The Republican Mythology of “Spending Like a Democrat”

“[North Carolina Representative Patrick] McHenry may pretend to be a Republican, but he sure as hell spends like a Democrat—or even worse.”

  —Republicans Against Patrick McHenry

26 FEBRUARY 2011

This idea—that Democrats “spend” more than Republicans do—is clearly a flawed mythology. It is wrong in two different ways.
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First, if you listen to Republican language (especially over these Obama years), you hear almost-exclusively the word, “spending,” and rarely hear the word, “investing.” Given that the Republican Party prides itself so vocally on things such as “fiscal responsibility,” you would expect it to make the distinction between items limited to “Expenses” on the income statement and items to be listed as “Assets” on the balance sheet.

Republicans Avoid this Distinction.

It’s as if you were to call someone out on the carpet about where the heck all their money goes, saying something like, “All you do is spend, spend, spend. Look at this! You’ve spent $4.00 for a café latte and $400,000 for a house. That’s more than $400,000 spent in one year—for coffee and other stuff!”

Without the transcontinental railroad and the Interstate Highway system and the NASA space program,  where would American be?

Spending like a Democrat.
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Second, if you look at the lessons of history, you may be surprised at recent examples of “Spending like a Republican.”

An example notable for its relationship to one of America’s greatest examples of Republican leadership, is the spending that President Reagan motivated, in his effort either to build a Strategic Defense Initiative (AKA “Star Wars”) or to bankrupt the Soviet Union (a legitimate “Mission Accomplished”). You may be too young to remember the fears that Democrats expressed when the Reagan years produced the greatest level of non-wartime debt that America had known. Democrats then were convinced (as Republicans are now convinced) that such deficit spending could not possibly be corrected. And it was not corrected until two presidents later, when the engine of American entrepreneurship turned that “spending” debt around.

Then, of course, we have the unfortunate example of President George W. Bush taking us into an arguably unjustifiable war in Iraq and into the Medicare-D program. Both of these items demonstrate irresponsible Republican spending—which may represent legitimate, if intangible investments—in that no provision of paying for them was part of the process.

Listening to Democrats speak—notably the members of the Congressional Black Caucus—one hears them speak over and over about how they plan to pay for their “spending” programs. From Republicans, one hears only the continued promise of “trickle down,” which clearly has not occurred in our economy over the past thirty years since we first elected Ronald Reagan to accomplish this economic miracle. The vague hope, expressed with strong conviction, that lower taxes for the wealthy somehow result in good-paying jobs for those lower down in the economic “food chain” just never becomes reality.

Conservatives like to disown the latter President Bush as not one of their own. But no one who knows anything about this man could consider him to be either a Democrat or a Liberal, hiding in Conservative, Republican clothing.

At some point, any true “fiscal conservatives” remaining in the Republican Party will need to face the truth:

American Democrats “invest” in America’s infrastructure for the future, more than they just “spend.” And “pay as you go” is a Democratic expression of fiscal conservatism.

The false Republican delusions that this party opposes under the combined labels of “Democrat” and “spending” are just an easy target, painted on the backs of those Americans actually committed to making our great nation a better place. And not just a better place for eviscerating the middle class.

Regards,
(($;-)}
Gozo!

Republicans Lie with Good Intentions:

15 MAY 2011

The Politicians on the Right lie for the best of reasons—love of country—but lies are lies, nonetheless.

Over the Past Week, we’ve heard Republicans speak on the budget, the oil industry, and the economy. As their lies have been repeated, each one gets easier and easier to say.

But They’re Still Lies...

What Gets Blamed on the Current Administration and on the Democratic Party is what’s called “circumstantial evidence” in the legal system. For example, high petroleum prices result from unrest in the Arab nations—the “Arab Spring”—and are about to turn back around. But it makes a convenient and easy spear to chuck at President Obama and the Democrats.

What a Way to Treat Your Country in challenging times like these...

If You Want to Score Political Points with Stuff like This, you keep selling it. And the Tea Party folks keep chugging it down.

But It’s Still a Big Lie...

Just Think What this Country Could Do if we ever decide to work together again, instead of all this ideological dishonesty disguised as a deficiency of common sense.

Best regards,
(($;-)}
Gozo!

Democratic Obstructionism—Again? What Is it This Time?

26 FEBRUARY 2011

For Too Long, businesses were prevented from creating new jobs because of the uncertainty that the Democrats would raise taxes on them, by letting the Bush-era tax cuts expire.

Luckily for America, these taxes were extended at the last minute, under the threat that the newly elected Republicans brought to bear on the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives.

All Conservative-Thinking Americans cheered this opportunity to let free-market enterprise flourish once again.

That Was Two Months Ago, at the end of  December.

Where Are the Jobs?

Regards,
(($;-)}
Gozo!

Maybe Now Is America's Time to Enter:

eNTER: 

The New-Technology Energy Race

America Needs to Focus on the severity of the “good jobs” issue in relation to America’s future. In a sense, the two sides of the political divide are like a couple of vicious canines, and the size of the bone that we are fighting over is shrinking dramatically.

This Is a Systemic Issue, in that none of the cures seem to be within the reach of corporations, and corporate competition makes it tremendously challenging for individuals or small groups to make the difference, even as we Americans, as a people, refuse to use our biggest tool—government—while what we are competing against is the entire economies of other nations.

The Speed with Which a Private Company (Whole Foods makes an excellent example) can grow and change things is not fast-enough in relation to what is going on in much of the rest of the world.

For Example, China is no longer really a “developing nation.” Given that their economy is poised to overtake America’s as the world’s largest, the Chinese are laughing at our idea of them as an under-developed nation.

And Other Parts of the World are taking back their American-educated citizens and putting them to work at home: in India, in the Middle East, in Brazil, etc.

In Europe, They Laugh at America as a second-world nation. They are leaving us behind in the dust. And it’s not just the French who are laughing.

While Europeans Have their own economic issues these days, they are taking those issues in hand, by cutting spending. But unlike America, they are not cutting their own tax income at the same time. (Only Americans seem to believe that cutting your income helps get you out of debt.)

Europe Is Finding Ways to Move Forward in developing new jobs, through developing New-Energy Technology. Europe has joined the eNTER: race against China. And they are not waiting for us to catch up.

What Makes the Current  Round Different than earlier ones is that  for business/economic growth  this time, our large, international corporations can continue to grow and to enjoy record levels of profits, but they do it using only jobs that are created abroad.

Meanwhile, America (which currently still makes more buggy-whip-equivalents than anyone else) is focusing all of its energy on cutting costs (i.e., trimming the deficit).

In Your Family Life, if you are unemployed, your don’t just cut costs. You have to focus on finding new work. And no one likes living on credit-cards and savings (i.e., deficit-spending). And yes, you need to cut your expenses, such as the cable TV and the lattes (which is what earmarks are).

But When Your Income Is Too-Low (the way we have starved our government’s income over the last decade, as well as losing citizen income by shipping good-paying jobs overseas), then you really need to come up with a new income plan.

While China and the Rest of the BRIC Nations race away with the New Technology Economy (NTE), America just focuses on its taxes and its deficits.

So Far, America Has Stayed out of eNTER: the New-Technology Energy Race.

We Need to Focus on changes America can make to how we stimulate new-technology industry. America needs NTE: a New Technology Economy.

America Needs to:

eNTER:

Meanwhile, the Coffee Party wants to reform campaign contributions. As if this will somehow stimulate America in a race for the next technologies.

Meanwhile, the Tea Party wants to take back a government that it keeps useless in the economic battle with the rest of the world. As if Boeing can compete successfully, head-to-head with the entire nation of China.

Are We Really Willing to Let China build the first lunar base on the Moon? Is America really ready to let India or Brazil send the first manned mission to Mars?

Around the World, Other Governments have gotten involved. While the Soviet Union went broke trying to mix a dictatorship and communism, the ancient civilization that is China has found a way to mix a dictatorship with capitalism. And China is eating America’s lunch.

Without Some Kind of Floor under Energy Prices (to give eNTER: an environment in which it can create manufacturing jobs) or without some sort of government seed money (such as NASA gave to so many American industries in the 1960s and beyond), America would keep losing the eNTER: race. And not just to the BRIC nations.

In Case Americans Haven’t Noticed Yet:

Europe and the Chinese have already figured eNTER: out.

What Else Could Get Historic Enemies such as Britain and France and Germany and Italy to unite as one entity?

It’s Okay to Laugh at the French all we want to. But France has high-speed trains and wind farms all over the place. That’s energy-use reductions, fewer new cars clogging highways, new-technology jobs, and a better quality of life over all.

While We Americans Are Bickering over Coffee and Tea over here, the European Union is busy putting its financial house back in order, while working toward winning their own share of the NTE. (Spain already is a leader in building wind turbines. While not one wind turbine in America is built in America. For that matter, how many of America’s cell phones was actually built here in America?)

If Only We Could Get the Rest of the World’s Governments to stay out of the NTE race, maybe America wouldn’t be falling so far behind.

And Maybe We, the People, would be creating good-paying, factory jobs.

Or Are We Really Going to Let China and Europe put the first permanent colony on the moon, send the first manned mission to Mars, and keep leading the way in winning eNTER: The New-Technology Energy Race?

America’s Next Race to Win

eNTER:

Regards,
(($;-)}
Gozo!

Ask Your Neighbor!™

This Week: The “Job Creation” Issue

As We All Know, jobs in America are created by high-income citizens, which President Obama identifies as those Americans earning more than $250,000 per year. Over the last ten years, high-income Americans have been responsible for creating the jobs that have driven our economy to its current heights.

But We Also Know that somehow all these new jobs created during the past ten years have not been quite enough to keep the unemployment rate below acceptable levels.

So What Gives? “Ask Your Neighbor !™” wants you to find out.

Here Is This Week’s Assignment:

1) Go outside right now and drop by one of your high-income neighbors next-door. Ring or knock politely at the front door, and wait for them to invite you inside.

2) Once you are inside and have exchanged the preliminary courtesies, ask you neighbor if he or she minds your asking him or her a few questions.

3) Assuming that he or she gives permission, here are this week’s questions for you to ask:

Question A: If ten years of the so-called Bush tax cuts have not encouraged you to create enough jobs for America, what’s the holdup?
   
Question B: What is it about Year 11 that has held up job creation until this important year?
   
Question C: Are you currently hiring any additions to your household domestic staff?

4) Report your findings to “Ask Your Neighbor!™” before midnight tonight.

5) If the answer to question “C” is affirmative, please report your findings sooner.

Thanks Once Again for Playing America’s Favorite Good-Neighbor Activity:

“Ask Your Neighbor!™”

Regards,
(($;-)}
Gozo!

Adam Smith’s Yankee Breach Babies:

In The Welfare of Nations, the second and better-known book of his planned trilogy, Adam Smith describes capitalism more than he argues for it. And more than he argues against such latecomers as socialism or communism—or consumerism, for that matter. (Smith could not argue against these other economic models, as they had not yet been discovered or invented at the time of Smith’s 1776 work.)

In the Course of His Book, Smith addresses a number of capitalism’s defects as well as its strengths. Such human frailties that many un-reading ideologues presume to be part of Smith’s capitalism—notably, greed—are addressed.

Smith’s First Great Work in the series—The Theory of Moral Sentiments—is seldom mentioned in America. But as the earlier book describes, Smith believed in inherent human motivation to do good to one another. Capitalism, which is based on the division of labor, gives that do-good motivation its best means. Or so Smith apparently thought.

As Far as the Sin of Greed  is concerned, it has no good place in capitalism (despite that greed and other sins are to some extent unavoidable).

As for Our Notorious American Economic Engine, the relentless U.S.S. Competition, the beneficial effects of competition were to reach all in any capitalistic society. Not to reach just the parties involved in creating the wealth, but also to the customer. Under capitalism, competition is a way that we do good unto one another. Not a way to obliterate one another, driving each other into the poorhouse.

So the Ideal of Capitalism as it exists in America today is pretty clearly a perversion of Smith’s work.

For Example:

What Does Adam Smith say about taxation in The Wealth of Nations? I thought these might be a couple of good tidbits to throw to any anti-tax “Capitalists”who happen along this way:

“The revenue which must defray, not only the expense of defending the society and of supporting the dignity of the chief magistrate, but all the other necessary expenses of government, for which the constitution of the state has not provided any particular revenue, may be drawn, either, first, from some fund which peculiarly belongs to the...commonwealth, and which is independent of the revenue of the people; or, secondly, from the revenue of the people.”

     —The Wealth of Nations, Book Five, Chapter Two, “Of the Sources of the General or Public Revenue of the Society,”

“The subject of every state ought to contribute toward towards the support of the government, as nearly as possible, in proportion to their respective abilities; that is, in proportion to the revenue which they respectively enjoy under the protection of the state.”

     —The Wealth of Nations, Book Five, Chapter Two, Part I: “Of Taxes”

It’s a Mystery how anyone else finds another way to read that, but to me it supports the income tax specifically, and also supports arguments (posted elsewhere) about the CEOs of America’s multinational corporations:

Virtually All of the American People Pay Federal Taxes

What More Can I Tell You?

The Happy Capitalist,
(($;-)}
Gozo!

Prohibition 2.0 Is Now 50 Years Old....and George F. Will Is Worried About Lightbulbs and Salt

It Is Hard to Miss the Compelling Comparison between alcohol prohibition and drug prohibition, with both prohibitions yielding amazingly similar and intensely deleterious side-effects. Leave it George F. Will, writing in The Washington Post, to find a way:

Another Round of Prohibition, Anyone?

Instead, Mr. Will peers under his bed and into his closet, and finds comparable bogeymen of.....encouraging reduced sodium-intake and the use of energy-efficient light bulbs.

It Seems like a Stretch, to imagine the speedboats of incandescent-bulb smugglers and iodized-salt-sneakers outrunning our 21st century U.S. Coast Guard.

Maybe Those of Us who back in the 1960s predicted the worldwide cartel-wars of drug prohibition did not know what we were talking about.

But the Evidence, both of the damage of drug wars and of the lesser drug-use damage where drugs are not prohibited, argues that we Hippie-types back then did know what we were talking about. And those who continue to oppose a reasonable regulatory relationship with psychoactive drugs——even today, after more than fifty years  of epidemic incarceration and anti-productive treatment——keep their sense of facts separate from their confirmed, destructive opinions.

Ideology Is Blind. It is intolerant. Its foolish consequences are murdering people throughout Mexico and on our border. It bankrolls the Taliban and al Qaeda.  It fuels drug-cartel wars in Colombia, in Brazil, even here in the U.S., exacerbating our immigration issues. Its priced support for Afghan poppy farmers means that the war in Afghanistan likely will remain a fool’s errand for decades more to come.

Ideology Kills. It ruins countless lives. It destroys families and the benefits of American capitalism. 

So Long as the Blind continue to support the price floor underneath the drug industry, we will keep reading foolish essays, by such illuminati as George F. Will, on how being forced to lower your salt intake will push Americans into a life of crime.

Regards,
(($;-)}
Gozo!