; something hatched as the President’s team put it, “from a higher altitude”.
To avoid looking like a Bolshevik, Obama is spinning himself as a moderate, the simple heir of Roosvelt, defending America against the primitivist Republicans. EJ Dionne at the San Francisco Chronicle says that Republicans, by resisting Obama, are playing into his hands. It is they, he says, who are the subversives. They are trying to dismantle the modest redistributive mechanisms that are now part of the American mainstream. All Obama is trying to do, he says, is expand them a little.
Today’s Republicans cast the federal government as an oppressive force, a drag on the economy and an enemy of private initiative. The GOP is engaged in a wholesale effort to redefine the government help that Americans take for granted as an effort to create a radically new, statist society. Consider Romney’s claim in a Bedford, N.H. speech: “President Obama believes that government should create equal outcomes. And the only people who truly enjoy any real rewards are those who do the redistributing – the government.”
Obama believes no such thing. But Romney’s sleight of hand is revealing: Republicans are increasingly inclined to argue that any redistribution (and Social Security, Medicare, student loans, veterans benefits and food stamps are all redistributive) is but a step down the road to some radically egalitarian dystopia.
Dionne says Obama is going to avoid the economic quagmire by asking a different question. The issue will not be whether the economy is bad or good but whether government matters. By posing the issue in these terms the President can essentially ask each and every public employee, and every last dependent on government largesse: do you want to keep your job because these Republicans are going to take it away from you. Dionne says:
The GOP might well win a referendum on the state of the economy. But if this is instead a larger-scale referendum on whether government should be “inconsequential”, Republicans will find the consequences to be very disappointing.
The Democratic Party is readying itself for either a muddled Republican message or a conservative call to arms. Against either kind of opposition it intends to push further left. If against a muddler then it plans to advance against scattered opposition. If against a conservative activist, then to win a decisive ideological battle. But whatever they encounter, Obama intends to win in 2012 and believes he can do it.
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Obama certainly has no intention of mounting any sort of “defense of the middle class”. Instead, what he will likely try to defend and enhance are the opportunities for non-Asian minorities to get and keep make-work government jobs. This will involve a further increase in federal hiring, huge new transfers to state and local governments and a major new emphasis on the racial spoils system for government hiring.
These may even work to get him reelected. It will certainly work unless Republicans and their nominee lose their fear of being called “racists” and start adopting campaign themes and governing agendas that explicitly call for a defense of the genuine middle class against Obama’s ersatz version–his army of pillagers.
To avoid looking like a Bolshevik, Obama is spinning himself as a moderate, the simple heir of Roosevelt, defending America against the primitivist Republicans. EJ Dionne at the San Francisco Chronicle says that Republicans, by resisting Obama, are playing into his hands. It is they, he says, who are the subversives.
I have to say, I absolutely agree with this choice of an issue, and with Dionne’s comment that Republicans SHOULD not and MUST not oppose it head-on.
The distribution of incomes is *the* social, political, and economic issue now. What will the US look like, with no middle class? I doubt it can be anything like it ever was. Can the middle class be sustained by the Fed printing money and government being the major employer? That’s the way we are heading. If the Republicans have an alternate analysis or solution, I have not heard it. They seem blind, in total denial, and there is virtually no difference between Mitt and Newt on this. LuapNor doesn’t seem to know or care, he is The Neanderthal here, meaning no disrespect to Neanderthals, Mitt and Newt are just RINOs, large snorting beasts pretending, not very convincingly, to be donkeys.
The economic issue arose during the Reagan 1980s, but we managed to maintain for thirty years on a series of bubbles. The solution – my solution – is a new-protectionism, or whatever else it takes to bring back 10,000,000 jobs from China. But even with that, I doubt the problem is entirely fixed.
There may be no individual personally less qualified to take on this issue than Obambus, but if the apparat gives him the issue and a few nice teleprompter speeches to read, it may work for him. My answer again – Donald Trump. Trump, I believe, will also see this as a critically valid and effective issue. Not that Trump himself should run, I don’t know that he has any more political skill than Obambus has economic skill.
Wot a mess.
I think it terribly important that Republicans not allow Obama to dictate the terms of the argument, as he did in 2008. Point to Greece (heck, all the EU) and say there lies out future. George Will said it so well the other day – make the Dems defend the position that government is presently too small, too modest, and too frugal. Have them defend the notion that taxpayers (not just the rich) are simply not paying enough.
Jonathan Rauch made the case in his 1999 book, ‘Demosclerosis,’ that the decline of the middle class since 1973 is because of re-distributionism. The Economic Freedom group has a video on their website showing stagnant middle class median income over the past 39 years began in 1973, when rising American productivity rates separated from stagnant rates in income and the number of professional lobbyists exploded.
Yet, the Democrats intend to make re-distribution the hallmark of their hold on the White House. Saul Alinsky’s most able student just might pull this off.
Republicans are in no position to object. ‘Crony capitalism’ is entirely re-distributionism, as is ‘insidious socialism’ in the Democratic Party. There are more than 12,000 tariffs and uncounted numbers of subsidies that both Republicans and Democrats have handed out to the rent-seekers who loyally share their respective ideology, all at the expense of the middle class. Just as Obama’s Solyndra is re-distributionism, so is Bush’s Medicare expansion.
Mr. Obama’s life-long love affair with re-distributionism (see the videos of his re-distributionism interviews when he was an Illinois state senator) will now become the hallmark of his presidency. Re-distributionism is better known as the ‘Entitlement State,’ the latest stage in the evolution of democratic socialist progress from an Industrialized Nation of rising incomes, to a Welfare State to help the truly needy, to a governance that obscenely rewards greed, not need, in the middle class.
It’s a rather brilliant ironic strategy, utterly unknown to Marx; spread socialism by capitalism rewarding greed in the middle class.
The Republicans will never be able to stop this democratic socialism evolution, because their fingerprints are all over the mega-billions they gave to their favored constituencies when they were in power (remember Bush’s TARP and his steel tariff?). Literally, re-distributionism is now the key feature to insure re-election for BOTH major parties, so the Republicans have zero credibility to halt this socialist progress.
The Republican Party has a massive advantage in 2012 in that it has a good chance of getting a majority in the Senate. It won’t be a supermajority, but a majority in both houses would be able to repeal Obamacare (if Obama isn’t President) with “deem and pass”. So, the Republicans must focus on repealing Obamacare.
Beyond Obamacare, a Republican majority would have two disadvantages – one is that it would be expected to govern. The other is that Barack Obama might be attempting to follow the example of Grover Cleveland and run in 2016. Against this backdrop, the temptation would be to accomplish as much as possible within a short window of opportunity – just as the Clinton administration attempted in its first two years in office. The question is whether the Republican Party will resist that temptation.
If it gets elected (still a big if), a post-Obama Republican administration would need to construct a governing majority. This would likely mean finding “wedge” issues that can split the Democratic Party caucus and pushing hard for balanced budgets that are actually balanced budgets. The Post Office and NASA are in desperate need of reform; each institution is a symbol of national greatness that is also known for waste – the bureaucracy of each institution needs a massive overhaul that can only be done with an effective governing majority.
I think Americans will accept a package of budget cuts and tax increases if (and only if) this means that our currency becomes solvent. The Right demands tax cuts and the Left demands government spending; ever since the Vietnam War, the United States has refused to raise taxes to pay for its wars, with the effect of creating inflation since the early 1970’s. America’s unwillingness to pay for its wars since 1964 has been a de facto concession to the anti-war Left before a shot has ever been fired.
I do not see why conservatives should be upset with levying war taxes upon nonprofit corporations with endowments over $500 million, particularly considering what those nonprofit corporations actually accomplish.
If Ron Paul wins the nomination both the MSM and the Republican Party will have to start honestly discussing issues that they have been trying to avoid for decades the same way they have been avoiding Paul: The Fed, The Constitution, the defecits.
If any of the other Republican candidates win the nomination then yes, the discussion will deal with redistribution and whatever narrative the Democrats choose for the Republicans because all the other Republicans are as desperate as the Democrats to avoid discussing the true nature of the beast that has occuped Washington since Lincoln.
The European Central Bank just issued a report that concludes that government spending slows economic growth. http://www.ecb.int/pub/pdf/scpwps/ecbwp1399.pdf
Government spending hurts the economy and makes you poorer. The ECB says that this economic principle is universal. It applies to monarchies, socialist paradises, and democracies with equal vigor. It applies equally whether the spending is from taxes or from borrowing.
Obama is lying. The only real question is whether enough people are stupid enough to believe him.
The key to returning the jobs from China will be to reduce the regulatory burden. Obama is counting on using the perceived threat to government jobs to prevent dismantling the suffocating state bureaucracy.
But if the approach to dismantling the bureaucracy took the initial form of disempowering it instead of abolishing it, then it would generate far less resistance.
The Republicans should launch Project Deadwood, an effort to shift the bureaucracy away from where it can do harm to where it can do nothing much but stay employed. The basic idea then would be to create departments of deadwood where the worst busybodies can be exiled.
One of the great things about Roosevelt’s WPA is that while it hired people as government employees it gave them no bureaucratic power. What they got was an overpriced man with a shovel and a pickaxe instead of power. That was sheer brilliance. It created employment, did something halfway useful and added nothing much to the bureaucracy.
If the Republicans can keep the deadwood employed then why would they object? Eventually they will be removed as redundant, but in the meantime they will be happy as clams in mud.
The GOP candidates should hire some young talented public policy graduates to create interesting but powerless jobs for existing paper pushers that involve doing and learning learning some potentially useful commercial skill under a grandiose title.
Why not pay useless teachers to leave the classroom and work transcribing stuff from newspaper morgues into electronic form? They could collect their entire government salary, plus $5 an hour on top of that from a private company on top of that on a government-business “partnership” basis. Pass a law allowing it if there is legal difficulty. Then call retitle these deadwood “Knowledge Archivists”, they’ll have status and all the pay they have now plus five extra bucks an hour.
At $5 an hour private industry could compete with China, because that would be their marginal labor cost. Instead of subsidizing cronies, you use government employees who would otherwise have a net negative value to perform useful but uneconomical tasks for business on a matching basis and thereby subsidize that productive activity. If you provide this arrangement only to uncompetitive industries then the only competition will be to other currency-subsidized outfits in places like China.
Then you can match your deadwood-fueled industries against China’s cheap yuan-fueled industries.
I’m sure there are lots of things wrong with this idea, but the basic concept is to reduce the regulatory burden by creating these deadwood departments and shift all the busybodies to them. That will take the wind out of Obama’s strategy. Then get the deadwood do do something useful that may prepare them for real jobs.
“X: Please check out http://www.redstate.com/moe_lane/2011/12/26/did-the-va-gop-change-the-rules-on-primary-ballot-access-in-november-2011/” I guess Newt/Perry’s campaigns in VA weren’t as pathetic as thought. Still, Newt LIVES there, he should have been able to get on the ballot and Perry had the money to pay signature gatherers. Newt too, if necessary from his personal fortune.
And Stoch, to answer your question: yes, there are plenty of road maps for sale in Russia, and contrary to popular belief, it is possible to drive to Siberia or to the Caucasus, but not probably all the way from Moscow to Yakutia and on to Chuhotka opposite Alaska without some serious off-roading 4 wheel drive. I’ve seen the Russian version of Top Gear in Siberia on TV in Moscow.
One could say that Russia’s lack of a true multilane interstate highway system (as opposed to something that looks more like our pre-50s roadway system) is a travesty. Particularly when factoring in the way Russians drive, not so much drunk as insane in the opposite lane of a two lane strip going 100 mph. On the other hand, maintaining concrete particularly in the far north and most of Siberia outside Novosibirsk and the oil hub cities (Tyumen, Surgut) would be enormously expensive and literally building roads to nowhere even in a perfectly clean system. And as Medvedev observed in his ‘what are we building highways on the Moon?’ remark, the costs of concrete and road construction in Russia are astronomical due to all the players involved. In Moscow region think the cost of highway building in Illinois and at least double it if not triple it.
“the basic concept is to reduce the regulatory burden by creating these deadwood departments and shift all the busybodies to them.”
Government work has always been a form of welfare and the vast majority of government employees are already deadwood anyway. The only ones doing any type of real work are those peddling influence and polical hacks following some hidden agenda.
Even if Ron Paul is elected he will not be able to change Washington without a vast change in ethics there and this is not likely. The Republican elitists would join forces with the Democrat elitists and they would thwart him at every turn just as they have done for decades.
The most likely way that the regulatory burden is going to be changed is when it all collapses under the mass of its own corrupt weight and the union falls apart and the states are left to fend for themselves.
wretchard, I don’t know about make-work jobs. on the one hand, they can also provide training, as well as stabilize the work force. on the other hand, they certainly take work and workers away from the private sector. on the third hand, the freeway and other public edicfice construction industry is probably the most corrupt thing still moving in this country, so why not take some work away from them and let people do it with shovels at minimum wage instead? well, for one thing, the results might collapse. still, perhaps it can be worked out. my high school was all WPA construction, and I still associate it with some timelessly weird but mostly good institutional vibes.
just one more comment on Obambus running as savior of the middle class (about which he knows absolutely nothing), which is that, I have the intuition, the premonition, that he is seriously going to get his chance. I smell some kind of economic crisis coming right smack in the middle of next year, my best guess is that it will allow the feds to nationalize the top three or four banks, or maybe just flat out all of them. Dodd-Frank may require it.
but if the only solution Obambus offers in his campaign is higher taxes on the rich, I hope and pray that even whatever dullard the Republicans nominate can knock that down. it is not Obambus who prints the trillions, that’s the Fed, though I guess it mostly comes to Obambus (and Congress) to run the deficit to sell the bonds that the Fed buys with newly printed greenbacks.
so why an economic crisis mid-2012? dunno. could have external trigger, like war with Iran, close of the straits, etc. could be Euro collapse. could be US troops have to fight their way out of Afghanistan. could be another MF Global or six. could be BofA gives up, sells off Countrywide, announces bankruptcy. could be California secedes, and the resulting celebration by the other 56 states results in a collapse of productivity and a near-fatal dearth of beer.
Obama’s chance of re-election probably depends on what kind of election looms out of the fog in 2012. Since I’m feeling smug about the Packers chance of a repeat Super Bowl win I’m offering some totally unreliable odds of Obama’s re-election.
If the electorate perceives it as a contest between two groups of smooth plausible liars, then the best liars will win. In this case I’d give Obama a 55% chance of re-election.
If the electorate sees re-electing Obama as a dismal extension of their unhappiness then Obama will lose unless the GOP is inspired to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Chance of Obama II is 40%
If the electorate thinks that the election is the first step to limiting government and moving away from the dependency/entitlement/victim culture then Obama will lose big time. In this case the victorious big-government, crony capitalism Republicans will come under so much pressure from the electorate that they will come to wish they had lost the election. Chance of Obama II is 5%.
My guess about the chances of each type of election is:
a contest of liars – 40%
Obama fatigue – 50%
starting a long march away from big-government democratic socialism – 10%.
We get a weighted average chance of Obama being re-elected as:
[(.4 *.55)+ (.5*.4)+ (.1*.05)] =0.425 (42.5%)
Warning. This uses entirely arbitrary probabilities and employs Canadian math. Taking this calculation seriously could lead to severe indigestion.
First of all, veterans benefits are NOTa redistributive entity, those benefits were earned and allowing that kind of definition is unacceptable.
The argument we need to have in this country is the definition of what are taxes for and what they are not. Are taxes an unlimited source of boodle to be used by politicians to feather their nests, engineer society or increase the power of the the government over the governed? Or are they payment for services rendered, those services specifically chosen by those paying the burden? Should those services be limited to those that DIRECTLY benefit ALL citizens and not, repeat not charitable donations extorted from the haves to the have_nots.
This is why neither party can fix ‘the system,’ they are only arguing about who gets to apportion the pie and where it goes, saving the largest slices for themselves of course. Nothing short of taxpayer revolt will end this game.
This idea that income inequality has overtaken debt and finances as the center of the debate is ludicrous. Only leftist pundits and writers insisting against all evidence that the “debate has been changed” by the occupier movement. It hasn’t
They believe by repeatedly insisted it has “changed the debate” it will become true, a self-fulfilling prophecy. It’s not. People aren’t talking about “income inequality” because they know that’s neither the cause nor the solution to anything. They’re talking about government overtaking the private sector, and outrageous and growing government spending and debt.
People who work, earn and save are looking at what government’s doing with their money and their personal choices. They are most assuredly not parading mindlessly behind the made-up 1% versus 99%, income inequality idea.
However, since the Dems are asserting this “debate change” as fact, what are their clear and defined policies that will correct the situation? They need to be made to enunciate and articulate exactly how they are going to redress this “income inequality.” They’ll probably want to run on such a platform in this upcoming election year.
“For Obama it will be the gap between the rich and the poor.”
And my suggested response for the GOP to the above would be to simply say, “The Democrats have been pushing redistribution for over 75 years. Despite this, and the redistribution of trillions of dollars, Obama is now openly admitting there’s still a gap between the rich and the poor. Don’t you think it’s finally time to, oh say, TRY SOMETHING NEW?”
I’m with MRJ on this: income inequality is not the center of the debate in the US today. While it is true a larger-than-ever percentage of Americans has dropped out of the workforce, perhaps permanently, I think it is safe to estimate 10-12% of working age Americans are really looking for a job. Not looking for money they didn’t earn; looking for a job. It is possible Obama believes this population will be satisfied with a government handout because the population Obama hung around with while organizing communities is not looking for a job — they just want free stuff. This is not the American dream, and our dream is not yet dead. Even at the height of the Soviet Union there were people who wanted gainful employment, not a handout. Hence the old saw: the government pretends to pay us and we pretend to work.” That is not in our character (yet). Especially among people who vote. I think if an opposition candidate can focus the campaign on “let’s grow this economy,” even Axelrod cannot make a majority of Americans think “let’s get goodies from rich folks.” F
Has E.J. Dionne ever been right about anything, at all? He’s an ignoramus. A filthy commie ignoramus. His only talent is as court jester to the Wapo, NYT, NPR idiocracy, telling them all their stupid ideas are brilliant, and just misunderstood by the retarded, doltish, simpletons at the RNC.
Useless schmucks like that live forever, unfortunately.
jj @ 17: Has E.J. Dionne ever been right about anything, at all?
but that’s exactly when you know you’re in trouble, when events conspire to make even the likes of E.J. come out correct.
This sentence should lead off every discussion about jobs, the economy, and the middle class. I’ll add one modification to it – the key isn’t just reducing the regulatory burden, but removing the uncertainty from it. The randomness with which regulations are created, changed and imposed, from arbitrary EPA rulings to enforcement-via-lawsuit to unperdictable worker’s comp rulings (not to mention crony capitalist exemptions for the properly connected), creates a worse burden than simple high compliance costs. Creating manufacturing jobs requires a long-term commitment, since it takes a while for a new factory to pay off. It’s bad enough that an owner has to worry about whether the product will pay off in the marketplace. An owner who has to worry about a random EPA ruling, or random OSHA change, or random government-supported labor dispute, torpedoing the whole thing is beset by too many uncertaintites and likely to give up, outsource the manufacturing (and the risk) with it.
There’s a reason we’ve become a nation of retailers selling each other crap made in China. Manufacturing facilities are big, immobile assets, easy pickings for taxaholics, rent seekers, and nanny-do-gooders. Retail outlets represent a much lower commitment on the owner’s part. Inventory is the biggest investment and it’s intended to turn over at least 6 times a year. If things get bad, just shut down, eat two month’s worth of costs, and move on. If you have to shut down a factory, you’re probably eating two years worth of costs at least.
That’s likely true in part, but one of the victories of the Progs was to “open souce” regulation by opening up business to public interest lawsuits. We need to end that, which will be bitterly resisted by lawyers and various supposed public interest groups. Maybe one major function of the Deadwood department would be regulating public interest groups in a way that sucked up the time and energy and funding of the self-appointed semi-private regulators.
My brother the bureaucrat kept trying that line on me over Christmas. I don’t think it will work but we will find out on November 07, 2012.
I’m I the only one that finds Axel-hod a tad confused? First he claims that the 2012 election will be different then he claims the same tired on divide and conquer of class warfare will work.
Which is it Axel baby, new or old? Can’t be both, at least not in this world. Maybe it makes sense on planet Axel-sod.
mrj@14: I suspect the Dems will address income inequality with their usual soak-the-rich approach.
The conservatives aren’t getting thru in the “payroll taxes vs. millionaire taxes” arguments. The liberals have found a way to corner them on taxes–just wreck Social Security!
Explaining supply-side econ in our idiotic TV campaigns is a thankless task at best. “Tax on job creators” has the advantage of being true, but it’s not vivid enough.
They need better talking points:
“Tax hikes don’t hurt the rich, just their employees. The rich can just fire their gardener.”
“What about when you (middle class liberal) get a tax hike? You call Fred the carpenter and say ‘Let’s forget about adding that deck till next year.’”
“The top rate may only affect 2% of small businesses, but that’s 25% of the
work force.”
“What does [insert name of popular local businessman] do with $10,000?
He buys another machine, hires a guy to run it, and makes some more money. Rinse and repeat. Can the government do better with that $10,000?”
Excellent article/commentary as usual here.
What I find interesting about the current tactics of the left (under the leadership of this administration) is that an all out effort to “instituionalize” the dysfunction of their policies. It has been noted recently by other observers, that the dysmal state of the economy is becoming increasingly a systemic issue rather than the usual one-off catastrophy of public policy as in the past melt downs.
The institutionalization of failure if you will. What I am trying to wrap my brain around is that for the life of me, I cannot find any long term leftist socialist policy, not one single instance, that did not end in economic ruin.
Please feel free to correct me if I am wrong.
What we need are a lot of concrete examples of the regulatory burden. I saw an AP story the other day claiming that the regulatory burden is a myth.
Take my case. A USAF Doctor gave me some drugs I did not need. That caused the FAA to refuse to issue the medical certificate. After months of correspondence and $350 worth of extra tests (that I had to pay for) I got my FAA medical certificate but also the FAA requirement that in the future I do this process every time I renew my Medical. And in the meantime the USAF has decided I never needed the drugs anyway. So I will react by going to a lower class of pilot’s license, eliminating my reason for spending any money on upgrading to a higher performance aircraft.
Or take the fact there was an explosion of new interest in pilot’s licenses by the new lower class of licence that did not require a medical. And while this greatly increased the demand for aircraft that fit the new license, most of the new aircraft are made in foreign countries. The new Cessna Skycatcher is made in China.
Or the example of years ago (1976) of a man who had a screen door repair and custom work company. He had more work than he could do by himself so he hired some workers – and found himself doing not the job he liked and knew – working on screen doors, but instead the paperwork required by the government for the workers. He fired the workers and instead just did the work he could by himself.
A Senate study back in 1992 showed that for every $1 collected in taxes the private sector has costs of another 40 cents in order to comply with tax laws. And things have no doubt gotten much worse since them.
There must be a billion examples of such regulatory anchors weighing down the private sector.
Arthur Herman pointed out that Rachel Maddow was wrong. The Federal Government didn’t build Hoover dam. It hired six contractors to do it and feuded with them every step of the way.
The contractors resisted the Roosevelt administration’s pressure to unionize its workers by negotiating to pay them more. What they would have given the union officials they gave straight to the workers. And therefore Hoover Dam.
The contractors were nearly to a man the wrong kind of people.
And they did it by the most politically incorrect method possible. They hired only the qualified.
But what Herman fails to point out is that Roosevelt got the credit for it. Therefore people like Maddow think the Federal Government built the dam. And in the end that may be all that matters. The contractors who actually built Hoover Dam are not remembered as having done so; and they are now symbols of all that doesn’t work in America. Roosevelt on the other hand, “built Hoover Dam”, and there’s a lesson in there somewhere for Barack Obama.
ConfederateH @ 6 said:
“If Ron Paul wins the nomination both the MSM and the Republican Party will have to start honestly discussing issues that they have been trying to avoid for decades the same way they have been avoiding Paul”
Ron Paul wears a tin foil hat. He can not win the Republican nomination and would certainly lose against Obama in the general election. I actually agree with Ron Paul about managing the federal deficit and his belief in Austrian school of economics. However his Libertarian foreign policy and his pandering to 9/11 conspiracy theories disqualify him from public office. Given his opinions, he should not be in the US Congress.
It is my own opinion that the Obama campaign is funneling money to Ron Paul under the table.
Eggplant said:
Ron Paul wears a tin foil hat.
——-
Perhaps. What hat do the others wear? The TEA party is about ideas not people. The more Paul is pissed on the more I like him, at least that is what my hat tells me.
“The issue will not be whether the economy is bad or good but whether government matters.”
If the activities the government claims responsibility for matter then who should be in charge of them? Certainly not the Democrats. Eric Holder is not only a corrupt bigot but he is also an incompetent boob who shouldn’t be trusted with a burnt out match. The same goes for most of the Cabinet Officers, Czars, Poohbahs, Union Shills, Truthers, Community Organizers, Communists, Racists, Religious crackpots, and other unemployables that populate this administration. The counter-argument to the Donks is simple. There are jobs so important that they should be done be the government, that is why we have a Constitution with enumerated powers, and no one would want those jobs done by these idiots.
wretchard‘s idea of creating Departments of Deadwood has corporate parallels. Back in the salad days IBM never fired anyone. They just moved people to dead end projects. They had building full of engineers, brilliant men by most standards in their day, who were considered has beens. Many of the lurid 1950s to 60s stories of suburban debauchery and alcoholism may have come from men who knew they were sidelined and couldn’t escape.
Wouldn’t Deadwood be a great name for a capital city?
25 Eggplant…
Those are the best dollars spent by Axelrod & fils.
Cheap, cheap. cheap at twice the price.
If you have seen some of MSNBC’s commercials on other networks with Al Sharpton, Rachel and the Gang you will know that the Left’s other big mantra is going to be that tax cuts for the rich are the reason the middle class has got hammered. Somehow.
I know, I know. There is no logic behind it but there it is.
Wretchard’s “The key to returning the jobs from China will be to reduce the regulatory burden. ” could also have been written :
” The Key to returning the middle class to prosperity will be to reduce the regulatory burden”.
E.J. Dionne represents almost all the old “mainstream” pundits-a combination of arrogance, ignorance and a look of constipated seriousness. Look at Thomas Friedman, a moron who holds forth with irritating, writhing deliberation disguised as gravity. David Gregory is unwatchable-a hack so untalented that he can’t even pull-off the appearance of impartiality.
As for this “trickle-down” BS-the check from my employer does not trickle into my bank account each month, it flies into it.
@25. Eggplant: At least you didn’t call him a racist and an anti-semite. Thanks for that, I am so discusted with the left playing their racist trump card every 5 minutes. BTW: I am convinced the government is hiding a lot of information about 9/11, you should be too.
Re. 25. Eggplant
“…It is my own opinion that the Obama campaign is funneling money to Ron Paul under the table”.
I think so as well.