Posted on 11/01/2010 4:35:57 AM PDT by Kaslin
Heading into what appears to be a disastrous midterm election, the Obama Democrats profess to be puzzled. The president's record, they insist, is moderate, accommodating -- if anything, overcautious. So why do most American voters seem to be angrily rejecting it?
That's one way of looking at it. Another way is to say that the Obama administration and the Democratic Congress have increased government's share of gross domestic product from 21 percent, where it's hovered for the last several decades, to about 25 percent and have put the national debt on a trajectory to increase from 40 to 90 percent of GDP.
Voters have noticed -- and don't like it.
But, say the Obama Democrats, shouldn't ordinary people -- in particular, shouldn't the blue-collar working class -- be grateful to a government that tries to "spread the wealth" (Obama's words to Joe the Plumber) in difficult economic times?
They used to be, the argument would go. In post-World War II America, voters regularly moved toward the Democrats in recession years.
There's a difference, however, that has escaped Obama Democrats but perhaps not ordinary voters.
In recessions caused by oscillations in the business cycle from the 1940s to 1970s, voters were confident that the private-sector economy could support the burden of countercyclical spending on things like unemployment insurance and public works projects.
That spending would stimulate consumer demand, the thinking went, and once inventories were drawn down, manufacturers would call workers back to the assembly line. The recession would be over.
But it's been a long time since we've had a major business cycle recession. The recession from which we've technically emerged, but which seems to most voters to be lingering on, is something different, the result of a financial crisis.
And financial crisis recessions tend to be a lot deeper and more prolonged than business cycle recessions, as economists Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff argue in their 2009 book, "This Time is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly." "The aftermath of systemic banking crises," they write, "involves a protracted and pronounced contraction in economic activity and puts significant strains on government resources."
The very able economists in the incoming Obama administration seem to have ignored the difference between these two kinds of recessions. Council of Economic Advisers head Christina Romer was surely sincere when she promised that passage of the stimulus package would hold unemployment under 8 percent.
Similarly, administration economists evidently thought the private-sector economy could bear the burden of a national debt that doubled over a decade. It would bounce back like it usually does in a business cycle recession.
Tea partiers took a different view -- and before long, so did most voters. They seem to believe that permanent increases in government's share of GDP will inflict permanent damage on the private-sector economy -- and won't do much, if anything, to move us out of this prolonged financial crisis recession. The evidence so far seems to support them.
In addition, they seem to have understood that the threat of higher tax rates and more onerous and intrusive regulation from this administration would deter business executives from expanding, entrepreneurs from creating jobs, investors from taking risks and consumers from buying things.
Larry Summers could tell business leaders that they had nothing significant to fear from a sophisticated economic adviser like himself. But he was working for a president who told ABC's Charlie Gibson that he would favor higher capital gains tax rates even if they brought in less revenue to the government. This is a president who likes taking rich people's money away from them.
The business leaders know that Summers has gone, while the voters know that Obama remains and will be in office two more years -- but without a Democratic majority in the House of Representatives and, perhaps, a Democratic majority in the Senate, if the polls are right.
The line from the Obama camp is that voters are confused, ignorant, misled or even racist; they can't be rejecting the president's party on the merits. But voters, in rejecting the Obama Democrats' vast expansion of government, may be more sophisticated than their supposed betters. Leave the private sector alone, they seem to be saying, so it can recover from the financial crisis recession and once again create the bounteous and unscripted growth that has been the norm in American history.
Pretty fair assessment I’d say, if not a bit soft.
Good piece by Barone. I know I am tired of a cabal of ivy league communists that desire to “try out” their theory at the expense of the American people. I don’t wan’t to be a global citizen or a good little socialist.
Doing what has been tried over and over that always fails is not a sign of enlightenment.
These jokers couldn’t win a game of LIFE.
Above most all, I respect Michael Barone. He is however wrong.
Obama et al know precisely what they are doing and are proceeding as planned to prove they have been right for almost a hundred years and had their policies and ideology been followed, the Great Depression would have not lasted .
Then there is the transition. Transition is change with a sinister component. The transition from capitalism to socialism involves growing the government permanently and creating a legal framework for ending poverty by ending wealth. The transition is redistribution from producers to non producers.
” The very able economists in the incoming Obama administration “
‘Able’ economists??
By their fruits shall ye know them.....
A better assessment IMHO
Saul Alinsky never counted on the internet. That said, these thugs are determined SOBs.
There, fixed it for Mr. Barone.
So true. It is outrageous.
Voters would have a better chance with a lottery ticket.
The government has no "resources." The only thing the government has is us, and the only way government can make things better is if things can be made better by ordering us around at the point of a gun. If you think that there's a shortage of people who are being ordered to do what they don't want to do with threats ultimately backed up by the threat of violence, well, vote for the Democrats. One warning though: it's never worked.
The problem is, our economy, the wealth we all enjoy (including the poor), is the result of thinking by millions and millions of well-educated, creative people. America is the biggest collection of people of this type ever assembled. The problem is, these people can't be motivated to think harder at gunpoint. It just won't work, never has worked, and never will worked.
All government can do is make things worse, and make those who complain disappear if they complain too effectively.
That's it, in a nutshell.
The government has no "resources." The only thing the government has is us, and the only way government can make things better is if things can be made better by ordering us around at the point of a gun. If you think that there's a shortage of people who are being ordered to do what they don't want to do with threats ultimately backed up by the threat of violence, well, vote for the Democrats. One warning though: it's never worked.
The problem is, our economy, the wealth we all enjoy (including the poor), is the result of thinking by millions and millions of well-educated, creative people. America is the biggest collection of people of this type ever assembled. The problem is, these people can't be motivated to think harder at gunpoint. It just won't work, never has worked, and never will worked.
All government can do is make things worse, and make those who complain disappear if they complain too effectively.
That's it, in a nutshell.
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I agree with you. The choice here is between Obama’s failure or the country’s.
Nice cover for these criminals, Mike. The socialist programs that these socialists instituted long ago and recently (social security, medicaid, medicare, GM pensions, AIG insurance...socialization of risk...derivative scams, takeovers of large sectors of our economy, etc., etc.) coupled with most radical, deceitful collective of socialists that ever occupied the highest offices of our republic...are the cause of our consternation.
Stick to examining voting Barone. Moron.
I grow weary of the belief that voters are confused, ignorant, misled or even racist.
Common Americans know a con when they see one.
involves a protracted and pronounced contraction in economic activity and puts significant strains on government resources.”
The most unusual observance that God commanded the Israelites through Moses was the keeping of the year of jubilee. For most people this celebration occurred only once in their life time, and for many not even that, as it occurred only once every 50 years.
At this year of jubilee all Israelites who had sold themselves into slavery were set free, and all land that had been sold reverted to its original owner. This meant that no Israelite could ever be in permanent slavery; nor could any Israelite permanently lose his inheritance.
http://www.growthingod.org.uk/jubilee.htm
Barone is peddling disinformation.. it is exactly Cloward-Piven..
Exactly as Alinsky(and his minions) taught and planned..
The ONLY Anti-Alinsky(Cloward-Piven) tactic remains for the new Congress to De-Fund..
De-Fund and Under-Fund the federal government..
A meat ax MUST BE taken to the federal monster..
Reduce it draconially pay off the debt and call in much of the currency..
AND reduce any limits to State sovereignty.. cede ALL State lands to the States(ALL OF IT).. include any Parks and Monuments.. and go thru the federal budget with a dose of metaphorical Ex-Lax..
In 2012 stengthen the 10th amendment to increase State sovereignty..
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