Countdown To Armageddon? (Part 4)
Is it really, actually, truly possible that the party whose economic policies have unleashed a prosperity and productivity boom that has, among other things, created 6.6 million new jobs in the past year and a half alone, propelled the Dow (and all our 401k balances) past its previous all-time high, and now sent the unemployment rate down to a subterranean 4.4% is going to be cashiered in favor of the party that cannot wait to raise taxes, bust the budget, rule out any entitlements privatization, and set the nation on a collision course with economic collapse?
Consider all that is at stake in four days.
***The continued preeminence of US markets in the global economy. The Democrats would "Sarbanes/Oxley" them in also-ran mediocrity, and our economy along with them.
***Just a single trial lawyer outfit shook down US corporations for $45 billion, "paying three plaintiffs $11.4 million in illegal kickbacks in about 180 cases spanning 25 years — and then repeatedly lying about it to the courts." Republicans have made some measurable progress toward tort reform. Wave all that bye-bye if the Democrats get back in, and get ready to wave bye-bye to your job and a lot of extra cash in higher costs of living when the Gucci mafia have free reign again.
***Do we really want Barney Frank as Chairman of the House Financial Services Committee? A man (snicker) who believes that foreign regulators (i.e. global competitors) should have an equal claim to regulating US capital markets?
-Representative Richard Baker (R-LA)
If they get back into power in a few days, they'll consider the argument over, and we'll no longer have a choice.
"Ah," cut & run conservatives (aka Bruce Bartlett the other day) say, "but we certainly will have a choice. In fact, we'll have the best of both worlds: divided government. When each party has a branch of government, they cancel each other out, governing grinds to a halt, and no further damage can be done. Remember the salad days of the Clinton years? Let's bring that back!"
Two words, keeds: bull and [bleep]. For starters, that division was a GOP Congress versus a Donk president. And while that combination did yield the 1997 capital gains tax cut that finally undid the economic damage caused by Clinton's 1993 income tax rate hikes, Mr. Bill's effortless superiority as a propagandist and political manipulator intimidated Republicans on Capitol Hill into a gusher of domestic spending, the very fiscal misbehavior that has people like Bartlett turning their backs on those same Republicans today.
This time, however, the division would be a Democrat Congress versus a GOP president. The last time we saw that configuration was when George H.W. Bush was getting bilked into committing political suicide at Andrews Air Force Base via the 1990 "budget deal" that didn't control spending and did raise taxes. Think #1 son, the apostle of the "New Tone," the man who let Ted Kennedy write the "No Child Left Behind" education bill, wouldn't get snookered into another such debacle? I do.
Republican Congresses spend too much. Democrat Congresses spend too much, tax too much, regulate too much, and stick their noses into all other matter of things that they have no business. And the beauty of it for these Dems would be that even if they didn't actively pursue what may euphemistically be described as "mischief," the resulting automatic pilot would take the country in the direction libs have dreamed of for decades:
Bet none of you wannabe "lesson-teachers" thought of that, didja? Why else did Dems fight like devils for sunsetting the tax cuts? At worst it kept the burden on the GOP to keep renewing them (like the Patriot Act, that nearly got scuttled a year ago even with the current Republican majorities); but if they could get back into power, they'd have their long cherished tax increases without having to lift a finger. It'd only be a matter of time.
Of course, they'd never be able to wait that long. And that leads to an additional problem with the divided government paradigm, which is which side would have the momentum. While the GOP would be out of power in Congress, the Bush Administration winding down into lame-duckery in any case, and in this case doing so while under all-out attack from the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue, the Democrats would be back in charge on the Hill and have their unstoppable queen in the wings rolling toward the White House like a tsunami, with only the pitiful, bloodied survivor of the expected primary civil war on the Republican side to put up token resistance.
And then....
Tell me again, Bartlettians and Hillyerites, what "lesson" you think you're teaching, and to whom? You're the ones who'll be taught a lesson about your own petulant, myopic, self-destructive, spoiled-brat-ism. The only question is whether you'll learn it the easy way or the hard way.
The easy way is to get out and vote Republican on Tuesday. The hard way will hurt a helluva lot more than sporting noseplug scars.
Consider all that is at stake in four days.
***The continued preeminence of US markets in the global economy. The Democrats would "Sarbanes/Oxley" them in also-ran mediocrity, and our economy along with them.
***Just a single trial lawyer outfit shook down US corporations for $45 billion, "paying three plaintiffs $11.4 million in illegal kickbacks in about 180 cases spanning 25 years — and then repeatedly lying about it to the courts." Republicans have made some measurable progress toward tort reform. Wave all that bye-bye if the Democrats get back in, and get ready to wave bye-bye to your job and a lot of extra cash in higher costs of living when the Gucci mafia have free reign again.
***Do we really want Barney Frank as Chairman of the House Financial Services Committee? A man (snicker) who believes that foreign regulators (i.e. global competitors) should have an equal claim to regulating US capital markets?
How does all this relate to the upcoming congressional elections? Well, on an ideological level, consider one of the most talked about liberal books in recent years, What’s the Matter with Kansas?, by Thomas Frank. This book proposes that more average Americans would vote Democratic if they only realized their own economic interests. This arrogant condescension notwithstanding, I long have held that there exists a form of liberalism that, when it sees a profit, moves to tax it. And if that doesn’t do the trick, it then tries to regulate it. And if there’s anything left over after that, it takes steps to sue it. I just never thought I’d live to see the day when liberals would, as they have with relation to the markets, so openly advocate more taxation, more regulation, and more litigation, and, with a straight face, argue that most Americans would find this to be an attractive prescription for their financial well-being.
-Representative Richard Baker (R-LA)
If they get back into power in a few days, they'll consider the argument over, and we'll no longer have a choice.
"Ah," cut & run conservatives (aka Bruce Bartlett the other day) say, "but we certainly will have a choice. In fact, we'll have the best of both worlds: divided government. When each party has a branch of government, they cancel each other out, governing grinds to a halt, and no further damage can be done. Remember the salad days of the Clinton years? Let's bring that back!"
Two words, keeds: bull and [bleep]. For starters, that division was a GOP Congress versus a Donk president. And while that combination did yield the 1997 capital gains tax cut that finally undid the economic damage caused by Clinton's 1993 income tax rate hikes, Mr. Bill's effortless superiority as a propagandist and political manipulator intimidated Republicans on Capitol Hill into a gusher of domestic spending, the very fiscal misbehavior that has people like Bartlett turning their backs on those same Republicans today.
This time, however, the division would be a Democrat Congress versus a GOP president. The last time we saw that configuration was when George H.W. Bush was getting bilked into committing political suicide at Andrews Air Force Base via the 1990 "budget deal" that didn't control spending and did raise taxes. Think #1 son, the apostle of the "New Tone," the man who let Ted Kennedy write the "No Child Left Behind" education bill, wouldn't get snookered into another such debacle? I do.
Republican Congresses spend too much. Democrat Congresses spend too much, tax too much, regulate too much, and stick their noses into all other matter of things that they have no business. And the beauty of it for these Dems would be that even if they didn't actively pursue what may euphemistically be described as "mischief," the resulting automatic pilot would take the country in the direction libs have dreamed of for decades:
The biggest problem here, and one many conservatives don’t want to think about, is that our major entitlement programs are going to explode over the next generation, doubling federal spending as a percent of GDP to close to 40% or more.
Yes, folks, wake up — we are on autopilot right now to Swedish socialism unless we adopt some fundamental changes pretty soon. If anything even close to this happens, small-government conservatives will have been completely routed....
[Divided government] will bring nothing positive to the prospect of compromise, and more likely will usher in gridlock. And such gridlock would mean the end of the Bush tax cuts, which under current law will expire in four years. [emphasis added]
Bet none of you wannabe "lesson-teachers" thought of that, didja? Why else did Dems fight like devils for sunsetting the tax cuts? At worst it kept the burden on the GOP to keep renewing them (like the Patriot Act, that nearly got scuttled a year ago even with the current Republican majorities); but if they could get back into power, they'd have their long cherished tax increases without having to lift a finger. It'd only be a matter of time.
Of course, they'd never be able to wait that long. And that leads to an additional problem with the divided government paradigm, which is which side would have the momentum. While the GOP would be out of power in Congress, the Bush Administration winding down into lame-duckery in any case, and in this case doing so while under all-out attack from the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue, the Democrats would be back in charge on the Hill and have their unstoppable queen in the wings rolling toward the White House like a tsunami, with only the pitiful, bloodied survivor of the expected primary civil war on the Republican side to put up token resistance.
And then....
....replacing the new Democrat majority will not be easy. And don’t think Republicans will interpret the loss as meaning they weren’t conservative enough. Prompted by the mainstream media, they will conclude they have to move leftward to get to the center again. That means huge tax increases will be on the table.
How many years will it then take to turn this disaster around? Will it be too late for America by then?
Tell me again, Bartlettians and Hillyerites, what "lesson" you think you're teaching, and to whom? You're the ones who'll be taught a lesson about your own petulant, myopic, self-destructive, spoiled-brat-ism. The only question is whether you'll learn it the easy way or the hard way.
The easy way is to get out and vote Republican on Tuesday. The hard way will hurt a helluva lot more than sporting noseplug scars.
posted by JASmius at 6:48 AM
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