How to Lie and Win Using Outdated Economic Policy

The manufactured 'debate' over the 'public option' in health care and it's black crepe adornments announcing its intended purpose of handing America over to those millions of socialists who are just waiting behind the scenes to 'destroy the American way of life and free enterprise' has brought many discouraging challenges to liberals and progressives who favor nationalized health care. The most obvious point of dismay for the reform minded left has been the ease that traditionalist supporters of the status quo have gained been winning the public debate amongst the public by simply incessantly repeating that the public option would lead our nation into the irreversible grip of socialism.

Washington, despite the recent upswing of Democratic party control has been unable to throw of the yoke of Cons marching to the ideology of Reaganomics that accuses government activity in the marketplace as the problem and Reagan's 'ideological' belief in letting the private sector find it's own way as the solution.

What is most confounding to liberals and progressives is that Reagan's ideological reign should be over.

The most obvious reason being that the Cons use of Reaganomics never delivered what it promised. Their mantra that by lowering taxes on the highest incomes and by ending government checks and balances through deregulation would allow the 'magic of the marketplace to act as 'a rising tide of economic opportunity that would lift all boats' benefiting all Americans; no matter what their current financial situation might have been was a bald faced lie that only created greater and wider income disparities. Under the stewardship of the Cons, Reaganomics allowed the real incomes of the top .01 percent of Americans to rise by a factor of seven times over the course of almost forty years, 1980 and 2007. However, during the same period of time, actual income levels of middle class family's gained only about 22 percent which represented a real decrease in household income when compared to the previous nearly four decades, failing to keep pace with their upper income tax bracket fellow Americans.

It was only during the Clinton years that average Americans achieved any gain in income levels. Once Clinton left office after eight years of relative economic opportunity for all which had left a surplus for future generations to benefit from; George W. Bush, perhaps the greatest adherent to the Con adherence to Reaganism became president and immediately gave the federal government's surplus away in the form of grossly unnecessary tax cuts and and an unprovoked war against Iraq, and became the first American president since since Herbert Hoover to deprive the rapidly dwindling middle class of any economic advancement. And as an extra added bonus, Bush's laissez-faire brand of Reaganomics brought about the worse recession since the Great Depression of the 1930s

Bush 43 placed our nation in this precarious economic and financial position by a 'bold' backward looking adherence to Reagan-inspired Con ideology that systematically dismantled the New Deal financial regulations and economic checks and balances because the Cons fervently believed that Wall Street and the financial markets would be self-regulating through the magic of the 'invisible hand.' which guru Alan Greenspan preached.

The astonishing aspect of the Cons having succeeded in pushing the nation to the edge of an economic abyss is that Cons are still given a credible voice in being included as a part of fixing the mess caused by their by their own combination of inaction and neglect by the mainstream media. But this should really not hold any surprise; for the Cons are a part of the same controlling structure of American politics that the corporate media also finds itself a part of; as do many Democrats.

So the course of the 'debate' over the public option that has really only been an extended part of the campaign against government-run health care should be of no surprise to any clear minded liberals and progressives. The Senate's so-called gang of six consists of Democrats that are no different from their Republican 'opponents.' The Democratic Senators acknowledge in foreboding terms that given their druthers; most Americans would support the public option over private insurance which he casts as wrong-headed thinking, instead of stating the obvious and pushing the government plan because it is better than what the private insurance industry offers it's customers.

So why does such a publicly-needed quest for reform dying a slow and thought-numbing death? The answer is really quite simple, and it has little more to do than with the tremendously powerful control that money has over American politics. And to paraphrase Franklin Delano Roosevelt: It has never been a great secret that the thoughtlessness of greed leads to a total corruption of morals. We can also add to Roosevelt's summarized dictum to include the relevance of ill-conceived economics to Roosevelt's analysis, based on the Cons economic debacle of last fall.

The debate over the most momentous legislation proposed sice the 1960's civil rights legislation is being torn apart by such dim-witted fear-mongering tactics such as the assertion that one of the "hidden truths' of health care reform is the absolute lie that the American government will use health care reform to create 'death panels' that will arbitrarily condemn old people and the infirm to government sanctioned euthanasia.

The obvious question is how is this Con game being foisted upon the American people can be defeated and allow debate on health care reform to regain a more reasoned approach? The first thing liberals and progressives must understand is that the lies and disinformation being used by the Cons is the only line of attack that they have at their disposal, and correspondingly any hope to convince Cons to give up their irrational beliefs and instead meet the left on a battlefield governed by rational behavior and ideas is nothing short of a pipe dream.

It is also time for the left to give up their fear that a crucial opportunity to pass health care reform is being missed and instead just toughen up and use their superior numbers to push meaningful health care through Congress and get it signed into law. If their are no Republican supporters gained, then that is solely the problem of the GOP.

This is power politics, plain and simple, and the Democrats must recognize that all they need is a simple majority to pass health care, and pass it they must because the public demands it and because the idea has become so centrally attached to the future of both parties. Passage means the Democrats can declare themselves as the winners and the Republicans will have lost a key element that gives them party solidarity; so a loss severly damages the GOP for a very long time, and in addition, may finally push the GOP away from it's extremeist Con roots of Reaganism and more toward a more center-leaning party. And such an occurance will have political reprecusions for decades to come and change the face of American politics.

I would like to publically acknowledge the ideas and thought of Paul Krugman for this posting.

Republican Whiners Must Accept the Consequences of Their Many Failures

Paul Krugman comments in the New York Times that: "As the new Democratic majority prepares to take power, Republicans have become, as Phil Gramm might put it, a party of whiners... But most of the whining takes the form of claims that the Bush administration’s failure was simply a matter of bad luck — either the bad luck of President Bush himself, who just happened to have disasters happen on his watch, or the bad luck of the G.O.P., which just happened to send the wrong man to the White House." Its really a matter of the GOP's decision during the Nixon campaign in 1968 to develop a "Southern strategy" that gained electoral dominance by hatching a clutch of wedge issues, including the topic of "racial backlash" that set the party on a forty year course to where it happens to be today - facing the consequences of a "shrinking base." Krugman rightly points out: "If the Bush administration became a byword for policy bungles, for government by the unqualified, well, it was just following the advice of leading conservative think tanks: after the 2000 election the Heritage Foundation specifically urged the new team to “make appointments based on loyalty first and expertise second.” Krugman calls out the Republicans; who then went on to trump their: "Contempt for expertise, (which) in turn, rested on contempt for government in general. “Government is not the solution to our problem,” declared Ronald Reagan. “Government is the problem.” So why worry about governing well?" During their four decade run the GOP worked hard to diligently maintain a certain level of discreetness as they advocated the electoral benefits of racism. Anyone who dared to even infer that racism and republicanism formed significant chapters in the GOP's political playbook were shouted down with all the ferocity that the party and its corporate overlords could bring to bare. Even when Republicans were caught in obviously racist remarks or policies they praised their own moral superiority and never, ever admitted any wrong doing; it was that old public relations adage of deflect and deny that kept the GOP on the high moral ground. But now, as the most ideologically committed collection of conservatives attempt to assume control of the Republican National Committee, unapologetically stated, blatant racism is leading the way. It has to do with the efforts of "Chip Saltsman, currently a candidate for the chairmanship of the Republican National Committee, (who) sent committee members a CD including a song titled “Barack the Magic Negro” — and according to some reports, the controversy over his action has actually helped his chances... So the reign of George W. Bush, the first true Southern Republican president since Reconstruction, was the culmination of a long process... That’s why the soon-to-be-gone administration’s failure is bigger than Mr. Bush himself: it represents the end of the line for a political strategy that dominated the scene for more than a generation." The GOP stands today as a party without ideas and dominated by a small group of southerner conservatives who have "lost the rest of the country" because they believe they were not conservative enough. They believe bailouts and public works plans to infuse the economy with capital and jobs represent a turn to socialism that cannot be tolerated. It has come to the point that the conservative-dominated RNC; as demonstrated by a recent resolution penned by conservative constitutional law attorney and national vice chairman of the RNC, James Bopp, is now issuing direct orders warning its elected officials to toe the party platform to the letter by allowing bankruptcies to occur and stand for the free market to return the economy to greater prosperity. In fact, as Krugman explains, the GOP has achieved nothing more than leading itself into a political "cul-de-sac." It is not Krugman's intention to bury the GOP as he observes: "Will the Republicans eventually stage a comeback? Yes, of course. But barring some huge missteps by Mr. Obama, that will not happen until they stop whining and look at what really went wrong. And when they do, they will discover that they need to get in touch with the real “real America,” a country that is more diverse, more tolerant, and more demanding of effective government than is dreamt of in their political philosophy." And I can't argue with the Nobel Laureate's observations.

RNC and Congressional Republicans Differ Over Direction of Party

Ralph Z. Hallow reports in the Washington Times that: "Republican Party officials say they will try next month to pass a resolution accusing President Bush and congressional Republican leaders of embracing "socialism," underscoring deep dissension within the party at the end of Mr. Bush's administration. Those pushing the resolution, which will come before the Republican National Committee at its January meeting, say elected leaders need to be reminded of core principles. This would be the first time that the Republican National Committee established a course of action for a policy issue. In the past, the RNC left policy decisions up to elected officials. "We can't be a party of small government, free markets and low taxes while supporting bailouts and nationalizing industries, which lead to big government, socialism and high taxes at the expense of individual liberty and freedoms," said Solomon Yue, an Oregon member and co-sponsor of a resolution that criticizes the U.S. government bailouts of the financial and auto industries. Republican National Committee Vice Chairman James Bopp Jr. wrote the resolution and asked the rest of the 168 voting members to sign it. The Bopp Resolution stands against Republican support for president-elect Obama's infrastructure public works proposal. The resolution also puts "the party on record opposing the $700 billion bailout of the financial sector, which passed Congress with Republican support and was signed by Mr. Bush, and opposing the bailout of the auto industry. The auto bailout bill was blocked by Senate Republicans, but Mr. Bush then reversed course and announced that he would use financial bailout money to aid the auto manufacturers." Some members of the RNC see the resolution as an attempt by party officials to connect the party platform directly to actions of lawmakers. RNC officials feel justified that their resolution represents the only decisive course of action that they can take, otherwise the party "will become less relevant." The question remains whether elected officials will go along with the RNC resolution. "House Minority Leader John A. Boehner and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, both of whom voted for the financial bailout but opposed the auto bailout, declined to comment. White House spokesman Tony Fratto defended the Bush administration's actions, saying, "We understand the opposition to using tax dollars to support private businesses we also oppose using tax dollars to support private businesses. But this was the necessary and responsible thing to do to prevent a collapse of the American economy." What remains uncertain is whether the RNC can enforce compliance on GOP elected officials.
... The Bopp Resolution states: "WHEREAS, the Bank Bailout Bill effectively nationalized the Nation's banking system, giving the United States non-voting warrants from participating financial institutions, and moving our free market based economy another dangerous step closer toward socialism; and WHEREAS, what was needed, and is still needed, to fix the banking industry is not a bailout, but rather a commitment to fiscal responsibility."