Sunday, February 22, 2009
How Republicans Screwed Things Up So Badly
0 commentsThank you, Haley Barbour, governor of the Third-World State of Mississippi.
You, dear sir, have perfectly encapsulated how the GOPers have fucked things up economically for America and, by extension, the world over the last eight years. You point perfectly to how you and what's left of your "Party" are attempting to extend this damage by insisting we maintain the very policies that allowed you to ruin things in the first place. Your only response is to stand in the way of every legitimate effort to clean up the financial and social toxic dump you have made of America.
Taxes, you say.
Taxes: The word; the concept; the vision; the money; the political stance; the revenue producer; the shared (or not shared) burden; the strategy; the obstacle; the way we pay for things we all use.
Taxes, as in All Roads Lead To Tax Cuts, and never a rise in tax rates. Ever.
Here's your quote, Mr. Barbour:Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour, like [Louisiana governor Bobby] Jindal, said that he would reject the money for expanding unemployment insurance.
“There is some we will not take in Mississippi,” Governor Barbour told CNN’s State of the Union on Sunday. “We want more jobs. You don’t get more jobs by putting an extra tax on creating jobs.”
Of course. But that's not the connection. Or the point. This item isn't about creating jobs, it's about covering those at risk. This is a total red herring on Barbour's part. Transparent crap.
No jobs are currently being created in this economy on Barbour's watch. This particular provision of the Stim does not create jobs; it expands the number of those covered by Unemployment Insurance to those not currently covered by UI if they lost their jobs. It speaks to those already employed, so that they will have a safety net when and if they are laid off, which allows them to survive, and keeps their cash flowing through local monetary channels. It also does not affect businesses unless and until they lay off workers. They don't pay out this money if they keep their staff employed. In most states—where a broader swath of jobs is covered by UI—this provision is fairly moot. But, yes, in Third-World states like Barbour's Mississippi, which have taken a narrow, punitive stance on who should be covered by their state's UI, this would mean a small outlay by local businesses whose gravy train would effectively end. But this is hardly the point.
Barbour's deliberate confusion of what is at issue here is meant to avert attention from the true issue at hand.
Demand. The stimulation of demand. By anybody; on any level; by any amount.
And that incurs spending. A lot of it.
Repeat after me, Gov. Barbour: D-E-M-A-N-D. Demand. That's what is needed. There is none now. Nothing will move again in our lifetimes until there is demand. As most economists have clearly stated, when no one else is spending a dime, the spender of last resort has to be the federal government. Who else has cash to spend? But where is the government's cash to come from? Who knows? Where did six years of Supplemental Spending Bills magically come from to pay for the Iraq and Afghanistan invasions and occupations? Thin air?
When the demand for a business's product or service returns, inventory will disappear, production of replacement items becomes warranted and the business will hire workers to support its orders. Period. Nothing else is in play here.
I challenge Gov. Barbour to explain to us, other than by merely repeating the GOP sound bite, exactly how lower taxes on businesses would improve hiring. Hunh? How does this happen exactly—in any type of real world, other than in Grover Norquist's failed, deluded dreams? How does this happen at any time other than in an economy going full bore, when small actions can have salutary results. Yes, if an owner is weighing adding staff in a booming economy, a tax break may well bump him over the edge into action.
But currently there is no demand for anyone's products or services; inventories are glutted and everyone's cutting staff to stay afloat. How exactly would a tax break help your average businessperson add staff he or she doesn't need? And why would he or she do anything differently from consumers, who will get a tax break now and simply pay off outstanding debt or just bang it into bank accounts to help their overall solvency?
Starting midway through the 2000 campaign, no Republican in memory has offered any response to the status of a changing economy other than to propose tax cuts. Nada. The well seems shallow and dry. Huge surplus? OK, tax cuts. Bubble rumblings? OK, tax cuts. Bubble bursting? OK, tax cuts. Softening economy? OK, tax cuts. Recession? OK, tax cuts. Mild recovery? OK, tax cuts. Narrow economic boom? OK, tax cuts. Worldwide economic financial devastation? OK, tax cuts. Etc., etc., etc.
It's all you've got, Mr. Barbour. It's all you and the GOP have ever had. You've got nothing else.
Has no Republican taken an Econ 101 class in school? Republicans seem clueless about solutions to economic events aside from throwing tax cuts at them. That's not leadership, sir, that's autism.
The most laughable phrase in the English language? "Republican economist." Those who have had their hands on the tiller of financial policy? Rob Portman, Greg Mankiw, Jim Nussle, on and on it goes. Useless, the lot of them. How they have assisted the average American has never been adequately explained. How they have helped swell the upper reaches of income strata is obvious.
The time for tax cuts or resisting raising taxes is long past. It's going to be difficult for those now entrusted with righting the sinking ship to be successful; but when you sit there, continuing to punch holes below the water line, the task can appear hopeless.
So when we hear maroons like you, Gov. Barbour, spouting about killing any cure for GOP malfeasance because it would "raise taxes," we simply respond, "No shit, Sherlock. You broke it. Now, if you don't have any better idea on how to fix it, shut up and step aside. The adults have work to do, cleaning up your mess."
posted by Gotham 4:02 PM
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