The Republicans have separated themselves from the present government. If they can't own the playing field they don't want to play. They had the field for 7 years. They played badly. Worst, they let it run down, didn't care, drained all the profit from it, brought it to almost complete ruin, and now they act like only they can save us from the damage they created. I'm not into this democratic "we're all to blame' theme that moderators keep throwing out to calm the angry populace. No, we're not to blame, the idiots that were holding the reins for seven years are to blame.
Under Bush and the Republicans, we ended up with a tax code favoring the rich, a huge national debt, an 850 billion dollar trade deficit, hemorrhaging mortgage defaults, and a weak dollar. There was also no real investment in the future, no effort to train people with the skills to compete in the new world markets. We've been running in place while countries, like India and China, keep picking up their pace.
During one of the presidential debates in 2000 between Gore and Bush, they argued over how to spend the anticipated $2.2 trillion budget surplus. Remember? Yeah, there actually was a surplus before the Republicans took over. What's funny is that the Republicans are aghast that the Democrats want to spend this same amount to save the economy. They had the $2 trillion, they blew it, and now they're shocked that we need that amount to climb out of the hole they put us in.
OK, but let's move on.
I'd like to give a tip of my hat to John Kenneth Galbraith. In his The New Industrial State (1967) Galbraith argued that major corporations dominated the economy to such an extent that they no longer responded to the old laws of the market, but rather dominated it. This allowed them to control market demand, determining even the actions of the government, which gave them tremendous economic clout, that they used to further their own interests, rather than society's. I think that sums up one of the main reasons we're in the mess we're in.
What are the Republicans so upset about? President Obama is following classic Keynesian economics. They on the other hand are pushing "voodoo economics", the term given it by the senior Bush. The basic premise is, that if you give to the rich, everything works out great. Yeah, for the rich. The Republicans have taken this economic philosophy of inequality to heart, have in fact formed a cult around it. I'll be writing more on that, in more probing detail, in my next blog.
