Category Archives: Fiscal Policy

Your Incredibly Stupid Progressive Economic Propaganda for the Day

There is so much economic ignorance/stupidity in this video (below), I wouldn’t even know where to begin. John Maynard Keynes himself would probably be embarrassed by this video courtesy of the California* Federation of Teachers and narrated by the great economist of our time Ed Asner.

I don’t have much else to say about this video right now, it’s too easy (though feel free to rip it apart here…or defend it). Actually, I am in the planning stages of writing a book that challenges this sort of mentality (I’m shooting for a release date about May 2013). I’m hoping Liberty Papers readers will buy it; I will have discounts for Liberty Papers readers.

And now for your, um…enjoyment[?]: Tax the Rich: An animated fairy tale**

WARNING: This is 7 minutes and 50 seconds of your life you will never get back.

*Oh yes, the state of California which is being run by people with this kind of mentality! Yeah, their economic policies have been working great, haven’t they?

**Fairy tale is actually a very good description.

The Modern Republican Party is a Special Kind of Suck (Part 2 of 3)

Part 1

Confusing Economic Policy of Suck
I’m sure there are many other areas where Romney went wrong but I think most of the rest of this special kind of suck is courtesy of other Republicans. During the Republican primary, the “anyone but Romney” crowd was so desperate to eliminate Romney that they resorted to a line of attack one would expect to come from Democrats. Many Republicans seem to forget that the attacks against Romney concerning Bain Capital were first leveled by Newt Gingrich and Rick Perry at campaign rallies, in the primary debates, in their campaign ads, and in anti-Romney super PAC ads. Perry called Romney a “vulture capitalist.” The Obama campaign picked up this line of attack where Gingrich and Perry left off. In swing states like Ohio, this message had basically been pounded since before the state’s primary and never let up for the rest of the campaign.

Once charges like these are made by Republicans who are supposed to be proponents of free market capitalism, it’s kind of difficult for people who actually understand how the free market works to explain why business practices employed by Bain Capital are not only legitimate, but also necessary. In this Occupy Wall Street era we live in, there seems to be an attitude that no one is ever supposed to lose his or her job and that every job is not only necessary but equally valuable.

Companies like Bain invest in businesses in trouble and try to make them profitable. In making a business profitable, sometimes this means that some people are going to lose their jobs. Like a doctor who is trying to save the patient’s life, sometimes a limb needs to be amputated. No one wants to lose an arm or a leg in such a scenario but most who face such a dilemma would rather lose an arm or leg than lose his or her life. If the amputation is done soon enough and correctly, the patient lives. Other times, however; even despite taking such drastic measures, the patient still dies. The same is true for some of the companies Bain tried to rescue. Of course no one wants to think of themselves as a limb that needs to be amputated in order to save their company*.

Immigration Policy of Suck
In addition to the mixed messages concerning Capitalism, the Republican Primary debates took on a very harsh tone concerning immigration. Any candidate who suggested that the idea of rounding up each and every illegal immigrant was impractical and that perhaps deporting individuals who were otherwise productive members of our society, said candidate would be accused of advocating “amnesty” – a four letter word among conservative Republicans.

Such harsh anti-illegal immigration rhetoric carried over into the general campaign when President Obama (rightly, in my view) made an executive order to allow individuals who were brought here illegally as children under the age of 16 to stay and have temporary work permits. This was an outrage among Republicans because, you know, the law is the law.

As Gary Johnson pointed out on several occasions during the campaign, while it’s true that we live in a nation based on the rule of law, too many Republicans fail to understand that the laws are changeable. And as I pointed out at the time, when there are more than 27,000 pages of federal law on the books with over 4,500 criminal laws, this necessarily means that any president would have to prioritize and choose which laws he will enforce and which he will not. When the number of laws is this numerous, it’s the same as having no rule of law at all.

Immigration is an issue the GOP needs to figure out and figure out quick as the Hispanic population will become an increasingly major factor in future elections (even GOP strongholds like Texas might eventually turn blue due to this demographic reality). Should we be surprised that the Hispanic population overwhelmingly supported Obama over Romney given the rhetoric?

It’s time to reexamine the notion that the border should be secure first before any comprehensive reforms are made. I think this is exactly backwards. If the legal immigration process wasn’t such a bureaucratic nightmare to begin with, I doubt seriously that illegal immigration would remain an issue.

This much needed debate** is not going to be very productive if every time someone proposes something other than building a 20’ tall fence along the Southern border, checking ID’s of everyone with brown skin, and rounding up every illegal immigrant regardless of circumstances, s/he is accused of promoting amnesty. Even more importantly, whatever the GOP decides immigration policy should be, they need to soften their tone and be mindful that we are talking about human beings here. I think it’s safe to assume that just about every legal immigrant (especially from Mexico) has at least a few family members who are here illegally. They do not like to think of their relatives as “invaders” who need to be rounded up. These people vote too.

*And I’m writing as someone who has been the limb being amputated. Just a couple of years ago, it was my department that needed downsized to save the company…at Christmas time no less. I’m happy to say that the downsizing measure did in fact save the department and six months later, they called me back and have been working there ever since.

**Doug and Kevin have each offered up some ideas for immigration reform that I think warrant consideration.

Part 3

The Modern Republican Party is a Special Kind of Suck (Part 1 of 3)

Barack Obama’s Record of Suck
Four years ago, Barack Obama was elected the 44th President of the United States. He promised hope n’ change from the failed policies of George W. Bush. His policies were going to lower the debt, reduce unemployment to around 5%, become the “most transparent administration in U.S. history,” close Guantanamo Bay, and restore the damaged international relations around the world.

Four years later, Obama has increased the debt by $6 trillion (the national debt is now over $16 trillion), kept unemployment hovering around 8% for nearly his entire first term despite his Keynesian efforts to stimulate the economy, and punished whistleblowers for daring to shed light on what has arguably been one of the least transparent administrations in history. Guantanamo Bay is not only still open but now with Obama’s signing of the NDAA, even American citizens can be taken there and detained indefinitely without charge or trail. If this wasn’t enough, the Obama administration also developed a “secret kill list” from which drones search for and kill targets from that list– including American citizens, who are sought out in Yemen, Pakistan, Libya, Syria, and who knows where else without any Constitutional authority whatsoever.

Then there’s “Fast and Furious,” an operation of Eric Holder’s Justice Department in which the BATFE purposely gave weapons to Mexican drug cartels resulting in untold deaths including a Border Control Agent by the name of Brian Terry. Obama has since invoked executive privilege to protect Holder from congress getting too close to the truth.

Finally, there are the terrorist attacks in Libya and Egypt on September 11, 2012. Rather than admit the obvious, President Obama and his administration lied to the American public concerning the nature of the attack claiming the attacks came from spontaneous protesters who were angry about an obscure YouTube video that “slandered” the prophet Mohammad.

A Special Kind of Suck
This is only a thumbnail sketch of the failures and malfeasance of the Obama administration in one term of office. Today the news should be about the Romney/Ryan transition team after a slam dunk landslide victory. But that is not the news today, is it? Yes, the Republican Party sucks but for the Republican challenger to be beaten despite Obama’s record, an advantage the last Republican challenger did not have, that takes a special kind of suck.

How exactly did the Republican Party achieve this special kind of suck? That is the question political observers are asking and what the party needs to answer if the GOP wants to win future elections. Reflexively, many on the Right are blaming the main stream media for its pro-Obama bias. There’s no question the MSM was more critical of Romney than Obama. They downplayed team Obama’s missteps but never missed an opportunity to report each and every gaffe of team Romney. Romney was also running against history – America’s first black president. While this is all true, it’s also true that Republicans won control of the House in the 2010 midterm elections on a wave of Tea Party fervor. The MSM had just as much of an Obama/Left wing bias then as they do now yet the Republicans gained ground. What was different this time?

Mitt Romney, the Nominee of Suck
No doubt, Gov. Mitt Romney is probably getting most of the blame and he deserves much of it. That being said, the reasons Romney failed to beat a failed president go well beyond Romney or his campaign. Maybe, Romney is a good place to start though.

Rather than make a choice that would be a champion of the limited government issues Republicans claim to care about (like say Gary Johnson or Ron Paul), the GOP decided they would go with Mitt Romney. Never mind that he authored the forerunner to ObamaCare (RomneyCare) or that he was a political chameleon (does anyone seriously think he made a principled change, as opposed to a political calculation, on abortion when it was time to run in 2008?). No, Romney was “electable” and by gosh, it was “his turn.”

Much of the destructive foreign policy of the Obama administration was right in line with what Romney said he would do. Romney had no problem with the NDAA, Guantanamo Bay, the secret kill list, or renewing the Patriot Act, therefore; these areas which were ripe for criticism were off the table. Other than the question of defense spending, they seemed to both have identical policies concerning Iran acquiring a nuclear weapon and both pledged they would “stand with Israel”…whatever that means. In the foreign policy debate, the moderator handed Romney a golden opportunity to go after Obama on the recent terror attacks but decided not to do so. On another occasion, Romney did casually bring up Fast and Furious in response to a question about gun control but didn’t ask Obama some of the hard hitting questions many Americans were dying for Romney to ask.

On domestic issues, Romney allowed his opponents to define him as an out of touch millionaire who didn’t care about the 47% of the people he determined wouldn’t support him. Romney did a very poor job of defending free market capitalism* in general and his record both as governor and as a businessman in particular. When asked about the alleged gender pay gap in one of the debates, rather than explaining that the statistic doesn’t actually compare women and men of comparable occupation or work experience he said he asked for “binders full of women” from which he picked to be in senior positions when he was governor of Massachusetts. The Democrats took that line and demagogued** the hell out of it and made it part of their “war on women” mantra. If Romney didn’t want to go through the trouble of explaining why the gender pay gap is a myth, he could have respectfully asked Obama why the women on his staff and why female staffers for Democrats in the Senate are paid far less than their male counterparts. Another hanging curveball that Romney didn’t even take a swing at.

The Romney campaign was ultimately a campaign of missed opportunities; a campaign in which the candidate failed to make the case that he would be a better alternative to the incumbent. When asked how his “numbers would add up” concerning his economic policy, his answer was basically “trust me, the numbers add up.” Barack Obama could get by with his slogans and his platitudes as MSM dutifully filled in the details. But to run against an incumbent who the MSM clearly supported, the challenger apparently made the mistake that the MSM would do the same on his behalf. When you are running against an incumbent and the MSM, you better understand that you have to explain your positions yourself (particularly in the debates) rather than hope others will carry your message for you.

*Though really, I’m not sure how much Mitt Romney really believes in free market capitalism given his desire to start a trade war with China.
** Frankly, I never quite understood what their criticism was in this instance. Was it just that “binders full of women” sounds funny?

Part 2

Rand Paul on Why Foreign Aid Should be Cut to Libya, Egypt, and Pakistan

On Saturday, September 22, 2012 Rand Paul’s S.3576, a bill that would have “provide[d] limitations on United States assistance” (i.e. placed conditions on aid to Libya, Egypt, and Pakistan) was soundly defeated by a 81-10 vote. On the day before the vote, Paul gave an hour long speech (truncated, 10 minute version in the video below) on the Senate floor explaining to his colleges why sending tax dollars to foreign countries is a terrible idea, particularly foreign countries which are openly hostile to the US in word or deed. In the speech, Paul reminds us that the foreign policy of recent history that has far too often been forgotten by the American public pointing out that some of the recipients of our aid eventually became our enemies. The notion of “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” has been counterproductive. Saddam Hussein, Omar Qaddafi, the Mujahideen anyone? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?

Why The Big, Dumb Spending Cuts Nobody Wants Are A Good Idea

Ezra Klein’s believes that it’s a horrible thing that the big, dumb spending cuts that nobody wants might actually happen:

The initial idea was that if the supercommittee failed, there would be automatic spending cuts and automatic tax increases. This way, both parties would have an incentive to reach a deal. But Republicans refused the tax increases side. So instead, the two sides settled on automatic spending cuts to domestic programs to hurt Democrats and automatic spending cuts to defense to hurt Republicans. And thus the big, dumb spending cuts that no one wants came into being.

…snip…

You might wonder why Republicans and Democrats, both of whom agree we should cut spending, are so dead-set against these particular spending cuts. The answer is that they are very, very dumb. A certain number of programs — Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare beneficiaries and nearly all spending directly benefiting low-income Americans — are exempt, but beyond that, everything gets pretty much the same size cut.

As a senior administration official said on a conference call today: ”The administration has no discretion in deciding the cuts identified in this report. The exempt versus non-exempt determinations are based on the requirements in the law. The administration can’t choose which programs to exempt or what percentage cuts to apply.” You can see exactly where those cuts would fall here.

In other words: Spending we consider essential gets the same size cut as spending we consider wasteful. There’s no ability to make the cuts to farm subsidies a bit bigger and the cuts to, say, the FBI a bit smaller. It’s $1.2 trillion in deficit reduction in which we pretty much don’t make a single choice about what is and isn’t worth funding.

I think that Ezra is right: these cuts are dumb. After all, that was the point. The point was to ensure that we’re going to get $1.2T of spending cuts, come hell or high water. And the fact that they’re dumb is a great incentive to find better ones.

So the options are:

  1. Get $1.2T in spending cuts that we don’t really want, but which are better than not cutting spending at all.
  2. Get $1.2T in nice, targeted spending cuts that make a lot of sense.

Contrast this to what would have happened if the sequester didn’t get put in place:

  1. Don’t get $1.2T in bad spending cuts.
  2. Don’t get $1.2T in good spending cuts, because Congress has no incentive to do anything.

I personally believe that cutting spending by $1.2T over 9 years is a good thing. I would prefer that Congress actually try to figure out where cutting that spending is most effective, slashing unnecessary and outmoded programs and departments while leaving the necessary stuff (assuming it exists!) untouched. But I’d still prefer $1.2T in “bad” cuts over not cutting spending at all.

Failure to make a deal on finding $1.2T in “good” cuts only serves as more evidence that Congress is a bunch of morons and that their collective approval rating should dip from the low teens to single digits. Frankly, that should bother them, but it doesn’t bother me.

Either way, the American taxpayer wins.

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