Restating the Case

A variation on yesterday's post, prepared for The Record.

Kudos to the GOP House Members, not one of whom voted for this insanity.

An ancient adage provides: in chaos, there is opportunity.

The economy in chaos, liberals smell opportunity.

$150 billion for day care, colleges, and public schools. Billions more for unemployment insurance and medicaid, including hundreds of millions for birth control(!) $30 billion for health insurance subsidies. $20 billion for health care information technology. $1 billion for renovations to health clinics. $4 billion to localities to buy “distressed properties”. $16 billion for new Pell Grants. $600 million to train health care workers.

In total, $550 billion in new governmental spending, much of which will, then, set a baseline level for each succeeding year.

Couple that with $275 billion in “tax cuts”, mostly for people who don’t pay taxes.

Of old, when honesty mattered, we called this “welfare” and “waste”. Under the Bush Administration, this “infrastructure” spending was called “pork”. Now, suddenly, all these tired, hoary, liberal, Big Government programs morph into “stimulus”.

Hogwash.

Some of these programs might have merit, but they will do absolutely nothing to stimulate the economy.

History conclusively demonstrates the folly of such approaches. Under the progressive leadership of Herbert Hoover and FDR, government ratcheted up spending, imposed new taxes on “the rich”, borrowed billions, imposed protectionist tariffs, undertook huge infrastructure projects, and doled out billions in welfare.

And utterly failed to end the Depression.

In NJ, McGreevey/Codey/Corzine did exactly the same thing: raised taxes (especially on evil rich folks), increased spending by 50%, borrowed uncounted billions, shortchanged pension funds, and undertook vast public works programs, building dozens of schools, highways, and bridges. Result: a moribund economy, which died long before anyone realized that Fannie Mae was going to create a huge national crisis.

They did manage to hire some 58,000 new governmental employees; notice all the “stimulus” those new jobs created?

If gargantuan governmental spending, one-time tax gimmicks, and ridiculous borrowing (to be repaid by our kids) produced economic prosperity, why, after the absurdly profligate Bush Administration, are we not riding the crest of an economic boom? Why, after 8 years of obscene taxing, spending, and borrowing, is NJ not awash in prosperity?

Some of these spending initiatives might make sense, if we could afford them. If roads require repairs, fine; that’s what responsible government does. But treating such spending as “stimulus” is silly.

Furthermore, the Democrats can never resist shafting the taxpayer. These infrastructure projects come with a “prevailing wage” requirement; the taxpayers pay the highest possible price for the project. This tacks on tens of billions in unnecessary spending onto even the most crucial projects, all for the benefit of powerful Democratic special interests.

Consider, too, the so-called “tax cuts”: money given to people who don’t pay income taxes. Allegedly, this money rebates part of the Social Security taxes people pay. Does this not undercut that salutary program? Is it not akin to NJ’s irresponsibility in short changing its pension plans? Are not Social Security and Medicare already facing bankruptcy? Should not people contribute the premiums for the benefits they expect?

Undercutting Social Security is not the sort of “change” this Administration promised.

Happily, we know what works to repair a soft economy; Ronald Reagan showed us in 1981. Inheriting double digit unemployment, double digit inflation, and astronomical interest rates from his Democratic predecessor, Reagan restrained spending (remember the howls from the left?) and – here’s the key – cut tax rates PERMANENTLY. Result? The longest peacetime economic expansion in history.

Our situation requires the same remedy. We can either continue to spend uncounted billions on unemployment payments, or we can get these folks jobs: real, productive jobs, not governmental make-work positions.

And we do it by abolishing the corporate income tax.

Corporations can’t really pay taxes, because they don’t exist, except as pieces of paper in the Secretary of State’s office. Only people can pay taxes. Government uses business as a tax collector to hide its true size and expense. Business builds that tax into the price it charges for its products.

The corporate tax brings in $370 billion a year, less than half what the Democrats propose to spend on “stimulus”. Letting business keep that money would instantly make them more competitive worldwide. Eliminating that tax permits price cuts by a similar amount, increasing demand for their products, domestically and internationally. (The Irish proved this point by lowering their corporate taxes) Instead of laying people off, companies could maintain existing labor forces and, indeed, start hiring. Instead of paying out unemployment benefits, the government would collect taxes on workers’s incomes and purchases.

History teaches that governmental programs, like the New Deal, utterly failed to end the crises for which they were allegedly designed. Reagan proved that cutting taxes and restraining spending are precisely the antidote to economic malaise. Big government is the problem, not the solution.

Obey's Folly

With Japanese bombs falling all around him, The Captain of the submarine Sea Tiger, played by Cary Grant, searched in vain for his subordinate, played by Tony Curtis. Corralling a crewman, The Captain asked about his first officer’s whereabouts. "I don’t know, sir. He said, ‘where there is chaos, there is opportunity.’" See Operation Petticoat.

The economy is in chaos; leftists see opportunity.

The Times reports on the fraudulently named (c.f. McGreevey, "Millionaires Tax")"stimulus package" – crafted almost exclusively by Congressman David Obey (S- WI) – as follows:

"Included in the package is $30 billion to subsidize health insurance for those who lose their jobs, $20 billion to accelerate new health care information technology, $1 billion to renovate community health centers, $600 million to train health care workers, $15 billion to increase college Pell Grants and $4 billion to help communities buy and improve distressed properties."

Further reports detail vast additional sums for medicaid, unemployment insurance, even birth control. Essentially, every program that the Left has advocated for years is now packaged together in one bill, under the guise of "economic stimulus".

Obey, although proud of his creation, seems somewhat unsure of the results:

"This is my honest effort," he said, "to find a point of equilibrium where a majority of people in the place can feel comfortable with what we have done, and then you hope it works."

Umm. Right. But what, precisely, do you mean by "works"? If you mean "make the economy better", fuggedaboudit; ain’t gonna happen. Big government and economic prosperity are reciprocal: the larger the former, the less the latter.

The Times so implies in a discussion on the effects of the New Deal:

"throughout the 1930s, economic recovery remained frustratingly elusive and arrived only with the buildup for World War II in the 1940s."

Give FDR his due, The Times argues:

"The shorthand verdict on Roosevelt, economists and historians say, is that he was an eloquent and skillful politician ... But Roosevelt, they say, while brilliant in many ways, did not have a sure grasp of how to guide the economy as a whole."

Who knew? The New Deal failed!! So sayeth no less an authority than The Gray Lady herself!!

This, naturally, makes perfect sense. OF COURSE the New Deal failed. It was based upon the notion that government could "... guide the economy as a whole", a preposterous proposition.

The Left, of course, never learned that lesson. Hence, the Krugmanite thesis that the problem with the New Deal was that it failed to borrow and spend enough. Should the present, $1 trillion package fail – and it will – Krugman will, unbowed, contend that if it had only been $2 trillion, it would have worked. Like any religious faith, his belief in the beneficence and omniscience of government cannot be dispelled by mere facts.

The present "stimulus" package will do no such thing. Indeed, it’s based upon the profoundly silly notion that every dollar of governmental spending "multiplies" by 1.5 to 3 times, yielding fantastic results, far beyond those obtainable by simply letting the people keep their own money.

And the evidence for this is ... non-existent. It’s asserted as a matter of dogma.

We in NJ tried something similar, raising taxes 100 times and increasing spending 50%, while borrowing billions, all to hire new governmental employees, build schools and roads, provide greater health insurance for "the poor", etc. In short, we are a mini-laboratory for the socialist enterprise. If Krugman and the left were correct, NJ should be a hive of economic activity, with those new schools and all that borrowing producing a frenetic, lively economy, far outperforming the national average.

Hmm. Musta missed that episode.

So, over the past eight years under W – an economic liberal – we’ve spent up a storm, vastly increased the size of government, and borrowed trillions. In just the last year, we provided tax rebates similar to those Obama proposes (for those who don’t pay taxes) and pumped something like $1 trillion billion in borrowed money into banks, car makers, and insurers. And we’ve got ... what to show for it?

Is not the patent and continuing failure of big government self-evident?

Not to the left, because they’re not interested in stimulus. That’s merely a handy excuse for doing everything they were already interested in doing anyway, because they believe it’s "fair". This program will "work" in the sense of increasing such spending. But it will absolutely not stimulate the economy.

Obey dismissed his critics thusly:

"I would say the vast majority of the Congress, the new White House and the vast majority of the country will favor this package or something very close to it."

About that, he may be correct; the people might actually like this program. While waiting in the unemployment line, they’ll thank Obama and Obey for their checks. As their companies close or downsize, they’ll sing the praises of Obama and Obey for ensuring that they still have health insurance. As months of economic malaise become years of persistently high unemployment and low growth, they’ll praise Obama and Obey for ensuring that their kids’ college tuition is paid.

Then, perhaps, just maybe, they’ll slowly start to draw a connection between all of these spiffy, hugely expensive governmental giveaways and those layoffs, business failures, and that malaise. Perhaps they’ll look at Europe and perceive that the same sort of massive government produces precisely the same sort of economic anemia. Maybe, they’ll cast envious eyes at places like Singapore, which offers few guarantees, but few folks need them, given the 10% growth per annum.

And, perhaps, they’ll come, again, to appreciate that Reagan, not Roosevelt, got it right. Government is not the solution; it’s the problem. The less of it we have, the fewer problems we’ll have to solve.

Let Him Lead

Four years ago, President Bush opined that, as a result of the election, "I earned capital in the campaign, political capital, and now I intend to spend it." A skeptical news media reacted skeptically while reporting that the Democrats, far from acknowledging the President’s "mandate", "were lined up to fight."

Indeed, the media reported that President Bush’s ambitious agenda, given budgetary restraints, was "mathematically impossible". The AP opined " ... all the political capital in the world won't pay for (Bush’s) his pricey priorities." Ah, the good old days, featuring an adversary press, and when math – and budgets – mattered.

Consider President Obama’s first few days in office, reaping the accolades of media cheerleaders, some of whom, based upon internet videos, stumbled around giddy, either with joy, under the influence, or both. The media reported on the new spirit of civility at the Inauguration, apparently missing the boos, hisses, and chants from the assembled Obamaphiles at the introduction of his predecessor, and neglecting the fact that essentially no conservative organizations rival Moveon and CodePink in willingness to loudly display their obnoxiousness and vitriol.

The new President, reaching out to Republicans for the sake of appearances, replied to their concerns about the astronomical costs of his proposals: "I won". Therefore, presumably, such arguments are passe. Can you imagine the media firestorm if Bush displayed such rank arrogance?

But the President has a point: he DID win. Inconveniently for him, so did every man and woman sitting around that table with him, many running on platforms diametrically opposed to his.

President Obama DOES, in fact, possess a mandate: the people chose him to lead. They did so for a variety of reasons: Bush hatred, McCain’s wishy-washiness, support of Obama’s proposals on this issue or that, etc. Pro-life folks voted for him based upon his economic proposals; pro-abortion folks in spite of them. It’s impossible to honestly contend that he possesses a mandate for any particular policy proposal.

But, again, HE WON. He has a mandate to lead. And he should do so. He should lead where his conscience and his intellect take him, insofar as he can craft Congressional majorities to effect those goals.

The Republicans, however, should give him not so much as a single vote for foolish policies, especially economic policies. As the loyal opposition, they should oppose. Not – like the angry left felt about Bush – because they believe he’s evil, but – like principled conservatives – because they believe he’s wrong.

As they’ve begun to realize, a "stimulus" package which simply repackages hoary old leftist programs, this time at greater expense, is not the change the country voted for. They should hammer home that a proposal to create 3 million new jobs – at $280,000 or so per job – is a fantastically silly idea. They should highlight the Davis-Bacon prevailing-wage requirements in this "stimulus" package, which will add 25% or so to the cost of every infrastructure project, to the great detriment of the taxpayer. They should note that cuts in the payroll tax undermine Social Security, and that all this borrowing will suffocate our kids under an avalanche of debt. (40 years from now, there are going to be some very sorry Obama voters, lamenting the exuberance of their youth)

The GOP should argue that if you want economic prosperity, hiring 600,000 or so new tax-eating governmental employees ain’t the way to achieve it. That tax increases – even (gasp!!) on those miserable, horrible rich folks – during economic downturns, create havoc. That spending vast sums of money we don’t have may cause inflation, the like of which we haven’t seen since Jimmy Carter.

And, of course, we should offer alternatives. This credit crunch arose, initially, from foolish governmental programs, like Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and the CRA. Obama pledged to eliminate programs which don’t work: here are exhibit A, B, and C. Cutting taxes on businesses, opening international trade, and securing our borders will produce real jobs – not busy-work governmental jobs subsidized by the productive – and with less competition for those jobs, wages will rise.

In short, the GOP should have the courage of its convictions.

There are three possible outcomes for this:

First, Obama could be right. Socialism might actually work. In which case, the GOP’s entire pro-freedom agenda will be held up as a mistake and we should all welcome the advent of socialist man and bask in our new (more equitably shared) prosperity. Given history – and common sense – that’s essentially impossible, but one must concede the possibility.

Second, Obama’s programs will miserably fail, while spending us into bankruptcy. Capital will flee his new, more confiscatory tax and regulatory scheme, the economy will collapse. The public will rebel at the rationing essential for national health care, or the taxes necessary to support it. They will recoil at ever increasing demands from an ever increasing horde of governmental supplicants, folks leeching off the productive sector. Persuaded of the idiocy of collectivism, they will be receptive to a new birth of freedom, presented by conservatives, and will vote accordingly, consigning Obama-mania to the ash heap of history.

Or, third, Obama’s policies will fail, but the vast number of people on the public dole, at one level or another, will selfishly vote to continue their own boodle flowing at the expense of their neighbors. In that case, the decline will be irreversible through normal political means, until the inevitable, Soviet-style collapse. And, in which case, conservatives will enjoy the macabre pleasure of knowing they were right all along, but that the people simply wouldn’t listen.

In short, the GOP should offer an alternative: freedom and prosperity. If we’re wrong, we deserve to lose. If we’re right, either we’ll win when the people realize their mistake or, alternatively, they’ll get the kind of government they deserve.

Leftist Conceit

A recent comment on one of my columns runs as follows:

"What you will never seem to comprehend because your (sic) stuck on Reagan's Cadillac Driving Welfare Queen myth is that we can act for the collective good. In times of crisis it is what IS DEMANDED OF US." (Caps in original)

If the present crisis motivates my correspondent to action, to service in the local soup kitchen, helping out at the Salvation Army, picking up litter, giving blood, volunteering at a hospital, magnificent!! I submit that such is something we should all do anyway, and which, likely, all of us do much too little of. And I pass no judgment upon my anonymous heckler; I don’t know what he personally does to assist those in need.

But, alas, he employs the traditional nostrums of the economically illiterate left, using phrases like "trickle down", "selfish" and "on your own" to describe freedom. Permitting people to chart their own destiny, he contends, represents a philosophy of "screwing everyone else".

This betrays the essential conceit of liberalism. First, it displays a child-like faith in the beneficence of government, a faith one would imagine should have been routed by the performance of government over the last 20 – or 2000 – years or so, whomever is running it. People in power simply cannot be trusted to act disinterestedly, for the "collective good". If the Left wishes to point to Bush’s alleged incompetence in handling (say) Katrina, the right properly responds that both the Mayor of New Orleans and the Governor of Louisiana were liberals (and, a conservative points out, Bush was no kind of conservative). Any fair observer looks at NJ – run almost exclusively by Democrats and exclusively by liberals over the course of the past 40 years or so – and sees a government so dysfunctional as to disabuse anyone of the pretense that liberals have the slightest clue how to run much of anything.

But, more fundamentally, the single greatest failure of modern leftism lies in its arrogance: that they KNOW what the "collective good" requires. And they will impose it on all of us, whether we like it or not.

Look around at the programs the left pronounces as "collective good" successes: Social Security (bankrupt, with trillions in unfunded liabilities, which will drop like a hammer on our children); Medicare (ditto). Medicaid (ditto ditto). For whom does the left really make education policy: kids or the teachers’ union?

And Obama’s proposals make things worse. He wants $840 BILLION spent and promises that spending will create 3 million new jobs (only a paltry 600,000 of which will be tax-eating governmental employees). Well, math’s not my strong suit, but is that not $280,000 per job? Even assuming Obama’s predictions are correct (about as likely as getting hit by an asteroid tomorrow) is it really in the "collective good" to spend that kind of money for such paltry results?

One might ask my gentle correspondent: what; exactly, is the "collective good", and what person possesses the right to "demand" anything of "us"?

We can agree, perhaps, that all of us owe a moral obligation to assist the least of our brethren (caveat: obviously, the left excludes the very young from any legal or moral protection whatsoever) to the best of our ability. But I respectfully dissent that any governmental official knows my circumstances well enough to pass judgment on my ability to "help". A free society, I submit, leaves the decision of when to help, how to help, and how much to help, up to its individual citizens.

Indeed, the indictment of the American people – that, absent coercive governmental "demand", they will simply ignore their neighbors, permit them to starve, freeze, etc. – is so fundamentally insulting as to merit little in the way of reparte. Americans ALWAYS respond to those in need, without the necessity of a "demand". They do it for the same reason people volunteer to serve in the military, volunteer to serve as firefighters or EMT’s, etc.: because they KNOW that we’re all in this together and they don’t need some a commissar to compel them to serve.

But would it not be a great assault against freedom if the government "demanded" that all of us present ourselves, a few days a month, to public service in the "collective good"? If it scheduled each of us to donate blood by "demand" rather than by request? What differentiates these "demands" from the "demand" that we sacrifice an increasing amount of our labor – through taxes – in the purported "collective good"?

The "collective good", I aver, is that which maximizes individual freedom. The evidence conclusively establishes that the people, as a whole, do best when they’re left alone to determine for themselves how best to pursue their own destiny. All around the world, when government avers that the "collective good" requires less individual freedom, the result is inevitably greater collective misery.

Put simply, no simple definition of "collective good" exists. It’s akin to defining "happiness". An Eagles fan defines "happiness" differently than a Giants fan. Perhaps my correspondent defines "collective good" as that which benefits everyone? Such a policy does not exist; inevitably, under any program, some will benefit, and some will pay. Is the "collective good" measured in purely material terms? If so, should the policy adopted not be that which maximizes the benefits to the greatest number – which is to say, a free market – or is the "collective good" only served when EVERYONE receives something? Is the "collective good" served by equal distribution of a small pie, or unequal division of an exponentially larger pie? My correspondent claimed to be the child of a WW II soldier, begging a question: " Is ‘from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs’ really what your Dad fought WWII to secure?

Governmental attempts to provided for the "collective good" through the vehicle of "demands" wrecked the economies of western Europe and are rapidly undercutting our own, especially here in NJ. Those more inclined toward evidence than ideology understand that the "collective good" – defined by me as the greatest possible (material) good for the greatest number of people – is best served when there are few, if any, "demands", and when individual freedom is maximized. Put very simply, we know better how to run our lives – and help our fellows – that do bureaucrats in Washington or Trenton, and we should be left alone to pursue happiness and prosperity as we – not they – see fit.

Obamaphilia

Talk about TRULY CREEPY.

http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=50632298.

First, a bunch of pampered, clueless celebrities making vacuous, preachy pledges, right before the return to their kazillion dollar mansions, limos, etc., borders on the obscene.

But, all things considered, if they actually mean it – with the exception of the obnoxious pledge to advance stem cell research – they are, probably to their everlasting surprise, CONSERVATIVES.

Liberals are notorious skinflints. Conservatives routinely give away a greater percentage of their income that do those "compassionate" liberals. Kristoff wrote about this in The Times a few weeks back; this article in the Journal today expands upon that theme. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123258358706104403.html. At every level, conservatives personally care more about the downtrodden than do liberals, from giving money to giving blood. Liberals, asked to personally help, tend to respond, "I paid my taxes" (see, e.g., Joe Biden).

Each and every one of these celebs could easily donate 90% of their annual income to charity, and still live better than 90% of the American people. If they each donated a couple of hundred K to their local Catholic schools, perhaps the diocese of Brooklyn would not be forced to close a dozen or so schools catering to the urban poor. I commend that to Demi and Ashton’s attention.

And where, pray tell, were these pledgers over the course of the past eight – or 20 – years? Now, suddenly, they’re proud of their country and resolved to serve? Talk about sunshine patriots.

Well, whatever gets them off the dime and into the trenches, doing the sort of things that conservatives have been advocating – and doing – for years.

But the "pledge" to serve the president...? That bears all the hallmarks of a personality cult. If our new President can get all the folks who seem to worship that poster of his visage, staring out sagely into the distance, to service, great! If celebrities promise to spend the next four years extolling the virtues of this country rather than excoriating it for having the nerve to elect someone they dislike, magnificent! If he motivates them to wipe the ubiquitous scowls from their faces and vitriol from their voices, fantastic.

But, but ... If these sanctimonious folks actually mean (after (ewww) kissing themselves) that they serve HIM, Saint Barack, that’s a problem. It’s supposed to be the other way around. That sort of deification tends to end very poorly. Leftism already looks enough like a religion, with its received dogmas. Now, apparently, it has found the terrestrial incarnation of Him. Which is truly scary.

If these folks truly walk the walk and devote a substantial portion of their substantial fortunes to assisting the downtrodden of society, Obama will have performed a great service, and we can all endure a few smarmy sermons from self-congratulatory and oh-so-noble rich folks.

But that "I pledge allegiance to the president" nonsense ... That’s NEVER been a feature of American politics, and the international precedents are not such as to inspire confidence.

A Class Act

From today’s Times:

"Some of Mr. Obama’s supporters booed and taunted Mr. Bush when he emerged from the Capitol to take his place on stage, at one point singing, "Nah, nah, nah, nah, hey, hey, hey, goodbye." By day’s end, Mr. Bush had landed in Texas, where he efended his presidency and declared that he was "coming home with my head held high."
"The departing vice president, Dick Cheney, appeared at the ceremony in a wheelchair after suffering a back injury moving the day before and was also booed."

Gotta love those lefties: classy to the very end.

Helping the Poor

Comes today word that House Speaker and uber-leftist Nancy Pelosi wishes to press ahead with plans to impose a massive tax increase. Proving that he’s smarter than the people who supported and elected him, President-elect Obama apparently intends to make this his very first broken campaign promise. Even cobalt Corzine, and no less an authority than the indomitable Paul Krugman, cautioned against envy-based tax increases in times of economic weakness.

Now, obviously, the necessary conclusion at which one must arrive, based upon essentially unanimous opposition to tax increases today, even from New Jersey Democrats – who increased every tax known to mankind, and then invented new ones – is that taxes hurt the economy. Logically, if they damage the economy in bad times, they do so in good times, too, and, hence, in the interests of keeping the good times rolling, should be minimized.

How, though, to balance the leftist credo – so eloquently expressed by Hizzonor when he averred that government exists to "responsibly share our economic bounty – against the unequivocal evidence that attempts to do so through taxes targeted at "the rich" undermine the economy?

Indeed, consider the long litany of leftist failure: is it not astonishing how often they hit the poor while aiming at the rich?

Remember the luxury tax? The Times reported it this way:

"The boat tax ... enacted in 1990, was originally seen by Democrats as a way for the Government to extract revenue from people wealthy enough to buy boats costing more than $100,000. But it adversely affected many craftsmen and artisans who lost jobs when boat sales slumped and boat builders went out of business."

This paralleled the NJ experience with heavy trucks. "Lessee", the Florio-ites pondered. "We need $$$$ to fatten government and ‘help the poor’. Heavy truck sales were $1 billion last year. Voila!! Slap a 7% tax, and we’ll get $70 million!!"

Er, wrong.

It simply devastated heavy truck sales, while reaping about 1/70th of projected revenue. Who got hurt? The "rich" guys who sold heavy trucks.

And, now, the example of NJ’s 2.5% "affordable housing" tax presents itself. As presented to the Legislature, the Administration asserted it would bring in $200 million per annum.

According to the papers, it produced a princely $5 million, and the Guv wants to put it "on hold". Again, who got hurt? The "rich" guys who would otherwise be employing banging nails and sawing boards.

Gee willikers, Mr. Wilson! You mean that people with money actually take tax policy into consideration? "Rich" people aren’t stupid enough to blithely submit to confiscation? They don’t act like Jon Shure contends? High taxes hurt the economy, and, especially, the poor? Golly! Who coulda guessed?

History provides (at least) two parallels to today’s economic crisis: 1929, and 1981. The respective crises were met very differently by very different presidents. Herbert Hoover – a proud progressive who increased federal spending by 50% and created many of the programs FDR later expanded – met the economic downturn in true progressive form: he increased governmental spending, undertook massive public sector infrastructure projects, raised taxes on "the rich", and slapped on huge protectionist trade barriers. FDR’s New Deal was nothing more than Hoover writ large, and, predictably, proved an even larger failure. The Depression continued until Lend Lease, the draft, and building the North Carolina, Essex, and their sisters bailed us out.

The last great economic crisis we endured came when we actually listened to the Democrats during the Carter Administration. That produced an assertedly Keynesian impossibility: simultaneously high unemployment, high interest rates, and high inflation. And, of course, stratospheric taxes.

Immediately upon taking office, Reagan, despite falling revenues, cut taxes (massively for those horrible "rich" folk) and checked spending. The result: short term pain, which caused liberals no end of apoplexy. The Times pronounced supply side economics dead when it did not deliver instant prosperity.

But prosperity it most certain delivered. By 1983, the economy had turned, and the Reagan Boom commenced, lasting until federal "affordable housing" programs helped kill it off.

Unfortunately, the lesson of the New Deal which the Democrats took to heart, is that the polity lacks a long-view. They want relief NOW!!! And if providing that relief TODAY happens to prolong the misery, it’s still political gold. FDR won his first two reelections, despite worsening the Depression, by buying people’s votes. They credited him with "helping" during the down times, but failed to appreciate that his policies actually perpetuated the Depression.

To reiterate my Father’s often repeated observation, the Republicans are the "eat your spinach" Party, advocating policies because they demonstrably best serve the long term interests of the country. The Democrats, on the other hand, are the "have some candy" Party, advocating policies which make you feel good today, but which create huge problems tomorrow.

Which Party prevails depends upon whether the people act like responsible adults or impatient children.

Reagan, an adult, took the long view: freedom = prosperity. His policies worked, both politically and economically. FDR took the short view: help TODAY. His policies worked politically, but failed economically. Disastrously so.

Huge deficits and massive new spending, paid for by indebting our kids, will not create prosperity. If we wish to run deficits in down times, those should be created by general, permanent tax cuts for the productive sector, specifically business. That would create real jobs, inspire consumer confidence, and revive the economy. One time gimmicks like Obama’s proposed "cuts" will have no such effect (except, interestingly, to undercut Social Security, but that’s a different column).

If the left really wants to help the poor, it will stop trying to (governmentally) help the poor and let a free economy provide prosperity. That would be change we can believe in.

The Trentonburg Address

Less than two score and seven months ago, our electorate brought forth in this State, a new administration, conceived in socialism and dedicated to the proposition that government exists to responsibly share our economic bounty.

Now we are immersed in a great economic collapse, confirming that that Administration, or any administration so conceived and so dedicated, cannot deliver prosperity. Here in the Assembly Chambers, we are met on the site of the genesis of that collapse. We have come to confiscate a portion of your property as a stipend for those who here gave their votes that that Administration might prevail. It was altogether predictable that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not confiscate -- we can not appropriate -- we can not hollow -- your wallets. Previous Administrations, elected or ordained, who prevaricated here, have confiscated it, far above our poor power to reach it now that many of you live in Pennsylvania.

The electorate will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but the public employee unions will never forget what we did here. It is for us the elected, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished collectivization which they who sat here have thus far so substantially advanced.

It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these economic illiterates we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full campaign contribution -- that we here highly resolve to spend every last nickel our taxpayers possess -- that this state, under indictment, shall have a new birth of redistribution -- and that government of the unions, by the bureaucrats, for the envious, shall not be voted out of office.