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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This is nothing but a bailout for BUSH'S BASE (the upper 2% of the nations wealthist)
They feel they were done wrong -- they did not make the ROI on the mortgage back secuities they felt intitiled to. BUSH has let this infection sit and fester for three years, now we the middle class has to
bail out the wealthy, i say ok but you LOSE YOUR TAX BREAK, unless you start a business in America and only hire Americans.
Interestingly, all over the blogosphere over the last several days, I've seen 'Conservatives' blaming the Liberals for the mess.
Yep. The people who say they favor deregulation [which is the biggest culprit in the crisis] blame the folks who believe that asking the fox to guard the hen house doesn't do the hens any good.
xxx
Regulation is necessary because, human nature being what it is, greed will always trump good judgment unless oversight is built into the system. And overisight has been steadily and systematically dismantled by every Republican since Reagan.
Until now -- when a bi-partisan chorus is being sung in praise of regulation. Too late.
But that's only happening on the hill.
Out here in the boondocks the old, 'Blame the Liberals' game goes on.
Everything in this article is exactly correct. Where should people like me turn for comfort? One party offers communism, the other socialism. I want neither, so I am viewed as an outcast and am unwelcome in politics. So be it.
The Republican philosophy is every man for himself unless you are a Wall Street big shot or a corporation in "trouble". So, protect yourself and your family--buy as much gold and silver that you can afford NOW or on the next downturn using cash on hand and from the sale of stocks, if you have any. It's difficult to find dealers but there is plenty available on Ebay. I am not selling.
According to Time magazine, "The average American is working two and half jobs, gets two weeks off, and has all the employment security of a one-armed trapeze artist. The Bush Administration has preached the "ownership society" to America: own your house, own your retirement account; you don't need the government in your way. So Americans mortgaged themselves to the hilt to buy overpriced houses they can no longer afford and signed up for 401k programs that put money where, exactly? In the stock market! Where rich Republicans fleeced them."
Thanks heavens they didn't privatize Social Security and have us pump the bubble even higher and delayed its popping. By doing a bail-out , they're still leaving Main Street holding much of the bag, of course.
That is completely False. Republicanism is Alive. Your Criteria are not Republicanism.
Really? Go read the 2004 Republican Party Platform. This article says it all; they spout one thing, but time has proven the do the opposite.
not a fan!
All of the philosophical claims you mention, are merely icing on a cake of greed. Neo-Conservatives (better known as Corporatists) have no philosophy that does not bow before rank greed. Indeed, in happier times (for profits, that is) the Wall Street crowd has unambiguously trumpeted the virtues of unbridled greed, in (supposedly) making America a richer, more fulfilled, "ownership society."
Now that it turns out that any benefit to the citizenry was all hot market bubbles, The Corporatists now come running to the taxpayer, who are nearly as broke as our government is, after years of selling off its assets, for nothing on the dollar, to private profiting interests.
Sure, lets bail them out. But then we own them; which they've been telling us for years is the basis of good financial policy. Sure, the difference is that we'd own them collectively, which divide-and-conquer Corporatists say is "socialism."
But so is bailing them out, socialism! They can't have it both ways -- private in terms of profit; but socialist to carry the weight of their failures. If they want our money, they need to give us-the-taxpayer equity in their companies in exchange.
I'll be waiting for my first pooled-dividend check.
Maybe this will get me blasted but, I hold both parties accountable
for not taking action, or for taking the wrong action, since Reagan.
Yes I know people blame it all on Clinton. He is the author of some
lame trade policies, but not the whole problem. Both parties have taken
money and used influence through Wall Street. Non-regulation has led to
high risk speculation and huge profit. No one turned down that windfall
when the first problems surfaced! Paulson is set to get unlimited power
to use our tax dollars yet again without oversight. People start to lose
even more homes, and this plan falls apart!
I don't know if it was a coincidence or what but, while parked across from a government building in my town i happened to be looking and say a rat run out a open door! Are the rats deserting the ship? Is this the beginning of the end? or the end of the beginning? Where do we go from here? I can't agree with a bail out of a company that has had no rules to base loans on! Was this planned? Will this destroy any candidates chances of getting governments head out of its ass? America no longer is in charge of its own destiny! Obama will win but, win what? Government has stuck another knife in the taxpayers back! Remember the economic stimulus package? Well, how does it feel between your shoulder blades? I am sad,that the great country started by so many men with stars in their eyes, and greatness in their hearts can be brought to its knees by lobbyist money and, greedy politicians! Shame on Washington, and, shame on us for electing these greedy bastards!
A "philosophy" unsupported by facts cannot be slayed by facts. True believers need no facts or logic or consistency or even basic sense. They can say one thing one day and the opposite the next. It makes no difference.
"The facts will not set you free." - George Lakoff
Any philosophy not supported by the facts is immoral because it doesn't work, unethical because it harms individual lives and nonsensical. No matter how many persons lies, smears of opponents, whines, distortions, swiftboating, falsified statistics, faked science or theocratic nonsense may win over--it's still sick fantasy. Postmodernists bash reality, and harm people. The neocon, extremist wing of the Republicans isn't American, not sane. The party of men such as Lincoln, TR , Chuck Hagel died in 1911. Since then, 96 years, their economic priniciples have remained the same. not capltalists but "statists"--leaving nominal control of the individual's life or the organization with their privilege of canceling that ownership for mystical pubic-interest motives at whim. Part of their infallible leader psychosis, demanding obedience so everyone works himself to death for the sacrificial benefit of obeying stupid orders. Is this what our Founding Fathers--who hated collectivist tyrants--had in mind? Easy credit handed to dictator CEOs, skimming salaries off the top, paying workers as little as possible, making demands on hirelings, killing powers of middle management, attacking unions, avoiding science, refusing to define anything, using Fed money for leveraged buyouts, using it for outsourcing, selling via brainwashing ads, not caring about worker safety, paying exorbitant 'leader' salaries up front & adding price to the product instead of taking bonuses out of net profts, bribing politicians with millions to support their tyranny--Republicanism. Now they want the country enslaved to Mr. Paulson's insanity? Just say "no", please.
The bankruptcy of the Republican Party is so obvious that Republicans wont even own up to the fact that it is their ultra-right ideological obsession that has brought our country to the brink of economic disaster. No they don't get it because they did it. Hell, deregulation and union busting started with Ronald Reagan firing the air traffic controllers and destroying their union PACTO. President Clinton denominated them (the ultra right) correctly when he called them extremists. They deregulated the capitalist market harking back to the days of Adam Smith's "invisible hand of the market" with the promise and democratic superstition that in the final analysis the "forces of the market place" would be that great distributor of "economic" justice after we invest all hopes and dreams in that wealthiest 1% of the nation. And what did they do, this most worthy few? They plundered the nation right before our very eyes. And now they want to blame us for a market limited by the poverty of the many that they created!
Well said.
JUST SAY NO.
IT'S time for the GREAT REPUBLICAN TOSS-OUT.
Break YOUR ADDICTION! JUST SAY, NO!
NO more Republicans WRECKING AMERICA!
We must toss out the corrupt, liar Republicans who proved theyy
CANNOT GOVERN, who proved they're TRICKSTERS and FAKERS
who con gullible people into believing Republican lies to their own peril and demise.
--- Republicans deserve NO MORE YEARS.---
Republicans proved they're traitors, destroyers of Americans and their future, robbers of decent MIDDLE CLASS AMERICANS. --- NO McInane-McCANE! NO McMOOSE PALIN ---
--------VOTE for COMMON SENSE and responsibility: Obama-McCain '08.
Hale "Bonddad" Stewart,
You underestimate a stiff necked republican. A tiger doesn't change his stripes.
When all is rosy again, you will see the same mindset with a different face.
A philosophy of "traditional values" are a perpetual thought process.
For them, the more things change, the more they remain the same.
Yeah, but some people will still vote for McCain. Just got done talking to two of them. I don't think reason has a place in this country's politics.
The political process is irrational by nature, that's what makes it passionate and endlessly entertaining. Much like a love affair.
You can explain things to people but you can not understand for them, anymore than you can convince a friend that their idealized "other" is a deadbeat and a loser. Been there ?
Wonderful Hale, and the irony is not lost!!
It's not really the death of their philosophy, but the exposure of their incessant lies. The philosopy will go on with plenty of schitt-for-brains giving lip service to what they think Ayn Rand wants them to do. Of course while they attempt to misdirect your attention, they will continue to stuff their pockets at the expense of the general public. It is their nature. They just can't help it.
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