The Constant Carping of the Conservatives (Part 1)

The Persistent Republican Mistake


Conservative American Economic Theory Tells Us that government spending never achieves anything good for us. That big-government efforts always fail. And what’s worse, that big programs always prolong the economic downturns that they are meant to resolve.

The Loudest Example of This Theory is the alleged failure of President Franklin Roosevelt’s “New Deal” efforts during the Great Depression.

Conservatives Consistently Repeat the Mistaken Notion that the New Deal Failed. And then next, they repeat that “the Great Depression didn’t end until World War II.”

Wisconsin Republican Representative Paul Ryan said that very thing this morning, on NPR’s Morning Edition: “We borrowed so much money [under the New Deal]; we ran up the debt. We didn't get out of the Depression until World War II came along.”

Read the NPR Story Yourself:
GOP’s Ryan: ‘Budget Exploits The Economic Crisis’

The Great Republican Riddle:

If Big Spending Didn't Improve Things in the Great Depression,
How Did It Do the Job with the Second World War?

Such Flawed, Conservative Thinking led America into the current mess. And so long as Conservatives put out this screwy combination of premises, the quality of their logic remains suspect.


NEXT: “When Is a Budget Not a Budget?”

The Audacity of Disdain

What Have You Heard from Your Republican Congressman about the stimulus package currently working its way through the Federal government? What doesn't he like? What would he change?

What Conservative Ideal Would He Apply to make this stimulus package better?

What Changes Would It Take, to get your Republican Congressman to Take Action on behalf of the American people?

What Has Your Republican Representative Told You about the failure of Conservative ideology, as evidenced by six years of Republican-controlled government (2001–2007)? As admitted in former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan’s apology to Congress last Fall?

Let’s Examine These Tenets of Conservative,
Republican Economic Ideology:

If the Great Depression Was Ended by World War II, and not by FDR’s New Deal, why hasn’t the Republican-led War in Iraq boosted the economy this time around?

If Free Markets Do Not Destroy Jobs, but create them, why are all of America’s manufacturing jobs going overseas?

If Free Markets Regulate Themselves, why are so many corporate CEOs giving themselves huge bonuses at a time when their companies are posting record-setting losses, and when bankruptcies are stealing all value from under the noses of their shareholder bosses?

If Tax Cuts Make the Economy Thrive, why has the economy gone to pieces under Republican leadership?

Conservative Economic Ideology Is: Dead

Conservative Ideology as Administered under Our Republican Leaders Has Failed. The Republican leadership offers nothing to replace it. Instead, they line up for photo opportunities with the new President, negotiate changes to the stimulus package—including even more tax cuts—and then brashly vote against it. Unanimously. One and all.

What Do Our Republican Representatives
Offer Us Instead?

The Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives Have Nothing to Offer Us. Or so they would have us believe. And so they thumb their noses at the American people, by grinning big grins while thumbing their noses at the President.

Maybe These Representatives Think it Makes Them Look Good, and tough, and smart, to blind-side America's new President.

The Republican Congressional Caucus Has Nothing Left to Offer America. Instead, its members cleverly stonewall the President, while offering up nothing—not one single new idea—to get the economy going.

Smart? Or Heartless?

Maybe the Republicans Think They Look Smart, standing up there in the Nation's Capitol, thumbing their noses and grinning at their constituents.

Maybe with Their Families Safe and Their Jobs and Houses Secure, they don't have anything more-important to worry about, than trying to undermine the spirit of the American people, by trying to make the President look bad.

But in a Time of National Crisis, There's Nothing Smart or Clever or Funny about standing before the American people, while millions of us are losing our homes and our jobs, and there stand the Republicans in Congress, displaying a heartless audacity of disdain.

A Lesson in Conservative Economics

Few in America would have imagined a time when Democrats and other Liberals would teach Republicans and other Conservatives the economic realities of capitalism. But on this topic, something said by MSNBC’s Morning Joe host, Joe Scarborough, today caught our ear once again.

Said Mr. Scarborough, “If we're going to invest in new technology, that's one thing. But roads and bridges: that's last century.”

The Allusion Here Apparently referred to various economic-stimulus programs enacted under President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, in the form of job-creating, infrastructure-producing programs such as the WPA and the CCC, back in the days of the Great Depression.

Some Might Find It Ironic that Conservative Republicans would so-readily reject this particular time-proven method of the last century. But with Mr. Scarborough now on record as dismissing the viability of this remedial option, an extremely brief analysis of those New Deal programs—the Works Progress Administration (WPA) and the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC)—may be in order.

Especially Now That We Seem to Be Wading through such another Republican-led, “last century”-type of swamp.

Here Is a View on the CCC Contrary to Mr. Scarborough’s “roads and bridges” argument, taken from a history of America’s national parks:

“While the CCC is no longer around, we have all felt its impact. We have driven past its camps, its fire lookouts, its bridges. The sweat and toil of more than 3,000,000 young men is now embodied in CCC-built facilities stretching from Maine to California. The federal government spent more than $3 billion on the CCC, and its investment is still bearing fruit every time people visit parks such as Great Smoky, Yellowstone, Mount Rainer, or hike the Appalachian Trail.”

(from “The Spirit of the Civilian Conservation Corps,” which may be found at: http://www.nationalparkstraveler.com/2008/09/park-history-spirit-civilian-cnservation-corps)

The Legacy of These Parks and Buildings testifies to the frugal American sensibility. Anyone driving across our beautiful nation witnesses the combination of durability and attractiveness displayed in countless WPA projects and CCC structures—built through the “New Deal” as part of FDR’s cure for the Great Depression. They represent a substantial portion of the physical national infrastructure that serves us still, more than seven decades later.

How Would One Calculate the combined value of the residual American infrastructure? It’s certainly beyond our economics ability.

One Thing the Recent Past Has Taught Us, though, is that when the world places bets—on top of bets—on top of bets—on top of bets—to the extent that those bets overwhelm the value of the underlying pieces of paper (such as the net worth of Iceland)—it’s a good time to have something around that is more-substantial than “investment-grade” paper. Something like roads and bridges.

Each Road and Bridge and School Gym and National-Park Structure built during those difficult times has freed up investment capital. This freed capital has contributed to the tremendous great economic growth that we have enjoyed for the last sixty-five years.

When a Nation Thinks Only of Today, whether in terms of financial infrastructure or in terms of Islamist terrorists, the shortsighted results lead to economic disaster.

“Go out and Shop,” Said Small-Government President George W. Bush.

“Invest for the Future,” Is What Tax-and-Spend President FDR Said.

History Seems to Judge the differences for us—right now. And who would have imagined it, during these interesting times?