History Lesson

Given my recent posts about 'Trickle-Down' or 'Supply-Side' economics, I thought a little historical review was in order. According to the numbers, the conservative approach of "Take money away from 95% of the American public and invest in the few who need it the least" just doesn't work! The thing to keep in mind here is that during the Clinton years, taxes were actually raised and the Republicans screamed about how that would absolutely destroy the economy. The real numbers to look at here are the 'Median Household Income Growth' and the 'Employment Growth'. Bush's tax cuts that were supposed to be such a boon for the economy did manage to grow the GDP and investments, but didn't get the average american any further ahead, nor did they create any additional employment. The Reagan years, which they claim were so great, just don't compare to the growth of the late 90's.

Their crap just doesn't work! How many times do we have to try it before it sinks in?

UPDATE: It has been brought to my attention that my chart had an error. I had accidentally labeled the Reagan/Bush1 years as 1991-1993, it should have been 1981-1993. Sorry for the mistake.

A Time To Celebrate?

Polls show that a large majority of the american public wants this stimulus bill, thousands of people are losing their jobs everyday, people's retirement funds continue to dwindle, families are losing their homes, and the Republicans continue to be tone-deaf! Do they just not care about the average american? Nevermind, don't answer that. They're actually celebrating their united front against the stimulus bill according to several articles I've read today.

New York Times:

Republicans profess to be unconcerned. House Republicans on Thursday headed off to a retreat at The Homestead, a Virginia resort, still celebrating their unanimous stand — despite Mr. Obama’s visit to the Capitol to seek their support — against a package that in their view has too much big-government spending and too few tax cuts. Their unsuccessful substitute was entirely of tax cuts.

Washington Post:

The bill passed easily despite the opposition of all 177 Republican House members, but party leaders delighted in what they considered a victory after two straight electoral drubbings and much soul-searching about what the party stands for.

Now did I miss something? Didn't they just lose the presidency and a bunch of seats in the House and Senate? Wasn't a third of the stimulus bill comprised of tax cuts specifically to satisfy Republicans? Didn't President Obama ask Democrats to remove the controversial family planning aspect of the bill and several other items to once again appease the Republicans? Come on now, how much compromise do they expect? Their definition of bipartisan is to concede and give us everything we want!

Didn't we try it their way for the last 8 years, and look where that got us! They had no problem with Bush's $500 billion annual deficit spending for the last 8 years to benefit rich tax cuts! They had no problem spending hundreds of billions of dollars in Iraq without any budget oversight! Now all of a sudden they want to be fiscal conservatives! Their spending and 'supply-side' economics got us into this mess, their ideology of deregulation has led to a run-away train of greed and corruption that is still occurring with our bank bailout money! They have gotten us into the worse economic mess since the 1930's and now they don't want to spend any money to get us out of it, and they're proud to say so! I just can't even begin to understand the nerve these guys have.

The Republican party continues to be the obstructionist party, and as long as they keep going on that route, eventually they will be no party at all!

GOP, the "no" party!

House Minority Whip, Eric Cantor says in an editorial in Politico, that his party can't be the "no" party.

"At a moment when the country needs our help, it would be a great mistake for the House GOP to turn inward and simply become the party of “no.” We want our new president to succeed, and America needs our new President to succeed, which is why we will contribute the full force of our ideas to help him navigate the choppy waters. That’s why our leadership met with the president three times to offer him our ideas on the stimulus, including among other proposals a reduction in small business tax liability by 20 percent."

But when it came time to vote on the stimulus bill, that's exactly what they were, the "no" party. All 178 Republicans in the house voted against it! This is after they met with president Obama three times. He listened to their ideas and incorporated some of them into the bill -- including a large amount of tax cuts and even asked the Democrats to remove controversial items the Republicans had issue with.

They might not want to be the "no" party, but they certainly are the party of no new ideas! Their answer to everything is more tax cuts, tax cuts fix everything! If that were true, how come Bush's tax cuts didn't prevent this economic collapse? I already know what they'll say... "taxes weren't cut enough." I grow so tired of the old "Trickle-Down Economics" mantra everytime, look at wage growth during the Bush's years, stagnant, yet corporate profits were up, nothing is trickling down! If you give more tax cuts to corporations, you're just going to help them fund a new plant overseas or pay for that call center in India. It's not going to create many jobs here in the states.

Every leading economist who knows what their talking about says you have to spend money to get the economy going again. It's simple, spend money on infrastructure and other projects and services, which creates jobs, which gives people money to spend on goods and services, which will help businesses grow. It's not rocket science! If you just give everyone a tax cut, that money won't get spent, people will just save it. Everyone is too afraid to spend money right now, that's why the government has to do it.

So let's sum up, so far the GOP is the party of no ideas, no jobs, and most of all -- no clue!