On the Merits

just seems to get it and I wish the brainwashed masses would wake up and see the light.

Dean Baker, writing in “Bailout Time: Where are the Free Marketers?” at the Talking Points Memo, mentions that now that Wall St. is hurting – something that we working Americans have felt for months, if not years – freemarketers can’t move quickly enough to have the government intervene: “It looks like the conservatives are working overtime to prove me right. They are rushing to the halls of Congress and the Fed demanding that the government rescue them from their own stupidity.” Baker’s larger argument is that both liberals and conservatives indeed want the government to intervene in the economy; this difference is that “conservatives want the government to intervene to redistribute income upward, while progressives want the redistribution to support greater equality.” Instead of giving tax breaks to the wealthiest Americans, as our president has done, while our economy spirals further into deficit-ridden projections, we need a balanced approach to government intervention, one that achieves as much a post-Keynesian “free-market” as possible without sacrificing American jobs and the thrust of financial markets and investments towards the lower and middle classes, too – something we feel all too keenly here in New Jersey. 

At a January debate, Sen. McCain said, rather blindly, that “I don’t believe we’re headed into a recession…I believe the fundamentals of this economy are strong and I believe they will remain strong.” This, of course, comes from a person who has admitted that economics is not his area of expertise: ““The issue of economics is not something I’ve understood as well as I should.” Of course, McCain will be surrounded by a cadre of Bush-centered economic advisers, should he be elected (I don’t see him winning in November, but I could be wrong), and they would dictate economic policy to this neophyte. We know what to expect because the last seven years have shown us the Republican philosophy on the economy: borrow-and-spend to the tune of a nearly $8 trillion deficit, invest in foreign economies while the domestic economy tanks, and provide tax incentives and breaks to the wealthiest Americans, oil companies, and other such invested groups. The McCain economy would be bad for manufacturing in this country because it would reward companies for offshoring and outsourcing, it would be outright hostile to worker’s rights and labor, and it would provide tax breaks to companies rather than directly to the American people (trickle-down economics, anyone?).

 Meanwhile, Obama’s economic policies, rather than make the public sector more bloated, would make the health care industry more competitive and efficient and, most important, save the American worker money in the long run. Unlike Carroll’s post claims, Obama indeed has clarified what his goals were for economic stimulus and how he would pay for it (The sticking point for Carroll, seemingly, is not that he is against direct economic stimulus given to taxpayers or green technology jobs, but instead how to pay for them). An Associated Press article from yesterday states that “Obama has proposed an array of subsidies for higher education, health care and other costs hitting middle-class families. He said he believes he can pay for such plans by closing tax loopholes, placing a new tax on carbon emissions, phasing out the Iraq war and ending the Bush tax cuts for the nation's highest earners.” The resource-depleting and unnecessary Iraq War is now costing us nearly $12 billion/week, thus contributing to the oncoming recession. Obama is right that carbon emissions must be capped and regulated – another difference between us Democrats and the absurd magic-wand beliefs of conservatives that these industries will regulate themselves – and that tax loopholes that encourage offshoring and outsourcing must be eliminated. I am also relieved to hear Obama speak of paying back our increasing national debt and the Democratic emphasis on pay-as-you-go proposals. 

Harold Meyerson of The Washington Post gets it right when he claims that McCain-Republican economics is wrong when it has the wrong preferences: “Tax breaks to businesses must be conditioned on their using those funds to stimulate Cincinnati, not Shenzhen. And if we really wish to create good jobs at home, the kind of "mega-greening" projects that the Democrats are talking up are far more likely than across-the-board corporate tax cuts to deliver the goods.” Those green jobs and the new green economy would be better suited in the hands of Obama or Clinton rather than McCain, whose League of Conservation Voters rating recently went as low as 15 and who, while acknowledging global warming and the need for green jobs, doesn’t have the right answer to promote and sustain this new economy.

Finally, with all due respect to Carroll, I don’t trust economic advice from someone who has repeatedly voted against the best interest of the New Jersey worker, as yesterday Carroll voted against Paid Family Leave and who, to the best of my knowledge, has repeatedly voted against minimum wage increases. Obama’s economic proposals, and Democratic economic principles, are better suited for this country and its workers than McBush economics.

  Sources: 

http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/03/10/bailout_time_where_are_the_fre/

http://thinkprogress.org/2008/01/18/mccain-economy/

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080313/ap_on_el_pr/obama_mccain

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/22/AR2008012202618.html

For MartinOne’s comments indicting MPC’s legislative record, since when was the Paid Family Leave and minimum wage increase *really* going to help New Jersey’s floundering economy?

While we were, in past years, usually better-than-average, our unemployment rate just met the national average (4.8%), and in January alone, we lost 8,000 private sector jobs. Why? Because it’s getting too difficult to run a business in New Jersey, and, when given the chance, companies will seize the opportunity to hop over to Pennsylvania or Connecticut, et al. My dad's job is relocating from NJ to Conn. in a few months.

New Jersey has the second-worst business-tax friendly environment. Now, remind me again how encouraging a job exodus will help the New Jersey worker?

Take New Jersey as a microcosm for the United States economy. Shove more of an onus on business and you’ll see how they run.

To Bodoc:

It’s true. The Bush administration has failed us—on the promise that, on the campaign trail for the 2000 election, he said that “My opponent trusts government. I trust you.”

And then we got a 23.7 percent increase in the federal budget, government intrusions to our privacy (for the greater good, of course), and an endless war in a foreign land. Wait… a Republican won these last two elections?

The few things his administration got right, however, were the Bush Tax Cuts. Yes, people like to go on the easy, liberal designation (and when do they not play the name-game?) that it was a “cut for the rich.” Looking at the numbers myself, it eased taxation for the middle class. So stop perpetuating the stereotype that it was a cut “for the zillionaires.” That’s a good us-and-them mentality for you.

Oh, as a sidenote, Bush’s tax cut was less of a percent of the federal budget than President Kennedy’s cut in the 1960s, who also did not decrease spending in turn.

Deregulation – yes, deregulation caused Enron, and the government did 9/11. Seriously, though, Enron broke the law by using loopholes to hide their losses from the market community. When the Securities Exchange Commission investigated, then the stock price fell out of fear. What Enron proved is that we need more open-air business policies, not a government leash as I believe you were implying.

As for the quote you chose, I’m surprised, because it could easily describe Obama (or any other sort of populist president, really). In fact, the quote is clearly meant as a jab to the tyranny of the majority and the danger of giving the executive branch too much power of the others (which is what we've clearly done in the last century... look at CNN's political coverage and you'll see what I mean, by the looks of it, only three people are running for public office out of the whole United States). Your quote says we need a return to constitutionality to protect us from and take the power away from these "morons" which we've elected.

So, to the specifics: Specifically, Clinton and McCain's gas tax pander is typical of what passes for populist "policy" in Washington. It cannot work BECAUSE of free markets, which will merely redirect the lost tax money that went to domestic jobs repairing domestic infrastructre to Petro-terrorists and Exxon as the price adjusts back upward to its supply and demand level. Talk about cynical government elites: McCain and Clinton are the ones who disrespect the intelligence of the American People.