So, I'm at work and I get a bunch of texts from Ryan, telling me about Obama's latest bid to gain some ground that he and the Congress have lost over the last two years with the American electorate by fronting a new $50 billion public works "jobs bill" that, Ryan says, is Stimulus II.
That was all well and good... until...
He then went on to say that I would undoubtedly "jump on board" because it is another example of New Deal thinking that I so ardently support. Tongue-in-cheek, perhaps... but annoying none the less.
I don't care if Obama wants to spend$50,000,000,000 or $50.00... we DON'T NEED THE SPENDING. We don't need the jobs bill, not now, not tomorrow and not next week. What we need is for the government to let business do what it does best by cutting the costs associated with doing that business.
Ryan is trying to get me to say that if it worked in 1933, then it will work now... but that isn't the case at all. What we experienced as a nation in 1929 has not repeated even once in all the years between now and then, so why would I advocate repeating the emergency measures that were taken to recover from that disaster?
Why not advocate that all commercial production facilities in the nation be put on a war-time footing so that nothing but guns, ammo, tanks, planes and ships are being built, immediately after 9/11... for the simple reasoning that it worked for us in 1941? The answer is simple: We didn't NEED to go that far to ensure that the Taliban were removed as a supporting factor in global terror, or to remove Hussein from power in Baghdad... we had what we needed on hand and in place already.
Early in the Iraq war, there was a shortage of flak vests and armour for our troops. Why not commandeer all civilian and non-military Kevlar production (things like the automotive industry, toy manufacturing, athletic equipment, scooters, bikes, shoes, backpacks and book bags, etc) to ensure that enough vests and armour can be produced for the GIs in harm's way? Because the shortage wasn't caused by a supply-demand problem... it was caused by a short-sighted planning staff at both the White House and the Pentagon who hadn't thought out their Grande Strategy any further than bring down the Ba'athist government of Iraq.
Whatever caused the Crash of '29 and the ensuing years of economic free-fall has never had an opportunity to repeat in more than 75 years of both boom and bust economies in this country, and crashes and contractions in other markets and economies has never had the impact on the American economy that it once did prior to 1932, either... so why would anyone advocate such emergency measures when there is no obvious or comparable emergency?
"Hands off" conservative economic policy was the status quo between Oct 1929 and Oct of 1932... and no measurable or specific gains could be seen in the course of the American economy and its downward trend... so emergency measures had to be taken, for the sake of the nation itself. As I said, there were GOP Governors SCREAMING for relief and recovery efforts (one was Alf Landon of Kansas, for God's sake!) from the Federal Government. We are not there now, and haven't been since... so NO, I do not think a New Deal effort need be made here by Obama.
Period.
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Wanted to add something here, too...
Governors like Barbour and Jindal flat-out refused Federal stimulus money due to the imapct it would have on their State tax burdens once the money dried up... this alone tells me that we are no where near as bad off as we were in 1932, and further tells me that the reforms instituted by New Deal must have done something RIGHT to keep the economy from freefalling in 2007 the way it did in 1929.
The Feds obligation to maitain and protect the peace, security and well being of the nation in times of crisis or emergency meant that the calls for relief and reform in 1932 were far louder and far, far more urgent than the whining and crying going on now by the liberal left. I'm not entirely sure that this entire fiasco isn't something that the Fed needs to take responsiblity for (would anyone argue that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were huge contributors to the housing crisis? Or that Carter's deregulation of the mortgage industry wasn't key in blowing up this real estate bubble?), and that is a way more difficult claim to make against the Fed in 1929.
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