After the Wrecking

Sunday's New York Times featured a quotation from Newt Gingrich, Republican paladin, dilating on the subject of Democratic enthusiasm for what the paper called "new government programs": "You have to convince a country that watched Katrina, that watched Baghdad, that watched Fannie and Freddie, now the answer's going to be to pile more junk on top of the junk we already have."

This got me going. Conservatives have wrecked government so massively that it fails in New Orleans, fails in Iraq, and fails in its most basic regulatory missions. And this is the reason we need to elect more conservatives to high office?

More in the WSJ:

"The GOP Peddles Economic Snake Oil "

Comments

[schatsie]

Thomas, thank you for another great article!

[americandiaspora]

yes but thomas,

the government was wrecked as many people like you and i have predicted. my question is why the hell when making the bail out (negotiating the final straw with the final bone-head policy of the conservative government) did this legislature not insist that 'the' dick and w resign like they do in real countries

[FogCityJohn]

The Republicans screw things up massively when they're in charge of the government, and then they turn around and argue that this shows that government can't do anything right, so we shouldn't allow government to do anything.

This argument makes about as much sense as saying that because some doctors are incompetent and unquestionably commit malpractice, people shouldn't allow doctors to treat their illnesses. The incompetence of the Republicans in running government demonstrates only that -- Republicans are incompetent at running government.

[Indedave]

Good analogy.

[vegas9999]

Let me get this straight. Demos. have been running almost every major city in this country for years. That has worked out real well, has it not?

[Luigi53102]

That's a powerful argument you have there.

[LeftRight]

And at the same time they've been suffering through a dearth of federal funds since the presidency and congressional control were both REPUBLICANS!

[saami]

What about Hurricane Ike? Galveston and the area around it is devastated and no help from the conservative Republican administration. So is George Bush still President? Does he do anything these days? Is he just trying to run out the clock? Is Dick Cheney in some "hiddy" hole? Not seeing much of him either.

[SaltySaltillo]

As a victim of Hurricane Ike, I don't think you know what you are talking about and you are embarrassing yourself and making yourself dizzy by trying to turn Ike into a "Katrina II".

[vegas9999]

What a crock. They got plenty of help and they are not out there crying every day like the New Orleans politicans.

[LeftRight]

It's just like what raygun did to California. He said that the schools were doing bad, so he cut the funding for them, and sure enough they started to underperform. This was his basis for FURTHER cutting funding, which caused them to underperform worse.

See the one thing that they fail to point out is this: EVEN NOW, AFTER 40+ YEARS OF RAYGUNMENT IN CALIFORNIA, THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS STILL OUTPERFORM MOST PRIVATE SCHOOLS!!!