Reagan and the tea party

Tea Parties Forever:

Republicans have become embarrassing to watch. And it doesn’t feel right to make fun of crazy people. Better, perhaps, to focus on the real policy debates, which are all among Democrats. But here’s the thing: the G.O.P. looked as crazy 10 or 15 years ago as it does now. That didn’t stop Republicans from taking control of both Congress and the White House. And they could return to power if the Democrats stumble. So it behooves us to look closely at the state of what is, after all, one of our nation’s two great political parties.

One way to get a good sense of the current state of the G.O.P., and also to see how little has really changed, is to look at the “tea parties”... antitaxation demonstrations that are supposed to evoke the memory of the Boston Tea Party and the American Revolution — have been the subject of considerable mockery, and rightly so. But everything that critics mock about these parties has long been standard practice within the Republican Party. Thus, President Obama is being called a “socialist” who seeks to destroy capitalism. Why? Because he wants to raise the tax rate on the highest-income Americans back to, um, about 10 percentage points less than it was for most of the Reagan administration. Bizarre.

Posted via web from jimnichols's posterous

Former Labor Secretary Robert Reich on Obamanomics

Marketplace: Introducing the era of Obamanomics

Robert Reich:

After more than a quarter century, the era of Reaganomics is over, replaced by Obamanomics.

The first principle of Reaganomics was that lower taxes on the wealthy made them work harder and invest more, and the benefits trickle down to everyone else. Rarely in economic history has a theory been more tested in the real world and proven so wrong. Nothing trickled down. After the Reagan tax cuts, the median wage slowed, adjusted for inflation. After George W. Bush's tax cuts for the wealthy, the median wage actually dropped.

Meanwhile, most of the income went to the top. In 1980, just before the Reagan revolution, the richest 1 percent took home 9 percent of total national income. But by 2007, the richest 1 percent was taking home 22 percent. Obamanomics, by contrast, will increase taxes on the top, and it will use these proceeds to raise the living standards of average Americans by giving them lower taxes, better schools, and more affordable health insurance.

Reaganomics' second principle was that deregulated markets function better. Well, energy markets were deregulated and we wound up with Enron. Carbon emissions weren't controlled, and now we face global warming. Financial markets were deregulated and we have a global meltdown. Obamanomics, by contrast, accepts important roles for government: Creating incentives for non-fossil based energy, setting an overall cap on carbon emissions, and ensuring the solvency and security of financial companies.

The third and least well-known principle of Reaganomics is that government can keep the economy moving full tilt by spending like crazy and not worrying too much about budget deficits. Reagan's big spending was on national defense. Some of us called it "military Keynesianism." Problem was, it didn't stop when the economy got to capacity, thereby threatening inflation. Obama's stimulus intends to avoid this by reducing deficits as the nation moves back toward full capacity.

Under Reaganomics, government is the problem. It can still be a problem. But Obanaomics at least recognizes there are even bigger problems out there that can't be solved without government.

right gets it wrong...

Head of BLS: "Worst Jobs report ever..."

In an exchange with Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-MD, Hall said , "If I were to characterize this jobs report I would say it's very dismal... it's maybe one of the worst that the BLS has ever produced."

"Ever?" asked Cummings.

"Ever," replied Hall.

Cummings asked how long the BLS has been around and the answer was 124 years.

Hall compared the current recession to the 2001 recession, which he said was more centered on the tech industry and so not as hard on the economy as a whole. Jobs losses now, he said, are distributed across the entire job market and economy, which is more focused on consumer spending.

But Hall might have been overstating just a little bit. This is the sixth worst jobs report since 1929 and the worst since 1974. So its the sixth worst not counting the Great Depression.

30 years after the conservative revolution... can we call it dead yet?

where to go from here...

The GOP's McCarthy gene
Think Goldwater is the father of conservatism? Think again.

But there is another rendition of the story of modern conservatism, one that doesn't begin with Goldwater and doesn't celebrate his libertarian orientation. It is a less heroic story, and one that may go a much longer way toward really explaining the Republican Party's past electoral fortunes and its future. In this tale, the real father of modern Republicanism is Sen. Joe McCarthy, and the line doesn't run from Goldwater to Reagan to George W. Bush; it runs from McCarthy to Nixon to Bush and possibly now to Sarah Palin. It centralizes what one might call the McCarthy gene, something deep in the DNA of the Republican Party that determines how Republicans run for office, and because it is genetic, it isn't likely to be expunged any time soon.

I hate being disingenuous and ignorant... at least i'm not alone...

I started reading the Henry Citizen Newsletter a local email newsletter here in Henry.

In response to a letter I sent in, I get this:

Anyone who believes that the Bush Administration, or Lynn Westmoreland, has been deregulating the economy is not doing their homework. George Mason University recently found that the Bush Administration has “presided over the largest increase in regulatory spending.” And, “the President’s 2002 and 2003 regulatory budgets were among the 10 biggest annual increases in regulatory spending in the last 60 years.” In 2009, the federal government will spend $51 billion on regulation. It is disingenuous and ignorant for anyone to suggest that we are in an era of deregulation.

Qua?

I didn't have the time to dig deep into what is obviously a rather strange argument (we haven't seen deregulation over the past 30 years?) would be interesting to see more in depth.

Anyways I came across this today and it reminded me how I'm not the only one fooled by the policies over the past 30 years...

30year deregulation era dies a sudden death

It's the Deregulation, Stupid

House Republicans defend deregulation

So I had to clarify my understanding of the terms since so many of us are disingenuous and ignorant.

dis·in·gen·u·ous (dsn-jny-s)
adj.
1. Not straightforward or candid; insincere or calculating: "an ambitious, disingenuous, philistine, and hypocritical operator, who ... exemplified ... the most disagreeable traits of his time" David Cannadine.
2. Pretending to be unaware or unsophisticated; faux-naïf.
3. Usage Problem Unaware or uninformed; naive.

ig·no·rant (gnr-nt)
adj.
1. Lacking education or knowledge.
2. Showing or arising from a lack of education or knowledge: an ignorant mistake.
3. Unaware or uninformed.

Reagan and Defense Spending...

Classified Acquisition Programs in the FY 1999 Defense Budget Request

Classified or “black” programs comprise some $14 billion or 17 percent of the administration’s fiscal year (FY) 1999 request for $84.8 billion in Department of Defense (DoD) acquisition funding. The classified amount consists of $7.1 billion in procurement and $7.1 billion in research and development (R&D) funding. During the Reagan buildup of the 1980s, DoD’s classified acquisition funding grew significantly, reaching some $21 billion in FY 1987. But compared to the FY 1999 requested level, it will have fallen nearly 50 percent in real (inflation-adjusted) terms since then, roughly paralleling the rate at which total DoD acquisition funding has decreased.

Because access to information on black programs is restricted, DoD and Congress generally provide less oversight for these programs than for unclassified ones. In the past, this reduced level of scrutiny, on top of the compartmentalization of information that normally accompanies classified programs, has contributed to performance problems and cost growth in a number of programs, leading some members of Congress and others to argue that the Pengaton’s classification policies should be reformed and funding further reduced for classified programs.1

Reagan's Defense Buildup Bridged Military Eras
Huge Budgets Brought Life Back to Industry

The Reagan defense buildup was a hallmark of his presidency, a free-spending crusade that lifted the nation's military industry out of the doldrums after the Vietnam War. He created a war-machine economy in a time of uneasy peace, with defense spending in amounts not seen since the heights of the Korean and Vietnam conflicts and sustained for longer than either of those wars.