Is ‘Liberal’ Still a Dirty Word?
The latest McCain ad ignores Wright, Rezko, and Ayers and instead accuses Obama of a single, supposedly disqualifying, grievance: Being liberal.
But I argue over at Ablogistan that this assumes too much and, after this election (assuming Obama holds onto his lead and wins), Republicans are going to finally come to the realization that “liberal” isn’t the dirty word it once was.
It may just be a generational thing. Being liberal picked up a very negative connotation from “culture war” politics, and for years conservatives won elections by accusing their opponents of being liberal, and liberals won elections by portraying themselves as anything but.
But I’m not so sure that strategy carries the same weight with Generation X and Y voters. A snippet:
For those of us who became politically aware under either Bill Clinton or George W. Bush, liberals haven’t the bad guys. Liberals didn’t start an unnecessary war in Iraq. Liberals didn’t mishandle Hurricane Katrina, or drastically expand programs to spy on Americans, or earn us a reputation as torturers. And liberals aren’t the ones denying our friends basic rights based on their sexuality.
They may have been complicit, but they weren’t the primary culprits. If you want to find a negative label that instantly turns off Generation X and Y voters, don’t call your opponent a liberal. Call him a neoconservative.
That probably isn’t the audience McCain is trying to reach with these ads anyway. But after eight years of “conservatives” being in charge, we need a better explanation about why being liberal is in itself such a bad thing.
44 Responses to “Is ‘Liberal’ Still a Dirty Word?”
Liberal in not a dirty word because liberals started calling themselves progressives and gave up many of the dumbest ideas such as gauaranted income, forced busing, soft on crime, and punish private business. Liberals became a dirty word in the late 1970's when the misery index was the highest.
Now that liberals are given up on guns, busing in most cases, and going easy on criminals, the Democrats have a huge majority.
the other thing is that the liberal/conservative paradigm is only used for whites. When was the last tiem that you heard the CBC describe as liberal even though they are probably the most liberal group in Congress.
Liberalism is the politics that dare not speak its name.
Hence, as SD notes, liberals began calling themselves progressives as they were tired of being beaten up for being liberals since Reagan.
Elyas' post is a good one. . .though it would have been more accurate to say conservatives have been in charge for 28 years as opposed to 8.
Why shouldn't liberals take back the name, and wear it proudly. Look at the great liberal icons: FDR and LBJ. There will be a political cost, of course. Obama has been in no hurry to take up the designation.
But perhaps Elyas is right . . . the effectiveness of “liberal” as a GOP scourge may be past.
The word “liberal” long had positive connotations until there was a concerted effort to make it into a pejorative, an effort which only succeeded among those folks who were history challenged to begin with. In the end it helped to solidify the R base, but as we've seen, this doesn't take much. If John McCain thinks the word still carries negative weight, then he's living in the past… along with many of his supporters.
SD…”the other thing is that the liberal/conservative paradigm is only used for whites.”
Do you think so? The Republicans are more than happy to describe any Democrat as liberal.
Perhaps you are thinking of the MSM, SD? Almost all Republicans are right-wing or far-right or ultra-conservative . . . I have never read of any Democrat being labelled a “liberal” Democrat, black or white, in media reporting. Of course, perhaps there are no liberal Democrats anymore?
Liberal hasn't been a dirty word since the classical liberal who was more like today's conservative than today's liberal.
“If John McCain thinks the word still carries negative weight, then he's living in the past…”
Reflecting on Elyas post, I think this is very true. It has been a generation since it was effective as a pejorative.
I recall the lyrics of Supertramp's “Logical Song” from 1979:
“Now watch what you say
Or they´ll be calling you a radical
A liberal, oh fanatical, criminal…”
I don't notice Republicans being labelled that either to be perfectly honest. I admit that I'm not a consumer of ALL news, but I feel like I read a good deal of WaPo, NYT, the WSJ and catch a lot of MSNBC and CNN.
I don't think the majority of Dems are what we used to consider liberal. The entire party has moved to the right of Richard Nixon.
Jspencer,
Liberal became an insult when a liberal federal judge in Boston order forced bussing while Judge's own children were attending all white private schools. Liberal became an insult when it came to define a lack of leadership. Liberals in the 1970's were great at asking others to make sacrafices that they did not ask of themselves. They called the middle class racist while their own lives were white only, they called for people to endure high crime and fear while living in protected areas, they called for others to pay higher taxes and lower their standard of living without lowering their own. Remember the term Limosine liberal to describe NYC, DC, and LA.
Now that people have forgotten 70% tax brackets, high crime, and forced busiing, the left feels free to use the term again.
The better question is why isn't “conservative” a pejorative at this point?
Chris WWW said: “I don't think the majority of Dems are what we used to consider liberal. The entire party has moved to the right of Richard Nixon.”
You may be right, Chris, with the DLC and all.
But are times changing? The economic crisis seems to call for a renewed Keynesian intervention in the market . . . a la liberals of old.
And the recent rakings over the coals of the Lehman Bros. CEO and AIG executives by Waxman et al. seemed a refreshing breath of liberalism.
I am conservative, of course, but liberalism represents a viable corrective to market excesses. FDR saved capitalism from itself, after all. And if more people bothered to read “Wealth of Nations” they would find Adam Smith noting repeatedly sectors in which the market is inadequate and the state must intevene.
Uh, because huge deficit spending on social programs is unsustainable, and military cuts impossible due to our current circumstances? And because protectionism and taxing the 'wealthy' will strangle the last gasps of an economy trying to recover?
Just because we've been mugged by a lousy version of conservatism doesn't mean we should look to liberal thugs to finish us off.
Marlow,
The economy is one of those few areas where I think a truly centrist tack is probably the right one.
Unbridled conservatism ends with sweat shops and spoiled planet. Unbridled liberalism leads to the destruction of the profit motive for small business, which is still the most important part of the economy.
Unfortunately, both Democrats and Republicans don't really subscribe to either o doctrine. For over a hundred years government and business interests have slowly combined in such a way that they are hardly distinguishable.
SD, that's an interesting explanation, but it's cherry picking. The meaning of liberal in the popular lexicon didn't start morphing until people like Rush, Newt, et al started the push to pejorative.
And because protectionism and taxing the 'wealthy' will strangle the last gasps of an economy trying to recover?
People keep presenting this line as if it's concrete fact, yet I've never seen or heard anyone actually prove it or defend it with verifiable examples. I'm not saying it isn't true, I'm just skeptical. especially when you consider that the trickle-down style of economics did more harm than good to the middle class.
It seems illogical to assume that shifting some of the tax burden off of the middle class and onto the wealthy results in an economic slow-down. Middle-class people are the biggest consumers. If they have a little extra money to spend, they will. And that means more jobs for the people who design, manufacture, market, sell, and maintain whatever it is the middle class people are buying. And that in turn means the CEO's of the large companies and the owners of the small businesses are all producing and selling more, and making more money. The wealthier people may not have quite as large a slice of the pie proportionally speaking, but they aren't starving for income either.
A few points:
* It thought we both agreed that social spending, done right, would help alleviate the pains of a recession?
* Why is the military budget such a sacred cow? Our immense budget hasn't solved the problems in Afghanistan and it created bigger problems in Iraq. Our biggest potential military rivals, Russia and China, are decades behind us in technology, and as long as we rely on them for oil and loans, they'll be able to do far more damage to us without firing a bullet.
* I haven't seen a Democrat of any importance ask for “protectionism” of any sort.
* Taxing $250,000+'aires at a higher rate won't kill the economy. Unless you honestly think these folks will stop working out of disgust at the lost of a few percent of their income?
Amanda, the problem is that no one 'shift' works the same way in a bad economy that it does in a good one (or even in a 'really bad' one vs. a kinda bad one.) I think what most people miss on economic understanding is that it's the changes and direction of change that matters more than the absolute values of what the tax brackets and such are.
Fundamentally, doesn't it make sense that when economic activity is grinding to a halt that we need to work on helping businesses to thrive? I'm in a medical field so the analogy that makes sense to me is that finance is the circulatory system- and if a patient's circulatory system is collapsing you can't save the kidneys unless you can get the blood pressure and flow going again.
Trickle down doesn't always work because the knee jerk supporters of it often recommend it when it isn't the right time. But logically it doesn't follow that an instance of failure of that kind of economic plan in one economic climate means that the same economic plan isn't the right thing to do in a completely different economic environment. Again to use medical analogy, one medicine may be completely contraindicated for a certain illness or condition but could be lifesaving for another.
I'm sort of with Chris in that the totally ideological positions (total free market or socialist) don't make any sense- but I'll also add that the pragmatists who figure out the right mix have to also be able to analyze what conditions dictate which policies.
Also Amanda, on your comment about shifting tax burden: the top 5% of wage earners pay something like 60% of the federal income tax. How far do you think that should be shifted? Will you acknowledge that at some point you do more harm than good? And is it right to call a credit to non-income tax paying individuals a 'tax cut' as Obama does?
* It thought we both agreed that social spending, done right, would help alleviate the pains of a recession?
Details matter- I would support certain things but not others and in my comment here I was addressing entitlement spending which has to somehow be brought under control instead of being broadened even more.
* Why is the military budget such a sacred cow? Our immense budget hasn't solved the problems in Afghanistan and it created bigger problems in Iraq. Our biggest potential military rivals, Russia and China, are decades behind us in technology, and as long as we rely on them for oil and loans, they'll be able to do far more damage to us without firing a bullet.
The military was cut sharply in the 90s and we're still building it back. EU likes to thumb their nose at us but still count on us for most military protection- we should work to change that but for now we're stuck footing the bill. We do need to cut the waste and fraud, but not cut the overall spending (just use it wisely so that we're not spread too thin as we are now.)
* I haven't seen a Democrat of any importance ask for “protectionism” of any sort.
Huh?? NAFTA and other trade agreements aren't being opposed? (well, I guess it is hard to tell what Obama's real position is.) We don't constantly hear about protecting American jobs (I'm not opposed to that idea, of course, just the thought process behind the way Dems propose to do that.)
* Taxing $250,000+'aires at a higher rate won't kill the economy. Unless you honestly think these folks will stop working out of disgust at the lost of a few percent of their income?
I don't know what the line is, but there most certainly is one. And I don't see how Obama plans to continue all of his spending plans without raising more than just that bracket anyway- that'll be just the first of many steps.
The same way Bush paid for his. I almost think you want Obama to raise taxes to confirm your view of Democrats vs. Republicans
The same way Bush paid for his.
And you're OK with raising the deficit that much further? (notwithstanding that McCain will also end up raising it, but I think he's much more of a spending hawk and I argue that that's incredibly important right now.)
I meant to add earlier too, that income tax is just part of the picture. Obama has already backed off of his initial plan to raise capital gains all the way to 28% and I think he's now proposing 20%. Either move is incredibly foolish in a stagnated economy. Both candidates will need to face up to the fact that revenue from capital gains is going to be sharply declined no matter what, and making a move to lower it will at least spur some increased selling and bring in a bit more revenue in the short term- plus that gets the trading (circulation) going again.
I still can't figure out some of the commenters here who still buy the neocon economic philosophy. Some no doubt are complicit, that is, they are among the small fraction who once paid 70% tax on income above the stratospheric level. Most I think just buy into the trickle down hype despite 30 years evidence to the contrary.
But let's look at some of those positions. Around 0.62?% of our population are millionaires. Giving them a disproportionate break is not democratic, as it is wealth redistribution from the many in the middle to the few at the top. I'm in that 0.62%, but have never thought I get a bad break paying more in taxes. Like Warren Buffet (though far far below his fiscal strata) I am appalled that, as he put it, “I pay a lower % than my secretary.” Why should only the paltry first $85K of a huge income be subject to FICA that those of lesser means pay on 100% of their incomes? I use more government services than most, as I can afford to travel extensively both by air and highway, both of which are massively supported by tax dollars. There are many other areas in which I feel the American system has benefited me disproportionately (believe me, I'm not complaining). But I totally disagree with racking up 11 trillion on our kids' credit card. How unbelievably selfish. CStanley, DLS, SD? Are you that selfish?
And the “drill baby drill” stuff. If you think of all the oil we ever had in America as a six pack of beer, we've consumed 4 cans and opened the fifth. Before our kids are even 21 you want to open the last can? Again. How unbearably selfish.
Chris is right. Raising the rate for the rich doesn't stifle business or entrepreneurialism. Do you think no fortunes were made before Reagan? Get a grip. Most of the wealthiest families in the US got that way before the upper tax rate was lowered. You think I'd shut down my business and fire people because my personal tax rate goes up? How would that make sense? Or maybe you think aspiring millionaires would just decide to work at Wendy's instead.
Military budgets. They're obscene. CStanley bemoans the reductions in the 90s. We won the cold war. Should we not have expected that we could reduce the staggering costs of that era? Further, most of what we're spending on right now is pointless; witness Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq. Our high tech global reach super war machine cannot subdue a third world country. It's a huge part of our dwindling discretionary budget, and it's all borrowed from our children. You think they need nukes and ICBMs and “star wars” more than decent infrastructure, affordable health care and a living wage?
CStanley, you must be really afraid, to think that this kind of massive spending is justified. A terrorist could walk in today to a hospital with a handgun and steal enough radioactive material to shut down a major US city. None of our smart bombs and secret prisons will do a thing to stop that. We're lavishing money we don't have on military preparedness that fails to prepare us for the reality of today's conflict.
“Protectionism”, like “liberal” has been demonized. We have to figure out whether we want to save a single American business. American companies and American workers can't compete with sweatshop practices and absence of environmental regulations, yet I hear some people here who seem to think that if US businesses were just free of all regulation, we'd be better off. That is obviously not true. Already we're in a situation in which stimulating our own economy is increasingly difficult. What can an American buy today that will keep dollars at home? Not shoes or clothes or electronics or appliances. What? We have killed our manufacturing sector because big business finds it easier and cheaoer to buy from polluting foreign sweatshops. This is a race to the bottom and will not serve us well.
Wake up, America. If rich people can scare you into voting against your own interests, you're stuck there. In that hole.
GD: I don't have time to parse all of that right now, but right off the bat:
FICA isn't meant to be wealth redistribution, it was NEVER meant to collect from the wealthy to give to the poor and has nothing to do with whether or not you use more of the infrastructure of the US. Even FDR didn't envision it that way- it was a retirement investment whereby each individual payed into the system during working years and was then able to receive benefits in retirement, and the funding worked as long as we had more younger people in the workforce than older folks retiring (a pyramid of demographic ages); of course the baby boom and then bust cycle have upset that cart, as has the mentality that you describe where the social security trust fund was raided for other purposes.
Second quick point is that military strength is a deterrent and it backs up our ability to provide diplomatic pressure when needed. You can dispense with the transparent attempt to dismiss that argument by calling me fearful. Should we have cut back in the 90's after the fall of USSR? Sure, probably somewhat- but not at the rate that we did. You can honestly look at all of the threats to the security of the US and our allies today and not think that's the case? You don't think that our military is currently spread too thin, even after we start drawing down in Iraq?
I'm sure you disagreed with the Iraq invasion, but if there had been a justifiable threat in your mind in addition to Afghanistan (assuming you supported that front?), how would we have dealt with it if not in the same half assed way that we had to handle Iraq? Rummy was right that we could topple Saddam with a mean and lean force, but what came afterward obviously did require more resources and troops, and many other military interventions will require a larger capability too.
yet I hear some people here who seem to think that if US businesses were just free of all regulation, Strawman alert. Who said this? Some regulation is needed, other regulation is just stupid and harmful. I haven't seen anyone here say that we should have a completely laissez faire economy.
We don't have any choice. The time to save for tough times was before we actually got into one of those tough times.
Now the trick is expanding the economy, and the only way to really do that in a credit crunch where businesses can't raise capital is through increased government spending. After all, the government can still get decent loans even if you or I can't.
Oh, and other than being a boogeyman epithet, why did you use the word “neocon” to describe conservative economic philosophy? I'm not even aware if there is a neocon economic policy, since neoconservatism generally refers to a foreign policy theory. I guess what you are referring to is actually paleoconservatism (and many paleoconservatives hate the neocons and feel they hijacked the Republican party anyway) but even paleoconservatism isn't necessarily completely libertarian or free market.
BTW, here's a good primer on regulation pros and cons- and I don't think you'd call this blog a neocon hangout.
First, I think it's important to distinguish between fiscal policy, tax policy, and economic policy. Fiscal policy controls the money flow, and my impression is that even staunch conservatives are in favor of central control of that. Economic policy interacts with fiscal policy, but it is not the same. Tax policy controls the govenmental revenue flow, but allow me to ignore that aspect for the time being for the sake of simplicity.
Staunch conservatives desire the market to be totally free and unfettered. And up until very recently, it wouldn't have been hard to find a staunch conservative that would have argued that case in its extreme. Staunch liberals, it seems to me, are less of one mind about it. Clearly, liberals generally prefer greater control over the markets, but you'd have to look very far to the left indeed to find one who advocated anything close to total central control.
The fact is, though, we are nowhere close to either extreme. The current credit meltdown is a major kick in the head to the staunch conservative bunch, though. And if it's not recognized as such it should be. There have been other knocks in the recent past (e.g., salmonella in our veggies, mad cow disease in our meat, lead in our kids' toys, melamine in our chocolate, toxic chemicals in our groundwater, etc.), but if the credit meltdown doesn't make it clear that there are major externalities that the market can't easily deal with, nothing will. Apart from trying to attribute blame, or trying to decipher what approach would have been better, the fact is the argument from all sides is that the laws in place were inadequate to the task. That begs the question: what would have happened if there were no laws at all? I shudder to think.
There is a difference between classical Keynesian economic philosophy (which did not distinguish between money supply and economic issues) and neo-Keynesian economic philosophy (which does). The Reagan administration was a good example of the supply side economic philosophy in action with a considerable amount of deficit spending in other areas. That didn't happen in isolation either. He (and Volker) also tightened the money supply. Likewise, his Star Wars concept was a federal R&D project that has cost many billions of dollars. It's hard to say exactly how much because much of it is cloaked. But that represents an economic stimulus package. The Clinton administration was an example of neo-Keynesian philosophy in action more than Reagan. Clinton emphasized R&D and technology transfer, both in information technology and biomedical technology. And that, I think, is something that needs to be done in the present case, with an emphasis on energy. Nonetheless, Clinton largely kept in place the same monetary policies as Reagan, but changed the tax policy. The bottom line is, fiscal policy, tax policy, and economic policy are not the same. They are related, but not the same.
IMO, the wheels came off in the Bush43 administration. He managed to combine the worst of everything. But I think I'll reserve that discussion for another time.
Those are very good points, Rico, although I disagree with some of the opinons you draw on how far we are (or have been) to one extreme or the other and who is advocating what.
I mostly do agree with your final paragraph, but one of the problems that I think you miss (and it's a big one) is when it's not externalities aside from govt, but govt intervention itself that screws with the market's ability to self correct (ie, govt intervention into the mortgage method, which was in some senses a deregulatory intervention and in another sense it was the type of regulation that makes no sense from a finance perspective, forcing banks to make loans that were highly risky with the taxpayers on the hook for the defaults.)
CStanley: BTW, here's a good primer on regulation pros and cons- and I don't think you'd call this blog a neocon hangout.
I don't think you'd call it a link, either
CS says:Uh, because huge deficit spending on social programs is unsustainable, and military cuts impossible due to our current circumstances?
Why is our Pentagon spending a sacred cow. Our defense budget is like 50% of the worlds military spending. The USSR collapsed under the burden of the arms race, why should the USA be any different?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_…
World Total 1,200,000,000,000 (USD)
United States 583,283,000,000 (USD)
European Union Total 311,920,000,000 (USD)
In times of record deficits and no universal health care, why are we spending on stealth destroyers? What enemies are we fighting, the neo-Russian empire, Iran or Terminator SalvationTerminator Salvation?
How will the DDG-1000
CStanley, I wasn't suggesting FICA should be used or was designed for wealth distribution. It's just one fairly glaring inequity in gross pay vs net pay for most Americans.
Military deterrence. We still have more than enough nukes to destroy the world many times over. We don't need a single additional nuclear weapon. Ever. (except replacing one occasionally I suppose). Our high tech weaponry was next to useless in Afghanistan. We needed more troops, but mainly more FOCUS. Military spending won't give us that. As for Iraq, it was a dumb self-inflicted wound. We should have left Saddam to keep radial Islam at bay in Iraq and worked as we have elsewhere to empower resistance and envy for our healthy economy (which it was then) and democracy. Saddam was no threat to us and I do hope you see the debacle we have created both in Iraq and at home with that misadventure.
As for “neocon” economic thinking, I don't know what else to call it, so let's call it “Reaganomics”. It certainly isn't conservative as I learned it. That was about being responsible about money, which we clearly are not.
I raise fear not as a strawman, but as the appeal that the GOP has used to frighten people into voting against their own best interests. If you are not voting based on that fear, then you drank the Kool Aid and believe what has been proven false about Reaganomics. You could rightly call it a bankrupt policy.
GD: You did a nice sleight of hand there though because you pointed out the inequity of higher earners paying less in FICA (their tax burden in terms of income tax bracket is much higher than that maid's would be.)
You're getting into details of military spending that attribute opinions to me that aren't accurate; I wasn't talking about maintaining military spending for more nukes; for technology I'd have a mixed opinion- but mainly I'm talking about troops. You don't increase enlistment unless you have the funding to pay them adequately, reward those who stay in as a career, and take care of the vets as they deserve. We need more special ops forces, and new and expanded types of training for the current threat of insurgent warfare instead of traditional battlefields.
And on the economics, well, forgive me for not agreeing that I'm the one who's drunk the Koolaid when you are the one who has a propagandistic dismissal of “Reaganomics” without even being able to address what failed and what didn't (revenues did increase with his tax policy as the economy grew, but spending increased too and that's why the deficit ballooned) and without even being able to distinguish that from neoconservatism.
Rico: thanks for pointing out my dead link- I can't figure out what I did wrong on the html so let me try it this way:
http://www.tnr.com/politics/story.html?id=3cd3f…
CStanley: I mostly do agree with your final paragraph, but one of the problems that I think you miss (and it's a big one) is when it's not externalities aside from govt, but govt intervention itself that screws with the market's ability to self correct (ie, govt intervention into the mortgage method, which was in some senses a deregulatory intervention and in another sense it was the type of regulation that makes no sense from a finance perspective, forcing banks to make loans that were highly risky with the taxpayers on the hook for the defaults.)
First of all, the part of your comment I bolded makes no sense. Second, no one forced banks to make highly risky loans. That being said, however, one could argue that (a) the laws in place at least implied that taxpayers would be on the hook in case of defaults; (b) that the laws in place were intentioned to promote minority involvement in homeownership; (c) that subsequent barriers to affirmative action made the intentions in (b) difficult, if not impossible when the legislative, executive, and judicial climates shifted; (d) once (c) happened the field became open to speculators of all species and; (e) once (d) happened the situation became truly toxic.
That's a simple thumbnail sketch. There is certainly much more to it. But I think it captures the fundamentals as well as capturing why, once the governmental winds shift, absurdities can develop which can take some time to stabilize. The trouble is, in the mean time things can go very, very bad. On the other hand, I think it could be said that one administration doesn't normally challenge so many aspects of the status quo as has the Bush43 administration. Because he has, we are in uncharted territory. IMO, that in itself is unprecedented, and hard to keep up with — and it doesn't augur well for our future. But as I study it more, the more I think a change of parties in the executive branch is essential. I say that partly as a recent partisan, but also as a realist. IMO, there is no other alternative that could come close to a guarantee that things will fundamentally change at the level that most needs changing. That's not to say such a change is sufficient, but I believe it is necessary. Generally speaking, I'm a big fan of divided government. But in the present case, I truly believe it would make more sense to make a change in the executive branch (I have no faith McCain will clean house in that regard), and if he overreaches, hope for the best in 2010 as far as the legislative branch is concerned.
Someone didn't like my comment? Liberals used to be more like conservatives way back when, it was a factual statement.
I was never one of those who winced about the manufactured identity. Most folks who went to school and learned a bit about government and history have had some exposure to the rich legacy liberals have in this country, whether talking about civil rights, protections against unfair labor standards, womens rights, environmentalism, education, or trying to stop idiotic and unnecessary wars. Of course those who received their education about liberals at the hands of Limbaugh will see things differently, which is in itself a lesson about the value of learning how to think for ones self.
Oh, CS, I can certainly articulate what doesn't work about Reaganomics. Laissez-faire economic policy is characterized by three pillars: privatization, deregulation and deep cuts in social spending. The results are characterized by increasing wealth gap, the transfer of public wealth to private hands and the transfer of private debt to the public. That is exactly what has happened in the US.
Reaganomics didn't increase tax revenue. It borrowed huge amounts from future generations and gave it to the wealthy, who then paid taxes on it, giving back a small % of the public wealth given to them. Giving our kids money to taxpayers would have increased it still more, because as a % of income they pay more.
As for “the type of regulation that makes no sense from a finance perspective, forcing banks to make loans that were highly risky with the taxpayers on the hook for the defaults,” have a listen to GW Bush praising the deregulation that allowed this.
He said it was “to help deserving families with bad credit qualify for a home loan. You don't have to have a lousy home. First time home buyers, low income home buyers, can have just as nice a home as anybody else.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eW9viaJatpo
GD, I find myself in the position of defending CS, at least insofar as what you said. At least I think so. I think that what you said about “Reaganomics” is true, but his economic policy was only part of the story. Moreover, I think your statement that Reaganomics was characterized by privatization, deregulation and deep cuts in social spending is only two-thirds true. Certainly Reagan championed privatization and deregulation — arguably at a time when they needed such adjustments — but deep cuts in social spending? Hardly. Considerable increases in social spending, albeit with reorganization, is a better characterization of the facts. Nonetheless, a case could be made that said reorganization was reasonably considered at the time. Whatever cuts Reagan made in other programs, he piled the money (and more) into defense spending. The intention was to make it clear to the USSR that they couldn't keep up. He was right, and the USSR crumbled. In the process all kinds of markets, particularly in Eastern Europe, opened up. It was, in effect, a Marshall plan, although very few thought of it as that because it wasn't structured anywhere close to the same. But it was a really smart thing to do, IMO, it rates right up there with (and even surpasses) Nixon's decision to develop relations with China.
But that was then and this is now. And that's really important. The differences between the two are nothing short of tectonic on so many levels. There is no comparison between the times then and the times now. And any attempt to equate the two on any sort of one-to-one level is a fool's errand. If I were only allowed a five second sound-bite on the topic I would say that that's what worries me the most about McCain. IMO, he has an obvious tendency to consider foreign relations in the past tense, not the future — or even the present tense.
And it's not just foreign relations. GD, you provided a YouTube link to times which documented GW Bush bragging about the strides his administration made in securing minority home ownership. Now we're supposed to ignore that, as well as McCain's repeated proclamations that “the fundamentals of our economy are strong”, and concentrate on whatever bail-out plan is du jeur. Later McCain said he meant by “the fundamentals of our economy” is the workers — and oh, by the way, the economy is in crisis, so he has to suspend his campaign to deal with it. Which he didn't. Unfortunately, he has yet to even mention “the middle class” hardly ever. Certainly not in two debates now, and has yet to mention anything at all about the energy situation except “drill, baby, drill” and nuclear energy — except to say that his energy plan includes “all of the above”. What a crock.
This is a great thread! I'm sorry I've been offline all day… so I'll have to jump right in.
:>
GreenDreams, your last comment included this: “the transfer of public wealth to private hands”
Can you define public wealth for me?
When you contnue to fund a military system that is hopelessly inefficient and that rewards corporations that have constant huge cost overruns with basically no attempt to fix the problems you are willingly transferring public funds to private hands. The same thing has happened in Iraq in so many ways it's hard to keep track.
The USSR had already been spending a crippling share of their GDP on defense since the 1950s. Reagan didn't change our course with regards to the USSR, he merely continued the plan and was lucky enough to be there when it finally succeeded.
Great point Jim. The military industrial complex Eisenhower warned against is in full bloom and it ain't pretty. This is one of the greatest transfers of public wealth to private hands ever, and while I believe in a strong national defense, the abuses and lack of oversight in this area have been legion. All those fools at the McCain/Palin rallys who are chanting “socialism” (along with “terrorist” and “kill him”) probably don't have the first clue about the ways in which socialism is really a force in this country, or the ways in which it can be a force for good or for bad. But why would they? They're too wrapped up in the politics of demonization and division to actually learn anything.
In a comment above, I harped on about the stealth DDG-1000 destroyer. Sorry about the bad link, the article is relevant to the military boondoggles.
http://blog.wired.com/defense/2008/08/navys-ste…
At least the plug was pulled on this farce, but what about rigged up test on the MDS? There isn't anybody today willing to question the run away spending in the Pentagon. We need a reincarnation of Proxmire and the “Golden Fleece”.
Looks like this thread is still alive. I had to sleep. If others are still following this, I'll dive back in.
Since I live in a grungy neighborhood in Los Angeles, I get sick and tired of coping with the homeless. According to an article in LA City Beat, it costs somewhere between $ 10,000 to $ 25,000 to rehabilitate a homeless person. That's a lot of money, but it's far cheaper than the current system of jails, police sweeps and emergency wards that we engage in now.
It costs money to send a boy from the 'hood to a UC on a full paid scholarship, but it's a lot cheaper than sending him to jail for 4 years. It's expensive to provide psychological treatment to victims of child abuse and to fix up our dysfunctional system of foster care, but that's cheaper than putting someone a way for life in a penitentiary. (Most violent criminals were abused as children.)
It costs money to fix a bridge, but it's far cheaper to fix a bridge than to rebuild it. Universal health care seems expensive, but it's a lot cheaper than our current dysfunctional system of private health care. (Check the WHO statistics.) It costs money to re-tool our economy into a green tech economy, but that's a lot cheaper than the costs of global warming.
The whole concept of liberal and conservative is out of date. Conservatives promises tax cuts now, but they are merely passing the bill to the next generation where the costs will be much higher. Liberals are the only true fiscal conservatives