On the Contrary

I have to totally agree with Bob Herbert (The Same Old Song) on this one, why do we care what they think.  Is our memory so short that we don’t remember how we got here?  The Republicans are demanding, in a bipartisan way of course, their way or the highway.  They had their way for eight years and it has almost bankrupt us.  Their spending ways have left us with nothing in the bank to spend our way out of our coming Depression when we now need to spend.  You would never know they got clobbered in the last election because they ran up the deficit and have nothing new to offer for a failing economy except tax cuts that don’t work.  Now they claim they are the force to keep us on the straight an narrow?  Not one Republican voted for the stimulus package after compromises on tax cuts were made in their favor.  One would think that after their twelve years of stewardship in Congress they would see the error of their ways.

Today they were misrepresenting data on how effective tax cuts are on stimulating the economy (not very).  Of course the media, once again not having done their homework, didn’t know the facts so they just let these misguided souls prattle on (see Depression Economics).  Note how we are getting political arguments again as a substitute for news instead of subject matter experts who might actually clarify the issues.  But in the same vein there was Chris (Catholic) Matthews implying that the money in the bailout for family planning was the government trying to control the number of children you have instead of giving poor families choices.  Who doesn’t think preventing unwanted children is an investment in our future and reduces cost in Medicare, childcare, incarceration, food stamps, and welfare?

But what is it about eight years of failed tax cuts that does not enlighten Republicans and those morons that listen to them?  I keep pointing out the GAO study that showed that two-thirds of businesses pay no taxes (CBS News) so why doesn’t any one ask how a reduction in zero taxes is going to help?  Of course our friends in the Republican Party obfuscate this fact also by saying we have the highest corporate tax rate in the modern world.  That is true, but nobody ever asks what the effective rate is (that rate after all those loopholes are applied, hence the two-thirds who pay no taxes).  The cutting tax religion is just that, a religious faith whose underlying belief is not informed by reality.  It didn’t work last time and it won’t work this time, but it fits into their free ride beliefs (we can get out of this without sacrifices by allowing trickle down from the rich if the rich get richer).

So what gives here?  Why can’t they and their conservative base get it?  Well here is the basic difference between conservative (not moderate) Republicans and Democrats.  These conservatives basically believe in their bones that anything government does is done poorly if at all and is an infringement on their freedoms.  This belief is not informed by reality, which is an advantage for the Democrats, but is to their disadvantage because they can’t see that this belief is a religious faith and still think these Republicans can be reasoned with.  The reality is government does some things really well, and other things very poorly.  What it can do well and what it does do well is a function of the talent of its managers and the flexibility we give them to perform their jobs.  But these distinctions are lost on these conservatives.  In their imaginary world the failure of FEMA during Katrina had nothing to do with Brownie or the gutting of the organization.

So we have the spectacle of the President trying to bring them on board and in the process, watering down the stimulus package to make it less effective, and the result was that it was a waste of time.  House Republicans live in narrowly defined districts that are inhabited by their base, the Know-Nothings.   The game isn’t over yet as Senate Republicans have to appeal to a broader audience and therefore must be a little more reasonable, but if it were up to me, I would change the bill to be as effective as possible (move much of the tax cuts to infrastructure), dump the concessions, and get a bill that might actually work.  I think you can still change the tone in Washington without compromising your values and catering to failed ideas.

Sooner or later we have to just say it.  Conservative economic theory has run its course and compromising to cater to their ideological needs is making our situation worse.  We can’t afford to fail.  It is time to march in a different direction and leave the Republicans to stew in their juices.  Besides, they have Rush Limbaugh to lead them to a world I would not want my children to grow up in.

Oh, and one last thought:  when the Republicans were grabbing microphones that our media obligingly provided them without any critical analysis of what they were saying, did you see anything but white people?  We are a mixed race nation, but the Republican party and their ideas are squeaky white.  It is a world that doesn’t exist anymore.  Somebody ought to tell them.

The late Molly Ivings, that great columnist and humorist from Dallas Texas, was once asked how a girl brought up in the South in the Republican Party could be so liberal.  Her answer went something like this, “When I realized they were lying about race, I wondered what else they were lying about.”  Conservative belief in their ideology is tightly engrained in their pyschy.  They can’t afford to let it go or they would have to ask themselves what else they have been wrong about.