The Death of Republican Philosophy
Last week was historic. It is a week that financial and economic people will study for generations. It also marked the end of certain elements of the Republican Party's ideology. Below are statements the Republican party can no longer claim as part of their core ideology.
We are the party of small government
Actually, this week simply added to the the end of this claim. Under Bush II, discretionary spending has increased from $640 billion to $1.040 trillion dollars. Also remember that Bush had a Republican controlled congress for 6 of those years. However, Paulson will send a package to Congress which totals $800 billion. The Treasury will create a new agency to buy bad debt (which the WSJ's Marketbeat blog has called the Treasury Garbage Machine). In short, when the Republicans control all branches of government they spend like drunken sailors.
We Support Free Markets
Last week the SEC banned short-selling in financial shares:
The Securities and Exchange Commission has announced a ban on short-selling financial stocks over the next two weeks. Short-selling is essentially betting that a stock's price will go down. The SEC hopes the ban will reduce downward pressure on the market, but some think it will backfire. Wall Streeter Barry Ritholtz tells Madeleine Brand that the SEC action reverses 1,000 years of theory about how free markets should work.
In short, markets are supported when they are going up. But when they are going down, we're going to do everything we can to prevent them from going down.
We Are the Party of Fiscal Responsibility.
No they aren't. No Republican president has ever balanced a budget. While Republicans have argued that Reagan had to contend with Democrats, Bush II did not for 6 years. Under this scenario where the Republicans controlled all branches of government they never even came close to balancing a budget.
We are the Party of Personal Responsibility
No you're not. When companies make really stupid decisions the Federal government bails them out. Just ask any shareholder of AIG. Or any taxpayer who will not help to finance the latest government bail-out.
Simply put, this week has demonstrated a key point: when the going gets tough, the Republicans become socialists:
If you are a fan of irony, consider this: The conservative movement has utterly hated FDR, and his New Deal programs like Medicaid, Social Security, FDIC, Fannie Mae (1938), and the SEC for nearly 80 years. And for the past 8 years, a conservative was in the White House, with a very conservative agenda. For something like 16 of the past 18 years, the conservative dominated GOP has controlled Congress. Those are the facts.
We now see that the grand experiment of deregulation has ended, and ended badly. The deregulation movement is now an historical footnote, just another interest group, and once in power they turned into socialists. Indeed, judging by the actions of the conservatives in power, and not the empty rhetoric that comes out of think tanks, the conservative movement has effectively turned the United States into a massive Socialist state, an appendage of Communist Russia, China and Venezuela.
Whenever a Republican talking head says they are for any of the above mentioned things they should be questioned to explain how that statement (I'm for free markets) jibes with banning short selling of an entire sector of the market. Whenever a Republican says he is for smaller government, have him explain the nearly doubling of discretionary spending when the Republicans controlled all branches of government.
Simply put, this week demonstrated how hollow many of the Republican values are. They sound great on paper, but aren't put into practice when that result might cause financial harm to another Republican.
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How will this affect the National Debt? Will it hit $10 trillion buckos by inauguration?
You also forgot that line "Government should be run like a business"
the fact of the matter is that deregulation AND regulation will FAIL in a central economic planned system. in a free market system (which we have NOT had in several decades) deregulation will work.
assume that we had a free market system. AIG would be bankcrupt. hell, they would have been kicked on the stree long ago, bought by competitors.
you like sarbane-oxley? let me leave you with this:
"Allow me to control and issue a nation's money and I care not who writes its laws!". Amshell Rothschild.
And that folks, IS the issue.
Baloney. Deregulation has never worked. Lack of regulation has always lead to economic crime and collapse. Why do you think regulation came into existence in the first place? As for free markets, there is no such thing in a modern economy--and you know that.
As I pointed out in an earlier post, Republicans will always come back with their usual mantra and people will fall for it. Your post is just another reminder.
First, we've NEVER had a true free market!
Second, the only times in history that a free market HAS happened, we have had the same sort of thing go on as is happening now!
It hasn't died. It has moved! We conservatives loathe neo-cons and neo-libs who have highjacked the republican and democrat parties. they are both now statists, riddled with corporatism - a soft form of fascism. we haven't had a free market in several decades. we've had managed trade, riddled again with regulations that suck-up to corporate interests at the trough of the federal reserve.
only 32% of americans are registered to vote. think the rest of us evaporated? did you see the lates national press club conference with paul, nader, mckinney and baldwin ALL agreeing on 5 fundamental principles? none of which are being spoken to by the two candidates?
the fact of the matter is that your article helps sweeten the koolaide for the democrats. that said, the republican party has had the sweetest koolaide these last years. but, the parties on the hill love knowing that each party is making koolaide. meanwhile they feed at the trough of the federal reserve, devalue our money after they get the first cut and then dole out the crumbs to us on interest through inflation. its a ruse.
there are only a handful of statesmen in each isle. the rest are mutually and agreeably complicit.
the people have more common principles - across the board - than either party wants us to believe.
PLEASE, take a look at this: http://www.c-spanarchives.org/library/index.php?main_page=product_video_info&tID=5&src=atom&atom=todays_events.xml&products_id=281024-1
have you seen the movie, "nightmare on wallstreet"?
just when you think freddy is dead, they have a sequel, 29 crash, s&l, enron, "correction{?)" of 08. whatever...
these movies have rules, structure. first you take a bunch of greedy tax hating republicans and then you...
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Darn! I was all fired up to compose something to the effect of, Republicans won't be fazed by the facts and questioning their BS has never made a dent, blah, blah... and BillZBubb and cobraxus stole my thunder. Just as well as I'm a poor vesel and they said it so well.
The party of small government, is that party of small minded government. Me, my, first. See pa lin, et al.
Republicans, who love money, not wisdom, have no "philosophy." The good ship USA has been steaming at full speed without a rudder, and we actually have another clown from the party of greed who is being taken seriously as a Presidential candidate. We're living dangerously, folks, and, lest we forget, pickups need gas, televisions need electricity, and kids need groceries.
but you forget that republicans are expert liars(just look at Palin/McCain).historical revisionism is the key component of their right-wing idealogy.if someone in the media or more likely elsewhere ever challenges their assertions the neocon will simply begin shouting over them and when confronted with the proof will claim the other guy doesn't know what the hell they're talking about.that's how these people operate.
I always assumed those were just slogans, not anything they were pretending to believe in.
No truer words were written. It's time for Americans to get off their huge, gelatinous behinds and vote for the Democratic Party -- for Congressional seats as well as for President. It's change we need NOW.
A great turning point in history, the end of the 20th century politics and beginning of a new
Bait & Switch: financial oligarchy. The Soul of Conservatism.
I'm afraid, to paraphrase Twain, the rumors of the death of Republican "philosophy" have been greatly exaggerated. Republican "philosophy" doesn't rely on facts, it actually requires willful ignorance of facts. Therefore, the facts of economic collapse under Republican control will have no effect on the true believers in Republican "philosophy".
Nor will it have much effect on the public's gullibility when the Republicans do there usual rants about "free markets", "limited government", and their "superior economic insight".
That is exactly so--when you have forsworn any respect for truth, sold your soul for short-term profit, embraced jingoistic xenophobia as a guding creed, an, above all, truly believe that ends (even selfish, tainted, criminal ends, justify any means, you will thereafter say, write and do ANYTHING to avoid responsibility for the damage you do and to enhance your personal gain from that same damage.
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