As a progressive Im comfortable doing something most people arent; debunking the 30 years of mythology Republicans have used to justify their miserable economic policies. You might want to copy and download this piece; particularly if youre tired of hearing the fake economics of your Republican acquaintances. First, simply consider the results of 30 years of conservative policy application. --Huge income gaps between the 1% and everyone else; that small group of Americans saw their share of all income go from just over 8% to more than 22%. At the same time most Americans saw little to no real income growth. Just terrific, huh? --A lost decade during the Bush II administrations where a good chunk of working Americans saw their incomes decline in real terms. Meanwhile the country spent well over $2 trillion fighting two wars and winning neither. Military industrial complex anyone? --The financial collapse of banking caused in no small part by a Republican ideology that says the less regulations there are the better. Ooops. --With all the money going to the 1% is it any surprise poverty has skyrocketed and that 47% of all working Americans need some sort of financial assistance. Not a coincidence, folks. --Chronic, persistent unemployment. This is caused by public markets that do a lousy job of supplying enough capital for productive investment; instead the markets waste most of the capital using money to make money in completely non productive speculation. And when that house of cards collapses, as it did in 2008, the rich have their losses socialized. We have socialism for the rich. Sound conservative to you? --Weve had a government shutdown and a near miss on reneging on the 14th amendment guarantee of our sovereign debt. This cost us $25 billion and 120,000 jobs. The sequester deal of 2011 cost an estimated 800,000 jobs. One credit agency downgraded our sovereign debt--not because we cant pay our bills because we can easily pay our bills, but because investors should be concerned about the trends in place now regarding governance, or lack of governance as the case appears to be. As a progressive I find Republican ideology to be an unmitigated disaster. Im truly amazed that anyone believes a word they say at this point. Republicans tell everyone our government is the enemy and they do everything in their power to produce government failure in order to prove their assertion. A couple points, for which I have numerous citations. --Government run health care programs, Medicare, Medicaid and the Veterans Administration, all cost one fourth what private health care cost administratively. And they are all very popular programs. --Social Security is an inexpensive, basic pension plan that has a surplus of more than $2 trillion and with a simple raise in the cap to $180,000 in income will comfortably pay for SS into the foreseeable future. --Government research and development programs, plus targeted government support for emerging companies by being a major customer, have created almost all of the major technological advances of the past half century. Nanotechnology, biotechnology, fracking, the internet and everything Apple sells including Siri, all solar and wind power advancements, among many other game changing technologies, were all developed by government or government funding. Economist Mariana Mazzucatos book The Entrepreneurial State, Debunking Public vs. Private Myths, is a good place to get the truth. As opposed to Republican brainwashing. --There is absolutely no economic theory for trickle down. It was part of a political strategy concocted during the Reagan administration (on the back of a table napkin no less) giving cover for Reagan to promise he could cut taxes and theyd pay for themselves. They didnt and Reagan ran huge deficits. --There is no historical data supporting the Republican claim that tax cuts produce robust economies. The only thing tax cuts correlate to is widening deficits. They dont correlate to robust economic growth at all. The fact is high marginal tax rates better correlate to robust economies than tax cuts. I can explain why this is, but some other time. --We have public markets that exist only because of government regulations. Without smart regulations, these markets fail--2008 being the most recent example. --Governments can raise incomes by fiat simply by raising the minimum wage. This has been successfully done so many times, here and around the world, it is no longer controversial anywhere except in the minds of Republicans. There is no proven correlation to unemployment either; unemployment is created by other factors than raises in minimum wages. --Government can protect domestic jobs from foreign competition. Unfortunately Republicans have no interest in doing this. Instead they support trade agreements that protect stateless corporations from competition. --Government can not only protect jobs, it can effectively create them. Large, multi-year infrastructure projects would employ several million people (many now unemployed with skills for such projects) at livable wages while, at the same time, giving American industries a huge competitive boost. During a recession like the one were still in, for every $1 government spends, an additional $1.50 is created, for a total productive impact of $2.50. This multiplier is no longer in dispute. Economists who argued otherwise have been thoroughly discredited by research and the huge negative impact witnessed in Europe by austerity policies. --Our government is not broke. It is not even close to broke. And it will never go broke unless Republicans force us into technical default by refusing to honor the 14th amendment and/or by refusing to raise revenues to reduce deficits and debt. --Paying off Treasuries is a fools errand. Five times in US history we have substantively paid down Treasuries, and they have been following by the five most severe recessions and depressions. There are a number of reason for this. Read Freedom From National Debt, by banker Frank N. Newman, an 89 page book that explains the Treasury market. I have a very long list of bullets in my bullet list, aimed at the phony economics of Republicans.
Posted on: Sun, 03 Nov 2013 19:39:31 +0000
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